FINAL video

Joy Whittington, dsdn 142, Project 3

explination

In this minute long stop-motion video clip, a loop is conveyed effectively, yet simply, through a girl walking up a set of stairs. Before she begins her climb, it is highlighted that she is firstly given a condition in which she must carry out until the statement becomes false. It is expressed using symbols inside her thought-bubble, that whilst there is a step to climb she must step up. On-the-other-hand, shown in the second thought-bubble, while there is no step to climb, she must stop. Thus, the loop continues until the girl reaches the top of the stairs. Once she has mounted the top step, the camera shows us that there are no more steps to climb and that the surface is flat, therefore the girl can now go off as she pleases.

developments

For my video i decided to photograph a series of pictures to make up a stop-motion video. The idea will be put to life by my flatmate, who will be modelling a fine example of a coding while loop. I plan to spend one afternoon doing the photoshoot, so i can then take the rest of the time to edit and develop my photos. Some of my initail photos can be seen below.

I planned to edit every single photo so that the appearance of the clip as a whole would become this exciting, fun and pop-arty expression of my idea. I wanted to explore the path of creative colourings, cartoon forms, and the art of figurative cubism. All this would enhance the overall watchability of my video clip, and highlight the symbolic visuals without the viewer becoming confused and distracted completely. Some of my explorations of edited photos can be seen below...

explorations

 

slow motion video ideas

favourite idea

I decided on an idea that involved just a simple staircase, because i thought it would fit in well with the definitions of a loop i found through research and thorough understanding of code. A series of lines can be created with ease, using just a straight forward while loop in processing. This is done by making a statement, telling the computer to draw a line every X amount of space, while X is less than A amount. I took this basic exampe of computing loops, and i exhanged the drawing of a line each time, to a metaphor of climbing a stair each time.

a loop is like a staircase
--Someone climbing a set of stairs one step at a time.
--The loop ends when the top of the stairs is reached, or until a certain amount of stairs are climbed.

Further Brainstorm

initial ideas

The while construct consists of a block of code and a condition. So i knew i needed to come up with ideas that would involve both of these. In computing language, the condition is then evaluated, and if the condition is true, the code within the block is executed. This repeats until the condition becomes false. Because while loops check the condition before the block is executed.

I did a quick brainstorm of some possible ideas that could be used as a metaphor for a loop.
Some of the initial thoughts which came to me were:

• A flower based idea in which a petal is added until the daisy is formed and fully bloomed. Once petals are all in place (one at a time). petals are removed until flower is bare. 

loves me, loves me not...

• An infinity loop based on the idea of the chicken and the egg, - which comes first? Contineous loop of the chicken or the egg, which could be expressed by simplicity of a poster.