History of animation and experimental filmmaking...

LEN LYE

Len Lye 'the least boring person who ever lived' described by poet Alistair Reid. Lye was a filmmaker, sculptor and writer invented ways to make films without a camera. He was a big part of the upsurge of experimental filmmaking in the 40s. Some of his films are displayed below...

A Color Box (Len Lye, 1935)
Uploaded by dephaad. - Independent web videos.

ALEXEIEFF AND PARKER

Alexander Alexeieff and wife Claire Parker collaborated for some 50 years making experimental film and music. Their film Night on Bald Mountain (below) took a total of 16.000 images and one and a half years to complete. The animators pushed pins into and out of a screen creating variations from black and white shades of grey that resulted in a compelling three-dimensional effect...

STAN BRAKHAGE

Stan Brakhage made more than 250 films using a variety of techniques such as scratching and painting onto film or even baking it or scratching the surfaces. Brakhage tried to recreate the state between being asleep or awake, what he called 'hypnoagogic vision'. A short film of his is below...

JULES ENGEL

Jules Engel made films using shapes and colour along with music to communicate with the audiences. I really like his work and it will definitely help and influence me with this project. I find it really interesting watching the shapes move along with the music chosen to accompany the animation. A few of Engels films are below...

NORMAN MCLAREN

Norman McLaren was a Scottish filmmaker who began his career in the 1930s. He made more than 50 films which explored the relationship between colour, sound and music rather than narrative. I have placed some of his films below...

I especially like 'Spook Sport' I really like the colours and the simple narrative, I want to use this sort of style in my work...

LARRY CUBA

Larry Cuba was an architecture student who gave up and started making film art. He collaborated with John Whitney Snr, who invited Cuba to work with him. A few of his films are below...

EXPOSED

I went to see the 'Exposed' exhibition at the Tate Modern. It was an amazing photography exhibition consisting of 'surveillance photography'. The photos were taken of people without them knowing or a few were staged so it seemed that way. There were photographs of lovers in the cinema in the 1930's, people walking through scaffolding in the 90s and paparazzi shots from the 50s to today. It was a surprise to see two of my favourite photographers with their work on show! Larry Clark and Nan Goldin have been a major influence on me since I was 16, I love their work and was thrilled to see it on show at the Tate!

TENT London.

We had a uni trip to the Tent London exhibition at The Truman Brewery. The exhibition was made up of all different exhibitors of all different types of design including graphic design, textile/interiors design, digital interactive design, furniture design, pretty much every type of creative design was featured somewhere at Tent! I really enjoyed the exhibition, below I have posted some of the stands I particularly liked and engaged with...

Alex Randall..... A bespoke lighting designer, some of the lighting exhibited was made up of stuffed rats! Below are some examples of her work.

Mimelight..... Creators of 'Quantum Pearl', an interactive wall mounted LED light. You can change the light by moving your hand in front of each light to create your own colour schemes.

Ecorocker..... A new clever design for a childs classic rocking horse made from 100% recycled cardboard.

Harry Thaler..... Designer of the 'pressed chair'.

More research...

Lemon Jelly!

I listen to Lemon Jelly, they make dance music... I thought of them immediately when I started thinking about this project... Their artwork is amazing and there videos are all mainly basic animations moving with there music. Actually one half of Lemon Jelly is Fred Deakin, he used to teach at Central St Martins and now is one of the directors of Airside a London based design agency. Below are some of there cd artwork and videos...

Fred Deakins 'Airside' have made many animated videos away from Lemon Jelly, they are now a pretty big agency who have worked with Coca Cola, Greenpeace, Nokia, Mastercard, V & A and many more... Airside's showreel is below...

Airside Showreel 2009 from Airside on Vimeo.

Research....

To start with I am going to look research short animations and videos with sound. I will be looking at completely abstract videos and some with narratives. Hopefully this research will give me some ideas of my own...

Mandala Vibration - Abstract 3D Animation from Ian Clemmer on Vimeo.

THREE.EASY.PIECES

Unit Title: Animation

Unit Number: AF201

Assignment One: Three Easy Pieces

Weighting: 50%

The brief

In this assignment, you will be exploring the key principles of motion design, and you will produce three pieces of animation which illustrate or demonstrate a range of these animation principles.

You will design, storyboard and make 3 pieces of animation which use shapes rather than complex drawings or recognizable objects. Given that the graphic objects are relatively simple drawings, the choice of colour palette is an important design concern. These animations will be between 15 and 20 seconds in length each, and you will vary the number of elements you are animating from one to many across the animation. Each animation must have a music or sound track of your choice.

Principles

Applying principles of motion graphic design to your animation work will make the motion you create more naturalistic, more appealing and more easily understood by the audience.

Motion design principles can be broken down into the following areas:

- timing: spacing actions to define weight and size

- speed of change: spacing of the in-between keyframes to achieve natural movement

- arcs: the visual path of action for natural movement

- motion blur: to enhance appearance of motion

- squash and stretch: defining the rigidity and weight of an object by distorting its shape during an action

- motivation/anticipation: preparation for an action

- follow through: termination of an action

- overlapping action: establishing its relationship to the next action

- staging/exaggeration: presenting an idea so that it is unmistakably clear

What you will do

You will research animation/motion principles, generate ideas for animated sequences which apply to these principles, draw storyboards your three sequences, produce the artwork, sound and animation in line with storyboarding.

Submission – pass criteria

Practical work

Three pieces of animation between 15 and 20 seconds in length, which animate shapes rather than complex objects or characters, and which feature a sound or music track. These animations must be exported from After Effects as full quality QuickTime .movs.

Sketchbook

Your sketchbook must contain project planning, research and development work including:-

· Idea generation through such techniques as brainstorming, sketching, mood boards, photographs etc

· Thumbnails or quick sketches to help you develop and refine your ideas

· Storyboards of your intended pieces that are detailed and timed

Blog

· Research into animation and motion graphics principles by embedding movies and/or linking to examples online with a written commentary or analysis of your chosen examples

· The development of your project, showing your working methods, progress and problem solving

· Periodic reviews of your work in progress

· Embed or link to your finished work and evaluate its qualities

Essay

· Research and write a 1000 word essay of the principles of animation, particularly in relation to motion graphics design. All quotes and ideas must be fully Harvard referenced and all of the research for this piece of writing must be included in a bibliography, which must have a minimum of three information sources.

Enhanced criteria

· Your sketchbook shows thorough a thoughtful response to your research in your creative decision taking

· Your thumbnails develop a wide range of ideas to work with

· Your storyboards are detailed, well thought through and imaginative

· Blog is detailed and outlines clearly the project progress

· Your animations exemplify the identified motion design principles clearly and creatively

Deadline

Monday 18^th October 5.00pm