I’m pretty excited about this animation thing. Pretty nervous as well. I’m not one for patience; hopefully this exercise will make me appreciate it more. The Wells article had some very interesting points. I never thought of the spectrum of animation that is, and will always be available.
These days, I don’t want to speak for everyone, but I believe we expect progression in animation; primarily through technology. Even though the article might have popped the proverbial bubble on cell style animation, it in itself is becoming a rare commodity. CGI seems to be the route that all big animation names have been taking, for at least the past 10 years (it seems somewhat force fed these days). I can’t remember the last non-CGI Disney movie that was released.
This trend has even infected my child hood love, Ninja Turtles. I can respect Well’s point, but I have to say, even cell animation seems to have a certain vintage to it now.
That, however, is not his point. I really saw a lot of sense in the ‘theory of animation’ table. It separates art from commercial product. Its important, to me, to be reminded that film isn’t all about reaping the benefits of landing that Hollywood career; that it is also a community of artists. There’s nothing wrong with making that dolla dolla bill, but at the same time, film has a fragile existence as an art (amongst its more ancient predecessors) and I think its important to preserve, if not improve that state.
Which brings me to what I though was the most interesting point: the idea of an absent artist. It never really occurred to me that I can’t name a Disney animator, but I guess that’s Well’s point. It’s not so much that Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons are generic, but more that they are veiled by an established tradition and little tolerance to venture beyond.
I like the fact that by doing these animations we are in essence creative interpreters. Like the Pes example we saw in class. He didn’t simply draw an explosion (though its probably not that simple to draw an explosion); he used common household items to stand in for them. These items lent irony and an underlying message to the work KaBoom. Now, that name will stick with me because of unique stylistic choices and artistic signature.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Thursday, September 11, 2008
6x1: Enter The Squircle
So, 6x1 thus far. I’ve really enjoyed it. Who would of thought that painting on film would be so …therapeutic? I was reading some of the other blogs for ideas on how to make this last more than two sentences. Stephen’s got a good thing going on with the listing. So I’m gonna go with that…
Scratching: Alone, I don’t find scratching that eye-catching or intriguing . I think it works really well when supplemented with other techniques; such as painting. It was pretty surprising when we got that first strip, how fast those strategically placed lines whizzed by and looked like absolutely nothing. Definitely learned something about frame speed that day. I mean, I knew…but I didn’t know. Why does twenty-four frames per second have to be so literal man? It was also kind of neat to mess up the soundtrack and here that weird demonic groan. Extra creepy when the image is a baby in a crib and you load the film upside down…
Painting: Yeah, painting on film should be offered as an after school therapy. I’m not any good at it, but its good to me. The oil making the inks blot up is a nice effect. I got a little carried away with it today and managed to cake on about half an inch of ink and oil onto the film. I think at some point I was about five centimeters away from putting my nose in the stuff. I kind of slipped into some transcendental state and starting watching small ink blots pulling each other in to make one big ink blot. Trippy. Deciding it would never dry by the end of class, I wiped it clean. No good.
Animation: I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I kind of attempted it with the first scratching exercise, but if you’ve read above, you know it wasn’t a success. I can really see how intricate one can make these animations by the examples we‘ve seen in class. I want to get into, but I’m very skeptical of my own patience. The technique Andre showed us (finding mid points on the film strip to create a slow transition) makes a lot of sense and now I also believe in squircles. I’m really looking forward to trying the printing technique that was covered today. That looks like the animation I could get into. A.D.D. approved sir.
Magazine transfers: This I want to play around with some more. If coupled with some animation technique I think it would produce a really cool result. I was pretty surprised at how simple it was. Alas, like the scratching, I was pretty disappointed I didn’t create at least twenty-four frames with a theme or color scheme, so I could at least recognize what I had done once projected.
Rayograms: It was good to have that old familiar Dektol smell back in my life for an afternoon. I have a two year degree in photography and that smell alone brought back the memories. We got to do this on paper, but it produced a completely different quality on the film. Really neat stuff. I liked the textures shaped by the crystals a lot. The noodles looked pretty groovy as well. I look forward to playing around with rayograms.
Scratching: Alone, I don’t find scratching that eye-catching or intriguing . I think it works really well when supplemented with other techniques; such as painting. It was pretty surprising when we got that first strip, how fast those strategically placed lines whizzed by and looked like absolutely nothing. Definitely learned something about frame speed that day. I mean, I knew…but I didn’t know. Why does twenty-four frames per second have to be so literal man? It was also kind of neat to mess up the soundtrack and here that weird demonic groan. Extra creepy when the image is a baby in a crib and you load the film upside down…
Painting: Yeah, painting on film should be offered as an after school therapy. I’m not any good at it, but its good to me. The oil making the inks blot up is a nice effect. I got a little carried away with it today and managed to cake on about half an inch of ink and oil onto the film. I think at some point I was about five centimeters away from putting my nose in the stuff. I kind of slipped into some transcendental state and starting watching small ink blots pulling each other in to make one big ink blot. Trippy. Deciding it would never dry by the end of class, I wiped it clean. No good.
Animation: I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I kind of attempted it with the first scratching exercise, but if you’ve read above, you know it wasn’t a success. I can really see how intricate one can make these animations by the examples we‘ve seen in class. I want to get into, but I’m very skeptical of my own patience. The technique Andre showed us (finding mid points on the film strip to create a slow transition) makes a lot of sense and now I also believe in squircles. I’m really looking forward to trying the printing technique that was covered today. That looks like the animation I could get into. A.D.D. approved sir.
Magazine transfers: This I want to play around with some more. If coupled with some animation technique I think it would produce a really cool result. I was pretty surprised at how simple it was. Alas, like the scratching, I was pretty disappointed I didn’t create at least twenty-four frames with a theme or color scheme, so I could at least recognize what I had done once projected.
Rayograms: It was good to have that old familiar Dektol smell back in my life for an afternoon. I have a two year degree in photography and that smell alone brought back the memories. We got to do this on paper, but it produced a completely different quality on the film. Really neat stuff. I liked the textures shaped by the crystals a lot. The noodles looked pretty groovy as well. I look forward to playing around with rayograms.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
a motion picture giving and taking blog
Andre, you were right, Brakhage is...a bit loopy, but I jive with the guy well enough. I found it mostly easy to follow what he was saying (no matter how many statements were in parenthesis).
It was definitely good review material and the humor made it less drone to read. After seeing some of his films, I thought we would be reading some sort of defense for experimental films. I was worried Brakhage would go into some longwinded essay about how scratching emulsion off of film is the purest form of art known to man. It was kind of a relief that it wasn't that type of thing. Not that I don't appreciate this type of art, but I find it much easier to engage in a reading about a practice whilst engaged in that practice myself.
I was actually surprised when Brakhage started with film scratching and inking as an introductory method for learning the tools of the film medium. I'm one of those people that needs to take something apart in order to fully understand it. So I found that to be an interesting way of looking at why we're doing this.
You must know the rules before you break them. This is what I've always been taught, no matter what art class I was taking. I always kind of hated that, but I can see why it is necessary. Everytime I saw an experimental film I would think "these are the film guys breaking the film rules." This article made me look at that statement under a new light.
It was definitely good review material and the humor made it less drone to read. After seeing some of his films, I thought we would be reading some sort of defense for experimental films. I was worried Brakhage would go into some longwinded essay about how scratching emulsion off of film is the purest form of art known to man. It was kind of a relief that it wasn't that type of thing. Not that I don't appreciate this type of art, but I find it much easier to engage in a reading about a practice whilst engaged in that practice myself.
I was actually surprised when Brakhage started with film scratching and inking as an introductory method for learning the tools of the film medium. I'm one of those people that needs to take something apart in order to fully understand it. So I found that to be an interesting way of looking at why we're doing this.
You must know the rules before you break them. This is what I've always been taught, no matter what art class I was taking. I always kind of hated that, but I can see why it is necessary. Everytime I saw an experimental film I would think "these are the film guys breaking the film rules." This article made me look at that statement under a new light.
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