#from his examples it is clear that the Rio accent | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hellolibrarygarden · 4 years

Text

Creating Ambiance With Gardens

During his 40-year career as a garden writer and photographer, Derek Fell has designed numerous garden spaces, many involving his wife Carolyn. The best example of their work can be seen at their home, historic Cedaridge Farm, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. There, they have designed more than twenty theme areas, including shade gardens, sunny perennial borders, tapestry gardens involving trees and shrubs, a cottage garden, herb garden, cutting garden and an ambitious water garden.

Derek worked as a consultant on garden design to the White House during the Gerald Ford Administration. Derek designed Ford's 'Win' garden, following his 'Win Speech', advising the nation ten ways to fight inflation.

Many garden designs by Derek Fell have been implemented without inspecting the site. The great late architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed beautiful homes for his clients, entirely from photographs without the need for a site inspection.

Fell's garden spaces have been featured in newspapers, magazines, books and also on television, including Architectural Digest, Gardens Illustrated, The Garden (the magazine of the Royal Horticultural Society), Country Gardens, HGTV, QVC and PBS.

Derek has authored more than sixty books and garden calendars, including 550 Home Landscaping Ideas (Simon & Schuster), The Encyclopedia of Garden Design (Firefly Books), The Complete Garden Planning Manual (Friedman), Garden Accents (Henry Holt) and Home Landscaping (Simon & Schuster).

Curb appeal and ambiance are important to brighten up your propoerty or prepare it for sale. Feel free to ask Derek any garden related questions regardless of how big or small.

SOME GARDEN TYPES

Water Garden. Water is the music of nature. It can be tricked over stones, cascaded from a great height so its crashes onto rocks. It can fall in a solid sheet or as silver threads. A beautiful water garden with waterfalls and stepping stones can be located in sunlight or shade. The water garden shown here is located at Cedaridge Farm. It includes a pool for dipping, and it features both a collection of koi and hardy water lilies. A popular water garden design features a koi pool fed by a series of waterfalls, and the water re-circulated through filters to keep the water clear.

Sunny Perennial Border. This can be formal or informal, square, rectangular, round and kidney shaped, in the form of an island bed or backed against a decorative hedge, wall or fence. Plants can be chosen to produce a parade of color through all the seasons, or concentrated for a particular season. Color themes can be polychromatic like a rainbow, monochromatic (for example all white - perfect for a wedding), or it can feature an Impressionist color harmony, such as yellow and purple; orange and blue; red, pink and silver; blue, pink and white; even black and white or black and orange (one of Monet's favorites). A popular perennial garden design is two parallel border with a grass path leading to a focal point such as a sculpture or gazebo.

Tropical Garden. You do not need to live in a frost-free area to have a beautiful tropical garden. At Cedaridge Farm we have two - one is a tribute to the design philosophy of the late Roberto Burle Marx, who designed dramatic tropical gardens around Rio. It is in a lightly shaded area and features plants that are hardy (like 'Sum & Substance' hosta) but look tropical and tender plants that are tender (like banana trees and tree ferns) that either need moving indoors during winter or can be discarded like annuals at the end of the season. Our second tropical space is a patio with tropical plants grown in containers.

Shade Gardens. We design two kinds of shade gardens - one where the plants provide mostly foliage interest (like ferns, hostas, heuchera and hakone grass), and plants that flower well (like impatiens, coleus, and lilies), or a combination of the two.

Woodland Garden. Whether you have existing woodland or you need to create a woodland from scratch, the result can be sensational. Decide whether you want deciduous trees that provide fall color or evergreens that stay green all winter, or a mixture. At Cedaridge we made a 'cathedral' garden where the existing trees are trimmed high so the trunks look like the columns of a cathedral, and the branches arch out to meet overhead like the vaulted ceiling of a cathedral. Below, we provide two more layers of interest, at ground level and the under-story.

Vegetable Garden. We can design you an easy-care garden of raised beds where vegetables are planted in blocks or an edible landscape where edibles are grown for ornamental effect. We can provide the plan for a garden that was approved for the White house during the Ford Administration where Derek Fell worked as a garden consultant. Derek Fell's book, "Vegetables - How to Select, Grow & Enjoy", won a best book award from the Garden Writers Association.

Herb Garden. The herb garden at Cedaridge Farm is a 'quadrant design', feature in numerous calendars and books, including Derek Fell's 'Herb Gardening for Beginners.' We can also provide a cartwheel design or a parterre herb garden for bountiful harvests of fresh herbs. The Herb Garden can also do double-duty as a vegetable garden.

Cutting Garden. The cutting garden at Cedaridge Farm features bulbs such as tulips and daffodils for spring, and ever-blooming annuals to follow the bulbs so armloads of flowers can be harvested from April through October.

Victorian Garden. A garden with romantic overtones! Imagine a white gazebo framed by mostly white flowers for a wedding in the family. Or choose from among several color harmonies, such as yellow and blue, red, pink and silver, or blue, pink and white.

Cottage Garden. You don't need a cottage to have a cottage garden. But if you do, such as a guest cottage, why not wrap it in shrub roses and climbers, plus those delightful English cottage garden plants like poppies, sunflowers and pinks. We also like to include plants to attract butterflies and hummingbirds.

Stream Garden. Lucky you if you have an existing stream to be landscaped. At Cedaridge Farm we have a stream, but when we moved here it was overgrown with poison ivy and brambles. Today it is criss-crossed with bridges, and beds of moisture-loving plants like astilbe and water iris. If you don't have a stream, but would like one, we can create a design where the water is re-circulated along one that's man-made but looks natural.

Orchard. You don't need a lot of space for a productive orchard. By making the right choices, fruit trees can be grown in containers or espaliered against fences and walls to save space. Peaches and apples can be trained over arbors. Just a few plants of small fruits like strawberries and raspberries can be highly productive.

Bog Garden. Ideal for soils that tend to remain moist all season, bog gardens can be extremely colorful and highly imaginative, incorporating stepping stones and bridges to cross wet areas, and growing some of nature's most diverse plant families, such as water iris, Japanese primroses, astilbe and waterlilies.

Japanese Garden. The problem with many Japanese gardens is a tendency to use pseudo-Japanese elements such as Chinese dragons. Derek Fell has twice traveled to Japan, has written award-winning articles about Japanese garden design, and has the experience to design authentic-looking spaces in the Japanese tradition using elements of Zen or Feng Shui, or a combination of the two disciplines to create a magical space.

Italian Garden. Although Italian gardens can be highly ostentatious, requiring steep slopes to achieve the best effect, like the Villa d'Este, near Rome, small spaces can achieve the aura of an Italian garden. Derek Fell has not only visited some of the finest Italian Gardens, such as La Mortola on the Italian coast, and Boboli overlooking Florence, he has toured and photographed the Vatican Gardens.

French Formal Garden. The elaborate style of Versailles Palace and Vaux le Vicompte, may be beyond your means, but elements of French garden design, such as a parterre garden, can be incorporated in small spaces.

Monet's Garden. This beautiful artist's garden north of Paris contains more than a hundred special planting ideas to create what Monet considered his greatest work of art. Moreover, his planting ideas have undoubtedly inspired more new garden design than any other garden. Monet's arched bridge, his waterlily pond, his arches leading to the entrance of his house, and his color harmonies are just some examples of Monet's innovation that people today like to emulate.

1 note · View note

closetofanxiety · 6 years

Text

NXT to the Main Roster: A Haphazard Examination, Part 1 (2014-2015)

I am, if nothing else, always willing to test my hypotheses via data, so let’s take a look at every NXT call up since I started watching the WWE network (February, 2014). This does not include the FCW call ups, because that was before I started watching, but they are, all in all, a pretty spectacular group. IMPORTANT: I am grading the main roster tenures of the Superstars(tm), not them as individuals. For example, I think Neville is great and hope he tears it up on the indies (although please don’t let him go back to calling himself PAC), but it’s hard to see his time on the main roster as anything but, ultimately, a dud.

Paige

Call-up date: April 7, 2014. She debuted spectacularly, and then kind of hit a plateau where they didn’t know what to do with her. She kind of shared a gimmick with AJ Lee (”the anti diva”), flopped from heel to face with no real direction, was absent for a long time because of injuries and Alberto del Rio, and came back only to get a career-ending injury. I actually think she’s grown into her role as GM; this might be my favorite incarnation of WWE Paige. At best, though, this is a partial success, and clearly not what they had in mind for her future.

Grade: C

Rusev

Call-up date: April 7, 2014. Rusev has done pretty much exactly as well as I expected, spending time as a reliable mid-card presence with occasional breakout moments (his feud with John Cena, this “Rusev Day” thing that feels like it will never end). I enjoy his matches, he’s used well, the crowd responds to him. There’s nothing wrong with being a credible midcarder. Not everyone can be in the main event.

Grade: B+/A-

Lana

Call-up date: April 7. 2014. The former FSU Cowgirl was initially one of the best things about WWE TV, playing the icy Russian blonde to perfection. Vince hates managers, though, so it was determined that her Character Must Develop, and it did, disastrously. Remember the denim-clad Dolph Ziggler alliance? Remember the Dancing Lana vignettes? She still accompanies Rusev at times, but they’re now trying to make her a wrestler, and this is not really what she does best. She doesn’t even always remember to speak with the accent anymore. Without Rusev, she would have gone the way of Summer Rae long ago.

Grade: C-

Adam Rose

Call-up date: May 5, 2014. God, they bungled his arrival, but how over could he realistically expect to get with a kind of Russell Brand gimmick? He was all entrance in that character. Also, Personal Demons doomed his WWE run.

Grade: F

Bo Dallas

Call-up date: May 23, 2014. A fantastic heel champion in NXT, Dallas has been lost on the main roster. He’s a great example of a phenomenon we’ve seen repeatedly: a subtle, engaging gimmick that works in NXT (in his case, eerily motivational weirdo who is secretly a psycho) evaporating on contact with the WWE’s mass audience and hamfisted creative team. He’s only recently gotten anything resembling a push, which they’ve spoiled by rushing the B Team’s redemption story.

Grade: C-

The Ascension

Call-up date: September 9, 2014. A formative experience for me: being mystified as to why these Road Warriors knockoffs were so hugely popular with the Full Sail massive. Whereas Bo Dallas’ NXT gimmick could have worked with a better creative team, it seemed clear to me these guys were always going to be local heroes. They’ve vanished completely; it’s incredible they’re still on the roster.

Grade: F

Kalisto

Call-up date: February 27, 2015. The Man Who Would Be Rey has managed a respectable career on the lower midcard, racking up two U.S. title victories, which is kind of like the WWE’s version of a perfect attendance trophy. He’s found new life on 205 Live, to the extent that matters. He’s done about as well as a masked luchador not named Rey Misterio is going to do in Vince’s company.

Grade: C

Neville

Call-up date: March 30, 2015. Now Available For Indie Dates. He was a terrific fighting babyface champ in NXT, and was saddled with a fucking cape as soon as he came up to the main roster, a sure sign the creative team didn’t know what to do with him. He helped revive 205 Live from its initial doldrums, but then Problems With the Office ensured his stay in Vincetopia would be short. Despite his talent and popularity with hardcore fans, it’s hard to judge his tenure as anything other than a missed opportunity.

Grade: F

Kevin Owens

Call-up date: May 18, 2015. The first guy to get called up from the triple A club since Seth Rollins who was also a holy-shit big deal in the indies, Owens was initially handled so well, beating John Cena in his debut main roster match and coming off like the prizefighter that made him a star. In that crazy, heady time of 2015, I actually saw people wearing Kevin Owens shirts outside the context of wrestling shows, and it seemed like they had a breakout star on their hands. It did not work out that way! Although he’s had some stellar moments since then (the disintegration of his friendship with Jericho was a legitimately great angle), he’s settled into being the whiny pussy on the upper midcard who can occasionally be slotted into holding pattern feuds with babyfaces they’re priming for the top spots. He still does everything really well, and has his fans, but it’s hard not to imagine what could have been. I don’t see anyone wearing Kevin Owens shirts outside wrestling shows anymore, that’s for sure.

Grade: B-

Sasha Banks

Call-up date: July 13, 2015. She seemed like the odds-on favorite to be the breakout star from NXT’s women’s division, and although she’s been intermittently used well and has a high level of popularity, the stop-start booking, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it title reigns, and the inexplicable decision to make her mostly a vanilla babyface have dimmed her star a little. There are a lot more chapters to be written in her career, though, barring injury.

Grade: B+

Charlotte Flair

Call-up date: July 13, 2015. An undeniable star, they’ve built the women’s division of the main roster around her, and although she absolutely belongs at the top of the card, the push still feels a little ersatz. She’s good in the ring, but not the best, and her promos are passable, but she doesn’t have Alexa Bliss’ off-the-charts charisma. She’s less Ric Flair than she is Bob Backlund (early ‘80s version), which is not a terrible thing. I don’t know why the people who complain about Roman Reigns being overpushed don’t feel the same way about Charlotte.

Grade: A-

Becky Lynch

Call-up date: July 13, 2015. After initially being stuck in NXT with a hideously bad Riverdance gimmick, she became a fan favorite thanks to her charisma and wrestling chops. Along with Sasha and Charlotte, she spearheaded the “Women’s Revolution,” became the first-ever Smackdown Women’s champion, and then ... well, not much. Stuck in a succession of pointless midcard feuds, marooned with a gimmick that made her seem like she had a mild brain disorder (DO YOU LIKE PUNS?), she was treading water until her recent “heel turn” that is really a babyface turn.

Grade: B-/C+

Braun Strowman

Call-up date: August 24, 2015. BRAUUUUUUUN. As tired I am of his vaguely one-dimensional shtick, there’s no denying how insanely popular he is with the main roster crowd. He’s not only got a great look as a big guy, he’s also a surprisingly capable athlete who plays his character well. Even the WWE creative team could not screw this one up. He may never cross over to mainstream notoriety, but he could potentially slot into the Kane or even the Undertaker role, although Strowman’s gimmick would need a little spicing up for that.

Grade: A+

Tyler Breeze

Call-up date: October 22, 2015. In the late fall of 2014, I saw Tyler Breeze vs. Neville at a WWE house show in Springfield, Mass., and the crowd went from total indifference in the presence of these unknowns to ferociously hating Breeze within about five minutes. I said then, “This dude is an undeniable star. He is going to be absolutely huge.” I AM NEVER WRONG. No, of course he didn’t become a star. The main roster creative team took one of the most reliable heel gimmicks in wrestling (Tyler Breeze is, essentially, Gorgeous George) and somehow managed to make people feel total indifference to it. He was saved from Ascension-esque oblivion only by the Fashion Police skits, which Vince reportedly loved. But where do you go from there? Don Muraco main-evented a trio of Madison Square Garden matches against Hulk Hogan near the white-hot zenith of Hulkamania, and then, after the “Fuji Vice” and “Fuji General” comedy skits, was jobbing to Dino Bravo at SummerSlam. Tyler Breeze has so much talent, but I imagine we’ll get to see the full range of it during an indies-and-Japan sprint.

Grade: D+

That’s it for now! Tune in eventually for the Class of 2016.

#NXT #WWE #official rankings

5 notes · View notes

zenosanalytic · 6 years

Text

Solo Bouno

So I saw Solo on Tuesday and it’s a Good movie; not great, didn’t make a Huge impression on me, but Fun and Enjoyable and certainly something I’d happily watch once it makes it to cable, with a few quibbles.

The Good:

The acting was (mostly)good

The characters were well-written

The Dialogue was fun, funny, and unforced

While the Plot had Issues, it flowed well and felt natural, and there was nothing really eye-rolling in it.

All the technical aspects -Design, Cinematography, sound work, editing- were Proficient

Establishes the stakes quickly and effectively

Chewie is Great

Lando is Great

L3-37(yes, they REALLY named the robot l33t) is Great

The Quibbles:

It was a VERY Generic origin story

They didn’t set up themes they needed to, and didn’t really deliver a good payoff on the themes they did set up

Related to this, there are important character beats and payoffs that are never really setup(or “Planted”).

It could have done better with its female cast. I’ll get into this a bit more under spoilers

Alden Ehrenreich NEVER STOPS SMILING! I mean, that’s an exaggeration obvsl, but it was REALLY noticeable to me. IDK if this is an artifact of the editing, the directing, or Ehrenreich’s choices about the character(tbf, Han is BSing people A LOT in this film, and the smile was Ford’s BSing expression so...), and it wasn’t really grating or anything but, by the end, it did take me out of the story a bit.

Glover does Williams’ accent for Lando a few times and, while it isn’t bad, I liked his take on the character better without it.

The writing doesn’t really do enough to sell the second job and, while all the action which constitutes it is Fine, I kinda grumbled at how thin and absolutely not convincing that bit was.

Ok I think that’s it. On to my lengthier Spoiler-Quibbles:

Solo falls into the common prequel/origin story trap of trying to explain everything about a character. This is always a bad idea but, with this movie and this cast, it is a particularly Horrible idea. Han, Chewie, and Lando are the perfect sorts of characters for a series of matinee-type adventure movies -think Indiana Jones- and Solo, by shoving his whole backstory into one film and leaving him practically where we find him in Star Wars, really, really, really, makes that unlikely. An added negative of that is it takes what the OS establishes as years -maybe decades- old relationships between Han, Chewie, and Lando and turns them into a one-job acquaintance. That was a Very Bad Idea.

Han starts off speaking Wookie(albeit badly), and I feel like that choice leaves a lot of potential comedy&bonding on the table.

They really misuse Thandie Newton and her character, Val. She dies practically as soon as she’s introduced, and in a way that doesn’t feel honest to the character or situation. If they’d just put the bombs on a timer rather than a detonator this would have been less bad

This is compounded by how little mourning and upset Beckett, her lover and longtime partner, is allowed to displayed over her death(oh, and the deaths of his entire crew. Oh, and the loss of the future they’d planned together).

Half of Beckett’s initial crew disappears between scenes, and this is never explained. It really isn’t a big deal and I didn’t even realize it until thinking about the movie just now, but it seems like kind of a significant continuity error. Maybe they die, and I’m just not remembering it?

This actually could have worked, though, if the movie were a bit more willing to invest in characters other than Han. Later in the movie Beckett betrays Han over what to do with the Hyperfuel they’ve stolen. If he’d been shown as really angry and upset over these deaths, or if he’d been shown to be the sort willing to sacrifice lives for the score, then all of this stuff could have tied into a really neat ambiguous antihero narrative for him. Unfortunately, he’s consistently shown to be sentimental, friendly, even fatherly. He only gets visibly angry at Han once and only for an instant; isn’t angry at the Cloud Riders at all, even though they’re responsible for the deaths of Val and Rio; and only once comes even close to suggesting a score matters more than their lives, and only does that right after Val and Rio’s deaths. As a result, his betrayal feels detached from the character we’ve known up to that point. And what’s his motivation? The life he planned to live once his debts were cleared is gone and, by stealing the Hyperfuel for himself at the end, he’s guaranteed to live under a bounty for the rest of his life. It just doesn’t fit.

The same arc-confusion plagues Clarke’s Qi’ra. She also betrays Han in the end -maybe out of a desire to protect him, maybe out of pragmatism, but most likely from ambition- but the conflict her choice is a solution to is never established. It’s never established that she might be using Han and he’s unwilling to see it. They suggest Qi’ra is morally different from the person Han knew as a kid with(I think?) one passing line of dialogue, but the film doesn’t show anything that’d convince the audience she is, and shows lots of things(like her attempts to hide her brand from Han) which suggest she regrets her current life and wants out, not deeper in. Her making the choice she does thinking it was the best way to protect them both would make sense with the character on the screen(though, given that Han is Beckett’s only living accomplice by the end, it seems more like he’d catch the blame for it too, particularly once Beckett’s dead), but the movie presents it as a power-grab.

There’s a lot of stuff in here that’s either changes to, or taken from, the EU. References like this can be fun, but they’re always a gamble since you’re relying on information from outside the movie which the audience might not be aware of, and thus be confused and annoyed by. The Wookies have, apparently, been forced off their homeworld and enslaved en masse. Darth Maul’s not dead, but rather the head of the Syndicate Qi’ra (literally)belongs to(they even have him pull out the double-headed lightsaber and brandish it while he’s holoing her at the end so people will realize who he is; it’s ridiculous). The Cloud Riders who interrupted their first attempt to steal Hyperfuel turn out to be working with the Rebellion. The last one’s not a HUGE deal, but the others I thought were pretty odd choices.

They give Han a (very generic)rough backstory, but then present him as just a totally unambiguous, noncynical, non-gritty, good guy and softboy. Which, yes, he should have a heart of gold absolutely, but without ambiguity there’s no tension; no concern over what sort of choice he’s going to make. The whole “Rogue with a Heart of Gold” dynamic only works, narratively, when the character is both a Rogue, and kind-hearted to people hanging by a thread. This Solo isn’t really a Rogue; hell, he doesn’t even cheat at poker!

Miscellaneous Spoilers:

They kill off L3 ~halfway through the movie, and I’m ambivalent about it. She dies cheering on an enslaved rebellion she unwittingly started, which fits the character, but I think it would have been more fitting if she’d set it off intentionally, and if she’d died in a more active way; she is shooting at the slavers earlier in that sequence, but during the scene where she’s shot she’s cheering the rebels with her back turned to the danger and gets blind-sided. I mean, just having her get iced while shouting advice, or while looking back to Lando while still fighting, would have been much better. Also, while I didn’t think it was manpainy(Lando is justifiably and visibly upset about it, but that doesn’t become the focus of her death), they do then later strip her harddrive to merge it with the Falcon’s navigation computer, and that sort of direct utilizing of a female-coded character’s death and body to advance the (male-protags’)story didn’t sit right with me in the theater. It’s not handled really terribly or anything, in fact they do it in crisis as a sort of last-resort, but I still kinda |:T’d at it.

Lando has A LOT of capes, and it is Wonderful uwu Also he is an author and possible vlogger, which is Also Wonderful uwu uwu

Erin Kellyman as Enfys Nest has a small but important part, and she makes a big impression with it. We have the whole movie to get to know Han(on top of already liking him from the previous films) and I still found myself more interested in her story and her crew when they revealed their true nature at the end, than with New!Han(who wasn’t really even that bad; I know I’m ragging on Ehrenreich but he did alright with what had to have been an intimidating part). I guess this is also an excellent example of how important Mystique --NOT explaining things; leaving them vague-- can be to character-charisma.

That’s everything I can think of right now. Don’t be fooled by the length of that quibblelist though; it’s absolutely a fun movie and, if you like Star Wars and the Star Wars setting and, if the price of a ticket won’t hurt your wallet, it’s definitely worth seeing. A Fun, Funny, Entertaining, Summer Movie, and a good way to spend an afternoon.

P.S.: Plus, for the more politically minded and spiteful among us(read: Me), it’ll piss off legions of entitled manbabies online who want to get Kathleen Kennedy fired for having the temerity to be a woman while running Star Wars.

#Star Wars #Solo: A Star Wars Story #Solo Spoilers #Movie Reviews #zA's Outside Viewing

5 notes · View notes

cameron-ashurst22 · 6 years

Text

Sketchbook Weekly Summaries and Page by Page Analysis

Ba1B weekly summaries- Sketchbook Weekly summaries / Page by Page reflection

Week 12

Day 1 -sketchbook project

Today I had a workshop on the sketchbook project, this introduced me to the brief through a series of exercises to show examples of how I could fill a sketchbook.The main impetus of this lecture was to draw from life and then develop further using observations possibly turning a real person into a character or an animal into a character. The first exercise was to create drawings from a series of ink blots from the page , I liked this exercise due to the endless possibilities I could create through the way the shades of the colours were on the page.The next exercise was to create a four stage scene with a clear beginning, middle and end about the morning I had before arriving into university.The first scene was of me still dreaming and being prepared for the today , the next scene was me waking up in a panic and rushing to get ready and the final scene was me spilling milk all over the kitchen counter as I was rushing.This exercise shows how you can clearly derive stories from life and twist them to best fit an audience or outcome. The next exercise was to draw from memory a series of objects and animals the most important of this was the bear ads initially my bear looked quite cartoon like as I had no understanding of the form and anatomy of the bear itself. It was not until I watched and studied the motion of the bear I understood the anatomy of it and the further drawings of the bear became more and more refined for the final character I produced.I found that drawing the motion of the animal or object gives the best understanding of the animal or object itself as all angles are seen.This had more weight and value than that of a still image as you can only see what is present and not the inner workings or how muscles react and move with each other .For instance in the bears case its back legs were at first problematic as they are much larger than the front legs.

Week 13

Day 1- sketchbook project

Today I had a workshop revolving around a trip to norwich castle to create some on sight observational sketches of some of the exhibits and the people within the castle itself. I found that instead of focusing on the individual aspects of each exhibit like one single bird I should look at the entire composition in relation to where I was standing. I was intrigued by the bird section of the museum as after watching videos of how parrots movie in the wild I had a theory of how although birds look differently they have the same anatomical structure. For this I drew multiple angles of a wide range of birds and distinguished they all have similar breast parts were the neck links the body to the head this was especially evident in the pelican and ostrich part of the exhibition.

Day 3- Sketchbook project

Today I had feedback on my sketchbook so far I found that the best work in my sketchbook is the development from observational drawing to character. Robert said that I should continue doing this especially with the parrot design. Also I should look at using this for further character development so I decided to look at wolves as I feel like I could subvert preconceived views on what a wolf character should look like.

Page by Page reflection

Sketchbook analysis

Pages 1-3

These pages of my sketchbook show observational drawing form the first week of the project brief. Two of the drawings were observational sketches of people when I was on the train home for Christmas. I used the initial pages to warm myself up for the sketchbook caring more about filling the page with quick sketches than more detailed studies. The first page is a quick sketch of an old man waiting for the train I feel like I captured the emotion the man was depicting through him waiting patiently, however the proportions of the figure are exaggerated as. I tried to turn the man into a cartoon characters. The second page of the sketchbook was the best sketches from the bear exercise which was completed in a workshop. The workshop focused on the movement if bears through watching a video of bears in the wild. The third page is a sketch of my friend Ben on the train it focuses heavily on the routines of his face and with the use of limited lines it creates a simplistic style however there is certain rigidity especially around the hands.

Pages 4-5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xYpn8HNYEg

These two pages focus on the wild birds of the outback in Australia. I watched a national geographic film on the birds of the outback and decided for the first page to focus on the movement of the birds and quickly sketch how they move to fully understand the form.The later page shows more detailed sketches of the parrots. I found that the different breeds of birds had very similar features around their beaks as they split into two parts, an upper and lower part which has a glossy surface.

I used coloured pencil to show the wide array of colours of these birds however found it extremely difficult to judge what tone to use and shading technique to best display the feathers of the birds.

Pages 6-7

Pages 6 and 7 focus on Belgian artist Dzia uses geometric shapes and lines to create unique decisions of animals. Theses animal include Birds , foxes , octopi and rhinos.

Dzia uses a variety of different media in his works from stencils ,paint and sculptures to street art and graffiti. Dzia's murals are seen across wide ranges of European cities as he is well known in the urban art scene.

His work inspires me as by splitting the body parts of animals into geometric shapes but never truly distorting the form shows the careful selection and urge to show details of the animal itself.

His use of colour also inspires me as it appears as a washed out palette most likely achieved by water colour however as it is spray paint the tones of the birds for instance are highlighted to greater effect giving larger visual impact making them stand out against the medium of the wall.

New ideas come very easily to me, so my work is very spontaneous – I paint quickly and in-situ to make sure the original idea stays true to its form.” - Dzia -

https://dzia.be/WHO-IS-DZIA

I feel like I can use this type in my work for future animations and artwork as by splitting the characters up into these geometric shapes I could use the lines of the shape to morph and bend the character in new ways. Furthermore , this style could be used for backgrounds of scenes and could be used as lines of focus to direct the viewer to the most important images or actions in the shot.

Page 7 uses the sketches of the outback birds and incorporates Dzia’s style in them this inspired me for future animations as the lines and geometric shapes could move and morph to either create backgrounds or enhance the characters aesthetic onscreen.

I used acrylic paint to create similar colours to Dzia’s work but also maintained the same colours which are present in the national geographic video wild birds to show continuity within the sketchbook. I found that the first test worked better than the second piece as I incorporated fine-liner to create the geometric shapes instead of the black paint I used in the second design.By using fine-liner the line of the shapes was thiner and created more of a contrast on the page rather than the thicker lines in the second iteration.The thicker lines overpowered the simplicity o the design an detracted the viewer from the piece as the other colours become bare visible on the page.

Pages 8-9

These pages show the development from the looking at real life parrots in previous pages and converting them into cartoon characters. I decide to try different styles and form when generating the characters. I found that I wanted to portray a proud parrot with a messy hair styles as parrots are synonymous with repeating what humans say so I wanted to incorporate this personality in my design.I chose a proud stance and gave the appearance that the parrot was singing with wings spread wide. I looked at the film rio for inspiration in characters design due to this film being the only film that has portrayed animated parrots in a variety of stances and emotions.

I found a character I was particularly fond of and decided to explore this parrot further by adding acrylic paint and distinguishing a clear colour palette for the character. I wanted the colour of this parrot to resemble the parrots from the Australian outback so went with a vivid green colour scheme , with yellow beak and red accents to draw the eye. I find that this design can be explored further with series of posing and emotions shown on a character design sheet which is explored later in the sketchbook.

Pages 10-11

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASc-RFofxgM

These pages focus on mountain baboons as I watched another national geographic film and focus on both sides of the baboons personality.The baboons has two main personality traits the dominating territorial baboon and the family orientated baboon. I wanted to understand how the baboon moves so decided to draw images of how they stand and attack when they are territorial.This led me to look further into the movement of apes and ultimately Andy Serkis.

Page 12-13

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpRLTfVEhMk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qMmPSSN2-Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPcwa78JcKY

Andy Serkis is an English actor and film director. Best know for roles as Gollum from the lord of the rings trilogy, king kong and Caesar from the planet of the apes. His work is mainly involves motion capture techniques and cg and for the roles he plays he studies a great deal of animal movements and their forms.

Serkis places large amounts of thought into the way his characters move for instance while playing the role of Caesar and kong he studied the movements of gorillas and other primates in the wild establishing a walk that is synonymous with the character.This also helped influence the movement of Gollum as with him being a highly corrupted figure who walks on all fours studying how a primate would move establishes the animalistic qualities that Gollum posses.

I feel that Serkis influences me in the way to look deeper into how the movements of the animals may help

influence the future characters and walk cycles that I create. This broadens my thought process with developing characters because it establishes a grounding for how the muscles would move in the body of an animal for instance and would lead me to create a more realistic walk or movement cycle.

I also looked at Serkis’s role as Gollum and did a movement study on how he moves in the hobbit and the lord of the rings. Gollum has ape like movement as he walks on all fours and grovels and squabbles like an ape when they are angry and territorial especially like a baboon.

Page 14-19

These pages focus on the castle and museum trip and workshop with quick studies on exhibits and people within the museum. I tried for the majority of these pages to quickly draw the people moving within the exhibitions as well as making sure that perspective within the drawing is created.I also became fascinated with the bird exhibit and found that instead of focusing on the individual aspects of each exhibit like one single bird I should look at the entire composition in relation to where I was standing. I was intrigued by the bird section of the museum as after watching videos of how parrots movie in the wild I had a theory of how although birds look differently they have the same anatomical structure. For this I drew multiple angles of a wide range of birds and distinguished they all have similar breast parts were the neck links the body to the head this was especially evident in the pelican and ostrich part of the exhibition.

I also looked at the tiger and lion exhibition in the museum and focused on the teeth and facial features of these cats and found that there is a black lip which runs along the bottom of the gums. Tigers also have a different sized head to lions as there is more of a slope to the nose of the tiger the there is to the lion.

Page 20-21

This double page spread focuses on the paint doodle exercise were a series of watercolour paint is placed on a page and I have drawn a series of characters or doodle over the top using the shape of the paint when it has dried.I find this exercise to be ye opening to new character concepts and I found a new dinosaur character that I would like to explore further in future pages of the sketchbook.

Page 22-25

These pages spread focuses on Vince Okerman also known as the youtube illustrator and doodle artist Vexx uses colourful compositions of cartoon characters and objects blended with realistic observational drawings to draw the eye of his audience.

Vexx’s style uses comic markers and fine liners to enhance his unique style.There are no gaps in his work when creating the composition giving the effect of an explosion or cluster of his characters on the page.Each character seems to be reacting to one another and the environment around them with the wide array of facial expressions and actions taking place.

Vexx’s characters and doodles build up the rest of the form of the observational sketch. For instance with the tiger piece the characters build up the rest of the shape of the neck anyhow how there is a clear metamorphosis between the contrasting art styles.

This has inspired the way I work through the use of colour and the actual art style he uses due to the simplicity of his doodles.This gives me inspiration through by having a character so smile It make them easier to animate as I struggle with consistency from frame to frame. This art style would also appeal greatly to children due to the bright and bold colours used with contrasts being created through the composition and placement of all the characters on the page.

I decided to create a series of doodles inspired by Vexx’s style I found this quite liberating as I was able to incorporate multiple elements into one drawing .I especially enjoyed the lion drawing as I had studied lions from the norwich museum trip. This trip then gave me the grounding to fully focus photographs of the Lions to fully develop their form. The blend between pencil and fine-liner contradict each other but add a cohesive uniformity to the piece itself.This piece blends the natural life of a lion to the cartoon imagination this helped me understands how the boundary between life and imagination can be bridged both in animation and in art.

Pages 26-27

The next page revisits the parrot character from the studies from the national geographic film and develops the character further as I received feedback from Robert to create another double page spread on the character. I heavily took inspiration from rio the film on this page trying to incorporate some of the posing from the film in my character . I found that my character would embrace the repeating tone a parrot and give the character a fun personality as he is outgoing and over the top.

Pages 28-32

The next pages uses the study of Yellowstone’s wolves to develop a character revolving around the nature of the wolf. Initially I took the same approach as the parrot and baboon studies creating quick sketches around the movement and form of the wolves.The next pages adapts the structure of the wolves to incorporate larger eyes to give a cartoon style.I realised that I wanted my wolf to stand up and be sophisticated so I veered away from the traditional form of the wolf.As the character is sophisticated I gave the character a robe and a cigarette to emphasise an aristocratic nature of the wolf.

Personal sketchbook

These drawings are found in a separate sketchbook where I try to explore a variety of different characters concepts swell as recreating the styles of famous characters like the drawing of Hank from finding Dory. I tried to draw as much as possible so these drawings are completed after work was completed for the day and I had free time. I looked at a wide range of animals like lemurs, sloths and monkeys as I want to develop characters in that area. In addition I found myself wanting to come up with interesting concepts such as the robot on the rubber dingy this directly contrasts what a robot does as if he fell in the water he would short circuit.

The next pages are improvement pages revolving around figure drawing. I watched youtube videos to give me the poses and tried a series of quick sketches lasting one to two minutes and longer sketches which were five minutes. I tried a new medium when doing this as I used ink and a calligraphy pen as this eliminated the use of a rubber. I am trying to move away from using the rubber as I become fixated on the perfect drawing. By doing this I create an imperfect drawing but as each drawing is completed I will improve with practice. The last drawing was inspired by Ben Su a Pixar animator who uses figure drawing in all aspects of his work.

#sketchbook

0 notes

lemmashort-blog · 7 years

Text

Creating Ambiance With Gardens

Throughout the 40 year career of his as being a gardening writer as well as photographer, Derek Fell has created many backyard areas, several involving the wife Carolyn of his. The very best example of the job of theirs can be viewed at the house of theirs, historic Cedaridge Farm, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Generally there, they've created over 20 theme parts, which includes color home gardens, sunny perennial borders, tapestry gardens affecting bushes and trees, a cottage garden, herb garden, cutting back garden as well as an ambitious water backyard garden.

Derek functioned as a specialist on garden layout on the White House while in the Gerald Ford Administration. Derek created Ford's' Win' back garden, following his' Win Speech', advising the country 10 ways to battle inflation.

Numerous backyard models by Derek Fell were applied without examining the website. The fantastic late architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed gorgeous homes for the customers of his, completely from pictures without the demand for a website inspection.

Fell's gardening areas are showcased in the paper, magazines, publications and on tv, which includes Architectural Digest, Gardens Illustrated, The Garden (the magazine of the Royal Horticultural Society), HGTV, Country Gardens, PBS and QVC.

Derek has written over 60 publications as well as yard calendars, including 550 Home Landscaping Ideas (Schuster and Simon), The Encyclopedia of Garden Design (Firefly Books), The entire Garden Planning Manual (Friedman), Garden Accents (Henry Holt) and Home Landscaping (Simon & Schuster).

Curb appeal and ambiance are essential to jazz up the propoerty of yours or ready it for sale. Be at liberty to question Derek any garden associated questions no matter just how small or big.

Several GARDEN TYPES

Drinking water Garden. Drinking water will be the music of nature. It may be duped over stones, cascaded from an excellent level so the crashes of its onto rocks. It is able to fall in a good sheet or as bronze threads. A lovely water garden with waterfalls and stepping stones may be placed in shade or even sunshine. The water back garden shown here's located at Cedaridge Farm. It provides a swimming pool for dipping, plus it offers both a set of hardy water lilies and koi. A preferred water garden layout comes with a koi pool given by a number of waterfalls, and warm water re circulated via filters to always keep the water clear.

Sunny Perennial Border. This may be informal or formal, square, rectangular, round as well as kidney shaped, in the type of an island foundation or even backed against an ornamental hedge, fence or wall. Plant life will be selected to develop a parade of color through all of the seasons, and concentrated for a specific time period. Style themes is able to be polychromatic such as a rainbow, monochromatic (for instance almost all white - ideal for a wedding), or maybe it could offer an Impressionist color harmony, like purple and yellow; yellow and pink; white, orange and silver; blue, white and pink; actually black & gray or even orange and black (one of Monet's favorites). A favorite perennial garden style is 2 parallel border and have a grass path triggering a center point like a sculpture or even gazebo.

Exotic Garden. You don't have to live in a frost free area to have a lovely tropical garden. With Cedaridge Farm we've 2 - you are a tribute to the design philosophy of the late Roberto Burle Marx, who created remarkable exotic backyards close to Rio. It's in a gently shaded area and also has plant life which are hardy (like' Sum & Substance' hosta) but look tender and tropical plant life which are tender (like banana trees as well as tree ferns) that possibly need going inside in the winter and may be dumped like annuals in the conclusion of the time period. The second tropical space of ours is a deck with tropical plants cultivated in pots.

Shade Gardens. We model 2 types of color gardens - one in which the vegetation give mainly foliage interest (like ferns, hostas, heuchera and hakone grass), and plants which flower adequately (like impatiens, coleus, along with lilies), or maybe a mix of the 2.

Woodland Garden. Regardless of whether you've pre-existing woodland or maybe you have to make a woodland from scratch, the end result could be sensational. Determine whether you desire deciduous trees which offer autumn color or maybe evergreens that remain green all winter, or perhaps a combination. With Cedaridge we made a' cathedral' back garden where existing forests are clipped large and so the trunks look as the columns of a cathedral, moreover the limbs arch out to meet overhead love the vaulted ceiling of a cathedral. Below, we provide 2 additional levels of interest, at ground level as well as the under story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardening

Veggie Garden. We are able to fashion you an easy care garden of raised beds whereby veggies are planted in blocks or maybe an edible landscape whereby edibles are raised for ornamental outcome. We are able to supply the for a vegetable garden which was authorized for the White house throughout the Ford Administration wherein Derek Fell worked as a gardening consultant. Derek Fell's book, "Vegetables - How you can Select, Grow & Enjoy", received a very best book award from the Garden Writers Association.

Herb Garden. The herb garden at Cedaridge Farm is a' quadrant design', characteristic in several publications & calendars, like Derek Fell's' Herb Gardening for Beginners.' We are able to additionally supply a cartwheel style or maybe a parterre herb garden for bountiful harvests of herbs that are fresh. The Herb Garden can additionally do double-duty as a veggie garden.

Cutting Garden. The cutting back garden at Cedaridge Farm has bulbs like daffodils and tulips for springtime, and then ever blooming annuals to stay within the bulbs so armloads of blossoms will be harvested from April through October.

Victorian Garden. A backyard garden with romantic overtones! Picture a white-colored gazebo framed by mainly white blossoms for a wedding party in the household. Or even choose from among a few color harmonies, like blue and yellow, red, orange and silver, or pink, white and pink.

Cottage Garden. You do not require a cottage to get a cottage garden. But in case you are doing, like a guest cottage, why don't you cover it in shrub roses as well as climbers, and all those charming English cottage garden plants as poppies, pinks and sunflowers. We also love to include plant life to attract hummingbirds and butterflies.

Stream Garden. Lucky you in case you've a current stream being landscaped. With Cedaridge Farm we've a stream, but when we relocated below it had been overgrown with brambles as well as poison ivy. Today it's criss crossed with bridges, along with beds of moisture loving plants as astilbe as well as water iris. When you do not possess a stream, but would like one, we are able to develop a style in which the water is re circulated along a camera that is man made but appears normal.

Orchard. You do not require a great deal of space for a prosperous orchard. By making the proper choices, fruit trees could be cultivated in containers or even espaliered against walls as well as fences to avoid wasting space. Apples as well as peaches may be trained over arbors. Only a couple of plants of little fruits like raspberries and strawberries might be extremely productive.

Bog Garden. Ideal for soils which often stay hydrated virtually all season, bog gardens can be very colorful & very innovative, incorporating stepping stones as well as bridges to cross damp areas, plus growing several of nature's most diverse place families, like water iris, Japanese primroses, waterlilies and astilbe.

Japanese Garden. The problem with most Japanese gardens is an inclination to make use of pseudo-Japanese elements like Chinese dragons. Derek Fell has two times traveled to Japan, has authored award winning posts about Japanese garden design, and also has got the experience to develop authentic-looking areas in the Japanese tradition with components of Zen or maybe Feng Shui, or maybe a mix of the 2 disciplines to produce a sensational room.

Italian Garden. Even though Italian gardens are able to be extremely ostentatious, needing steep slopes to get the greatest impact, such as the Villa d'Este, near Rome, small spaces can easily get the aura of an Italian garden. Derek Fell hasn't merely gone to several of probably the finest Italian Gardens, like La Mortola on the Italian coast, along with Boboli disregarding Florence, he's toured and also photographed the Vatican Gardens.

French Formal Garden. The intricate design of Versailles Palace and Vaux le Vicompte, might be beyond the means of yours, though components of French garden design, like a parterre garden, could be integrated in areas that are tiny .

Monet's Garden. This gorgeous artist's backyard north of Paris has much more than a 100 exclusive planting suggestions to generate what Monet considered the best work of his of art. Additionally, the planting ideas of his have undoubtedly inspired more brand new garden design than every other garden. Monet's arched bridge, the waterlily pond of his, the arches of his resulting in the entry of the home of his, and the style harmonies of his are simply a number of instances of Monet's feature that individuals nowadays love to emulate.

Tapestry Garden (Shrubs and trees). The fantastic French Impressionist artist, Paul Cezanne's back garden, in Provence, is composed largely of bushes and trees, not simply as a labor saving device, but in order to make a tapestry of color from leaf colors, leaf feel as well as leaf shapes. What could be far more attractive than to look from a window of the home of yours in a wealthy foliage panorama, which includes many shades of natural from light green to dark green, gold, silver, plus blue, bronze?

Hillside Garden. Often dried up hillsides are able to create gorgeous rock gardens, with paths flipping just twisting in a zig-zag to make a visible adventure from the roof of the incline on the bottom. They may be terraced as well as threaded with streams to produce waterfalls and planted with several of nature's best plant forms. Bridges, benches & belvedere are several of the structural components which could add interest to some hillside.

0 notes

s0022093a2film · 7 years

Text

Section 1: Creative Investigation-

To what extent is David Lynch an auteur and how does his style create questionable representations of women?

For my creative investigation I will be exploring to what extent that David Lynch is the author of his own films using a basis of Sarris’s auteur theory to analyse Lynch’s claim to the creative rights of his work. I will also reflect on how the representation of female characters in his films is entwined with his style but could have questionable ethics, using feminist film theory (Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., pp.117-130.0) alongside auteur theory (Grant, B. (2008). Auteurs and authorship. 1st ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.) to consider this. I will investigate if the eccentric mystery of this director makes him the auteur of his eccentric and mysterious films. I will discuss how his origins as a painter and artist, his life outside of his film career and his collaborations affect his film work and his authorship over it. I will consider this in an analysis of three of his focal films. Firstly, ‘Eraserhead’ (Eraserhead. (1977). [film] Directed by D. Lynch. USA: American Film Institute (AFI)) is a horror written and directed by David Lynch starring Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph. Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child. This film was the first definite choice to look at when analysing Lynch’s filmography. It is his first feature film after his original shorts, ‘The Alphabet’ (Lynch, D. (1968). David Lynch the Alphabet. [video]) and ‘The Grandmother’ (Lynch, D. (1970). The Grandmother - David Lynch. [video]). In these shorts he was really testing out his style and techniques but with minimal plot or story, it was his transition from the classical art world to the film art world so was heavily based on image and colour and light. This film is his first foray into feature films, so it is very dark and intense and focused on unnatural imagery to unsettle the audience. It is one of his most complex and non-linear works and something really career defining I believe. Secondly, ‘Blue Velvet’ (Blue Velvet. (1986). [film] Directed by D. Lynch. USA: De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG) is a drama-mystery-horror hybrid written and directed by David Lynch starring Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper. The discovery of a severed human ear found in a field leads a young man on an investigation related to a beautiful, mysterious nightclub singer and a group of psychopathic criminals who have kidnapped her child. In my opinion ‘Blue Velvet’ is one of Lynch’s more logical and plot-based films and is more naturalistic than ‘Eraserhead’ for example. I think this is an interesting contrast between his work that is extremely surreal and his work that has more thriller elements. And finally, ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ is a drama-mystery-horror hybrid written and directed by David Lynch starring Sheryl Lee, Ray Wise, Madchen Amick. A young FBI agent disappears while investigating a murder miles away from Twin Peaks that may be related to the future murder of Laura Palmer; the last week of the life of Laura Palmer is chronicled. I chose this film as I am very interested in the Twin Peaks series and film and it is the first work of Lynch’s I saw years ago. I feel it amalgamates a lot of Lynch’s styles and techniques of horror so would be really beneficial to look at. It was also controversial in people’s opinions when it was released as Twin Peaks series fans did not like it, however other spectators struggled to follow it as they did not have the context of the series. This meant it missed its market in some people’s opinions, however personally I enjoyed the film and think it is a good insight into lynch as a director and creator. It’s use of base, family disturbance to hit on key human fears is an important part of Lynch’s style and this film really plays on that.

‘David Lynch: The Art Life.’ ((2017). [film] Directed by J. Nguyen. Independent: Absurda) was an invaluable source to begin my research at as it was fully narrated by Lynch himself and spanned his whole life up until the making of his film ‘Eraserhead’ which created a picture of his life and the circumstances that lead to him making the films he did and how he is personally connected to them. Additionally, further into my research the book ‘David Lynch Decoded’ (Stewart, M. (2007). David Lynch. Bloomington: AuthorHouse.) was a brilliant companion to the multiple different relevant theory (Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc.) as it was a discussion into Lynch’s films individually which gave me contextual knowledge of all his work, as well as my focal films.

In the introduction to Stewart’s book he says: “Everybody’s got that moment. If you love film, you had a moment at some point in your life…. It’s that moment when you had an epiphany, you realised what film was really capable of…I went to see a late showing of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks – Fire Walk with Me and I was instantly hooked on film forever. No filmmaker had ever affected me the way Lynch did.” I found this notable because I said the same thing in the initial thoughts of my preparation for this question which suggests Lynch is noticeable, important and stands out to multiple people. This recognisable style is an attribute of an auteur.

Stewart talks about Lynch’s films having interlinking themes, styles, and characters. This is a suggestion of authorship according to one of Sarris’s premises of authorship. “I have come to the conclusion that these characters are connected to each other, that they are connected in specific ways which repeat themselves thematically and visually throughout the majority of Lynch’s filmed works, and that over time Lynch has developed a visual language that we can interpret with regard to these characters and the strange world they come from.” We can see these links in clear duality between the verisimilitudes of Lynch’s separate films, and also, we see the reoccurring use of duality inside films. There are countless examples of duality in Lynch’s films however I think his dual female characters are particularly distinct as it has a consistent and possibly two-dimensional representation of women in his films. Just some prominent examples of dual female characters in the focal films I studied are Laura and herself in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’, Laura and Dorothy/Sandy which are respective characters in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ and ‘Blue Velvet’, Dorothy and Sandy in ‘Blue Velvet’, the Roadhouse singer (Julee Cruise), Dorothy and The Lady in the Radiator from all three focal films. There are many examples of dual events and places in all three focal films which will become clear as I compare scenes, especially ideas of dual realities and dreamworlds which occur in all Lynch’s works. Graham Fuller addressed this in his Sight and Sound article saying, “Lynch had Originally intended to use ‘Crying’ in Blue Velvet but opted instead for Orbison's ‘In Dreams’. Dean Stockwell’s Ben lip-synchs the song with the same baroque affectedness demonstrated by Del Rio, but he too is cut short when Frank rips the cassette of the song from the tape recorder. On both occasions Lynch is Breaking through the dream fabric of the film, reminding us of the fragility of cinema’s hallucinatory power.” (Fuller, G. (2001). Babes in Babylon. Sight and Sound, (12), pp.14-17) and this highlights the links between Lynch’s films and the interchangeability of music, character, and actors. However, I am going to consider the clear and influential duality of female characters between and in the focal films as it does effect Lynch’s claim to authorship over these films. It could be argued that Lynch’s clear use of duality and ongoing style and theme contribute to his authorship over these films as links to Sarris. However, this could also be viewed as Lynch’s subconscious misogyny as his creation of female characters is clearly repetitive and conform to the Madonna/Whore stereotypes which are have been seen through film continuously since cinema began.

The character of Laura Palmer in ‘Twin Peaks’ is the crux of the whole TV series and subsequent film, as they all ask, ‘Who killed Laura Palmer?’ and maybe the more important question, ‘Does it matter?”. Laura’s character is Lynch’s most well-known and she is a perfect example of duality. One half of her personality is the all-American, beautiful daughter, and glowing prom queen, and the other half of her life is cocaine fuelled, sex-filled parties and abuse. The character Donna who is Laura’s school friend is a parallel and representation of Laura’s good side whereas the character of Ronette who is Laura’s companion from the secretive half of her life, reflects dark side. The ‘Twin Peaks’ ring unifies Laura as it appears to her when she is daughter, prostitute, and visionary. This duality of Laura’s character can also be seen by the characters of Sandy and Dorothy in Lynch’s ‘Blue Velvet’ where Lynch is again portraying two representations of women that are creating a narrative that suggest as a female you are either the typical obedient, placid, beautiful, and conservative girl or the dark, sexy, hysterical bad-girl. In ‘Blue Velvet’ Sandy is the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl-next-door that is presented as the ‘right girl’ for a sensible young man such as Jeffrey to date. Whereas the character of Dorothy is the dark-haired hyper-sexualised mysterious woman with a sultry accent that Jeffrey just can’t keep off his mind. These two characters clearly reflect the creation of Laura’s character in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ as she holds both these two juxtaposing traits at once which makes her such an elusive and enthralling mystery. However, the linking female characters continues across to Lynch’s first feature film ‘Eraserhead’ as well, there is even a parallel of three women from all three focal films, being united by a scene where they sing on a stage in front of curtains in a scene with an intense dream-like quality. In many films neurotic behaviour is prevalent in the ‘villains’, with strangely heightened and dangerous sexual awareness in the ‘heroine’. In the symbols of dream images, and the unconscious desires expressed in dreams there is there is key element of Freud’s theories. As Roger Luckhurst and James Bell said in their Sight and Sound article” The world of Twin Peaks sits in a broader Lynchian universe, which at times can feel like a unified whole- perhaps one could meet Eraserhead’s Henry Spencer in the Black Lodge or run into Dorothy Vallens from Blue Velvet at the Roadhouse. As well as taking cues from and prefiguring other elements of Lynch’s work, Twin Peaks echoes a variety of other filmic influences.” there is a clear Lynchian universe where all of his films and characters and worlds have his auteurs signature all over them. This consistency can be seen in Lynch’ films through his ongoing themes and his representations of women. On very pivotal and important theme running through Lynch’s work is his use duality between his films, in his films, in his characters and his places and events. In considering and discussing Lynch’s work considering duality is vital as it is central to a lot of the interior meaning in his films. Sexualisation of women in Lynch’s films cannot be overlooked when considering his work critically. It is known that Lynch uses the hyper-sexualisation of women in his films and it is picked up by the media and audiences and sometimes lavished upon. However, this itself creates a conversation about Lynch’s knowledge and control behind these representations and the reactions they produce. As Roger Luckhurst and James Bell noted in their article “The UK tabloids went crazy (largely, it must be admitted, for Sherilyn Fenn’s tight sweaters and dexterous tongue)” (Luckhurst, R. and Bell, J. (2017). The Owls are Not What they Seem the World of Twin Peaks. Sight and Sound, [online] (6), pp.18-25.) However, this use of duality by Lynch consistently could be a consideration of authorship, as Fuller said ”Twinning, of course, has been a consistent theme in Lynch’s later work, as witness the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ Dale Coopers in Twin Peaks and the two Arquette characters in Lost Highway.” (Fuller, G. (2001). Babes in Babylon. Sight and Sound, (12), pp.14-17). Almost like Shakespeare moulding and developing characters from Hamlet, to Othello to Macbeth we see Lynch using similar character tropes but building layers of character and meaning onto them

The second premise of Andrew Sarris’s auteur theory is that a director must have a distinguished personal style, and Lynch arguably fulfils these criteria. One clear stylistic element in Lynch’s work is his use of dream sequences to access a more abstract tone to his films. It can be complex to distinguish between Lynch’s complex and eclectic realities, and the dream sequences within them but there is a tonal change. Lynch’s dream sequences often seem to explore emotional tensions, revealing new information. Lynch’s belief in the Upanishads means he believes in different levels of reality, so Lynch’s dream sequences do sometimes blur the lines of reality and bring into question which reality is real and which is the dream, or both or another. This use of dream sequences link to the early surrealist movements in the 1920’s and 1930’s, in ‘Film and psychoanalysis’ it says they were in a ‘quest for new modes of experience that transgressed the boundaries between dream and reality’ (Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., pp.77-89.). This clearly something Lynch was consciously or subconsciously drawing on as he began in painting and moved onto film as a way of being able to gain more control over his and an express himself more intensely calling film ‘moving paintings’ (David Lynch: The Art Life. (2017). [film] Directed by J. Nguyen. Independent: Absurda.). It continues to say “They were deeply influenced by Freud’s theory of dreams and his concept of the unconscious. To them, cinema, with its special techniques such as the dissolve, superimposition, and slow motion, correspond to the nature of dreaming”. I feel as if this heavily influenced Lynch as his work is very motivated by image and dreams and he also moved onto the world of film to utilise these new techniques. As the dream sequence in ‘Eraserhead’ (Lynch, 1977) begins we see the radiator open up like a door, letting us into the dream world. Lynch uses a dissolve here to take the spectator from the ‘real world’ of Henry’s bedroom to the dream world. The use of this dissolve gives the effect of when in a dream something absurd begins to happen and new locations and scenarios come out of nowhere, but the sleeping brain makes them seem slick and rationalised. The dissolve moves the scene into the strange dream-world as not to alert the audience, creating the effect as if the spectator is falling asleep with Henry. The first images we see are the black and white tiled floor and the curtains. This referencing other dream world in Lynch’s films such as The Red Room/The Black Lodge in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’. There were also electrical light bulbs flickering into life, which is another example of Lynch using electricity to symbolize dream sequences. Although ‘Blue Velvet’ may present as one of Lynch’s more restrained with a more prominent narrative than most of his work, a lot of dream sequences and alternate realities are alluded to. In the opening scene we have this zoom into a dream world, implying maybe the whole of ‘Blue Velvet’ is a dream. This is different to the narrative style of Eraserhead’ as his first feature film has much stronger ties to his abstract art world and his personal life. To add to the concept that ‘Blue Velvet’ is a dream is also the final scene as we zoom out of Jeffrey’s ear and back into the perfect world we saw at the beginning. We see the perfect all-American streets but then the tension is built by showing the hose pipe getting trapped and quite literately tension building in the water. We then see the man drop to the floor and slow-motion effects are used. The camera then tracks in an extreme close up through the grass to soil and beetles rustling with disgusting animalistic crunching noises. This zoomed in extreme close-up implies that we are going to a dream in world in what is colloquially coined ‘Lynchland’. It is the same technique as used in ‘Eraserhead’ as we zoom into the radiator to the dream world. This scene in ‘Eraserhead’ also links to ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with me’ as the electricity motif is continued and developed by Lynch to be used in this film to represent a dream state again. In the scene where David Bowie’s character Phillip Jeffries arrives after two years of disappearance electricity is used to symbolise another reality or dream world; the electricity flares up and lights flash when Gordon tries to contact someone about Jeffries. In the nightmare sequence we even see an extreme close-up of a mouth say the word ‘Electricity’, it is a man layered in thick white paint with blackened teeth and a long white nose which gives him an eerie look of an 18th century plague doctor. The dialogue is used as another tool of Lynch’s to create disturbance and highlight the dream sequence, as in the Red Room/Black Lodge or when a character is in the alternative reality the dialogue sounds growling and deep and unsettling. Lynch used a technique where he would get his actors to learn their dialogue backwards by learning the sounds the words would make when said back to front. He would then record these backwards sounds and turn them around in the edit, in theory making the words sound forwards and correct again. However, of course this process would distort the sounds in an eerie way as a spectator you understand the words being spoken as they come across normal, but you cannot quite put your finger on why all the sounds coming from the actors sound wrong and distorted. Lynch uses this technique alongside electrical whirring and snapping sounds to create an atmosphere of unease and tension, Lynch wanted to create these altered reality scenes to have this effect because the sound became normal, but just slightly off and disturbing and this is the exact feeling Lynch wanted his dark alternative reality in the Red Room/Black Lodge to have.

Another notable element of Lynch’s personal style is a cleverly manipulative use of family tensions and fear to create a distinct tone of psychological horror. His control of the spectator’s emotions and darkness is intricately manipulative, a most perfect example of this is the character of ‘Leo’ in Twin Peaks who in the film is an utterly despicable character full of starkly dislikeable traits as a domestic abuser and criminal, however by the end of the series of ‘Twin Peaks’ Lynch has the audience feeling sympathy and almost warmth towards this character. This highlights Lynch’s power of manipulation, and almost love affair with it. This power and intense relationship with complex horror stemming from family issues comes from his personal life, despite his own personally described idyllic childhood, he struggled with marriage and children as he his style and art in a film format was developing and solidifying. We see this evolving first in his short films ‘The Grandmother’ and ‘The Alphabet’. The short ‘The Grandmother’ opens with a painting style animation, which comes up throughout the short to symbolise changes or things that are happening between shots. This implies Lynch has authorship because he was a painter before he was a film maker and went to art school, and still to this day paints and has a painting studio. He also has described his transition to film as him wanting to create moving paintings. So, the painted animation style is very personal. We see the use of blurred edges around the shot with a lot of light contrast and chiaroscuro lighting. This is heavily used in ‘Eraserhead’, enhanced by the black and white, to create the sense of it being a dream-world, not set in reality. It also uses soil that is dumped on the protagonist’s bed, which is used in the bedroom in ‘Eraserhead’, this enhances the sense of darkness and unknown and makes the supposed safe space of a bedroom become dirty and unpleasant, this shows Lynch is developing images and styles. There is use of stop-motion animation for some scenes, which is not really used in Lynch’s feature films, but it is in his shorts. However, Lynch does heavily use the technique of using models and lights and sort of animation style scenes in his future films for the dreamy, non-realistic effect. This short uses a lot of red and black colour schemes and Lynch uses these colours a lot in his future films, for example, ‘The Red Room’ in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ (red and black is massively used in pretty much all of this film) or the stage scenes in ‘Eraserhead’. Although when Lynch started filmmaking he had to shoot in black and white, however the black and white shooting style does carry on through his filmography. He uses black and white for effect in Twin Peaks and he uses the noir style chiaroscuro lighting. There is the use of CU on the antagonists faces to show the spectator the fear the protagonist is feeling in ‘The Grandmother’, this use of shot is used by Lynch a lot, for example the close-up of Jack Nance in ‘Eraserhead’ when he is scared of the baby, and the close-up of Bob and Leland and Cooper in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’, and the close-up of Jeffrey in ‘Blue Velvet’ as he watches through the wardrobe at Frank. This persistent use of family situations to create psychological horror highlights how Lynch used his own personal fears to begin to create a style of horror in his shorts and ‘Eraserhead’, and as he progressed as a director he developed, and this style evolved.

Sarris’s third premise of authorship is that an auteur must have a consistent personal link between all their work and art. The character known as ‘The Arm’ or ‘The dwarf’ from the Red Room/Black Lodge talks of “Intercourse between the two worlds”. The Red Room/Black Lodge is a visual representation of this ‘intercourse’ as it is almost a limbo between the physical world and the fantastical realm of dreams that Lynch depicts. The man then says to the illusive and evil ‘Bob’ character ‘with this ring, I thee wed’ and that could be said to be the ‘Twin Peaks’ ring that is the symbol of the link between the town and the dark realm and this ring becomes Bob’s talisman. The man then says the crucial line ‘Fire walk with me’ and in this moment we see Red room dwarf and Bob create the Black Lodge/Red Room. A close-up of the dwarf fades into a medium shot of the iconic red curtains of the Red Room. In an overhead shot we watch them both walk into the Red Room together and the curtains swing shut behind them. This scene is a critical moment in the narrative of this film and the whole ’Twin Peaks’ saga as we see the creation of the link between reality and other. These two characters literally bind the two worlds together as the dwarf says ‘wedding’ them. This is also an important scene to consider authorship for

The Upanishads are a part of the Vedas, which are ancient Sanskrit texts that contain some of the central philosophical concepts and ideas of Hinduism, some of which are shared with Buddhism, and Jainism. Among the most important literature in the history of Indian religions and culture, the Upanishads played a critical role in the development of spiritual ideas in ancient India, marking a transition from Vedic ritualism to new ideas and institutions. This is a belief system that Lynch is involved in and influences his life. Of all Vedic literature, the Upanishads alone are widely known, and their central ideas are at the spiritual core of Hindus. The Upanishadic age was characterized by a pluralism of worldviews and the concepts of Brahman (ultimate reality) and Ātman (soul and self) are central ideas in all of the Upanishads. So, it is clear that Lynch’s personal involvement with this does affect his beliefs and how he makes his films because themes of ultimate reality and soul and self are massively influences on his work. Brahman is the material, efficient, formal, and final cause of all that exists. The word Atman means the inner self, the soul, the immortal spirit in an individual, and all living beings including animals and trees. I think the fact that Lynch follows these ideas influenced his symbolism and creation of reality in his work. For example, the Upanishads believe the immortal spirit is in a person, animal, or tree and in the film ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with me’ all three of these things bring information from the alternate reality. The people such as, ‘The giant’ bring Cooper information about what is happening in the Red Room/Black Lodge, the owls also are almost possessed by the alternate reality and arrive in the scene when the two realities may merge, and finally of course the character of ‘The Log Lady’ has part of a tree the whispers to her, giving her advice to tell Cooper and malicious intentions of the other reality. Hendrick Vroom explains, "the term Maya [in the Upanishads] has been translated as 'illusion,' but then it does not concern normal illusion. Here 'illusion' does not mean that the world is not real and simply a figment of the human imagination. Maya means that the world is not as it seems; the world that one experiences is misleading as far as its true nature is concerned.” (Timesofindia.speakingtree.in. (2016). Maya (illusion). [online]) According to Wendy Doniger, "to say that the universe is an illusion (māyā) is not to say that it is unreal; it is to say, instead, that it is not what it seems to be, that it is something constantly being made. Māyā not only deceives people about the things they think they know; more basically, it limits their knowledge. In the Upanishads, Māyā is the perceived changing reality and it co-exists with Brahman which is the hidden true reality.” (Timesofindia.speakingtree.in. (2016). Maya (illusion). [online]). Clearly these ideas about Maya link quite directly to Lynch’s work, in particular ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with me’ as the Log Lady even says, “The owls are not what they seem” (the owls which symbolise the alternate reality). The interior narrative of ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ is based upon the idea that the world one experiences is misleading which is made clear by all of the complex characters with many secrets highlighted of course by Laura’s double life. Also, the Red Room/Black Lodge is another reality co-existing with Twin Peaks however you never know which is perceived reality and which is hidden true reality, and I feel this idea is something that Lynch uses through a lot of his work. Even Phillip Jeffries (David Bowie) in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ says “We live inside a dream”.

In ‘The Alphabet’ which another of Lynch’s early shorts, opens with a white flag with orange circle at the centre and this image is replicated in ‘The Grandmother’ (1970) when Lynch outs an orange circle in the centre of the boy’s white bed sheet when he is being beaten on it. The first section of the short film is the sound of someone singing and on screen is an animation of colours and shapes and musical notes and letters. Lynch is a music artist as well, so this means that he is gathering all parts of his life and personality to come together to create his films. There is use of closeups on faces to make you uncomfortable which David Lynch explores in his next short film and the rest of his feature work. For example, there is a close up of a wet mouth speaking and it is unsettling and horrible. There is a moment where there is the sound effect of a baby crying but in an intense unpleasant way which is definitely used as an important part in ‘Eraserhead’ (1977). Also, horror derived from family themes is one of Lynch’s strong stylistic points used in all his work. There is then an animation of what looks very phallic with blood rushing through it, it then turns into a face and breast spitting blood. This supposedly is all linked and imagery of childbirth. It uses chiaroscuro lighting liked Lynch does a lot to help create that dreamlike state where there are no borders of reality. Dream states and imagery are a massive part of Lynch’s style. Another poignant image is a woman trapped on a bed with her arms wrapped in the bars of the headboard, she is writhing about and started choking up blood. This seems symbolic of childbirth. There is a very small production company and wasn’t even released until decades later, this means it was a passion project for Lynch and gives him strong authorship to the film and the styles he has carried through to his other films. These themes are so strongly based on Lynch’s life as he had his first child Jennifer in 1967 with Peggy, who is playing the mother in this film. Peggy even described him as: “[Lynch] definitely was a reluctant father, but a very loving one. Hey, I was pregnant when we got married. We were both reluctant.” (David Lynch: The Art Life. (2017). [film] Directed by J. Nguyen. Independent: Absurda.) So, he has strong claim to the authorship of this film because he worked on every element of creating this film and it was directly based off his life. This could link to his representation of women and mothers in his films as he had a daughter as said ‘reluctantly’ and this created a fear in him of children and women’s power to create life. Freud’s idea of the unconscious is one of the dominant ideologies expressed in horror film- the idea of secret desires that lie hidden from the conscious mind but drive our motivations.

Lynch does have strong claim to authorship over his film as he consistently takes on multiple roles in the film making process, and in his early work it was solely created by him, and the links between his short films and his feature’s is very clear as I have discussed. For ‘Eraserhead’ Lynch was the director, writer, producer, musician, editor, production designer, art director, sound effect designer, special effects designer. For ‘Blue Velvet’ he was the Director, writer, and composer. And for ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ he was the writer, director, actor, producer, and sound designer. So as for Sarris’ being need for an auteur to be technically competent there is no question that Lynch has control over all elements of the creation of his films and is very capable of working in all departments. This alongside his clear style and personal connections to his work would suggest Lynch is an auteur. His sexualisation of women and lacking representation may be a negative to his work, however I have discussed how it comes from an inherently personal place so could to be said what Sarris called ‘élan of the soul’ which is where a director’s personal personality and take on the world is reflected through their work, adding to their authorship. A good example to support David Lynch being a stylist is that he is clearly used to sell his films as they are being advertised. David Lynch’s style is clearly recognised by a mass audience as name ‘Lynch’ has connotations with his own unique style and genre of work. I came across his work consistently being called ‘David Lynch’s…’ (Fuller, G. (2001). Babes in Babylon. Sight and Sound, (12), pp.14-17.) in articles which highlights this.

However, to counter all of this there is of course still a strong argument to the concept of all film making being a collaborative art and there are many examples of influential collaborations in Lynch’s filmography.

Lynch does collaborate which some of his work and this of course could be argued that his collaborators could be called auteurs, or at least they would all hold a collaborative authorship rather than Lynch being the true auteur. One example of his collaborations is the reoccurring actors which has become a feature in his films. It is discussed whether Lynch has favourite actors and the reasons why he chooses to work with the same people. However, this choice does bring into question whether these actors have a claim to authorship over his films due to their performances, how can it be said that Lynch is a true auteur if we have not seen him work on feature films without this talent? Even just considering reoccurring actors in my three focal films there are multiple. Jack Nance who plays the protagonist in ‘Eraserhead’ also stars in both ‘Blue Velvet’ and ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’, Kyle Mclaughlin who plays the protagonist in ‘Blue Velvet’ also stars in a major role in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’, Laura Dern and Frances Bay from ‘Blue Velvet’ also stars in ‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me’ and these actors also have roles in other of Lynch’s feature films. Also, it cannot be said Lynch’s work is not highly influenced through genre and a bricolage of techniques that came before him. His use of noir techniques such as high-contrast mise-en-scène framing. This genres aesthetic influences of German expressionism with the asymmetrical tendencies and dramatic use of light and shadow can be seen throughout noir films in off-kilter camera angles, direct front and side lighting, mysterious silhouettes. Lynch uses a bricolage technique to bring together elements from noir, post-modernism, German expressionism and surrealism to create his own signature style. Despite this, it could be said reoccurring actors be part of his style. He is known to be an unconventional person so only finds a connection with a few people, so is this limited choice of actors is part of his personal style? He does work with the horror/thriller genre however, explores and pushes boundaries, he isn’t conventional and brings something personal to standing conventions. Bricolage means he is pulling elements of lots of styles to make his own so in effect it’s still personal and he is just influenced by everything around him and his way of creating and interpreting through that arguable could mean this does not affect his authorship over his style.

I think the strengths of my research were that I used different formats to gather my information, so my research was wide-ranging and came from both personal and critical sources. I began my research with the documentary ‘David Lynch: The Art Life’ (David Lynch: The Art Life. (2017). [film] Directed by J. Nguyen. Independent: Absurda.) as this gave me a personal insight into Lynch’s opinion on his work as it was fully narrated by him alone. It also was very useful in considering the authorship part of my creative investigation as I began to build up background knowledge about Lynch himself and how his personal style evolved and developed and the influences that affected him and his work. Also, then moving onto his own documentary called ‘Eraserhead Stories’ (Lynch, D. (2001). “Eraserhead” Stories. [video]) where he just talks about his stylistic influences, opinions and the zeitgeist of his life that came together for him to create ‘Eraserhead’ and make it the film it is. This source was also incredibly valuable because it is where I learnt of his family and personal life at the time of making ‘Eraserhead’ and I began to make connection between his film style and his personal life, as I have utilised and discussed in this essay. I then used a variety of e-journals and Sight and Sound articles which were valuable to gauge a more public response to Lynch’s work at the time and to get an insight into how his work was received by audiences and critically, and what other people analysed from his films. I think reading the book on Lynch ‘David Lynch: Decoded’ was a really useful piece of research before I began my own essay as it brought up different angles and theories on Lynch’s work I may not have considered and therefore reinforced or challenged my own analysis. Since Lynch’s films do fall into the psychological genre and my essay was a consideration of authorship and representation, my research into film theories that were relevant to this proved invaluable in building up my knowledge to analyse the focal films in-depth and with and understanding of the theory behind why and how he Lynch uses these techniques and its wider value and interior meaning. So, my sources from the ‘Oxford Guide to Film Studies’ (Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc.). And of course, I felt that looking into some of Lynch’s early art and film work was crucial to understanding his artistic development and his control of audio-visual language, so analysing his early short films ‘The Alphabet’ (Lynch, D. (1968). David Lynch the Alphabet. [video]) and ‘The Grandmother’ (Lynch, D. (1970). The Grandmother - David Lynch. [video]) which he made prior to the focal films I am considering in this essay was useful in linking all of Lynch’s work and personal style. In addition to my research cited here I used this as a stimulus to continue to look into information about Lynch, his work and important facts or ideas that do not feature directly in my work but helped me build up a wealth of knowledge. However, some of the limitations of my research were that I had so much contextual knowledge and information it was difficult collating valuable quotes and being critical on what routes to investigate and write about and what was not completely relevant. It took a lot of time and critical decisions to pick apart the vital parts f information to create an essay and that was focused and detailed and I explored my own opinions and analysis.

Overall, in my opinion and in reaction to exploration and research I would say David Lynch is an auteur of his own films. I believe his representation of female characters can be two-dimensional and misogynistic however it is flawed and complex like Lynch himself and he is so intertwined with his work. Lynch clearly and consistently brings parts of himself, his character, and his life into his work and style and I feel there is links between his intricate use of the audio-visual language and his own personal development as an auteur.

Bibliography:

1)Newman, K. (2002). Mulholland Dr. Sight and Sound, [online] (1), pp.50-51. Available at: http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/1886 [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].

2)Luckhurst, R. and Bell, J. (2017). The Owls are Not What they Seem the World of Twin Peaks. Sight and Sound, [online] (6), pp.18-25. Available at: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/june-2017-issue [Accessed 18 Sep. 2017].

3)David Lynch: The Art Life. (2017). [film] Directed by J. Nguyen. Independent: Absurda.

4)Fuller, G. (2001). Babes in Babylon. Sight and Sound, (12), pp.14-17.

5)Rodley, C. (1996). David Lynch Mr Contradiction. Sight and Sound, (7), pp.6-10.

6)Clarke, R. and Figgis, M. (2007). Daydream Believer. Sight and Sound, (3), pp.16-20.

7) Stewart, M. (2007). David Lynch. Bloomington: AuthorHouse.

8)Lynch, D. (1970). The Grandmother - David Lynch. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p5qEt766ZQ [Accessed 12 Oct. 2017].

9)Lynch, D. (1968). David Lynch the Alphabet. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ_t1eOAipo [Accessed 12 Oct. 2017].

10) Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., pp.67-75.

11)Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., pp.77-89.

12)Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., pp.96-104.

13)Hill, J. and Gibson, P. ed., (1998). The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., pp.117-130.

14)Beckman, F. (2012). From Irony to Narrative Crisis: Reconsidering the Femme Fatale in the Films of David Lynch. 1st ed. Texas: University of Texas Press on behalf of the Society for Cinema & Media Studies, pp.25-44.

15)Ingle, Z. (2017). Authorship and the Films of David Lynch: Aesthetic Receptions of Contemporary Hollywood by Antony Todd (review). 1st ed. [eBook] New York: Centre for the Study of Film and History, pp.82-84. Available at: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/543547 [Accessed 5 Oct. 2017].

16) Lynch, D. (2001). “Eraserhead” Stories. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLwtXoyNKgo

17) Grant, B. (2008). Auteurs and authorship. 1st ed. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

18) Timesofindia.speakingtree.in. (2016). Maya (illusion). [online]

0 notes

carleyf37297128-blog · 7 years

Text

5 Keys Regarding video game That Nobody Will Inform You.

7 Tips To Stay clear of Failing In game.

After an authorities strike as well as crime wave, a semblance of normality go back to Salvador as well as Rio de Janeiro cities. Doing an exercise probably won't soothe as much tension as playing a real video game or sporting activity, like basketball, would. The final degree is the Huge Task of localisation where ALL the video game's possessions will be equated and also localized- box product packaging, game message, handbooks, graphics, sound, etc With the extensive market for such game choices, a lot of game designers are developing new variations regularly. You realize that this video game is created for moments like this when you have a hard time to locate cover to save your life in these strained situations. This is not a major problem as the video game servers have actually been back engineered similarly as Starlancer and also could be hosted on a typical PC. The game additionally supports a direct IP connect choice as additional back up. The game is efficiently on the internet for life. Mobile running systems like Android and iOS flaunt a very rich collection of video games on their app stores and also could be downloaded and install by pushing just a few switches. The game enables you to sing solo, duets as well as slows down to 4 individuals sing at one time; so the 2 extra microphones that come with this game will certainly be available in helpful.

How To Leave video game Without Being Discovered.

MMORPGs are the most prominent kinds of on-line games and also a big percentage of players are busy in such MMORPG dream worlds. Read this article for some helpful tips on improving different elements of your video game. Remember however, their will certainly be obstacles in the means to earn the video game much more challenging. For moms and dads that don't enable their kids to play video games at home, youngsters may aim to gain access to unblocked video games to obtain their gaming action in. This can result in a rift between the instructor and also moms and dads if this is taking place in class. You could do it with really reduced regular monthly membership or play demo a large variety of game sites if demand to download and install some of game. Game computer game are similar to the offline computer game one locates within the real life game titles arcade, gorgeous vivid exhibitions brimming using an eye-catching goal to achieve!

I Will Tell You The Truth Regarding video game In The Next 60 Seconds.

Different variations of the game consist of translating a track right into native tongue, integrating comparable tunes to develop remixes, using poetry to tunes, etc Once you please click the following website through, there are a number of stunning photos of self-harm and also jokes about the sick game. Tiger Woods was so heavily popular going into the 2013 U.S. Open up that there was Tiger Woods odds, and afterwards there were probabilities that were just referred to as the remainder of the area." Tiger has had such an excellent season that his winning of the United States Open was almost dealt with as an inevitable verdict. An online supply broker calls for substantial functioning understanding of the stock exchange to help investors trade in supplies. This video game is best had fun with 4 or more individuals; nonetheless, you could still have fun with 2 or even more. So, we brought a few lamps into the area and also needed to maintain readjusting them to obtain the picture in the video game to work. Your membership will certainly give any programs you have to move the video games onto your PS3. This is because a finished variation of the video game might not be made available to localizers causing misreading of context. Audio recordings will need to be a specialist task where accents and quirks of the actors of personalities need to be tweaked to fit regional flavour. The success of A Track of Ice and Fire has actually meant that the certificate has actually shown up throughout the years in the form of parlor game (RPG conventional, the pen and paper), collectible card and board, till March 2010, after countless reports regarding the HBO introducing the begin of recording a television series based upon Video game of Thrones, the initial quantity in the collection. You have a choice from a selection of 3 various courses, each having 20 various spells and also skills for you to find out as you proceed via the game. The game of baseball has produced some renowned sluggers that have gained the affection and also praise from followers all over the world. Share hours of enjoyable with buddies and create unlimited remembrance while playing a variety of Bratz dress-up games online. Reputable chances online not only supply superior items to make money off of, yet a plethora of means to make as well. For example, the increased development of on-line trading can create busy web servers at particular times of the day. You will discover some information on each game consisting of wild icons and the best ways to get benefit rounds. One means to alleviate your stress is to obtain your mind off of whatever is creating it. And also playing intellectually promoting video games is an excellent way to do that.

0 notes

flauntpage · 7 years

Text

Uru-Can, the Obscure Form of Martial Arts Created by the Brazilian Army

This article originally appeared on VICE Brazil.

Master Leonardo Martins Correia stands on the tatami mat and stares straight at his students. Despite the heat, he wears a camouflaged kimono and thick black pants. On his chest, close to his heart, he sports a patch of the Brazilian flag. On his right arm is another patch that depicts two snakes facing each other, ready to attack. Almost like a military trainer, Correia barks,

"Ready!"

Roughly ten students answer with a yell that can't be replicated in words, and proceed to place their closed fists in front of their waists. Their feet are apart in parallel position. Their knees are semi-locked. In less than five seconds, the salutation continues:

"Attention!" Correia says, as he raises his right fist to his, now open, left hand and closes his legs; a soldier saluting. The class mimics the move.

"Salute!" he cries.

"Brazil!" respond the students.

"Above!" "Everything!"

The nationalist pride and military apparel come naturally. Uru-Can is 100 percent Brazilian, created by Paulo César da Silva Lopes, a black, evangelical officer in the military ranks of 1970s Rio de Janeiro.

Lopes served in the Parachute Infantry Brigade, which was stationed in the military quarters of Rio. During his time there, he thought the modalities of martial arts that were being taught weren't good enough for the officers, who needed to learn techniques that could be used in real combat. Along with three other armed force members, Lopes mixed and refined techniques used in Karate, Taekwondo, Kung Fu, Judo, and Jiu-Jitsu. He also integrated self-defense training, nunchucks, knives, and rifles. Free of the restraints and rules of most competitions, the new martial art had only one mission: Lethality.

But because there wasn't a real commercial vision behind Uru-Can, it took almost ten years for the name to get established. Initially, it was called "Paulo Associação de Lutas Brasileiras," then "Karate Brazil." The definite name came only in 1983: Uru-Can Brazil — a name that represents the alliance of two breeds of snakes unique to Brazil, Urutu and Caninana.

Paulo César da Silva Lopes, the creator of Uru-Can. Photo via his personal archive

The plan was to teach the technique in different military quarters throughout Brazil, but that didn't quite work out. So Lopes took his created technique beyond the borders of the military. After his death in 2003, the martial art started to get passed down by his former pupils. Today, it's mainly taught in the suburban outskirts of Rio.

The lesson we shadowed took place in Pedra de Guaratiba, a neighborhood in the far end of western Rio. The place is so far from the touristic southern parts of the city that it even exudes a curious geographical pride to the visitors who actually manage to get there. The area feels like a small town, you can gauge the geographic distance by the way people there speak, in significantly different accents.

The demo took place at Val Fitness, which feels more like a nightclub than it does a gym. Since the instructor, the 42-year-old Geraldo dos Santos, hasn't been able to put together a full class yet, he invited fighters from other units located in areas such as Sepetiba, Campo Grande, and Santa Cruz, to join the event. Correia, 39-years-old, was among the people invited. He learned Uru-Can techniques from Lopes himself: "I started fighting when I was 8-years-old, but I only met the master when I was 16. By 18, I was teaching with him in the army."

Leonardo Correia lands a hit to one of his students.

Correia led most of the lesson and the demonstrations. While the students were warming up and practicing a 180-degree spinning kick, the instructor recapped some of Uru-Can's principles out loud: "On the streets, never fall restrained. Restraint is for tournament. You must finish as soon as possible."

Meanwhile, dos Santos explained to me some specific things about Uru-Can: "When you're down, there's no way to roll. I'm not forced to defeat my opponent by following the rules. I throw my opponent down and finish him off anyway I can. It doesn't matter how—wringing or breaking his neck [is fine]. You have to wipe them out anyway you can." He proceeds by making sure he emphasizes the peaceful nature of the martial art. Given that we're mere mortals, extreme reactions must be used only as last resorts.

"We must be ready to fight against more than one person," Correia declares loudly. The students execute a sequence of jabs, throw a right hook, followed by a spinning kick. Some are able to kick so hard that, even with protective gear, the person getting kicked backs off due to the force used. "We're training on the tatami here, but Uru-Can is about the actual ground. The first thing the trainees learn is how to fall down and roll away."

The art also features teachings with knifes and rifles.

Much like Karate has katas, which are patterns of movements that hone a person's skills, Uru-Can also has its own formulas which are called the seven fundamental basics. They weren't included in the demonstrations, but Correia explained to me what each one was about:

Candle: You stand still, like a candle.

Dog: You sit like a dog, with your legs slightly open.

Horse rider base: You stand as if you were riding a horse.

Scorpion: One leg is flexed while the other is straight, and the back leg mimics the tail of a scorpion.

Praying mantis: This move is similar to the Kung Fu technique.

Cat: Move like a feline getting ready to pounce and lurks to attack.

Snake: Move sideways and turn forward, as a coiled snake does before it attacks.

Because Uru-Can was made for the real world, its lessons also integrate potential instances of conflict. One example of a feigned situation is a bar fight. On the tatami, the students put two white plastic chairs (they couldn't find a table) facing each other — a position also known at the MoMa as the Marina Abramović.

One of the chairs is occupied by Wesley de Souza, a 24-year-old trainee. On another chair sits Correia. They face one another, trying to look serious and having a difficult time holding back their laughter. "Your father is a wimp!" teases Souza.

It's a performance, fortunately with more action now. Correia stands up to attack, pushes the imaginary table away, and punches the opponent's face with his right hand. De Souza defends himself and also uses his right hand to catch Correia's fist in order to pull him closer and, at the same time, to clear enough space to punch Correia with his left hand. Then he forces the instructor's arms down and elbows him on the back just below his neck. All of this is staged, of course.

Dos Santos, in military attire, participates in a fight.

At that point, dos Santos needed to leave to go teach a fight/dance lesson—called Uru-Can Fight Dance—which he created. "I mixed it up: I took the art and put it into a playful aerobic style. For instance, I work on movements and exercises that flex the hips and extend the knees, but they're actually all frontal kicks."

Down on the tatami, Correia was getting ready to finish the lesson. Earlier, he'd told me that there were approximately 500 people throughout Brazil who practiced Uru-Can and that his goal was to promote the martial art as much as possible, which would fulfill the wishes of his master Lopes. "I only hope that when people talk about martial arts, like Karate or Krav Maga, that they mention Uru-Can too. That's all. But unfortunately our politicians don't value what we do very much. We have a lot to fight for, and I'm proud to fight," he said.

During his last speech, he thanked us for the coverage, thanked the students for coming, and thanked God. He concluded the lesson as he'd started it:

"Salute!" he cried.

"Brazil!" the students shouted in response.

"Above!"

"Everything!"

Uru-Can, the Obscure Form of Martial Arts Created by the Brazilian Army published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv