APD W11
The Project link: https://youtu.be/JHMgTtoHUdE
Theme: Play & Stillness
Rationale:
Stillness, as a concept, can be associated with many things. It could be attributed to the physical action of remaining still; wherein one stops all movement. It could also be considered in a more non-physical manner, namely in the context of stillness of mind, an absence of mental clutter, negative emotions, and intrusive thoughts. Being in a state of stillness can also be interpreted as a state of complete focus. I spoke about this during my video for the week, where one of the most prominent examples I gave was of balancing rocks. While there is movement in the action, the monotony of the careful actions leads to a still mind.
Over the last few weeks, I have been producing things which are very goal oriented. For the final week, going off what Matt said in class, I wanted to do something a bit different and whimsical, just an experiment to see what the end result would be. I decided to partner up with Oneeb, as I was particularly finding it difficult to come up with something this week, and we decided to explore, through different forms of media, what it would be like if the state of ‘stillness’ was flipped – with objects that are always still depicted in a state of motion, and objects that are in a state of motion depicted in a state of stillness, with a dose of light humour.
Context:
Keeping in mind the idea of whimsy, we took inspiration from comic strips from daily newspapers – Garfield, Calvin & Hobbes, Snoopy, and Dennis the Menace to name a few. Often these comics played on humour by giving characters personality traits that would not usually be associated with them; Garfield is a sassy talking cat who constantly messes with both his owner and the dog, Odie. Hobbes is a stuffed toy tiger who acts like an older sibling towards the fun-loving Calvin, and so on. Laughing Matters | Comedy Documentary describes how one way to evoke comedy is to either give the object of the comedic piece unexpected attributes, or to place them in an unexpected position, which is what all these comics do, to an extent. Adding an element of humour to our experiment would add to how “whimsical” and playful it felt.
Methods:
Oneeb and I had a conversation about the different types of media, both written and visual, that the idea could be explored in. We discussed some story ideas and came up with some drafts. Oneeb wrote the two stories and the screenplay. I illustrated one in the form of an old comic strip with old-school cursive writing. For the screenplay, I adapted it into a short video sequence by playing with the idea of theory of loose parts by using household equipment, which are usually always still, but giving them a sense of motion through the story, editing and light illustrations. I also played around with light to accentuate the story.
Screenplay:
(attached with doc as separate pdf)
Video: https://youtu.be/JHMgTtoHUdE
Short Story:
It was a bright, beautiful day in the city. Rocks flew above in flocks, migrating down south towards warmer climates. Buildings swayed gently from side to side in the breeze, and the roads were filled with statues going about their day to day lives. There weren’t any trees around, save for the few towards the centre of the city. These trees were relatively new, and were where all the posh new offices were, full of pompous bankers and CEOs who thought they were better than everyone else around them.
A couple of lamp posts walked towards the decoration shops. Newlyweds, they seemed to be. They giggled as they walked in, seemingly excited to browse the goods. Inside, they were greeted by a coat rack, who seemed to be quite bored – possibly due to the fact that it had been a very slow day at work for him. Upon seeing the couple, he perked up – rushing towards them with excitement.
“Welcome, welcome! How may I help you?” he said, gleefully.
“Oh, hi.” Said one of the lamps. “We were looking for some decorations for our new living area. Could you show us a few things?”
“Of course!” The Coat rack responded, enthusiastically. He took them towards one end of the shop, where a range of things were on display.
“First up, we have the smaller ones” the coat rack started. “This one,” he said, picking up a fuzzy four legged one, with a long protrusion from one end, “is a cat! Great for just placing around your space. Oh, and the best part?”
He drops the cat; it lands on its four legs.
“They always land on their legs, so they won’t break!”
“How nifty!” Both lamp posts say.
Outcome/Reflection:
‘To see another with clarity and objectivity, one must first master stillness.’ – Alberto Villoldo.
One of the main reasons for collaboration was the fact that I was struggling with creating something for the last week. I had to calm down to find a solution and make something for the week. It was ironical that for the week of play and stillness, I was the most restless and stressed out. However, I was inspired by Vian’s submission from the previous week, and Matt’s talk on whimsy, and therefore wanted to try something which was relatively light-hearted. The idea was to play on the property of stillness exhibited by objects and flipping it around in a playful way to create short pieces of media.
While I was not very pleased with the way it started, I enjoyed the process of making the short clip with the objects, as there was a lot of play involved in creating it.
APD W9
Link: https://youtu.be/Ng0HZRzOK1U
Theme: Play & Abstraction
Rationale:
For the week’s theme, I wanted to try a form of abstract animation with a goal. I have had a couple of musicians and artists ask me to make some sort of abstract animation for their songs. They usually want something that doesn’t take the attention away from the music, so that it primarily remains an auditory experience. However, for visual platforms like Youtube and vimeo, they want something that aides the song visually in a more subtle manner.
I hadn’t tried this out for any of the songs, but this week seemed like a good week to play around with this and try something.
The goal is to find a way to make these types of videos for musicians with some rules and parameters but pushing them to be abstract enough at the same time.
Context:
I decided that there will be three main parameters.
After choosing a song sung by my sister, and produced by a music producer she worked with, I decided to first find out more about the song.
These were some notes about the song from her:
Methods:
Once I understood the vibe, feel and meaning of the song, I decided to use shades of Indigo and yellow as they are considered to be meditative colours.
I wanted to bring in a sense of celestial spatial feel to it. I found some images from the field of spatial science, which is the study concerned with measuring, analysing and managing the earth’s surface. The attached images are some examples I found, one of which I used as a sample for the background for it that I could manipulate.
Cymatics is a subset of modal vibrational phenomena. Typically, a surface of a plate is vibrated through sound, and the regions of maximum and minimum displacement are made visible through some particle, paste or liquid on that plate. I tried to do some experiments to create cymatics for some notes form the song but failed miserably as my speakers weren’t equipped for this, and I didn’t have any liquid, paste or particle that could react to the vibrations. But I found the key notes of the song and found cymatic patterns for the notes C, D and Bb respectively.
I used these patterns along with aesthetic of the spatial science background on my ipad and used after-effects to manipulate it.
I then created one circular and one sketchy pattern inside it (to symbolise the sun) in after effects for the imagery and created patterns by manipulating data to react exactly along with the song. I used the information from the audio, similar to the way cymatics work in real life, to create unique and abstract patterns that will react with the highs and lows of the song.
I then overlayed these patterns along with the rest of the composition. I did not put it in the centre of the screen so that it doesn't attract too much attention.
I added a small boat that goes along the cymatic pattern which looks like a river to signify the journey. It serves to show much of the song is done as well.
Response/Reflection:
When Vian gave her presentation for the week, she mentioned something that I put at the centre of this week’s project. She said, ‘I have noticed that a lot of abstract artists derive a lot of their designs from very grounded concepts and ideas’. Even though the final product seems to be very abstract, they are built on the very grounded and real themes.
“There is no abstract art. You must always start with something. Afterwards, you remove all traces of reality.” Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). This quote resonates with what Vian said and I wanted to try and replicate that in this week’s response. I took different elements that could work as visual elements for the song and gave them a twist of abstraction to play with the idea and assets.
The project started as constructive play, where I set parameters and set a goal with a plan. Eventually, there was a lot more of ludic play that went on when I was working on After Effects with all the assets that were created (through procreate and After Effects). That ludic play morphed back into constructive play as I put everything together in Premiere as I had planned earlier.
Working on this for the week has helped me not only develop a workflow for something like this but has helped me find a way to conceptualise how I can go on forward and make something similar for other songs too. The rules and parameters I have created for an exercise or project like this, enables me to create something very different from what I have done before, but with the same parameters and rules.
References
RATIONALE: Why are you doing it?
My overall goal for the studio hasn’t changed much. But it has evolved a little. I still aim at creating a storyboard for the animation I have in mind, that can serve as the key frames for the shots. I have dedicated a lot of time to simply practice drawing digitally on the ipad to get comfortable with the process. I was happy with my final character designs of the 3 main characters (out of 4) and I tried to incorporate as much character in their design keeping in mind it was ultimately for animation.
I want to make sure that I bring some of the characters I grew up with, to life through animation. Having developed a design and aesthetic I am content with, my next primary goal along with the storyboard is to create some animation loops and action. After talking to Emmette I have decided to work on some animation loops of the characters simply standing and breathing, working on the subtle nuances of each character which tells more about them through these simple loops. I also want to animate the characters performing some attack action, to display more about them through weight and movement. Though I am not religious, I still feel the stories these characters tell are very interesting and fascinating. And I want to start by learning to animate them by showing their characteristics through a short, animated piece.
CONTEXT/FIELD: Who else is doing it?
Having studied a lot of digital artists for the initial process, it’s not that I will stop referring them, but I will slowly shift more of my focus towards animators. I will also start looking at some artists who specialise in storyboarding. Some of the initial artists and styles who I will look into are as follows:
METHOD: Iterative Loops and reflection
I did fall short of some of the goals I set out for the first folio. But having said that, a few of the things mentioned there have also changed a little. A rough idea for the weeks ahead:
Week 7: Draw a look for character 1 to see how they would look. Start working on developing the storyboard.
Week 8: Animate the other 2 characters and develop the storyboard further.
Week 9: Continue developing more of the storyboard and test some longer animation sequence.
Week 10: Try and finish a rough version of the storyboard.
Week 11: Start working on finalised version of the storyboard. Try some more animation loops or sequences.
Week 12: Get to the point of drawing some key frames for animation and look into creating backgrounds using the 2.5D method to simplify the process to animate backgrounds (need to research more)
TOOLS: How will you make it work?
For the initial loops of animation, I will continue using ProCreate. I am going to look into TV Paint and ToonBoom for animation before committing to any software. I might change that decision as I research more as well. I am going to study and investigate After Effects for background creation at a later stage if I find the time.