Eric Shaw

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.

Sudbury Hall Museum of Childhood

I chose to visit the Museum of Childhood at Sudbury Hall today, as part of the research for my Dissertation as well as my current project. For my dissertation I felt that the visit could help me to show how the education system and your upbringing within childhood effected creativity, and to see the changes within history. In addition to this, I also wanted to collect some research as to what childhood memories I should show within my project, and what sort of toys my Grandma would've played with etc. I think that this is a great experience for both of these subjects.
I found it fascinating that despite the education system in their museum going back into Victorian times, I noticed that not an awful lot has changed. The educational side of things was based entirely on reading, writing and arithmetic, and then introductions of the sciences. Whereas, the Art & Design aspect interestingly wasn't around till later on. The drawing side of things also was used more as a visual aid more than anything else to help certain individuals learn.
It almost seemed ironic that although Art wasn't seen as a real subject, it was used to illustrate and teach other subjects in the education system.
As well as finding information about what best toys etc. I found some aesthetic material that I can compare to my own project.

Production of Idea

I decided as a whole, in order to connect Alzheimer's to something I'd like to produce Memory as an underlying theme in this piece. I would like to produce a Memory Book alike to ones I've researched, but it being a book that represents someone's whole life, photographs and images layering up to being a scrapbook that comes to life. The sound effects will be sounds that reference to certain memories, dogs barking, children laughing etc. As well as there being references to their favourite sorts of books, memories etc.
By going to local charity shops and collecting materials from home, I've been cutting out certain illustrations and photographs that I think may be effective in a composition of layered collage.
I attempted to replicate the style of Korzer-Robinson's work by using a craft knife and building up the layers of a landscape book, I only did a section of the book by sticking layers together and layering them up but liked the effect, and knew that I should start experimenting with cut outs on After Effects to see if I can get the effect that I would like.
At the moment the pieces of collage built up don't really have much of a meaning, but I think that ideally I would like future collage used in the actual piece to be in chronological order so that the audience knows that it is a journey through someone's life. In order for it to link to the aspect of Alzheimer's and representing the fading of memories, I am thinking of making the closer images the most recent ones and them being slightly transparent to show they're me
mories being lost. (Showing that short term memories are lost before the long term memories)
Scanning these pieces in and editing them on Photoshop into PNG files allowed me to be able to import them into After Effects and add a 3D element for me to be able to layer them all up. I inserted a camera and placed it in front of the layers of collage elements to view the dimensions from a particular viewpoint. In addition to this, I knew that I wanted the layers to be defined by depth, so shadows were an important part to the animation, therefore I managed to apply shadows in the Material options.

Experiment Result
I used the aspect of older illustrations and photos as an experimental element for the development of my idea. Through this, I have learnt that spacing out the collage elements is key for the speed aspects, I'd like the transition to be slower in order for the audience to take in certain materials I have used (The combination of old photographs as well as illustrations and photos that link to certain memories)  I found that it is important to experiment with these materials first, as I didn't have to particularly worry about what sort of photos I was using, this was more for the overall aesthetic more than the content.
For my actual animation, I'd like for the aesthetic to be similar, but the photos to be as if they are being brought to life, as this is what I am trying to achieve.

2D Collage Animation Research

After having taken interest in the aspect of making a more 3D layered collage, I have looked out for some different methods of a similar aesthetic, to see what sort of effect that it had on the audience overall. This is a very different message that is sent across with it being more surreal aspects of collage, but I think that the aesthetic still remains the same with the aspect of depth of different papers building up with the different elements. I intend to find some books myself and build up more depth of materials. The Collage Travel from Tigrelab on Vimeo.

Alexander Korzer-Robinson

When looking into the 2D collage aspect and wanting them to be related to my theme, I found this artist who works with old illustrated books to this layered style and I found it quite interesting, and one that I would like to favour in my own work. In a way it gives a 3D effect to the book overall and I'm intrigued by the attention to detail that they built up.

Alzheimer's Self-Portraits

I've been looking into different versions of the ways of visualising the disease, and felt that this was a very emotional collection of paintings as it is right from the horse's mouth as it were. As these portraits were painted by William Utermohlen, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease and decided to document this by painting a self portrait for 8 years until he could no longer remember how to paint.
I think that this further develops how the disease strips away certain parts of who you were, including all your abilities. Utermohlen was an artist most of his life, and therefore an ability he had constantly practiced, but couldn't eventually do it.

'Bonkers Clutterbucks'

As part of the New Mills Festival Art Trail, there was a display of work produced by 'Bonkers Clutterbucks' a couple that produce 3D collage via found papers and objects, highly influenced by steampunk.

Charles Young

 Through the aspect of memory books, I thought that these paper sculptures by Charles Young were a nice aesthetic for some of the pieces. Not things as complex as this but maybe something along these lines.

Dementia and Alzheimer's

I've chosen to look into as research and as an overall project, the aspect of Dementia and Alzheimer's after being inspired by personal events with my Grandma having had Alzheimer's Disease, and the fact that there are certain effects on the family etc.
I recently went to a Lucy Spraggan concert, and she produced a song which had lyrics that really enhanced the effects of Alzheimer's and Dementia.