Undated notes from class this semester

Reflection on Semester's work

I am very disappointed with myself that I haven't been able to get more work done over the Christmas break, and hand in on time rather than relying on the extension I have been given by Sussex Student Support. My thinking had been that I could leave most of the harder, practical work until I went home for the Christmas break; but I should have foreseen that because of the problems my family is experiencing at the moment, it would not be a good environment to work in. I got practically no work done and am really worried that as a result of that I won't be able to hand in a great piece of work for the extended deadline. I have around a fortnight now to collate all of my existing work together and put it in a presentable form; to actually settle on a final story idea and board it; and to start physically animating.
So far, I have been really pleased with the research and concept aspects of the project. I think I have a solid basis for my idea and great theory to back it up. I hope this comes across most strongly in the presentation of this process book. Towards the beginning of the semester, Mary had mentioned that she was unsure my project would make sense or be easy to execute with theoretical backing: I hope now that I will be able to prove that my idea is as strong as anyone else's.
I have enjoyed so much getting to do background painting, character design, and other forms of concept art. I think one of my strengths is my actual artistic talent, which I hope is reflected in this aspect. What I actually aspire to do after university is some form of concept art or development work for animation, so getting this part of the project right has been really valuable and important to me. Regardless of whether it is reflected in my grade, I myself am very proud of the work I have done for this, so  am happy either way.
The thing I am most worried about is firstly the pilot material (2 minutes of animation). I am not sure if I am going to be left with enough time at all to create something worth handing in. I have been watching many tutorial videos, learning how to use Toon Boom software; but I just haven't put it into practice enough yet which is silly of me. A few little attempts I made earlier in the semester, for some reason have not exported in any sort of format that I can upload to my process book, so now I have nothing to show for it. I'm very aware of the fact that I might have to abandon this part of the submission in favour of working on the other parts, and forfeit a great deal of marks for it. I suppose I will have to make that instead my main priority for next semester instead.
The story is troubling me also. I have done quite a bit of work on the storyboard already, and I feel confident that I have a strong beginning and ending, but the middle, fleshy bit of the plot concerns me. It is the part I have thought about the least but it is difficult because it contains both the greatest length of time passing within the story, but the least action. I will carry on with perfecting the beginning and end, and if needs be I can leave out the middle for now and revise it with the help of one of my tutors next semester. I am happy at least that I have a good story in general, even if the pieces need to be put together more tightly.

Email from Tutor

Week 9 lecture (final)

(Transcribed from notes)

Martin Spinelli - Week 9 lecture.
As lecture hall was filling, Radio Radio playedover the soundsystem; produced by Spinelli. Broadcast 10 years ago, interviewing Pierce Plowright. Very important piece of radio production. Studied in contemporary courses; included in museum collections.

All of our projects this year must reference the historical growth of the medium they are in - have a lot of theoretical evidence and weight.

Spinelli: BA in English & Media at Virginia Tech. Had a show on the campus radio station. Led him to National Public Radio (US equivalent of BBC). More decentralized than BBC, so easier to break in to. Varied radio permitted. Opportunities given to independent producers.
Encourages students to submit work to Transform or PRX to get distribution, higher profile, and portfolio work.

Spinelli used his resourcefullness, determination and motivation to secure his first internship, even after first being told he was unsuitable for the position. Stayed long enough that he eventually got employed part-time by the station. 'News Stringer'.

MA in Sussex (English) in early 90's.
Returned to US for PhD in Buffalo State University, also employed at NPR.
Added more theory to the application of his practical work - became more critical.

Think about: specialization in a field or niche.
Important: Be consistent, persistant, and professional.
Practice pitching work regularly - helps when you need to get 'out there' in the future.
He used this to develop relationships with station owners/ producers/ directors etc.
To develop professionally: get in a habit of producing work on a regular schedule (eg fortnightly, monthly) which grows skills quickly and stops you getting stuck in a perfectionist rutt.
Recommends: McLuhan 'Understanding Media', 'the Guttenberg Galaxy'.

Week 8 Lecture

(transcribed from my notes for the week 8 lecture)

Week 8 Lecture Alexander Deverett
Multi-disciplinary artist.
Studied music and sound art. Teaching sotware how to make its own music.
Now does videos, installations, and directing, etc.
From Wigan - lived in Japan for nearly a decade.
Makes art where he programmes a software to draw/paint images. Can do so in a way the software learns and replicates his own art style.
Makes apps for iOS and Android.
Runs a record company.

This guy does EVERYTHING. Calls himself a 'Digital Arist'.
 (I didn't appreciate his jokingly casual use of the word schizophrenic to decribe his working style!!)

Technology of his childhood inspired his future artistry. Messed with home computing and graphics.
Collaborated in school and after with a schoolmate making digital/ computergenerated music.
Specialised in video arts in a 3rd level foundation degree course. Would make music videos, and make his own music for them rather than using existing songs.
Did a 'Phonic Art' degree at univeristy; studied Max MSP.
Studied MA in electronic sound & composition.

Sounds of his music are lo-fi, utilizes dated technologies.
Doesn't look much at other people's works, so he doesn't get too influenced or lose his own inner inspiration.
treatment : the idea for a music video. Includes aesthetic, influences, narrative and examples of execution.
*look up 'worldising' from Walter Merch*

" A technology isn't obsolete if it still turns on"

Week 7 Lecture

(These are transcribed notes from the lecture, my handwriting in my notebook was so bad there's almost no point in scaning them!)

Lecture 7 - Week 7 - Clio Barnard
Read film studies at Kent University.
Went to art school - experimental visual arts. Shows in galleries, festivals, and her short films.
Dark Glass was shot on a mobile phone, 8 mins long.
Road Race was a gallery installation, shown on 2 screens.

The Arbor is a docu-drama which uses actual interview voiceovers but performances were by actors. (watched trailer for it in the lecture). (Watched the first sequence in lecture also).
Really dark, suspenseful, cinematic, inspired by Andrea Dunbar's writing (the mother in the film). Inspired by verbatim interviews used in a play Clio had watched; wanted to apply this technique to film.

Ethical problems of documentary > fiction = because you have to personally expose people/ deal with existing personalities. Documentaries can be cathartic for their subjects; leave with a sense of hope.

Casting: used a casting director who would suggest individuals to Clio. Auditioned everyone in person.

The Selfish Giant (watched trailer for this in the lecture). (I had already watched the film at home).
Clio didn't have much involvement with the trailer's production. It was based very much around music for timing. Distributors manipulate them to appeal to potential viewers = not necessarily true representation.

Week 5 Lecture

(Transcribed from notes taken at this lecture)

Multi-award winning documentary filmmaker Olivia Lichtenstein - Sussex alumnus

Just spent 2 years at Broadmoor hospital, to make 2 documentaries for ITV. Took 5 years to access the hospital (high secure psychiatric hospital; has many dangerous offenders). They never admitted cameras for their 150 year existence.
3 years ago Olivia was approached by ITV, asked would she direct a show about it. Agreed immediately (likes making films about crime, crossing boundaries, etc).

Contract at first = not allowed to film faces of subjects. Policed and heavily controlled in this environment. Took a lot of energy to continue filming. (We were shown at this point a clip of the documentary)

Olivia has been working with the same composer for 20 years. She often works with the same editor. She enjoys collaborating with the same people - calming and reassuring. 
 When she started filming, film was very expensive s it was kept disciplined, and footage was kept to a minimum. She almost prefers this to theopen/unstructured shooting of digital formats now.

She liked to spend a few weeks on-location with her subjects before filming. Helps with research and development. Was unable to do this at broadmoor.
Important to build relationships with individuals (helps to provide access).

Has to juggle filmmakers' viewpoint with a producer's viewpoint. Compromise a lot.

Updated Project Development Schedule

Week 4 tutorial

I came in an hour late today for my tutorial, because I slept in! I was glad to be in attendance for at least some of the class though, and I managed to catch up pretty quickly with what i missed with Paul's help.

Today we had a re-introduction to Adobe Illustrator. We went over the basics like paintbrush strokes and effects, using the pen tool, tracing, keyboard shortcuts, etc. I rarely ever use illustrator so it was good to have a refresher to catch up. I had my Bamboo tablet with me, which made it so much easier than i had ever remebered using illustrator. I think the user interface and style of drawing is really similar to that of Toon Boom, so it might be good to get some more practice in.

Week 4 Lecture

Animator in Attendance at Next Week's Lecture

Week 3 Tutorial

Week 3 Lecture

Below is a sample of the outline for Peter Rabbit episode 'missing ducks.' It was cool to see this, because ;ast year when I was on work experience in Brown Bag animation studios I saw the animators working on this show!

Plan For Now

1. Choose story to adapt
2. Choose style of animation
3. Choose software to use
4. Do concept art/ visual development
5. Do character design
6. Draw storyboard
7. Animation tests
8. Background painting
9. Animation

The above is a rough idea I have of the tasks I have to complete in this project. I might be missing some out, or have filled some in the wrong order, but hopefully it will give me a clearer direction of what exactly I need to do and let me focus more on individual elements rather than the bigger picture.

I am quite drawn to doing an adaptation of a Japanese fairytale/ folk story. I am rubbish at thinking up original ideas and scripting, so I think it best to use an existing tale for inspiration. That reduces the stress of writing, and leaves me more time to work on the visual development and make it as beautiful as possible. 

The reason I am leaning towards that particular source for a story is because I have a book from my childhood, called 'Japanese Children's Favourite Stories' which is beautifully illustrated, and a retelling of a few national folklores which would remind you of a Japanese Grimm Brothers or Hans Christian Anderson book. Because the tales and characters aren't familiar in our culture, it would be a bit more exciting than illustrating Cinderella or Thumbellina, or one of the other common ones like that! I have asked my mother to mail it to me from Ireland, so in the meantime while I am waiting for it to arrive I can look online for other stories and tales.

Week 3 Workshop

Week 2 Lecture

Week Two Workshop

Week One Tutorial

Paul was unable to come in to our first tutorial of the module in week one. This was kind of disappointing, as we were supposed to receive and introduction to the module and the software and techniques we will be practicing with. He had offered to cover the class topics some other time if needed, which would be great.

We were asked instead to attend another tutorial, so I went to Paul Vincent's photography class. I thought it might be the most relevant to me, as opposed to documentary or anything else. We buddied up for the class and took cameras outside to experiment with taking photos in various exposed settings. It wasn't particularly useful per se, but it was kind of interesting. 

...

Week One Workshop

This was our first project development workshop of the semester. We has Mary Krell take our class, which is the first time that I had her as a tutor. I really enjoyed our session with her and her easy manner - it made the subject quite interesting and engaging. The class lasted half the amount of time it was supposed to because it was the first week, and there wasn't too much to cover other than a review of the module handbook and the aims of the course.

Our animation class has been put together with the digital media students, and we found out that our tutorial topics will alternate from week to week between the two. The tutorials on Thursday mornings are technically 'optional', whereby we have to attend them but we can choose which tutor's class we want to go to each week. On the weeks that the digital media students will be focused on, I will probably go to a different subject instead which might be handy for my studies.

Part of the submission for this module at the end of the semester will be a process book.
Submit ONE hard copy and ONE scanned copy on CD. The hard copy will be returned to you after assessment .
There is no word length for this Process Book but it should be A4 size and it needs to
be legible! As appropriate to your medium and genre it should such things as:
- research on other relevant productions/practitioners in your medium and
- reflection on what you have learnt from these
- inspiration from theoretical readings
- reflection on subject research ie of your topic (do not just cut and paste pages
from the internet but COMMENT on what you have found and why it is valuable to
your project)
- brain storming diagrams
- notes on technical experiments/tests, thoughts on challenges arising
- location recce notes (where not submitted elsewhere in the portfolio)
- character biographies and back stories (video and radio drama projects)
- list of interviewees and what you hope to get/have got from them (where
relevant)
- reflection on the current state of your project and any challenges you are facing
The process book should reflect the development of your thoughts and research
over the module and be compiled AS YOU GO ALONG and not be something that
is collated just before hand-in. It should also include notes on lectures, your
workshop crit sessions and feedback, and your responses to those ideas.
The process book should clearly show the individual student’s contribution to
project containing notes/images, reflections on reading/viewing and
practice/research undertaken in preparation for the project as the whole and
your role in particular. 

Mary gave us guidance on how we should build our process books, and broke down weekly tasks for us to do. The five main tasks each week she advised us to do were:

1. take notes in all classes, tutorials, workshops etc.
2. take notes in lectures, even public lectures outside university.
3. consume any and all types of media, such as attending exhibitions, films, TV shows. Use proof such as screenshots, ticket stubs, photographs, programmes.
4. read critical texts, such as essays from previous years.
5. experiment with with drawing and technical practice. play with and break technology.

I am mainly going to be recording my process book via Blogger, which I can update to at home, uni, and on my phone. I will scan and upload any drawings or anything else I can't link to online or screenshot. I find it's the medium I'm most comfortable writing on, and is easy for me to keep organised and easy to categorize and search. Mary advised us to submit our process book with an index or table of contents, which will be easy to do through Blogger's 'labels' application.

Most of our work this semester will be self managed and done outside of class time. The workshops will mainly be used for sharing and reviewing our work. The main purpose of meeting every week is to get guidance and feedback from our tutor and classmates. because of this, I will need to keep my work constantly accessible either via cloud storage or on an external hard drive so I can be ready at any time to show it. 

Mary gave us a few galleries/events in Brighton we should keep track of for good exhibitions we can review. I followed each of Fabrica, LightHouse and Phoenix on Twitter to keep up to date on everything going on.