02/04/2020: I decided to experiment with some audio today, using polka music from YouTube and editing it on Audacity. Video put together with Animate It and Microsoft video editor.

Please view my full showreel on the 3rd post! 

Installation Film idea

I became interested in installation film after seeing a work called ‘Ou est Charlie?’ at a Brighton Graduate show.

Click keep reading for more explanation of this idea- 

For this idea, it would use three spaces that lead onto each other. First, a corridor that has an immersive soundscape, and sheets separating each section with projected video clips onto it. This would represent the journey of styles through the past (probably 20s, 50-60s and 70s) 

Secondly, the main room (see above illustration) would feature a smaller video played on an old TV (a satirical tv show consistently interrupted by beauty advertisements) alongside interactive elements such as wire try on masks, altering mirrors and parody books. 

Lastly, there would be an almost secret room- possibly one that can only be seen through gaps in the main room walls. This room represents the overwhelming presence of media and industry, with images flashing everywhere and covering every inch of the space. Alternately, the viewer could walk directly into this room to be further immersed.

Showreel

Artist influences include: Tomas Mankovsky (Blink), Disney, Candace Reckinger, PEZ, Aardman, Gillian Anderson (’The Depature’) and Terry Gilliam. 

DISCLAIMER: The first animation in this video was not filmed by me. My roles were: concept and editing (Greenscreen and pre-sets) 

All other animations are made by me. Animations were filmed with Animate IT or made with Adobe Animate. Editing was done primarily with Microsoft video editor including the free music and the title slides, and some presets from Adobe Premier Pro

Current project: Concept Development and Initial Research

Some examples of my most recent sketchbook and my thought processes: 

Current project: Character one; Childhood vs Adulthood

Current project: Character two; ‘The Lost Voice’

The idea for this piece is to combine the theme of ‘the News’ (realism) with magical elements. This is inspired by Carol Ann Duffy’s poem: Loud; in which a woman gets so angry at the news that her voice ‘rips’ from her throat, growing more and more powerful. 

The first scene will take place in a living room, with a theme and satire similar to Ed Bulmer (’British Bombs’ music video) I plan to cut between scenes of the character watching the news with her family to frames of her in isolation with a news cut-outs collage background. Eventually, the character will boil in anger and scream. Switching to a side profile, a 2-D cut out bird will fly out of her mouth and into a fairy-tale style labyrinth. As a play on the phrase ‘losing your voice’, the main character now must venture to rediscover her own. 

(Click below to see clay model process inc upper wire armature)

Memento

For this cut-out animation I was inspired by Terry Gilliam, as well as John Stezaker. I researched Erik Erikson’s eight stages of life and interviewed the person featured in the animation on different aspects of their identity. I decided to make the animation about their mental health; ‘losing a part of themselves for a while’ 

What Remains? Project

Based on the play ‘Streetcar Named Desire’ by Williams, I am especially interested in the translation of plastic theatre.  

Photography taken at a dockyard, in the process of deciding on a theme for the project. I really the ‘cause and effect’ narrative to some of the shots, and may later return to do some filming here. 

Creative Writing example

The pale grey sky contrasted against the dense green and purple palette of the trees. As if it was a picture, dull, yet life crept on its edges. A force was soon to edge its way into the lives of four strangers and change the fates they had accepted.

In the centre of the picture lay a figure, their back flat against the rough, coarse grass, almost as lifeless as the scene itself. Dressed in a deep vermillion smock, brown hair braided into long twists which fell about the grass like the roots of a tree. The only movement in her being the inhalation of the air; the smell of freshly cut grass, of recently wet soil and the scent which exploded from the buttercups which survived the mowing. She slowly, leisurely felt the grass with her fingertips, twisting one finger around the stem of a surviving flower, pulling it from its imminent grave. She brought the cadium petals close to her eyeline, inspecting it, memorising its shape. A childhood saying flooded her memory and she whispered it into the breeze. The soft yellow reflected itself into the brown burrow of her neck. “Do you like butter?” She smiled “I like it too”

How funny it was, she thought, the way we used to derive such pleasure from something so small. How nature was appreciated for what it was; it’s raw beauty, rather than what it could become. How perfect this moment, she wished to freeze it. Then carry it around in her pocket, a precious reminder.

A siren gently urged itself into her soundscape but grew louder with every second that passed. She felt the Earth shift beneath her fingers and cursed silently. Tucking the buttercup into her sock, she briefly looked up at the sad summer picture: the sky had blackened, oh how she missed sunsets, and night was decidedly now.

Animation/Direction Techniques research

Set Design experiment

I wanted to play around with the idea of dual narrative and dramatic irony. The colour scheme links to the Gillian Anderson ‘Street Car’ adaptation, and similarly reminds me of Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola’s “Prada Candy L’eu” advertisement.

Film and interactive elements in galleries

In January I was lucky enough to go to Amsterdam, and I was inspired by the amazing variety of film/installation film! During these exhibitions I watched a humorous documentary about interaction while interacting with the same objects within that space, I used a smart tablet and navigated an interactive maze, and I had my senses heightened in an immersive room (included drinking something, the floor shaking and intense light display) 

Visiting The Eye Museum: History of moving image

I fangirled very much so after seeing the magic lantern I had studied in my ‘History of Animation’ textbook in person, and it has provided me a much better understanding of the workings behind Roberton’s ‘Phantasmagoria’. And a daedalum/zoetrope!

Fashion Promotion

Visual Communication

Some of the materials I used for these works include: Magazine cuttings, photocopies of a 1933 film pictorial, a print out of a painting by Mark Ryden, photography,a circus pamphlet, tissue paper, bubble wrap, a dollar bill, streamers and bubble wrap.

A commentary on the economical and environmental issues of today, with satirical elements.

Fashion Photography

Reflection photography: I chose to include this photo because I really love the composition and the narrative it provides

Excerpt from Beauty in Art Essay

‘Beautiful’ is an adjective often associated with people, art and nature, but is there a universal definition for the term beauty? The oxford dictionary defines beauty as either ‘A combination of qualities, such as shape, colour, or form that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight ’or ‘a beautiful woman’[1]. The term ‘beautiful woman’ is certainly not a universal definition, because from years ago in history to now the term has meant and represented different standards as often represented in art. During the Renaissance, a full figure represented motherhood and so was desired, as well as pale skin which signified wealth because they did not have to work hard labour.[2] The Roaring Twenties introduced a slim, ‘boyish’ figure and short hair, the art deco movement and new found freedom for women following The Suffrage- yet fuller figures became popular again in the fifties, before ‘thin was in’ again a decade later thanks to the model ‘Twiggy’[3] From my research and gallery visits it is evident that beauty standards have been going around in circles for the last century, which leads me to question if a constant diversity and freedom in the beauty industry will ever be attainable.

Nowadays, it can be considered that we embrace a much greater diversity than we ever have before, for all genders, however there is still a way to go to improve the diversity of beauty in the industry. Within my own work I want to criticise the concept of selling and manufacturing beauty both presently and throughout the ages, and satirically respond to adverts and artworks that idealise a singular standard- such as adverts from a 1933 film pictorial and the Pre-Raphaelites obsession with a model/image. In the second half of my work I want to look at inspiring artists and models, and more personally, explore the meaning of beauty in my own life and for those close to me. Throughout this project I have been investigating the significance of beauty in present day by asking those I know to provide their own definition of beauty.

I am going to explore the correlation between beauty and art, and the influence they have upon each other; for example the developing art movements in response to the social change (such as Heian Japan’s ‘Fujiwara era’, the ‘art deco’ of the 1920s, the Guerrilla Girls and other modern artists responses to both old and new beauty standards in our society

[1] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/beauty

[2] https://www.littlethings.com/beauty-through-the-ages/

[3] https://theminiskirtrevolution.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/from-twiggy-to-kate-moss-a-revolutionary-example-for-todays-top-models/