Index for blog:

In order to make my blog easier to view I have separated each post by project:

(click to view all posts on each section)

Project 1: Sea Owl

Project 2: Unity fundraiser poster.


Project 3: Music video for Quack Quack

Project 4/5: Audio animation project.

Been working on the idea for the 'hereditory language' video, which focuses uponn the beginning 'beauty' section. I want to show the idea of beauty in it's modern and newer version, as a result I have decided upon this idea that involves the manipulation of 40s pin-ups into their better versions. These retro versions of perfected femininity however beautiful and outerworldly their features now fail to live up to the idea of modern beauty. Bearing this in mind, I am asking how could they be improved today? picturing the pin-ups getting plastic surgery and suffering body anxiety. Because in many ways this is what pin-ups of every generation represent to their appropriate audience. (according to rosalin coward's theory on the look)

These lectures by Jean Kilbourne are really interesting. In my video I intended to look at the passing down of beauty ideals, but perhaps in a way I should find a way to critique their changing. One point that Kilbourne brought up that was shocking to me was that only 5% of women have the natural body type that is portrayed in the media, leaving the other 95% as the target market. Basically the media fail to represent these statistics.
Secondly, 2o years ago the body type portrayed in the media weighed 8% less than the average woman, now it is 23% less. Exactly as Kilbourne said, Marilyn Monroe would be considered 'fat' by today's media.

planning for next animation

I decided to use this audio track by Les Levine called 'Hereditory Language'.

Here's the blurb from ubu.com

"You're probably going to tall off your chair and think that this is a ridiculous position," says Les Levine in his most casual voice, "but I do think that I'm part of the history of Irish literature I very much feel that my ancestors are James Joyce and Brendan Behan and those kinds of people." The statement is not so tar-fetched as if might seem. Levine - who was, after all, born in Dublin in 1935 - from Irish Catholic mother and a Jewish father - who worked as a cabinet maker - is known pre-eminently as a visual artist. But his billboards, photographs, posters, paintings and videos have always involved to some extent what he refers to as "an investigation of language" apparent to the casual observer in the presence of printed words is those works. The nexus of words and visual images sometimes give his creations the look of advertisements - indeed, his subway poster picturing an Oriental couple with the readout WE ARE NOT AFRAID could have been a teaser for a forthcoming film that never, in fact, existed.

Back in 1969, Levine began calling himself a "media sculptor," perhaps the first artist to use that terminology to imply that the media themselves had become a medium that could be worked with like metal or wood. "My work is primarily about media," he says now, "which I see as an extension of the body, a farm of extraterrestrial biology." Recognizing that "media is a real generator of major illnesses," he has used same of the tools of media to present alternative ways of thinking about information. "I'm one of those people," says Levine, "who's naive enough to believe that the world actually has been changed by art."

With his work for this record, he is "showing how kids respond to certain kinds of information. The piece is about the state your mind is in when you're a child and how that's affected by the kind of adult mind that's around you." The track concerns the way language is transmitted to the young and operates as a model in their lives, "the way kids become receptacles far information, and the kinds of expectations it creates and the levels of disappointment it generates."

I like the idea of how information if passed down through generations. And also the idea that this sometimes can be detrimental by instilling certain ideals within the young, such as beauty ideals, which whilst these change with the fashions and times, the specific ideal created, generation after generation, remains as rigid as ever. As a self perpetuating cycle the focus on beauty remains constant and contradictions of such remain on the fringe.

update

Untitled from eleanor woodburn on Vimeo.

I was worried about how the vector hands would work out, but I think it looks nice and with a bit of manipulation seems to flow ok too.

Untitled from eleanor woodburn on Vimeo.

All the work so far!

The opening credits from the Wilco doc 'I am trying to break your heart' have this sort of grey city look to it.

I also like the combination of the text and the visuals.

I think it also conveys well the idea of viewing the city through someone else's eyes.

Imagine this but with drawings over and text added. I like the hand held camera look I think it would work much better than using a tripod because of the idea of seeing it through someone's eyes.

I like the slightly grainy look to it as well, which could be recreated by using a hand video cam and also printing the frames. Using more processes will degrade the quality increasingly.

Research for 'flow of consciousness film'

For this, I want to use the narration as a kind of 'inner thought' whilst the visuals show the everyday and perhaps certain texts that span the inner and the outer.

I really like the aged, black / white super 8mm aesthetic. And the look of drawing on film.

This film by Eric Andersen gives an idea of this aesthetic at it's most basic.

phew

Untitled from eleanor woodburn on Vimeo.

example of 'look' of the video. thank god it seems to be working out right!

Developing some of the key frames in the selected styles:

styles

Been trying to experiment with the style of my animation by taking influence from various other sources.
These are some of my experiments so far:


This is a shot from a little tester video I put together. I used a graph background and inverted the stars film, when put together the effect is that it looks really handmade and the black stars look like little splodges of ink on a page, which I think it quite neat.


This look was inspired from the Adrian Tomine 'shortcomings' book cover. This is very graphic and completely different from the traditional / diy look i have been going for so far. But as something totally contradictory to what I have been doing I really like it, and because it is so different I think I would be able to style all the other scenes accordingly, rather than using images from what I have already done.
I would like to test the background colour for this, I would keep most of the images black and white and perhaps have the background colour changing constantly.


This has similarities to th previous idea. This idea was taken from certain comic books and also aiplane safety cards, hence the frame, which I actually think adds a nice touch to the images in containing them in some way.

I would however like to add a little colour to this but I am unsure as to how it could be done.


Using parts of the work I have already done I have experimented with printing the images out onto different papers. I quite like this look, I think that the lower opacity would make the globe seem flatter.



More paper experiments. I tried to see what the images would be like on aged paper to try give all the shots some consistency, but for me I don't think it works, in terms of image and in terms of the actual song I am using.


I have tried to desaturate the colour from the images I already had then digitally adding them in. I quite like the dotted background but it reminds me too much of the transparent background on photoshop too much!


This is where i desaturated the image and coloured it in by hand which I think loks better than the digital version.

mp3s

Looking for an audio track as the base for an animation, I have been rigorously searching ubu.com for a couple that grab my attention.
So far I like this track entitled 'i really should' by Kelly Mark, it is a long running stream of consciousness that explores the idea of 'i really should' one thing is reeled off one after the other, ideas that probably most people identify with.

And this track by Martha Rosier entitled 'whats your name little girl?' which explores the idea of names and what they have come to mean in relation to their history and origins.

False consciousness



"Epic montages of the excesses of industrial consumer culture"



Tongue in cheek commentary on popular culture especially the issue of women's magazines.



Music video visualising a rather sarcastic song.I like the simplicity of the style of animation and also the look of the shots, with the cut outs and sepia colour.

Pistache

I almost always reference this film, but in terms of a project that brings work and theory together this is a great reference point.





A rather simple slide show type animation that explores / explains the 'theory of everything'



'Theory of relativity' animation. There are some really nice visual parts to this especially the beginning.

Big bang!

Big bang video, on a timeline with narration. Ideas are based around certain theories. Totally helpful.

Amelie

I also found a pdf of the storyboard for the film Amelie here which looks a bit like this.


I really like the look of this storyboard and the way that instructions don't infringe on the images, but it is also more important for me to remind myself how things will work.
It is really interesting to see the different methods and techniques though!

Storyboarding

I found this great site for information on storyboarding.

I'm not really sure what the site is / for, but it seems super useful. At the moment I am currently converting a choice of initial ideas into very basic sketches / storyboards. But I realise that looking at some of the images they do not convert so well to explaining movement and as this is a longer animation than usual it will be important for me to plan out the time and know what is going on.
So tomorrow I will have a look in the library to see if they have any books on storyboarding, and perhaps ask will in my crit who seems knowledgeable about such things.
Hopefully after these initial sketches, I can start building up the first storyboard of the ideas...and do it properly.

frames
passed around

reflection in glasses?
camera?
magnifying lens

---> makes things grow

See view

Things multiply

things move out of the frame.....

maybe everything gets jumbled up at the end?

picked up and put in a box?

"GREATER BEING" (that moves things, hands, arms, legs, picking things up)

Last go with the poster. I think the text works much better like this.

Unity poster

Today I thought I would have a stab at the Unity fundraiser event poster.
I had to work very quick on this because they want it asap. So decisions were made super quick.
There wasn't really very much to go on, just an abundance of information to put on the poster and that was that.
Here is how it developed anyhoo...









I basically wanted to use an instrument in the initial design and I always enjoy images where something usual and a bit twee becomes more interesting hence the spiders. I found that i really needed a way for this to sit on the page better and looked for a bright background but found that plain colour clashed too much with the blocky colour of the vector violin so opted for something in colour but more simple, i.e. patterned and translucent.

I always find it very difficult to use text, and at least I have been getting more practice with it recently. I found that creating a less busy space for the text worked better especially placing it between the exploded view of the violin.

Because of the amount of information needed I decided that the bottom image needed to be more subtle so that the text could overlap.

After a bit of feedback I seemed to find that the left aligned text worked better with the bordering to break it up. Christian also said that the text needed to be divided into 3 parts, which I then did with the bordering system. Which I think now allows the poster to be read properly.

Also what was mentioned was the relationship between the text and the image:
This is the final poster (i think) I have tried to make the image / background and text more harmonious by using the colour of the background as a way to highlight the text and make the sub heading more subdued than the heading. I have also made the blocks slightly translucent so that it seems less in front of the image and more part of it (the top image).

I have tested the poster out on people and it seems to read much better now. As in each block is read in order. Yay.

Royksopp - Remind Me

google

I tried to search for the seaowl site to see how people would be able to reach it. I realised that you have to submit it to google in order for it to come up in search results.

So I have now submitted it so it should show up in a few days.

A few other ideas, using patterns and shapes to make a really clean, greyscale form.

Idea development

So these are some of the ideas we decided to develop, as potential cover art:




I did the snakey ideas yesterday and the satellite dish is getting developed further today. Tomorrow I will be working on the mountains.

i am cripplingly aware that i need to think of some other project(s) to complete as part of my FMP. None of the competition briefs I looked at grabbed me. I could possibly look at my own self-promotion and re-do my web/cards etc, but this isn't exactly brimming with creativity.
I have thought about creating a zine, but i feel i ought to have a reason behind it before i start.

murrrrrr

splash

So the idea was to collect a bunch of oldy images to use as the rotating image on the splash page. Bearing this in mind I went on the hunt the other day and found some of the above in an antiques shop and picked out the ones I liked best to use.
I think they work really well and all look pretty nice. As it is now, there are 5 rotating images that are used on the splash and they look as so:
This code has been a pain to implement and nothing seems to like it much so i had to re-load up the whole site, but it seems to be working a-ok now ...

I have set up the site on the remote server so that it works as a proper site now:

http://seaowl.110mb.com/index.html/HOME.html

i just need to set up the web address and re-direct so that it comes up as an easier address

We agreed on the fact that the navigation bar should highlight when rolled over, but instead to keep with the monotone look of all the layout and just invert the colours for the buttons, hence I have done this!

I have finally managed to get the splash page to a point where I can manipulate the code to make it look and work much better.

At the moment the text and the images work separately, but they are both functional as links into the site. What I think I might do is when I have the right images for the splash I will incorporate the 'SEA OWL ENTER' into that so that they appear as one on the page. This will also work much better when not using a mac.

OMG after such faffing around I finally found a code that seemed to work okay, after a bit of going over.
here:
http://www.bloggerforum.com/modules/newbb/viewpost.php?uid=12914

This means that my splash page will rotate images! amazing, now that I have it set up i can easily add more images!

great

Working on the site. I have been setting up the main pages, this includes the navigation bar. The first is simply an image of the navigation bar which I have divided up into hotspots in dreamweaver, as a result only the cursor changes when you go rollover, not the original image.
In the second example I have divided up the navigation bar into each separate page, then created two images for both, one coloured and one not, then I have assembled the navigation bar together on dreamweaver and created rollover images for all.

Which is best! I like the second one because I think it becomes much easier to use a page when rollovers are used on the links. I will have to check with matt to see which he prefers!

2nd go

Changed the layout a bit. I felt a bit uncomfortable with how the left column was overlapped by the navigation bar text and line, it made it seem a bit unbalanced, I don't know if this is better now?

TYPE RULES FOR WEB

http://www.dynamicgraphics.com/dgm/Article/28512

'House Style'

I was sent these as an idea of a 'house style':


I am sort of weary however that these are releases from the same band, but I guess there are elements I could take from this, for example, the style of illustration, the colours used, the placement of the text, things like this could be adapted to suit any release.

web mock up

This is a better web mock up of the site. I want to keep this layout throughout, 3 columns, one for text and two to fit in an image. I think this will transfer to most pages. When new material is added the old material / information can get moved down so it will be scrollable. Which I now think is much easier than creating a second news page, e.t.c.
This mock up has been sent for approval.

pin badge ideas:

Couple of ideas for pin badges using the logos/images I have been working on. As a promotional tool I guess the tape one gives the best idea of what the badge is for and gives text, making the label search able on the internet, however the owl one is cute, and as a freebie with the tapes this might be a nicer idea. I guess they both serve different purposes.

Type development

Been working on a matchstick font, to go with an idea I have had for packaging one of the cassettes:
development:

I am thinking about making some type with the cassette tape, or having a go, some insp for this and how it could potentially work all together.

cont ...

Ha! apparently it does matter to some!

typo

I want to experiment with typography on this project, this is a great site for some inspiration for that.
I am sort of surprised though at how many of the fonts are pretty illegible:
I mean, I think this is beautiful to look at and a great idea (and maybe it is just me) but if you have to work hard to read it however aesthetically pleasing it is, is it successful?
Or can it just be great based upon it's style? Does it have to function?