Inspirational Material & Animation

I'm just back from London, where I went mainly to attend the 'I'll be Your Mirror' ATP Festival curated by Portishead. I must say that even though this was meant to be a break for me, I couldn't help but be inspired by the visuals presented by the artists.

There was an installation by David Wilson which made used of old fashioned praxinosopes. I filmed a couple of them:

The praxinoscopes were actually used in a music video here:

Frame by frame seemed to be a popular medium. Portishead had 'The Rip''s frame by frame (although quite a low frame rate) playing in the background during the performance of the song.

On another note, Joan of Arc performed with 'The Passion of Joan of Arc - 1928' in the background. This kept everyone glued to the screen. Later on the festival booklet I read that the film consisted mainly of close-ups yet still managed to convey the story through the actors' excellent portrayal of emotion. The below video might not play correctly- click to go to the youtube link, there's the whole film on youtube in parts.

Finally, I have also been to two exhibitions - Miro at the Tate Modern, and Tracey Emin at Southbank. This is the first exhibition I have seen by Tracey Emin and I must say it truly leaves a mark of whoever views it. Her works are personal and raw. I found the video of her dancing to be very inspiring and natural. I haven't found it on youtube, so head to Southbank and watch 'Why I never became a dancer' (or something similar...)

As for Miro, I have seen his works before, however this time I was more intrigued by his drawings - the simple black on white pieces, rather than his usual primary coloured material.

As for my own work - I have been storyboarding, filming and animating. Here's my latest frame by frame experiment - which will be finalised after I finish the story's filming on Sunday (fingers crossed).

Some pictures of my storyboard sketchbook:

The growing list of stories

Red = storyboarded, a long way to go!

One of these is filmed, one will be filmed on monday

mixing animation with video - two complex stories

thinking about interaction

before I got my storyboarding sketchbook, I couldn't resist!

Storyboarded yesterday

And the research paper will be tackled on Monday - although I have made progress on the title :)

New experiments

It's been a very heavy weekend. I've been sleeping too much or not at all. Anyway above is my latest experiment based on one of the stories. I photographed the watercolour figures piece by piece (upper left arm, lower right arm etc...) in order to be able to animate them in After Effects. I also scanned the ink pram. The sky picture is a heavily saturated found image. I created the bird in After Effects and used particles to make the flock. The girl's walking sequence is a bit strange but I don't mind the final video. I will keep playing with it and try a story over it as well.

I'm finding the process of taking someone's story and creating something from it extremely interesting. It's quite interesting to be able to portray someone else's story in my own way, without knowing what actually happened.

Here's some more pictures from my sketchbook (you'll find most are notes rather than sketches this time, I was focused on getting the project together rather than just drawing and painting).

These were from before my project changed, a visual and more exciting way of brainstorming

going slightly off topic, but sometimes my mind needs a rest

Still was trying to make my previous idea work

The new project 

sketches before I did the short animation with the guy standing in the theatrical sea waves

The 'Madonna Cat' story

More from Madonna cat, and an unfinished sketch for an animation

short storyboard for the animation I just finished

Listing down the stories I currently have, and a sketch of the pram used in the above video

More from my journal...

The journal goes through bad days and good days - either way - it's a good source for traditional media to-be digitally manipulated. 

Sketchbook Journal Part 1

My experiments / sketches so far not based on any particular research / movement - currently just trying develop some sort of trail of thought and brainstorming through regular sketching.