I wanted to create something based off of the idea of how one image can be altered in media and how a picture does not tell the whole story. For example, a photo can be set up to make someone look like they have a lot of money, for example, someone leaning on an expensive car. We immediately think that this person must have a lot of money, when in reality that could just be their grandad’s car.
To do this, I first took a picture of my friend Megan sat in our classroom, which I then began to photoshop. First I decided to make her look like a ‘mumble rapper’ because they often all share a very similar look. I edited on some face tattoos and a hand holding money. I then added words that would make it seem like some kind of advertisement. In all honesty, I wasn’t very pleased with what I made, but because I clearly thought my idea was amazing I decided to keep going and make another edit. This time I decided to put Megan on a beach, with a cocktail in her hand. I then tried to make it look like an advert for a television programme about rich people. Once again, I wasn’t very happy with what I had produced, mainly because it was my first time using photoshop and it was therefore very crude editing work. I think I managed to make images that are funny and through satire you can somewhat see the point I was trying to make, however I think the fact they look ridiculous and unbelievable means that they don’t really achieve what I set out to do.
Displeased and underwhelmed with the work I managed to produce in college, I decided to create a piece at home instead. For me, because I miss a lot of college, it was nice to feel that I was being productive at home. I wanted to make a video that pokes fun at how fake news is generated and I decided to use stop motion animation because I felt the style would match the overall mood of my piece.
I made a practice video so as to help plan out what I would need and work out how I would do what I wanted. In the practice video I didn’t use a camera stand to keep it steady, and I didn’t keep the lighting consistent. This was something I definitely was going to change when making my final video. I also felt that the ‘selection process’ lacked variety so I also chose to come up with a few new ideas for this. In addition, I knew I would write up the headlines on a computer to make them look more like a real newspaper or article. Making this practice video was very useful and I definitely would have found it a lot harder to film my final video if I hadn’t made this previously. I would have also been much less organised and would have made more mess which I’m sure my mum would not have appreciated.
I am much happier with my final Fake News Machine video than I was with my photo editing. I think it was the right choice to change my final piece because not only did it turn out better, but I enjoyed the process much more. To improve it, I would make more of an attempt to keep my lighting consistent. I think I’d also like to change some of the speeds because I think it gets somewhat repetitive and it would be less so if some segments took less time.
One interesting thing that happened during the filming of my video was that I discovered on of my ‘random’ headlines already existed. If you google ‘the pope alien’ there is a hilariously large amount of results – just in case you need some entertainment.
jrwolf 