Transitions

I was really excited about this project and had my idea in the back of my mind since we started the course.  I wanted to do some sort of transition project that showed the passage of time, specifically the changing of someone's life from birth onwards.  I had two different ideas: 1) a shelf thats contents would change as time passed, from baby stuff to teenage and adult stuff, 2) someone's bedroom changing as they grew up.  I decided that the shelf would be ideal because it is a) more believable that someone would have the same shelf over the course of their life and b) by using a shelf I would be able to focus more on the smaller details and make the content really focused and specific (with a bedroom there would just be too much stuff and the story, or transformation would get lost).  

Luckily I had a trip home planned in the middle of this project which allowed me to really find all of the props that I needed to create the transition from birth, through elementary and high school, to college and post-college years.  The most labor-intensive part of this project was finding and choosing what I wanted to use in the shelf.  I dug through many shelves and boxes and filled up 4 laundry baskets worth of photos, memorabilia, books, movies, and trinkets.  I then went through everything and laid it out in a sequential line on the floor in my family room.  I wanted the changing shelf to have a very authentic feel and matched the objects with the age a best as I could.  This was definitely a trip down memory lane as I pulled out old class photos, soccer trophies, and VHS tapes!  The passing of time relates to my life, for the most part, but has also been exaggerated and generalized to fit the average person as well- I wanted everyone to be able to relate.  I recognize that the people who can relate the most are those of my age group who would recognize the films or books from their childhood, but the sequence is not so subtle that a general audience could see the passage of time.  (From Disney VHS, to funny DVDs, to drama DVDs, or the portable CD player to the i-pod).  

I got really excited when I showed this presentation to a group of friends- almost every slide there would be a comment "I remember that!  I have that movie!  You read Nancy Drew too?"  This really confirmed for me that my sequence was bang on.  

I didn't really know how the final product was going to turn out, but I was willing to risk the work and set up a shelf in my house.  I brought in an adjustable lamp to brighten the objects (mostly so the titles were readable), but also to cast some shadows: I wanted the shelf to have an authentic feel to it.  The shadows really worked out well because they emphasized some of the objects and gave the viewer the feeling that they were peering into a shelf, not just seeing a picture of a shelf.  

The camera was set up on a tripod and I would add some items and take a photo, subtract and add a couple more items and take another photo.  I wanted the changes to be noticeable, but not too stark.  By taking out only a couple things at a time I was better able to establish the identity of the shelf owner- you could see what the owner was interested in, what genre of books he/she liked, etc.  Because time is a gradual change the small changes in the shelf helped to reinforce that time was passing, rather than speeding by: somethings changed, somethings stayed the same.  There were a couple instances when more dramatic changes occurred.  The most obvious being the change from high school to college.  I wanted to make the point here that the shelf owner likely moved to a new location and is starting to develop an adult identity, it is a clean new beginning.  Other stark turning points include the transition into high school, and into school in general.  These are both defining points in most of our lives and the larger changes show the impact of this true life transition.  The change from college into the real world is not so strong, because the owner develops a sense of who he/she is over the course of college and takes that with him/her to the next experiences.  

I always find the ending to be a little depressing: you go from a pretty, lively shelf that really shows personality and character, to a strange piece of art (mother and child?)  I though this was a step better than leaving the shelf empty at the end.  It also shows a shift away from reliance on material things to define oneself.  As you get older there is less of a need to outwardly display everything you have- you can be more understated and use your shelf for decoration. (I just look at my shelf versus the shelves of my parents: that piece of art was in one of Mom's shelves, my shelf is full of pictures, statues, trophies, etc.)

I noticed one I got all of the photos together that some of the frames were slightly different, in that I mean the camera shifted from side to side as I was taking the pictures.  For some of the photos there is no movement, but when viewing the transitions between some pairs you can see that the shelf itself also moves (but between others you can only tell a difference based on the objects in the shelf).  Unfortunately this was not something I noticed when shooting and I didn't have the opportunity to fix it.  With limited resources (just the old trusted tripod from home) keeping everything perfect is difficult, but regardless of this little hurdle, the presentation turned out to be more that I thought I could make it, just working with powerpoint!

Putting it all together....

Once I got all of the photos onto powerpoint, and it took a while, I started to edit irrelevant and duplicates out.  Then I began playing with transitions and immediately found that the "dissolve" function was perfect, it made it seem as though the removed objects slowly disappeared from the shelf and the new objects slowly appeared in.  I fell in love with this animation because it really took the passage of time to the next level: you could see thing slowly fade out of and into this person's life!  I played with the setting and found that the slow dissolve really played-up the effect, and by leaving each slide up for around 2 second I was able to really allow the content of each slide sink in for the viewer.  I experimented with faster and slower times and asked some friends and classmates their opinions, and the 2 second won.  It is just enough time for the viewer to absorb what they are seeing (read some of the book titles, see what movies the shelf contains) and the slow fade allows the view to really see what is moving in and out.  More than 2 seconds got boring and less than 2 second was too fast for the viewer to absorb any of the content.  The content in this project is the important part- you need to see that the movies change from Cinderella to Flubber to How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days to the Firm, and that the books get thinker and more knowledge based.  Without the ability to really recognize what you are looking at the presentation is nothing more than a string of pictures of a shelf.  

Unfortunately I was unable to capture the dissolve effect in the AVI file, but luckily, because of its lower quality the images almost run together to deliver the same passing of time.  

If you have any questions about my project please just ask!  

I had to split up the movie for space sake and used the transition to college as the split: a logical break in the flow of the images anyways.  The transitions seemed to be cut out in translation, but imagine the images dissolving slowly into one another, so you can see certain objects appear and disappear gradually (as time passes) as the show moves along.

Before College

College and Beyond