Development

Evaluation

Overall with our final piece I am happy with the outcome. We have shown experimental ideas and how the visual aspect can work with sound. I think the way we have created our final piece works really well with our sounds as we could be experimental and add different aspects and shapes into it connecting it with the sound even more. Overall in this project I have learnt more about sound and how it works with the visual content to create a film. I have learnt about lots more animation artists who are no the ‘normal’ animation artists who look at such as Disney, but others of which who it was very interesting to look at and see how they created their animations using what techniques. In researching these it has brooded my knowledge of animation techniques and how they are used in conveying messages through sound and visual.
I am glad we went with this abstract idea as Its different from what I have done before where I have concentrated on a particular and storyline instead of going for something that doesn’t follow a story but has freedom and isn’t controlled so can flow and go with ideas and things that happen as I animate. Experimenting with this idea has also informed me as I have learnt about how abstract pieces can look really good and work very well with sound, also how they can be manipulated and worked on to sync in with the music. This is why we did not create a storyboard for our final piece, as although we had a ruff idea as to what we wanted, there wasn’t a specific story or narrative that was could pre plan as we wanted to react to the music as it was playing not planning the actions but giving freedom to the music. We wanted to give a very experimental piece showing our reactions and thoughts to the music through abstraction.

Ideas Developing 3

After filming our footage we then went into to city campus to start adding in the 2D elements of it. As we had issues in adding the shots into flash because they were such big files Dan was made role of the compositor and put the shots into after effects made the footage last for the correct amount of time that it had to be (1m30s) and then exported it so that me and Nicky could work on it in flash. To make the length of the video fit the time frame we had to slow down the shots, which at first we didn’t think was going to work and make it very jittery but it actually still worked and looked good, not being too slow to show the jitteriness of each frame but having the stop motion create effect.
Me and Nicky then worked on the piece in flash taking to turns to work on a piece, creating paint splatters with the music.
Because of the time shortage we had with creating this piece, and also because the final piece looked good with the flash images we decided to abandon the idea of the stop-motion shapes and just stick to what we had as I worked with the sound well already so we were comfortable and happy with leaving it as it was. Dan then had the role of the compositor.

Ideas Developing 2

When speaking to our lecturer he first mentioned about how we could add a elements to our film so that it was black and white and then when the beats of the music came in or certain parts that stood out, colour would jump in and stand out from the black and white background, such as in Shinders List (A holocaust film created in 1993 by Steven Spielberg) and many photographers. But when coming to look at the piece once it had been created we decided that It actually looked good with the colour in there from the beginning as the colour was a main part in what we had created and had made sure looked and acted differently in the art work, taking this away would make it very boring and plain and the way it was at the moment was very bright and colour and also had character to it. Although I liked the idea I did think it wouldn’t work out with our final outcome, as we initially didn’t know how it was going to turn out.

Ideas Developing

So with filming planned for the Sunday we needed to get some paint and paper to use as the canvas. As a group we decided to do it at my flat because of the distance and easiness it was for all of our group to get there. As we started to set up for filming and was looking at camera positions we thought that instead of live action filming it we would stop motion each movement that Nicky made with the paintbrush putting paint onto the canvas. This would give it another animation effect and create a smooth but surreal look to make it flows and look creative, working with the way the paint would layer up on the page and how it could be captured. With me doing the filming instead of trying to take one frame at every moment I timed it so that with each action she did I held down the shot button on the camera which sent off continuous shots capturing every action that she did from starting to throw the paint to the paint being on the paper. I though as well as adding to the creative effect it would also leave an element of surprise to the piece as I didn’t know what the camera was going to capture as I had no control on what I could see it was going to take. But this was interesting as in some frames you see Nicky painting and in others the paint just appears as Nicky is put of the frame. In a certain shot you actually see her coming and working into the piece of work which we contemplated taking out because you couldn’t see the painting but looking over the footage it worked well and showed the graduation of the piece. As filming went on during the day other idea came to mind including the Gotye idea, which we though of as we were getting covered in paint!!

Gotye- Somebody I used to know

When filming our video Nicky came up with the an inspirational idea from this video by Gotye, Somebody I used to know about including it into our piece. I thought this was a good idea as I think our piece needed a bit of breaking up as it was very similar all the way through. So adding this would give it another view of abstraction and add to the visual qualities. We could also play around with how it to link to the sound and how it blended in with the mood and colour of the piece.

Jackson Pollock

1912-1956 American Painter

He was well know for his unique style of drip painting.
Influenced by Benton’s regionalist style and by Ryder, and later by the Mexican mural painters and Picasso. His involvement with gestural painting, inspired partly by the sand painting of the American Indians and partly by Surrealism, culminated in his use from 1947 of a technique of dripping trails of paint onto a canvas laid flat on the floor. Painted a number of works in black and white in 1951-2, many with re-emerging imagery of anatomical motifs, etc.

This is a video showing how Pollock creates his famous drip painting work using large sheets of canvas and paint.

“My painting does not come from the easel. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting.I continue to get further away from the usual painter’s tools such as easel, palette, brushes, etc. I prefer sticks, trowels, knives and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass or other foreign matter added.When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It is only after a sort of ‘get acquainted’ period that I see what I have been about. I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well.” —Jackson Pollock, My Painting, 1956

When looking into Pollock’s work It related to our ideas quite well as he is also a very abstract artist. Using paint to splatter onto a large canvas and letting the paint do as it wants gave a very free effect to his paintings, although he was in control of the paintbrush and where it was going, the way the paint splattered across the canvas was very loose and creative, allowing a sense of freedom come to his paintings but with intentions still there. I like the way in which the paint crossed each other layering up layer after layer of imagery and colour to create pieces of work that have a sense of imagination to them. Looking into Pollock’s work made us think about the techniques in which we could put paint onto our canvas, such as using sticks and other materials, as Pollock used brush’s, sticks and even basting syringes as paint applicators. His technique of pouring and dripping paint is thought to be one of the origins of the term action painting. In doing this he was able to achieve a more immediate means of creating art, the paint literally flowing from his chosen tool onto the canvas. With this in mind we thought about how we could create our piece. We wanted to use paint brushes to give an bold effect but also maybe use our hands to give an obscured effect and using the brush’s in different ways such as flicking and splatting with the paint depending on the mood of the music, some applicators bolder than others. I found his work very inspiring and after seeing his work at the TATE Modern myself I know how influential his work is in a gallery, a massive piece in a room which draws attention to the viewers eye, the busy effect of all the paint on the canvas attracting onlookers to see what it is.

Norman Mclaren- Dots

“Animation is not the art of drawings that move but the art of movements that are drawn”.

“Dots” was made by painting directly onto clear frames of film. Interestingly, the music was created in the same way, painting directly into the area on the film strip usually reserved for the soundtrack.

This film created by Norman McLaren in 1940, shows an arrangement of dots manipulating and changing to the sound of the music. I watched this film which was first shown to us in one of our early soundscape projects, as It related to the kind of animation we wanted to do for our final soundscape piece. Creating an abstract piece of artwork we thought that the music would work better with the visuals as over complicating things may distract from the purpose that we were trying to convey. With dots, it gave us inspiration with how we could show bold shapes at times when the beat of the music came in or if there was a certain part of the music that stood out from the rest. Because it used simplistic shapes and was quite simple in a way we also thought this a good idea as I wouldn’t be too time consuming and complicated for the time we had but would still be very effective and show our reaction to the piece of music we’d been given. I like this piece because as I said before it doesn’t over complicated things, it reacts to the music and highlights the key beats, making the viewer not just concentrate of the visuals but on how they link with the music to highlight it making it also the main part of the film.

Where our idea started from

Our ideas for this project stemmed from a piece of work Nicky done last year, where she used similar ideas of flicking paint onto paper and animating it as she went. We thought this would be a good but also simplistic idea to do for our project as we knew we didn’t have much time in which to create it. As we wanted an abstract effect to our piece as the sound sounded very much abstract, we thought this would be a very good way to portray the different sounds used. They way in which the paint splatter would project onto the page would show how we reacted to it, being uncontrollable in where the paint was going but creatively in control.