For my first project I decided to create an environment that is isolated from everything, so the identity I was going for was something desolate. The inspiration for my project was loosely based upon my trip to Ethiopia, where my friends and I went stargazing. That was the first time I saw so many stars in my life, unfortunately I couldn’t capture that moment, since the quality of the photo was very bad, and after reading the description of the first project, I decided to make something similar, so people could experience the feeling I had on that day. In one hand the place that we went to for stargazing was very beautiful, however on the other side, it was very scary, since it was at night and very far from the city.
“You can find yourself in the middle of nowhere – or in the middle of nowhere you can find yourself” – This phrase seems to capture the sentiment of so many people. After reading this phrase I came to the idea of making “in the middle of nowhere” place with a lot of stars and mountains.
If we take closer look at the first part of the phrase, “You can find yourself in the middle of nowhere”, we may feel like we are in a place that is very far from the usual landmarks, surrounding may feel empty, abandoned and desolate. And the second part of the phrase, “Or in the middle of nowhere you can find yourself”, we may feel something totally different. When you find yourself in an empty and desolate place, you have the opportunity of experiencing new insights about yourself and who you are, with an option of retreating yourself.
Being in this new place “in the middle of nowhere” seems like traveling to a different place. The contrast between you, your life and the environment I have created, gives you opportunities to make new changes, insights, perspectives and awareness’s. The shift between space and timing that occurs when you enter a new place, actually allows you to jump to a new vision of yourself.
My project is about a person who is trapped in his own world and everyday he gets sucked deeper and deeper into it. The further he is in, the more he feels alone. No people, no animals, nothing, only him and the sound of inner function of his body as he is becoming lost in the middle of nowhere. The main components of my project are stars, that I downloaded from assets store and the sound that I have mixed, using different inner body sounds in LogicPro software. Also, the other important thing to mention is that, I added post process layer, and was playing around with bloom, depth of field and chromatic aberration effects. The post process layer applied full-screen effects to a camera which completely changed the vibe of the environment, luckily in a good way.
Throughout the project I have experimented with a variety of things. At the beginning, I started with making a terrain and adding palm trees and rivers, however, after getting feedbacks from friends I decided to get rid of them, and just leave the mountains and stars.
From various photos you can observe that the place is completely full of mountains and stars that the reflection you can see everywhere. The first thing that the viewer sees is very dark and huge mountains and then when he turns left or right, he could see all the beautiness I have created and at the same time would have the feeling of being isolated from everyone and everything. The most challenging part was building a terrain and finding a perfect spot to locate the camera, in order for the viewer to be able to experience the vibe that I was going for, looking from one dark side that the only thing the viewer sees are mountains and then moving around and observing the environment.
During test sessions, it was interesting to observe how for some people the environment felt like a meditation place, with all the bright colors, where they could just go and focus on their selves, where no one else is there, only you, your thoughts and the sound of your inner body parts. However, for other people, the environment felt as a scary place, in which they would just go crazy, since they are alone, in the middle of nowhere.
Looking back, I definitely feel that the implementation fits perfectly the identity I was going for, it evokes the sense of isolated place, no people, no animals, only you and inner function sound of your body. Though in my initial idea I had palm trees and river, I am actually happy that I got rid of them, and made the place with stars, mountains and sound. Overall, I am very proud of the environment I have created in such a short period of time. Most importantly, I feel that I successfully made a vibe of the “desolate” place that I have been working on.