Friday 29 September 2017

Artist Toolkit - Life Drawing (27/09/17)




Artist Toolkit - Maya, Moom Poses (28/09/17)

Once again we were tasked with posing Moom however this time Moom must replicate a more subtle acting pose. 

James Bond

Dunkirk

Kick Ass

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

The Walking Dead

Monday 25 September 2017

Collaboration - Initial Ideas


In order to create a story for the Collaboration each member of the studio was instructed to come up with several "loose" initial ideas. The premise that was given to the group was "the wrong response to....".

Examples given included

I love you
opening a present
meeting royalty

Addition ideas from brain storming as a group included 

Blind date/Speed dating
Online chat/Forum question
New neighbours/roommates
Hair cut/Wedding dress/New look
Bad comedian
Emergency response/999 call
Funeral/Death
Pen Pal/Foreigner
Award acceptance speech
Bad food
Assassin
Computer error
Bomb disposal
To a child('s question)
IT helpdesk
Being stuck in traffic/a line

From which I wrote up four scenarios, in short

Bad Meal

A father reading a newspaper as one of the table has a plate with a steak on it. At another side of the table the daughter waiting for her food. The daughter receives a plate of food trying it sceptically. This makes her gag and she looks for other options seeing the steak. The daughter then tries to swap the plates around without alerting the father each time escalating in complexity. Eventually the daughter completes this task and takes a bite of the steak. This makes her gag and wretch underneath the table as it is just as bad. the father becoming suspicious lowers his newspaper revealing him eating from a packet of crisps. 

Emergency response

An unconscious character is laying at the side of an accident, two paramedics spot him and come from either side. One reaches hims first and completes some chest compressions reviving the man. The other paramedic races over pushing the other paramedic out the way and knocking the man unconscious again. The man is once again revived using a pair of paddles. The two paramedics continue to knock the man unconscious and bring him back with various methods. Eventually the man tires and stays conscious enough to knock both paramedics out. Soon more paramedics arrive to help the ones who have been knocked out. 

Death (hero's death)

Set much like a cinematic block buster a hero lays centre stage with his dead companion in his arms, the remains of a harsh battle around him. The moment is interrupted as the villain and his henchmen approach from the screen. The villain points his gun at the hero threatening to shoot him. The hero challenges this by grabbing the barrel, point it towards his head. A pause is given before the hero sticks up his hand, giving a gesture that is blurred by the camera. The villain finds this offensive back handing the hero. In return the hero carelessly disregards the body of his friend, standing up slapping the villain back in a childish manor. Looking hurt the villain drops his own weapon to slap the hero back. The henchmen look confused, uncertain of what to do. The hero picks up the his companion only to use his body like a bat swinging it towards the villain. The camera cuts to a later date showing the discoloured body with flies circling it. The two characters tired out and a janitor cleaning up the mess.

Death (the hooded figure)

Two typically British men are drinking tea and enjoying biscuits as death suddenly manifests in front of them pointing his finger aggressively at one of the characters. The two pause having little to no reaction before continuing with their lives. Death massages his head underneath the darkness of his hood. He then gestures more politely and one of the character stands before the other tells him to sit back down for tea. He then also extends the offer to death who reluctantly agrees. Death sips the tea and eats a biscuit which he chokes on and promptly dies. A ghost appears from the corpse of death shaking his head. Another figure manifests wearing the same hood as death in addition to a scrub and a ID tag. He goes over to the ghost of death before taking him away. Once again the two continue to act nonchalantly. 



Collaboration - ArrowPark Studio's Title Card

ArrowPark's new logo

My colleague Anastasija Strelcova has created a professional looking logo to brand our studio. I have Animated the logo to act as a title card for any future animations. 

Collaboration - Blog

Blog collaboration with Ellie Row and Anastasija Strelcova 

https://arrowparkstudios.blogspot.co.uk

Thursday 21 September 2017

Post Modernism - Key Words

Defining Key words in context of Post-Modernism.



High Modernism: A movement that is known for having belief and confidence in science and technology as a way to bring order to society and nature. This form of modernity was most prevalent during the late 50s and the 60s.

Capitalism: A political system that has a country's trade and industry controlled by private markets who do so for profit, rather than being controlled by the state.

Superabundance: An excessive amount of something that is beyond the required amount, possibly with negative effect.

Disconnected: Broken, taken away from a group or the situation at hand.

Schizoid: Characterised as having varied emotions and habits in an inconsistent manner.

Pop: Popular culture of the time; including art, music and fashion.

Fragmentary: Consists of multiple, broken down fragments or pieces that no longer connect.

Eclectic nostalgia: A false sense of nostalgia and pleasant feeling resulting from a number elements that imitate the past.

Superficiality: A lack of any depth of real character or thought.

Simulacra: A representation of something, or a cheap, unsuitable substitute.

Flippant: Showing disrespect through one's attitude not giving a serious response.

Fabulation: Reinventing a story or tale with false elements. This could include works of fantasy of which the phrase originated from.

Pastiche: An artistic style that mimics or imitates the style of another artist or work.

Bricolage: A collage of available materials to create a piece of work either physical or in literature.

Aleatory: An adjective that describes the random choice in the formation of art.

Depthless: Without an end.

Skeptical: Doubtful and uncertain of the information provided.

Ambiguous: Unclear and undefined.

Innovative: Changing the norms and breaking boundaries that were once perceived as absolute.

Obfuscation: Making a subject unclear, or more difficult to interpret.

Artist Toolkit - Maya, Moom Poses (21/09/17)


Posing with the character provided for us has proven a fun and time consuming task. Completing this has helped to realise the importance of centre of gravity in a pose and how much it can change the dynamic of a stance. This has also proven to be invaluable practice with the "Moom" model which will be used for the later animated short.  

Ballerina pose

Basketball pose

Boxing pose

Street Dance pose

Kung Fu pose




Post Modernism - "Kill Bill"

Five reasons why "Kill Bill" is an example of Post Modernism



"kill Bill" is Quentin Tarantino's forth film which has been well received by both audience and reviews. 

1. (Pastiche) The film consists of numerous homages from other films taking example of shots and scenes. These are often taking from multiple genres creating a Pastiche as the film replicates multiple styles. One example of this is the yellow biking leathers worn by the main character played by 
Uma Thurman, imitating the costume worn by Bruce Lee.

2. (Intertextuality)"Kill Bill" takes a number of genres such as action, western, thriller, fighting, anime, etc. to create a single piece of film showing Intertextuality. 

3. (Hyper realism) There is an exaggerated amount of gore throughout the film often or not breaking the suspension of disblief. As "kill Bill" progresses the blood is shown to spurt excessively out of surely fatal wounds, fighting begins to take to the air defying gravity and people are hurled across the room. 



4. (Contrapuntal Sound design) While the norm for films is to have music and diegetic sounds to fit the imagery provided Tarantino's film goes against this having Western, Mexican trumpets play against the Japanese, samurai-like sword fights. The choice in sound seems to heavily contradict the imagery chosen. 

5. (Animated Scene) Breaking the convention of films before it "Kill Bill" makes use of animation to help show the origins of one of the antagonists of the film. This use of animation done in the style of Japanese anime contradicts the live action footage but also reflects elements such as the excessive amount of blood.  


Artist Toolkit - Life Drawing (20/09/17)

20 minutes

5 minute poses

20 minutes