loukissdraws

[loukissdraws]

Medusa - Final graphic media project. 

Overall, I feel like I have learnt with this project during the semester. I have gained new skills in After Effects, as well as figured out how to make my frame by frame animation smoother in Procreate. Needless to say, this was my favourite graphic media project. I found out that I can make a more complex work when it’s not a short project as we had in the previous semester. Using Paul’s critical feedback from last term, this time I’ve added sound and narration, in order to make my animation as a hole piece. I have also added more creative camera angles, as we discussed previously with Paul. Now I can see that it really does make a difference, as well as makes the experience more lively and exciting. 

Even though I can see I have a lot to learn yet in terms of technicality and basic storyboard setups, overall I am pleased with the result. 

[loukissdraws]

Reading report + artist research

I got a book from my dear friend and classmate Asia for Christmas, called Heroes by Stephen Fry. Fry is an English comedian, actor and writer, however so far, I have only known him for television.

In his book, which is a sequel to his first book, he writes about Greek heroes. However, his version of Medusa was a disappointed for me.

In his version, Medusa is one of the three Gorgon sisters, who gets cursed and turned into a monster - with snake hair and killing glaze. On the hand, the hero here is Perseus, who - in Fry’s version - accidentally gets into a conversation in a pub and after having too much alcohol, he agrees to kill the Medusa and bring her head, even though he does not know what a medusa is. His mother is angry, first because Perseus was drunk, and then after finding out what he agreed on, she fears for his son’s life.

Perseus, as a hero seems to be rather a university student, someone that we see a little bit our younger selves in, who doesn’t know anything about the world, at the same time he seeks for adventure. He gets help from other gods, he receives a magic helmet that turns him invisible, winged shoes from Hermes that can fly, and polished shield to see the reflection of Medusa without getting him killed. Perseus found Medusa beautiful even cursed, which overall inspired my animation as well. “Her eyes opened, He didn’t know what had expected, ugliness and horror, perhaps, certainly not beauty. But Medusa’s eyes, for all their blaze and fury, had a quality that made him want to turn from the reflected image and look deep into them for real.” 1 

At this point, I was hoping for a plot twist, but that never came. Fry wrote the classic story as it is, with a bit of humour in it. However, I was missing sort of a plot twist based on his previous works. Therefore I was quite disappointed after this chapter, as well as quite angry. I thought Medusa never deserved being raped for her beauty, as well as being punished for being raped. I was really expecting from Fry to “spice it up’ a little bit, but I felt like it was just the same story I could have also read online in any article.

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Therefore I decided to do a much deeper research to see if there is any story or other interpretation of the original myth where there is a twist in the ending.

As I was searching through articles and texts in my local (Hungarian) online library, I came across a Hungarian article. It was a story of an artist who sculpted a Medusa statue with a twist, and how it started to influence women in the past years.

Luciano Garbati is an Argentine-Italian artist based in Buenos Aires, but he grew up in Italy, near Florence. He gained a sudden fame with his Medusa sculpture, when it went viral on social media short after the #MeToo movement. People were describing it as the “symbol of female rage” or the “modern symbol of feminism”

Garbati created a thought provoking statue, that shows a perfect female body, which despite the fact that she is completely naked, does not showcase any erotics, and not portrays her a sexual object. Yet, her face and glaze suggest force without a doubt.

In his work, Medusa became the ‘hero’ of the fight, as she ‘did what she had to do’ in order to defeat herself. She stands strong and stable on the ground, holding Perseus head in one of her hands, and a sword in her other.

According to the article, Garbati had always been interested in studying the human eye, gaze and looks. As an interesting turn, he said the fact that Medusa’s stare could turn people to stone, she did not kill them, but in fact she was making sculptures. He did not want to make Medusa appear as a classic winner or hero of this situation, as after all those things she had to go through, in the end it was still a tragic story because she overall lost the ability of human contact forever. However, with the plot twist gives Medusa the ability to win. The artist says in the article that he does believe that there are human personalities, therefore his statue is not an allegory, but indeed a statement.

Garbati said in an interview at Quartz, that he questioned Medusa as a monster, as she was only a victim of a rape, and nobody could blame her for that, as she was innocent.

The artist was inspired by two well-known Italian artists, who also made their versions of Medusa back in the years, Caravaggio and Cellini. While doing studies around these artwork, a question emerged in his head “What would it look like, her victory, not his? How should that sculpture look? I was thinking of Perseus, this man with all his gadgets, going there and having this victory. This difference between a masculine victory and a feminine one, that was central to my work. The representations of Perseus, he’s always showing the fact that he won, showing the head…if you look at my Medusas…she is determined, she had to do what she did because she was defending herself. It’s quite a tragic moment.”

He made this statue more 10 years ago, however the fame for him arrived after the #MeToo movement after somebody posted a photo of this statue with the caption “The way it always should have been.” It is now exhibited in New York, USA. After the exhibition Garbati started to receive hundreds of letters and messages from women, saying his sculpture is healing them and their wounds that had been caused by sexual assault or violence by men.

As a conclusion, I really liked Garbati’s work and his concept about Medusa. I disagree with portraying Medusa as a monster, instead I think she should get more attention as a victim of violence. Garbati’s work deeply inspired and encouraged me to go forward with my animation, and be brave with a plot twist. 

Reference:

1 Fry, Stephen, 2018. Heroes, p.33., Penguin Random House UK

https://qz.com/quartzy/1408600/the-medusa-statue-that-became-a-symbol-of-feminist-rage/

https://hvg.hu/kultura/20190110_A_Meduzaszobor_ami_gyogyitja_a_noket  (sorry, this one is in Hungarian, I hope that is still okay to use?) 

[loukissdraws]

Artist research 5

A few years ago, I came across and watched a movie called Tomboy.

Tomboy is a French indie, drama movie made in 2011 that focuses on transgender and gender non-conforming issues. After a bit of research, I found out the director was Céline Sciamma, who is French filmmaker and activist/feminist. She likes to explore topics in her works such as genderfluidity, feminism and gender/sexual identity.

Tomboy is about a 10-year-old child Laure, (born female) who identifies as boy. After moving to a new city, she starts exploring presenting herself as Mikael, and trying to fit in with the local boys who are very acceptive with him, as they assume he really is a boy.

Later Mikael befriends a local girl called Lisa, and at some point they even kiss. When Lisa comes over to Mikael’s place, she bumps into his little sister Jeanne. After their conversation, Jeanne finds out Mikael had been presenting as male, and she wants to tell their parents. However, later she accepts Mikael and being very supportive, and even helps him to cut his hair short.

Mikael’s mom is somewhat supportive, however she always tries to make him look more feminine. One day, Mikael gets into a fight with another boy, and the boy’s mom comes over to tell Mikael’s mom about Mikael’s behaviour. Mikael’s mother “plays along”, however after the boy and her mom leaves, she scolds Laure for presenting as transgender. Laure’s forced to wear dress and go over to the boy to apologies. The next day everyone heard the rumour, and the local kids humiliate Laurie by forcing her to the ground to check what gender she is. Laure feels devastated and refuses to go out of their apartment for weeks because she is ashamed to present as girl. The movie ends by Lisa forgiving her, and asking Laure’s real name, to which she responds with her birth name.

In my opinion this movie tackles some heavy topics. Fitting in to a new environment is already difficult for a child, especially if they are going through gender presentation. The reason I chose this movie to talk about as relation to my graphic media project is that I have discovered a parallel to my topic.

In my story, Medusa was transformed into another body, and since she was different from “normal”, - ‘normal’ according to what society thinks or accept as normal - people who once were in love with her because of her beautiful appearance, now were disgusted by how she looked like, even though she did not change on the inside. In the story of Laure, when she presented herself as male, the boys instantly accepted her in the soccer team, while if she went there as a girl, they probably would not let her. It was only Lisa, who was still interested in her after Laure ‘transformed’ back to her ‘original’ sex.

Another similarity I discovered was the shame. In my animation, Medusa hide away from the world in the temple, and does not want to show her face, as she is ashamed of her look, and also afraid she would accidentally hurt someone. In Sciamma’s movie, the main character goes through humiliation, once when the kids find out about her gender, as well as when she is forced to wear dress, in which she feels discomfort. After the kids humiliated her in the woods, feeling ashamed she runs home and refuses to go out for weeks.

I also think both Medusa and Laure have gone through trauma, in Medusa’s case, she was raped and if that was not enough, her beauty was taken away from her, while in Laure’s case, she was humiliated by her own mother who forced her to wear a dress, meaning she does not accept her presenting as male. This resulted losing friends, and being taunted probably for a long time by the local kids. For a child this can be such a trauma that can case serious mental and health problems.

[loukissdraws]

Artist research 4

Sebastien Thibault is one of my all time favourite contemporary artist. He is a multiple award-winning editorial illustrator from Canada. 

I came across his one of his artwork years ago, when I had to do research for an editorial school project. What really amazed me was that how clearly he communicates his message by using just a few visual elements, yet it has such a strong kick.

His works have been featured in various magazines and platforms such as Time, Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, New York Times and Billboard.

Most of his artwork focus on current political issues, women’s rights, feminism and climate change.

He uses limited, yet quite contrasted colours, his shapes are bold and simplified, which in my opinion definitely helps the audience receiving a complex message easily, as there are no small details to distract. In my opinion, it is always challenging to create an editorial illustration, that translates a long, and usually complex article to a message. It also has to be visually engaging so that it attracts the readers to read the whole article.

As I was working on my graphic media project,  I often had doubts if what I am working on is not “too abstract” as I’m not doing the “traditional” story of Medusa, but more of a re-imagined version of it. In an interview for Baron Magazine, Sebastien talks about his creative process: “I will see images, but not necessarily related to the subject. Sometimes that's what will make your illustration speak even more. If you succeed in bringing it in a way that the others would not have thought, you succeed in taking it up a notch. If we stick too much to the subject, we will end up doing what everyone else is doing.“ This helped me a lot as I was considering making my story “as it is”, however I am happy in the end that I kept carry on with my original idea, as I agree with Sebastien. 

Reference:

https://baronmag.com/2014/10/sebastien-thibault-le-pouvoir-des-combinaisons/

[loukissdraws]

Artist research 3

How much of what you see is a hallucination? by Elizabeth Cox is another short animation I found on TED-Ed. Before the COVID-19 broke out, I showed this video to Paul, and we were discussing transitions in frame-by-frame animation.

Having a closer look at this animation, I spent some time to study carefully the scene setups. It might look simple at first glance, however when it comes to technicality, it really is not.

While working on my animation, my main problem I discovered was sometimes I use full illustrated scene, and other times it’s just a moving object with no background set up. This video reassured me that it can both be okay within one animated film.

My other issue that came up was the stiffness that I discovered in my work. My objects looked lifeless at times in certain scenes. It took me a while to figure out while Elizabeth’s video looked so “energetic”. I discovered that if I add a bit of jiggering effect to the borders of my objects, then they look much more alive and lively. At the same time, I also learnt not to over-do this, as it resulted a too disturbing scenes of imagery.

Overall, this animation and the previous one that I mention in my other research writing, have helped me to learn about and practise, and deepen my knowledge with things in animation such as changing the object’s position within a set scene, play with transparency, change focus on objects by zooming in or out, make a transition smoother, lead objects on a path of motion, as well as doing simple and basic rigging. I am happy I came across with these artists, as I can significantly feel my animating skills improving.

Reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DlipN61jGA&list=PLs_V13jozw5-fRg4Ch3HsiP1cJtMC5S2h&index=9&t=83s

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Artist research 2

The Ethical Dilemma of Self-Driving Cars is an animated short by Patrick Lin and Yukai Du. In terms of topic, it is not related to mine, however animation-wise, it was a big help regarding my project.

During my research for my graphic media project, I came across this video illustrated and animated by Yukai Du on TED-Ed. I have already written about her work in the previous semester, as she is one of those illustrators I look up to.

Noting that this was my first year ever trying out animation, I was searching for a style of animation, that would more or less be simple to make, yet looks impressive. I knew I wanted to experiment with frame by frame transitions this time, as Paul was also encouraging me to.

Therefore I came across with this video, and I really liked the style of the animation. This video was a great study which helped me to discover small tricks on how to make my animation better and make the transitions smoother. As well as helped me with different camera angles e.g. the relation of the object in the front compared to the one in the background, and moving them separately.

Overall, this short animation really helped me to get better with my project, and make my progress much faster.

Reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixIoDYVfKA0&list=PLs_V13jozw5-fRg4Ch3HsiP1cJtMC5S2h&index=2&t=0s

[loukissdraws]

Graphic Media progress 3

As I was working on this project, I realised I was not happy with the outcome at all. Being a perfectionist when it comes to work, I’d rather risk submitting it in the last moment, rather than hand in something that I’m not satisfied with. Therefore I have decided to re-draw the whole animation, as I felt during this lockdown period I have finally developed a stronger style in terms of illustration. I feel like my progress is a lot faster this way than it was before, however I feel slightly stressed as the deadline is approaching.

Going through quite a few animation softwares, in the end I decided to stick with Procreate as my main illustrating tool, as well as making the basic frame by frame animation in there. Once it’s done, I use Premiere Pro and After Effects for post-production. 

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Article research

During my research, I came across with an article on The Guardian. The topic was the #MeToo movement.

The article begins with a mother teaching her daughter self-defence for verbal insults that might come from boys at school.

The article tackles the problem of modern society where women are being looked at sexual objects regardless how hard they try not to. If a woman decides to put on a dress for work doesn’t cover her fully, she can be already at risk of being looked at and receiving comments by males. “Attracting male attention is a woman’s success. Rejecting it feels rude.”

Women seem to be force to limit their appearance, only to avoid nasty comments.

An exchange student writes her own experience about how she wanted to study or walk outside of her flat, yet she could not do it without being sexually harassed or being cat-called. She then figured to put a pillow under her clothes so that she would look pregnant, and according to her, “this was the magic charm”. In my opinion it is very sad that young women in their late teenage years or 20s already have to go through male insults just because they are young and pretty, regardless if they are wearing “attractive clothes” or not.

According to the article, demanding safety for women should not be difficult, yet it is enough for some women to have a job where they are at risk of being insulted by their male boss or a colleague. Apparently, the #MeToo revolution was a proof that women live under threat all the time. In the ending lines, the writer suggests that asking nicely won’t help, the only changes that can help is when the offenders start to fall.

After reading this article, I instantly saw the connection with my project. In my story, Medusa gets raped by Poseidon just because she was young and beautiful. If this wasn’t enough, she then gets cursed by Athena. Most stories that I read during the #MeToo movement, where women were being raped, most comments under the story was “You should not have worn such an attractive dress” or “You should not have flirted with that guy”. As if being raped was not enough trauma for a woman, that stays with them forever - not even mentioning other consequences like getting an unwanted pregnancy or receiving a sexually transmitted disease - they yet have to face with comments which suggest that they deserved what they got because they provoked the situation.

In most modern interpretation of the story of Medusa, she is being presented as an evil woman, however, if anyone does a little bit of research, she never wanted to harm anyone. She was cursed because of her beauty, and because another woman was jealous of her.

Source:

Kingsolver, Barbara. "#MeToo isn’t enough." (online) The Guardian, 16 Jan 2018,

source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/16/metoo-women-daughters-harassment-powerful-men

[loukissdraws]

Graphic media - Progress update 2

Here are a few sketches I’ve done for my animation during my scene preparation. I used a few reference images as well, just to get the temple and Athena’s statue right. I’ve also tried a few colors, in the end, I’m currently happy with the top sketch colours. I definitely would like to stick with warm/red-ish colours. 

In the top sketch, we will see Athene’s temple, and Medusa appearing from behind one of the statues. Then there are two “location” drawing, and finally we can see Medusa with covered eyes. 

I am happy with my progress finally, especially that I’m happy with the colours. I am looking forward to finalise my storyboard and start animating it. 

[loukissdraws]

Artist Research 1

Hercules - video game

Hercules was a video/PC game released by Disney Interactive in 1997. The game was based on the same titled Disney animation movie. 

The game follows the same storyline as we saw it in the movie. Hercules, son of Zeus, was kidnapped by Hades, who took away his immortality. In order to get it back and join the gods on Mount Olympus, Hercules needs to prove he is a true hero, therefore he has to pass challenges and tasks, and in the end, defeat Hades. Even though this game is about another Greek hero, I still found it relevant to my project. Although in the original Greek myth, Hercules had to go through the labour of 12, in Disney’s game we see him doing additional tasks as well.

Even though it was originally Perseus, in one of the levels Hercules has to defeat Medusa. In this level, Hercules is controlled by the user on a limited space (can only go around the hall), the Medusa constantly looking around trying to kill Hercules with her glaze. The user has to trick the Medusa and hide from her, she then blasts all the columns around her. After every column blasted, there is a metal shield dropped. Again, the user has to make the hero hide from the killer glaze behind the shields, and as her stare lands on them, it reflects it back at her which makes her weaker and weaker, and eventually turns her to stone. Pegasus is also seen from the beginning as helper of Hercules, although according to the legend, he was born when Medusa’s head was cut.

The game was a hit and big favorite to most children in the 90s, however it received both positive and negative critics. Dan Hsu of Electronic Gaming Monthly said: "Hercules takes everything you liked from old side-scrolling classics and gives them a big 32-bit boost.”1 While on the other hand Next Generation wasn’t so impressed. They didn’t find the game groundbreaking, in fact, the complaint was that the game didn’t bring anything new to the market, it was the same structure than some previous action game. “Walk from left to right, hacking at centaurs and other mythological creatures with a sword. It's all been done before, and done better as well."2

1Review Crew: Disney's Hercules". Electronic Gaming Monthly. No. 98. Ziff Davis. September 1997. p. 54. 2 "Finals". Next Generation. No. 34. Imagine Media. October 1997. pp. 169–170.

[loukissdraws]

Progress update / First (test) scene

I have started to make my animation about the Medusa, starting with the scene where we learn about her past — she used to be a beautiful woman, however she was chased and eventually raped by Poseidon in the temple of Athene. Athene was mad and as a punishment, she cursed Medusa with snake hair, and a glaze with which she turned everyone to stone who looked into it. 

I usually like to explore some colour variations, however for this scene I wanted to pick something that resonates with the paintings of the ancient Greek vases. 

I have made a few tests and variations to the gif until I got this result. I was playing around with frame per seconds to see what speed it looks the smoothest. I am happy with the result so far, however I am sure I will fine tune it a little later once I have the whole animation. 

[loukissdraws]

Introduction / Project 5

For this project, I have decided to pursue mythology as my chosen topic. I have always been interested in myths and legend, especially Greek ones. This is why I am planning to make an animation about one of my favourite myths: Medusa.

Even though, at first I was considering doing something within the topic nature, in the end I discarded this idea early on, as I suspected many people would choose environmental or global issues. I really enjoyed doing my research in the previous project about the Minotaur, and also that’s where I came across with the story of Perseus and Medusa.

In the story, Medusa used to be a beautiful girl, however, after seeing her being raped by Poseidon in a temple, Athena was mad and turned her into a Gorgon Medusa — her hair turned into live snakes, and her gaze would turn everyone into stone. Perseus promised Polydectes to kill the Medusa and bring her head as proof. Perseus had received tools to help him kill the mortal Medusa, including winged shoes to make him be able to fly, a polished shield, a diamond sword from Zeus and a helmet from Hades that could turn him invisible. With the help of the mirrored shield, he was safe to look at the Medusa, and he successfully cut her head of. Pegasus, the winged horse was born from the blood of her, as well as Chrysaor, a mortal man. Perseus later, on his way home used the cut-off head to save Andromeda, by turning Cetus, the sea monster into stone.

Through the story of Medusa, I would like to explore beauty, that all women are beautiful on their own, and that being different doesn’t mean we have less chance in life. In my animation, I would like to re-imagine the story, where Perseus is able to see the beautiful woman regardless all the snake and curse.

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Graphic media project / Myths

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Stroy telling + Graphic media Myths/Fairy tales

Story telling

Minotaur was a half man, half bull creature in ancient Greek mythology.

Poseidon gave a white bull to Minos, who was supposed to kill it as a sacrifice. However, Minos secretly kept the bull alive as he found it beautiful. Eventually, Poseidon found out about Minos’s secret, and as a punishment, he made Pasiphae, Minos’s wife to fall in love with the bull. Pasiphae tricked the bull, and mated with him. As a result, she had a creature which had a human body with bull head and tail. After seeing the monster, Minos went to Delphi to ask the oracle for advice. With the help of Daedalus, they constructed a huge labyrinth to keep the Minotaur there forever.

Minos later had two more children. His son Androgeos was killed by the Athernians, who were jealous of his great sport achievement. To avenge his son’s death, Minos had a demand of seven Athenian young men and seven virgins should be sent as a sacrifice every year to feed the Minotaur.

In the third year, Theseus volunteered to slay the Minotaur. Minos’s daughter, Ariadne, fell in love with Theseus and helped him to navigate through the labyrinth with the help of a ball of thread. He killed the Minotaur with a sword he got from Aegeus. Thanks to Ariadne’s thread, Theseus managed to trace his way back and could make it out of the labyrinth alive.

On his way back home, he abandoned Ariadne on an island as he was never in love with her. Some other versions suggested he accidentally left her behind.

The fight between Theseus and Minotaur is one of the most popular scene to be portrayed on Greek vases.

Graphic media

Even though I’ve only started to experiment for the first time with animation this semester, my love for moving image grew, therefore I decided to again make an animation for this project.

I’ve always loved Greek mythology so it was obvious I chose this topic.

The myth of Minotaur is very popular, everyone heard of the story before. This made me think whether I should portray it as is, or take a creative turn.

I thought it would be more interesting to have a twist in it or to show him from an other perspective. I began to think what this creature might do during the rest of the year. I wanted to make him look funny, and also very loveable creature.

In the beginning of my film, as the “camera” walks across the labyrinth, we find the Minotaur who from behind looks scary, but when the camera rotates, turns out he’s actually just knitting a scarf. Later we see him playing chess with himself to kill time, but while he’s distracted the chess figures magically gets jumbled up which makes him being paranoid that he might not be alone in the maze. Later we see him being annoyed about some leftover skeleton pieces. This scene suggests that he’s obsessed with cleaning, as well as he’s actually vegan (see the ‘veganuary’ calendar behind his bin. In the final scene, he uses the skull to plant a little plan in it.

Besides the animation aims to put a smile on the audience, I also found it important to raise awareness of modern health issues such as depression (because he’s lonely), OCD (he gets annoyed when he finds ‘rubbish’ in the house and has the urge to immediately remove it, with barely touching it - as being afraid of bacteria as well), paranoia (he thinks there’s someone else in the labyrinth apart from him), and veganism. Since this project came up in January, I thought it would be funny to somehow sneak the Veganuary in it, which is a movement to happening during the first month of the year worldwide to encourage people to try out vegan options as well.

Overall, I’m very pleased how my animation turned out. I am happy with the colors, as well as the Minotaur as a character. I haven’t really made a character before, especially not with facial expression, so it was a challenge to be able to visually communicate the emotions I wanted to (e.g. him being annoyed, surprised, suspicious, or concentrating with his tongue out while knitting). I also tried to use colours that are close to the ones they used to use on Greek vases (red, dark red, brown, black, white). Animation-wise I still need to learn a lot, as it is not as smooth as I wanted to it be. I should have added more frames in between to make him move smoother, however, this project was the shortest in terms of deadline, so in the end, it still looks okay.

As for the future, I really fell in love with this character - if I may say this, as well as I received a lot of positive feedback on him, so I am thinking about maybe making a few more short clips of him doing other things, and developing him more as a character. Another thing I wish I had time for, was the sound effects, I think it would have added more personality to the movie. However, as I have mentioned before, I am happy overall with it.

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Graphic media project

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Discussion of Project / nature

For my graphic media project, I have decided to make an animation regarding to the topic of nature. Before choosing from the list of readings, I usually have a quick look into all of them to see which one grabs my attention the most. Even though in the end I chose a different one for my essay,  Jaques Derrida’s writing inspired me for my graphic media. In the chapter of The Animal That Therefore I Am, he raises the topic of nudity, and feeling ashamed when being looked at when we’re naked. According to Derrida, “There is no nudity “in nature”.” (page 374), which instantly had an image pop into my mind: the story of Adam and Eve.

Regarding my chosen topic, I was intending to show how Adam and Eve made a sin by taking the forbidden apple, instead of enjoying what they had. I sort of felt that these days humanity is again heading towards “being expelled out of nature” because we are taking our nature granted, even though it is not, yet we are doing nothing but destroying it, instead of taking care of what we have.

As for my animation, I wanted to make something that looks simple, yet visually engaging. It was my very first time making frame by frame animation in Procreate. It was time-consuming, however I enjoyed the whole process, and I would do it again. In contrast to After Effects, it is less smooth, however it gives a lively, jiggering effect to the final piece.

We can see the serpent approaching the apple, encouraging Eve to take the apple. I wanted to make the serpent to look suspicious – we can see him sneaking back and disappearing once Eve takes the apple. In the last scene, we finally see the couple, being aware of their nudity, feeling ashamed, and covering up themselves with leaves. I thought it was interesting how nudity, which used to be“natural” to Adam and Eve, became something that they suddenly felt embarrassed about being exposed, became aware of it, and actually used nature to hide their body.

Since these projects were limited by short deadlines, I felt like I could have added more scenes to it if I had more time, however, I have to say, overall I was very happy with the outcome.

[loukissdraws]

Reading report 2 /Nature

Naomi Klein: One way or another, everything changes

For this report, I chose to read This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein. The Canadian author is also a social activist and filmmaker, famous for talking about topic such as politics, corporate globalisation and capitalism. In her book, Klein writes about climate change, its effect on the world, and how people don’t act the way they should.

In the beginning of the chapter, she talks about various things such as burning fossil fuel or change in water levels which has a serious effect on the climate, yet most people (usually who “live a high consumer life”) are ignorant about the facts. ”I denied climate change for longer than I care to admit." (Klein, 2015, pp.3).

Klein addresses the fact that people tend to ignore the fact even though if it is happening in front of their eyes. “We look but tell ourselves comforting stories about how humans are clever and will come up with a technological miracle…” (Klein, 2015, pp.3) I have to agree with Klein here, as I think the main issue today with climate change is that most people either ignorant about, think that it is a joke, or just wait for others to do something.

Having a discussion about animal rights in my previous essay – while I would never push or force it on others – I strongly believe vegetarianism and veganism could be a key, and first big step to rapidly slow down climate change. For instance, by having a vegetarian diet instead of meat consumption, carbon and greenhouse gas emission can be greatly reduce which helps to act against global warming – another key issue Klein mentions in the beginning of the chapter.

While reading Klein’s writing, I felt guilt of not acting as much as I can to save our one and only planet. Her book suggests to take action while we can, and bravely talks about how some people are indeed being lazy and waiting for a miracle to happen without doing anything. I can see now why her book received an award, it is indeed a well-written, eye-opening piece that not only inspires, but also puts some discomfort and guilt into the reader, hoping to motivate them to step up against climate change.

Reference: Klein, N. (2015) This changes everything: capitalism vs. the climate. London: Penguin Books, pp. 1–28. This Changes Everything. (2019). This Changes Everything.