FMP: Making Week

A rough sketch of the initial idea

Final idea, storyboarded

For the making week the group came together and discussed each of our projects and trying to discover a common ground conceptually, which proved near impossible. Therefore, we decided that the process of making would tie each of our projects into this piece. We decided to play with the term "Put a sock in it", which brought us to the concept of female oppression. Our film consists of plastic bottles, each with their own voice, being placed into a box and then stuffed with socks to block out the sound. Whilst this is happening the expression "put a sock in it" is being projected onto the box. After each bottle has been stuffed, examples of misogynistic rap lyrics are projected, scrolling across the box. 

If we had a longer time to complete the film, we would have edited it more to shorten the playing time, made the film brighter and changed the scrolling lyrics to a single line format to make them more legible. However, I feel as though the message is felt and the the sound, which we recorded on garageband using our own voices, works effectively in creating mood, but also serving their metaphorical purpose.

In regards to my personal project, it made me think about reversing the idea of escapism. The idea that a dream may in fact become the oppressor, rather than reality. Perhaps the dreamer experiences a great sense of freedom when awake and fears the trapped feelings that may swamp them in their dreams. the making week has also further confirmed my desire to create something more suggestive and obscure than literal, as it definitely risks becoming boring or obvious.

FMP: Dream structure and Perspective

Explanation of the process leading a lucid dream from my sketch book

Consideration of the viewers perspective in sketch book

Photos are authors own

In order to get the information I had gathered through research into the psychology of dreams, video blogs by lucid dreamers and the interviews I conducted, I created a flow chart of events that proceed the state of lucid dreaming. Whilst drawing this out I began to wander what it is that I am actually communicating to the viewer. Am I creating an informative piece about the process of achieving lucidity? Am I focusing on the lucid experience? Am I showing a struggle to obtain lucidity? Do I even want to include the idea of lucidity? Maybe, that almost magical feeling of being in a situation that you can't control, yet it is stimulating enough to create excitement within you, that an unconscious dream gives you is a form of escapism. 

During one of my interviews the interviewee said that when they had a particular dream, their perspective changed. I found this to be really strange. So it caused me to think about how I want the view to be experiencing the animation. I will start to experiment more with perspective.

FMP: Un Chien Andalou

Un Chien Andalou (1929) screen shot

Un Chien Andalou (1929) by Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí was a really helpful film to watch. The experience allowed me to form a clearer idea of the sort of animation I want to produce, in regards to how it is received by the view. Not only do I want it to be an experience that the viewer embarks on, but also a cause of disturbance and discomfort... something that someone would want to escape from. This short film was constructed through a combination of the artists dreams manifest content and that of random sense ideas that seemed to fit well between them both. I now I'm pondering on how I am going to build up my story board. Will it be a sort of montage of my manifest content, will it be a similar process to the making of Un Chien Andalou or could I take a completely different direction?

You Are Here: Final Animation

Train Strike

Authors own

This is my 30 second animation that explores the evolution of the name of the street that we today call Cannon Street. It is a visual piece, with no narrative, just experimentation of transitions, sound, insinuated actions and style. 

I find the most successful components of this animation to be the switch between two styles to give the viewer some indication of the environment they are being introduced to. Also, the insinuation of movement in the arches that pass the flame as it flickers out to make way for the incoming train. I do wish I could have done more with the sound, creating a mix that explored all of the interesting audible recordings I made. I also feel as though the flame could have been developed more, but because of my very basic knowledge of After Effects I was not able to create anything more elaborate in the time I had to complete this project. For future projects, I will make sure I put some time aside to explore software I haven't tried out yet that may come in handy in the production stage. 

Title Sequence: 'Kiss the Girls' Final Animation

Authors own

This is the final outcome for my title sequence made for the thriller Kiss the Girls. What I enjoy the most about this piece is its strong sense of style and atmosphere. I feel the sound and simplistic appearance compliments the complex, haunting nature of the themes explored in the film itself. However, one thing I'm not too happy with this the mask section of the sequence. The text that insinuates a tear drop is too ridged and the movement needs to be reworked. Also, as the mask fades away and is covered by loads of lip prints the outline of the mask can still be seen long after, a silly mistake done in Flash on my part.

I made almost everything using Flash, I drew everything on Flash, animated on Flash and added the typography on Flash. I used iMovie to add in the flashes into negative colour at the beginning and add in the sound. The sound is actually my voice. I looked into the nursery rhyme and reworked its melody and lyrics (only slightly), keeping the same rhythm, just slowing it down. Then I layered the sounds of water droplets over the top of my vocals, to represent the idea of water placed in the film. I recorded and put together all sound components in GarageBand. 

Title Sequence: 'Kiss the Girls' Experimentation

Quick montage of my Kiss the Girls experimentation

Authors own

Experimenting with the style and medium of the title sequences was a great way of figuring out how to represent the mood and themes of the film visually, as all successful title sequences do. I found what worked well here was the chance to diversify not only the style of each experiment, but also the way the different typography worked or did not work. Some ideas I found weaker than others, because the text was not legible enough or it came across a little too erratic. 

Screen shot, working in Flash

Authors own

A made most of the arms using paper cut out or drawing and scanning them into flash. I then added the typography in on flash, either drawing it digitally or modifying existing fonts. If I were to redo this process I would have tried out more software, like After Effects, to see the advantages or extra effects it could have brought to the style of the title sequence. 

Title Sequence: Thriller, Spaghetti Western, News, TV Drama?

Mind-map of Kiss the Girls

Mindmap and inital storyboard for Django 

Research and storyboarding for BBC 3 60 Seconds News

All photos are authors own

The aim of this project is to produce 4 storyboards for a title sequence for a Thriller, Spaghetti Western, News/Recent Events, Bollywood or TV Drama and then animate two of them. I chose to go with the Thriller, S. Western, TV Drama and News genres. I looked into existing title sequences created by directors such as Saul Bass (Psycho, 1960), Maurice Binder (Dr. No: James Bond, 1962) and Iginio Lardani (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, 1966). The process of choosing which genres I wanted to work with was quite straight forward. I went with which I felt I had the most experience with. I decided on the thriller Kiss the Girls (1997), the western Django (1993), the TV drama The L Word (2004-09) and the news programme BBC Three 60 Seconds News (on presently). In order to create the best possible title sequence designs for each of these shows I made mind maps that explored and analysed them. I want to produce something that explores the themes of each show in a visually metaphorical way. 

I have designed storyboards for each film/show and decided that I am going to animate the ones made for Kiss the Girls and BBC3 News. I made this decision in regards to what I can produce with the amount of time and facilities I have, but also on the designs that were most successful in portraying what the film/show is about. I found this process to be a great way of getting rid of weaker ideas. 

Metamorphosis: Švankmajer Exhibition

    Photo is authors own (2013)

THE JAN ŠVANKMAJER COLLECTION
I recently visited Brighton University and took a look at their exhibition space where Švankmajer’s work was being shown. The first thing I noticed about his work was it’s creepy, reality detached appearance, which left me feeling slightly unsettled. However, as I looked closer, it became something more expressive, of his peculiarity and imagination. These creatures he made from physical components of differing animals are fantastical. The exhibitions exploration of his work was delightfully, creatively liberating.

Day 5: Film Poster

The brief was to make a promotional poster for the unmade film The 33, which is about the miners that were trapped underground in Chile, 2010. I started this project off by researching the accident and finding photos and videos associated with it. I then looked at existing film posters to do with being trapped and also for films in the cinema today. I started generating some ideas for my poster in my sketch book, picking my favourites and producing them on InDesign. I decided to go with the design you see below.

Authors own 

I produced this image on Photoshop. It was originally a screen shot of two miners hugging from a video I found. I cut out a black silhouette of the two man to represent the darkness of their environment underground and added some thin lines to show important details e.g. the helmets, the squeezed close eye, the arms. I am pleased with this design decision because it says a lot about the struggle the 33 miners endured, the desperation. However, the background loses its meaning a because you can clearly make out what it is. There are actually rocks in the back ground. I enjoyed the research and idea generation part of this task because I was able to learn and also be created with the new information. Although, I found the final process of making quite stressful as I was not too familiar with Photoshop. Having said that, I am please with the outcome, considering.

Two other designs I made using Photoshop and InDesign

Final 'New' Poster

I made some adjustments to the poster to make it look more presentable. I used Photoshop to cut the main image out and placed it on a clean, white background in Illustrator. Here I reapplied the music stave to the image and added text that was neater and placed in a more balanced position to the rest of the design.

The process of using Adobe definitely aided the final presentation of my poster, plus it completed tasks fast, helping time keeping. I was glad that I was still able to use my hand drawn design too, as it personalises something that could otherwise look quite cold. Because I photographed the original design instead of scanning it there is some discolouration to the "E", which does bring the quality of the image down. However, I do believe that the message trying to be communicated is still graspable.

New: A Deceptive Concept

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxLwxUTELvY

This is a link to a video my group and I made using the word NEW as a trigger for a concept.

My role in this film was to put all the film components together on iMovie from the research other members of my group done. I think the film was effective in conveying the message we were trying to communicate, which was that the line that separates old from new is so blurred that the idea of new is now distorted/deceptive if essentially we are just recycling the old. I do feel, however, that that the constant changing on music, although it had a purpose, was a bit distracting and uncomfortable. If I were to change something about the final film I would perhaps include fashion trends within music that illustrate the idea of recycling the old and stick to perhaps just two songs that communicate the idea through sound to avoid the constant track changing.

As a group, we brainstormed some ideas that connected with the word NEW, such as, new life, contemporary, technology, definitions etc. However, when looking at things like new trends we discovered that the term new is actual quite deceptive as they usually recycle/reuse old ideas. For example, in fashion you get vintage wear or in music you get genre replication etc. From this discovery we decided to work with deception as a concept and concentrated on music as we found it to be a topic that a lot of people could relate to. The process of working as a team to generate ideas was very helpful as it allowed me to widen my channel of thought by bouncing off other peoples ideas. It also help to refine ideas at an earlier stage as there were more of us to find holes or weaknesses in the concept and aright them.

This is a print screen of the work I did on iMovie to help knit each component of the film together, including images that other members of the group had provided, together with kinetic typography, music and a panning effect. Through using iMovie I was able to effectively, easily and quickly producing the film, which was helpful seen as we only had a week to plan and make it. I didn't experience any difficulty.

This image, used near the end of the film before the credits, was made by me on a word document. I simply used wordart and filled the inside of it with an image of the word old repeated, which I made. 

Rastaman Final Image: 5

This image depicts the scene where Rastaman see's the blurred outline of a goat when he awakens several hours later after he collapsed from OD'ing. This is the view that Rastaman see's as he stretches out his hand to grab onto the goat to be rescued. Most of my peers found this to be the most effective image of all the 6, clearly depicting the predicament of Rastaman by blurring the image and using high exposure. I have also continued the element of illustration in this photo.

Rastaman Final Image: 3

This image depicts the scene where Rastaman arrives at the mountain and is shocked to find out it is covered in cocaine instead of snow. Here we see the world from Rastaman's point of view, looking down at the pile of cocaine in his hand. Through is fingertips the viewer can see the terrain of the mountain, which acts as a clue to the location of this image. To create this image, I used decorative house stones, shells, my hand and talcum powder. I draw over my hand to match the illustrated Rastaman that has appeared in the images so far. My peers said that it was successful in capturing the environment of the mountain e.g. the cold climate. However, the image visual communication is slightly unclear.

Rastman Final Image: 2

This image depicts the second stage of my story, where the Doll feels for Rastaman and decides to present him with a flyer advertising the Path to Enlightenment. It is a over the shoulder view however, some of my peers did not at first understand this concept and mistook his head for something else. I found it quite hard to create a high level of drama in this scene as the props are was working with were quite mundane. Although, by creating blurred areas I was able to highlight the main message of the image, which in turn uplifted the drama, I feel.

Rastaman Final Image: 1

This is the film still for the beginning of my Rastaman story. Here, Rastaman has collapsed on the floor due to OD'ing on cocaine as an attempted to numb the pain of his wife leaving him for a Doll. I found the task rewarding as I was able to see my story come to life in a small. but I feel effective, kind of way.  I really like my use of illustration over a photograph, each medium compliments each other well as the photography brings an element of reality to the image, whilst the illustration keeps the image light-hearted to avoid completely depressing the viewer. However, in contrast, if was wanting to creat a very serious vibe throughout my story illustration would hinder that goal.
Other students found the illustration to not be quite bold enough, only by studying the image did they notice the body I had draw onto the photo. In future I will make sure my illustrations are bold enough in contrast with the image.

Storyboard Idea: Rastaman

This story is ordered from the bottom square to the top. 1) Rastaman is happily married to his wife in the city. 2) Rastaman finds his wife cheating on h with a doll in the shower. 3) Rastaman's wife leaves him for the doll. 4) Rastaman goes on a quest to Mount Coke - a mountain covered in cocain - to ease his pain. 4) On the way to the top, Rastaman meets an intriguing ftm (female to male) transgender male. They climb the mountain together. 5) When they reach the top they have fallen in love and live the rest of their days there.

I found this idea interesting because it tackles quite serious concepts eg doll obsessions, drug addiction and gender identity/sexual orientation. However, I hate stories that send out the message love conquers all. If I were to rewrite this I would definitely change the resolution to the story and make more of a internal change within Rastaman.

Storyboarding

These are three separate storyboards my group and I created using characters and places we have connected to or have experienced in our lives. Crossing their paths to produce new, inventive stories. 

Moon by Duncan Jones: Analysed