505: project proposal first draft

responsive collaborative: filming

We filmed the bulk of our footage in Burley Park with a few very appreciated volunteers. We had already discussed and thought about what shots we would like so it didn't take too long to film. It was hard to keep a straight face and take it seriously which might affect future animation...

The stop motion footage took a long time to film but this wasn't unexpected! We ended up starting to film in the afternoon rather than the morning because of timetabling and although it meant we had to stay until around 8pm we stuck to it! We've been so grateful to all our models but especially Wing whose face we painted for six hours. They will be repaid!

This has just been the start of learning new processes. Even though I am not an animator I have been welcomed into the process and taught new skills that I now have a basic understanding of. The filming processes have been shared quite equally in the group. The stop motion idea is basic but I've learned new things such as frame rate and not to wear a red shirt to a photoshoot because it will mess with the lighting!

505: proposal development + tutorial

So far in my sketchbook I had been largely unsure about what idea I would use as a topic for my project, so whilst I waited for this to come to me I figured it would be a good opportunity to just work on my visual language and experiment with media, rather than do nothing at all! The stuff I made I still made in mind of a child as an audience, so I feel it's still somewhat relevant.

I started to think about myself as a child and what I wanted/ needed. As a child I was incredibly timid and scared of many things (sometimes in quite an existentialist way) and I really needed something to make me more confident! I like the idea of 'fears' as a starting point, but to approach it in quite a broad and maybe metaphorical way. At this point I don't imagine it to be just a straight narrative story with a moral at the end, say like The Gruffalo. At the same time it needs to be enjoyable and understandable!

When I had my tutorial with Ben he encouraged me to continue this experimenting with media but also to look into the more scientific/ academic side of child fears to give the work some substance, but at this point the project doesn't need a massive sense of direction.

responsive collaborative: meeting up

We met up again last Thursday and discussed the project some more. Thematically the project hasn't really changed and now we have some ideas of visuals and storyboards. We went down to the photography resource to discuss hiring a studio space for some time and some useful questions/ points were raised by the staff

• do they need to be in the photography studio? If you need a white space can you use a course studio/ the AVE suite?
• why are three videos studio based but another not? this brings some discord amongst the films, either make them all the same or each different from the other
• booking a photography studio at this point will be tricky, is it worth it? The real value that D&AD is looking for will be in our concepts and our use of animation. Outdoor environments are available and free to use, and when used creatively could be really effective

So we've decided to film outside next week! The sooner we get them done the better so we can get editing and animating!

505: reimagining project ideas

I rushed into those ideas for the project. I was worried about having to use existing material to base it on so went for an educational book. It's not entirely where my interests lie, and I think it could easily result in something quite basic, plain facts. I still want to do a children's book for the same reasons as before but maybe something more narrative based. Illustrating for children is quite scary because I think it's easy to make something flat and maybe even condescending, but looking at illustrators like Laura Carlin who handle children's narrative with nuance and sophistication has inspired me.

Now I need to think of a topic!

Laura Carlin

responsive collaborative

 

Testing and thinking about ideas, using photos from the internet as a base. Our filming/ photography might not look as professional/ have such environments but it's a start.

• there could be physical props for the film shoots, not just drawn on ones. The weirder possibly the better. We keep discussing fruit motifs so maybe we could have fruit lying around the scene- without succumbing too much to trends (pineapples everywhere)
• the scenes might be filmed in the plain photography studio but we could add some colour with large coloured paper sheets on the floor- on the walls. They might even have coloured backgrounds there already?
• drawn shapes in the scene might not necessarily have to be filled with patterns, plain shapes may be less distracting, but may say less about "creativity"
• animated motifs only need to pop up for a few frames at a time and could change. They may not even move but just have a boiled effect (like these very very quick gifs I made)

responsive collab: inspiration/ reference small notes

Here are some Dazed covers that particularly caught my eye. We don't want to redo what has already been done but we had been discussing face painting as part of the animation. When I imagined it I imagined a pattern covering the entirety of the face but this made me think about smaller segments of colour. The cover with Beth Ditto has made me consider using more 'out-there' physical props, not just the ones to tell the story.

Grimes: Kill V Maim

We have less access to *fashion* so will have to draw more on to ours to give that emphasis, but this also made me think about smaller motifs- like the shapes- that only have to exist in small spaces and not for very long. The motifs don't have to be abstract either.

505: project idea thoughts

At this point I think it's useful to just pick a category and run with it- much more useful than sitting around deliberating about it anyway. For this project I decided to go with Children's Books and Education because it's something I'd consider to become part of my practice but I'm not sure!

I'm not sure what I'd quite like to draw/ make/ write about so at this point it's quite open. I'm interested in science, particularly biology and nature (although I do lack knowledge, so investigating things will also be a fun part of the project). I started thinking about "growth", and after looking at Blexbolex's Seasons and Charles and Ray Eames' Powers of Ten I've been thinking about "connections" and "relationships" between different things- sort of looking at the earth in a holistic sense. It's a big thing, and very broad and I'm aware it may be way too broad to work with. But as a starting point it's something to draw and think about! Even if I focus on something I look at in this process. Maybe it would be about parallels between different subjects.

The idea of making something educational isn't something I'd be wholly comfortable with- I'd like to make something less plainly factual and maybe with a narrative- hence why I thought about connections and relationships between different phenomenons. I'd also like to consider at this point that this book wouldn't necessarily have to be for children, and could be more of an interesting but also educational read/ experience for adults.

505 study task one: children's books & education

"It’s Nice That Graduate Katie Scott explained how her work was “inspired by nature and the human desire to understand and code it over time.” From the Ancient Greeks onwards, her interest lies in how different civilisations tried to understand the natural world through a combination of “observation and complete fantasy.” 

Katie Scott

I wasn't aware of Katie Scott's work but found out about her through the It's Nice That talks. Visually her work isn't something I'd take to, but I was quite inspired by what she had to say about illustrating for education: 

[On Animalium] "I still wanted it to be different. It's an animal encyclopaedia but it has to be different from… why not use photography if you want it to be entirely accurate? I think there's something about illustration that can bring to a project like this that photography couldn't so it had to have a curiosity to it, and for me it had to have a nod to the pre-victorian natural history paintings." 

I've been thinking about illustration for education in this project but sometimes am a little put off by it, feeling that everything has to be incredibly representational or basic. I want to investigate how educational image making can still have story, interest and integrity- and really just be a bit exciting.

Blexbolex

I love Blexbolex's 'People' and 'Seasons' series, and may well have noted them down before on this blog. Somehow with such a simple concept so much is said. The flow of the book itself reads like a poem, words and images carefully selected to juxtapose and fit with eachother. Visually it is simple too, the same format repeating and repeating on each page, giving a continuity that emphasises its poetic nature. This and Powers of Ten (below) also inspired me to think about connections and relationships as a theme for my project.

Charles & Ray Eames 
(I forgot these had to be contemporary)

Not an illustration but so inspirational! At the minute my ideas for the project are very open, and I was worried that this would cause problems. It may well do, but to see the Eameses conquering such big subjects in the space of what is conceptually a very simple video that only runs for nine minutes is great. Educational, broad but simple, and also visually driven- something to aspire to.

Anna Kövecses

Like Blexbolex's 'People' 'Ábécés könyv' follows a simple format. From what I can tell without seeing the publication it's less conceptually driven than Blexbolex's but the focus on recurring format is similar. I wonder if, as well as pacing the book, it also lends itself as an educational tool, making it easier for the child to read and learn the words. Visually her work is great. I've been interested in shape and simplicity for a while, and I'm keen to think about how a complex image does not necessarily equate to a good one. I'm keen to experiment visually so I won't necessarily be working like this, but it's a thought I've had in mind.

Ed Cheverton 

Cheverton's work is the reason I considered being interested in children's illustration again. It's just so fun and playful, and whilst I'm sure a lot of work has been invested into it, it would be nice to take a break from more serious stuff to work like this. I wouldn't say Cheverton's style and methods are confined to children's illustration, but it definitely lends itself to it.

JooHee Yoon 

Yoon is another artist who's art, like Cheverton's, made me interested in children's illustration. It's just very fun, and it's interesting to see how her print making processes informs her work.

505: initial research task + thoughts

For the group research task we looked up the categories 'Publishing and Book Design', 'Children's Books and Education' and 'Product and Packaging'.

So far I don't have many thoughts on where I'm going except indecisiveness.

Publishing and editorial have been where I see myself going, though looking at products and packaging left me feeling a bit inspired. I particularly liked this series which I am yet to find the designer of- it made me think more of the possibilities of packaging, and how it too can have nuance and narrative and  thoughtfullness.

I also really liked this series of character toys by another japanese artist I am yet to get the name of. Working in 3d is an exciting idea. I know from past experience that I'm very bad at three dimensional work, and I'm not sure if it's a line for me to challenge or a warning that it really isn't my forte.

I'd also largely dismissed the idea of children's illustration but looking at artists such as Ed Cheverton started to inspire me, and made me wonder if I'd like to give it a go. I've been wanting to really have fun with a project after spending a lot of time exploring 'deeper' themes in OUIL504. Visually I want to be a bit looser, a bit freer.

I need to spend some more time thinking about it for sure. This is the second year of my degree and I think this is a prime opportunity to try something on a large scale project without major problems on my portfolio if it doesn't go as well. It's time to take a risk?

Perhaps first I will think of a theme I'd like to explore, and then decide what sector I'd like to begin with.

responsive: collaborative meetings, beginnings of ideas

Last week we grouped together for the first time since meeting to discuss our project. We spent a lot of time um-ing and ah-ing about concepts until someone suggested something silly and we went off it. Concept is very important, but is also something one can get really tied up in and with such a large project to do in not a lot of time we decided that we really just wanted to have some fun with this project. I can say that this way of working has worked out in the past- for our beloved Sad Mag in PPP.

The 'independence' we wanted to explore for Dazed was in fashion and creativity as a whole. We wanted to see how we could display independence in everyday life and the independence of people within groups. The last idea came from looking at Dazed- it prides itself on being very unique and independent but covers a lot of similar styles etc repeatedly- which is fine, but it's important to recognise subcultures and the like as independent entities rather than individuals.

We have the idea to film people, dancing, being silly, doing everyday things etc and animating over the top of them. We may animate their environments, their clothes (big to the fashion aspect), their own features- just making everything fun and unique- and focusing on creative aspects of everyday life.

We agreed that aesthetically it would be very bold and pattern based and here is a pinterest board I set up to gather inspiration.

I made some patterns very quickly late at night but I'm not sure these quite fit the aesthetic we're going for, but it's starting to head towards the fun and bright and surreal aspects.

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Second meeting:

We all acknowledged that none of us had really had much time to work on this in the past week due to other priorities in other work deadlines. We re-examined our ideas and confirmed as a group what we wanted to do and assigned some roles between us. At this point as we're not yet into production so there's less role division. As it's a team endeavour we will all have interest in the design and art direction aspect.

For next time we're all going to make samples of art styles that we think could work for the project, and then we can decide from then what we will be using.

Working as a group on an actual piece of work rather than say, the PPP pitch proposal, is quite an odd experience. I feel that as an illustrator I am less used to it than the animators are, but I will always try my best to keep up! Also as I am less technologically advantaged I feel that sometimes I must take a backseat but that's ok and necessary. I think in a way working with team members who aren't of the same discipline is a little easier- it's easier to divide jobs and responsibilities and leadership roles as we are all more different.