Typography: Inherit the Wind

Typography: Inherit the Wind from Youtube

This weeks reflections - w/e 16 Dec 2007

Last week of college before Christmas!

Finally got into the Headstart website and got all the information I need to complete my task, now I just have to do it.

Did our first lot of filming for the 1 minute video brief. I decided to put a very rough draft of it together to see how things fit and having seen it so far I have decided that I need more "rat cam" - a longer run in about the same amount of time to add a bit of action. I also have decided that the pan up the signpost is too slow and doesnt stay on the actual sign long enough, so the plan would be to speed the pan and linger longer on the signs. The other pieces fit together reasonablywell. I still have the blood ripple effect and smoke to video. I have also decided that I want to include a visual beating to match the sound and by visual beating I mean a pulsing effect by lighting a certain area of the map. The reasoning behind this is that I feel the beating heart will having nothing to attach to, no visual queue and all the other actions have a sound. With these things in mind I will be reshooting some scenes, this time keeping sound in mind (ie footsteps etc).

The piece is far from finished and I want to re-iterate that this is just a draft, dummy run and that there are pieces missing and still to be included etc. The purpose of this was to piece together the video that I have shot to see how well they fit together and to get some practice of shooting video (first try ever!) so please keep this in mind.

This weeks reflections - w/e 9 Dec 2007

Where has this week gone? To say I have done alot wouldn't be correct although I have spent alot of time doing it.

I have tried a number of times to get the Headstart work completed only to be foiled at the username and password stage - very very frustrating. I am also struggling to find websites and places around Manchester for the VRF. I have made some progress with the title sequence brief and came up with a couple of alternatives, having taken inspiration from a title sequence from "The Illusionist" and "Rear Window".









Watched "23" last night starring Jim Carey, very interesting opening credit sequences using typography. I have a screen capture below.






On Friday I went to the German Christmas Market (yes my primary reason was to get some of those little pancakes!!) and came across a stall selling artwork made up of typography and images from around Manchester and printed onto canvas. The artists name is Sarah Mitch. I found this website about her click here
And here is some samples of her work.

interesting design websites

http://www.clipstampfold.com/

Book Review - The Somnambulist

ISBN: 9780575079427

Jonathan Barnes

The Somnambulist

Publisher: Gollancz

Paperback 288 pages

Date of publication: 22/02/2007

“Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever. It is a lurid piece of nonsense, convoluted, impausible, peopled by unconvincing chararcters, written in drearily pedestrian prose, frequently rediculous and wilfully bizarre. Needless to say, I doubt you’ll believe a word of it.” What is the reader suppose think if this is the opening paragraphy? Not knowing what to make of it I read on and was taken into a dark, sometimes disturbing London at the turn-of-the-20th-century. Our protagonists, Edward Moon and his companion, the Somnambulist, are introduced to us as a result of a murder, first of two, which occurs only pages into the tale. We are drawn further into the tale after realising there is more to these grissly events than meets the eye. Along the journey our protagonists meet the wicked albino Skimpole, a kind of reverse psychic , Cribb, who claims to be living his life backwards, amiable assassins Hawke and Boone and the activities of a secret government agency known as the Directorate. Our narrator occassionly interupts his story to engage the reader directly, offering opinions and suggestions and as the events unfolded this style of storytelling started to make sense.

website links for CS

Guiness ad: Hands
http://www.guinness.com/gb_en/Hands/

Guiness ad: rugby
http://www.guinness.com/gb_en/rugby/

Art Deco
http://www.vam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/1157_art_deco/postcards/postcard.cgi?action=view&cardID=474ea3a374b826dc51df

Pioneer tv (Surrealism?)
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/v3/pg/top/cat/article/0,,2076_310069651_491052619,00.html

Cadbury/Phil Colins/Monkey (Dada?)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Wy52yueBX_s

David Lynch (Surrealism/Dada?)
http://www.thecityofabsurdity.com/

Paul Kidder (Expressionism)
http://www.kiddergraphics.com/index.html

Chinese wall paper (Expressionism)
http://www.chinawallpaper.net/pro_e.html

http://www.inthehabit.com/
http://www.inthehabit.com/

http://quentin.vijoux.free.fr/
http://quentin.vijoux.free.fr/

http://www.johnclang.com/ (Expressionism)
http://www.johnclang.com/

Fluxus/Dada?
http://fluxuswest.blogspot.com/2006/02/3-historical-objects.html

Fluxus directory
http://www.fluxus.org/12345678910.html#new

http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

This weeks reflections - w/e 2 Dec 2007

This week we have started our new brief, a title sequence, opening sequence or trailer of exact length. I have gone with The Somnambulist and have started to read the book. I chose this topic because of the interesting images possibilities - dark, grungy, violent and set in 1830's London.

Initially I started collecting and viewing title sequences for movies so get some ideas on the use of image, video and typography.

After starting to read the book I thought of images which I found it difficult to get down on paper and so started to create a college of existing images as placeholders and this has helped alot. It has focused my thinking on sounds, sequences and exactly how to get the mood of the book across to the audience.

Below are my initial mood boards. I like the first three for the text overlaying a old map of London, especially the text sizes. I like the second set of three for the simplicity of the shot. When I look at the images I can almost hear the footsteps on cold wet cobblestones.



I have now started to look at the fashion of the time and scouted a couple of locations for potential video work. I have also been thinking about the sounds that I can use, Im sure the RSPCA will forgive me for harrassing our cat so that I can get some hissing sounds :)

I am really enjoying this project so far and taking heed of the lessons learnt from my previous brief I am really pushing for a strong concept.