Talk with Louis Philipe Demers

I had unknowingly seen some of Louis' work a year previous to this talk so I was very eager to come along and hear about it from the man himself. Not only that but I had just finished my contextual studies essay on 'How android identities are represented in film and television' so I thought this talk would be quite interesting.

Notes:

Louis' work at the Science Museum 2017

Personal Tutorial

_Places for NOVA_ by Saad Qureshi

Whilst on our way back from The Squash exhibition we passed these large orange landscapes on display. The following was the description we found for the artwork:

Saad worked with members of the general public, collecting memories of places significant to them. He then re-imagined and re-staged these to create a series of collective "mindscapes" that are somewhere between the imagined and the real. The resulting work invites its viewers to immerse themselves in fragmented environments and to explore the nature of perception and reality, completing personal tales and insights according to their own vision.

We found these environments very interesting and I really liked the concept behind them. They were very thought provoking.

THE SQUASH - Anthea Hamilton

We visited the Tate Britain to see Anthea Hamilton's THE SQUASH exhibition for contextual studies. I actually really liked this exhibition as it was incredibly strange. The performer is allowed to move freely around the room in whatever way they feel like on the day, they also pick their outfit from a choice of seven.

It was interesting to see how this strange Squash being was given so much character and personality. I was also surprised to find out there was more than one costume and performer meaning that the performance is always changing. The Squash interacts with the audience so everyone will come away from the exhibition with a different experience/interpretation which I liked about it.

Animation Project: Design drawings

These are some of my sketches that I used to plan out how I would make the real thing.

~ Floor tiles ~

~ Ceiling ~

~ Statues ~

~ Bugs house ~

Isle of Dogs exhibition & film

I managed to book an early showing for Isle of Dogs which I was extremely excited about. I'd have to say I've been waiting for this film to come out for a good few years now and it didn't disappoint! I'm a major stop motion and Wes Anderson fan so I thought this would be a great opportunity to analyse a professional stop motion feature film.
Theres's so many little tricks for special effects that use materials you'd never expect. They used tissue paper for fire and for water they used clingfilm on occasion.
When I found out about the exhibition on at The Strand in London I knew I had to go! Looking at the puppets and sets in real life really gives you a better idea of how its all made. Some of the sets were much larger than I had anticipated! I was also surprised to see similarities between how things have been made for the trash island sets and how I've made the set for our own animation at uni.

Animation Workshop

Today we had an introduction to animating with Andy Symanowski. We used software called Animate It! which was really easy to use. In worked together in groups to animate which was helpful because we were able to discuss and figure out how something would move and react with its environment when things got complicated.

Our first test was animating a ping-pong ball falling to the ground. This is what we used as reference the only difference was our balls wouldn't squash when they hit the ground. We then animated a canonball dropping which made us question how different this would be. The difference is there'd be only a slight bounce back as the ball loses its energy faster.

Next we animated a falling leaf which was a lot harder because leaves are so unpredictable due to their weight and how they catch the air. We looked up a video of a leaf falling for reference after our first attempt to give us a clearer idea of how to do it.

We then moved on to animating legs jumping and figuring out how two characters could interact with a ball.

I'm quite surprised and proud of how I did animating and the best part is playing it back and seeing a smooth believable movement. I really enjoyed animating which I glad of because I'd love to work in that industry in the future.