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Dr.Claw prefers drinking my water….
Dr.Claw attacks her own tail…
We had another good After Effects workshop with Phran – See below the animation i made (with me starring). Everybody did the same kind of thing this time but we learnt some new techniques (e.g. blue screen) and got a little bit more familiar and comfortable with the program.
I started my storyboard for the animation im making while ‘invidulating’ (sitting in the gallery so nothing gets stolen…) at the ‘Amirka’ show yesterday and below are some of my sketches in my first draft of the storyboard.
I also had a useful tutorial with Shaun and he mentioned the Spanish artist Joan Fontcuberta and the German idea of the ‘wonder room’.
Below are some images by Joan Fontcuberta and Pere Formiguera from their show Fauna Secreta:
Fauna Secreta is an exhibition documenting the (fictional) research of a German biologist, Dr. Peter Ameisenhaufen. The exhibition adopts the characteristic appearance of zoology and natural science museums, presenting photographs, radiographs, outdoor sketches, maps, zoological cards, texts, sound, video and more, as evidence of the existence of these (it seems to us) rather monstrous animals. Solenoglypha Polipodida is a snake-like creature with twelve feet that is supposed to be able to paralyse its prey with a high-pitched whistle. And there’s a squirrel with webbed feet and a snake tail – Myodorifera colubercauda. As one reviewer put it: “This modern-day bestiary is every bit as fascinating as the strange illuminations of the medieval age, and all the more disconcerting as the camera seems to bear undeniable witness to the beasties’ meanderings.” (Melissa Rombout, Boston).
http://www.presentationhousegall.com/fauna.html
http://www.sequence.qc.ca/artistes/fontcubertaformiguera.html (in french but translate the page here http://babelfish.altavista.com/)
I haven’t found any info online about wonderrooms yet but they are a German style of museum showing taxidermic hybrid animals (e.g. monkey bat).
We had an after effects workshop with Phran on Wednesday and I turned one of my fish illustrations into my first <very simple> 10 second animation… click the play button below to view it!
The quality is a lot better on my computer and it doesn’t have sound or ending yet but it was very exciting making it!! I think I will get to know After Effects a lot more over the coming months.
Here is my original image which I animated:
Below are some of my other illustrations from that series (which were for ESF talks about size-based feeding in the marine ecosystem) …they haven’t made it into the animated realm yet though!
Settling into Norwich – everybody is smiling here! Looking after my friends kitten ‘Mogsy’ for 6 weeks… we’ve had to rename her ‘Dr Claw’ though. Unpacking /cleaning/sorting /buying house stuff. Not missing London yet.
Meeting people on the course – veeeeeery nice/friendly/funny/interesting!! (I’m on a one year MA in Digital Arts)
I had a brief but inspiring talk with Shaun about my fairytale animation idea for the First self-negotiated unit (MSN1). He gave me Freud’s ‘The Uncanny’ to read. He also suggested I look at Jan Svankmajer and the Quay Brothers.
I also skimmed through ‘The Animation Book’ by Kit Laybourne and a book on After Effects in preparation for next weeks animation workshop which I’m really looking forward to!
According to the After effects book the word animation comes from the Latin word ‘anima’ which means life or soul. The other interesting fact in the intro is that it takes approx 24 images per second to achieve fluid motion in animation!
Below is one of my favorite animations which is quite similar to the style i want to produce:
Atama Yama (Mt. Head) – Koji Yamamura
Atama Yama (Mt. Head) is a film adapted from a traditional Japanese Rakugo story in which a plump man with a waste-not-want-not mentality eats a cherry pip, unleashing curious side effects…
