What am I doing?

Well over the weekend (well OK the weekend before last, I've just been too lazy to post) I felt as If I had a bit of a brainwave. I was chilling out at home wondering what I could do next with my project. I believe I was still at a point where I was finishing off my second test animation, (I will post some examples of what my work looks like at present soon). I had developed a visual style where that I felt could possibly be used to express some of the feelings and emotions of feeling truly alive, a heightened sense of reality or being if you will.


However I had no narrative or Idea of exactly how or why I would or should deliver this animation style. However over the weekend a few ingredients seemed to mix together inside my brain and I will now describe how as to share my current understanding of my project.


During one of our group discussions before the end of the week I created a mood book and mood board using images that I had gathered from the library over the first term. Whilst finally printing them off and forming them into a booklet/ mood board form I realised there was a general theme or similarity/ mood between certain pieces, there was a degree of consistency. In particular an enthral, washed out style using inks, interesting, detailed line work, mysterious forests, beautiful fashion models and textured hand made paper.


I showed the mood board that I had produced, along with my mood book to the goop. It was agreed that there was a consistency that matched the line work that I had produced for my animation tests ( I think there was anyways, I thought there was).


Anyways, Derek highlighted a couple of images he liked which were of Moddels with Biro (or Biro effect) drawings on there faces and bodies. Derek suggested that if I produced something like this then it would be something that could be seen as marketable/ transferable or of interest to employers or clients. Well... at first I don't think I was too interested in this, I only used these images because I liked the line quality and shading in the Biro drawings and also to inform others that I was open to Ideas outside of just my drawings and drawing style. All though in all honesty I was not particularly interested in pursuing this particular combination of techniques or "selling out" my artistic ideals as Derek put it in order to present myself as more employable.


Although, I did have a slight interest in adding effects to live action, I had seen Ashley Connely working on these techniques the previous year and decided it would be worth going through the video co-pilot tutorial and give it a shot.


However the very next day I saw something that influenced me and pushed me a little further in this direction. James Flemming (a previous student that I knew during my second year) visited the university to give a presentation on Double Negatives work (the company he now works for down in Soho) and what exactly they do. A large portion of his talk was dedicated to Match Moving, he even recommended this book: Match Moving (the invisible art of camera tracking) to all in attendance. The process described is of tracking special affects to live footage, He stated that adding an out of focus object between you and your background with plenty of motion blur would help with the tracking and increasing the depth of field. I just need to remember that! Although this book will apparently provide all of the information required.


Anyways, I acknowledged that during the talk I probably wondered how I could use this but I still don't think that the Idea of using live actors to capture a performance had set in.


The next day (Saturday) I watched Black Swan, I enjoyed it thoroughly. There was a key scene, where Natalie Portmans character finally makes her transition into the black Swan, she appears on stage, almost manic with blood red eyes hidden under a veil which gives her skin an unnatural appearance. She is charged, excited and short ob breath riding the adrenalin rush, believing that she had just killed her rival. For her this is a powerful transition and although it is generated through negative actions, this is the kind of high point in ones existence that I wish I could capture or express, however this is also throughout the contrast in Natalie Portmans performance of the duality of her character Nina.

I actually related to this in my own way and was charged and empowered by it. It reminded me of my summer, I have always viewed myself as meek and anti social, however during the summer for reasons outside of my control, for a few months I was incredibly outgoing, bold, perceptive, aggressive and seductive even. It was outside of my control a little rabid in nature and completely effortless (god knows why I actually went to the effort of stopping and controlling myself) but this transformation in the character, her achieving the transformation or gaining the abilities that she desired reminded me of this and how effortless some of the actions listed above were whilst I was in that state and how I felt truly on edge, Alive and engaged with my surroundings at all times bordering on feeling lethal by comparison to the people around me.

Anyways, what I'm saying is at the dramatic height of the film I became quite excited and my pulse raced, it reminded me of feeling a certain way and brought it back and I'm talking about Nina's transition, not the sex scenes. :P

So anyways, I went to sleep and the next day whilst trying to focus on work but recalling the film a few things just seemed to fall into place inside my mind.

I would use a previously conceived narrative or Idea (someone elses' work) which Derek had already suggested that we use as a starting point. I would look at dances that already exist and through which the movement suggests the Ideas and feelings that I wanted to express.
For this I would have to do a great deal of research into dancing.
In addition I would record a live performance of dancers performing someone else's dance and use the image tracking techniques (I decided that ti was fate that provided 3-4 sources suggesting it to me) in order to impose my drawing techniques over the live footage. That is one possibility anyways. I also liked that as soon as I had decided to do this I walked over to the book shelf in my room, picking up a large book on ballet that I had brought over the summer in a sale (£1.50) At the time I bought it I told myself that it would be of use to me at some point.

Now even though I used the word fate, it is not something in particular that I believe in, but I just find it interesting that all these things have fallen into place, and possibly just in time at that.
I also like that looking through all the images on fashion and models etc that I found over the course of my research they are all tied in/ useful or will come in handy as subjects of either study or inspiration.