Applied animation - Inspiration/research - Ryan Larkin documentary - 'Ryan'

I found a documentary by Chris Landreth to be really helpful/ inspiring in deciding how our characters might look in the animation, giving me the idea to just use our own art styles to represent ourselves. This is what i think chris landreth has tried to do in his representation of himself and the representation of Ryan Larkin - likening some aspects of his physical appearance to represent similar aspects of his personality that Chris feels has some kind of a relation to with Larkin.

Applied Animation - Animated Documentary - Weekly 5

Bar maid collecting glasses as punters chat

This week further progress was made and more primary research was conducted. We have made the decision on the medium of animation. We are going to film scenes to feature in the animation and rotoscope them, this I think feels relative to the experience of asking people to draw portraits of us as we aim to give a point of view perspective in a majority of the shots and try and emulate the experience of gathering the research for this documentary.

We have decided based on the quality of the research we have gathered that we should choose to focus our research/experiment to just pubs. This is because people are more approachable and sociable, more willing to engage in the experiment. And by limiting the research to the pub environment it will make it easier to produce an animation that has a well rounded aesthetic that encapsulates that environment - giving the documentary more bite/ substance to it.

We went to The Fenton, a local pub near university which has in it a consistent set of regulars and would make for a great place to gather further material to feature in the animation.

We decided to visit here to gather reference material and footage to experiment rotoscoping with.

Whilst sat in the pub we were coming up with ideas on how visually we might tell the story of this experiment that we conducting to produce this documentary. We realised that we will have to have shots that establish the setting and pull the viewer into the environment, things like pints being picked up and put down, people playing pool, glasses being collected pints being pulled etc.

The next step that needs to be taken is to write a rough screen play that we can followed and make gathering footage to rotoscope easy, it will help to also arrange the footage when it comes to editing the the footage into an order that best carries the story through and keeps the interest of the audience.

This week we have also decided to make the first of our reflections on the research that we have gathered. Me and Ollie made use of the sound booth to record ourselves being interviewed (but more so conversationally) by one of our peers. I felt it important that the tone of the interview be quite laid back as if we were in the pub having this conversation about the experiment we are conducting. With the recordings that we have amounted we plan to make some lip syncing experiments using characters that are representatives of ourselves in our own respective art styles.

The idea is that whenever both of our characters are on screen the two art styles representing our faces will contrast and give another layer of how we percieve ourselves - I think that this raises a question for the viewer being something like 'are you your art?'. I also think that when documentaries get people to question themselves or make people just feel the need to ask questions in general it raises the quality of the documentary to a much higher standard.

Juke box, iconic piece of reference material

Applied Animation - Animated Documentary - week 4 production diary

This weeks production consisted of developing ideas on how we might arrange the visual aspects or rather the visual storytelling elements of our animated documentary beginning with rough storyboards and visual aids to present at the presentation/ group crit.

The feedback that we received from the crit was that we have further pre-production  and planning that still needs to be done to consolidate the idea behind the project and make it concrete so that we are able to form clear cut production plans.

Applied Animation - Animated Documentary - Weekly Production Diary - Week Three

This week pre-production slowed as other projects have taken greater priority.

I did however take the time to find some interesting secondary research - a photography project by James Mollison called Disciples.

In this project the photographer takes photographs of concert goers outside of the venue and what this amounts to is a series of photographs in which we see the fans of the musicians imitating their idols to such a high degree that everybody looks more or less the same - part of a tribe one might say.

I also found this photography project by CJ Clarke - Magic Party Place which gives an inside look deep into the heart of council estate britain - or at least the lifestyle and culture of the real working class. I found this inspiring as I feel that sometimes when the phrase 'working class' is brought up in conversation there can often be connotations of people being 'benefit spongers' and somehow the people having less dignity or compassion as those better off financially in society, also I feel another connotation that sometimes may come into the fervor is that the white British workling class have certain racial dispositions - this be due to groups like the EDL - English Defence League and Britain First, whose supporters are largely classed as white British.
What I think this project does however is show the tight connections that the people of Basildon have with each other in small groups of friends and families - showing this other compassionate side to what may appear to many people as these people being defensive and close minded - disinterested in life outside of the town but finding comfort in their own homes, streets and pubs.

 I find this project a really valuable source of inspiration in terms of looking at stereotypes as this gives an inside look into the lives of people that may to many people outside of this lifestyle have a negative stereotype attached them. For example the youths with their tops off wearing trackies may to some people look like 'chavs'.

Responsive - LSR: Transmission - Fundraiser T-shirt Design - pt. 2

I followed up this live brief by going to see my designs being sold at the fundraiser event.

Responsive - Do It In 20 - Utopia

For this project I have been given 2 months to produce an animation following or subverting the theme 'utopia'. The idea for this animation stemmed from one the context of practice lectures focusing on culture and subcultures - mentioning the Brixton riots of the early eighties and the musical movements that were around at the time calling for racial equality.

I have chosen to rotoscope and manipulate frames from archive footage of the Brixton riots, the reason behind this and how this relates to the theme of utopia is from researching the tensions between the black community in Brixton and the police's racially motivated brutality against the community.

I aim to experiment with different mediums for rotoscoping each frame to bring together a variety of textures to the animation.

Here is the first example of rotoscoping that will feature in my 20 second animation, using just fine liner to outline key features in each frame and to add ashading in some areas. I have opted for a very loose style that has allowed me to capture roughly what is happening in the footage but also to help me progress quicker to the post production phase of this project.

Responsive - LSR: Transmission - Fundraiser T-shirt Design - pt. 1

For this live brief I was asked to come up with a design that would emulate the branding that was put forward by the Leeds Student Radio committee.

I was approached by Beefy Squarms - a leeds/london based art collective to collaborate with them on this brief - producing a design that would be sold alongside a few other designs of they're own.
Below is the finalised design that was to used on the T-shirt.

Responsive - Skateboard Design Competition 'Decks For Change' - Final & Submission

Here was my final draft put together very quickly due to the deadline being so close.

If I were to change anything about this design it would be to remove the characters behind the yellow and blue ones to give them more space as the composition looks cluttered.

I also feel like the repeating pattern of the characters in the background may have also worked as a standalone design in itself.






The deadline for this submission was the 1st march which I submitted to Decks For Change via Email in the form of a PDF.

Responsive - Skateboard Design Competition 'Decks For Change' - development

I discovered a competition called 'decks for change' which focuses on using skateboard designs and relative artwork to raise money for skatepark developments and skate schools in developing countries that helps introduce communities to an activity that brings together the youth of both genders in said communities, the sport also encourages people to take risks and achieve things that they might not have thought possible of themselves.

The brief for the competition was quite open, it was based around positivty and notions or ideas that may bring about positive change in the local/global community.

My inspiration for this competition brief came from looking at the way indigenous tribes view mental health from a shamanic perspective, shamanism being something that we in the west have completely lost touch with in our culture.

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2014/08/22/shaman-sees-mental-hospital/

The above article details the views of a shaman/healer from the Dagara people visiting the scenes of a mental health institute. They regard somebody suffering from mental illness as somebody who is recieving a message from the spiritual world that may benefit the rest of the community as a whole.
However due to shamanic practices being almost completely abandoned in western society, the person suffering from any mental illness then lacks the guidance or spiritual tools to come to terms with the 'spiritual crisis'.

I treat this brief as an opportunity to produce abstract character designs that have a very immediate feel to them so as to reflect abstract nature of shamanic practice and of the spiritual realm.

The images in this post are of my development process with in this relatively quick turn around competition brief. I enjoyed producing the work for this brief as it was very non prescriptive and allowed me to experiment with new materials such as thick acrylic paint pens which give a very expressive look to the work being produced aswell as the ability to layer up colours on top of one another as demonstrated in the images above.