Final Project

The final project engages a combination of cinematic thinking with physical and/or virtual media. You are at your discretion to choose a combination of media we've explored during the term as appropriate to your interests and to establish the subject. It is strongly recommended that you work to bridge between physical and virtual media in keeping with the explorations this term, but the choice is entirely up to you.

The legacy of direct cinema, a process of moviemaking that is based upon spontaneous discovery rather a preconceived output, should guide the approach you take.

Please note that final approval of the final review time is still pending final approval and is subject to change.

A PERSPECTIVE

Throughout the semester you have explored interactive, data rich and diverse media technology. For example, computervision enables the recognition of patterns within of motion pictures. Various microcontroller sensors can detect patterns of other data in the environment (e.g., air temperature, light intensity, humidity). Furthermore, you have seen some examples where a graphics programming platform coupled with a physical hardware device can be used to further customize the interpretation of the data. The final project should harness one or more of these techniques according to your own speculative imagination to create a media fabrication. Take into account the results you obtained in the exercisers and feedback from the instructors and TAs. Work on this assignment should be carefully scheduled and spread over the next three weeks to allow time for technical trouble-shooting and to gain greater insight into your approach and final submission.

Consult with Earl Mark, Ammon Shepherd, and Iting Chen about the scope of your study and technique as needed. Work on this assignment should be carefully scheduled and spread over the next several weeks to allow time for technical trouble-shooting and to gain perspective.

SUBJECT AREAS

More specifically, the final exercise should benefit from your preliminary explorations of exercises 1 through 4. This may include capturing an impression of a place or event such as in a postcard, studying a process, live reporting as in a news ticker, or varying the line between playful invention and physical function suggested by a Rube Goldberg Machine that was the basis for the earlier exercises. Arch 5424 is an experimental workshop, and therefore a more risk taking and less polished approach to the final project is appropriate. You have discretion with respect to the medium and subject of the final project. However, it should have a perceptible sense of a "beginning", "middle" and "end". That is, it should still have the conceptual structure of a movie, whether its content is a more abstract treatment or realistic depiction of places, events, processes or people.

If possible for final documentation, the final product should be captured as a single movie file. Otherwise it should also be documented by a copy of your work in Processing, including in-process photos of how your project works and the final demonstration. If applicable you may want to add circuit diagrams for micro-controller setups. The Fritzing public domain program can be used to diagram your Arduino circuits

EXPANDED DEFINTION OF MOVIEMEKAING

In everyday use the term "moviemaking" is typically understood to be a recording of motion picture images in the construction of some type of narrative. In the context of the final project for Arch 5424, moviemaking refers to the recording of a wider range of sensory input that can be processed interactively or in a more predetermined form to establish a kind of narrative output or story through physical or virtual media. The final result may be live or pre-assembled. Since we are within a School of Architecture, you are encouraged to use the final project to speculate on the potential for direct cinema and media fabrics to shape our understanding of and our ability to modify our interaction with the built and natural environment. However, you are at liberty to establish your own focus more feely as long as you experiment with the use of media to determine some creative outcome involving time, space, light, sound or other environmental phenomena.

FINAL PRESENTATION OF WORK

A viewing of the final exercise will be on Thursday, May 12 in Campbell 105. Setup time will start at 9 am. Display and discusion of final projects will begin at 9:30 am and conclude by no later than noon. In addition to the review of individual work, during the viewing we will share perspectives on the projects as well as reflect more generally on the nature of emergent media fabrics. Your full presentation should last 10 to 12 minutes at most and be held in-person. It needs also be staged for viewing on Zoom. If there are technical problems with Internet access, then develop a backup plan to have a video and/or slide series display the material and place in the submit folder on CLASSES or on the Collab site for the class..

DELIVERABLES

Within this exercise, create a roughly 30 seconds to 2 minute animation, video movie or interactive presentation related directly or indirectly to any of themes and techniques that you have explored in the class. This should include the use of Processing 3 and/or the Processing IDE for Arduino. It may optionally include the use of an Arduino micro-controllers and related technology.

You are also welcome to work with an alternative technology, such as a Rasberry Pi or Kinect box, with the caveat that technical support may be very limited.

SPECIFIC MEDIA OPTIONS

Required:

1. Processing 3 sketch(s) with or without other media for animation, video, or other media, and/or use of the Processing IDE with respect to a Arduino microcontroller configuration. Alternatives should be discussed with Earl Mark, Ammon Shepherd, or Iting Chen. Due to the distance-learning venue this spring, it's highly recommended that you prepare a video recording of your project along with still photos that you can display on Zoom along with any interaction you are able to stage for the final presentation.

2. Video

Provide a video document of your project, an edited movie file and/or a series of photos.

Optional:

3. Sound:

Incorporate live, captured, processed or alternative sounds if appropriate to your project.

SUBMISSION

1. All submissions should be placed in a sub-folder labelled "exercise5" in your submit folder or your Drop Box on Collab. The folder should include any movie files in the format "LastName_FIrstNameFinalProject.mov", any Processing folders, appropriate photos and other supporting media. For archiving purposes and ease of display, you are asked to save all movie files to the QuickTIme H.264 “mov” or “mp4" format.

2.  Send notification by email to Earl Mark, Ammon Shepherd, and Iting Chen about the completion of this final assignment and the associated file name. Briefly describe and reflect on the intentions of your work within a few paragraphs. Due to a full semester review of your work for the term that the three of us will undertake separately the next day, it is necessary to ask you to also complete final documentation at the latest by noon, Friday, May 13.

3. Setup the most current working version final project at least one half-hour in advance of the final display and discussion which will begin on Thursday, May 12, at 9:30 am.