Evalution

1. What skills have you developed through this module and how effectively do you think you have applied them?

This module has definitely helped me to manage my time better. I got the ball rolling very early on in what I wanted to try and convey and how I wanted to go about it, because i had been thinking about the final piece for a little bit of time. This helped me just to get on and decide in terms of presentation and portraying a message in the right and most effective tone. Oppose to other projects I was able to spend more time creating effective research ideas and not worrying about were exactly I was heading at a late stage. As a result i was able to spend more time editing and playing with the final piece, letting my final cut and computer based skills develop as a result. Even with problems such as loosing all my work a week before hand in, I was able to work effectively with what I had to try and bring the project back to the same standard and even learn from my technical mistakes this time.

2. What approaches to/methods of research have you developed and how have they informed your design development process?

The whole project has helped me think more about what i want to be in my graphic career. Although I really enjoyed working with animation and developing this theme in a longer 5 week project, I did somehow miss a bit more creatively. It has helped me to see that maybe Im a bit more of a problem solver than I thought and that I like to create solutions for concepts oppose to following them through.

3. What strengths can you identify in your work and how have/will you capitalize on these?

Its definetly humerous. That is something i thought i have always had. Editing and whiteness is something ive really enjoyed working with.

4. What weaknesses can you identify in your work and how will you address these more fully?

The camerawork has definitely let me down again in the stop motion. I took many variations but was having a lot of problems with getting a light balance right. In the future i need to work on this.


5. Identify five things that you will do differently next time and what do you expect to gain from doing these?

. if working with stop motion, I will spend longer working with photography as It makes a big difference to the work

. i will learn to save work effectively, as this ruined my timetable of work

. i will get more variations of everything so I have many options to choose from... eg/ audio/photography

. i will make more story boards as they most effectively show my thought process throughout

. i will use crits more effectively. I didn't manage to get a lot of feed back for this module from my course mates and i think it was a necessity as I can not really judge how effective it looked. It got to a point were I had been editing for so long that i didn't no how humorous anything was, and needed my peers to rate my work. This is vital for next time. Especially with longer projects.

6. How would you grade yourself on the following areas:

5 = excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average, 1 = poor

Attendance 5

Punctuality 5

Motivation 4

Commitment 3

Quantity of work produced 3

Quality of work produced 4

Contribution to the group 5

Brothers Quay- where have you been all my life

New animation forwarded to me through a friend in which I feel is something id really like to have a little dive into. Most of their films feature dolls similar to my work in 'what's a line', often disassembled or destroyed, in a dark, moody atmosphere. This is something Im still yet to try. A piece which purpose isn't to inform or make an audience laugh but simply to scare or terrorize.

The hand made sets and use of surfaces such as this grassy effect which is shown in this animation, is something very hard to conquer with stop motion. I like it.

On top of that the typography Is just beautiful at the beginning. Type isn't really something that would normally attract me but i felt this stood out and is completly appropriate for the sinister tone that is trying to be shown.

Development of the final piece

Still debating parts of the concept, Im finding it hard to make the interviews look authentic and well made.


Heres a trial I did that took quite a few hours to be honest. Not quite a waste of time because I now no how important the position of the camera is and how it cant look too jittery otherwise the focus just shakes much like this version did:

Inspiring me. Quimby the Mouse

So thinking about what has made me think about using the audio I had combined with the visuals, I briefly looked back at an animation I had seen a little while ago by Chris Ware. My favorite of his work is a animation called Quimby the Mouse. its a very dark short animation of two mouses, one of which has no body and the other abuses it. In a Tom and Jerry like short film, Quimby really has made me think about what an audience likes to see and whats funny. for my sense of humor i found this hysterical although looking at other peoples comments they found this Punch and Judy like bater a little offensive and didn't want to watch.

This is one of his animations with a voice over. The simplicity of each object is very effective and definitely gives Chris Ware his style


His work also influenced Frank King (creator of Gasoline Alley) which is definitely worth a quick watch.

Slight change

Loosing a lot of my imagery due to bad saving technique on the uni computers, i then had to start re-photographing the shots, so I decided to go all out and try creating slightly different lighting and imagery. Turning some of the lights off and getting a torch out helped me to create a much more "interview" like effect. it worked, so could potentially use it for the final thing.

Although this lighting and tone looked slightly better, it was taken at my flat oppose to the studio were the majority of the first images were taken. they look slightly better and the context is a little more appropriate.


As Im unable to post the link of the similar work of creaturew comforts on my blog, here is the link for it:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3AAdkfiamU

Getting there.....

Just over a week until I have to give in my final piece. So on one hand Im panicking and wondering why I spent so long deciding the exact questions I wanted and how I wanted the piece to generally look. Then on the other hand Im wondering why Im feeling so anxious because actually.... I seem to somehow know what Im doing and I do have enough time to completly edit it all.
My feeeling has compeltly changed about this project. Due to my persistancey in trying to make the audio carry the whole piece and making it strickly proffesional, the rest just all seemed to fit into it.

Problems with recording voices on the mac made me for the first time venture to parts of the college I had never quite gone before. The digital dungeon allowed me to record audio using a very effective microphone. The new audio and sound quality did take a long time to figure out and try and work in correlation with my lap top, but ended up being completly worth while.

The general relaxed attitude I had whilst interviewing the characters worked a lot better too as the interviewee's were more at ease and less aware that it was an interview this time round. A calm chatty vibe let the characters ramble on for quite a long time in some cases, just making the general audio fairly hysterical to listen to.

So now with fresh new excitement for the task and a calmer and more determined work attitude towards this, I am able to finally settle down and enjoy playing with my stop motion.

Many problems occurring

So i literally only have a week to make this stop motion due to a bit too much research of what looks effective and a change of direction in terms of meaning and content. Now Ive hit a bit of a brick wall where it comes to the whole piece being put together and the final piece making sense and understandable. I will once again have to backtrack and find a simple and effective way of creating the question answer style audio and visuals that i was originally going to use. Perhaps a quick simple visual created in photoshop or illustrator could be an effective way of bringing it in. This would directly answer the brief in a more obvious way as the questions are put right in front of the audience and simply and effectively shown in a visual way.

After starting to figure out how to create a successful animation using a combination of the imagery and audio I had collected, I then began organizing the quotes and dividing them into the appropriate sections.
To make the video clear and understandable to the audience I wanted to literally spell out the questions. I then began to work a little more with the text. Trials and errors with different colors and text formats made me think of the piece as a whole a bit more. I eventually kept the type simple and just made everything plain and simple.

Heres a little montage of the questions and type before being edited into the final piece:

course I put some awesome music with it!





The tone of the piece is directed in a humorous and quirky way visually interesting for the first year graphics. Light hearted and intersting type is important for this task so after this first test run I decided i needed to try harder in making some funky interesting type.

Start of the interviews

First attempt at my audio.

I found it was too distorted and now clear enough. Need to find a quieter place to do it with the interviewee closer to the microphone too.

Ive not tryed useing any imagery for the visuals. The audio was the main focus for this.

Which ones work the best?

Testing out the objects of which ones work the best, I put all the tests of what I had already got into one video to see how effective each one is. I definitely found through doing this that the pencil case worked very well as a "mouth" type image. This will be used.

New love

Finding the prodigy's "Warrior's Dance" is probably the highlight of my week. It says on the site I found it on (its nice that), that its made from stop motion however I think digital animation would definitely have been used too.

Kates one to watch:

Plan of action

Complete breakdown of the brief:

TASK= To identify and answer key questions bout what is actually needed stationary-wise on the first couple of weeks at college through a humorous and upbeat way.

HOW= Stop motion. Objects interviewed in an answer and question type fashion with the object having a direct relation to the context of the question asked.. Film sorted into two sections:

. opening music based sequence introducing audience to the studio
. then camera focusing into the objects for interveiw.

AUDIENCE= Freshers for the graphics year one ba course.



What now?


Effectively less then two weeks left for the final product to be finished. I want all the filming/audio done by this friday so there's room for certain aspects to be changed such as the questions which are being asked as their relevance and purpose is the most vital aspect of my piece and effectively needs to be confirmed from other opinions as being completly relevant.

Small plan for week:

Today. prepare for shooting tomorow. Get the poster wih welcomes the camera in at the begining. Get audio done. Interveiw Charlotte, Mitch and anyone else intersted.

Tomorow. Film the sequences. Get into college early to film the object in the surrounding without the rest of the class there to ruin the context of the shots.
In evening- film the opening sequence to get the studio isolated.

Wednesday. Start editing.

Thursday. Editing

Friday = crit


Heres some of the question and answers in which im intending to involve in the piece. The audio will hopefully be unplanned but I have a simple script put together to ensure i will get the relevant information out of the characters.

Script

Character 1

. So what did you bring on the first day/ week?
To be completely honest with you, I came on the first day with nothing apart from my wallet and my phone. I found out later in the week when we were actually doing activities and work, that I needed at least a pencil case or something. Then I wouldn’t have to keep borrowing my mates.

.How often do you use the library?
Well not very often because ive already got my local. I hear its fun there though and really busy on a Monday night.
NO NO
Not the pub, I mean the college library!
Oh . That library. Ye that’s open most of the time. And its defiantly worth using it on the first couple of weeks just to get a feel of it. Its good to get familiar with were it is on the first couple of weeks so you can use it to you’re advantage for as many projects necessary.

Character 2

.What stationary do you need on the first week?
Well I brought:
.a ruler
.a pen
.5 different colored biros
.a rubber
. a sharpener
. a notepad
.my Mac
.erasers
.pencils
.colored pencils
But what did you actually need?
Oh. A notepad and pen.

Character 3

Is a Mac really a necessity?
No definitely not. The college is already full of Mac’s and even a couple in the studio. However if you are looking to purchase a computer soon, Macs are the most common and best equipped for anyone in the design and creative field. So get that if your looking anyways.

Speaking from experience

So the new project was beginning to develop. A change of plan for what I was intending to answer in the brief was now apparent. The direction I was originally heading toward with helping with location and stress in the first week, has now changed to helping with vital necessities for the first week. Equipment was specified so I've decided to similarly use the same kind of theme with the imagery, and show a direct link between the two.
The plan now is to create an Creature Comforts type animation, with simple question and answer type audio. The audio is so I can unlike the other work I have done, keep the imagery simple but effective.

I began to start investigating how the objects in question (literally), would work by movement. I found good lighting and thin string was good when trying to move part of an object. I made a test run and put a song on the background just to see how well it would work. Turns out, not very well.



Creature comforts is made in a similar stop motion way, by that Aardmin Animation company I love so much. However my work will not look as character based as their because I will be using simple objects oppose to clay.

In need of a partner

Especially since investigating me as a graphic designer, I have now seen and found that I would really like to find a partner. I need someone to bounce ideas off with an opinion and critical point of view to help me develop my ideas in the stop motion and video field. I feel at this point in graphics when Im finding obsessions its importnat to try and push that.

Heres a really original and impressive stop motion a friend found, that to be honest is really making me want someone to work with to a greater extent.

IF YOURE OUT THERE COME FIND ME!


please

kate as a Designer....

I USED TO BE:

Lazy- my resurch had no resurch and facts. Just explored ideas that I found visually exiting and fun. I was also a lot more pretentious. I believe this was due to me wanting to find out for myself what Im good at creating in visual terms and not just that I was clueless in terms of my content and meaning. On the foundation course I felt this was actually considered secondary in terms of what is important. Now I am on a degree, I feel that my effort to investigate and therefore create a point of view or opinion with understanding, is a lot more vital and appreciated, and actually, is something Im getting quite good at.

I AM NOW:

Obsessed with parts of graphics. Reluctant to handcraft projects, which is good in terms of forcing me to use programs such as illustrator and photoshop, but bad in terms of exploring what I am good at and imporoving my presentation skills. Presentation is definetly something which I need to work on. From drawing to screen printing, I find it very hard to complete a succesful work of art. Screen printing is the hardest one at this point so I will try and include this in an upcoming project. Hit the nail on the head!

WHEN IM OLDER i WILL BE:

. Always in the no of what's going on around me, in terms of music, film and art. Important to the work produced.

. Upbeat work. I dont want to spend my life creating warning campaigns and ugly imagery just for effect. Although these kinds of campaigns are important, i dont want to let my work depress me or to get too involved in the meaning. It can sometimes just make me very emosional!

. Work that doesn't contradict any of my beliefs. I would never want to necessarily make a new campaign or logo for a MacDonnals advert, as it is against my religions and belief, despite me occasionally eating there! Something that would offend my family and friends and make me feel bad for producing, I want to stay well clear of.

Animation

I Met the Walrus

Found a new animation thats given my an idea for my project. So maybe I could record the advise given from my class. With their quotes and audio information based on John Lenon, I began to think about how this time, in this animation I could use perhaps the advise or description of the class. Basing my imagery on simplistic objects I could effectively use some sort of completly opposite and contrapuntal ideas.

5 artists I would like to potentially relate to my project

Spin
Posted by Alex27 April 2009




Blank Canvas
Posted by Will27 April 2009



James Jarvis and Richard Kenworthy



Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie