EXTRA REFERENCE FOOTAGE

Breaking down this footage to make me able to see all the frames was valuable information for helping me understand the movement patterns of a fish and will make good reference to help me animate my puppet.

I used a shark because they are largely solitary and swim great distances through the open ocean, which is the impression we want to create with the fish puppet. It's smooth swimming also preserves energy. If these can be translated into animation I believe it would translate well to an audience.

PUPPET TEST SHOTS

After unsuccessfully rigging the puppet using wire, some studio rigs were required. For the size and weight of the puppet, it has to be supported with two studio rigs. The clip above demonstrates roughly some of the poses the puppet will have to perform. The green screen background is essential because the fish's surroundings will be digitally animated. 

The task of animating the fish showed me some of the issues I would face giving this inanimate object believable on screen. The expression of the mouth and eyes aid this but it was difficult moving the fish subtly enough to not make jolts in the animation. In production I will correct this by duplicating frames for timing purposes and taking more care with moving the puppet between frames.

PUPPET DRAFT 2

PUPPET DRAFT 2

Using a more rigid foam base, I have been able to make a posable puppet. One of the issues I faced in making this was creating gaps in my armature so the fish would be able to move freely. I also had to fill in the gaps to give it an outer layer.

My first armature showed me the best ways of sealing the wire to the foam. However it did not move properly so I had to reconsider. My result was hollowing out parts of the foam in a way that they could lock together when bending. This was effective in making the puppet moveable and made it lighter, which will make more stable when rigging it.

REFERENCE VIDEOS FOR ANIMATING

Breaking down clips frame by frame from Blue Planet 2 has aided me in many ways both with the construction of my puppet and in the eventual animation of it. By looking at the videos slowed down, I have observed subtle movements fish make with their fins and flippers. To have moveable eyes and mouth is also essential in giving the fish character appeal and traits. Other animals I should study are sharks to understand how a fish of that form moves. This will give me a better understanding of the way my puppet will move.

This clip provided me with inspiration for constructing a posable mouth for the fish. As I looped wire for the bones of my armature, I also left a large loop at the front to act as a posable mouth for there fish. As the fish feeds in the film, it is important that the mouth can make diverse shapes, much like the video below.

ANIMATIC DRAFT 1

ANIMATIC DRAFT 1

I have opened a TV Paint file starting on the animatic for my project. One issue I will face making this is differentiating parts of the film to be animated digitally with the stop motion segments. Most of the scenes will incorporate both. I will need to also go back onto the file to create more scenes and check the frame rate to make the movement in the animatic more fluid.

Study Task 7

Developing a Rationale

PRIMARY RESEARCH

INTERVIEW

Can you notice a visual aspect at a rave to accompany the music? (lights, projections etc)

JP : in the late 80’s and early 90’s the flyers that advertised forthcoming raves and clubs had fantastic artwork.  People collected them – I wish I had kept all mine.  They sell on Ebay now for a small fortune! The light shows and projections were often really impressive … lazers would come down and touch the dancefloor and people would put their fingers up to touch it.  The DJ had the ability to coordinate music, lights and visuals which pushed people to near frenzy.

NP : there was always visual stimulation in the early days it was quite home made but there was always a visual creativity at raves.

 Does the rave scene attract a creative crowd?

JP : in the old days the crowd was made up of all sorts of people.  What was so noticeable and brilliant was that you could be rubbing shoulders with people across all social walks of life – builders, aristocrats, students, laywers … every kind of person rich, poor and everyone in between.

NP : the rave scene attracted everybody from every walk of life so that there was no 1 type of person identifiable …there was a real feeling of change and  community and the tunes and pills were like nothing we had experienced before 

Is there a camera presence at raves?

JP : the beginning was pre-camera phone as so there was a complete absence of self consciousness that meant everyone danced like no one was watching.  No one was interested in anything except the music.

NP not in our day there was no sense of observation at all …people were completely in the present  

Did the rave scene feel like an integral part of history?

JP : yes absolutely.  They were tremendously exciting times and led to cultural change … less racism and football violence.  I don’t remember any sexual harassment or predatory .  No one dressed up it was all about comfortable clothes that you could dance all night in which was very freeing.

Not to me at the time we were just swept up in the moment …as time passes however looking back there were some very significant social changes happening the proof of that being the changes in law that were made to prevent sizeable gatherings . I imagine that the 60s felt the same as young people took on the establishment and refused to be bullied scared or forced in any way to conform to lives that they did not want to live

How did the mood of the time (politically) effect this scene?

NP…it was a reaction against some bleak years ….a splash of colour and noise and fuck you ….working weeks were spent planning our next out out  

JP – The 90’s the rave scene came out of a particularly bleak time during British history.  It was a way to feel release and to escape the pressure of unemployment and street violence.  The music unified people from all walks of life and the dancefloor was a class–less space.  The hedonism and resulting drug culture was an antidote to the grey-ness that prevailed at that time and the result was a positivity that prevailed . 

SECONDARY RESEARCH

THE BIRDS

Destructive rapacious nature is a theme in Hitchcock’s film

The major bird attack at the Brenner house was based off his experience of the London Blitz

The birds were based off the Scream

In Blackmail (1929), shrill chirping from a bird cage hanging above the heroine’s bed get louder and louder, expressing her sense of entrapment

Earsplitting crescendo

the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994

The Chapman Brothers

When they grew tired of making tiny models of hell full of nazis impaled on spikes, the infamous Chapman Brothers took inspiration from the Dead Kennedy’s 1979 album California Uber Alles, and began creating enormous, red Nazi-style banner flags adorned with the smiley face synonymous with rave culture where the swastika should have been. Then in 2013, Dinos Chapman released his debut album Luftbobler, the result of a decade spent experimenting with sound

SWEET HARMONY

An immersive exhibition devoted to presenting a revolutionary survey of rave culture through the voices and lenses of those who experienced it

The new world that emerged from the club scene of the 80s and 90s

Ally Fogg - The Guardian

raggle-taggle kind of army, brought together by loose, anarchic disorganisations 

Tom Hunter (born in London) 

In the wake of the introduction of the Criminal Justice & Public Order Act in 1994, artist Tom Hunter set off from Hackney with a group of friends on a bus journey that was to take them to festivals and gatherings in Continental Europe. Hunter documented this odyssey in what became known as Le Crowbar, sharing with Sweet Harmony audiences the experiences of the free party traveller community. 

Dominic (born in Luton) 

Rave would not have happened were it not for the boredom of suburbia and rural Britain.

Derek Ridgers (born in chiswick)

Renowned pop culture photographer Derek Ridgers has spent over four decades capturing the explosion of subcultures from the 1970s to the present. Whilst he is best known for capturing the rise of early skinheads and Punk and the seismic scenes that existed in dark underground subcultures, acid house also caught Ridgers’ critical gaze.

EVERYONE IN THE PLACE

‘Illicit underground gatherings of people’

Marx’s theory of alienation - separation from what you are producing

‘The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production.

‘Like a contemporary history painting

‘The closest equivalent to the night club is the church where people support each other and share common values’

‘These photographs are like the beginnings of a new religion’

‘Illicit underground gatherings of people who were whipped up into frenzies by music and sound’

MEDIA AND PROCESSES

 

Study Task 6

Practical Approaches

The practical concept I have come up with to go alongside my project works well in conjunction with what I am studying. The idea essentially stems from the pictures I have seen of the beginnings of rave culture such as the picture of Kraftwork handing the means of production onto America.

Jeremy Deller compares this picture to a 'contemporary religious paintings' because he saw the beginnings  of a massive movement comprised of people with common values. Furthermore, as my project looks at club visuals and projections, my creative response is to curate an art show to be held this summer. The show will incorporate traditional animation styles by being made up of hand drawn frames to be all hung up. The subject matter will be a steadily growing crowd of characters which will grow to make a room similar to the environment of the picture above. The animation will be projected at the show alongside live music. Through this approach, I want to present the ideals present in the 90's rave scene in the form of a more modern style.

Study Task 5

Writing an Introduction

After using the method of triangulation to lay out my research ideas, writing an introduction was a useful step because it briefly mapped out the overall structure of my essay and presented the arguments I will make. With the topic I am studying, there are a few conflicting ideas which could have been relatively difficult to navigate. However preparation like this makes it significantly easier because I have had time to think about which arguments support each other and which ones are conflicting. This has prepared me for reaching a conclusion for my research topic, which I have not yet established.

My research topic is an exploration into how sound (including music) and visuals feed off each other . Primarily my project centres around the Sweet Harmony exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery hand in hand with the Everyone in the place Documentary featuring Jeremy Deller talking about the History and Politics of rave culture. It seems that throughout this scene there has been an attraction of a creative crowd. The argument I will raise is how the creative involvement progressed from a small number of photographers and artists to the involvement of visuals in the party scene nowadays. In this exploration, I will draw comparisons between traits of the rave scene in the 90's and the traits it may still share with the party scene nowadays.

The Criminal justice and public order act of 1994 played an integral part in the mood of the time as well. It is important to note this because the conflict attracted the eye of various photographers and artists. One of the arguments in my project will be whether homage is payed to this presently.

As a personal response to the project, I have made a traditional animation to have all the individual frames framed and hung up at a show. Alongside this, the show will project the visuals I have made in time with a live music show. The exhibition will take place this summer.

Study Task 4

Images, Examples and Theories

With the method off triangulation, I have been able to envisage the structure of my essay much more clearly because it maps out sources which are similar and good to compare with each other. Through looking at the different approaches to my question. I can see contrasting ideas about the subject to make a coherent argument.

The flow I will use with my essay is to take it as a timeline, discussing at first the idealistic in the 90s rave scene and moving forward to compare it with the present, discussing which traits have remained the same and which has changed.

FINAL STORYBOARD

FINAL STORYBOARD

DEVELOPMENT OF FISH PUPPET

FISH PUPPET

For the prototype for my fish puppet, I was looking for methods to construct an armature with lots of moving parts. From the dynamic poses I drew my fish in, I realised I would also need to make the puppet relatively flexible.

The meat of the puppet is made of sponge, which, for the purpose of a simple prototype, I covered in masking tape. The puppet proved useful for getting a rough idea of its proportion and how to construct it. With the final puppet I will need to ensure that it can hold its position better and that it is more durable for the purpose of animating it. Therefore I will need to use different materials like foam to give it volume and I will need to double wrap the wire that I use to avoid breakage while animating.