finalyearillustration-blog

[finalyearillustration-blog]

Final Feedback

I’m so pleased to have achieved a 2:1 for the final grade of my degree.

For future reference I am putting my feedback here, as documentation of my journey during my time at university. I hope this helps me in my work from this point on.

Strengths: An editioned publication of your research report is at the heart of your body of work and it feels as if this kind of output could be a key focus for your practice going forward. Acquiring skills in Premiere Pro, print publication and website design, has contributed to your ability to communicate concepts generated through your investigation into surveillance and drone warfare. The postcards are a highlight, being a great use of format, appropriated image and curated fact-fiction. The super short ‘Giant Flash’ animations for the Publish brief were a revelatory moment, that really distill the essence of your enquiry. They synthesise well in printed output as well, and in this sense the way you are disseminating ideas is maturing and becoming more articulate. The Ampersand brief facilitated a turning point for your practice, where collaborating with a like-minded yet distinctly different practitioner, sharing and generating content together, challenged the way you make work as well as the form the final outcome could take. The performance and screening aspect show you taking risks and exploring in pluralistic way. Your website looks professional, and makes the most of your portfolio of work, with digital paged versions of the publications as well as embedded videos. An intense unit for you, well done. Areas for development:The early experimental ‘Giant Flash’ film you created, had more sense of clarity than the longer final piece which seemed to have lost its verve in a protracted editing process using somewhat limiting material. Feels like it needed a shake-up with some more complex transitions and synthesis of sound clips, perhaps additional self-generated clips would have helped it develop. We need to see more of your personal voice coming through in the work - there is a sense you are holding off, or hiding behind information, when in fact it is your interpretation of the resources that can provide interest and intrigue for an audience. Keep working with graphic design and sounds design - seek out references and study the form more keenly. It could benefit you to keep writing and studying the societal and political topics that interest you, striving for academic criticality. Continuing on in this kind of personal and dedicated research process will help you stay motivated and focused in your developing practice, which still needs commitment and time so it can mature and become more precise in its execution. Make expanding your knowledge and understanding, through theory as well as an active practice, your goal going forward.

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Unit Summary

BA3b Unit Summary

To summarise this unit, I have broken it down into projects for ease of understanding. The first project Ampersand, was a collaboration between a Creative Writer/Rapper and an Illustrator/Visual Communicator. For this short project, we both wanted to be playful and explore something new, I wanted to experiment with animating my drawings, and my collaborator wanted to utilise his hobby of rap. Together, we wrote a narrative, exploring the impact of technology on family relationships regarding political influences. I drew out the visual elements of the narrative which my writer altered into a rap; I then animated my drawings to match the timing of the rap. I learnt important skills in using After Effects and Premier Pro to animate my drawings which will be useful for my future practice, experienced working with a collaborator and communicating ideas via messaging rather than in person. I found it rewarding to give my collaborator the opportunity for his first live performance, the audience created an exciting atmosphere which added a new dimension to my animation. Our collaboration was successful in how we communicated our ideas, by using the Google Drive folder we could share our files easily, my drawings and film files and his writing and audio files, which meant no time was wasted in the practical process. It helped that we both got along well together and respected each other’s work and ideas.

My final major project, Observed, followed on from my research into the use of drones by the military for my research report. My practical work has been influenced with the aim of informing an audience about this subject. The project focuses on the surveillance aspect and censorship illustrated through moving image and publications to convey a narrative.

The film piece as a visual essay conveying the contexts of surveillance and censorship through moving image. There have been many experiments for this film, exploring length and pacing, plus the clips used to communicate the topic. I struggled keeping the film concise, and included too much material for the meaning to be gained. This has since been cut down, improving the flow and giving space for pauses between impactful shots. I have also created a title scene, which has been missing in my previous experiments. It was difficult to come up with a title at first but I feel the simplicity of the one I went with leaves the audience to piece together the information and hints at the tone of the research material.

A publication providing background information to the project felt necessary to combine all elements of my practice. My research for my report gives context to the journey of this project, with my thought processes and ideas included for a greater understanding. I created four variations of this during the practical process, experimenting with typography, page layouts, image positioning, colour and size. These were tools to design the publication in a way that helped the audience navigate through the large amount of text included, whilst still being playful and informative. To do this, I included the visual identity of glitches; which I have been experimenting with throughout this project. These communicate the technology and censorship theme and act as visual breaks in the pages.

I decided that the publication should be printed professionally, after many experiments in cropping and binding my dummies myself, there were many mistakes with alignment. For the degree show I wanted my publication to look professional, as with all the design decisions I had been making the print quality could let it down. I have therefore sent for five sample copies to be printed for submission, I can then re-order with them if I want more copies for the degree show or get a larger batch with another company, such as ExWhyZed. It was simple to upload the files to their website for print, with step by step guides on document set up which was helpful. Unfortunately, the print quality of these wasn’t quite as high as I had hoped, so another order may be necessary for the degree show.

In receiving a commission recently for a collaborative project between a Poet/Thatcher and an Illustrator/Visual Communicator to create 10 postcards; including illustrations of each poem and the writing to grab the attention of an audience. The main purpose is to promote Olly Watson's poetry at his show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the illustrations capture key visual elements of his poems to entice the audience. This project has given me experience with working for other people and practice in negotiating terms for briefs and fees. I had never done this before and received help from various tutors on emailing and setting terms. I found this very useful and feel more comfortable about doing it again in the future. This experience has also provided me the opportunity for promotion of my work, producing work at a fast pace and experimenting with my sketches. It allows me to be playful in my drawings as well as my text and image layout, which is something I have been exploring throughout my work and will enjoy experimenting with further.

For the exit strategy, it was difficult to start this part of the criteria as I didn’t know who I could approach with my work and where it fit in the industry. It was a similar block to starting my research report, so from that experience I knew to talk my thoughts through with people as voicing my issues helped before. Looking objectively at my own work and seeing correlations within the industry, I quickly established that advertising agencies would be useful to pursue combining my interests in printed matter and moving image. I am pleased to have been able to see an obstacle and overcome it with the knowledge I have gained from previous issues over the course of my degree.

Another issue I encountered involved my portfolio, which I realised would be easiest in the form of a website to show my films. I have never created a website before so had to learn how to do this. By using wix I could start with a template design to understand the key components, after establishing the transitions and layouts that worked best in showcasing my work, I laid out the site from scratch. This took some working out and several drafts, I found it difficult to keep it easy to navigate with individual projects including outcomes of film and printed matter appearing messy when laid out next to each other. After writing out outcomes and projects I found correlations and made individual project pages, which can be reached from the home page. I also created separate pages for publications and moving image to highlight the mediums I work with, after discussions with art directors stated this is important, which have links to the project page. I am pleased with the final design of my website and its simplicity. Another problem I faced surrounded the blurbs for my portfolio. Particularly, when writing about myself, which transferred into talking to potential employers. After a portfolio workshop, I was reassured about this issue and wrote bullet points in my draft site which I built up over time into succinct sentences. This was a useful process in understanding myself as a professional and how to portray myself digitally.

Overall, I am pleased to have achieved my goal to create a film using my new skills, a publication using outsourced printing and a takeaway object informing an audience.

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Post Hand-In Tutorial

BA3a Feedback notes

Moving forward with the current unit, feedback from the previous unit concluded that I need to provide more rigourous evidence. The visual research gathered needs to be of a larger quantity to get into the higher-grade boundary, regarding the ‘strong’ descriptive word. Keep referring to the mark scheme to help understand where your work sits. Broadening the vision of research of the subject will help to gather a wider range of visual research, for example artists, colour references, adverts etc. There is a new Channel 4 program about fake news that may be relevant. Considering propaganda could be explored further as well, particularly regarding Trump’s campaign in America which is topical. Practical process could be considered and researched to help with the decision making in my own project. The experiments with glitches should be explored further, however this idea is not very current so be careful with it. Perhaps talk to other student Ed; who has been working with glitches, he may have some advice.

David Hockney’s digital drawings may help inspire own digital experiments for ‘Ampersand’. If finding it difficult to respond to the rap music try with the poetry and see which looks best. Create a series of digital character drawings and typographical responses to be able to make some clear decisions. Elements of writing and articles found relating to topic may also be evidenced at this point, even though the dissertation is done. Think about the possibility of creating a website, with larger images, for documentation, as well as final portfolio, for example SquareSpace.

Ending on a positive comment, the visual aesthetic is promising and the printed zines are a mature outcome, there is a lot of potential.

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Typographic Characters

Another initial idea involved thinking about character as a letter in regards to text with imagery. This could be an important factor in the project regarding a printed publication, with my writer providing written material and myself creating the visual imagery. I therefore experimented with creating an alphabet to help me consider typography, again experimenting with digital drawing. This was a useful technique as multiple tools could be used easily and mistakes erased neatly to create a clear alphabet. I think this idea was interesting and could be explored further, perhaps in terms of sound which I have been exploring in my own personal project.

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Character Drawing

This is an initial idea for my current creative writing collaborative project: 'Ampersand'. Working from the briefed idea surrounding character as a starting point, I created a digital drawing from a photo of myself. This was generated by the obvious meaning behind character being individual characters in stories, such as people or animals.I expanded upon this idea by thinking about the characteristics of individuals as part of their personality and the traits portrayed. 

I decided to do a digital drawing as this would be easy to upload to the shared Google Drive folder being used to view each other’s work during this collaboration. It is also a medium I wanted to experiment with further as I have not yet used it in my work. I found this medium easy to use, with many possibilities for colour variations which makes for an interesting composition.

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Character in Architecture:

Another meaning I drew from character was the character of a building or place. I was inspired by characterful features found around my home, including wonky beams and dark corners, which I think portray a classic cottage feel. I collected some photographs of these quickly whilst thinking about composition and colour in the images themselves. I think the photographs make an interesting series visually, and portray the sense of a quirky cottage, and may perhaps influence my ideas about scene and mood within my research for this project.

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Ampersand

In our first discussion, our own individual work was brought up to find some part in each other’s we could respond to. My writer works with poetry which has a great sense of rhythm, in his personal life he has been experimenting with rap music, which connects with his writing. I think this could be an interesting idea to work with, as I have been exploring different sounds in my own work, particularly thinking about narration.

Rap music could work well in combining both these avenues and might influence my final film. We agreed the possibility for film or screen play could be interesting so want to work with this further. The themes we discussed to be portrayed in this were topical subjects, including Donald Trump, perhaps referring to Feminism/Misogyny, or waste. Our next discussion will be around our shared material and our responses to it.

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Ampersand Discussion 2:

After listening to the rap music my writer shared, I think the rhythm of the music paired with the sound of the voice over the top provided visual clues. This could be expanded upon with my own visual material. My writer informed me this is a new hobby so it is still in its early stages, however, I think if the sound quality can be improved upon it will make a decent outcome. I think the project is more about collaborating our processes and not necessarily the final piece.

We also discussed ‘character’, as this is another avenue to consider in creating narrative. We agreed we preferred the abstract ideas referring to this theme. My writer has been considering the beats from the music as character which could be an interesting route to explore. For the visuals, we thought of possibly cutting together news footage of President Trump in time to the rap beats, I will be experimenting with this. My writer needs to come up with some new rap lyrics, which we will develop together for the narrative. The rap beats will be provided by his friend who has the necessary equipment.

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Ampersand Character Exchange

Friday 4th February

After specifically discussing character, my writer has come up with some profiles to help steer my visual responses. These include characteristics we spoke about previously such as the social and political themes. He has also provided some backing tracks to be used with the film/animation. He is then creating a story about these characters in the form of spoken poetry/rap to go over the music, which I will then illustrate. I could also experiment with animating the imagery in time to the music/spoken words.

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Digital Drawings Character

Character drawings from photographs practising capturing shape and form of people, these are quite rough and it took me a while to get used to using the stylus so they are not my best drawings. I have found this technique quick to edit however and intend to keep using it throughout this project. The layers’ palette is useful in doing a rough sketch first, then a cleaner line on top, and erasing the underneath layer.  

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Informal Critique

Monday 6th February

Discussing personal project and the idea of incorporating ‘Glitches’ in the animation/film. This also links with the character provided by my creative writer, a young boy who uses virtual reality to escape his own life.

Video games vs reality could be an interesting visual concept as well as there was some research relating to the comparison of drone technology to a video game.

An idea arose about using cameras in the degree show, relating to surveillance, and watching people viewing the final piece. Perhaps one showing them viewing the footage of people in the show.

For the collaborative creative writing project, I feel like I have veered away from the political themes of feminism and Trumps presidency, as these are huge topics now people may ignore them. I also think that I may not execute the outcome well enough in the short amount of time I have. I think the character profiles have been informed by our initial discussion on these topics and that is enough, otherwise our natural responses to each other’s work would be overshadowed.

I have started to sketch some visual responses to the character profiles with the idea to animate them, perhaps incorporating glitches, in time to the music my collaborator has provided and the spoken word he is currently working on. I feel this is a natural way to combine our work and relates well to both of our working processes.

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Storyboard plan

Visual response ides:

1.     Son sat at computer, headphones, mouse, keyboard 2.     Computer screen showing news page, Buzzfeed quiz, son ignores news and goes to pointless tab. 3.     Memes related to trump, humourous, digital age, this could be incorporated with the previous idea 4.     Chat room window, conversations online, with a bland facial expression but typing lol possibly, young people can be seen playing or talking outside. 5.     Visiting mother’s grave in the churchyard, the son is scrolling on his phone, maybe chatting about the game, or gaming on his phone, maybe the father is with him? 6.     Father out clubbing by himself 7.     Drinking at home in front of the tv, while son goes upstairs 8.     Hungover on the sofa, son making breakfast, maybe leaving him a glass of water and a plate of food, with paracetamol on the side. 9.     In a pub/bar with old uni friends, maybe playing pool or darts 10.  Father asks son about the computer game, hears boys his age talking about a new version/ sees it advertised 11.  buys the newest version for the son and they play together 12.  Maybe it’s a football game, eg. Fifa, it could be summer time and they kick a football around outside, other people join in, both generations together solving their problems and restoring the relationship.

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Character Profiles

Ideas of characters provided by my writer:

Gliderz: paint character of internet age and its confusions, alarming level of information passing to introverted nerd who spends all his time indoors playing video games and attached to a screen. Symbolic of the stagnation of society when its leaders are reaching back for a past rather than concentrating on the present/future. Has virtual relationships with many but no real friendships. Sense of simulated reality, living life vicariously because he is afraid to face the real. Constantly aware of what is going on outside due to high level of news coming from the internet, but ignores it. Mother dead/left his father/was unable to get custody in divorce?  

Retrospect: father, trying to recapture youth, midlife crisis, wants that old thing back, trump like sense of trying to recapture simpler age Make America great again and other conservative ideas. As a result he neglects his son, pretending to live in an age which has passed in the form of a mid-life crisis. Continually goes out clubbing and drinking with his friends from his university days, hiding from reality in his own way. Continually lying to himself in a narcissistic fashion. Several of Trump’s character traits. Scared of modernity and all its potential dangers resulting from the variety of influences “corrupting” his memories of a simpler time.

Lately: reconciliation of father and son, fusion of old and new, hopeful future, focus on guiding the young, helping our children, co-operation, mutual understanding, empathy and open mindedness. Father tries to understand son and his gaming and stuff, causing son to open up to father and get the attention he needs. They play video games together, and then son actually goes outside with father. Symbolically facing the world and its problems, no matter how scary, rather than hiding in room or visions of past.

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Visual Response Ideas

Initial visual responses, experimenting with line and layout. After some discussion with my writer, I have established that I will make a storyboard of the visual response plan I have come up with, which he can in turn include within his written story. I have uploaded the storyboard plan in words so that he can understand my ideas initially so that there is not a pause in the flow of ideas. After I have created the storyboard I will then upload it, and start finalising the images. We will then discuss them and how to include them within the story.

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Storyboard

Visual responses to character profiles, laid out in a sequential narrative. This was a quick way of gathering my visual ideas to send to my writer, so that he could incorporate my ideas into his written work. I also thought this would help see how I understood his characters, helping to make any alterations if some details were missed.  

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Group Tutorial Feb 9th

Notes made for further work included detailing and inflection of each reference image from the storyboard. Perhaps a tonal tally of the rap metre/poetry. Diegesis of sound and image. Try a schematic approach to the narrative, use archetypes. Experiment with found stock photos. Re-create these with the drawn imagery. This graphic simplicity relates to the monotonous context within the narrative. Situationist use of default aesthetic. Detournement, diagrammatic language. Another suggestion was to reference rap music videos to see how the visuals are cut with the music, as well as the type of visuals used.

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Second Stage Storyboard

A closer look at each panel in the initial storyboard with more detail and cleaner lines used in the drawing style. I also experimented with colour and shadow to portray time of day. This would be interesting to use in the animation.