IOL Week 9: In Class Reflection

Reflect on the practice you have undertaken in class today and during this week relating to your IOL project.

What was the main intention/focus of this weeks practice for you?

This week I focused on creating a walk cycle for an ant. The walk cycle will form the basis of one of my scenes in my greater studio project. I intend to study the movement of an ant and reproduce it during this three hour period.

Where there any specific technical/narrative/visual/movement or design problems guiding your practice?

My practice for this week is most definitely guided by visual and movement problems, as it is based off a reproduction of established movements in the physical world.

I have used the following video for visual reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLczo4N3CPI
 

How did you go about your making endeavour relating to this intention?

I used Harmony to hand-draw each frame of the ant cycle. After trying initially to draw all the legs at once, I realized I needed to break down the motion further. In the end, I did each leg individually before pegging them to the main ant body and creating a symbol from it.

How successful were you with this practice? How do you know?

Initially, I had great difficulty with this exercise. I know it wasn’t successful because it didn’t appear smooth and polished, and feedback from my audience confirmed this. Upon reflection, I realized my visual reference was the problem. I will seek actual live action footage of an ant walking and attempt the practice again.

Have you come across any new related works that inform your larger IOL project for the semester?

Not at this point, but I am particularly taken with the stylistic and visual treatments employed in the short film Ugly. I cannot think of ways this may influence my work, but it is an incredibly interesting film nonetheless.

What do you need to iterate further or reiterate in terms of your past practice in coming weeks?

I will most definitely need to rework this walk cycle. I have found visual reference in the link below that will hopefully assist in my future iterations of this exercise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHEYBvriv2I

Describe one insight you have had about your practice this week?

One insight in my work is the need to link my corresponding ‘adult’ experience vignettes both visually and thematically with my vignettes focused on childish impulsivity. For the pieces to properly contrast, they need to have some transition. This transition will be much smoother with a linking visual element, e.g. a bug in the adult scene after the ant scene plays.