this is interesting... < watch > best one of these, or one of the best.

Ears hands and feet and faces

So many student portfolio life drawings neglect hands, feet and faces and ears. (just thought I would mention that). A quick 'gesture' drawing is no excuse for avoiding these dramatic points.

dare I suggest it is idle?

ARC animation resource Centre

ARC I found this to be quite a good site.
"181 links to the best free animation resources
for students on the net, sourced from over
81 different web sites and growing."
almost makes one redundant...

Matt's tropical Breakaway

GREETINGS! sorry I can't be there.

Garage, a good thing, as is facets.

you say Garage, I say Garage!
this is good. Garage under the Mubi.com umberella, in their words; Your online cinema. Anytime, anywhere...
fresh stuff, really quite good. I must balance that with a very short David Lynch quip
for example - they do lists, invited from nitters, this one is comics made into movies, there is quite a bit of trawling to be done here. It is a good springboard into deeper research, and searching out those titles that are elusive.
Whilst we are on this tip. it reminded me of facets, a group in chicago, who were originally a video distributor who had lovely catalogues of titles. they have moved on to be really good gossip and story led organisation. well worth a look, in my opinion. their manifesto "Facets Multi-Media's mission is to preserve, to present and to distribute independent, world and classic film, and to educate adults and children
in the art and legacy of film." Can not argue with that... FACETS

good film about water

Water ink _ BDDP Unlimited and Solidarités International - UK from BDDP Unlimited on Vimeo.

From BDDP,Today, it is estimated that 3.6 million people, including 1.5 million children under the age of 5, die every year of diseases borne by unhealthy water, making it the world’s leading cause of death.

Yet the public isn’t aware of it and political leaders do not demonstrate the drive it takes to end the terrible deaths. The campaign calls on journalists to spread awareness of this scourge and appeal to readers to sign a petition that will be personally handed to the French president during the 6th World Water Forum in March 2012.
The spot, created by BDDP Unlimited, produced by Hush and directed by Clément Beauvais, a young director, illustrator, musician and photographer. His multiple talents and mastery of various techniques enabled him to both create the drawings and direct the spot.

The campaign will be seen from mid-March on TV, in cinemas, on the Internet and in print. A dedicated web site, votregouttedeau.org, will gather signatures for the petition.

Antony Balch - The Cut-Ups

William Burroughs. Yes. where are we now? Film 1966.
william Burroughs, the naked lunch. David Cronenberg Trailer, and a making of video, where the puppeteers talk about the typewriter bug thing. Burroughs talks about the act of writing, and Cronenberg talks about filming someone writing.
Throughout the 1960s, Burroughs dabbled in making / writing films and sound recordings, presciently seeing that the lines between film and the written word were fairly blurry. Many things you can do with film can also be done with words. His cut-ups during this period are an example. As he says in The Job, “Cut-ups have been used in film for a long time. In fact films are assembled in the cutting room. Like the painter film technicians can touch and handle their medium move pieces of it around and try out new juxtapositions.” More Biographical information here on reality studio.org

Adobe Kuler

By the way, has anyone been using Kuler by adobe? - adobe kuler - Discover Adobe® Kuler™ — the web-hosted application for generating color themes that can inspire any project. No matter what you're creating, with Kuler you can experiment quickly with color variations and browse thousands of themes from the Kuler community.
Did you know…
Kuler is available online at no charge

Explore, create, and share color themes.

TRY KULER

A poster show. All students on Developing practice for animation are going to produce an 'academic poster' for their fellow students to regard and understand the research they have been engaged in.
In my experience, animation is considered a non-serious pass time amongst other art forms. animators are regarded with suspicion, caution and befuddlement. We are left to invisibly forage and stumble into film, sound, performance, architectural space, commercial art, and still be considered non serious.

There is a paradox. WE are very serious about our labours, (I hope). I want these posters to be serious about your chosen subject. Well laid out, well designed, have good appeal. professional, with rigour. the picture above is a poster show. note how people stop and take in the information.

How long should one stay to absorb your research? there is quite a lot of info about academic posters. for example - this one - they are often put out by their Universities and are specific, however there are common grounds about design and legibility and editing your research that is shared.
we will make an A1 poster. landscape. I am going to find out if/ where we can print these. I am hoping at Bower ashton, and I am hoping for a price that is good.

I will let you know.

we may have to do a cake sale to raise the funds...

trees and Rocks

Big Fan of Alexander Cozens 1717 - 1786, got out there and drew with wet, and with powder. good use of atmospheric toning.

Visual Thinking

If you are struggling with prose; see some devices for sorting out 'things' HERE
examples;
* Decision tree
* Mind map
* POOCH: Problem, options, outcomes and choices
* PCD (Possibilities-Consequences-Decision)
* Venn diagrams
* Fishbone diagrams
* Spidermaps
* Concept maps
* Story maps
* Tree diagram
* T-chart
* time-sequence patterns
* cause-and-effect patterns
* flow charts
* PMI - Plus, Minus, Interesting

the site that this comes from has links to other sources to illustrate the examples, which I have not checked, but I am grateful to be able to pass this on, and thanks to the originators at McKinnon secondary College.

For those struggling with fiction

The Spanish site, > BLOGS&DOCS < is good port of call for centering your search for contemporary short documentary production, and what is going on in that scene. this page is their > LINKS <. SO it is Spanish, Good.
also Spanish, > Punto y raya < deals with more esoteric and abstract dealings, translated means point and line. they have a submission open until the 11 July... < submissions > "

Punto y Raya Festival explores the ultimate synthesis of the form·movement duality in different spheres of human endeavour. Due to the simplicity of its criteria, it seeks to reveal the limitations and achievements of our representation systems using abstraction's prime matter.

This entry call is addressed to audiovisual pieces built up entirely from dots and lines. No representation whatsoever, just dots and lines as ends in themselves!"

Grid Systems in Graphic Design Josef Muller-Brockmann

Grid Systems in Graphic Design/Raster Systeme Fur Die Visuele Gestaltung. Josef Muller-Brockmann "In 1958 he became a founding editor of New Graphic Design along with R.P. Lohse, C. Vivarelli, and H. Neuburg. In 1966 he was appointed European design consultant to IBM. Müller-Brockman was author of the 1961 publications The Graphic Artist and his Design Problems, Grid Systems in Graphic Design where he advocates use of the grid for page structure, and the 1971 publications History of the Poster and A History of Visual Communication."
some reviews of the book.
Brockmann have introduced the systematic use of grids in design, his work is very concise and it should be read and took seriously by any designer. But reading just Brockmann is not enough today, there are other fundamental authors that contributed for the development of the grid system and the adaptation to the new printing methods, even the display in digital media. A good theory can't stop in time. I do recommend the Authors: Veruschka Götz, Kimberly Elam and Timothy Samara. They all are representative designers that are helping to bring Brockmann System to a reality closer to us.
Josef Müller-Brockmann was a master of grids, and presents his insightful information in a very concise, efficient manner. Second, this book is full of lots of examples, and covers a wide variety of areas relating to grids, such as how to construct a grid, using a grid in corporate identity work, using grids in the third dimension, and the use of grid-like proportions in classic paintings and architecture. He even touches on secondary issues related to grids, such as typefaces, margins, and leading. (however) - the book is very outdated. The examples mostly look like they are from the 1970s. Also, Müller-Brockmann several times talks about photo typesetting, a technology that is long forgotten in graphic design today. Although this is an important book in the development of grid systems in graphic design, there have been many developments in the last thirty years in design - this book is in both English and German, which means that there is only about half as much content as you might expect after quickly glancing through the pages of this book. However, this is a small complaint, since Müller-Brockmann is very good at giving lots of information in very little words.

ALARM

I was alarmed today when I overheard two friends talking, they were not my friends, friends with each other, one said (about skiing) "when was it we first went?"
"Oh, '95 I think."
"'95! that was 16 years ago."
"did you ever have an all in one suit?"
"Nah, 16 years ago. wow."

I was left with the wow. Wow where did they go. What happened there...

Here is a site that has collected some Iconic news pictures for memory jog, terrible name, totallycoolpix.com good site.
frightening really it is like a triple strong dose of coffee and watching CNN. the world is a puffball, a mature one that is about to explode.

RCUK

Some information for developing your heart stories... can anyone spell Resuscitation?

Terroir, earth or soil?

|I found the quote below in response to a definition to the word terroir, French use in describing the soil or earth in which vines are cultivated for the purpose of wine making. this response was I feel better that the writers original proposition, and I thought it was good that he included it on the page.
TERROIR (Fr "soil") - The ecology of a wine. The total, inter-related environment wherein a grapevine is cultivated for the purpose of making wine. Key factors include, but are not limited to, cultivar type, soil, climate, vineyard location, planting density, training system, pruning philosophy & the cultural and social milieu wherein the whole enterprise takes place.

As you can see, since I claim that "terroir" is the ecology of a wine, it follows logically that all wines will have a certain terroir.

However, certain wines reflect their ecology more than others (just like certain people reflect their "neighborhood", etc. more than others), and the terroir of these wines is therefore more clear, influential and definable than the terroir of a wine which does not clearly reflect its ecology.

In the world of wine appreciation, we say that these wines which highly reflect their ecology have a "goût de terroir". Again, to use a human cultural analogy, such wines are not unlike individuals which clearly reflect their geographic background (by virtue of their habits, dress, accent, etc.).

If I were to apply terroir to animation schools, the ground is recultivated, but is there an essence, or flavour of the terroir of a particular school? What are the defining characteristics of Bristol vs Bournemouth vs Kingston vs Brighton vs Maidstone, Wolverhampton, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds?

Not only do you need good Earth, you need good conditions to produce good fruit for a good vintage. dry and wet, sunshine. What are the conditions here that make it possible to produce consistent palatable animation? what is missing?

I asked last week for you to define an obstacle, I enjoyed the results. I am asking now for you to define the Terroir of your particular interests, and dig around to find the bones and past of why this is good earth. it is your roots, it is where you are coming from and what you are joining into that I would like you to explore.

John Truby is a writer

John Truby. Writing for film. Plot. lean, economic structures... one could do worse than checking what John truby has to say about story and plot. I do not often picth a book, but this is a good one.



"The Anatomy of Story is concrete and practical without resorting to simplistic 'Three Act Structure' screenwriting clichés. It will be an indispensable guide to writing your first great script, a perfect survival manual to help you negotiate the often confusing, contradictory and cutthroat world of professional screenwriting."

-Larry Wilson,
co-writer /co-producer of Beetlejuice and co-writer of The Addams Family

this time last year

this time last year we were launching this Developing and Exploring module for the first time. There was, for me, a great sense of adventure. There was a sense of an unknown destination. We started with a premise; and that was to traverse laterally across contemporary animation practices, and also drill down historically once arrived at a rich place that attracted the individuals interest.
the areas of animation interest do not stop at single screen projections, nor big studios and their output.

I kept a blog, the same as everyone else on the module. (and I was astonished at the depth of information available with just a bit of time, and a few synaptic leaps, and a few coincidences.

You are being given space this term. Space in which you can get to grips with your practice. it was felt that the programme did not have any space in it, and I am very happy to say that now you can get busy with developing your own practice.

up until now you have been working on exercises, group films, professional development... you have never had nothing to do.

this term. I (we the university) do not want you to do anything for me. instead I want you to do everything for yourself, (and if that remains to be nothing, so be it).
All I want you to do is log the time, and history/ route of your development and explorations.

A blog is a live object, and posts are dated. I want you to check out last years Level 2 blogs. this will be an example of the king of investigations they were on.

You are detective.

their sample blogs can be found here. the blogs, you will probably discover are mixed, engagement and depth. however they are evidencing inquiry, and all directions are self found, so they are really honest.

Um, It looks likely that the launch may have to be online.

it is looking likely that Thursdays module launch is going to be affected by local industrial action at UWE. read the article in the Western Eye here.
the Western Eye is the Student Union Paper of UWE. USU are the Union of lecturers. Unison is not having industrial action and administration affairs will not be affected.
I am preparing material tomorrow Tuesday, to distribute through blackboard on Wednesday.

UWE day of industrial action 10 Feb 2011

Academics at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol have announced they will strike over plans to restructure.
"Had they been prepared to pause their plans and allow time for both sides to sit down together and make sure the process was fair and transparent a deal may well have been reached by now.

"Unless the university gets its act together the branch will take local strike action for the first time in its history."

More NEWS here

Sculpture

new show at the Royal academy. MODERN BRITISH SCULPTURE
The exhibition takes a fresh approach, replacing the traditional survey with a provocative set of juxtapositions that challenges the viewer to make new connections and break the mould of old conceptions.

Key British works include: Alfred Gilbert Queen Victoria, Phillip King Genghis Khan, Jacob Epstein Adam, Barbara Hepworth Single Form, Leon Underwood Totem to the Artist, Henry Moore Festival Figure, Anthony Caro Early One Morning, Richard Long Chalk Line, Julian Opie W and Damien Hirst Let’s Eat Outdoors Today.

David Shrigley

THE COUNTDOWN HAS BEGUN _ WATCH THIS SPACE