Inspiration and Character

I find that making A4 inspiration boards/mind maps filled with words and pictures is really helpful. This way I can write at the same speed of my thinking without having to worry about filling the page [although, running out of space is a little bit of a problem].

I also find this technique helpful because I can ask people for input and doodle.

After going through all the places I visited yesterday I remembered visiting a room in the ICA called Space. It was a huge room with paint splashed walls, with random colours, that was occasionally hired to parties and such.
I was inspired by the title of the room Space and took it in terms of outer space and the universe. The idea of personifying planets excited me, but in what sense could I personify them? Then the idea hit me; the room would usually be used for parties held by younger folk judging on the design, colour and lighting.
So why not make a college party?

Personally I strongly stand of anti-bullying so I though to add a personal message within my animation. With this though in mind, I remembered that Pluto is no longer part of the solar system and to everyone who were taught it was, it seemed very unfair- whatever the reason. Being the smallest planet, it seemed to me as a form of leaving someone out; therefore I made Pluto my protagonist and the other planets and stars as students.

Characteristics deemed very important in this project. Conveniently, on the next class day we were given a lecture on character, therefore I incorporated the lesson into my work.

Trips for Inspiration

Project 2
Title: Contextual Inspiration.

Visits:

• The Photographers Gallery

- Motherhood and Identity

• The National Gallery

- Michael Landy's Saints Alive

• ICA

- Lutz Backer's Black Beauty

The first gallery visit we made was to The National Gallery to visit the Michael Landy exhibition called Saints Alive. This exhibition was very interesting and new to me as it was inspired by existing painting within The Nation Gallery with a very engineering and mechanical twist.

My favourite visit had to be at The Photographers Gallery. Having previous visited a few weeks ago I wasn't exactly looking forward to it; however I was greeted with a pleasant surprise. I found this exhibition to be very exciting and refreshing. The whole idea of motherhood was very touching and well explored through photography.

Although we were to only particularly visit one exhibition at the gallery, I decided to go and look through all the floors. Many of the exhibitions some what matched each other, for example; there was an exhibition about childbirth and such.
Over all I found all the exhibitions beautiful and was lost in the rooms for a long time. This turned out to have taken a lot of time and didn't allow me to visit all of the exhibitions I was required to; though I was confident that the information I had taken in would be enough to stir me the right way for this project.

• The Selfish Giant [film]

To finish the day off, we went to the cinema to watch a film by Clio Barnard called The Selfish Giant. When being told the film title I initially though it was going to be an animation because it reminded me of the film The Iron Giant, however the trailer said otherwise.
To my surprise the film was very captivating and touching. I absolutely loved the story and the characters; it was very believable and reached to the core of my heart. Being someone who's not very fond of social realism, this film did amazingly to captivate me and make me really love and connect to it.

Media Production

Week three started with merging with the Media Production class- not intimidating and scary at all.

We were to mix with the class and were put into groups to commence our one day project. Radical Ideas was the title in which we could do what ever we deemed exciting and radical. Something no one's though of or considered before. Anything to push the boundaries of the human mind, for example; the moon is made of cheese. However it had to be believable and we were to convince the class that our radical idea is 'totally a thing'.

My group went down the line of supernatural realism.

Our idea was that there is an alternate universe that exists within the one we current live in. However it's impossible to pass through to the other side. So when you suddenly smell a strange scent that seems to be coming out of no where, it means that the scent has crossed that line between the universes' and enables us to experience it.
Us as a group had cracked the code and were able to break through to the other universe through a special camera we have invented.

My computer and I

As it was my first animation I though it'd be safe to go with hand-drawn frame to frame animation. I found this to be a very difficult procedure because it was very time consuming to draw each frame by hand  over and over again.
However I did learn a lot and enjoyed this technique as it is the basic and beginning of learning how to animate.
The final outcome was very rewarding and I'm glad with the skills I learnt through this experience.

Storyboard: My computer and I

I finalised my storyboard and wrote a script to match the animation I'll soon be working on.

"The name's Qandeel, meaning candle light and pronounced as candy-l.
I have a real passion about my computer and the internet, I'm so passionate about it that I usually spend hours and hours browsing and learning new things.
I see myself being a college graduate
Becoming a film maker
As a celebrity
A scientist
I am the president
I've been to Pluto...no, not Mickey's dog, that's better
I've had tea with the queen (crumpet? Lol no)
I've travelled the world
I've conquered death
I've found a cure for cancer
I've saved the world from total and utter disaster
I have become a hero

W-well....I can, once I get out of the dream land that's inside my computer screen."

Me, Myself and I

Project 1
Title: About me.

For our Lens Based Media pathway our first project was what I referred to as Me, Myself and I. Our task was to create a final outcome around the topic.

As an animator, I was naturally encouraged to make an animation, as we were told to focus on what we wish to do for our degree course rather that experimenting. This would help us build on our portfolio.

I began by making a questionnaire and choose a handful of people of different ages and personalities to cary it out.:

List of Questions:

1. What kind of character would I be in a film/cartoon?
2. Do I seem: Disney, Pixar, Dreemworks, Tim Burton, Laika Studios or Square Enix?
3. Where do you see me in the future?
4. What's the first word that comes to your mind when you think of me?
5. What's your earliest/favourite memory of me?
6. If I was an animal what would I be?

Through this I was able to get a feel of what people think of me and what information within this I can be inspired by.

Photography

Lens Based Media began with the study of the lens. We were taught many new terms such as aperture and shutter speed. I found this study to be very interesting however it didn't exactly captivate me as I would have thought. The technical side of the camera isn't exactly something I enjoy.

However after getting the basic information sunk in, we were sent to play with lighting, modelling and photography. This part I very much enjoyed. Turns out, in case of photography, I'm more of a doer than a thinker.

As I didn't have a camera, I took the role as a model and at times; the lighting guy. Although that was a slightly bothering job since the heat was almost unbearable under what I was made to wear, it was a rather fun task.

We were also introduced to screens of gold, white and silver. These were used to let light bounce off onto the models face in the direction of how we held it, this also enabled soft lighting to happen, if we didn't want to make the model stand in a spotlight.