Black Code, 2016

Luckily, I found a very sketchy online link to the entire film and started to watch and take notes of anything that I found to be relevant to my idea. 

I started my investigation off by looking into a recommended film called Black Code. Throughout the documentary the informational graphics such as below really stuck out to me and I wish to learn to create similar graphics using after effects for my own video as I feel this would emphasis the idea further. I would like to be able to flood my film with pop-up notifications relating media and gps. 

The introduction to the film was very fast paced, with lots of jump cuts showing a variety of data related imagery which worked well at setting the tone for the documentary and explaining what the documentary discusses.   

Whilst watching the documentary I learnt a lot about how data is collected and used and how it is even used without us really knowing. The film discusses how even when phones are not in use they still can use gps tracking to locate you and still collect data. I would like to show this in my video as this is very powerful information which a lot of people would probably be very un-aware of. Potential ideas on how to in corporate this idea could be to show my left hand side map still tracking whilst my model in the right hand screen would be walking without their phone in their hand. 

"The problem is, without secrecy there can be no democracy. Without secrecy there can be no market economy." Jon Karlung - Black Code

There was a lot of imagery which stood out in the video. One of which was the locational idents which shared the location of the documentary. As I want to film in one specific location, I feel as though having a locational ident at the start of my video would explain the following imagery for the videos location. I would like my idents to be more animated as I feel as though this would bring a greater aesthetically pleasing film. Most of the footage shot was handheld, though still very smoothly shot, I would like to enhance my film camera skills further by attempting to create a series of smooth hand held shots. 

Screen shots of Black Code, 2016

The pop ups which are used in Black Code, 2016 are easy enough to read and the blue tone gives a cyber feel to the graphic which I also like. I think that the transparency of the information is also very powerful as it gives a more realism and doesn't look like a flat 2D image. 

I selected this scene because the graphic is integrated so well within the scene and has created such a powerful piece if imagery which really makes you think about facial recognition and cyber space. Also again the colour blue against the background colours really stands out and create the cyber aesthetic which is used throughout the video. 

I particularly found this scene to be very relevant to what I am looking at as the birds-eye view camera angle and the circular "tracking" icon really amplifies the idea of urban tracking and gps. I would like to attempt a shot similar to this however I feel as though I would struggle to get high enough to give the same effect. 

From looking into Black Code, 2016 I feel as though I now have a clearer idea of the type of style of shots I want to take such as handheld and tracking shots as they were used a lot in Black Code, 2016 and created powerful imagery. I would also take the idea of their visual animation graphics and be able to create my own and use them in a similar way like Black Code, 2016 does so well.