Marius's Journal

What is the purpose of creating art?




My images can be found at this link 
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-KSxuPJAgBPQ1JPcURHcUtYams


written down in different book soz
this guy suggests that if your picture doesn't describe some aspect of the human experience then it wont hold up.

I am needing to create a large commissioned Acrylic piece for my uncles house he wants something "far out" and "kind of weird"  that is to be a talking point for visitors.

where i am at at the moment
 I have found in my recent experimentation's that when i try and force a concept onto the paper it ends up weak but when i let the idea naturally unfold on the page then it tends to be more honest and i dont feel like i am pandering to any other persons idea of what looks good it turns into a picture that describes something about myself.

I have found myself enjoying twisted imagery that warps the viewers mind to change to rules and take the audience to a place that cant be captured by a camera or exist within reality.

the feeling that i am aiming for in my pictures is not approached as a this is a happy or sad image i focus more on the experience of being in that state of mind and then try to portray that through weight and texture.


my wants

existance to feel magical again like when you where young everything was new interesting and fresh.
trying to claim this feeling back is part of my artistic purpose.

I want my work to feel natural and honest without ambition and almost to the point of effortlessness so I can just enjoy the experience. Without worries or fears that come with the expectation of the viewer or the constraints established by myself projecting their interests on the page instead of my own interests.
authenticity is something I strive for not to be confused by originality because as soon as you try to be original you start becoming something based on the social system you are a part of. eg. I dont see people doing this, so i will embody the persona of this gap in society. where as authenticity is a much more personal experience.

I want to be detached from ideology to the point where I have no intellectual position to defend at all.


My project
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7PWiG_SJKk



Artist: Marius Urban

Title:

My aim in my research that led to this piece was based on foggy ideas around what is considered "good" art. I looked into theory about composition, art history and the Fibonacci sequence to find the answer. It turned out that the question became less and less about how other people perceived art and more about what I enjoyed and perceived to be enjoyable to look at. My experiments dwelled mostly with the form particular triangles made in a composition and then developed into patterns that created rhythms within the image

Artist Name: Marius Urban

Bachelor of Screen Arts second year

Title of Work: Vivid Vibration

The questions that burned in my mind during this assessment and what drove my research were, what do I personally want from Art? And what is the function and purpose of art in the context of the viewer?

My project was born out of a commission that was requested in 2015 of a large acrylic painting that could be a feature of a home and a talking point for guests. The client wanted something original and interesting. Finishing this commission was my initial aim but as these questions started developing my aims were to understand my own wants and desires from art. Upon reflection I found I had handy caped myself in producing art by burying my emotions. It is something I have learned to do in a society that is built around so many opinions of what is good or bad. By realising this I have a new understanding that embraces each moment in my art by letting my emotions flow more naturally in spite of my ego and what I would think other people want to see. At the time of the commission I was driven by a notion that “better Art” was realistic art. Through my research I found a whole new world of art that I feel is more descriptive of the human experience than some of the most detailed pictures that I have constructed in my life time. But most importantly my art has become a more honest and enjoyable experience.

Action Based research is my approach to this piece. Where I started with a question and surrounded myself with so many people’s opinions on what “successful” art is based on. (My definition of successful is not necessarily in financial terms but instead in the terms of having an impact into the mental state of the viewer.) I then built a body of work which I then reflect on and carry on the most successful elements from one piece and carry it on to the next piece, meanwhile incorporating all the things I learn from research. But when it comes down to the creations of my work it’s a matter of just listening to myself and not thinking of the end result but instead being a part of the painting as I paint it.

Some artists that had an impact on my artistic mind-set

Peter Deligdisch is an artist that doesn’t really focus on a specific objects but instead has a focus on shape and line to create interesting forms on the page. A lot of his work is based in black and white ink work but on his channel you will see him venture out in to many mediums such as arranging organic plant material onto a canvas. Or experiments with approaches such as getting a huge canvas and blindly drawing in a fat Black marker just to see the resulting shapes.

My second artist model is an Artist that goes by the name Swarez art. His works are very abstract and because of his focus on different techniques he gets a wide range of textures, colours and feelings in his work. A mantra of his I work by is “be bold, be brave and let your heart run free.” Which I find to be super helpful in my new approach to art.

All of my works to this point have been on a reasonably small A4 scale. Aside from being commissioned to be large. This piece I approached with the idea that its scale would immerse the viewer in a landscape that describes so much about me as a person, and would exist as an aesthetic snapshot of everything that encompasses me at this point in my life.

you can contact me via my email idontbongo@gmail.com

Vaughn 2017 BSA 206

The Vow of Chasity
Dogme 95
blog task

the Dogme 95 was a list of rules that were made to challenge directors and to create a more honest film. these are rules.

1. Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found).
2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot.)
3. The camera must be hand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted.
4. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera).
5. Optical work and filters are forbidden.
6. The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.)
7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now).
8. Genre movies are not acceptable.
9. The film format must be Academy 35 mm.
10. The director must not be credited.

the directors that wrote the manifesto were Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg

it started 1995 

Dogme 95 ended in 2005 once its founders decided that the Vow was producing formulaic films, but its initial effects can't be denied. Sometimes giving yourself complete freedom means arresting your creativity with unlimited possibilities. But, you put that creativity inside a box -- it'll find a way to break free.

i dont think that it it is creating anything more to the film experience its just a route to get to a result. it has more variables for "happy accidents" to occur which could make things seem more artistic without a set vision on the directors part. 


Richard Williams 
the Theif and the cobbler 
Did a bad animation because he didn't storyboard Warner bros took the Animation that he had worked on for 25 years and finished it without him ,Arabian Knight.




provide an overview of the british new wave 

British new wave films also known as kitchen sink drama is a style of film that focuss on the grit of ordinary life. the director would typically use unknown actors from the regions they depicted to make the films have an extra layer of believablity  to them. other identifiers of british new wave are stories that depict angry working class males which were usually adaptions from plays or novels of the time.

first appearance in the 1960s. films that dealt with serious social issues of the middle class

Year	Play/book	Film
1956	Look Back In Anger (play)
1957	Room at the Top (novel) The Entertainer (play)
1958	Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (novel) A Taste of Honey (play)
1959	Billy Liar (novel) The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (short story)	Room at the Top Look Back In Anger
1960	A Kind of Loving (novel) This Sporting Life (novel) Billy Liar (play) The L-Shaped Room (novel)	The Entertainer Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
1961		A Taste of Honey
1962		A Kind of Loving The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner The L-Shaped Room
1963		Billy Liar This Sporting Life

Explain the influence of the british new wave on modern films

Billy Elliot 





MOtion Capture history

Motion capture humble beginnings started in the form of rotoscoping as animators would take live action reference and draw over the top of cells to get accurate life like animations.
Animation Motion capture developed along side technology and as one grew so did the other. the Technique was developed to put land mark dots onto a human figure and capture the movements with cameras this information could then be transformed and applied to a 3d mesh in 3d space on a computer. 

Although this Technique has its benefits it is not a quick shortcut to greatness. if the resulting animation is not treated with care the motion can feel dead but alive at the same time. this is usually to do with the face or eyes and is deemed uncanny valley and can inspire creepiness and unease in the viewer. but there are some good examplesof motion capture such as its use in the video game "the last of us" where the characters are brought to life through the acting of talented actors.


Uncanny valley Mass effect 2

German New waveName of manifesto 



Aim of the manifesto 

time period
Years active‎: ‎1962 - 1982

major Film makers within the movement
Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Ulli Lommel, Helma Sanders-Brahms, Peter Schamoni, Volker Schlöndorff, Straub-Huillet, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Margarethe von Trotta, Werner Schroeter, Wim Wenders
Themes expressed through the films
 a group of twenty-six young German directors wrote and signed the Oberhausen Manifesto which boldy declared the old German cinema dead: "Papas Kino ist tod (Papa's movies are dead)." The signers of the manifesto emphasized the importance of short films as a tool to educate rather than entertain. These young Germans were seeking expression using a fresh film language. Their short, unstructured films, produced on very low budgets, reflected their philosophy that the German film should concern itself with contemporary German problems; the materialism of postwar society, the morality of the bourgeoisie, the alienation of youth, and the moral disaster of the Nazi legacy. Some of the filmmakers made autobiographical films in the belief that one's personal problem was also the world's problem.
what previous New wave movement was an influence




Provide an overview of animation history 1986-1989

when the wind blows (1986)(uk)
an adaption of a graphic novel about government and focuses on the effects on middle class home people.



Brothers Quay 
influenced by europeon animation 
surrealism 
create nightmarish stop motion films

Sledge hammer 
1986 
mixture of animation styles and live action to create texture and feel to the music video.

Girls night out 1987
Animation 
loud short film about the textures and feel of 'what a night  out what the girls' is like

family dog 1987

wicked city 1987(japan) 

Akira (1988)
an anime

promethus garden (1988)
a stop motion film that reads more like a crazy dream. shapes morph into new shape with no explanation or seamingly connections. there seems to be a focus on mutilations and faces emerging from nothing.

breakfast on the grass (1987)

the hill farm (1988)

done in a 2d sketchy animation style the hill farm shows the day to day life of a couple living on a farm and the sort of situations they have to deal with in a comical animated twist. it doesnt use dialogue which is great and funny an i like it. I feel as though the lack of dialogue allows the audience to read into the emotions of each character with their own emotions making each character instantly more relatable. its a trick that video games use when they implement a silent protagonist so the player can project their own world views onto the character and it makes the game feel more immersed. the artistic style feels fresh and honest it feels like a world that exists in a dry paper environment due to the dry nature of the mediums used. it provides an interesting view on how different people approach different scenarios and perceive situations differently. from people who are in an environment for a long time vs people who are experiencing those things for the first time.


provide an overview of the 1990s animation history covered in class


the simpsons USA 1990

Ren and stimpy USA 1991

Cartoon network

cartoon network purchased Hanna-Barbera in 1991 and in 1993 started creating such original animations

2 Stupid dogs 1993

The powerpuff girls 1995

Dexters Laboratory 1995

Johnny Bravo 1995 

Batman the Animated series 1992
Bruce Timm relaunched the Batman character as a dark noir style. the style was inspired from Frank millers rendition of Batman in his comic "the Dark night returns"

Timm went on to produce the superman animated series.

Barry Purves UK
created this intricate stopmotion animation in the style of Japanese Kabuki theater. the animatoin went on to win many awards which is surprising due to the whole film being shot in his bedroom.

Jurassic Park 1993
 steven spieberg created Jurassic park



Considering the documentary on jurrasic Park and the advancements made with combining CGI with live action, express your opinion in regards to the following questions-

Discuss a live action film where you feel the CGI detracted from the story

Scorpion king from the mummy returns.
animated Dwane the rock Johnson as a giant scorpion. nuff said. but the character looked plasticy and the movements didnt look natural at all.

Discuss a live action film where you feel the CGI was seamlessly integrated

James Camerons Avatar. created by the CGI magicians at Weta Studios this film in its year set the mark for how CGI can be integrated into a film with 90% of the film being CGI and it still being belieable.


Run Lola Run

Release date: 6 April 2000 (Dunedin)

Director: Tom Tykwer

Screenplay: Tom Tykwer

Languages: English, German, Japanese

Awards: German Film Award for Best Feature Film,

the story had some very interesting film techniques that flashed thorugh peoples timelines with interaction with lola showing a butterfly effect that her actions had effects on people lives.

there were a lot of repeating motifs

her scream
the blind lady 
time clocks 
heart beats 
running 
orange
death 

i would recommend this film 


 


1994 the tick
the critic
1994 duck man Everett peck
1994 the big story 
1995 secret adventures of tom thumb
1995 the end of the world in four seasons (reference story boards)
this  compilation of animations had a unique visual style and story telling approach. i think the method of story telling with multiple panels shown at the same time was confusing and may require multiple watches to fully understand what is going on in each section. the pacing was off for me and seemed kind of slow. i enjoyed the line work and traditional feel and the layout of the panels had their own element of appeal animation. I also thought the unique layout with panels sometimes crossing over into others opened up more avanues of possiblities in story telling expecially when the 3rd wall is broken and charcters move out side of the panels and break the rules of conventional story panels.

1995 Toy Story 

Blair witch project 

Release date: 9 December 1999 (New Zealand)

Directors: Eduardo Sánchez, Daniel Myrick

Budget: 60,000 USD

Film series: The Blair Witch Project film series

Box office: 248.6 million USD

this film played on a lot of fears that people have such as; being lost, being powerless, being hungry, being watched, being mutilated, being taken, being in the dark and probably quite a bit more. i think it did this effectively by not over blowing the production value and instead opting for a hand held found footage style that makes us feel as though we are watching clips from an event that actually happened as opposed to just going through the motions. it makes the footage feel legitimate. 

Reservoir Dogs 

Initial release: 2 September 1992 (France)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Budget: 1.2 million USD

Box office: 2.8 million USD

Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary

this film has a non linear storyline that sticks the characters in a main scene and then gives the audience information through flashbacks that changes your opinion on characters as the story develops. someone who you would really thought was telling the truth you would find out was lying and this would completely change the tone of the story. i think this movie pulls off this type of story telling very well.

the Watch Dog movie does the same non linear story telling to reveal the very human aspects of the superheros that we follow in the story.

Animation 1990s

two similar films came out the same year 
A bugs life by Pixar 
and 
Antz by Dreamworks Animation 

A bugs life did better but both films did well

Gorillaz the band 
asthetic created by  Jamie Hewlett the artist behind Tank girl 

some popular cartoon series that arrose from 1999

Futurama

FamilyGuy 

Spongebob

The old man and the sea (1999)
made in the style of fingure painting to express the emotional states of the characters at particular points throughout the story. what i like about this approach is that the artist has full creative control of the meduim they handle. I say this opposed to the idea of creating a film shot where a building may be i in a spot that you didnt invision when doing the storyboarding because of this we just accept its presents and the filmers ultimate vision becomes obscured.

The wolf man 1999

A short film by Tim Hope his story on face value is about a crazy man who connects with the idea of being a werewolf but if you consider what he is saying he is really wanting to be everything but he cant really express this idea quick enough to the viewer so by the end it just seems like he is throwing random ideas at the audience but it is a really simple idea of being everything and being ok with everything as well. I really like it because it is very textural with the way that he describes things such as when he talks to the moon, it is a very serine series of shots that contains the idea of what the moon is. we know the moon is spherical but Tim describes the moon as a bowl. a bowl is something we look down into and its convex walls lead our eyes into itself, he is falling into the face of the moon. "kiss my dusty lips" is something that the moon says, it is particularly 

A Scanner Darkly 

Initial release: 7 July 2006 (USA)

Director: Richard Linklater

Adapted from: A Scanner Darkly

Box office: 7.7 million USD

Budget: 6 million USD

the rotoscoping was cool and keeped each scene interesting at a visual level. the story impact on me most with the idea of manipulation and what it means to be manipulated. is manipulation bad? is it wrong to build a narrative of what you perceive to be your life if it makes you happy.  and does it work the other way, is it bad to be content with your life if it makes you sad, angry or depressed?

Marius 2017

Story 

Strya - Zulu girl 

Pognem  - small monkey Friend

Kligami- Bad Guy Leader of the three Forest people

Strya 

Age: 9 

Ethnicity: African 

Personality: Mature and motherly in a caring way. Still has a lot to learn about the world and is sometimes too trusting and also too confident when confronted with threats because she trusts too much in human nature and couldn't imagine the truth of murder and inflicting pain on someone else.

Likes: Family and friends, Nature, 

Dislikes: Pain, Hate, Suffering,  

Background and World 

Strya is the part of a small tribe of about 300 based in Africa that lives off gathering resources in the forest. The tribes technology is limited to the materials of the land and mostly live in mud and wood huts. It is a young tribe that established itself 15 years before when a small group people from two other tribes combined into one and wandered to find new residence in the forest, this was due to corrupt leadership of the two tribes that was culminating in foreseeable bloodshed. Strya was born inside the tribe and is all she knows. Strya is caring towards all the animals of the forest and every now and again comes across Pognem, a small sprightly monkey creature that likes berries. In the mornings it is Stryas responsibility to get drinking water from the fountain found 10 minutes away from her camp.

The fountian is a messenger of the water god of the people of Styra's tribe as long as the water flows the water god Aquazuvia is pleased with her people but when the water stops it means that the water god is displeased and the tribe gathers and has a meeting of ethics were they refine their views and politics until the water comes comes back.

Logline

A Strya and Pognem are walking to collect water from a statue in the middle of a forest. But their plans are interupted by 3 stout Forest people in masks who intend to take Pognem. 

Treatment

there are two friends Strya and Pognem that go to do a task in the forest to fetch water. Eyes watch them from the shadows. Pognem hears a sound in the bushes and out of curiosity and cautiously  goes to investigate. A swift clank of a cage and Pognem is trapped in a suspended cage made of weaved sticks. Strya makes a move forward to help her friend but is blocked when three masked small creatures come out from their hiding spaces with pointed sticks and wooden melee weapons it is clear that their intention is to take Pognem. The creatures are confident and intimidating also but awkward  in their attempt to get Strya to leave but Styra doesn't want to leave Pognem. she looks up at him in the cage worryingly. Pognem moves to one side of the cage and passes through the sides of the cage easily due to most of his body being fluff. Kligami makes a more threatening gesture with his weapon at Strya who look down at his with anger and stubbornness before gesturing for Kligami to look behind him. He Turns to see his two comrades on the ground unconscious with Pogame in the middle of them holding one of their weapons in his hand. Kligami turns back to Strya less confident than before and obviously processing the situation in his head. Kligami shoves his stick into Stryas hand and walks away frustrated. 

Moana 

I like the rendering style of the characters there is an element of subsurface scattering in the skin that would slow down my render times I could fake some of that in my texture painting but only to a point I dont think it would make that much of an impact to the style if i leave it out. 

the proportions of Maui I think could be interesting for my Kligami Character who i want to be short limbed and stubbly i like how the arms morph into the shape of the hands without much wrist shape. I also like how the characters have this defined shape language with the feet and hands that square off instead of being round. it makes the characters seem more purposeful in their design. 

African 

I found that african female hair can take many shapes and i was intrigued with a couple of designed that had the hair matted into a solid shaped like a disc at the back of their head. I thought that because of is rigidity that could be a design element that would be easier to animate than hanging hair that had physics. 

also wanted to included the plated cornrows on my character to give it more variety and make her seem more ethnic. 

other apparel I can use are bead necklaces wrist bands and anklets. clothes can be made of repurposed western clothes (may make it look like a homeless or poor person) another option is to use animal skin, feathers and teeth to create 

I like the idea of body paint but i dont want it to over complicate or distract the character design.

Monkey

I knew I wanted to have a cute side Character but i wanted it to be based on the African type culture my main character was a part of. so I looked up African Animals and found these small monkeys that held a lot of the traits that I was looking for. the tiny hands and big eyes I felt was key to this feeling. 

I also like how the size of the head is obscured by the hair that surrounds its face, this is a part of the story where the character can fit through the bars of a cage due to this phenomenon. its good to see that it is ground in a real life design.  

Atlantis Disney 

I like the design of the main Female character in this movie. The ways the eyes and the mouth are drawn I felt conveyed concern and joy were very appealing. I saw that the only real deviation from the traditional Disney style of eyes was the inclusion of the eye duct which looked more prominent and defined. her outfit is also very simple with very little addons. its just a top bra deal and then a dress thing with bare legs.

These image carry the style that i want to achieve for my 

Environment. A majority of the images are for League of legends

where the established style is with hand painted textures that feel 

almost like a comic book. Some things that define the style are things

 like, faked painted rim lght refined square design (that i think will suit

 a low poly Environment). Painted grass on the floor colour map with only

 larger bodies of grass having grass geometry. This should help my

 Render times while keeping render times lower.  

The Sunny image to the middle right Captures the feeling and colour

 pallet that I am striving for. The clearing in the forest, Shadows on the 

ground and light shafts all are what I am looking for. 

3D

today we went through the process of making a candle in maya.

this process included creating a image plane applying the texture to the plain

we made the candle out of a cube although it had hard edges this would become less of a problem once smooth was applied through pressing 3. 

we turned the cubes transparency up in its material panel and lined it up with the reference.

we then extruded and adjusted the edgeloops accoringly untill we reached the top of the candle holder.

we then went and applied a mia_material x and changed its preset to Copper.

we then went into render and changed the render type to mental ray 

we were then blessed with the sight of a lovely candle.

today we made this glass using the tools we learnt last lesson. material X glass Thick