RESEARCH PART 2 TEXT MESSAGE: HARRY WATT AND BASIL WRIGHT: 'NIGHT MAIL

RESEARCH PART 2 TEXT MESSAGE: HARRY WATT AND BASIL WRIGHT: 'NIGHT MAIL

During the project brief on 'TEXT MESSAGE' my lecturer introduced us to the very influential film called 'NIGHT MAIL' directed by Harry Watt and Basil Wright. It shows the very famous scene where a train is travelling to Scotland, the sound is in sync with the motion of the train tracks with a written poem and music. When watching and listening I realised that there poem is describing the journey to the audience which also extends the vast imagery used, such as the many cut shots and rapid shots of the certain aspects of the train and its surroundings.

This was for me a good starting point for me to understand what the project expects of me. My objective is to sought a creative response to the text message, my whole animation is to be revolved around the text met with creativity and matter of fact. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, 'WAR STORY' was the animation I was most intrigued by. However, Watching the scene from Night Mail has made me rethink my strategy.

I dug deeper to try and find out more information regarding this scene. I learnt that the poem that was used was from W.H.AUDEN and it was used towards the end of the film and importantly a few lines from the poem were taken out to fit the film sequence. I am also contemplating finding a poem or a verse that would fit into my animation and if I were definitely going through with this idea, I would consider cutting down lines to save time and fit the scenes. I gathered this information from (gradeasaver.com) 

I learnt that the speed of which the poem is read out matches the movement of the train, which I thought was quite effective as it provides a clear understanding visually and audibly. Auden in the first part of his poem used eight rhymed four-beat couplets in accordance to the sequence. (gradeasaver.com)

I was also thinking for an idea, in contrast to the films scene, I could pick up the tempo and the pace of the animation to give more variety and make the animation seem more interesting because it may prevent the animation from becoming a drag and boring.

I also wanted to gather information from this film scene because my lecturer says that it is on of the most influential films ever made and in any circumstances for research and planning, I want to learn from the best and try to incorporate valuable information I have found as a way of improving my skills and to help me learn from my mistakes from my previous animation.

In conclusion, I have been able to broaden my mind and have found new sources of inspiration that have allowed me to emerge more ideas based upon strategy and how I approach this project. I want to however carry on my research because I still have not yet made a decision on my final idea.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION:

GRADEASAVER.COM

RESEARCH PART 2 TEXT MESSAGE: PETER LORD/ WAR STORY/GOING EQUIPPED

RESEARCH PART 2 TEXT MESSAGE: PETER LORD/ WAR STORY/GOING EQUIPPED

Peter Lord is a British animator, Film producer and director and theco-founder of Aardman animations. During the brief of our next project, My lecturer showed the class two Aardman animations called 'WAR STORY' and 'GOING EQUIPPED' which gave me a clear example of the type of animation that is expected of us. They are based upon the title of 'TEXT MESSAGE' which requires lateral thinking and a free range of creativity. I am required to find a short text as the source for the animation which can range from creative writing or found sources or from nature.

Currently in the early stage of research and planning, I have at the moment found innovation from these two animations I have noted above. This is primarily due to Peter Lords' creativity and his approach to development processes. I purchased a book called 'THE ART OF AARDMAN'  and Peter Lord spoke about how "Every film that we bring to the screen has been developed through words and in pictures." He also said from the source that "I love to dig out the stories within stories and hidden histories buried under the surface." In my view he means that he likes to anchor ideas from other ideas and reform it and recreate it as his own, and through this regression, new ideas can emerge.

Peter also said that "ideas come from inside your head, and as often as not, they tumble straight out as drawings and into sketchbooks." I came to learn from this one quote that you should always have a sketchbook and pencil in hand and always jot down ideas and drawings. They do not have to be oil paintings or even remotely interesting or complete, but jotting things down can give you the first step to the path of experimentation.

I also decided to learn about the synopsis of 'WAR STORY and 'GOING EQUIPPED' Below you can view the animations:










According to sources from IMDB, 'WAR STORY' used a real interview for the sound, where a man named Bill Perry who relates back to his youth days and his tilted house and his adventures during the world war 2 blitz. For a potential idea I am suggesting anchoring the same format of a person narrating about their youth with the person talking about their memorable moments.

I also dug out for information about 'GOING EQUIPPED' The plot is simply, very similar to 'WAR STORY' a person being interviewed about his life, how he got into prison and what it is like doing prison time. For my idea, I am potentially looking to this format. I particularly enjoyed 'WAR STORY' more because it was more light hearted and the flash back scenes were of high interest to me.

In conclusion, These two animations are sources rom which I am going to anchor from and I am going to look for more sources to help me broaden my knowledge and my creativity skills. I also need to pin down idea for a story, this is the area I am currently struggling with.

RESEARCH ON FINE ARTISTS 2: FISCHI AND WEISS:

During my second week of fine art, my teacher introduced me to these artists called Fischi and Weiss who were an artistic duo mainly working with clay sculptures.

Their work consisted of comedic and intelligent wit. A prime example being their first collaborative project: "Wurstserie" which consisted of a series of sliced sausages which would be shown reacting to senarios to situations such as traffic accidents and so forth. This is very similar to anthropomorphism, which sets the comedic theme.

I also learnt that in some of their pieces of work, the duo would create forms and events that actually happened, this also reflects upon day to day events that are echoed in everyones lives. Hence the title 'The World We Live In' this displayed a subjective viewpoint of the artists views on the occurrences in the world. It revolves around almost rhetorical questions as they cannot be answered like: "what does it mean to be alive".

I could not really find much else about their work because it was so succinct and I found that there was a reoccurring theme reprised in each piece of work that they did.

The reason behind the research of these artists is because I made a TV theatre, which is quite reminiscent to this work because I used clay figures as the main focal point of my piece, my peers found my design to be unexpected and humorous, which is the exact words described for Fischli and Weiss.

RESEARCH ON FINE ARTIST: EDOUARD MANET

Moving onto the fine art aspect of the foundation course, I researched Edouard Manet. I also bought his book: "MANET by himself" which covers his whole life's endeavours of art.

At the beginning on the fine art course, we were set to make a collage of any kind. I looked inside the book and came across many portraits of people, ranging from paintings to drawings and other uses of materials. I cut out the figures and stuck them onto a A3 sheet of paper to create a contrasting poster showing the past versus the future.

Below shows my collage work:

This was a small introduction to how I used some of Manet's work for my collage.

After I formed this collage. I researched deeply into Manet's techniques and the transition from his realism and naturalism work into Impressionism, which is what he is renowned for.

A famous quote of his sums up the majority of his work:

"I paint what I see, and not what others like to see" 

Manet was a very assertive artist and he would bring forth his own visions into his work and he deliberately averted from conventional rules of painting. 

Manet was met in his early works with a lot of criticism especially criticism for his painting 'The absinthe drinker' His biggest critic being Thomas Couture, another influential french painter who commented:

 "does anyone paint something so ugly? My poor friend, there is only one absinthe drinker here, and this is the painter who produced this insanity" ... 

Before his Impressionism movement, Manet began combining full length portrait work and he would implement the theme of reality existing in the present time. Also, he would reject the concept of less is more attitude with his work. 

Finally, Manet's work was a style in which he would depict visual impressions of movement, especially with shifting effects of light and colours and focus on whole-tone scale. 

Taking away from my research, what inspired me the most was his famous quote, in which he asserted his own individuality into his work. This is in my view saying do not try to make a piece of work for others because it usually tends to be weak and making a piece of art for yourself and making it the way you want to make it will eventually reap you with reward because you cannot impress everybody and making your work to the best of your ability is more than can be asked.

I sourced my work from the following webpage:

Http://www.impressionniste.net/manet_edouard.htm

RESEARCH: 3D DESIGNER: FRANK GEHRY/HIROTOSHI ITOH

I have written in my journal some research of Frank Gehry and I reflected some of his methods into my written work and I touched on what elements of his work would be best suited for my work.

I have conducted and tried and establish the mind set and the ways in which he provokes these tasks. Furthermore, I cover on this blog various other practitioners such as Hirotoshi Itoh, who specifies with juxtaposition 3D design work that I have a keen interest for at this early stage.

I also stumbled across some really intricate 3D designs that are juxtaposed from two completely different elements and I want to design a piece with contrasting effect, which also shows structure and surface.

These were some of the designs I came across from Google Images:

I found this image which linked me to a Pinterest account from an artist called Hirotoshi Itoh. I learnt from this design that he found the rock you see fairly near where he lived and he went down the Juxtaposition root and he wanted to "Juxtapose the original shape and hardness" I got this quote from the following website: PINTEREST

I also found out from his work he has a particular theme, in this case, he is trying to depict humour whilst depicting texture. I want to combine Gehry's work ethic and Itohs' visual conception and background narrative he displays.



In conclusion,looking at Itohs' and Gehrys' work, I do want to pursue this line of work, I am still thinking about what objects I want to juxtapose. I think the juxtaposition of hard and soft really fits like a glove.

To see the first part of my research, please check my journal which I shall hand in during assessment week.

I also stumbled across Itohs' website which you can see HERE

RESEARCH: DESIGNER PRACTIONERS: CHARLES WILKIN/ JOEL MORRISON

I researched some information from Wilkins' personal website, which gave a auto personal overview of his work, which gave me a broader perspective of the thesis behind his work.

HERE you can access is website, where I have reflected on his work based on this research material. 

From his own words, he tackles his work through articulate reflection of the world, he anchors qualities from the world such as 'Ugliness' and 'Cruelty'

I spoke a little bit about Morrisons' work in my previous blog post but I want to expand on what I researched on this page.

He mainly works in composite structure and he uses a narrowed selection of materials such as fibre glass and stainless steel.

My focus is not on his material use, but his style of design alone. The reason being is because his work revolves around popular culture, and with the help of my teacher, we discussed about looking at issues and problems in the world and to create a piece of work that would resemble the solved problem.

Although this route is fairly perplexing and interesting at the same time, It followed through in some form because I looked at Morrisons' work and I saw some flamboyant but clever designs that are based on everyday objects and clothing. The key to this thought process is to tweak objects to improve the conditions of the objects.

I also saw some of Joel Morrisons' work which caught my eye.
His work is based upon composite sculpture, in which he finds objects at random and comes up with various designs. I very much enjoy the visuals of his work, this is the focal point for me. is techniques are a bit of a stretch for my ability but I want to include his design in some form.

RESEARCH: CONTEMPORARY ARTIST/MEDIA PRACTITIONER 1: BLU

My task for the coming weeks is to research 6 practitioners ranging from contemporary artists, designers and media practitioners. Today I am looking into the work of a street artist named BLU.

I have collected articles and biographies online with full annotations talking about my research in my own words that will be of benefit in the future for my art course.

I only found out about the artist this week when I was introduced to his moving image art work video on Youtube, where he would paint to large scale on industrial landscapes. His art is somewhat excessive and dramatic with the various bright colours he usually works with and his very eccentric creativity. In this video below that I saw this week, he depicts a story of a 'animated mural' using graphic animation, which took him a very long time to complete.

 

I found out from a biography I sourced online, the article says; "blu's aesthetic search is motivated by a belief in an open source philosophy" from http://www.swide.com/art-culture/street-art/blu-artist-biography-why-street-art-matters/2012/11/21. Which I believe is a way of expressing his love of knowledge. He improvises his work based on political events and various events which are conducted in our society. His work, although exaggerated, still is purely based of real life events.

His work is 'sanctioned art', having a purpose for his work, channeling his inner focus on the human figure as well as resorting to using various materials to complete his art, such as using rollers, acrylics and spray paints. In this particular video above, Blu would paint on walls, frame every movement one at a time and paint over the top of the original image, to create the assimilation of a moving image depicting a narrative using improvised actions and not words.

Whilst researching the artist, I stumbled across his website. It displays his drawings in a sketchbook with no annotations. However, the key to my research is to look at the thesis of his mindset and his work ethic to critically understand the genre and the purpose behind the art of moving image as this is a likely root for me to follow in the future.

Click HERE to view his website.

From observing his drawings, there were no annotations in sight or any sophisticated planning, it was all sketches in finished form. What I learnt from this is that he jumps straight to the end result, hence why his work, from looking at his biographies, suggest that he always improvises and pans through his work from start to finish on the day he starts working.

However, he did use artistic collaboration where he would work with other street artists, such as Dem, Sweza etc.

Here is one of his collaborative work with Ericalicane, another street artist:

In conclusion, BLU in my eyes is a street artist who does art for the sake of enjoyment and he also uses art as a form of giving to people. Quoting from UCreative.com: 'blu's approach to street art is that it's for everyone' Another source says: 'The work moves against ownership and exclusivity, instead thinking of art as a collectively owned piece.'

I have annotated articles and news pages from online sources which give more of my interpretation of BLU on separate piles of paper.