Real world applications :)

I just wanted to share my real world application of the techniques we learned in class!
On Thanksgiving day I forced my man and my cat to have a photo shoot with me for our holiday card.
I used a tripod to get the clearest picture possible and adjusted the camera settings until I was happy with the image. My cat was rather uncooperative but after like a 1/2 hour we got this shot....

It obviously needed some work. I fixed my cats eyes and cropped us out of our living room and deposited us onto a festive background. 

I love this class!

T

Video & Article on Infographic Design

Infographic design.
visual storytelling in today's information, content-driven digital age.
http://vimeo.com/45905954
http://news.gestalten.com/event/infographic-thinking-singapore

Krystal Aguilar - UBU Week 12

UBU - Dance with Camera - Lumiere Brothers
Danse Serpentine: http://ubu.com/film/lumieres_danse-serpentine.html 

I was amazed to find out that films were recorded as early as 1896 and that the film industry was a competitive marketplace then too. I dug into who the Lumiere brothers were (August and Louis Lumiere) and what they did after watching Danse Serpentine, a visually beautiful capture of a woman dancing with her color-changing skirt. Although there isn't audio accompanying the 42 second long video, I think it just enhances the focus on the footage. When I first watched it I was perplexed trying to figure out how the dancer changes her skirt's color, "Maybe she flips a layer over like a magician?" Then I read the description and realized they hand painted the film. I can't imagine how much work that entailed. They were inspired to replicate Loie Fuller's well-known and entertaining dances where her skirts were illuminated by colored lights. Their patience, persistence and ingenuity are respectable. After watching the video it reminded me of a laundry detergent add I have seen and of traditional Mexican dances. 

http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S20/76/79I12/?section=featured

From my research I learned that the Lumiere brothers made their mark in the photography and film business. Their technical training and creative minds invented the Etiquette Blue method, the cinématographe, cinemas and delved into the first color photography processes - the autochrome plate. They were smart for having patents outside of their home country of France, having private screenings of their inventions, and seeing opportunities in in their competitions' product's weaknesses. The cinématographe was smaller, lightweight, hand-cranked, more visibility, faster frames per second and needed less film compared to Thomas Edison's clunky kinetoscope.

http://www.earlycinema.com/pioneers/lumiere_bio.html 

Teresa Shannon UBU

The Rook

The film maker Ali Akbar Sadeghi is an Iranian born artist. He began his career as a painter and a teacher in the 1950s. In the mid 1960 he founded Atelier Seven, an avant grade artist group.  During his time as part of this group Ali Akbar Sadeghi began using his illustrations to making films. He has won around 15 awards for his films and exhibited his paintings in countless show. After the Iranian Revolution Sadeghi began to focus solely on his painting and establishing a gallery in Iran that supported other Iranian painters.
I was drawn to this video because it shows a fun side of the Middle East that we do not get exposed to. I have a passion for middle eastern art, and Sedighi's work is some of the most fun and free Middle Eastern art I have seen.  Because of religious restrictions it is quite unusual to see figures in their artwork. Most of the artistic expression is done with line and calligraphy.  Sadighi not only breaks out of this mold he rose far past the restrictions to to make some of the most important Middle Eastern art work of the 20th century.



Ali Akbar-Sadeghi

Kristina Ricci - UBU Week 12

http://ubu.com/film/alchemists.html

Exploring the UBU website, I came across a BBC documentary about the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.  The workshop was established in 1958 and served as a venue to create new sounds and effects to enhance the television and radio experience, in a cheap way.  The group used a method of recording individual sounds, later cut and spliced into new segments of magnetic tape. Then layered with other reels of sound, each with different tones or melodies.  This experimentation turned into a new and developing genre of music, which became the beginning of electronic music.

I chose this video because it broke down the history of electronic music, as well as the group that revolutionized the way sound effects were made.  Within the BBC documentary I also discovered other artists that I did more research on.  Delia Derbyshire and John Baker stuck out to me the most because of their unique sounds. 

http://ubu.com/sound/derbyshire.html - link to more of Delia Derbyshire’s music

Catch Up Part two

Stop motion animation: The Mysterious Stranger

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/BpaRouocBes" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>


This video was made to be part of a claymation movie called the Adventures of Mark Twain which follows Twain and the characters of Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and Becky Thatcher as they explore several of Mark Twain's stories. This piece was adapted from Twain's final novel, The Mysterious Stranger. As seen in the video, the three children meet an "angel" named Satan whose face continually changed shape. They then construct a small village and people from clay which is then animated and ultimately destroyed by the mysterious stranger.
This video is a great example of stop motion animation because it shows how clay can be used to do things that are otherwise very difficult if not impossible. They clay also adds to the entire feel of the video.

MotMI: Pawel Wojtasik

Pawel Wojtasik is a film and photo artist living in Brooklyn. Although he only started making art in his fifties, his work is modern and relevant. In his artist's statement it says his videos are about facing fear. I love this idea of approaching fear from an abstract perspective. His videos are peaceful and yet disturbing. I find that the music and zoomed in camera angles of this piece give it an odd "horror movie" feel. He uses sound and interesting perspective in many of his videos to achieve this feeling of unease. 

The above video is called "the Aquarium", more videos can be found on his website: http://pawelwojtasik.com/

Just Something Interesting

I found this article and thought you girls might be interested.

http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2013/10/women-should-ads

Catch Up Research

Vector Art

This piece is by Ann Paidrick, an American Vector artist. If you follow the link to her website, you will see the most convincing vector art I have ever seen. I think it is absolutely amazing how real her images appear, and yet there's this eery feeling of them being "too perfect". I cannot even imagine how she made these. I think this type of vector art would work perfectly for advertising, also they make me very hungry.

http://www.ebypaidrick.com/Home.html

Typography

This piece is by digital artist Theo Aartsma. I love this piece because it combines the feel of graffiti with sculpture and even dance. Being rendered digitally allows for this flexible type. This, like a lot of graffiti, transcends even the idea of the text and becomes both a meaningful statement and an abstract piece of art. I think the idea of digitally executed graffiti is a very interesting idea and is very popular right now, also it's not illegal.

http://cargocollective.com/theoaartsma/Economy

Feminist slumber party!!!

Kristina Ricci Week 10 MMI Research

JODI: SK8MONKEYS ON TWITTER (2009)

Video- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98nK-Fybks0

Article found on MMI- http://www.movingimage.us/exhibitions/2012/03/31/detail/jodi-street-digital/

*Further reading- http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/corroding-the-machine-20120406

This group created a skateboard that is made out of a keyboard.  I choose this because it relates to my work where I am also using a keyboard in my art.  I liked this because it is interactive for the viewers and its also a commentary about how people can post anything on the internet and how half of it is gibberish.  When the viewer rides the skateboard anything his foot touches will be posted to the twitter account.  Below is a quote that I found the most interesting about the piece.

"Twitter presents itself as the ultimate live feed: your life, updated. Tweets are meant to be, or at least seem, more persistent in their impulsiveness and indexicality than more traditional forms of writing. SK8Monkeys on Twitter (2009/2012) takes Twitter's self-presentation and skewers it by rearranging the terms involved. The SK8Monkey account, determined by the patterns of feet on a keyboard, becomes not a record of stray thoughts but stray actions; not an index of consciousness moving through the world but of the body in time."

Krystal Aguilar Week 10 Museum of the Moving Image

The Research:

I browsed through the various links and sections. Watched videos. Looked up artists. Used the in-site search feature. Watched more videos and various art. Sorry for the dryness but research certainly is an organized way to get lost into learning.

Overall, the artist that most caught my eye and inspired me was Eiko Ishioka. The brief mention of her name and the fact that some costumes would be featured in an exhibit did not really illustrate her talents. Through Youtube videos and IMDb. I learned that Eiko had the ability to balance and weave imagination with costume fashion. Her approach was very inclusive with communication with actors, make-up artists, directors and more. I even watched Mirror Mirror just to see her work.

The Inspiration:

I observed how fashion is a crucial tool for an actor to do their job - become another person or character. So I began to ponder "How can I make a stop motion animation video inspired by an impossible reality and fashion?" I played with the idea of being a character, being in a immersed reality, of becoming and transforming. I wanted to maintain the reality that we sometimes long or are curious how it would be like to be someone else or to have an easy life with a different situation.

The Brainstorm:

Teresa Shannon - Museum of the Moving Image

http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1956

While browsing the website I discovered an area called The Living Room Candidate.  In this section you can watch every political ad starting from 1952 and ending with the last election in 2012.  One interesting thing I noted was that only in the years 1968, 1980, and 1992 was the independent party represented in television advertisements according to this website.  Watching the early videos provides a peek into the times so to speak.  The commercials use individual citizens who present their opinion on both candidates and then tell the audience who their preference is and why. They are very simple and perhaps a little biased but they dont seem to attack the candidates. Example: College Girl  On the other hand the most current advertisements attack candidates on a more personal level. An example is this clip in which John McCain is called out for his visibility in Hollywood circles.  John McCain. Other interesting  observations include the decrease in length of the videos  as time progresses but the increase in the amount of videos produced.  And lastly its a useful tool in cataloging the lies that ALL politicians have told in order to get elected.  It would be a really interesting topic for a research paper if I were not graduating....

Kristina Ricci Week 9 Stop Motion Animation

Bedshaped - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JugGmkvhsKQ

Butterfly - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFTNNj9F56E

Bedshaped is a song preformed by Kean with a visual presentation created by Corin Hardy.  The music video has always been one that I kept going back to over time but have only started doing research on it because of this project.  The music video is a reinterpretation of a stop motion animation created by Corin Hardy called Butterfly. Both are about a man living a troubled life with alcoholism fueled by unfortunate past events.  Both videos emphasize isolation and an inward struggle with the main character that seeks to find meaning in life. 

He finds comfort within the confinement of a bathroom where he begins to have a dialog with himself, questioning god.  He believes he is having a conversation with another, only to find out that he has actually been building a friendship with himself.  It is at this moment that he realizes that his whole life he has been “living to exist” and what he needed to do is “exist to live.”  At the end of Butterfly he has an epiphany when he reads the words “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls the butterfly.”  He makes his way out into the world again into a new direction looking for fulfillment leaving behind his despair. 

I chose to show the music video because it is it is a shorter version of the full-length animation.  I believe that full 30minute video should be watched all at once in order for it to really make the impact is deserves.  I feel the animations are so successful because he uses a combination of clay, object and drawing techniques with close attention to camera angles, transitions and perspectives. 

Krystal Aguilar - Week 9 - Stop Motion Animation Video

Krystal Aguilar - Week 9 - Stop Motion Video
Artist: Daniel Ojanlatva
Link: http://vinebox.co/u/wydVdVo6Jzu/wsqseCkIzPl
Other videos: http://vinebox.co/u/wydVdVo6Jzu

For this Internet research, I chose a popular Internet and mobile tool that enables its users, even brands, to inspire, create and share stop motion animation. “What is this revolutionary and technological tool?” you may ask. My friends, you may or may not be surprised, the tool is Vine. Yes, the latest and hippest social media craze where people can “Follow” accounts, similarly to Twitter. If you haven’t heard about it let me briefly explain.

Vine is accessed through an app that is downloaded on a mobile device. The user is allowed a maximum of six seconds to record. Although, CNET’s videographer argues that it is really six and a half seconds, “Vine works out to six seconds and 14 frames, played at 28.77 frames per second.” The recording of the Vine, or 6-second video, is simply done by pointing the cell phone at what is wished to be recorded, and pressing the touch-sensitive record button. Then the person taps “Done” then the “Share” button on their cell phone and it is posted onto their profile.

I love that because of Vine’s entrance as an innovative marketing platform, brands were and are, forced to become goal-oriented artists. Also, Vine has given everyday people from various backgrounds and professions, from comedians to scientists, the freedom to create entertaining and informative videos. Since Vine has a time limit, the usage of stop motion animation techniques and forms are prominent. I have witnessed cut-paper, puppet, clay, object and pixilation animation. I even see Vines that use a combination and new kinds of animation that I don’t even know what to call. Such is the case with Daniel Ojanlatva. I was most impressed for his ability to think out-of-the-iPhone. He incorporates and collaborates different kinds of animation so cohesively; all while, delivering entertainment value and even call-to-action messages within the lapse of a few seconds. You must watch his Vine titled, “Continue from last save Y/N?”. Take a breath, this is going to get complicated: he records a video recording that is on a cell phone which looks like it’s interacting with inanimate objects, a string and the cell phone itself. These come to life and move according to the actions of the person, (most likely Daniel himself) within the video recording. It is object animation (the in-class example of the Weismann’s picnic) because the cell phone and string seem to move. I argue and inquire, is it pixilation animation (where people look like they are moving) as well? The man in the video looks like he is moving but in reality, Daniel has to perfectly synchronize pressing and un-pressing the recording button. Also I don't know exactly how he adds audio into the Vine. Perhaps the video is just a video, not a person. I also highly recommend watching his drawing and object animation video called, “I dunno, a fish I guess.”

Teresa Shannon Stop motion video

Out of a Forest

Out of the 30 or so videos that I watched, Out of a Forest was diffidently the BEST.  Many of the other videos I watched were slightly annoying to me in several ways.  First the introduction was too long and drawn out. Second the stories was underdeveloped, characters were un-relatable and the actions seemed pointless. Finally most of them were extremely boring, I found myself not even watching most of them all the way through but skipping to the end to see if they had a point.... most did not.  On the other hand Out of a Forest is the perfect mixture of heartfelt, sad, scary, mysterious and the unexpected. Even without words the artist portrays love and acceptance, as well as fear, hunger, surprise and joy, and the ending was rather surprising. 

Kristina Ricci
Typeface Research:  Week 7

http://www.flickr.com/photos/headead/3445997508/in/photostream/
http://webdesignledger.com/inspiration/33-epic-works-of-typography-art

I chose this image of “Polka Core” because it uses text in a way that breaks from its traditional boundaries.  Unlike normal flat looking text, this has a sense of depth because the design continues to recede into the background.  The positive space is illuminated by the readable text and the negative space is filled with continued tubes of the same look only darker.  I am currently in a neon class and am learning how to bend and weld glass tubes.  I was drawn to this design because the trumpet tubes look like glass neon tubes and the curves and bends mimic the same techniques used in neon bending with some difference.