Palaver

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

This morning, Fred said 'at some point, technology will let you down.'

Thanks for that curse Fred! It's happened... 

I tried to print my house double-sided and even though the two pages were perfectly lined up in the Photoshop document, the printer knocked it majorly out of place because of the large border on the short edge for duplex handling.

MIKE FLOWER SAVED MY LIFE

well, my house at least. He took a look at my document and suggested that InDesign or Illustrator would be better suited for the paper handling. I went away and fiddled with it, Mike came back to check that it was working and we printed it and IT WORKED. Solved!

I'm running out of time there is SO MUCH TO DO

and the storyboarding briefing was brilliant, I want to get going with that but I need to finish my printed pictures work for wednesday to be digitally printed downstairs!

Virginia Blinks

Virginia Clemm from Jay Stelling on Vimeo.

Using Toggle Keyframe - this holds the transformation between keyframes so that it jumps to the repeat. Works like stop-motion.

A POEM FOR POE

House Number 3,

North Amity Road

The place where Edgar

 And his family stowed

Climb up the narrow stairs

To your cold, dark room

See the desk at which Poe

Would write Ulalume

A black cat on the doorstep,

A pendulum inside

Down to the cellar

Where a tell-tale heart cried

A raven’s caw, a knock at the door

The mysterious house still stands

 In Baltimore.

PAPER BIRD TEST

Paper Bird Test from Jay Stelling on Vimeo.

MOVING PICTURES Study Task 4

THIS IS THE BRIEF I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR
I'm so interested in Animation at the moment. My work is often created with the intention of MOVING at some point (articulated dolls/puppets, scenes), so it is really exciting to finally get the chance to MAKE IT MOVE. I want my illustrations to have LIFE and now here is a brief in which I get to create that life and motion.

Moving characters

Do I have to make it all in After Effects? I'm impressed with the things that can be done using After Effects and enjoyed making crazy pans and applying properties to the objects, but can I make the characters/puppets/scenes SEPARATELY and use After Effects simply to bring it all together in layers?

Can I use stop motion and PHYSICAL puppets?

Extend your Printed Pictures aesthetic into moving pictures!

A short sting/advert for a documentary about your author
Could I do it as an advertisement for the Poe House in Baltimore? I've been learning about and making work about Poe's location, his house in Baltimore, which is now a museum. I think it would be appropriate for my sting to reference the house as the animated short is likely to be conceptualised around the work I have done about THE HOUSE and SPOOKY SCENES.

I intend to recreate Poe's mysterious MOOD AND IMPACT in my moving pictures.

Carson Ellis

The Wildwood Chronicles Book Trailer - Carson Ellis. This was one of the examples shown in the briefing and I found it utterly enchanting.
Colin Meloy's fantastical folklore storytelling is illustrated by Carson Ellis's intricate paper worlds. A marriage of nature and whimsy creating a 2 dimensional land of wonder.

Ellis's rich scenes are translated to moving image through the use of After Effects, using layers to build up the depth of a dense forest with foreground through to background. Each of the assets are separate layers, able to move independently from the background.
Panning is used to move the audience through the woods - we are moved through the trees as the frame scans further left. We move deeper into the woods through zooming closer. The under layers become foreground as we zoom towards them.

There is so much going on in this animation, which could easily make it overwhelming, but since the movements are all subtle and natural, it means that the overall motion is immersive and inviting.
The viewer is transported into Wildwood and left with a taste for the stories, just as a teaser should. Not giving everything away, but flirting with a promise of what is to come.

Directed by Aaron Sorenson.

Although this credits sequence doesn't have the depth and physicality to it that I love about The Boxtrolls films, it does use digital animation very cleverly to illustrate the ideas of the film.
Rotation and position communicates falling down - action packed and adventure.

Type overlays the animation, using the dark spaces and forms in the images as to add to the scene rather than take over.

Definitely not all After Effects but such a spooky tone and mood!
Similar in atmosphere/tone to my intentions

Made to LOOK OLD - grain, camera wobble, flickering light, black and white filter. Jittery camera, distortion.

Elsewhere, The Survivors from Ali Aschman on Vimeo.

Paper puppets - disturbing. Separate parts for limbs and joints - I could make my characters in parts and then put them back together on-screen.

Dontshare from gianluca maruotti on Vimeo.

Uses layers to create depth. Lots of houses on different layers moving at different speeds.

Bird movement - I am considering using a raven/crow in mine so I need to study how this artist has made the bird come to life. It moves very quickly and the wings move in a 'V' formation - up and down.

Still scenes with only a few things moving, creates a sombre and melancholy tone. E.g. curtains moving in the wind.
Same beginning and end - circular, narrative, emotional.

Giangrande - Paper Plane (Official Video) from gianluca maruotti on Vimeo.

The artist makes paper puppets - uses blu tac to stick paper down, stay in place.

USED AFTER EFFECTS IN THE WOODS SCENE - the same scene of trees, but panning across seamlessly, as though the woods are never-ending

wheels spinning on anchor points

Sea coming up, same texture repeated and layered

NEST ISSUE 10 SUBMISSION - FOCUS

Just a tiny brief to get the ball rolling. I received a call for submissions email from NEST and realised that this would be good practise to get me warmed up into the flow of Responsive.

THE BRIEF IS TO SUBMIT ARTWORK IN RESPONSE TO THE WORD 'FOCUS'

The broad spectrum of work in NEST means that my models/puppets would be welcome.

THE REWARDS OF THIS BRIEF:

Some exposure, example of my work being published in print

THE CHALLENGES OF THIS BRIEF WOULD BE:

graphic design, typography (not experienced/skilled in)

Haven't read the book

THE APPEAL TO ME:

QUICK, easy (not the way I would usually approach a brief, I much prefer longer and more commitment to a brief but I think that I need to start responding since we have a crit coming up and the Roald Dahl brief will be a big project that I haven't got much to show for yet)

Successes:

Does it answer the brief?

Yes. It responds to the word 'FOCUS'

Things to Improve:

I didn't rough or plan this response. Since it was only a very quick brief and I didn't have much time at all to prepare, I just took a doll I had already made and took several photos. There was no clever concept or research involved in the process of answering this brief, so the idea is very obvious and boring - a camera for 'FOCUS'.

Very quick response, should have made the camera myself, but I just used a little toy one I had in my drawer. 

I don't think my tone of voice was appropriate for this publication. My work is usually aimed at an intended audience of children and that's who I enjoy making work for, so the outcomes I produced might not be relevant for the readership: students and artists.

I'm not particularly proud of this. It's a nice photo but it has no real message behind it and it was made just for the sake of entering a competition, which isn't really what this module is about.

However, it has given me experience in quickly responding and sending off my work.

RESPONSIVE SUPPORT GROUP

First peer review for Responsive:

We got to choose our own groups (maybe not the best choice, since we're already friends and won't want to dishearten/offend/criticise HONESTLY?)

Working with Megan Swan, Polly and Alicja.

Initial discussion as to HOW MUCH WORK IS ENOUGH WORK.

Hard to establish which briefs are substantial and which are smaller briefs.

Swan has chosen to do ALL THREE PENGUIN BRIEFS. Sound rationale for why she wants to do these; interested in book design, has enjoyed book cover projects before, enjoys reading. She has therefore decided to spend a lot of time with these briefs. The Penguin briefs could be individual, shorter, smaller briefs, but Swan is putting in what she wants to get out of them so I think this is the right path for her. She wants them to be substantial projects so she is spending a substantial amount of time on them.

Variation - Swan's wondering whether she needs to do a few smaller, different briefs so that she has a wider variety for the MODULE submission. Maybe Illustration Friday - some little briefs that can be done when she has a spare few hours - but her focus is on PENGUIN.

Swan's timetabling is really structured and planned! I need to do this! Allocated four weeks for each brief, including time for research, concept development, thumbnails, roughing, reviewing, refining, printing and submitting her work.

Polly's practice is more design-centred, so she has chosen a D&AD brief, HASBRO Games design.

She thought that we had to pick at least 5 briefs, so had taken on a lot more work than she needed to, because she thought she had to in order to pass the module.

We helped Polly to narrow down her choices. The D&AD brief was going to be a lot of work, especially since Polly isn't collaborating for this big task and she wants to take it all the way to production (the brief doesn't say that it needs to be made, just designed), so she has decided that she needs to pick smaller briefs instead of more BIG ones.

A question of PASSION: she picked the Greetings Card design brief because this is something she's passionate about and FAMILIAR with. Although she wants to do more character design and narrative illustration, we came to the conclusion that the Roald Dahl brief might be too much work to take on alongside the HASBRO brief.

Alicja was struggling to choose which of the briefs she wanted to do. She was yet to find any briefs that she were suited to her practice. After listening to my ideas for the Roald Dahl brief, Alicja thought this might be something she could work on.

She wasn't familiar with the author but I know that it's right up her street. REQUIRES RESEARCH.

My main dedication is the ROALD DAHL brief, which I will be spending a lot of time on -starting now and working up to the week before the deadline. A project I know I will enjoy and I know that I work well with LONG PROJECTS.
I want to do some little briefs too. I'd already looked at the Art Doll Quarterly magazine submissions, but after seeing others in the room with little briefs already completed, I've decided that I need to find even more little briefs to keep me busy and enter into a variety of different briefs.

TIMETABLING
GET IT DONE, STELLY.