Month: September 2019

In all honesty I really struggled with the whole process of this project, it wasn’t simple, straight forward or easy. It played with my brain and messed with my idea of who I am, and had a bit of an identity crisis in who I am as an artist, if I am one at all.

This wasn’t helped by the results I got at the end of year 1. I was happy with my studio results, however after receiving my CTS results, and within a few days of being told I have dyslexia, I started doubting whether I could do this or not.

I realise now I can, but I was struggling at the beginning of the summer.

I honestly think that my time-based piece for this project is better and more cohesive and interesting than the one I created for the Through A Lens projects, and I used that project as a starting point of where I need to improve, but what I like, and gave me a list of question to work through on how I was going to complete this project.

I have a very honest Manifesto, which I believe will change with time as my identity will solidify and become apparent. I think my manifesto truly represents who I am now as an image maker, and so does my video. I believe my time based piece does evoke the emotion and nostalgia I wished and worked for. And it represents my Manifesto well.

Looking back at my time-based piece, I can see so many options or paths I could have taken, and I believe it all worked for the outcome I got, however I see how I could have animated the letters and the typography which was the original plan. I am now asking myself the question could I have been more ambitious? Or did I play it safe? And even though I like the outcome, I think the above questions maybe true for the time based piece, not the manifesto though.

https://vimeo.com/user102562292/review/358100119/ad28fa0d8d

I wanted to make sure my Manifesto was clear and simple, and not like my brain sometimes and full of scattered ideas. I wanted everything to have clarity and come together cohesively.

My Manifesto…

Who do I want to be as a creative…?

To not let labels define me, and always be open to the new ideas and processes but not forget the traditional.

To be confident in myself and what I do. Not to compare myself to others work.

To not be afraid of failure, and to take that failure and use it to inspire success.

To not be a suffering artist, it doesn’t mean success, personal happiness and mental health always come first.

To be dedicated to my work, and constant self improvement but also make time for myself and personal work.

To use my artists medium to communicate meaning and ideas, even if large and controversial. To not be afraid of expressing personal emotion.

To realise perfection doesn’t exist.

My time based was created using several techniques, I wanted to evolve from the 20 second animation I completed at the end of year 1. I also wanted to use the typography to communicate clearly what I intended. I used Procreate to create the typography, the background, layers of animated textures, and then I layered it all on top of each of in after affects to gain the result I desired. I realised that frame by frame animation isn’t for me.

I work in a way where I can add and subtract easily and see things as a whole, being able to step back, instead of being up close to one frame at a time. I created more animated textures and nature clips than I ended up using because I like to edit but also to have choices and be able to experiment. Especially as time based pieces isn’t a medium or an outcome I am used to using/making.

I wanted the video to be able to be used on Social Media that is why I picked a square canvas, and also I loved the idea of being able to take a frame and turn them into posters, and that graphic look and idea is something I used to inspire and but also to restrict my ideas so the video look cohesive and bold.

The Portrait started my ideas for my time based piece. I loved the typography I had used, and that was a starting off point. So I started drawing out my Manifesto in that style of typography, I also did some style frames, and these became the basis. From here I took all the frames and started spacing them out on after affects to get and idea of timing and what was needed. From hear I worked on a background which was simple so it wasn’t overwhelming, but gather the idea of growth I was going for.

In my style frames, I had these splatter effects in the background, when working on my style frames, I had all the backgrounds the same, I knew I wanted the splatter to move. So I worked on two separate animations. A white splatter motion effect on a background (knowing that if I overlay and use the correct blending mode in After Effects this would be the easiest) and a red splatter on a white background for the same reasons. I then overlaid and looped them in AE adapted their timings, and their blending mode and opacity to get the best and desired result.

I knew this was personal for me, and I was looking back a lot at my journey in inspiration for this piece, and made me think of all the old VCR videos we used to record of my family when I was a child. I wanted that feeling, when you get a little nostalgic, so I started to create the same feeling by lowing the resolution. At this point knowing I didn’t want a voice over, but needed some sort of background sound. So I spent some time mixing just some relaxing chill music with a looped sound of an old projector. These were still before my time, but the result still brought up the emotional nostalgic feeling I was aiming for. Then after adding that. I knew I wanted to play with the saturation at the start of the video and added the effect where colour gently faded in for the intro to the video.