Survey

After having made a mood board on the overall issues that people face with body image pressures, I decided to produce a quick survey of females from other courses as well as my own to see what their outlook was. I wrote out 6 multi choice questions with allowance of extra comments if they wanted to make some. Here are the results of the surveys and other comments that those who took part made.

Body Image & The Media.

• Which form of media do you think influences body image the most? (Options were Magazines, TV Adverts, TV Programmes, Music Videos and Social Media)

1/10 Answered Magazines

9/10 Answered Social Media 

• How often do you compare yourself to others? (Options were Never, Sometimes, Always and Most of the Time)

5/10 Answered Sometimes

4/10 Answered Most Of the Time

1/10 Answered Always

• How often do you alter or add a filter to your photos on social media? (Options were Never, Sometimes, Always and Most of the Time)

4/10 Answered Most of the Time

1/10 Answered Never (but interestingly this was only because she doesn't upload photos on her social media account) 

5/10 Answered Sometimes

• How often do you feel self conscious about your body image around other people? (Option again were Never, Sometimes, Always or Most of the Time) 

5/10 Answered Sometimes

3/10 Answered Most of the Time 

1/10 Answered Always

1/10 Answered Never

• What age range do you think is most vulnerable to body image pressures that the media produces? (Options were Below 16s, 17-20, 21-30, 31-40, 41+ or everyone) 

A lot of the people who took part ticked a few different age ranges so here is what there was in total.

Below 16- 3

Everyone- 4

17-20- 4

21-30- 2

• This was more of an open question so I could see what they listed as the main pressures. If you could list 3 main pressures of body image what would they be?
• To have the perfect bum & boobs
• Kylie Jenner perfect make up
• Fashion
• Having a fresh face
• Having pretty, well kept hair
• Appearing feminine 
• Body Weight
• Appearance in general
• Fashion/make up trends
• The 'perfect shape' maintaing it
• Eating the right foods
• Small waist, big bum
• To not be overweight
• Stereotypical hourglass figure
• Creating your body image to impress others not necessarily to please yourself
• Face and skincare
• What to wear and why
• Lifestyle
• White teeth

Girl Model- Documentary

As an aspect of research to my project, I watched a documentary on Netflix about modelling and the pressures of the body image involved. The documentary was following a New York based model scout, who travelled to Russia to collect girls to send to Tokyo for more modelling opportunities. I think it was interesting that the culture of modelling is so different there, and their aspects of beauty is very different from ours.
A Russian scout said in the documentary: "The ideal age to start modelling is 5 or 10 years old, if you're not sure what age to start them modelling, start them young."
In one shot of the documentary, it was interesting to see that there were hundreds of girls being rounded up in a room like cattle and people checking their skin, measurements and skin etc. The American scout explained that for Japanese success, the models she was looking for had to bypass her own aesthetic of beauty, but fit with Japanese ideals. The Japanese ideals in the beauty industry is youthful looking girls, with a cute look, they can't be too tall and have to have clear, fresh skin and big eyes. In the background you could hear some girls being dismissed for being too fat, too spotty or too tall.
Throughout the documentary it follows a 13 year old girl Nadya from Siberia, who is chosen as one of the models to be sent to Tokyo. She is described as having the 'prepubescent' look that the Japanese market favoured. However her trip to Tokyo doesn't go to plan and finds the aspect of modelling very pressuring and has to lie about her age, with Japan not legally allowed to model under 16 year olds.

Black Mirror - Nosedive (2016)

Black Mirror is a series of standalone sci-fi fantasy episodes on Netflix, created and written by Charlie Brooker. A particular episode that I felt was relevant to my project so far is the episode 'Nosedive' where in an alternate reality, society makes you rate others out of 5 for wealth and a good reputation.
I think it's a good concept as it's a fear of many that one day our entire existence will be based on our virtual expectations of one another. Especially with social media aspects like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, a lot of modern day people seem to consider many likes and retweets as more love and more popularity. Brooker has built on this fear by producing this episode where your entire existence depends on whether or not people like you and you're rated well, it shows that the characters are forced to live fake lives in which they pretend that they are happy in order to impress each other for a good rating.

Bartosz Koswoski

I found this artist who produces a range of illustrations that represent the social pressures that social media and media in general has on body image and your mental state. The illustrations include such feelings such as negative influences on weight and diet, and paranoia in relationships that the media causes.

Body Image Control

When thinking about more metaphorical ways of representing the media controlling our aspect of self, I thought of the idea of puppets. The stringed puppets metaphorically could represent that we're strung up to be controlled to think a certain way. I think this would be a nice idea to work with when producing an idea for the project.

Fashion Animations

Episode 16 “The Camellia” - Inside Ch*nel from Cyrille Smaha on Vimeo.

7 Deadly Sins

A piece I found on the internet about the 7 Deadly Sins

Culturally there used to be the belief that there are 7 Deadly Sins, things that could consume you into being a bad person. I think that this sort of theme also links into what I've been looking at regarding people constantly wanting to change their outlook of themselves. The 7 Deadly sins include:

• Gluttony
• Vanity 
• Envy
• Sloth
• Wrath 
• Greed
• Lust

In particular I feel that the sins that most apply to the themes I've been looking at is the aspects of Greed, Vanity, Envy and Gluttony. The greed of wanting something we don't have and constantly wanting new products, the vanity of constantly trying to look the best we can and impress others, the envy of wanting a body image that we don't have and the gluttony of trying to change our diet to look a certain way. 

LABEL

In September I was approached by an organisation founded by a fellow workmate from college asking me to produce some work as part of their exhibitions for Body Confidence, and as an organisation they strive to not make beauty an exclusive trait to certain people but to embrace the beauty in everyone.

Eric Shaw

Daniel Sparkes

Daniel Sparkes is an English artist that I came across in a gallery in Berlin, his work consists of dehumanising and defacing certain portraits with collage aspects. I like the way his work could potentially relate to the theme of distorted body image as he is deliberately taking away an identity, and could link to what the media makes you think of yourself and a certain way of looking.

Allyson Melberg Taylor

When in Berlin in a gallery, I came across the illustrator Allyson Melberg Taylor who does a lot of portrait work but with slight distortions.

Berlin Trip

Graffiti & Street Art Tour
Berlin was a very creative city, and on the first day we had a street art and graffiti tour which gave us a breakdown of certain styles and pieces. I found it interesting that an ownership of the city had been built up throughout the city, and that certain artists respected each others work by not painting over it etc. There was a energetic vibe to some of the pieces that were produced, linking to the aspect of the freedom once the Berlin Wall was brought down.

Body Image & Materialism

Through developing ideas of themes I came across the idea of further researching how media portrays in particular the female body image, and how we are constantly told we need certain products in order to be happy. I was inspired by the fact that our complete outlook of ourselves could in fact of been brainwashed into us from an early age with the surrounding media.
Our aspect of what we find attractive and what we think looks good all depends on our upbringing and culture and I've found that quite an interesting topic.
I've been looking at a range of magazines such as Glamour, Elle etc. to look at the sort of language and imagery used in order to convince a certain audience to alter their image and to become something or someone different.
I've looked a a few supporting articles as well as existing adverts/campaigns/animations that link to my theme of body image and materialism, and the distortion of self image throughout.

The Changes in Body Image in History
As research I have been looking at a range of articles to compare the historical aspects of advertising the beauty and how this has changed over the years. In particular it has been with women where there was a certain size that had to be maintained in order to seem fashionable. I find it interesting how this has changed over the course of the centuries of fashion and how women have constantly felt like they had to change themselves in order to be accepted.
In earlier years there was the corset in order for a smaller waist to be maintained, whilst nowadays it seems like the larger ladies are recently in favour for being curvier. In the 1950's it was fashionable to gain weight rather than lose it whereas coming up in the 1990's was the aspect of becoming skinnier and losing weight.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/28/women-ideal-body-types-history-buzzfeed_n_6566254.html 

(Images taken from internet sources and articles and blogs on history of body image)

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jun/10/body-image-anxiety-eva-wiseman - Article on Body Image Anxiety

Dove Campaign
Although a huge beauty company, Dove began a campaign about body confidence in 2008, addressing the fact that the large production of products and advertising is having an impact on the younger generations. I like the overwhelming factor that this video gives and the fact that we are surrounded by media telling us what to do.

DOVE "Onslaught" from SUPERGROUP SONIC BRANDING CO on Vimeo.

 Body Dysmorphia Disorder http://www.dailymail.co.uk/video/femail/video-1190317/See-Body-Dysmorphic-Disorder-sufferers-experience.html


Effects Media has on Body Image

Anorexia & Body Dysmorphia
Since the aspects of beauty advertising began there was always

Colleen Clark I find this artist when on Tumblr, she's a young degree student who draws up modern comics about the impacts that media has on body image generally.

Articles I've looked at-
I've begun to look at some articles that will involve the theme of body image and the effects that it has on the human mind, and I found it interesting that they have discussed the idea that sad people are actually the biggest buyers. Without us being sad about how we look we wouldn't buy anything new.
(The article is found at https://mic.com/articles/111228/how-western-beauty-ideals-are-hurting-women-across-the-globe#.f4PHZuuC1)
It's also interesting that the aspect of Western culture effects people globally, with aspects such as hair relaxing to get rid of the natural curls some women have, as well as the aspect of skin whitening.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-29569473

As an exploration of the materialism side to things, I have found this hyperreality motion graphics piece particularly interesting as it explores the aspect of materialism in the modern world, and it shows how overwhelming it could soon become. I like the aspect of all the pieces being so overwhelming and in your face all the time. There's also the aspect of changing their identity which to me is important, as I feel that identity itself is an underlying theme within my work.

HYPER-REALITY from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.
HYPER-REALITY from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.

Infinity Glasses Research

Google Glass When looking at futuristic glasses that are advertised currently, I found the advertisements for Google Glass.

Self Initiated Project Exploration

Perfect World - Katie Melua from Karni and Saul on Vimeo.
POSITIONING from Anne Beal on Vimeo.
Body painting Stop motion Blackpainter from elena tagliapietra on Vimeo.

New Project

We've been given a new project to continue till March on something that we feel will challenge our skills further as well as being something that would belong in the industry and not just something that had been done over and over again. I'd like to try something new for this project, so here's a few things I've looked at so far.

Paper World- By Mome Animation
I love the idea of making a world within a world, and I think this is a beautiful example of this, using 3D elements to replicate this aspect of origami within a world is really inspiring to me and I find it really aesthetically pleasing. Made for the WWF, the piece is a beautiful metaphorical way of describing the impacts that manmade objects have on the wildlife. I love the way it all connects and there is an attention to detail that I really like within it.

WWF Hungary - Paper World from Paper World on Vimeo.


Merit- By Nick Forshee
Personally I feel like my roots throughout the course have always been with the aspect of 2D and more illustrative aesthetics, and this is a simpler but effective way of animating that I may want to try as I've not really done it before.

Merit Animation from Jim Leszczynski on Vimeo.


UNSATISFYING from PARALLEL STUDIO on Vimeo.

Sehsucht

After having looked at the aspect of paper craft in animation, I stumbled across this making of and animation by Sehsucht, and really liked the aesthetic.
Deutsche Fernsehlotterie "Paper World" from Sehsucht on Vimeo.
Deutsche Fernsehlotterie "Paper World" (Making-Of) from Sehsucht on Vimeo.

Project Reflection

During the production of this project I've learnt that time is very precious in terms of a project such as this. I am happy with the outcome that I have produced and the new techniques I have tried, however I know with more time it would've been a piece that I am proud of.
I intend to work on the piece along the year as well as the other projects in place, and here are points I'd like to improve on.

• Speed - The overall speed of the piece is too quick, when shown to people they're not able to notice certain elements due to the speed, and the editing on the soundscape has been effected as this needed to be a slower pace too. I'm going to make a slower version and alter the soundscape accordingly and I feel that this will produce a better and more effective outcome overall.
• Aesthetic- Personally I am happy with the overall aesthetic, however there are some gaps and edges that are showing that initially I didn't like at all. I'd like to polish off some of the images and ensure that they don't have squared off edges.
• Sounds- Due to the speed, I feel that the sound couldn't be as effective as I would ideally like to have achieved. However, once I have rendered out a slower version, I will be able to edit the sound in order for it to be effective.
• Depth of Field- The depth of field I added to the images to look more realistic in terms of closer objects being more blurred, I feel is very effective, however, I also noticed once the final composition had rendered, that the front cover of the piece (book) had also blurred, so needed to be altered so that it was back in focus.

Although there is faults with this piece, I like the overall effect of the memories being built up, and my choice to add a little bit of music turned out pretty well in my opinion, just the soundscape that needed altering.

Ricardo Serrano - Freelance Motion Designer

Uses Illustrative aspects for his work

Although most of my PDP elements have been about studios, I think it is important to broaden the horizons and get feedback and advice to do with my work from someone who is freelance and therefore maybe has more of a style than a corporate studio as discussed in our previous years through the discussion forums.
 Personally I feel that over the years of doing the course, I have used the aspect of my drawings and analogue work the develop the projects I make, and I think it would be interesting to speak to a designer who works in a similar way, and discuss the projects that he underwent too.
I have emailed him to ask whether I can visit and I hope he responds as I know that this would be a good way of getting feedback from someone who is more independent and to compare the two.