Major project: Story board jpegs

Here is a simple story board for the final idea I'm going to go with (major project):

Final idea: I am going with this one...hammers & tongs

Had a reaaally big day at uni yesterday. On the way home I was talking with my partner about the final project. She had originally agreed to come along to Culburra with me and help me execute a time lapse of the black sand drawings. With alot of work on both our plates, and the mix of variables involved in that idea for the major project (car: will it make it? weather: what if it pours all weekend like it has been?) we were beggining to feel nervous about the idea. I really felt that it could all go to shit, without much time for plan Bs.

Throughout the middle of the semester I was quite excited about the idea of a drawing based stop motion...but felt flustered that I had no narrative to accompany it. The positive of doing a drawing based stop motion is that it can occur in a controlled environment with fewer variables (much safer at this time in the semester), however it is time consuming...as I had learnt from the first two white board stop motions I made. But really, I did not want to make a meaningless film...without a narrative what the point (i thought)?

Just so happens that I have had a narrative brewing in my head that I quite like. It uses the key figures of a seed, a growing tree, a swarm of ant and a dove (each of which can be drawn in a relatively simple manner). It plays out in a linear-narrative way, though it lends itself to the intervention of a seamless loop (for possible exhibit purposes). I won't bother explaining it in words. The next post (above) has some images of the story board I've sketch out, for what will be my major project...I'm so excited that I have a solid direction. Defo going for this!!

A few ideas?

Just had a trickle of conceptual development leak from the dry and crusty creativity vessel that has been my mind over the past few weeks.

My first thought tells me to revisit a little project I worked on during the christmas break. I came across this black sand haphazardly and drew skulls with it. I could time lapse this process. Make a little video. 1-2 minutes.Some sound mixed in too. Hmm, would be cool if I could get the sound sorted first then perform the sand drawing. A few little avenues to explore with this one. Definitely something to consider.
 

 

My next thought was having these two images overlayed (moving images of course) in a time/physical change based theme. The first image is simply a shadow caste by a railing near the VA block. The second image is an isobar map. Isobar maps/charts measure the atmospheric change that occurs over time within a specific geography. Overlaying the two images, perhaps with the isobars very soft/faint could work as a kind of play on the seemingly obvious character of the urban environment against the passive and elusive character of natural physical phenomena and change. Kinda of boring yes. Visually a little abstract and obscure. Illustrative through visual metaphor tho.

Freaking amazing...

Video by animator/street muralist Blu I suspect. I stumbled across this whilst rumaging thru youtube and was amazed that I had not seen it before being an avid fan of this artist. What's really interesting is that it has been on the web for 4 years and has only had 700ish views. Compare this to Blu's massively popular Muto with over six and a half million views in just 2 years on youtube alone. hmmm....i wonder why its posted on youtube without a connection to blublu's profile. I'm sure its his work. Wierd. Awesome. Freakin Amazing.

Back to the drawing board...

Hmmm, my head has not been in a solid conceptual space this semester and I've been struggling to come up with a sound and interesting artistic concept for my major project. I think this attributes a little to the other 4 courses I'm currently doing that are all teaching practice & theory core courses. The little creative monster in my head has been neglected and is now a little shy. What do I do?

My concepts/narratives are all crap. This will be limiting if I take the same approach as my last 2 animations. Without a story I think it will be boring/trivial/pointless. I don't wanna make another pointless animation. What to do?

Flash: frustration?? naahhh....

Over the last few weeks the class has been dealing primarily with flash. At first I felt a little overwhelmed, and had doubts that I really understood what was going on. It's really just one of those things you need to pay attention in demo's and spend some time familiarizing with the functions. Today I was able to program a little interactivity into my animation. Using flash, I've created a basic swf. that when opened automatically goes to fullscreen, and has a few funky little buttons. The buttons allow you to play, stop/pause and exit and were each designed by me. Its simple but works so I am happy. Feeling like I'm some very basic but fundamental flash things understanding things :)

2nd animation: first visit in a little while..

Hey nobody thats actually reading.

I haven't been on in a couple of weeks to contribute to my onlineblog/journal for AART3462. I'm updating it with my 2nd stop motion animation attempt. I was fairly happy with the result. Its super simple which made it a bit more successful than my last one...i think???



I kept it very simple for this one. I did this because I found with my last experience the more moving detail I tried to create the more frustrating and arduous the whole thing became. In this animation you can see that movements are very simple. blinking, isolated elements popping up etc. I also made a deliberate choice not to colour/fill the space in black. This took ages with the last animation (even though it only goes for ten seconds!!) and I wasted alot of texta.