Solar

A short film about solar energy today which I combined with Saul Bass's 'The Solar Film' made in 1980. I recorded my own footage and took news clips about solar energy and juxtaposed them against Bass's.

See the HD version here https://vimeo.com/42999425

More stills, these ones I shot from my friend's roof. I went up there to film the sunset and left with these rather pretty films too. I don't think they are being used in my final film but it was a quite calming experience looking out at the lights as the city darkened down into night. Watching people in their homes acting like cave people (but with electric lights).

Stills

Stills from my short film on Solar energy showing a modern take on Saul Bass's film made in 1980 (see previous post). I have collated a series of audio clips from today about the current situation and views towards solar energy then placed them over the visuals from Bass's film. I also took this audio and placed it over my own film (here).

The message is that we are putting ourselves more into the dark by using finite resources like oil and gas. Solar energy, as said in 1980, is our future. Renewable, clean resources are the future. For now, we are okay using oil, but we've reached the peak. We reached the peak 30 years ago. We have the techonology, we have done for decades, now we're getting desperate. Time is running out. Stop living in the dark about solar energy.

I came accross these signs in Dalston. Seems like they're jumping of the Green bandwagon. Quite amusing how obvious it is.

The Solar Film

This is a short film on solar energy by Saul Bass made in 1980. It is about the discovery and impact of oil on life and why our future is on solar energy. The text at the end of the film reads:

The sun gave us a world.
It can give us a future.

Everyone agrees. Solar energy is good.
But it waits last in line
to receive research and development money.

You can change that.
Solar energy could make a major
contribution to our energy needs by 1985.

What are we waiting for.

The Power of the Sun

The focus of my project is The Power of the Sun. The sun powers life, it powers our lives as cave people, we couldn't survive without light. Our homes would not be the same if it were not for the sun's light energy filling our homes during the day. Also at night, an area to highlight in this project is how stored solar energy is transferred to electric energy and used to illuminate the dark.

I found this short video about the sun's energy which could be helpful when planning the outcome.

Solar Sinter

Yesterday I saw Solar Sinter at the Designs of the Year show at the Design Museum. The film explains it all and is nicely shot. Pretty incredible, wish I was allowed to touch the bowl in the museum!

film: https://vimeo.com/25401444
more info: http://www.markuskayser.com/work/solarsinter/

William Grylls Adams discovered that when light was shined upon selenium, the material shed electrons, thereby creating electricity.

My flat

It occurred to me at this point in the project that my flat receives almost no solar energy. The photograph above is the most sky that can be seen from any of the windows i.e. the only source of light energy. Only when the sun is at about 203 degrees SSW will it shine through for a few minutes (depending on cloud cover).

Continuing with the general idea of transfer, I went back to researching solar power plants. I looked again at how Concentrated Solar Power technologies use mirrors to reflect and concentrate sunlight onto receivers. These receivers collect the solar energy and convert it to high temperature liquid, steam or gas i.e. thermal energy which is then converted to electrical energy.

The photo above is the Andasol 1 solar thermal power plant filled with parabolic trough collectors. Heated to approximately 400°C by the concentrated sun’s rays, the synthetic thermal oil is then pumped through a series of heat exchangers to produce steam. The steam is converted to electrical energy in a conventional steam turbine generator.

The use of mirrors is something to think about further. Living in a flat with only one window receiving  sunlight for a few minutes a day, this could be an area I'm going to look into further to see if that tiny bit of solar energy can be used.

SolarHouse

This is a design for a game called SolarHouse. It's pretty much the same idea as SolarFarm from earlier but instead you have to allow as much solar energy to reach your solar panels as opposed to the grass. Every 5 levels, an appliance will be added to the house such as a light, shower or microwave. The elements such as the bombs are purely for the sake of the game to show how sensitive the panels are. In this case, you can repair them three times i.e. three bombs, but after that it's game over. All the aesthetics are rough, it's mainly the idea I was trying to show.

An ongoing thought throughout this project is why anyone would want to watch or interact with anything digital. What makes energy interesting? What makes solar energy interesting? The reason for the game is to generate awareness to a wide audience about how much energy they use. The idea that the more they use, the more energy is being consumed and if the power is not provided by a clean energy, like solar, where is it coming from. The intention is not to make a 'Green' game, because of course just using the app to play the game uses energy and there are the term is overused by brands selling themselves as 'eco'. A question I was asked when I presented this to the class is when would be use it? Anywhere by any one, as anyone would play a game; on the way to work, during a break etc.

Perigee

I saved these images last week when the moon came closer to the earth than usual. Known as the 'supermoon' appears up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than when it is furthest from the planet. I thought it coincides nicely with this project how we're seeing this beautiful planet thanks to the light from the sun illuminating it. The reflected sunlight from the moon takes about 1.278 seconds to travel to the earth. The distance is about 384,000 kilometers at nearly 300,000 km/sec.

Images from BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17973367

SolarFarm

Last week we were asked to design an app/website/interactive PDF. Something digital a user could interact with basically. This was the first app I designed which I briefly explained in the previous entry. It's called SolarFarm because the idea is you pay for the game, say £5. There would be 50 levels and when you pass each level, 10p is sent to a solar charity. I made a 20 second animation in After Effects demonstrating how it works on an ipad.

The game lasts for a minute (sped up real time) in which time you are to look after the farmer's field by allowing as much solar energy to reach the crops as possible. This involves moving clouds out the way including pollution clouds (purple) which produce acid rain and destroy the grass where it lands. The yellow circles are sort of a 'solar booster' and you've to catch them to make the grass grow faster.

I made a website for the app too (homepage below). This is where you can find a link to Solar Aid, the charity, the app store and a link to another page where the demo video plays.The name could instead be called SolarGrow.

app

 

 

Above are some screen shots of my progress today designing an app. The name at the moment is SolarFarm. I'm still developing the idea and think I will design a different game tomorrow instead. Today I designed SolarFarm in illustrator, animated it in After Effects and made a website for the app describing it, linking to the charity SolarAid (where your money eventually goes) and to the app store. This homepage also links to another page where you can watch a demo of the game, as I have created in AE. It's quite rough at the moment so I'll sleep on it, work more, and post more of an explanation and my developments tomorrow.

App

The two ideas I am currently working on regarding the website/app task is to make a game for an app.

ONE

The first idea is roughly sketched above, I am working on the visuals in Photoshop. The app will cost the user about £5 to buy and is for ipads and iphones. There are 50 levels and in each the task is the protect the crops/grass from acid rain (purple clouds) and move the clouds out the way so that as much sunlight as possible reaches the ground. The grass will have to grow to a certain point, say, 20cm (left) and a certain level of light must be absorbed (right panel) before passing to the next level.

I'm thinking the user is growing crops for a farmer so when they pass a level, they get 10p back, as if they were being paid for good work. This 10p will go towards a charity such as Solar Aid http://www.solar-aid.org/

The incentive will be that the player wants all their £5 to reach the charity so will aim to pass all levels.

TWO

A similar idea involving moving clouds and pollution out the way would show solar panels on a house. The purpose of this game too is to allow as much sun as possible to get through to the solar panels on the house. Things could fall from the sky like some kind of bomb and the user has to drag them away before they destroy the panels. (Panels work in a circuit so it would be game over if one was smashed). The pricing system would be the same as above.

This reminds me of the Sims which I love playing when I was younger. I looked into if there were any eco features of Sims houses today and found they now to solar panels and electric cars.

More plans/visuals to follow soon.

Big bang

Another area I have been studying is the law of conservation of energy. This starts with the explanation that the big bang starts nuclear reactions. These nuclear reactions in the heart of the sun lead to light energy which allows plants to make molecules with metabolic energy stored in them. The plants are then eaten as food etc. Again, although informative, I'm not sure this specific area will keep the viewer interested.

Interactive

This week's project is to make a website or app about your energy. Next Thursday we are asked to present the user experience to the class by creating a mock up of an interactive design. My first thoughts were to continue looking at transfers, how the sun's energy is transferred to other energies such as heat, kinetic, potential or sound etc.

I thought about making a website that acts as a digital flow chart. The sun acting as a 'homepage' and the user clicks on the different ways the sun's energy can be transferred. Perhaps videos or animations to elaborate each energy in action. I drew the diagram above as more of an example of how humans transfer energy but I could also make other options. For example the heat energy from the heat energy from the sun creates wind energy by warming air particles causing them to rise and cool air sink. Also perhaps when a plant dies, the chemical energy it has made using light energy from the sun becomes potential energy when it turns into biomass.

After more consideration I'm not convinced that this idea is much use in keeping the audience interested and seems rather patronising. I'm working through my next idea and will post asap.

Transfer

This is a one minute video about solar energy. The idea of this film is that the sun powers everything. Life is a product of the sun and the energy on our planet remains at a constant equilibrium. Energy isn't something we use, it's something we redirect to transfer it into different sorts of energies such as heat, sound, kinetic and potential etc.

Turn up your volume.
To see this film in HD: https://vimeo.com/41372059

An image from my film on solar power. Full video coming soon.

Miniture

Last week we were asked to produce a video to show in class tomorrow. My general idea through researching solar energy is to look at the sun as a global power. It powers life.

I thought about creating a miniature world, a house that powers itself. I'd film it as a stop motion or moving image. Make a film of the construction of the house and another showing how it works. The panels on the roof light the bulbs inside, which would be fairy lights to fit with the size of the model. I'd somehow also heat a bath of water to the solar panels. For the sake of filming this, I would have added ready made hot water for effect. Everything would be made from a recycled material. I'd also make a garden of cress showing how the sun makes food, as well as light and heat.

Despite planning how I'd make the house (and growing the cress!), I decided against building and filming it and to look more at the idea of solar energy creating other energies. I will post the film of this after showing it tomorrow.