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: The Interviews

Dream Map drawn out by an interviewee

Photo is authors own

I interviewed people about their dream experience, writing down some of the information, recording the interview and, in some cases, collecting drawings produced by the interviewee. The people I interviewed had experienced evils of lucidity, sleep paralysis and dreams that had appeared to have come true (premonitions). Through talking to these people I have been able to find out new quirks that people have during dream, most notably a change in perspective. I wish to interview people that had more extreme encounters with lucid dreaming and feel as though it is an ultimate escapism. I would also love to speak to some people first hand about astral plane experience to further enrich my research.

'You Are Here' Project

Photos of my surroundings on a walk along the Thames, in Greenwich

Authors own

Screen shot of Ed Barrnett's Man Up 

 Screen shot of Sally Arthur's A to Z 

The aim of this project is to produce a 30 second animation that says something about a certain area within London. This area was picked randomly, using a map, a pin and blindfold. I was blindfolded and asked to place the pin anywhere on the map after being spun round multiple times. My pinned area was Cannon Street.

In preparation for this project we watched a few short animations based on the notion of the city. They all had a very strong sense of style and something different to communicate about the city. Man Up looked into the life of a builder working on a crane, it was highly comical, but ending in tragedy. A to Z looked into the busy life of woman that lived in the city and her habit of collecting and gathering. These short films opened my eyes to the possible avenues I could go down, but also urged me to think more outside the box and concern myself with ideas that have not yet been explored.
I also went on a drawing trip around Greenwich and made some interesting sketches, took photos and wrote down thoughts, feelings etc. This was a great way to practice gathering primary research and try out a new way of work (being on the move). This experience will make my first visit to Cannon Street a lot more productive.

Title Sequence: 'BBC Three 60 Seconds News' Final Animation

This is my final animated title sequence for BBC Three 60 Seconds News, made in Flash and edited in iMovie.

I feel as though I was successful in visually communicated the idea of technology and travelling information. The added sound and revolving, multicoloured circle introduced the concept of time and fast pace. However, I feel that my decision to tween the travelling line into a circle instead of creating a frame-by-frame transition, where the line curls into itself, weakened the overall flow of events that occurred in the sequence. I was surprised throughout the process of making this title sequence how easily ideas came to me and how well the production phase ran. Perhaps because I was dealing with less complex ideas and and a shorter timeframe. However, if I were to remake this title sequence I would try to create something with more movement, using frame-by-frame animation, as the end result always feels more impressive and rewarding.

FMP: Dream Logging Project Proposal

Screen shot of my project proposal power point

Photo is authors own 

After mind mapping the ideas that I currently have surrounding the idea of Dream Logging and deciding what research is necessary for the development of this concept, I composed a power point presentation, in order to pitch my idea to a group of my peers and my tutors. Through doing this I was able to grasp the direction I was heading in with more clarity and allowed others to give me fed back that will enrich my research process and in turn, my ideas to come. For the next stage of my FMP I will use this project proposal to guide my research into the Surrealist and Dada art movements, as well as films/animations that have explored a similar concept to mine, most obviously the Walt Disney animation  Alice in Wonderland (1951).

Manifesto Project

This is a double page spread in my sketch book that contains things to do with my past/roots and a spider diagram of my hopes and aspirations, what I stand for. It was a helpful start to the making of my manifesto as it clarified to me what I could include within it.

I then looked at my blog on tumblr for some more inspiration and research into myself e.g. the things I like, my interests, views. I realised it was almost like an already made manifesto of images instead of text.

This was part of my idea generation that I started after looking at some manifestos and decided on concentrating on the concept of equality and acceptance. I found the idea generation process quite challenging because I initially went with an idea that I didn't feel as passionate about and therefore the ideas were lacking. However, was I reevaluated my direction I was able to come up with a few good ideas:

These were my four favourite ideas, which I looked into and analysed. In the end I decided that the 3rd idea was my favourite as it worked well with the 'Open your mind' slogan I had become attached to. The idea that the characters eyes are covered is symbolic of disallowing yourself to judge with your eyes and the literal translation of her open mind within the illustration works effectively I feel.

I decided to develop my final idea using illustrator in order to develop my computer skills. It was my first time using illustrator and I found it to be really easy to grasp and effective in making vivid images that aid the aesthetics of a design.

 Using illustrator, I decided to try out lots of different backgrounds to find one that worked well with my character. Some of them clashed, some took away the attention of the character and some weakened the colours that spouted out of her head. I found the space background to work the best as it related to an earlier idea I had about people being cosmic, such as the universe. Although, I did worry that the space background wasn't very innovative/over used, but it worked that best for me.
 

FINAL MANIFESTO

I feel this is an effective manifesto both in a metaphorical way and visual. However, I feel my type sizing does look a bit messy. If I were to rework anything in my manifesto it would be type size and placing. Apart from that though, it clearly depicts the ideas that are important to me and the mentality and strive to have/keep. When getting feed back most people enjoyed the manifesto, but some found the word strange staggered the flow a bit. I made the decision to keep the word strange in because it was important to me that attention was brought in some way to the idea that people/things can be strange, but they still deserve equality, acceptance and love from us all. Overall, I am happy with the resulting image and what I gain personally from this project, which was a clearly view of what I stand for, improved illustration skills and a sharper knowledge of what works/doesn't work when dealing with typography. 

3DD: Final Bridge

This is the final bridge that we made as a group, taking inspiration from our design ideas we done in our sketchbooks. Overall, the bridge was not very successful as it collapsed underneath the weight of a remote control car, travelling across it. We used cardboard and sticks to make the bridge.

If I were to build the bridge again I would have compact the sticks together more to toughen the frame of the bridge.

3DD: Bridge Project

These are 5 ideas for bridges that I made in my sketchbook, not necessarily practical/functional, but encouraging innovative ideas and different styles. Each bridge is supposed to fold up easily in my book, which most do, apart from idea 3 and 5.  

3DD: Protection

Adding to the Spaghetti project, I used paper in an effort to protect the fragile structure from the impact of a basketball bouncing upon it. I rapped it around the structure and stuffed it within the frame.

3DD: Bottle Holder

The task was to build an 'interesting' structure, taking note of not just practicality but aesthetics too, using a piece of A1 paper and and an allocated about of selotape. I went for a triangular shape as it is classified as a strong structural shape. However, the design didn't work because the paper was too flexible and the structure was crushed under the weight of the water bottle. If I were to redesign this I would work on trying to make the paper stronger.

Rastaman Final Image: 6

This image is the final image of the story that embodies the resolution. Here Rastaman has reached enlightenment and the goat that dragged him to the top of the mountain is disappearing in the bottom righthand corner to reveal itself as a hallucination that embodied his own will power. However, it is not very clear that the goat is present in the image, but the viewer can clearly see that Rastaman has reached a more positive place and is at peace.