Elephant and Castle Group Project
We were tasked with creating an artists book based on our interpretation of how Elephant and Castle got its name. This is the outcome:
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Introduction to Animation
Point of View
Task: Create a 30 second short film that deals with and speaks to an issue or subject that you feel strongly about.
I decided early on in this project that I wanted to do stop motion. I absolutely love the likes of Jan Svankmajer and brothers Quay; and fortunately I a whole bunch of weird bits and pieces including china dolls, which reminded me of the work they do. However I still had no idea what the subject matter of my short film would be. I started to just experiment and refresh my stop motion skills. I started to put pieces together to create creepy characters and then used the stop motion app to create a short experiment. So far I definitely ant to include a dark humor theme, however I’m not yet sure how to incorporate something I feel strongly about.
After experimenting with stop motion my next step is to think about the actual subject matter of my animation. It has to be about something I feel strongly about; my point of view. So I started to mind map.
I like the idea of money and greed and I have some tissue notes that i could potentially use, maybe burn. Referring to the experiment from before, I liked how my character took of their face at the end, as if removing a mask revealing their true identity. This could all link into equality and justice by juxtaposing them and highlighting how unfair the world is instead. I am slightly worried about having such a big topic as much focus as originally I wanted to make my film about something small but dark.
After some further experimenting I have finally come up with a solid idea for my short film. Based around money and greed, I wanted to show how money and capitalism can do more harm than good. In todays society, there is such a high expectation to become ‘successful’ and that is usually interpreted as becoming rich. With the materials I have around me I have shown this through a mannequin character who is pretending to be a doll to hurt people. I thought this was a good representation as mannequins are fake people and also relate to money as they are used to sell consumeristic items. This mannequin then ‘helps’ a sad doll by giving them money which makes them go crazy and crack. I wanted this to symbolize how money actually changed people for the worse and isn’t always as good as it seems. In the end the mannequin takes of their ‘mask’ and is revealed to be the devil- I though they could also represent society and corporations in some way.
First draft of film for screening:
I decided have my film in black and white to keep to the creepy and dark subject matter. However in my screening version the image still feels very sunny. Thus for my final piece I will need to darken the overall image. I used coloured 2D animation over the top to elevate certain emotions and messages throughout the piece. I think this gives the idea of a fakeness to the reality, which mirrors the fakeness of money and the mannequin character. Obviously there is a lack of sound, which I simply hadn’t had time to add yet so that will make a big impact on the overall outcome.
Final Piece:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CXKBdflg10N/
Evaluation:
I believe I took a different approach to this project than how I usually would. Rather than brainstorming ideas and stressing myself out because I couldn’t come up with anything, I started by experimenting with the material I had around me. I decided immediately that I wanted to do stop motion as I had these dolls and mannequins that I had wanted to use in a project for a while. When I think stop motion, I think Jan Svankmajer and Brothers Quay, thus that led me down a darker, creepier rout, which fit the material I was using well. Although I am happy with the outcome, I think my short film lacks the professional aesthetic I had envisioned at the end of the project. I spent a lot of time on the first time, getting the perfect angle and reshooting until I was satisfied. This energy burnt out by the time I got to the other scenes, and I think this effected the overall look. After receiving footage from peers, I changed the writing at the end to help connote my meaning better. By merging the word good into greed, I think it helps to symbolize the insincerity of money and corporations. Finally I think the use of sound builds the sense of worry. The music was taken from the ’Mirror Mask’ soundtrack, however all the sound effects I created myself and edited in Premiere pro.
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What is this place?
Task: Go for a walk and stop every few minutes to draw what you see. Note what you feel, smell, hear . Consider the weather. Then make a map of of your walk and incorporate this material.
On my walk I quickly sketched everything that caught my eye on a very short walk. I wanted to overlap it all in a sort of explosion of images, not necessarily in chronological order. I added the colour and pen when I got back however I had to remember the colours, which I think makes the image more exciting as they are slightly exaggerated.
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Objects
Task: In a group of 5 visit 2 galleries and find artists who use objects in their work. Choose one artist and create a 20 second fil that is considered a response to that artist.
After my groups first gallery visit to Tate Modern, an artists who used objects and particularly resonated with me was Germaine Richier. Richier created 5 human sized figures to represent pieces in a game of chess. Rather than the elegant designs of traditional chess pieces, these are grotesque hybrid figures; the night has a horses head, while the bishop resembles a hunchbacked jester. Richier used distorted animal and partly human figures to reflect the anxieties and despair of post-war Europe. ‘It seems to me that in violent works there is just as much sensibility as in poetic ones’, she said. ‘There can be just as much wisdom in violence as gentleness’. All I could think about is how I wanted to set them up and play a real life game deformed and cursed chess. I can picture how the characters would move as if it were some vexed chess horror story. This is a perfect inspiration for this project.
For our second gallery visit we decide to check out White Cube gallery, who were showing an exhibition of Ibrahim Mahama, titled ‘ Lazarus’. This exhibition addressed the passage of time, the notion of obsolescence and the potential for regeneration. The gallery refrains from having any information boards about the work, which make me question a lot more than usual. The exhibition made me quite confused, to be honest, but after researching the artist it began to all make sense. The most intense room was a room full of old sewing machines, with multiple making a loud drilling sound at the same time. Mahama’s work represents life in destruction, symbolizing historical colonial domination in relation to Ghana.
We decided to go with Germaine Richier’s chess pieces as we liked the meaning behind them and thought we could interpret it effectively. For the final piece we decided to create a chess battle with each part being in a different animated style. As the animation went on the images would become more distorted and more like Richier’s pieces, less like traditional chess pieces.
The final piece
https://www.instagram.com/p/CVS1herjzoR/
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20 Photographs
An image can be considered a representation, a time related, a contract between viewer and maker, a story, a point of view, a truth, a language and so much more. In my first Introduction to animation lecture we began to look at the way we perceive image and how we tell stories through our visual languages. I discovered that the relationship between what we see and what we know is never entirely settles, as perceptions are always changing and no two people see the exact same thing. We are simply looking at the relationship between ourselves and the image. Our first task was to ’20 photographs of ordinary objects that do not belong to you in or around you house and street’. We were then to catalogue them and tell a story. These were my images:
In our second lesson, we used padlet to move the images around to tell different stories and to create different ways of seeing. I discovered that the photographs I spontaneously took were much more powerful than the ones I put thought into. I feel as though the fact I didn’t take all these photos on the same day had a powerful impacts as my mind was in different places each day. Although my photos don’t entirely link, I think there are certain photos which go together well.
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