Wednesday 23 December 2015

The Unseen Christmas







Here are 6 of my favourite stills that I've taken so far. The top 2 are the ones that I referred to in my proposal and took before then. The contrast of both black/white and the components of each shot go together very well, emphasising the idea that what reinforces the joy of Christmas is the hard and daunting work building up to it, the vehicle components in particular since they are very structural and manufactured.

Wednesday 16 December 2015

Unseen Christmas Project Proposal

For the Unseen Christmas project, I aim to produce a series of photographs that explore the dark side of the festive season. When I went out Christmas shopping on Tuesday, I passed two things that caught my eye. The first was a Victorian house with black and white walls and support beams and a green mesh over the window on the top floor. I associated these things with feeling trapped and feeling bogged down by Christmas, green being a common colour around this time of year, as if there was somebody who didn't enjoy Christmas and felt like they couldn't get away from the darkness underneath.

The second thing I happened to pass was a broken down motorbike. The main chassis was black but the other components were white. I took note of this recurring contrast between black and white and thought to myself "If the front white bit of the motorbike is broken, the black looks as if it's slowly consuming and eating it up". I associated black with darkness and pain, while the white reflected the joy of snow and Winter; it's as if in order for people to enjoy Christmas for what it truly is, some people out there must go through lots of pain to make it that way.

My idea for the Unseen Christmas is to show through real-life everyday objects how one person's joy is another person's pain. This is the reality of the world that we live in, since without pain, we'd never get to experience pleasure, and I wish to make everybody aware of that through the power of photography as well as make them aware of the trouble that people go through to make the world a properly functioning place.

Tuesday 15 December 2015

Drawing Tutorial Website

I've found another website which is home to many amazing tutorials, only this time it's about physically drawing rather than PhotoShop techniques. howtodrawmangas.com has all sorts of amazing tips on drawing convincing figures and bringing some diversity into designing.

Friday 11 December 2015

RSA Animation Project: Dec 11 Crit with Seb

Today I got some really awesome feedback from Seb, even though he was slightly ill. He acknowledged that my final animation was pure awful, and his future advice included trying out a broader variety of facial expressions, and that while going over-the-top is okay, it's best to always rashen it down from there. Also if I want to make any more animation projects in the future, unless I want the style to be jittery, I need to draw out more frames.

Wednesday 9 December 2015

RSA Animation Project: Building Possible Futures


Here is the finished animation for the RSA Animation project and Progression Week. I think I failed to portray the narrator in the right/appropriate manner and I have decided to try and remake this as a comic strip. I feel like animation is a weak point for me because practically every time I fail to get the proportions or scale consistent and it just ends up looking wrong to me.

Friday 4 December 2015

Friday 4th December Crit: Notes To Future Self

Today at the Somerset House we all looked at each of our final outcomes for the Transcription project, and all together we gave our own feedback. Having got involved in this group discussion, I took down two notes that will be useful for future projects:

1. Think about your ideas more clearly. Most of the time, they are vague and simplistic, and you must consider how you want your audience to react.

2. Consider the colours you use a lot more. A certain colour will always give off a certain emphasis or put the viewer in a specific mood.

Monday 30 November 2015

Transcription Update: Ideas For Sound


The animation is all finished. Now all I need to do is add sound, which I propose to do in Premiere Pro.

Notes to future self when animating:

- Always draw each component over the background. That way, you'll get a better idea of structure, proportion and movement. The movement in this animation, while it is good, is rather dodgy and inaccurate.

Transcription Update: Animating Progress


Here is how far I've got on the movement of the actual animation. When I go on to make sound, it will be through either Audition or Premiere Pro.

I feel like the movement is okay, but what I think I should've done was drawn out more frames to better contribute to that. In the future if I happen to make any more animations, I shall always draw each component over the background, so that I have a better idea of where everything goes.

Friday 27 November 2015

Transcription Update: Background Characters


As was suggested to me during my crit last Friday, I am going to include crowds of people among the scenery. I think my problem though is that all of my characters look rather similar in height and appearance. If I knew my characters a lot better, then it would be easier to design them around the personality that they take on.

Wednesday 25 November 2015

RSA Animation Progress: Realisation Of Time

Much to my surprise, I have successfully sketched out the outlines for most of the frames of my animation for "Building Possible Futures". As of now I aim to have them all drawn out by tomorrow at midday, and tomorrow afternoon I can have a go at compositing them all and adding sound. This may continue into Friday morning.

As I've been working though, I feel as if there's something that's been holding me back, yet I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was. I've just now realised what it might be: the time. Yes, I am aware that we don't have to complete the entire thing by Friday, but with two other animations that I'm making that are currently in progress, as well as having to submit my UCAS application soon, I may not get another chance to further pursue it; this is why I aim to get it done by Friday, to make way for more important matters.
I love the sound of working with a client's idea and putting it to my own vision. Graphic novel illustration is the sort of thing I'd like to go into for a living, but for the most part I feel like I'm not good at writing, so I aim to collaborate with an author. This progression week project has been good so far because it really puts me to that test of working alongside someone who also has a particular vision, but one week doesn't feel like sufficient time to carry out research, make observational drawings and visual moodboards, design characters and settings for reference, and then make a complete storyboard out of that. I feel bad having only spent one day doing the storyboard. If I had three days at the very least, I would have more time to better think about what I'm making and keep refining it. The same applies to the entire project, in which it's best for things to gradually keep building up.

Tuesday 24 November 2015

Progression Week RSA Animation Progress



These will be the base of which I build my animation upon. I aim to have this finished by Friday, which is highly unlikely, even if it doesn't have any colour. So far I think this has been a good and fun project because it allows me to work to a professional standard and realise the needs of a client. I wish that it could be longer than one week though; that way, I'll have more time to think more about the ideas that I come up with and how they can be freshly conceived.

Monday 23 November 2015

Progression Week: RSA Animation




Here is how far the animation is coming along for my Progression Week brief. So far I have worked out the proportions of my main character, the setting, storyboards and items such as furniture and clothing. Tomorrow I aim to get started on drawing out the landscapes and hopefully start animating the figures. I know that we don't really need a FINAL final outcome for Friday, but it's still something I'd like to get done asap.

Transcription Animation Progress


I am starting to add extra people to serve as a crowd for my animation, since Andrew (the guy that did the sound workshop with us a while back) felt that my setting was too bleak/miniscule. If I add more people who closely resemble the simple man, it will make the hooded figure feel more and more small and isolated.

Friday 20 November 2015

Transcription Animation Progress





I've drawn out all the fundamental components; now all it takes is making things move and using the right colour.

Tuesday 17 November 2015

Project 3 - Transcription: Gallery Visits and Idea Generation









These are all rough sketches, annotations and observations taken yesterday from all of the gallery visits. My favourite out of all of them was the Julia Margaret Cameron exhibition at the Science Museum. While more of a photographer and less of an animator/illustrator, I loved the way that Cameron played with light and shading to give off a certain impression of a subject/person, as if to say that everyone has both a light and dark side. I like that idea of what lies on the surface is very different to what's underneath, which is what I want to try and accomplish for Project 3.

Saturday 14 November 2015

Who Are You? Final Piece Progress





Slow progress is better than no progress, as they say. I aim to have these finished by tomorrow and printed off in A3 by Monday morning. So far this project has been good at testing my ability to work towards deadlines.

Wednesday 11 November 2015

Who Are You? Progress






This is how I'm doing on my series of illustrations for the portrait project. I think that moodboards are not only good for visual references, but also for generating new and exciting design ideas. I always annotate my rough sketches aswell, so that when I go on to make the actual thing, I know where I can't go wrong.

While my sketches are coming along nicely, I still feel like I have trouble composing things out like they're meant to be a portrait. I love drawing detailed and scenic locations to symbolise a hidden meaning, something which I cannot do with just a figure.

Tuesday 10 November 2015

Who Are You? Idea Generation




Here is the initial planning and sketches for my portrait series thus far. I aim to produce at least 4 A3 drawings as my final outcome, which shall be backed up by moodboards, note taking and rough sketches with annotations.

Monday 9 November 2015

Cheesus Christ


A long time ago, long before your Uncle was born, a piece of cheese was floating through space, when all of a sudden it went crazy and just did a big bang. Because of scientific chemicals, all the planets such as Earth and Venice and the stars began to form, as you can see in the detailed photo above. On Earth, creatures began to form in the sea...the ice age happened...Vikings happened...Shakespeare happened...the Victorians happened...laptops happened and, well, here we are.

Friday 6 November 2015

One And All, Somerset House




















The One And All exhibition marks the 50th anniversary of the National Trust's dedicated programme to care for England's coasts. In 1965, John Betjeman wrote of the many threats to our coast in his poem One & All, from where the exhibition's title is derived: our relationship with the sea affects us all. Two leading artists - Tania Kovats and Martyn Ware - have worked with filmmaker Benjamin Wigley to create an online digital film journey through poetry, sound and film.

The first room shows a changing vista taken from Wigley's exploration of the many coastal landscapes cared for by the National Trust. Here, a series of shores are seen one by one, and they all differ greatly. They all range from being very calm to loud and roaring. There isn't a lot of information to go on, but the cinematic presentation of it gives us a clear idea that there were a lot of perspectives involved in the making of this exhibition, and that a lot of personal care and feeling has gone into it.

The second room was home to Martyn Ware's What Does The Sea Say?. Ware has vivid childhood memories of outings to the seaside from his home in Sheffield. His involvement in One & All was a portable beach hut where members of public could write on the wood inside their personal feelings towards the beach and the sea. Because of these personal expressions, the beach hut almost reminds me of an untouched box, a box that must never be opened because it contains something of precious value. As such, childhood is something that is precious to all of us, and having your thoughts enclosed in a small, desolate beach hut seems ideal if you are to keep them safe.

Also present was Kovats' bronze bell, which she casted with the travelling foundry Ore + Ingot at the autumn equinox on Porthcurno beach, Cornwall. However, I didn't find it particularly interesting since I can't say a lot about a bell.

One & All is small. Because it's small though, it feels more like an intimate personal expression that is precious to a certain group of individuals. The only commission that I found to be just remotely intriguing was Martyn Ware's beach hut, because there's a strong sense of narrative and personal exploration involved. Although it is a free exhibition I wouldn't highly recommend it due to it's lack of deep content in most places.

Source:

National Trust, Tania Kovats, Martyn Ware, Benjamin Wigley (2015) One and All [exhibition], Somerset House, London, 6 Nov 2015

Wednesday 4 November 2015

Who Am I? Animation Progress: Wednesday 4th November


Here I am adjusting the speed of each frame in PhotoShop's animation timeline. So far I think it's looking good, and as much as I want to complete it even after the deadline on Friday, I have other ideas on my mind that I would like to get on with, such as (Spoiler Alert!) my graphic novel series that I am currently writing.

Tuesday 3 November 2015

Who Am I? Animation Progress



Here is how far I've got on my animation so far. I aim to finish what I can on Wednesday, and then experiment with sound on Thursday, so that it is finished for Friday. Even if I don't meet the deadline, I still want to continue making it, since I find it to be quite fun.

Monday 2 November 2015

Who Am I? Animation: Creative Process






Here is the design process for the animation that I aim to produce by the end of Thursday. My idea developed rather naturally and I like the results that have come out of it, with the help of Tom Hooper's guides from Friday and my own storyboards, which led to some visual research. I have a bad feeling that Thursday may not be when I finish it (I aim to include sound aswell), but I'll give it all I've got!

Wednesday 28 October 2015

Taking Notes With Ian



Here are some notes and rough illustrations that I got from yesterday morning's lecture with Ian. Ian gave us all some good tips and advice on professional filming, and hopefully these shall come in handy when I make my own documentary.

Tuesday 27 October 2015

Documentary Planning




On Monday I began planning out how I would construct my documentary video. I included possible questions and interviewees which would help generate a flowing conversation. I have even considered taking on a variety of camera angles, so that the whole video won't be too boring or monotonous to sit through; it would also depend on who the interviewee is and how they appear to me.

That night I watched two documentary movies: The Miners Campaign Tape and WWE Unauthorised. As I watched, I took notes on how each shot stood out and what they each did to keep the entire thing consistent and fitting to the context. I now feel more prepared and know better which way to operate my camera for filming.