[LECTURE] Lecture 8 - Jane Elizabeth Bennett

Jane Elizabeth Bennett is doing her PHD fellowship at the University of Central Lancashire where she is working with Fine Art. Her work is heavily influenced by dyslexia, autism and the failure of communication, as she herself has been diagnosed with dyslexia and autism. She has a rhizomatic approach to print, installations, photography and sound, she is very research focused and has gone from very visual to very research heavy.

As a print maker, she is interested in white on white sketchbook prints, printing on vinyl and layering her work. She had previously made animations and film. When she did her A Levels she wanted to be a painter and a print maker, for her foundation she studied painting, however she couldn't paint. Before starting her Masters she lived in Australia, where she was happy to get out of academia. However, once she started her MA, she shortly realized it wasn't for her, although she liked er lecturers and peers she hated the work she was making. She decided to switch MAs, she explained to us that it is important to know that you have the choice to switch MAs if you aren't enjoying it. 

She then explained about internet presence, which is interesting as she is the only lecturer to talk about this in this way. She explained that she only uploads work that she is completely proud of, and make sure it is all professional, you want to make sure when your name is googled it is all positive, you don't want things you don't like on google to represent you. She explained the importance of networking and explains to network with peers, lecturers and technicians as well as galleries, collectors and institutes. 

I wont delve too much into what else was said here, but I will explain how I have been influenced by her work during my research assignment at a later date.

[RESEARCH] Getting contacts - Update #2

It has been just over a week since I did the last update in regards to my research, on my last update I had sent 35 emails to various animators throughout the world, as of now I have sent 64 emails to animators around the world. The new contacts include; Svend Rothmann Bonde, who worked in the animation department for both Song of the Sea (2014) and The Long Way North (2015), Aya Suzuki, who worked in the animation department for Wolf Children (2012) and The Illusionist (2010).

Currently out of the 64 emails, only 17 people have replied back to me and sent me a questionnaire. There are numerous people now who have contacted me saying they would get the questionnaire back to me, however thus far only one of them had actually gotten back to me after saying that they would. Getting contacts is very stressful, as I am now part-way through writing the essay now that I have four people that I can use thanks to their fantastic input, however I still need one more animator to give me enough information to I can use to finish off my essay. I was hoping to get the work done early and have it sent off to be checked, however it looks like I am only going to just get it all finished a week before deadline.

I am incredibly grateful to those that have gotten back to me, including; Mark Kilkelly, Adrian Hansen, Louis Morton and Isabell Gross to name a few. I am hoping that by the end of this week I can get more animators to get back to me and I will be able to finish off the work to get it submitted for checking.

[PRACTICE] Dust Particle Test - After Effects

After talking with Sarah a few weeks ago, it was decided that I need to work on the dust particle effects in scene 3 shots 1 through 3. I had done a few more attempts but nothing that I could call "dust" effects. So I decided to experiment with After Effects Software in the hopes of making a more realistic effect, the results are uploaded above. 

I had no intention of using After Effects to create effects, as I wanted everything in my film to be drawn by hand. However, through research and practice I came up with the conclusion that I just don't have the time to put into too much detail into effects like dust, as I still need to make the room look more decrepit. I am not unhappy with how the video looks, I am actually surprised that it turned out so well if I am honest. 

I will keep experimenting with dust effects, however I feel I should talk to Sarah about the test in the hopes that I can get feedback, I am hoping that it will be positive however even I can see that there is area for improvement when it comes to the effect.

[PERSONAL] 'Everybody can draw' picture update #1

Currently I have acquired 21 drawings for the Everybody can draw project I am working on, however I cannot use 1 of the drawings as it features a copyrighted character. I have tried to make the drawings as diverse as possible, ranging from the students that  I teach myself, to my fellow course mates to my family and friends. This is giving me a wider scope of the different art styles and variations that people are giving me.

Some of the people who have drawn in the sketch book are; Francesca Amy Daniels, Callum Borysenko, Kate Elizabeth Allman, Sam Bond, Yiming Wei and Colin Gray. I am hoping to get more people to draw in the book in the hopes that I can get at least one of the walls in the video complete, below are a few examples of what people have drawn for me:

[PRODUCTION] Week 11 - Halt on production to focus on Research

As I anticipated, this week I only had enough time to do a couple of things in my animation, nothing new to really update with. I spent most of the time focusing on the research side of the course, this includes writing up the responses I received from the animation contacts, however I will delve a little more into this soon in a separate blog post.

As stated, I have only really done a little bit of animation this week, including more of the shading in scene 1, because of this I only need to do a little bit of traditional animation and then scene 1 will be fully complete. I am hoping that by next week I can at least get scene 2 fully shaded and perhaps get the drawings on the walls.

[LECTURE] Lecture 7 - James Battersby

James Battersby is influenced heavily by Gothic and science, he opened up his lecture by asking us "what is Gothic", explaining that Gothic is a typeface, interior design, games, literature and film. He then leads onto discussing Gothic Horror and how this inspired him in many different ways and put him where he is today. He beings talking about Gothic Literature and where they all came from, ranging from Dracula to Frankenstein. He then goes onto discuss science of designs; the ergonomics, the anthropometry, and material science. Ergonomics is the study of people and their working conditions and looks at how the body works, Anthropometry is the average measurement of man and Material Science is the study of propertied and applications of materials of construct or manufacture.

James then goes onto discussing "science inspired designs", he talks about when people thought radio was a disease killer as radioactive materials were not understood. Radium, the dangerous element used to create atomic bombs were used heavily in design. Radium heaters were created to keep food warm, radium cosmetics, soaps and medicines. There were many things about radium that was completely misunderstood, such as how people thought radioactive water was good for health. People would use radium in clocks and watches, because of this many people died from radium poisoning in the 20th century. Uranium was also used in ceramics, dinnerware and glass.

Soon he then began to discuss his own practice, where he originally started with Stained glass, however he then began being inspired by different stained glass based on old alchemy. He then started designing cabinets and spice racks based on chemists. 

I wont delve too much into what else was said here, but I will explain how I have been influenced by his work during my research assignment at a later date.

[INSPIRATION] Toonami – Exquisite Corpse

Normally I wouldn't write about something like this, however as I grew up with Toonami I felt it necessary to talk about this animation. The clash of art styles is so fascinating to watch as it just oozes with nostalgia for the old Toonami that I grew up with. You can really tell that the animators put a lot of effort into this 20th anniversary short animation, the short was created by the team at Titmouse which I have discussed in an earlier post, I feel that I might need to delve deeper into the Titmouse studio, as so far they are the leaders in short traditional animation in my eyes.

The animators who animated this short include; Henrique Barone, Sean Buckelew, Jesse James Dean, Ryan Gillis, Miguel Jiron, Alicja Jasina, Sean Glaze, David Reilly, Yawen Zheng, Katie Tamboer, Louis Morton, Edward Artinian, Kris Merc, Brian Smee, Grace Mi, Katrina Ruzics, Joe Bennett, Quique Rivera, Einar Baldvin, Peter Millard, Jeanette Bonds, Shoko Hara, Grace Nayoon Rhee, Lee Hardcastle, Robertino Zambrano, Alex Grigg, Guilherme Marcondes, Simon Wilches-Castro.