Animation day

Wednesday 22.10.08 - Animation day
I went through the audio files for beach and Ken animations. Reflecting on Barnbrook’s approach for the Radio Scotland animations, I listened to key words and decided to try the opposite of his approach. Instead of creating visual noise before and after the key word, I allowed the key word to have centre stage. In Barnbrook’s work the key words are static, in my version, they are rapid in their movement and a different visual style sets them apart from the rest of the words. This is an area I am keen to emphasise.

Presently, I have not concentrated on type at all. Key words ‘tea’ and ‘half’ are represented using stop frame footage and the rest of the audio is left to play without text at this early stage. This has emphasised rhythm and pace in an interesting way, it is more considered and calmer than previous animations I have produced. Text will be introduced, but not until I have listened to the audio in more detail and produced a storyboard.

My next aim is to annotate the speeches in terms of timing and try different methods to illustrate key parts of the speech. My main way of doing this is using a paintbrush with ink and creating fluid text in storyboards and the using colour to break the speech down. I will also look at the ways linguists approach illustrating speech and other methods (‘Talking Voices’ and ‘Visual Research’).

I will be organising a meeting with the ESOL department to test the work before it is too developed to gain vital information from the overseas students.

A contemplative day

Weds 22.10.08
Aims for the day and next session:

Original plans
I was going to do a dry run of the presentation with 2 colleagues at the University of Derby, then attend a tutorial at Nottingham. However, due to family illness all has been rescheduled.I have completed as much as I can on the PGD presentation and will put it to one side. I recognize that I am overworking this presentation and need to gain fresh perspective on it (external feedback). Presenting the work to students and peers will help me with timing of delivery and tweaks to content.

I have updated the presentation as previously planned. My next step is to work through the following:

1 Research (medium)
Complete reading Visual research book. Make rough notes.
Read ‘Talking Voices’
Call Jenny Marshall (ESOL) to meet up with her and her students, to get feedback.

2 Photographs (low/medium)
Resize and colour images from last week’s shoot.
Create batches of work and title the work for ease of use.
Create QuickTime movies of the work.
Start an ink storyboard of Ken’s speech
Revisit original project schedule
Continue to reflect on practice

A creative day...

Weds 15.10.08
An enjoyable and creative day, I needed it! I had to break away from writing the presentation and tweaks to it and decided that photography would yield potential creative outcomes. Today I was able to do something I had planned months ago,
my aim was to photograph specific road markings in a nearby city. The images might be used in connection with the audio for Ken. I had originally planned to do this for two reasons.

Firstly, Ken is an observer, rather than someone who fully participates in life. He doesn’t drive or walk much, just watches. He is often seen outside his house noticing the local gossip and is constantly watching people and traffic in the local village.
The second reason for choosing road markings and lines is to represent Ken’s tone of voice, which is quite flat and ‘grey’. In places Ken’s voice breaks due to old age (wear and tear) the breaks in the lines and the variance in the quality and thickness of paint reflect some of these traits.

Several other links occurred whilst taking the images. Ken’s viewpoint about life is negative and down. A metaphor for this negativity was introducing photographs of drains obviously they lead to sewers my take on it was that they could lead to hell. Ken’s view of others was very bleak, so I found these shots appropriate. I also observed that the lines would be useful to represent changes in pitch, with colours and zig zags reflecting narrator intervention and laughter for the zig zags. Some of the lines faded into nothing, some were bold and present, other lines were worn by the heavy tires running over them.

I reflected on my experience photographing on the beach, when a person walked into view by accident and remembered that this helped the perspective and authenticity of the work. With this in mind, I set out to walk along a street and photograph sections of the road and not be concerned if a car was in shot or not. I also deliberately photographed my feet walking along the road lines and made sure I had tests with and without my feet in view.

During one of the tutorials debate about including the narrator was mentioned. To represent this for Ken’s animation, one single white line could change to a single yellow line. Two yellow lines could represent an overlapping conversation.
Other interesting elements included arrow markings fading or separating and unidentified painted markings (presumably produced by the council) a secret language for the piping, my interpretation of these marking was along the lines of thankless tasks, functions, neighbourhood watchmen, unsung heroes?

Having spent time reflecting on previous work whilst preparing the PDG presentation I was consciously editing and reviewing the photography as I was going along and knew I needed to write about the processes as soon as I could. Reflective practices are becoming more natural and less mechanical or forced.

Updated Powerpoint presentation

I have worked constantly on this presentation and have tried to allocate a series of days to maintain momentum and break the back of the work.

There are a few additions to include (references for images and quotes).
It has taken a lot longer than I had allocated. So this week I put the presentation to one side and will be concentrating on reading (Talking Voices) and creating new work.

I have attempted to upload the presentation but at 18M it is too large.

What I have been working on…

Saturday 12th October 2008 (5.30-8.30am)

Since my tutorial and peer discussion I have been reviewing and improving my PGD phase presentation. This week I have clocked up approximately 15 hours on peer discussions, thinking and amending the presentation. Having culled the slides from (approx) 40 to 20 I continued to sharply focus on major influences, minor influences and cut out any grey areas. I have amended the way the PowerPoint looks (deleted my original photographic background images and simplified the work significantly. I have made a concerted effort to show how I have been reflective, especially from one animation to the next.

Today I changed the overall Font - from Rockwell to Goudy. The position of the text blocks and type sizes have been altered for consistency throughout. All copy has been edited to fit (any repetition has been deleted). I have also added in the ‘next step’ at the base of relevant slides to show reflective thinking, organization and continuity of the project.

Reflecting on the work I have produced this year has been interesting. When I look through the tests and experiments I am surprised by how many varied responses I had (in the early phase of the MA). It is clear that I was creatively restricted at the beginning and then a significant release happened! I was not able to harness some of this raw material at the time. I hope to go back to that vital work and bring it into the final phase of the animation.

Writing about the work when it appears in a static format, has also been helpful.
It will be prudent to create ‘still’ material for the show and for the International students to explore word stress and intonation ‘schemes’. This work can be research based on other practitioners methods, i.e. linguists, writers, designers and my own concepts will be presented within this context. This outcome, might be printed literature or a set of posters and will be discussed at tutorials and with peers.

Next phase (powerpoint)
Scan in Overseas students sketch of the English language waveform
Import image of international student/TAS interview
Complete slide with stills (Delyse) and critical reflection
Complete slide with research information
Complete slide ‘now then and beyond’.
Re read, amend, check for continuity, discuss with tutors and peers.
The work will be presented to animation students as a useful
‘dry run’, this will be helpful to review timing (15 minutes)
Final amendments

Peer discussion

I had an intensive meeting with two MA rpt students today, we discussed the PGD presentation. The general feedback on my plan was to create broader brushstrokes, less detailed, less about influences, much more about my journey.

It was suggested that 20 slides maximum would be enough. I could show the most recent work, then work back to front. The first slide could be the hand screwing up paper (my first test) so it show the mistakes and humble beginnings from whence I came! the last slide could show my recent work against the first attempts.

More should be made of the enthusiasm and passion I feel about the work, less about spoonfeeding information to the audience. One of the students said the presentation was too 'teachy'. It needs to be edited quite ruthlessly and show more about what I learned from one animation to the next piece. For example, show animation 1, explain what I had to learn to accomplish it, then show animation 2, what is still left to learn?

The other students were progressing on with further tests and mock ups of their work and were not concerned about the PGD presentation at all. I am becoming irritated by the PGD phase and desperate to get on with animation tests. It will be prudent to have a break from this and move back onto it after a week.

More 'mindmap' images

PGD Preparation

01.10.08 Reflective writing October 2008

Summary of activity: Planning for PGD phase
Creating a large plan/mindmap for the above
Reflecting on last years body of work

In order to assist the reflective process, I cleared a large space and brought together all the materials from last year, which includes portfolio of stills, 4 sketchbooks and 3 lever arch files of reflective writing and research. I created a master sheet with ink painted rectangles to plan the work for the PGD phase.

I started with basic, but fundamental questions, what, who where when how, why?
At the end of the presentation the statement reads ‘next’… The rectangles soon filled with information and titles to explore and the order will be reconfigured until the presentation is formalised.

One of the most useful exercises I undertook was to draw very rough diagrams of the project direction before and after. It was surprising to see such a monumental shift in my thinking, due to practice and reflection. The diagrams highlight the difference in my ability to animate, my recognition of the importance of audio and the shift in producing a purely typographic piece to work based on the relationship of type and image. The relevance of location and personality are also key themes that have evolved from the work. This has been mainly due to the involvement with the International Student department and the project’s evolution to address a sense of ‘Englishness’. Using the diagrams quickly demonstrates the different tenets set within the project early on and how it is presently.

A tendency I have to accentuate the work of others and shy away from discussing mine is still apparent and I think this was one of the problems highlighted in the previous tutorial. I need to make a conscious effort to bring my work to the foreground and support it with other work, not the other way around.

I have also been researching diagrammatic forms, particularly the Bauhaus 1922 curricular model. This is to help my reflective practice more transparent to peers and tutors during the PGD assessment phase, it is also essential that I gauge my processes. The act of creating such diagrams is encouraging me to think, reflect, redraw and define where I am located within the MA journey.

Two of the key themes that have emerged from reviewing the work are ‘intonation’ and ‘word stress’. How can these language terms be visually described?

Reflecting on the work I have produced, there are a variety of ways I have started to tackle these. See below some of the ways that I have attempted to represent intonation through visualisation.

Type style change (within the same family), bold italic, roman, light, formal informal
Space and composition of elements (sp a c e)
Extreme type characteristics (accentuated ascenders, descenders)
Media experiments, type letters enlarge with ink ‘tendrils’ or fading pastel
Deconstruction of letterforms (Lennon, during the swearing)
Colour change (type) and background
Word play
Angled words (Lennon animation 1)
Change in media (Delyse animation)
Deliberately misspelt words (HASSS)
Changing from upper and lowercase to capitals (whispering to shouting)
Bringing meaning to emphasis the word (time appears over a longer period
and fades away)
Change of pace (time appears over a longer period and fades away)

Simple symbols have been used to represent pauses or sharpness of voice patterns.
Circular pastel shapes were created as a visual pause growing, this seemed to fit in with the Lennon speech as it could be ‘read’ as a vinyl record (relevant to the time of the speech).


02.10.08 Reflective writing October 2008

Summary of activity: Creating a large plan/mindmap for the above

I photographed the active process of thinking through visuals today whilst organising the plan for the PGD presentation. It was particularly helpful to colour code the emergent themes. Visual hierarchy was established quickly, through the application of colour, for example critical components were painted red, major influences green, minor influences yellow and issues connected to reflective practice was painted with blue. In places I had doubled up on the content, this was stapled together and will
be either merged or omitted at a later date.

Working in this way I was able to see clear categories and introduced overarching titles
to help segregate the work appropriately. Reflecting on the previous presentation,
it is apparent my aim was to show as many examples of research and evidence trips
as possible with little concern for focus. Even at this early stage this amended presentation already has greater focus than before. I am keen to improve the work through regular peer feedback, which I have organised to do on Mondays after work.
I am planning to meet with at least 4 RPT students once a week or fortnightly to discuss the progress of our work collectively and broaden my ideas on this project.