Study Task 5 - Sound Study

'La Chine a L'Honneur' (Animated short)

Created by students at the 'Gobelins' School of Visual Communication

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxRGr6VKkj8


The sound in this is subtle but very effective in completing the atmosphere the visuals establish so well. As the various characters wake up and start their day the sound increases and gradually swells in reflection of this. It's very understated but fits in the mundane events being depicted in a very sympathetic way. I find the result to be very human and convincing.  I don't think the soundtrack I use will be as busy as this one but I have similar intentions in terms of creating an ambience, perhaps akin to the stillness heard at the beginning of this.

'Hors Champ' (Animated short)

Created by students at the 'Gobelins' School of Visual Communication

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oC8GbblIBk


What I take mainly from this is the sort of muted and muffled quality of the sound. I think I want to use music in my sting, but have an underlying soundtrack of sort of white noise or strange muffled sounds like the ones in this (I think there's also a sort clicking sound from an old camera). I think this sort of thing will accentuate the stillness and dark ambience I want to create for my sting.


On another note, it's not an animation, but the film 'Simple Men' (directed by Hal Hartley) is the perfect example of the type of atmosphere I want to create and the way he uses music is the sort of thing I will try and do, sort of weirdly melancholy interruptions during conversations (not that I'll have any conversations in my sting). 
      

Study Task 4 - 3 Animated Shorts or Stings

Disclaimer

I'm not actually sure if any of these are made using in After Effects (the Jake Fried one definitely isn't it's hand drawn), although I'm pretty sure the ones by Michael Kennedy are because he is just some student as well. I did try to pick things which could potentially be done on After Effects though. Most of the examples I found that definitely were After Effects were fairly uninspiring so I gave up.




'The Magician', by Andy Shauf (music video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN0RPWII7gY

Director: Winston Hacking
Director of Photography (Performance Footage): Geoff Fitzgerald
Additional Image Sourcing, Paper Cutting: Andrew Zukerman
Colour Correction: Frame Discreet

This animation is paced vary consistently throughout which helps draw the viewer in, there isn't anything to jolt you out of it once it's started so it's very absorbing. There isn't much in the way of narrative but I don't think that matters so much as it evokes very well the general mood and ambience of the song. It seems to be almost a stream of consciousness type sequence (although I doubt it was that because it's so complex) which actually represents the way Andy Shauf typically writes lyrics very well, they usually follow a continuous, fairly domestic, story in great detail.


 'Mind Frame' , Jake Fried (Animated Short)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhtqcY54n68

This isn't done in After Effects, but I think the way Fried structures and composes his animations is so based in layers that something in the vein of what he creates could be made in AE very easily. The technicality and detail in this I find fairly astounding and I greatly admire anyone with the patience to do something like this. I like how the movements or motions in his animations are actually just created, almost inadvertently, through the transitioning between still images. It's an approach that I feel works very effectively for something short such as a sting (although I think he mainly just creates stuff for himself). His use of sound also meshes together with the visual very well. 


'Flatpack Unpacked Stings', Michael Kennedy (Stings, made for uni)

https://vimeo.com/163416700

This is the most simplistic of all three, probably because he is a student, but I think it still feels very sophisticated. It is also the only one of the three that is a 'sting' (several stings). I very much enjoy the hand made aesthetic and the way it flickers about like older films. The colour schemes are very well thought out and ensure everything is clear despite how jittery it all is. The use of sound is also very effective and I think as important as everything else to the overall atmosphere he creates with these. It has the same sort of jumpy skittishness and is also composed largely of found sound, reflecting the way the animation is composed of cut up and collaged imagery. Again, not much narrative employed but the whole thing is so abstract I think trying to force one in would probably have caused more confusion than anything else. Having set the precedent that there is nothing you need to follow it becomes a more rewarding sensory experience.  


  

Just as a side note this video - https://vimeo.com/134074654 - also created by Michael Kennedy is very much the kind of thing I can envision doing for my sting. It doesn't actually contain any animation, but there a sequence of still images displays a narrative. The overall mood is also similar to what I will be trying to create with my sting. 

Idea Pictures Finals

Final editorial illustrations.

Study Task 3 - Illustrators Using Print

Sophie Hollington

• 
  

Impressively complex lino prints.

Very thoughtful/ well considered. 

Bold use of colour. 




Yann Kebbi

"It’s a process I like as it forces you to simplify and it sequences the crafting of the image."

Very expressive and atmospheric.

Really nice use of colour.



Bruce Waldman

Very expressive monoprints.

Nicely textured.

Loads of energy in the marks.

Study Task 2 - Editorial Illustrators

Yann Kebbi

I really enjoy the handmade, kinetic and expressive way in which Kebbi works, and the fact that despite incorporating many different colours, textures and qualities of line into his images they never feel cluttered or confusing. I also like how he doesn't realy too much on visual metaphors, or obvious jokes, he uses simple ideas and translates them into effective illustrations through his visual aesthetic.


  Harvey Schmidt

Harvey Schmidt is not a current illustrator, he was working from the 50s onwards, and I can't help but think you don't see editorial work in this vein these days. It's so expressive and the american football pieces (For 'Esquire Magazine' 59/60) are oil paintings, which seem to me to work almost as fine art pieces in that I think they are extremely expressive, powerful images in their own right, with or without the article. I love how visceral and textured they are and the limited colour palette gives them a sense of immediacy, as if they were created as impulsively and with as much blunt force as the game is played with.  

Study Task 1 - About the Author - Cormac Mccarthy - Zine

Front cover

I decided to heavily emphasise texture in my zine (building it up with layers of paint, ink and pencil and scratching back into the page) in order to communicate the visceral way in which McCarthy writes, the physicality of the landscapes he describes and the violence which occurs in them.

McCarthy writes a lot about death and a lot about horses so dead horses became a recurring theme in my zine, as a simple way of evoking the nature of many of his stories. I tried to apply red paint to the images as a way to signify how violence is so deeply embedded into the world he depicts without just depicting violent acts.

I like how pairing quotes with images in a somewhat incongruous way can elicit certain atmospheres/ moods in an often more effective way than establishing more obvious connections.

I think this is my favourite page, it seems to me to be the most brutal image.  

Cormac mcCarthy - Locations

What is appears to be one of the most significant aspects of McCarthy's writing is his concern with America/American locations, in particular the South West. That's certainly the case with the book I'm currently reading - 'Blood meridian' - which is set on the Mexican/ American border in the 1800s and tells of an incredibly ruthless and violent wild west. His 'Border Trilogy' is set in the American south west also, although I haven't read any of those so I don't know much about them. 'No Country for Old Men' is also set around the Mexican border, although in 1980. 'The Road is much more ambiguous (everything is destroyed and ashen in a fairly homogeneous way) but can also be interpreted as being in the American south, due to the mention of plantation style houses and a mention of 'Rock City', a natural rock formation on top of Lookout Mountain, outside chatanooga.   

Blood Meridian - 'Presidio'

Due to the era and location in which 'Blood meridian' is set (mid 1800s around the border between mexico and America) many of the settlements the protagonists travel through are built around presidios, which are fortified military settlements, used at that time in those areas to keep out hostile native Americans and pirates.

I had a go at drawing one, although I didn't use any reference images. It doesn't really look like a presidio but I think I was able to get across the idea, and I am currently trying to respond to 'Blood Meridian' using a sort of aggressive, impressionistic and primitive aesthetic and I think this image works reasonably well in this sense. The big smudge of red is, again, more of a metaphoric reference to the semantics of violence which surround the narrative than anything literal.  I am really enjoying using oil pastel at the moment, it gives a great sort of rough, dirty effect which is sitting well with the look I want my representations of the book to have.

I think I will have a go at drawing Presidios more, but using some reference images to see if I can create some more recognisable depictions of them.

Blood Meridian - Excerpt

"The severed heads had been raised on poles above the lampstandards where they now contemplated with their caved and pagan eyes the dry hides of their kinsmen and forebears strung across the stones facade of the cathedral and clacking lightly in the wind. Later when the lamps were lit the heads in the soft glare of the up-light assumed the look of tragic masks and within a few days they would become mottled white and altogether leprous with the droppings of the birds that roosted upon them."

This is a fairly detailed description of a scene, and i have obviously omitted a lot of information in my depiction of it, but I think it still works pretty well. I have been chiefly concerned with trying to capture the atmosphere and mood of McCarthy's writing rather than trying to create detailed representations of everything being described. I think what I have created here is effective in communicating the sadness and darkness of the book, and this excerpt specifically, in the crude, almost primitive delineation of the subjects and the way oil pastel smudges together into eerie polluted colours. 

In fact, I think the oil pastels work so well in responding to the writing (or at least my impression of it) in 'Blood Meridian' that I think I will continue experimenting with them, but perhaps in a more abstract or symbolic way. Given the fact that the book seems essentially concerned with man's capability for violence, and subsequent ability to become almost completely detached from it (as in the case of the protagonists), I think creating images with a more aggressive, primitive visual aesthetic might work well in communicating this. 

Blood Meridian - Excerpt

"Some man's heart, dried and blackened. He passed it back and the old man cradled it in his palm as if he'd weigh it."

I made a quick sketch of this excerpt because I thought it could potentially make for quite a powerful image. I've only really scratched the surface here and have made quite a literal interpretation. I'm not massively happy with it but think I could think of it more as a rough and maybe make a painting of it or something a bit more developed. As well as some other representations of the scene (close ups, more abstract depictions etc.)

Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West

I've read 'No Country For Old Men' and 'The Road' before and remember really enjoying both so I thought I'd pick Cormac McCarthy as a third author to investigate a bit, but would read one of his books I hadn't read before. I landed on 'Blood Meridian' and am glad I did. It's one of the strangest books I think I've ever read and the writing is incredible. 

McCarthy seems to have this penchant for marrying together extreme violence with sort of pseudo - philosophical musings, at least in the books I've read anyway, and 'Blood Meridian' seems to provide this incongruous partnership in its most extreme form. Most notably within the character of Judge Holden, a very odd character who seems to me to be predominantly symbolic due to his bazaar physical appearance, superior intelligence and incredible skill in every field. As well as his huge capacity for evil. I've had a go at drawing him a few times. He is described as being around 7ft tall, quite fat/round and being completely hairless with very pale, almost white skin. He is also described as having oddly childish features (e.g. small nose, ears, hands etc.) 

         























This is just a quick drawing I made of him with sharpie marker but I think it's pretty good and despite having done more developed depictions of him since this one I think this has the best facial expression and appears the most as i picture him in my head. 

I was also pretty happy with this acrylic paint and oil pastel rendition, it's much more atmospheric and gets across the general mood of the book more than the sharpie version, although I didn't get as much expression into the face as might be necessary to fully describe his character. He is often described as being naked or topless so this picture depicting his whole figure (sat with his hands on his knees as he is described as doing a lot of the time) is also a bit more all encompassing.

     























This depiction might be favourite. It translates his violent, sinister character and the general atmosphere of the book well and also allowed for some more expression in the face. I tried to use a lot of red and dirty colours to communicate the semantics of violence which surround him, but this might have obscured the fact that he has incredibly pale, white skin a bit. This is my only real problem with it.  


After reading 'Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West' I have decided I'm going to study Cormac mcCarthy for this brief. Reading his work inspires me in a much more instinctual way than the other authors I researched. I got bored of trying to create work in relation to Poe and Kafka pretty soon but still feel motivated to create all kinds of different things related to McCarthy and haven't had any trouble with ideas. The way he writes gives me visual ideas without me even having to try really and despite having only read one book recently, I've been able to get a lot out of it and feel like there's still a load more left in the tank.

Cormac McCarthy - Bit Of Research

Quotes

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” (No Country For Old Men)

“Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.” (Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West)

“There is no God and we are his prophets.” (The Road)

"They rode in a narrow enfilade along a trail strewn with the dry round turds of goats and they rode with their faces averted from the rock wall and the bake-oven air which it rebated, the slant black shapes of the mounted men stenciled across the stone with a definition austere and implacable like shapes capable of violating their covenant with the flesh that authored them and continuing autonomous across the naked rock without reference to sun or man or god." (Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West)

"They crossed before the sun and vanished one by one and reappeared again and they were black in the sun and they rode out of that vanished sea like burnt phantoms with the legs of the animals kicking up the spume that was not real and they were lost in the sun and lost in the lake and they shimmered and slurred together and separated again and they augmented by planes in lurid avatars and began to coalesce and there began to appear above them in the dawn-broached sky a hellish likeness of their ranks riding huge and inverted and the horses' legs incredibly elongate trampling down the high thin cirrus and the howling antiwarriors pendant from their mounts immense and chimeric and the high wild cries carrying that flat and barren pan like the cries of souls broke through some misweave in the weft of things into the world below." (Blood Meridian, Or The Evening Redness In The West) 

“You think when you wake up in the mornin yesterday don't count. But yesterday is all that does count. What else is there? Your life is made out of the days it’s made out of. Nothin else.”  (No Country For Old Men)


Motifs

Violence

Religion/faith

Death

Morality/Immorality

Existentialism 


Info

In one of his few interviews (with The New York Times), McCarthy revealed that he respects only authors who "deal with issues of life and death," citing Henry James and Marcel Proust as examples of writers who do not rate with him. "I don't understand them ... To me, that's not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange", he said.

Cormac used the same typewriter for almost 5o years. He used his Olivetti Lettera 32 to write nearly all of his fiction, screenplays, and correspondence from 1960 to 2009. In 2009 the typewriter was auctioned by Christies to benefit the Santa Fe Institute and sold to an unidentified American collector for $254,500, more than 10 times its estimate.
Maintenance of the typewriter consisted of "blowing out the dust with a service station hose".

His first ever televised interview after a career spanning nearly four decades, occurred in 2007 with a chinwag with Oprah. His first words were about his general shunning of the media spotlight: “I don’t think it’s good for your head – if you spend a lot of time writing about a book, you probably shouldn’t be talking about it, you should be doing it.”
'
'The Road' was born from a specific moment. In roughly 2002, Cormac and his young son, John, went to El Paso and checked into an old hotel. One night at about 2am, as John slept, Cormac went over to the window and looked out over the town. Nothing moved, but he could hear trains and described it as "a very lonesome sound". He had an image of what the town might look like in 100 years. "I thought a lot about my little boy and I wrote [some] pages... About four years later I woke up in Ireland and realised it wasn't two pages of a notebook, it was a book. And it was about that man and that little boy." The book is dedicated to his son John.

McCarthy told Oprah that he prefers "simple declarative sentences" and that he uses capital letters, periods, an occasional comma, a colon for setting off a list, but "never a semicolon." He does not use quotation marks for dialogue and believes there is no reason to "blot the page up with weird little marks."

Edgar Allen Poe - Reading Research

I got quite into Edgar Allen Poe's work and have read a fair few of the short stories (although not any of the poems), my favourites being 'The Pit and The Pendulum' , 'The Man Who Was Used Up', 'The Fall Of The House Of Usher', 'The Tell Tale Heart' and 'Ligeia'. I am interested in things which are strange or uncanny and Edgar Allen Poe's work seems to be chiefly concerned with exactly that, he describes the feeling of being horrified or disturbed by something in such an intense way, which, whilst occasionally bordering on hammy, I usually find very convincing. 

   




































This is a painting I made depicting part of the opening of 'The Pit and The Pendulum' which I am very happy with. The excerpt I used was as follows:

“I saw the lips of the black robed judges. They appeared to me white – whiter than the sheet upon which I trace these words – and thin even to grotesqueness; thin with the intensity of their expression of firmness – of immovable resolution -of stern contempt of human torture. I saw that the decrees of what to me was fate, were still issuing from those lips. I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them fashion the syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no sound succeeded."

I had only just started trying to paint recently when I made this and it turned out better than I expected, i think I captured the mood well by boiling the image down to the most essential representation of what was being described.  

   











































This an oil pastel piece I made in response to 'The Man Who Was Used Up', in which the narrator describes meeting an enigmatic war hero named John A.B.C, but hasn't heard how it was he became a war hero and becomes obsessed with finding out how it happened only for whomever he asks to be interrupted at the crucial point in the story every time he gets close. He finally meets the man himself again with intention of finally finding out and discovers that during a battle he lost most of his body parts and has to be pretty much completely assembled from prosthetic parts. I attempted to render this in oil pastel and i quite like it but not nearly as much as with the piece, for which I had a clearer vision. For this piece i think I relied too much on the media i was using and expected that to do more me than it actually ended up doing.

For some reason I stopped making work in response to Poe and just sort of trailed off, losing interest. I've taken this as a sign, even though I thought for a while that I might end choosing him, that I wouldn't want to be making work in response to his writing for a long time.