Phil Mulloy

Was given a DVD of Phil Mulloy's work by my tutor and it's really opened my eyes to what frame by frame work can do and what can be done with it. At first I was a bit skeptical how I can make my practice and way of working fit into this module as I felt like a little fish in a big pond with no Idea where to go.

Mulloy's work is challenging; conceptual; political and hilarious and I can see some similar strands with my own practice to a degree so after now watching nearly all of his stop motion work I'm very ready and inspired to get on with this project.

My favorite I think are: Sex Life of a Chair and the Cowboy series.

    

Sucky stop motions.

After our lesson I found an app for android that lets you put little stop motion pieces together on your phone, so I decided to have a little play around.

I'll be the first to say, these aren't good; these aren't good quality; they're basically nothing (An they're the wrong way round....) It was more an exercise off my own back to try and get the grips with how stop frame actually looks when it all comes together.

• Understand the need to keep things stuck down
• The difference of between 12-25 FPS
• That I can use collage and Ink to animate with
• Find a way to use my creative practice with said techniques
• Being on my phone its easy accessible and gives an element of play over work

• Need to find a better app
• Spend a bit longer on them
• story board / plan more

First animation practice.

Today we started to try and get our heads round animation, stop frame.

We were put into groups, given 12 sheets on newsprint; ask to number them

and then to create 'animation' with simple motifs such as a ball or a leaf or even 

just a line.

The exercise was there to give us an understanding how stop frame worked

and the bare bones of what is required to do it.



Pros

• Eased into the process
• Collaborative group ideas
• Simple motifs made for simple animation

Cons

• I could of tried to use the time to relate the exercise to my author more
• Used some simple animation software (App) to put it all together at the end
• Have more input to group
• Done something more interesting than a line that moves

All in all it was a good start but I should of done something more challenging and used our group time better to work together not just create separate objects then put them all in a space.

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OUIL504 SB2 - MOVING PICTURES.

First Impressions. 

• Could be a fun module / Find a new way of working
• Exciting learning new skills and developing as an artist
• It's a lot a lot of work
• My housemate does stop-motion, I'm fully aware of its difficulties 
• Not looking forward to doing it as a sting for my author
• Develop my sequential thinking

Intangible theme.

After experimenting with tangible themes we then had to try and create 16 pieces of an intangible theme.

• At first I was a little stuck, I thought to much about it.
• Once I just started experimenting it became a lot easier.
• I made it fun for myself and tried not to over-complicate it or think about it too much.

I started thinking of how I could make it tie in with a darkness theme. An after a crit some wrote 'If I stare at your abstract Ink pieces long enough, I start to see things that originally wouldn't of been there' and in a sense it got me thinking that's very much what a lot of people and children do in the dark. See things or are scared of that that aren't actually there. Worked out didn't it?!

Then afterwards I started relating back to moon again, using negative space and also looking at some of my more successful collage pieces for inspiration.

• Good Idea generation
• Produced a lot of work quickly
• Lots of experimenting
• Could try more colour
• Explore more motifs
• Push it further and analyse atmosphere more.

Paper-cut; Collage work.

Had to create 16 different collage/papercut images based on our motifs, Then receive a crit on them.
These 3 images were my favorite initially and were also chosen by my peers as the best. (I class the moon stages as one image because they work a lot better than separate)

• I thought collage would be a waste of my time and not help
• I actually really enjoyed doing the moon ones
• When I got into the swing I did started to enjoy it
• It was very time consuming
• None of the images really seem refined or finished
• Have to cut out and stick more tactfully. 

Theme and Motifs.

We were asked to chose a theme and 3 motifs with that theme.

Theme: Darkness

Tangible Motifs: Moon; Light; Trees.

Presentation.

Had to make a presentation based around the authors we chose to look at; present them to some peers and explain why we chose the author we had. Then take questions/queries and advice at the end.

For me, it seems an exercise in futility. I mean, I was nice to see how interested some people were in their authors and It got me interested in another author or two for personal reason but when reading my presentation out it just seemed a little pointless. Everyone got my point and why I chose the author I did. All worked out.

First response.

My first response was just to read through quotes of Murakami's and just write them down and just draw my first response.

     

• Very honest first response.
• Easy going.
• Lots of play / Enjoying this kind of response.
• Idea generating.
• Very loose.
• Hard to decipher.
• Not very related to the author. 

Haruki Murakami.

Chosen author:

Haruki Murakami

Father was a Buddhist priest.

Both parents taught Japanese literature.

Marathon/ Triathlon enthusiast.
Steven Poole: “Among one of the worlds greatest living writers”

"Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it."

"Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart."

• Connect with his work
• Strong sense of the human condition.
• Strong tangents with previous work of mine.
• Most potential for me to work with.

Authors.

Guy Browning.

Born 1964

Botley Oxfordshire – Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford

Ex Comedy Duo – Dross Bros (Broke up)

Own Business Smokehouse in 1977 “opened specifically to help organisations think differently about whatever was on their mind.”

BBC Radio 4 (Small Talk 2003)
Directed first film ‘Tortoise In Love’ (2012)

“Flirting is vertical foreplay”

“Libraries are brothels for the mind. Which means that librarians are the madams, greeting the punters, understanding their strange tastes and needs and then pimping their books.”

“What makes a date so dreadful is the weight of expectation attached to it. There is every chance that you may meet your soul-mate, get married, have children and be buried side by side. There is an equal chance that the person you meet will look as if they've already been buried for some time.”

Douglas Adams.

Born 11th March 1952 – 11th May 2002

Hitchhikers; ‘Trilogy; Series; Comics; Feature film.

Doctor Who

Radio Academy Hall of Fame

Environmentalist; Conservationist; Fast Cars; Camera; Apple Fan; Staunch Atheist.

“You live and learn, at any rate you live”

“Life is wasted on living”

I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” 

“The story so far:
In the beginning the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”

“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer”

Haruki Murakami

Contempory Japanese Writer

Translated into over 50 languages/ Sold millions of copies

Ficton/Non-Ficton writer / Critical Acclaim / Numerous Awards

Heavily influenced by Western writers

Critized in Japan for being ‘Un-Japanese’

Opened a record store and Jazz Club before being a writer

“That's what the world is , after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.”

“I can bear any pain as long as it has meaning.”

“Loneliness becomes an acid that eats away at you.”

“I'm a coward when it comes to matters of the heart. That is my fatal flaw.”