Wednesday 22 March 2017

Animatic so far @Phil

Fantastic Voyage - Animatic so far from Jennifer Ball on Vimeo.

Hi Phil, here is my animatic so far but i'm a bit stuck as to how I can represent mitosis? I am trying to use your idea of some form of kinetic movement, but I cant seem to make it work for me.


Monday 20 March 2017

Life Drawing - Lesson 19

Black Ink - 20 mins

Pencil - 5 minute poses

Black Charcoal - 10 minute poses

Monday 13 March 2017

Animating Poses (without in between frames)

Max Poses from Jennifer Ball on Vimeo.

Life Drawing - Lesson 18

5 minute poses - chalk and sharpie pens

20 minute poses - chalk and sharpie pens

Black Ink
With this image I went straight onto the page with a paint brush. I feel I have less control with a paint brush but i'm glad I gave it a go! It helped me let go of any perfect and rigid lines, making my work seem more fluid. 

Saturday 11 March 2017

Influence Map - Fantastic Voyage

I am considering explaining the cell cycle from the perspective of a single cell's journey in the body.


Project 1: Soundscape Final Submission

Soundscape 1 from Jennifer Ball on Vimeo.
Soundscape 2 from Jennifer Ball on Vimeo. Soundscape 3 from Jennifer Ball on Vimeo.

Soundscape 1 - Original Sounds and Effects from Jennifer Ball on Vimeo. Soundscape 2 - Original Sounds and Effects from Jennifer Ball on Vimeo. Soundscape 3 - Original Sounds and Effects from Jennifer Ball on Vimeo.

Reflective Statement
This project presented new challenges to me in terms of technology. However I have been amazed at the fun and experimentation that this project has allowed. Many of the sounds I have used are normal everyday household sounds that you would normally ignore but combining them has enabled new sounds to be created. Having said that when I initially looked at the images I could not imagine how I could create associate sounds.

I focused on my immediate reaction when I looked at the picture and what the image made me think about.  The first one was 'water', the second one was 'scissors' and the third one was 'moss'.  After this I then considered the type of sound that the words conjured up in my mind and I created the word clouds.  Following this I searched for the sounds to match the words identified.

With hindsight, I don't know if this was the best method but it was one that helped me organise my thoughts and the direction I was going.

The simple sounds merged to make a calm, peaceful and gentle accompaniment to the image of water.  They produced a sharp, annoying, cutting sound for the scissor image and the moss was joined with a mysterious, slow and flat soundscape.

I loved this project and have understood the opportunities to change the perception of an image for the viewer by using and mixing sounds in adobe audition.

Reflective Statement - Project 1: Soundscape

Reflective Statement
This project presented new challenges to me in terms of technology. However I have been amazed at the fun and experimentation that this project has allowed. Many of the sounds I have used are normal everyday household sounds that you would normally ignore but combining them has enabled new sounds to be created. Having said that when I initially looked at the images I could not imagine how I could create associate sounds.

I focused on my immediate reaction when I looked at the picture and what the image made me think about.  The first one was 'water', the second one was 'scissors' and the third one was 'moss'.  After this I then considered the type of sound that the words conjured up in my mind and I created the word clouds.  Following this I searched for the sounds to match the words identified.

With hindsight, I don't know if this was the best method but it was one that helped me organise my thoughts and the direction I was going.

The simple sounds merged to make a calm, peaceful and gentle accompaniment to the image of water.  They produced a sharp, annoying, cutting sound for the scissor image and the moss was joined with a mysterious, slow and flat soundscape.

I loved this project and have understood the opportunities to change the perception of an image for the viewer by using and mixing sounds in adobe audition.

Soundscape 3 - Original Sounds and Effects

Soundscape 3 - Original Sounds and Effects from Jennifer Ball on Vimeo.

Soundscape 2 - Original Sounds and Effects

Soundscape 2 - Original Sounds and Effects from Jennifer Ball on Vimeo.

Tuesday 7 March 2017

Soundscape 1

Soundscape 1 from Jennifer Ball on Vimeo.

Life Drawing - Lesson 17

5/6 minute poses - Sharpie Pens And Pencil
20/30 Minutes - Sharpie Pens and Collage  
20/30 Minutes - Sharpie Pens 
10 minutes - Hand and Feet Study (using just pencil)

La Jetee (1962) - Film Review

La Jetee (1962)


Fig 1. La Jetee (poster art)

La Jetee is a 28 minute science fiction film that is completed using still frames.  It tells the story of an unnamed man who is used in an experiment of time travel.  During these travels into the past, he falls in love with a woman he has seen somewhere before.

This film is an example of the art of illusion.  Michael Hanke calls the 24 frames each cinema second, 24 lies because it gives a false impression of movement.  The illusion of movement is actually created by slowing down the pace of the still image. Time lapse and movement are used to trick the audience and create illusion. "The human brain forgets the cuts,” Michel Gondry said about film. And just like Michael Haneke calls the 24 frames in each cinema second “24 lies,” Chris Marker emphasizes the false perception of film movement  by simply slowing down the pace of the still images."  (Ignoramous L, date unknown) 

At the very beginning of the film, the still shot of an airport is used.  The quick 'camera zoom out' however gives the illusion that the scene is moving.  The realistic sounds of the airport that are added to the visual image further enhance the realism of the image.

Fig 2. La Jetee (film still)

A further sequence of destroyed buildings also appear to contain movement.  Yet, it is the camera moving and not what is actually happening in the image.

La Jetee uses fade ins and fade outs, dissolves, cut ins in order to convey time lapse.

There is little speaking in the film and in fact the only voices that are heard are German-speaking.  The main characters do not speak and this adds to the illusion that they are not in the present.

There is a live action sequence in the film which consists of a woman blinking.  Previous to this moment there are a series of dissolves which give the impression that the woman is alive and moving - yet she is lifeless.

The scene which is set in the museum of stuffed animals is used to portray stillness.  At one point the characters are leaning over examining the animals and stood in a posture similar to the 4 legged stuffed animals themselves. "Like these animals, the human characters in La Jetée remain completely stationary in each still photograph; Marker only implies their motion by showing subsequent frames juxtaposed in montage. Through image association (and, to some extent, through narration), the audience is expected to understand that each image follows the other in chronological order." (Hough S,   

Fig 3. La Jetee (film still)

Roland Bathes in his book, 'Camera Lucinda', examines photography and concludes that "a photograph carries with itself a label 'time-has-been', signifying that whatever the photograph depicts happened in the past.  While live-action films can provide the necessary qualities to suspend the audiences belief and make the action appear to be taking place in the present, photographs are inevitably bound in the past.  Their diegesis is not here and now." (Roland Barthes) 

La Jetee uses this idea to convey a story of time travel and ultimately the story of a man who witnesses his own death without realizing it.

Illustration List:
Figure 1. La Jetee (poster art) https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYTBmYjIxYjQtNzNhMS00MmRlLWJjNTMtZmI5YmJiMTIxMGFjXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTQxNzMzNDI@._V1_UX182_CR0,0,182,268_AL_.jpg (accessed on 07/03/17)


Figure 2. La Jetee (film still) https://chrismarker.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/high-quality-jetee.jpg (accessed on 07/03/17)

Figure 3.  La Jetee (film still) http://40.media.tumblr.com/dd3bb47d031e3155ba6ee9673c16406d/tumblr_nm70ojbVtm1tus777o1_1280.png (accessed on 07/03/17)

Bibliography:
Hough S,   The Freedom of Movement in Chris Markers La Jetee [online] In: Movie Fail At URLhttp://moviefail.com/freedom-of-movement-la-jetee/  (accessed on 07/03/17)

Ignoramous L, date unknown Chris Marker’s La Jetee Analysis: Mortality and the Illusion of Time
[online] In: Films Lie At:URL: http://filmslie.com/chris-marker-la-jetee-analysis-temporality/
(accessed on 07/03/17)

Roland Barthes (1980) Camera Lucida (book)

Duel (1971) - Film Review Can't seem to get rid off this re-occurring line?? Sorry!

Duel - 1971
The thriller film Duel was made in 1971 and directed by Steven Spielberg. This was only the second full feature film that Spielberg had made. Richard Matheson
originally wrote a shorter version of the film "Duel" for
Playboy Magazine. The story follows a man called David
Mann who leaves the city and then drives through the
Californian Desert, however a truck tanker
with an unknown driver decides to chase Mann through out
the film.


Duel (poster art) 
The film is completely suspense driven. Spielberg does this by using low angle shot of the truck itself. Making the audience feel really small compared to the size of the truck.  
"Spielberg slowly builds up the suspense, seemingly from thin air: the first time the truck appears, Spielberg's low angles and uncomfortable closeups of the truck's rusty grille and thick, rotted fenders already suggest something sinister." (Unknown, 23/02/11)



Not only that but when the camera gets close to the front of the truck we can almost picture a monstrous face, looking ready to chase its victim. Giving the ruck human like features.  

Some would say that the film reflected the masculinity of David Mann. For example he drove a car, which is much smaller compared to the huge tanker truck. David's car symbolizes the small amount of masculinity that he had. "A cherry red 1970 Plymouth Valiant which finds itself out its depth against the truck from hell." (Cowen N  and Patience H, 08/03/08)


Fig 2. Duel (film sill)



This dilemma of masculinity is also seen when David and his wife have a conversation on the phone"They'd had an argument the night before because they'd been at a party where a friend or business associate had obviously been all over Mann's wife — "he practically raped me," she says, as the couple's two kids play innocently nearby — and Mann had done nothing to stop the harassment."Also the clue is in his name David "Mann", sounds like the word "Man".  (Unknown, 23/02/11)


Interestingly most of this scene is filmed through a door of washing Machine. Maybe it was showing us the "females perspective" from that time. "As for the nameless mother/hausfrau seen briefly in Duel, Nigel Morris notes how “Mann [in the Laundromat/phone call scene] is literally viewed through a female lens, this film repeatedly associating women, at the height of second-wave feminism, with household labour. His wife, her side of the conversation intercut, dusts the living room in a polka-dot frock and apron that parody 1950s commercials, with two children playing on the floor." (Schober A, December 2015) 


Fig 3. Duel (film still)


If not immediately we notice very quickly that the desert is not a safe place for David Mann compared to the city. However both places still challenged his masculinity, first of all from his wife and then the mysterious truck driver.

By the end of the film David Mann manages to redeem his masculinity when he manages to blow up the truck and watch it plunge off the cliff.

Illustration list:
Figure. 1 Duel (poster art) http://www.gstatic.com/tv/thumb/movieposters/543/p543_p_v8_aa.jpg
(accessed on 06/03/16)

Figure 2. Duel (film stillhttps://mossfilm.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/duel-train-crossing.jpg
(accessed on 06/03/16)

Figure 2. Duel (film stillhttp://sensesofcinema.com/2015/book-reviews/steven-spielbergs-duel/
(accessed on 06/03/16)

Bibliography:
Cowen N  and Patience H, 08/03/08 Wheels on Film: Duel [online] In: The Telegraph At: URL

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/wheelsonfilm/2751051/Wheels-On-Film-Duel.html (accessed on 06/03/16)

(Schober A, December 2015) Steven Spielberg’s Duel (1971) and the Road to Interpretation: Steven Spielberg and Duel: The Making of a Film Career by Steven Awalt [online] In: Senses Of Cinema At: URL: 
http://sensesofcinema.com/2015/book-reviews/steven-spielbergs-duel/ (accessed on 06/03/16)

Unknown, 23/02/11 Duel [online] In: Only The Cinema At: URL: http://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/duel.html (accessed on 06/03/16)

Monday 6 March 2017

Jaws (1975) - Film Review



Fig 1. Jaws (poster art)
The American thriller film Jaws was released in 1975 and directed by Steven Speilberg. The film was based on the book "Jaws" , written by Peter Benchley. On the surface, this film is about a shark attack on a vulnerable person and the drama is set around how the shark might be captured and lives saved.

However when you begin to consider the context, setting and environment of this film on a wider scale you discover theories that suggest it was not such an innocent story of adventure.


The shark's first victim is Crissie Watkins, an innocent woman who following a beach party with fellow students, goes skinny dipping late at night.


Image result for jaws naked swimmer
Fig 2. Jaws (film still)
"As the film opens, she leads a young man away from the fire and goes for a naked swim while he passes out on the beach. The shark attack is filmed as a sexual attack, a substitute for the unconsummated encounter with the young man. (The woman has already made love in Benchley’s novel.) The shark’s-eye camera view watches from below as the woman swims acrobatically above. Then it rises up under her toward her crotch as she scissorkicks vertically in the water. The camera quickly switches to the surface of the water. Here the close up of the woman’s agonized face as the unseen shark tears her body under the water is a frightening imitation of orgasm, the cliché of the equivalence of pleasure and pain used almost from the first portrayal of female orgasm in film." (Rubey D, 2004)

Read more: http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/22547/the-production-nightmares-that-made-jaws-a-classic#ixzz4aUCqUWlY


Spielberg wanted the shark to be the main character of the film.  Art director and Joe Alves and special effects designer Bob Mattey spent about 6 months building three mechanical sharks each needed to fulfill a different function.  One was to be towed along for full frontal shots while the other two would be mounted on platforms and filmed from the left or right. 



Fig. 3 Jaws (film still)

"The Jaws shoot was originally scheduled for 55 days, but the production swiftly turned into a logistical nightmare when the mechanical shark (three full-size, pneumatically animated models were constructed) consistently failed to play ball. Nicknamed Bruce after Spielberg’s lawyer, Bruce Ramer, the shark had been built by Bob Mattey, who had created the giant squid for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The models worked fine in the warehouse, but the minute they were dumped into seawater, they started to malfunction. Day after day went by without any usable footage being shot, storms and seasickness the film-makers’ only reward." (Kermode M, 31/05/15)


The photography needed for the environment scenes was meant to be completed within 55 days but it took 159 days due to its complexity.  At times Spielberg believed his directing days might be over.  The interpretation of the film since though has defined it.



"But the underlying story of Jaws is more complex than the simple terror of being eaten by a very big fish. As a novel, it reads like a morality tale about the dangers of extramarital sex and the inability of a weak father to control his family and his community. As a film, it has been variously interpreted as everything from a depiction of masculinity in crisis to a post-Watergate paranoid parable about corrupt authority figures."

Spielberg himself had considered the film to be an aquatic version of Duel.


 “It was once again about a very large predator, you know, chasing innocent people and consuming them – irrationally. It was an eating machine. At the same time, I think it was also my own fear of the water. I’ve always been afraid of the water, I was never a very good swimmer. And that probably motivated me more than anything else to want to tell that story.”


Image result for jaws naked swimmer
Fig 4. Jaws (photograph)


The camera is used to create anticipation and nervousness throughout the film.  When the shark is spotted from the crowded beach, the viewer is tense because they see the danger.  The view of the empty lifeguard chair enhances this sense of fear and dread.  The person in the sea is placed in a wide shot which emphasises their vulnerability.  The music is also used to create a sense of foreboding and the viewer is very quickly drawn in to the plot.


"As a piece of filmmaking, Jaws is second to none. From the control of its colour palette to the clever textured use of sound design to the unerring sense of pace, Spielberg's juggling of the filmmaking elements is a tour de force of cinematic proficiency that never calls attention to itself is always in the service of story". (Freer I, 05/05/12)



Illustration List:

Figure 1. Jaws (poster art) http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/jaws/images/d/da/Jaws-movie-poster.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20131015071208 (accessed on 05/03/17)

Figure 2. Jaws (film still) https://tse3.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.XQvcxcOmHfk6wuxNZwcI9gEsCY&pid=15.1(accessed on 05/03/17)

Figure 3. Jaws (film still) https://tse4.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.bkdEXO7sMO78FslpMz8GTQEsDI&w=239&h=160&c=7&qlt=90&o=4&dpr=1.5&pid=1.7 (accessed on 05/03/17)

Figure 4. Jaws (photograph) https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEjDUougpxjHAUk4LFo4FiuPleAmgWZB8P6l4Mik04YoZlhmaa5yy6KH1kt6KnglV9hai9N3Vj1oKWrqRTVoTpZV2Oza_x4GhitYtenTRVEgKml8oFczpNmbf3E21AwWIg4c__8NnbOy_xXhGV45z6oSKb6i1QeCg9tK3pNIoF1JBy_jv5Zc-YoJvlP0ooV9tnCs4MHkkoo0IPfT= (accessed on 05/03/17)

Bibliography: 

Freer I, 05/05/12 Jaws film making 101 [online] In:Empire At:URL: 
http://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/jaws-filmmaking-101/ (accessed on 05/03/17)

Kermode M, 31/05/15 Jaws, 40 years In: ‘One of the truly great and lasting classics of American cinema’ [online] At: URL: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/31/jaws-40-years-on-truly-great-lasting-classics-of-america-cinema (accessed on 05/03/17)

Rubey D, 2004 The Jaws in the mirror In: Jump Cut [online] At: URL:  

https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC10-11folder/JawsRubey.html (accessed on 05/03/17)