Cubs Studio- London
http://www.cubstudio.com/portfolio/
When finding studios, I came across this Animation and Motion Graphics Studio based in London, they pride themselves on keeping up with the times, tracking softwares and technologies that best equip their outcomes.
The studio produces a wide range of animations, whether they're info graphic
s, advertisements or general animation stories, they like to produce colourful and dynamic animations, mostly in 2D. They generally use quite simple shapes and colours, which adds a nice futuristic feel, and also seems to resemble a familiar style within each, linking back to our discussion forum on style and trends. Cubs ensures that despite the range of work they produce, there is still an aspect of style that can be recognised over the pieces effectively. I personally feel this is a good trait for the studio to have as it gathers a recognition and further client interest.
For me, I've found this studio particularly interesting with the range of colours and textures added into the animations, I'd like to explore their work further in the future, as I've looked into their show reel and online portfolio.
Looking at the portfolio makes you realise how important it is to explore your online presence as they mentioned that the internet was key to their success.
Cub Studio 2016 Showreel from Cub Studio on Vimeo.
We have been given our discussion forum for the Identity of Motion Design to research into the aspects of Motion Design and why there is confusion as to how it is defined and recognised in certain areas. Rachel and I have discussed that firsthand we personally feel we have to discuss and explain what we are studying to other people as when presenting that we study Motion Design to the general public they don't understand what we mean by it, therefore we find we have to compare ourselves to graphic designers and animators in order to elaborate on our course and get them to understand. Therefore we'd like to start discussion on how we compare ourselves to other designers and where the lines between them are.
We've looked into what classes as Motion Design, and how this is different from Visual Effects and Animation.
The Language of Motion
"Adding motion to the mix doesn't simply broaden the skillset of graphic designers, it redefines it. Photography becomes cinematography. Illustration becomes animation. Even the essential skill of layout morphs into something else, something more akin to understanding the rhythmic structures of music than the solid forms of print. Motion design is, in other words, a new language. And designers have only just begun to test the limits of its expressive power."
When researching for my PDP I came across a website (http://blog.digitaltutors.com/10-essential-skills-need-motion-designer/) that elaborated on what skills and things you'd need in order to be a Motion Designer. The blog goes into the range of things that they as people in the industry believe you need to have experience of in order to be successful, and gave relevant examples of such things according to these things. Elements that have been included within the blog list are:
Graphic Design Skills-In order to produce high quality products and work, a knowledge of graphics as well as skills within it are pointed out on the blog. I agree that graphic design is a core element to our course and therefore needs to be a skill based around the animation. Due to the graphics being a huge part of the Motion Graphic Design course, it's also important to study what else is out there in terms of trends, competition etc.
Traditional Art Skills- Some work that will be produced does need initial plans, sketches and drawings. In order to actually get your idea across to a client or a storyboard artist, they must first understand the concept of what your idea is, and this can be helped with visual aids that can be easily developed by pre-existing traditional art skills. In addition I believe knowledge of art medias and history allows further insight in the best way to carry out a creative task.
An Understanding of Animation- Pretty self explanatory really, but the blog entails how the animations can be applied to new ideas, and the fact that different medias can be produced from existing materials or made ones through art production. An important highlight for this is the animation principles that are something that need to be familiarised with in order for success.
3D Design Skills- Due to the expansion of technology 3D is something in the height of popularity and therefore should be attempted or mastered in order for some sort of success, it shows variety and durability as well as showing that you're flexible with your medias so can have a wide range of outcomes.
Colour Theory- Colour theory is an important aspect of any design form, as it allows the designer to make visual decisions as to what works. As well as this, it's important for the designers to be able to pick up on colour decisions that will not work aesthetically such as red font on a green background or visa versa as these are an issue for colour blind etc. It also applies to what mood you want your piece to produce, with knowledge of cool tones and warm tones this helps to analyse what is an appropriate colour choice.
Typography Skills- From a range of serifs and kerning, it's important as a designer to know the aesthetics and meaning behind text and font as well as reasoning behind using certain typography to represent alternate things. The blog speaks about the importance of getting the right typeface as this can implicate your whole design and make it work or not.
Creative Thinking-
Technical Skills- Throughout our careers software will be constantly evolving and changing, so there's no way we can learn everything at once, however, it's important to have knowledge of a range of softwares as well as a range of methods to ensure there is variety and confidence in our work. Some softwares although different resemble each other, therefore getting to know certain softwares will assist the using of others.
Interpersonal Communication- Ensuring a good relationship with your client or creative director ensures the work is being carried out effectively and efficiently within the time and allows communication for amendments and adjustments to take place without dispute.
Originality-As hard as it is to be original, the blog speaks of how important it is to try to carry out your own creativity and reflect your own style within your work, in order to attempt to make a refreshing piece of work rather than a regurgitated piece.
I think it's important to assess such things in order to know what would be expected of you within the industry as well as allowing these skills to fall into place in terms of practice.
Should Designers have to work for free, or should they be paid?
Steph and Jamie began a discussion forum on the aspect of having to be paid as a designer starting off in the industry, and where it should be acceptable to work for free. Overall they discussed the aspects of free pitching, internships, volunteering and work placements and how these could effect your career overall. Rachel brought up the fact that it is best to show that you are willing to work for free, as this will help to supply experience for your CV, as well as ensuring reputation.
In the discussion we all agreed on the aspect that volunteer work is an important aspect of gathering experience and reputation, and indeed in some internships this may be necessary. We additionally discussed the aspect of free pitching, where clients will bring in a range of designers and ask them to pitch an idea, but they do not get paid for the pitch, and therefore can be faltered by this. They showed us a video clip that showed the aspect of free pitching being applied to other scenarios, and showed how ridiculous it would be for any other business, however, we couldn't conclude how else we would personally alter this system, as clients want to know what they are getting before they invest. The video includes an actor going into a sandwich shop and asking to taste the sandwich before he eats it, applying the aspect of free pitching to another business. This clip was helpful in ensuring that Steph and Jamie's points were reinforced.
"They'd conducted a funeral service and were asked if they would go and fly over the sea in the Wellington Bomber and drop his ashes over the sea."
As a direct response to the audio, I knew from the World War II image at the start of one of the books that gave me inspiration, that I wanted to animate in the same style. In order to line up with the style of the image, Rick pointed out the fact that the piece is most likely some form of monoprinting, and therefore a technique I could experiment with. Monoprinting is a technique I personally haven't explored in full so it would be good to explore this technique further and perhaps even produce the whole animation in such a way if the experimentation itself is successful enough.
I intend to use Photoshop to then alter the print to match the colour scheme and general theme of the rest of the World War II composition. Monoprinting Due to me having limited experience with mono printing as I've never properly carried it out in such an illustrative way before, I requested a demonstration from my friend Luca, a L5 Illustration Student who provided a lot of insight into how to best replicate the technique, and allowed me to capture the visual elements needed for the story to be told. To be moving in synchronisation with the movements from the opening scene of the illustration, I wanted to replicate the appearance of the Wellington Bomber plane that is spoken about in the story. I think also having this opening scene allows a nice steady beginning to the story and really sets the scene for the animation's theme. An important aspect was to ensure that my mono print matched up to the existing images around it, even if it's for a small duration of time. I chose to use a shade of blue for the mono printing, not starting with planes, but instead with alternate line elements to see what best worked out. I tried the aspects of pencil, fine liner, biro and pencil crayon to see which applied the most pressure consecutively on the paper to produce a nice clear mono print. To begin with, after having produced a range of experimental pieces with the mono printing technique, I began sketching a Wellington Bomber freehand based on an illustration in one of the old war books I had collected in my research stages. To print the plane on the paper then with mono printing, I used biro to sketch in the tonal areas and added a reasonable amount of pressure for the lines around it, this produced the amount of shading necessary to add print from the ink around it, allowing a tonal aspect that is already existing on the other illustrations that it needed to fit in with. There are certain aspects of mono printing that I learnt that could be altered if I were to do the technique in future, due to you adding pressure in order to produce a print, I had to ensure my hand didn't lean on the page, therefore the drawing wasn't as detailed as it could've been and therefore the print didn't have realistic details. However, for the aspect of the theme of war and the fact that it needed to match with the rest of the images, this outcome is perfect to edit into the composition.
After having produced a wide range of alternate outcomes to play with on Photoshop, I am overall happy with the outcome, and will experiment this further and see if the mono printing technique successfully matches up to the technique used in the original composition.
Editing the Monoprint
After having completed the Wellington Bomber prints, I picked out the one I felt successfully captured the aspect and theme of the original composition that I am using. Using the colour match tools and filters on Photoshop, I matched up the elements of the composition to that of the print to ensure that they work well together. Overall I was happy with the end result, as I feel it successfully fits in well with the remainder of the composition. Using a cut out as well as a background of the plane, and using Photoshop to edit the background textures into clouds, I could then have the elements to make the plane look like it's travelling through the air whilst the audio is telling the story.
When editing the mono print into After Effects, I ensured that I asked for feedback from my peers as well as people who hadn't already heard the audio as this supplied a new train of thought as I needed to make sure that the story was being successfully illustrated to the audience.
Within the group we visited Manchester to visit the alternate studios and agencies that are there, I felt this successfully allowed us to have a personal insight into studios by not only viewing what they do online but actually interacting and witnessing the designers in their studios and natural backgrounds. They also supplied us with some sound advice on how to begin working, and how exploring different medias and projects begins with experimentation and just trying new things.
Our first visit was to 'The Neighbourhood' a studio that describe themselves more as a "Creative Communications Agency" On joining the studio, it was obvious that they offer a diverse range of media elements, and they stated the fact that they like doing the "meaty" section of work, with directly working and collaborating with the client instead of a restricted given piece to produce. This means that they can work with more adventurous creativity rather than being restricted by certain requirements.
Haatch- an informative 2D video
As well as producing a range of Graphic Design posters and branding designers, they're also working with Architecture and with some Moving Image work. They showed us a range of work that they produced, showing us the diverse amount of work they make such as things for exhibitions and installations.
Through the course of their introductions and speech to us all about the work they do, they showed us some of their work that they have produced one of which is the JD Sports Christmas campaign, a visual piece for advertisements, for billboards, advert posters and television. They spoke to us about their close collaboration with the commercial CEO of JD Sports, and how that they had specifically asked to use a Manchester based company rather than a London based one for a more Northern based choice. JD have previously used London designers but apparently they weren't able to collaborate closely with them and therefore didn't get the result they wanted or asked for.
There are 3 different sorts of footage that add up to an overall ad for television. This example is the juniors section of the JD range, adopted with the pixelated game style cubes surrounding the actor. Also part of the range, there is the women's and men's sections, the designers said that they'd applied alternate styles but still the same theme to ensure that they looked like they were for the same series but still reflected the audience in each.
Each segment of the advertisement included a snow scene with geometric and simplistic background, a futuristic look to match the client's requirements for the ad to seem 'cool' and 'edgy'. Women's- Same sort of music as in all 3, however has more curvaceous background shapes, circular, curved edges to add a feminine sort of edge to the advert, also replicated in the posters supplied for JD. Men's- Again keeping with the same theme of music throughout to ensure it still replicates the series, the men's has more rugged square and oblong shapes for a more masculine edge to the design. Juniors- As mentioned prior to this, the designers and client agreed to use some pixelated, game like shapes to appeal to a younger audience as well as different camera angles to keep it mixed and edgy.
As well as sharing the pros with us on such work, and sharing their pride in the work they have produced, they also shared with us the stress that may have developed and the fact that it had to be a full group job, where most of their designers (about 32 and freelancers) had to help at some point due to the mass size of the job. They also discussed the aspect of pitching the ideas they'd come up with to the client, and how process of thought and elimination are equally as important, they initially were going to use animals in the ads but the clients disagreed etc. all adding to the main components in the final advert, to ensure that they all were in agreement before adding to the design, ensuring client approval and satisfaction. To help pitch ideas, they discussed how they each make quick sketches of their ideas, however for the client they bring in professional storyboard illustrators who produce a professional looking storyboard that the client will most likely understand more than the initial sketches.
The background elements were added in with a green screen, although the actors when filming were also stood on white podiums that were then developed into platforms in the adverts. The aspects of snow were also added in, they discussed that they were going to use physical real aspects of prosthetic snow and throw it over the actors however they said this was proven too hard to control via editing the series.
Centre Screen Productions was the second design studio we visited, a more established design firm, they produce a vast amount of historical animations and interactive design work for museums, exhibitions, events etc around the world. A leading multimedia company, they strive to produce both visual and audio interactions for a wide range of venues. The collage aspects of some of the company's work appealed to me, particularly with the current project that we are studying with me doing my Story about my Great Grandfather through the aspect of collage animation.
The company specialises in more installation type work, which I also withhold an interest in as these installations supply a different mood and feel to an event, such as in a museum, exhibition or performance.
When visiting the studio, they pointed out the struggle that designers, especially with the multimedia aspects that they specialise in, have to keep advanced and with the times i
n order for successful outcomes. They pointed out their past struggle with the quick advancing technology, as they produced interactive app like technology before the touch screen phones etc. were produced, once corporations like Apple came along, it was harder to determine how they could make such animations more appealing.
When buying books for a possible aspect of collage animation, I was influenced by old war images to try to capture a war story effectively and perhaps using the collage animation to illustrate it. When I thought of such an idea, I got reminded of the fact that my Great Grandad (My Mum's Grandad) was a pilot in the RAF, and that before he had died, he'd written an account of writing that shared his memories in detail of his experience in World War II in the planes. As a starting point, I read this piece of writing and realised it had within it a range of stories of his past, some of which were hilarious. He'd written one about his colleague being shot down in a Spitfire, and for his funeral, my Grandfather and another pilot were given the job to fly over the sea in the Wellington Bomber and drop their colleague's ashes, however, the lid fell off the urn and ended up covering his fellow pilot in ash. I decided this would be a nice, lighthearted story to be told for my animation, so asked my Mum to retell it remembering him speaking to her about it.
Off the Record is a documentary compiled by Laura Sans as a collection of designers across the creative industry and the world separated into chapters, talking about their work and how they think design is reflected in trends, distinctive styles and technologies. I think what is also interesting is how different teams worked for design, the film showed the contrast between smaller design companies with only a few designers collaborating with perhaps more similar styles, to bigger corporations who collaborate with bigger brands and seem to have a variety of styles and designers working for them, I found it interesting to hear their stories.
There was a vast amount of designers featured in this film but I have noted down and researched some that really stood out to me. Joshua Davis Studios- Joshua Davis America
On his website, Joshua Davis is described as an 'American Designer, Technologist, Author and Artist in New Media.' he codes his own software and mostly works with Musicians and Festival events for visual installations normally shown above stage or against backdrops.
Joshua Davis was featured in the film, he spoke about trends in a way that I personally agree with and favoured, he said that he designs what he wants to design, yes he caters clients but he doesn't follow a trend, he follows his own trends. He spoke about his own alterations of style, how he used to draw only floral work, and used to obsess over floral designs and natural organisms represented in his work, and how he then got bored of such a style on moved onto more geometric styled themes.
I found on his website a lot of his work is now installation work for work with musical collaborations such as in arenas, and stadiums as well as clubs to go in synchronisation with the music played. I think this piece "Triangles" that Davis has produced successfully works with the music and fits what the client would be looking for in a music industry, which is something bright, flashy and on trend, and yet retains Davis' original style.
Davis spoke on the film about how he likes the visuals to seem like they belong with the music, and works closely with the musicians to ensure that the requirements for the music are successfully retained within the pieces.
Vasava Studio Spain Vasava is a design studio based in Spain who prides themselves of being unique. With a variety of different designers, their work is very broad ranged and in some ways exciting because of this. On their website they're described in a lighthearted and exciting way.
"When you visit them it feels more like a kitchen; a joyous and slightly anarchic space where a disparate group of talents cook up multifaceted creations"
Subtitled in Spanish translated to English, the designers you could tell were very excited and passionate about their work, they also discussed the aspect of trends relating to their work and they say although it seems they go with the flow dependant on the client, they try to still stand out in order to succeed and love what they're doing with their work.
Danny & Nayeem: Is Having an Individual Style Important?
The first Discussion Forum of the year has been by Nayeem and Danny, exploring the question of whether or not having an individual style is important within the design industry due to change of trends etc.
Bill Lumby- God View Screenshots
The pair began by talking to us about a cinematographer Bill Lumby, who is a producer based in South London, his collection of films named 'God View' all inherit the same distinctive style, which he's become recognised and successful for, the discussion was then lead to whether or not it was best to have your own style or whether it is better to find success with following the trends.
Tim Burton Sketches
Due to mass internet success of certain artists and Youtubers, their videos become viral, and trends may start, and without such a trend some designer's work may not be as successful. In our discussion, we were unable to find the source of what starts these trends, whether it's a famous person on the internet leading their fans in a direction for a trend, or a designer accidentally starting a viral thread, each trend is a wave that we can follow or hinder to.
The discussion made me think on a larger scale of designers like animator and director Tim Burton, who has a gothic style, but when reading a book on Tim Burton he lists films he rejected due to them not matching his ethics, and his style, with him favouring darker, and more misunderstood character designs.
The question was asked to us 'Would you rather follow a trend or would you rather try and stand out?' with mixed views on this, we discussed the fact that although trying to stand out is quite hard, with nothing really being original, having being influenced by various artists and designers before us it's hard to try to think of something that hasn't yet been done, but, we found that as designers we would love to develop our own work and try and fit our style around our projects and future work, rather than restricting it to following the popularity and trends.
Personally I'd say that style isn't necessarily restricted to the final appearance of something, I feel that the actual process of design and the generation of ideas itself reflects your own style. I think that it is possible as well to explore alternate medias but still retaining a style that is distinctive to yourself, and yet can cater to the requirements of a client perhaps. This was a point we all discussed in the forum too, and all agreed that we can retain a certain individual style without being too engrossed in following trends. In order to be more aware of trends however, we knew that researching and analysing what existing trends and work is out there and why they are so popular, in order to understand how your work could impact someone else in the long run, and whether it would fit in with the trend, without you needing to follow it.
"I was 22, it was November, I took a day off work, thinking nothing about it, until I got that phone call, first thing in the morning, from the hospital, your Dad's died. The world seemed to end, how was I going to tell my Mum? It was my brother's 21st birthday the day after, and I'd just got engaged. Time heals they say- it doesn't. the pain just gets number, yesterday I remembered how bad it had been. A white cyclamen reminds me of my Dad"
This was one of the first recordings I did and an audio I thought I may want to develop further, so I began making collages to show the audio in a visual respect. In order to visually respond to this audio I chose the aspect of using old collage illustrations from old books I collected, within these books I found a book on World War I & II which inspired me more, and realised my family have connections to such an era. When talking to my family about the war, my Mum started telling me about my Great Grandfather, who was a pilot in the RAF for World War II who flew a Wellington Bomber Plane. Collecting such books gave the inspiration for my Mum to retell one of his stories, which I recorded. Although I have produced some visual content for the first audio, it has inspired me further for this audio that I am really inspired by.
"My Grandad told me this true story that happened to him while he was a pilot in the RAF during World War II, one of his colleagues had been shot down in a Spitfire, and they'd conducted a funeral service and were asked if they would go and fly over the sea in the Wellington Bomber and drop his ashes over the sea. This they dually did, and at 2 thousand feet they decided to drop the ashes, they'd already decided that they needed to put this through the camera chute as it was safer than dropping it through the hole in the floor, so, a guy went to drop the ashes, my Grandad carried on flying, and then turned round and was horrified to see this same guy come back covered in white powder. He said to him: "The Lid Fell Off"
After having collected my audio files, one that particularly moved me was the audio clip of my Mum discussing her father's death when she was only 22. Although I may not use this precise audio, it gave me a lot of visual ideas and explorations that I could go into, due to it being memory, and it being something nostalgic and painful, a visual idea I'd love to explore is the aspect of collage in animation, something I have never tried before.
In addition, I'd like to experiment with different combinations of collage, be it stop motion alone or stop motion combined with digital elements added afterwards or overlaying the clip.
Old books with illustrations are an initial idea in response to collage animations, so I have visited a charity shop and bought a selection of old books to cut into and find inspiration and whether to explore the media further. I could also play with this idea, such as make the story be applied to a different generation, such as a modern story be applied to old photographs, adding a twist that maybe would supply some humour. As a creative starting point for this media, I have started to produce some visual collages in my sketchbook to try to develop a static first response to the audio, alike to what we did for the 'Tiger, Tiger burning bright' quote.
In Addition to collecting some materials for collage, I have also looked into some existing animations on Vimeo as some secondary Research to explore how others have tackled this media.
Brain Lapse from Jake Fried on Vimeo.
Although I can see that this media used in such a format would be extremely time consuming, I love the effect that is produced. Jake Fried, the designer and animator of this piece 'Brain Lapse' has used combined media elements of coffee, collage, ink and water, which successfully adds to a beautiful animation.
Air Review - Young. from MiraRuido on Vimeo.
I've also looked into the collage aspect in a different technique, here using old photographs edited on Photoshop and applied to After Effects, this animator has pieced together a music video that a band commissioned. The running boy which is a photo animation on loop, travels through alternate worlds with collage backgrounds and some with running film.
Cooper & Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum Exhibition Pixar: The Animation Story
When in New York, we ventured out to the Design Museum, where the exhibition of Pixar's production of character design, and setting design was being held. I personally have always had an interest in the aspect of the storyboard and initial sketches produced for such pieces, due to the raw characteristics they present. The Design story was an exhibition set out between two rooms, the first was the initial designs of recent films such as 'Inside Out' and the sketches alongside, as well as the other films such as 'Up' and 'Brave' with sketches and animations that showed the process of the design, from storyboards, set designs and character sketches to the final product.
The Pixar Designer Peter Sohn who produced Academy Award-Winning films Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and WALL.E, his collection were shown in his home city New York. Alongside the exhibition, we were given a programme that described the pieces, and also withheld an interview that the Cooper & Hewitt interviewer had conducted with Peter Sohn himself.
On one of the days we had a group visit to the Moma, an art gallery with a wealth of visual pieces for us to view. As well as the public gallery, we enlisted to view Picasso's sculpture collection.
Through our visit to New York, although the general site seeing did appeal to me, something that definitely stood out both with interest and visual elements was Times Square. There is a vast amount of commercial advertising publicised on the huge screens mounted on the buildings. In general, there is a lot of consumerism in New York like any other city, with vast amounts of sales on stalls, in big companies and profitable organisations gaining commercial recognition from the big screens.
When standing and looking at the screens, I could tell that each advertisement had been carefully designed and planned out to catch the eye of the wondering tourist, or the busy New Yorkers.
Brief History of Times Square
Times Square began in the 1880's, starting as the 'Long Acre' a stretch of buildings with advertisements normally centred around horses. However in the 1900's the evolution of electricity had impacted the settlement, and produced a nicer, safer environment for the people there, adapting the electricity to displays to bring in and welcome newcomers to what would soon be a large city. With technology constantly evolving, and coloured television and animation coming into the 20th and 21st century, the screens were a big kick off for the advertising and marketing industry.
Since opening of Times Square in a commercial way, there were designers who designed the huge billboards that covered the sides of the buildings, however in the 1990's LED technology had grown in popularity and had become a sustainable way of catching people's eyes. The LED screens are now either rented or bought by large businesses and corporations who can spend over $2.5 million to place their advertisements on the screens.
Technology In Times Square Although popular technology of LED light screens are used for mostly all of the screens in Times Square, the set up and sustainability of the square relies on the technicians who ensure the screens can run for the demanding 24hours and 7day week running times, and for the 'city that never sleeps' this is of upmost importance. In 1998 the first testing of affordable LED lights came to play, alongside ABC News, using software to synchronise the screens with the image, making it curve, or flatten dependant on the screen itself.
The resolution of the screens has improved over time, with some screens running in ultra HD whereas the older screens retaining the pixelated resolution in wider spaced plates on the screen. Behind each screen is a wealth of wires and a hard-drive that stores all the advertisement files, each checked on daily by a technician.
Design of Times Square
Times Square itself supports over 385,000 jobs, including technicians for the LED screens, but also the designers who carefully design, adapt and synchronise their designs to the screens on display.
Rick is introducing us to the aspect of laser cutting, a technique I have never approached in practice, I'm looking forward to the approach to this method to see whether it inspires any ideas in evolution of this project.
Before selecting something to try out on the laser cutter, I decided to look into some existing artists that I could refer to, these artists have helped to inspire how to acquire new skills and how to approach the technique.
Gabriel Schama During the process of researching some existing artists who develop the laser cutting technique, I came across this artist who works primarily with the laser cutting technique. I personally adore Mandala geometric patterns and shapes, so favoured this artist when I came across him on the internet, I was drawn to the abstract layers that ultimately and beautifully build up into mostly portraits or mandala-esque designs. The artist who has his own laser cutter, mostly produces geometric patterns, which he then works on to build up into more intricate layering up.
If I were to use the laser cutting method, I think the aspect of layering up numerous cuts to produce an outcome is definitely something that I personally would strive towards. The most eye-catching pieces he produces for me, seems to be the beautiful silhouette style portraits he produced, where the outline is filled in with intricate layers of laser cut wood. I personally really like this idea, but it reminded me of the audio I produced of my Mum talking about the death of her father, a very powerful piece of audio, which I think I could elaborate on in this way. However, I'd like to approach the audio in a more metaphorical way, maybe with cogs turning in the head, making things as if they are 'Running Like Clockwork' a metaphor, as she begins the audio speaking about her thinking it was like another day.
In addition to this, I looked into the aspect of using the laser cutter to build up layers, and found this short clip on a professor who explores how intricate you can go with the aspects of laser cutting, something I think is more effective.
Journey from Rachel J Milner on Vimeo.
When on Vimeo, I came across this interesting concept, of illustrating an aspect that can't visually be seen, in this instance, it's the sending of a text message, following the message on a journey, from one person's device to another.
The animation follows an array of letters, flowing through the sky like a flock of birds, as the camera seems to follow the letters, as if the viewer is part of the journey.
It ventures through a city, across a train track, over mountains, a forest and finally over to the sea.
The minimalistic animation used helps develop the importance of the message and the digital aspect it represents. I really like the idea of visually representing something that can't physically be witnessed in transit.
Richard Feynman - Ode To A Flower from Cub Studio on Vimeo.
Here is an existing animation found in relation to the project, here an interview is animated to add more visual emphasis on what the interviewee is saying, and emphasising his points.
I like the style of the 2D colourful animation, as I found it's powerful and emphasises the necessary points needed.
The animator has visually added bright, and powerful illustrations but also his own sounds made, Foley of the flower snapping and bees buzzing, as well as the music in the background that is added on top of the existing dialogue.
In order to have an insight into the animations and stories that are already out there, I have begun researching some already produced. Aardman Animation studios are famous for their innovative techniques when it comes to stop motion animation, one that has stood out to me in accordance to the brief is 'Conversation Pieces' which is a 1982 series produced by Aardman Animations which is a collection of real life conversations, recorded in different scenarios, and used as a basis of the animation, the conversations themselves retain their own colloquialisms and nice relaxed aspects, that you would only truly have in a recording that isn't scripted or set up like in an interview.
When looking into the aspect of telling stories that most may not think twice about, I came across this video on Youtube, by campaign group 'Rethink Homelessness' based in Orlando. I found the aspect itself moving in the fact that it explores the stories that people overlook and walk past, successfully making people wonder about the homeless stories.
I personally think that the aspect of strangers stories are interesting starting points for this project and could maybe be explored. Although this isn't the same style of storytelling, I completely admire the structure and idea behind it that could be explored further in the technique of animation and motion design.
Through the study of the Visual Exploration project, relating visual concepts to poetry, it reminded me of the theme of wonder, existentialism and the aspect of creativity. When looking into artists that withhold such themes, I came across Kelly Vivanco, an illustrator and graphic designer who features her illustrations around the theme of wonder. Each of her characters' features reflects such wonder, confusion and dubious nature, something she also symbolises through her work.
Alike to Blake's use of symbolism in the poem 'The Tyger' Vivanco also uses symbolism in her pieces, as most of the wonder contributed in her pieces is sourced by a theme of travel, with the houses depicting the characters taking their home and birth right with them, easily shown in the portrait of a boy with a house backpack design.
In addition to this, the characters always depict an unknown identity and make the viewers wonder who these people are, and why they have ventured out in alternate lands, this also links back to the poem, as the poet William Blake often questions the higher power who created the tiger and lamb, and how that could be so.
Vivanco prides her pieces as being a venture into the unknown, with an air of mystery surrounding them and the characters in them. The composition of which the characters are sat or posed also shows insecurity and tension for both the artist and the viewer, such as the character looking at something in the distance that the viewer can't see, or staring down at something, allowing the viewer to make their own minds up about what is there and why.
