This project is based on the concept of representing a space strictly through digital methods.
The partnership between Allegra Cortese and Virginia Nasi, developed a piece based on the remembrance of Allegra’s childhood room. This work is a continuation from the previous childhood project.
Small, overcrowded, continuous laughter, movement, these are the key terms we based our collaboration on. Allegra’s old bedroom consisted in two areas, one with a bed, her toys and a dresser, and a second one with her desk and a huge window from which laughter coming from the playground outside would provide a continuous soundtrack to her daily life. Although there was a clear definition between the two areas, Allegra’s vitality brought her to experience the spaces more as a whole, running from one to the other, creating this mental correlation between the two, linked through her continuous movement.
The initial idea was to take the painting that Allegra previously made and create a cut out physical copy, where we’d hold this replication of her room close to the camera, and the perspective would make it seem as if Allegra is in the room. This would then be used for the video where Allegra would be standing, wandering around, and in the meantime we would add an animation over the top of the cut out to create movement within her room. For example the bed sheets ravel, the drawers open, etc… We had two sides of the room, the entrance and the window. To represent this the pair decided to explore the split-screen technique. Such technique allowed them to represent the two spaces as Allegra perceived them, but still giving some sort of visual division between the two. To best develop this idea the pair explored and analysed the work of famous directors as Woody Allen, Marc Webb, Brian DePalma, ect… The idea of representing both spaces at once was ideal for the final outcome they wanted to achieve, especially if taking into consideration Brian DePalma’s work in ‘Sisters’, where the same scene is shown at the same time from opposite perspectives through split-screen, still the visuals in his photography did not convey the idea of childhood. A muted colour palette was not Allegra’s perception of the space she grew up in, on the contrary, bright and vivid overlapping blobs of colours fill the earliest memories she still cherishes to this day.
The work of current rapper Tyler The Creator comes to mind when thinking of a more colourful and dynamic use of the split-screen technique, especially in his recent music video ‘OKRA’.
Exploring Tyler’s videos the pair found the perfect balance between their target colour palette and use of split-screen, playing two set of moving visuals at the same time created the feeling of constant movement that both designers wanted to achieve. The visuals themselves showed a distorted version of reality, if through altered tones or deformed shapes, concept which Allegra and Virginia decided to adapt to their project through the introduction of abstraction. The alteration of tones interpreted through abstraction brought the pair to restrict their colour palette to pigments revolving around primary and secondary colours, based on the fact that abstraction is often associated with the process of simplification. The deformed shapes interpreted through abstraction brought the original visuals to be translated into simpler shapes. This abstraction is balanced off between the two settings, the first setting show rougher shapes with primary colours, meaning a higher level of intricacy in shape and a simpler colour palette, whereas in the second setting we find basic and strict geometrical shapes with secondary colours, meaning a simpler level of shapes with a more developed colour palette.
Once decided how to represent the visuals in the video, the pair needed to define which elements in the composition would undertake the process of abstraction and which wouldn’t. To help achieve this balance Allegra and Virginia explored artists as Luis Cornejo and Mauren Brodbeck, both showing compositions featuring realistic elements juxtaposed to elements of total abstraction represented through the use of block colours.
Inspired by Cornejo, the pair decided to keep the subject as the well rendered element of the composition through the use of photography, and develop the rest of the composition through abstracted block coloured sections. Allegra created the abstract composition through a series of geometrical cut outs. She chose the shape of the entrance view and the colour of the window view, and Virginia chose the shape of the window view and the colour of the entrance view. Allegra cut everything out as seen on out Photoshop mock up, stuck it to white paper, and with an exacto knife cut out all the negative space where She would stand in the image. The cut outs looked extremely good.
When the pair started to film, the problems started to arrive. They thought it would be simple to hold out the cut out in front of the camera with Allegra behind it, forgetting about the depth of field and the camera’s focus. All the cameras they used would not focus on her, they’d only focus on the cut out leaving Allegra’s figure blurry in the background. The pair soon came to the realization that it was because they didn’t know how to control the depth of field. After having no luck asking a sophomore fashion student for help, the pair went down to IT and they said the same thing. The camera was never in focus and the depth was still too close. They tried using three different cameras and none of them worked, Canon G7X, iPhone, and the IT’s professional Canon camera. In the end they gave up and decided to go another way.
first attempt:
They then decided to create a short video based on repetition, like a GIF. The pair went to school on Saturday to complete this. Virginia took a picture of Allegra in front of a plain background where they then photoshopped the cut outs. The cut outs became digital as using the physical copies was way to complicated. So, with Photoshop Virginia did her magic and it ended up working. She created two layers, in one there was a picture of Allegra, and in the other there was a digital still of both the entrance view and the window view side by side. She merged the layers creating one complete image. She then added some animations over the image. Animations like, the bed sheets moving, the drawers opening, and the window view was a giant bush moving. Virginia also flipped the images of Allegra within the video to create more movement. The process of animating the illustrations proved to be harder than it seemed. Both Allegra and Virginia were new to creating moving designs on photoshop, it took many hours to first understand the gist of it, but in the end the pair was able to achieve the wanted effect. The animation itself is based on the design of two or three different positions for each ‘moving element’ and the repetition of such layers over and over through a strict and defined time setting. Initially the pair thought about creating a longer video with alternating active scenes, first only in setting one, then only in setting two, or vice versa, but to best resemble Allegra’s first description of the space being represented, the ultimate decision was to play all animation at once, showing multiple elements of visual interest for the viewer to focus on.
version 1:
version 2:
In the background of this video they added sounds. The sounds of children laughing as thats what Allegra heard non stop as a child from the window of sounds. The pair wanted to keep the clip simple and clean, so the beginning and the end have a blank space with the title and credits.
In the end they decided to call the project ‘Remembrance in motion’ as it is a tribute to childhood. Especially for Allegra as it replaces her in the mindset of when she was a child, something we all miss.
Overall we are extremely proud of ourselves as this turned out. We had encountered a few obstacles though worked around them in our convenience. This piece is also quite abstract, though not too much so it can guide the viewer without having an open interpretation.
final outcome:
This project is based on the concept of representing a space strictly through digital methods.
The partnership between Allegra Cortese and Virginia Nasi, developed a piece based on the remembrance of Allegra’s childhood room. This work is a continuation from the previous childhood project.
Small, overcrowded, continuous laughter, movement, these are the key terms we based our collaboration on. Allegra’s old bedroom consisted in two areas, one with a bed, her toys and a dresser, and a second one with her desk and a huge window from which laughter coming from the playground outside would provide a continuous soundtrack to her daily life. Although there was a clear definition between the two areas, Allegra’s vitality brought her to experience the spaces more as a whole, running from one to the other, creating this mental correlation between the two, linked through her continuous movement.
The initial idea was to take the painting that Allegra previously made and create a cut out physical copy, where we’d hold this replication of her room close to the camera, and the perspective would make it seem as if Allegra is in the room. This would then be used for the video where Allegra would be standing, wandering around, and in the meantime we would add an animation over the top of the cut out to create movement within her room. For example the bed sheets ravel, the drawers open, etc… We had two sides of the room, the entrance and the window. To represent this the pair decided to explore the split-screen technique. Such technique allowed them to represent the two spaces as Allegra perceived them, but still giving some sort of visual division between the two. To best develop this idea the pair explored and analysed the work of famous directors as Woody Allen, Marc Webb, Brian DePalma, ect… The idea of representing both spaces at once was ideal for the final outcome they wanted to achieve, especially if taking into consideration Brian DePalma’s work in ‘Sisters’, where the same scene is shown at the same time from opposite perspectives through split-screen, still the visuals in his photography did not convey the idea of childhood. A muted colour palette was not Allegra’s perception of the space she grew up in, on the contrary, bright and vivid overlapping blobs of colours fill the earliest memories she still cherishes to this day.
The work of current rapper Tyler The Creator comes to mind when thinking of a more colourful and dynamic use of the split-screen technique, especially in his recent music video ‘OKRA’.
Exploring Tyler’s videos the pair found the perfect balance between their target colour palette and use of split-screen, playing two set of moving visuals at the same time created the feeling of constant movement that both designers wanted to achieve. The visuals themselves showed a distorted version of reality, if through altered tones or deformed shapes, concept which Allegra and Virginia decided to adapt to their project through the introduction of abstraction. The alteration of tones interpreted through abstraction brought the pair to restrict their colour palette to pigments revolving around primary and secondary colours, based on the fact that abstraction is often associated with the process of simplification. The deformed shapes interpreted through abstraction brought the original visuals to be translated into simpler shapes. This abstraction is balanced off between the two settings, the first setting show rougher shapes with primary colours, meaning a higher level of intricacy in shape and a simpler colour palette, whereas in the second setting we find basic and strict geometrical shapes with secondary colours, meaning a simpler level of shapes with a more developed colour palette.
Once decided how to represent the visuals in the video, the pair needed to define which elements in the composition would undertake the process of abstraction and which wouldn’t. To help achieve this balance Allegra and Virginia explored artists as Luis Cornejo and Mauren Brodbeck, both showing compositions featuring realistic elements juxtaposed to elements of total abstraction represented through the use of block colours.
Inspired by Cornejo, the pair decided to keep the subject as the well rendered element of the composition through the use of photography, and develop the rest of the composition through abstracted block coloured sections. Allegra created the abstract composition through a series of geometrical cut outs. She chose the shape of the entrance view and the colour of the window view, and Virginia chose the shape of the window view and the colour of the entrance view. Allegra cut everything out as seen on out Photoshop mock up, stuck it to white paper, and with an exacto knife cut out all the negative space where She would stand in the image. The cut outs looked extremely good.
When the pair started to film, the problems started to arrive. They thought it would be simple to hold out the cut out in front of the camera with Allegra behind it, forgetting about the depth of field and the camera’s focus. All the cameras they used would not focus on her, they’d only focus on the cut out leaving Allegra’s figure blurry in the background. The pair soon came to the realization that it was because they didn’t know how to control the depth of field. After having no luck asking a sophomore fashion student for help, the pair went down to IT and they said the same thing. The camera was never in focus and the depth was still too close. They tried using three different cameras and none of them worked, Canon G7X, iPhone, and the IT’s professional Canon camera. In the end they gave up and decided to go another way.
first attempt:
They then decided to create a short video based on repetition, like a GIF. The pair went to school on Saturday to complete this. Virginia took a picture of Allegra in front of a plain background where they then photoshopped the cut outs. The cut outs became digital as using the physical copies was way to complicated. So, with Photoshop Virginia did her magic and it ended up working. She created two layers, in one there was a picture of Allegra, and in the other there was a digital still of both the entrance view and the window view side by side. She merged the layers creating one complete image. She then added some animations over the image. Animations like, the bed sheets moving, the drawers opening, and the window view was a giant bush moving. Virginia also flipped the images of Allegra within the video to create more movement. The process of animating the illustrations proved to be harder than it seemed. Both Allegra and Virginia were new to creating moving designs on photoshop, it took many hours to first understand the gist of it, but in the end the pair was able to achieve the wanted effect. The animation itself is based on the design of two or three different positions for each ‘moving element’ and the repetition of such layers over and over through a strict and defined time setting. Initially the pair thought about creating a longer video with alternating active scenes, first only in setting one, then only in setting two, or vice versa, but to best resemble Allegra’s first description of the space being represented, the ultimate decision was to play all animation at once, showing multiple elements of visual interest for the viewer to focus on.
version 1:
version 2:
In the background of this video they added sounds. The sounds of children laughing as thats what Allegra heard non stop as a child from the window of sounds. The pair wanted to keep the clip simple and clean, so the beginning and the end have a blank space with the title and credits.
In the end they decided to call the project ‘Remembrance in motion’ as it is a tribute to childhood. Especially for Allegra as it replaces her in the mindset of when she was a child, something we all miss.
Overall we are extremely proud of ourselves as this turned out. We had encountered a few obstacles though worked around them in our convenience. This piece is also quite abstract, though not too much so it can guide the viewer without having an open interpretation.
final outcome:
