Monday 14 April 2008

Second Lesson

In the second lesson, we finished watching 'The company of wolves', we talked about the componments of a narrative and then illustrated the 6 angles that a typical narrative will take.

I'll just post up my notes from the lesson.



We talked about the different stages in which a narrative typically moves, appararantly first noted by Aristotle. We have the introduction, the 'inciting incident', the journey, the 'middle point', the overcoming of the middle point, and then equilibrium. I added in the overcoming of the middle point.. er.. point, because it seems to be a more sensical way of looking at the narrative system.

Anyway, using this material we made a version of the 'exsquisite corpse' in groups of 6 by making 6 drawings using the above narrative system.

So, in mine we have the introduction of some kind of bunny with ice cream everywhere, then the inciting incident of noticing a particularly large and beautiful ice cream spaceship, then the plan and assumed journey to make its own spaceship, which is challenged by the 'middle point' when the creature finds it's really expensive to make such a fabulous craft. However, this is overcome in the 'overcoming of the middle point' when the creature simply sticks a pair of wings a giant ice-cream to make his own spacecraft and then in the equilibirium, we can see he's enjoying himself once more, albeit this time with a nice spaceship to party about in.



Next, teh homewerks!

What we did in first lesson

So the first task we had was to make a representation of ourselves so that Ollie could get to know us and how we worked. And, this ghost dog from the toilet is what I chose to represent myself. Cause, I'm will and i like dogs. and.. the toilet?

There is another scrawling ghosty character but.. I think I get compared to a dog more than anything else. I do float around like a ghost most of the time though so that explains that theme. I think the toilet is just to make the image a bit weirder than it would be otherwise.

We then watched 'in the company of wolves', directed by Neil Jordan who also directed 'Interview with the Vampire.



I could see Ollie's intention for screening this to us as it deals very much with the telling of the Lycanthrope fable in several different ways and as a teaching tool in how to use symbolism in a story but I found it to be a bit dated and.. well.. boring to be honest for my taste. I say dated, because the film showed its age in it's use of special effects which wern't that convincing sometimes and really worked to break the sense of disbelief in parts. I'm thinking of the film's special effects in terms of films that came out at similar times such as 'The Thing' which still has special effects that put the CGI of today's cinema to shame. Also, the acting in numerous sections of 'The company of wolves' was just terrible, making it difficult to maintain interest.

Anyway, onto day 2.

The brief

Erm, since I've rather cleverly managed to misplace the brief, I'll probably have to edit this post at a later date when I get another copy but I'll do my best to give a summary of my objective now.

From what I can remember, the purpose of this brief is to take an indepth look into how illustrations and narratives are formed through a series of excercises and readings, culminating in a final production of 6 illustrative images or the equivelence of such. The brief is based around the notion of the 'Fairy Tale' or legends and myths and wants us to 'modernise' one in a manner appropriate to the brief.

Sunday 13 April 2008

Illustration Module Blog

So, as the title of the blog has doubtlessly informed you, this is the blog I'm using to record my work in my Illustration optional module class doodad.

So, I hope reading it is a nice experience for you Ollie (Olly? Oily? Oy-Ee? Its a short name but there are a couple of ways to spell it so.. I'm stumped for now with that one -.-") as I'm trying to forgo handing in physical sketchbooks and maybe you won't find this such a smooth transition into the world of paper-less journal presentation. Or maybe you will, maybe you're actually very experienced with this. Regardless, here it is, so... go for it.

I'll start by posting up some of the stuff we've done in the few lessons we've had so far, after I describe the brief in general.