Blog Post - My Standpoint

“May the lessons we learn from history, and the stories we create, connect constructively with the chaos and complexity that is the ever evolving experience of each participant” (Smythe, 2011) This is a quote I found that emphasises the importance of history which is something that I really want to express in my stop motion film ad it am looking into the design stream of cultural and context. I decided on focussing on the idea of the importance of design history and how it has influenced and let us into the design we see today. Especially within the digital age we live in today so often people are to busy looking into the future and what is coming next to remember that it is just a necessary to look back and appreciate what has got us this far.

In my design I want to express my viewpoint by having the history of design re created out of sculptures made from the pages of books. Using the knowledge I have learnt from the 171 design lectures each of the sculptures will be somehow be significant to the design eras we have studied starting from the Greek Parthenon to the digital era of technology such as ipods and phones that we live in today and a sculpture to represent the future to show that history, like technology is constantly growing and developing. I also want to hint at the idea that the digital era we live in is distracting us from the importance of history by making us focus to much on the future. To show this I want to incorporate a person who is distracted by technology (e.g. ipod or phone) and therefore leave the book which all the sculptures will come out of behind, however, to symbolise the greatness of history the person will then come back and retrieve the book to show they have remembered.

An example we looked at in class of how history has influenced design of today is the Parthenon verses the Iphone. This connection stretches from 400BC to today however the influence of the classical style of the parthenon on the Iphone is apparent in the simplicity, straight lines, and monochromatic color pallet. This is a prime example of why history is so vital to the survival of great design.



References:


Smythe, Michael. 2011. Random House Group. New Zealand By Design.Print

My Story Board

Made by using black paint and pen on an actual book

Mindmaps

These are my group and individual mindmaps on cultural and context design brainstorming words and features that could help with inspiration of what to do for my stop motion film

Developing - Setting

 after talking to tutor, I have decided that I need to put some more thought into the setting of my film – as it is going to be visible and therefore needs to be relevant. Ideas so far are:

·      In the design studio – this is relevant as the film is about design, and this is easily recognised. But I think this is potentially unrealistic, as will be hard to find the time to film, and hard to find a time of which the design room will be empty enough for me to film.

·      In the study room as Weir House – this is a good location, as there are lots of simple, blank areas. This will link in the idea of someone studying and forgetting the book. But may seem a bit too general.

·      Outside in an abandoned looking area, would hold a lot of symbolism about history being abandoned but would also be very difficult to work with paper sculptures outside

Development of Ideas (following test clip)

I have altered and developed my idea, so now I want it to begin with a person rather than going straight into the book. The person will now leave the book behind, which represents the idea that the history is somewhat abandoned. However, I want to have them return at the end of the film, to portray the idea that history is importance and needs to be remembered. 

Test Clip 2

https://vimeo.com/44222309

Here is another test clip showing my new beginning – with the idea of a person leaving the book behind. After showing it to my tutor and discussing it, we decided that it needs to be shortened – as the main focus of the film needs to be on the actual sculptures themselves. 

Processing Ideas...

This is one of the videos we were shown in class, but is the one that influenced me the most. The use of the graffiti drawings inspired me as it made me realise the amount of drawing techniques I could sue when I make my own film. It also showed me where I can have drawings interact with elements of the real world.

3 second Test Sample

https://vimeo.com/44222201

This is my 3 second test clip which shows a very small portion of my overall idea. This clip shows the way in which my book will open and sculptures will begin to appear. This clip has been made on Adobe Premier - it is my first attempt at using this programme. It is just a rough idea of my overall movie.  This clip starts to show my idea of the importance and influence of the history of design, as, in my final clip, the book will represent a "history book" of design, and out of which sculptures relevant to various design eras will emerge.

Final Stop Motion Video

https://vimeo.com/44221985

The link to my final stop motion video. I am pleased with the way it expresses my design statement of the importance of design history and how we should remember what an influence it has been on design today. 

Sound sourced from freesfx.co.uk

freesfx, (2011) timelaps,

retrieved from: http://www.freesfx.co.uk/soundeffects/music-tracks/

MUTO

http://vimeo.com/993998
This is one of the videos we were shown in class, but is the one that influenced me the most. The use of the graffiti drawings inspired me as it made me realise the amount of drawing techniques I could sue when I make my own film. It also showed me where I can have drawings interact with elements of the real world.

History of Stop Motion

To come to a final idea I have investigated the history of stop motion to help give me inspiration for a final idea. Stop motion began in the 1990s and is an idea that is almost as old as film itself. The idea of stop motion can be credited to Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton who first used the technique in 1897 for The Humpty Dumpty Circus. The main idea behind their creation was for inanimate objects to appear to be moving as if by magic.

The idea of using stop motion appeals to me as it seems to be a more design approach to film making as it allows far more artistic license in the way you design the process. I appreciate this as it means I could bring in painting, drawing or sculptures. All aspects that would be harder to bring in to a movie done simply on a film camera.

Ideas for final film.

This short stop motion produced by Colenso BBDO and animated by Andersen M Studio as a film for the NZ Book Council is one of my key inspirations that I plan to use in my final film.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_jyXJTlrH0

The idea of using a book as the main setting of my film strikes a chord with me as I am an avid reader as it is. The use of literature is an element I would love to include in my final project.

Group Work - Advertisement for 101

http://vimeo.com/43095752


The intention of our film is to advertise a product developed by our athletic equipment company ‘KASI’ to show the kind of commodity our company creates.
‘Chubbatub’ is the specific product we used, it is a cream for chaffing that is targeted at athletes and chaffing specifically caused by vigorous workouts.
The ad begins with a clip of someone doing an intense work out, topped with a voice over explaining the situation. This is so the audience straight away knows that the advertisement is going to relate somehow to exercise.
The voice over uses rhetorical questions to provoke audience into thinking whether or not they can relate to the situation.
We used athletic equipment advertisements and infomercials for products such as Proactive and The Ab Circle Pro as inspiration for our ad. In these examples they use real people to talk about their success stories of using the product.
 As we only had 15 seconds we used this idea but condensed it down to have different people saying just the product name (Chubbatub) in an enthusiastic way as if they are ‘satisfied customers’. This is to convince the audience that the product is not only effective but also works for a wide range of people including both males and females.
The ad also includes pictures of the product twice to press upon the audience what it looks like so they will start to recognize the product/brand name if they see it in other places.
Our ad is designed for the audience to know what it is selling, be convinced that it works and they want/need it and how to go about getting it.

Group:
                                        Molly (me)
Meg Brodie
Framina Labert

Design 101 - Project 3: Groupwork

This is our group work poster for our company KASI that specializes in the sale of athletic gear and equipment. This poster specifically is advertising the sale of 'Chubbatube', a cream to held reduce chafing.                                                        

The other members of my group were: Meg Brodie  
                                                              Framina Labert

One Word Animation - References

Sound Scape References:

Rooster call:   http://www.freesfx.co.uk/sfx/rooster (cockerel_crowing)
Sourced from http://www.freesfx.co.uk

Sizzle:  http://www.freesfx.co.uk/sfx/sizzle  (cooking)
Sourced from http://www.freesfx.co.uk

Wind:  http://www.freesfx.co.uk/sfx/wind  (windy_gale_stormy002)
Sourced from http://www.freesfx.co.uk

Sleighs Bells:  http://www.freesfx.co.uk/sfx/sleigh+bells (sleigh/jingle_bells)
Sourced from http://www.freesfx.co.uk

Shivering:
Recorded myself on Garageband

Sneeze:
Recorded myself on Garageband

Birds Singing:  http://www.freesfx.co.uk/sfx/birds+singing (humming_bird_song)
Source from http://www.freesfx.co.uk

Crickets: http://www.freesfx.co.uk/sfx/crickets (cricket_during_day)
Sourced from http://www.freesfx.co.uk

One Word Animation - Final Movie

Here is my final movie of the word SEASONS

One Word Animation - Feedback/Adding Sound

Feedback from showing my animation so far in class on Thursday was to first of all get it to a finished state, then go back and edit by creating more of a flow between each season, work on the transitions between different effects.
I fully agree with this that I need to refine down my work so far to create a much more graceful piece as it is rather clumsy at the moment, hopefully this can all be fixed in editing.
 
I am finding adding soundscapes to my animation extremely difficult!! Because my piece has quite a fast pace and quite a lot of separate soundscapes, trying to get the timing of each piece is very fiddly and hard to do without is overlapping onto the wrong season. I also have not yet worked out how to properly fade in/out sounds so will need to learn this as otherwise sounds cut in and out to abruptly.

The website am have found most of my sounds off is http://www.freesfx.co.uk (full list of references still to come)

I have also decided to try make some sound effects of my own. Although alot of my sounds are from nature (eg. wind blowing or birds singing) so are very hard to make myself, I have a couple that I would like to attempt make myself, just to see if I can and also see what I find easier to work/more computable with flash.

 

One Word Animation - Animation Beginning

I decided to go with the word SEASONS as now that i have had a go on flash and am starting to get the basics down I feel more confident in trying a word that will be a bit more complicated as it almost has to represent four subjects rather than one.

Things I will need to watch out for in my animation will be making sure its not to long and doesn't drag on. Because I am covering all four seasons there is a lot I could do with each so I am making sure I stay critical and not let it drag on.

This is my animation so far, still needs some serious editing and currently missing the season spring. Also need to add sound.

One Word Animation - Storyboards

My storyboards, expanded versions of my three favorite ideas from my brainstorms:

Arachnophobia (fear of spiders). I like this word/idea because I am able to use the animation to help explain the definition of arachnophobia without it becoming too symbolic. I also like that it is easy to give a story to the characters and make it fun so the animation becomes a performance.

Stealthy. This idea was one of my favorites because it gave the letters the most personality. If I properly executed this idea I think it could become quite comic as I would want to make each letter a character of their own rather than have the word perform as a whole. To make this piece more interesting I put in the idea of having one of the letters do the opposite of the word to add a new element to the animation.

Seasons. I really like this idea as, although it is one of the more complicated of my ideas, i think it would force me to explore a lot more new ways to do things on flash rather than just learn to do one thing for the whole word. I would want to make each season very different from the last by bringing in new features of flash. I also think this idea would be effectively enhanced by the use of sound effects as noises of nature could be added to help represent each season.

One Word Animation - Flash First Attempts

My first attempts as using flash, very very basic. Getting used to the idea of symbols and how they work, the difference between frames and keyframes and very simple movement across the stage.
Now need to start moving into more complicated actions like how to get a symbol to do two movements at one etc.