20 Photographs

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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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Creative Writing

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This Has Got To Stop

There it went again; bang, bang, thump, thump; the persistent pounding was driving me crazy. 

As the dust fell through the ceiling cracks, I decided it was finally time to do something.

I’d never been through the door that led to the attic; it had always seemed unfriendly, but I couldn’t put up with it any longer. Furiously, I yanked the rusted handle and stormed up the dim lit, creaking stairs, as the thudding sound grew.

It stopped when I pushed open the door.

Suddenly, with a mighty thud and a rush of stale air, I was swept off my feet by a blur of darkness, knocking me backwards in fright. I tumbled, head spinning, down the stairs, collapsing into a heap on the cold floor. My eyes focused on a pool of blood with several large dark feathers resting upon it.

The noise had stopped and everything went black.

Feedback

Overall my tutor and peers really enjoyed my story; they said it gave them tingles. It fit the brief as dark and compelling and they liked the touch or dark/ironic humor. To improve I was suggested taking out the bangs and the thumps at the beginning, to reduce the detail in the fall and perhaps to create a storyboard to understand which parts were necessary. They enjoyed the shape of the story, thought it had good arcs and saw how it blossomed into something else.

Re-write

There it went again; the persistent pounding was driving me crazy. 

As the dust fell through the ceiling cracks, I decided it was finally time to do something.

I’d never been through the door that led to the attic; it had always seemed unfriendly, but I couldn’t put up with it any longer. Furiously, I yanked the rusted handle and stormed up the dim lit, creaking stairs, as the thudding sound grew.

It stopped when I pushed open the door.

Suddenly, with a mighty thud and a rush of stale air, I was swept off my feet by a blur of darkness, knocking me backwards in fright. I tumbled down the stairs, collapsing into a heap on the cold floor. My eyes focused on several large, dark feathers drifting down towards me.

The noise had stopped and everything went black.

Evaluation

It has been a long time since I have had to do creative writing and I felt as though I struggled in the beginning. To begin the story i had to over compensate with words, but once I got the gist of it I was able to narrow down to the core essence of what I was trying to portray. I was very resistant to begin the story, I blame this on the fact that I hadn’t creatively written in a long time and I now understand than I need to keep up this skill to better my storytelling techniques. I have learnt that its better to get on with it and just write loads then glean the story line that hold attention. However writing 150 words is much more difficult than it first appeared. I have gained a lot from this initial start to story telling and in my mind I can see ways of how I would add sound and use lighting to create suspense if I was turning this into a short animation.

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