Project reflection: The Old fire Station Light show Event that never happened :(

Back at it with our light show exhibition but this time taking place in the bournemouth student union – Old fire Station.

To begin with i’m writing this now that I’ve finished the task. Unfortunately, the fire station event had to be cancelled due to recent events which is affecting the world right now. Do i dare say the word. Corona. It was very devastating as we put a lot of work into the creatives and how we would utilize the space of the stage. This greatly did affect the overall product as we wanted to utilize all the hanging space and the extra projectors- to then being restricted to a tiny uni house with only one projector. It was a big shock. Therefore we just couldn’t get the same impact. You might be thinking why am i writing a blog when i’m not showing a finished product Im proud of. Well, the thing is I’m greatly proud of all the contributions me and my group put in throughout the unit with ideas and collaboration of media. Overall, this has been a great learning curve that you must have backup ideas incase others don’t work when plans are changed. You never know when there can be a pandemic… anyway its definitely a time to think whats important which is health. Even though i’m devastated i didn’t see my project come to life i would love to share the development stages.

If you have read my previous blog we used an exercise all and placed it onto a podium – we then tested projecting onto 3D objects. Our idea focused on climate change and we used the exercise ball to project the illusion of a spinning globe. On one side show the globe like normal and the other side show the destruction of the world – like Australian bush fires, ice capsules melting, pollution. This focused on the spectrum of impact.

Our initial response to our space in the old fire station was “oh amazing we have the stage”. Yes we are so glad we have the stage but due to the stage being the biggest space we do have a lot to fill to impress the audience. We have discussed with the manager that we can take anything down from the stage that we do not want. We thought we could make the most of the railings that holds the lights to hang objects we want to project onto.

Now we have decided to take on a different turn – using the same exercise ball but portraying something totally different. We were think focusing on the spectrum of health. For instance we wanted to portray a baby in a womb during pregnancy and the effects of smoking and alcohol it has on babies. These are a few of our sketches. The main idea is to have the womb centre stage and have around 3/4 cigs hanging where they gradually burn out. The smoke machine implies all the smoke that will get into the baby’s lungs.

The next step is compiling videos to produce into a time-lapse.

Audio within our piece

After the poole exhibition event we realised it was totally important to get audio within our piece. Within our piece the audio we want to focus around is sounds within the womb, mothers and baby’s heartbeat. We wanted to show a healthy baby’s heartbeat either too slow or to fast. The sounds of smoke being inhaled by the mothers then the baby crying and coughing out of not being able to breathe.

https://freesound.org/people/Robinhood76/sounds/252212/

Its all about trail and error really the fieldwork sessions. Through the fieldwork sessions we took the good old exercise ball again. First we thought of resting the ball on a stand. Then we thought of extending the ball up via a sting. The only challenges we faced when doing this was it kept spinning which may ruin the projection – as the name of the ball spins along with it. To overcome this issue we bought wire string instead of thread string which is more sturdy. It also gave the impression it was floating in the air as it was see through.

Materials used

For the cigarette projection we didn’t know weather to project on a 3d object or flat surface. The projection was a lot better when we did it on the flat surfaces. We cut out all the cig we wanted using cardboard.

Here where we found out our event had been cancelled 😦

So heres a few video clips of each projection we were experimenting on. Obviously it was greatly difficult as we were relying heavily on our space. Due to the event being cancelled we also couldn’t get the same effects like our smoke machine to act as mums smoking allowing the baby to breathe in. Also it was not achievable to get one shot of what the whole production would of looked like due to the lack of resources, time and space.

The overall aesthetics we would of loved is to have about 3/4 cigarettes hanging around the baby in the womb. The cigarets are burning then fades to black will the smoke machine is going off around the stage. The smoke gives the illusion the baby is breathing in. The womb video shows the innocent baby breathing in the smoke. The audio completed is sounds within the womb, the inhaling of smoke from the mother and coughing and crying of the baby.