Gorillaz Art Style

Masked behind an animation, Gorillaz has made a significant impact in the way I designed my characters in my animation, primarily influenced by the black-eyes look that is the band's trademark.

Salad Fingers

David Firth's Salad Fingers - I was quite impressed with this online flash series, especially it's non-coherent but uncanny storylines. I plan on making a flash piece that tells a story in a structure similar to that of Salad Fingers

Characteristics of Web 2.0

1. Dynamic Contribution: Dynamic contribution is the combining of different websites for broader or deeper user interaction. For instance, google maps merged from the traditional google search software and online maps to create a new online service.

2. User Contribution: User contribution refers to contribution to a website provided by users. Wikipedia is the ideal example, considering that it’s an online encyclopaedia entirely composed to use contribution to articles. Incidentally, the sole reason why professors discourage the use of Wikipedia as a reference is because it’s a website that centers around anonymous, usually unqualified users around the globe.

3. Social Media: Social media encompasses such collective, networking websites, facebook being a great example. In social media, the public has access to create and manipulate information on a network system. Facebook does just that, with different profiles, instant messaging, e-mail, and more. Collectively, facebook is a social gathering place online, and that is what make it social media.

4. Online applications: Basically, simple use-input programs found on the internet, such as Jetman, a flash videogame that can be found on Facebook. Harnessing collective intelligence: The internet, being so globally utilized, has the potential to hold a collective intelligence. E-Bay, Google, Yahoo! – they are all examples of agents of collective intelligence. What that means is that a slew of topics from across the world is being written and posted on the internet by experts in the field.

5. Harnessing collective intelligence: The internet, being so globally utilized, has the potential to hold a collective intelligence. E-Bay, Google, Yahoo! – they are all examples of agents of collective intelligence. What that means is that a slew of topics from across the world is being written and posted on the internet by experts in the field.

Album Covers: Then and Now

The album cover for Ein Heldenleben (completed in 1898) reminds me a lot of a recent album cover, entitled "Spiritual Machines", by rock band...

...Our Lady Peace, as they both appear to have an abstract, cut-and-paste artwork.

Idea for Flash Animation

The idea behind my animation followed a person who is trying to diffuse a ticking time bomb, while experiencing extreme anxiety, only to realize that it’s all just a test. As I’ve already said in another entry, my primary inspiration was David Firth’s “Salad Fingers” and his erratic, nonlinear plotlines, as well as a certain example that Lori showed us during lecture that used a poem for narrative and had a shady atmosphere, entitled “Ross Macaulay” (I’m not sure if this is the title of the animation or the creator of the animation), and his design of characters (with big, circular heads and no arms).

I designed my characters to have black holes for eyes, similarly to the members of animated rock band “Gorillaz”. In creating my animation, I relied on conventional generic action movies for research – I wanted to parody this genre, to a certain extent, by mimicking the formulas that are recycled for many of them. Police helicopters hovering over skyscrapers, hostages, bomb diffusing squads – these are all formulas that I wanted to employ into my story.

Inspiration for the Poster Assignment

The album cover above is for Death Cab for Cutie's new album "Narrow Stairs". As I attempt to make a poster for this particular album, I'm trying to imitate the same color scheme and patchwork style.

Typography

Radiohead Poster





The font shown here is a twirling, sketchy, jester-like art that produces a shady, monstrous, under-the-bed effect that looks similar to a black cat with it’s hairs standing on end. The smaller text underneath uses the same font but on a different scale, making it a scratchy patch of writing, and although it might be hard to read from far away, still produces the desired effect for the sake of this poster, which is for Radiohead, a band that would enjoy that kind of visual scrabble style. Notice the use of circles within the text, inside the “O” of “Radiohead” and between the numbers on the date. I theorize that the use of this shape is geared towards maintaining the silly, curvy style of text. The text is quite effective in appealing to Radiohead’s demographic, which favour the dark, haywire atmosphere of the band.



"Billy Talent 2" Album Cover




The font above appears to be “Impact”, or if not, it appears to be influenced by it. The album title, “Billy Talent 2” is slapped center, just above the bold picture of a screaming mouth, as the absolute hook of the album cover. It certainly does make an “impact” on the viewer, and it’s blocky, pitch-black, overt style conveys a musical genre that is heavy, in-your-face, and bold – which is good, because the band’s punk rock sound also fit these descriptions. The space in-between letters are also very small, which produces an air of straightforwardness, and even the words are positioned close to each other. Together, the title and the screaming mouth make for a very effectively aggressive album cover geared towards lionhearted teenagers.


"The Butterfly Effect" Movie Poster






The font in the cover for “The Butterfly Effect” seems to mimic the text inked into test tubes/beakers found in an ordinary laboratory – some letters are even slightly smudged out for realism. It’s red color, complimentary of Kutcher’s red eye, gives the text an eerie, ominous, science-experiment-gone-wrong effect that is accentuated by the thinness of the letters, sharing characteristics with bugs and insects, and the spaces in-between letters and words, which gives it a dreamy, floating atmosphere. I would say that this text is very effective in capturing the spirit of the movie, which is also weaved into an eerie atmosphere, constant references to science and laboratories, and entirely linked to one symbolic insect, characterized in this light by skinniness and twitchiness, the butterfly.

Flash critique & web production

I feel as though I’ve come very far in learning about digital media, and I already have a couple of finished assignments to prove it. All of our flash animations have been handed in, but only a couple were shown. I was impressed by the work of everyone else, it seemed that practically the whole class had a good grip on animation. We’ve just begun web production, and all the material is new to me.

The only experience I have with working with HTML’s is when I used to post on public forums, and it demanded you used some HTML codes to convey different fonts. I’m having a hard time following all the logistics behinds HTMLs and memorizing these different codes, so I’m hoping that I break through that hurdle. I did more research on Tim Berners-Lee, the invent of HTML’s, and found out that, during his time at college, he built a computer with only a soldering iron, TTL gates, an M6800 processor and an old TV, and later was caught hacking computers and was banned from using the school computer.

Ironically, he managed to prove that he was capable of inventing communications technology from scratch and, in later years, innovating upon it, but also that the internet had already developed a strict, confidential line of communication by which, if ever breached, is punishable by arrest. It is amazing to see that internet has come such a long way, from a means of communication in battle to a world wide web ranging from every topic imaginable, all accessible in a fraction of a second.

Animation Artist's Statement

Artist’s Statement – Flash Animation

When I began my flash animation, I decided I wanted to tell a story that was suspenseful and engaging, so the idea for a ticking time-bomb seemed to follow naturally. I was unsure whether I wanted to have the bomb detonate at the end, or have the main character diffuse it successfully. In either case, the outcome seemed too plain and predictable, so I spent many days tossing around the idea for a plot twist.

The target audience of my animation are students who are new to university (such as myself) and those who are new to high school. The main character of my story is supposed to portray the average first-year university student: a person who is constantly under stress, very nervous, and often utterly clueless in the face of a new challenge. The ten second time bracket represents the tight schedule that students are thrown into, and while it addresses the issue, it also pokes fun at it. It was this train of thought that led to the plot twist, where it is revealed that the character is actually a student in a futurist school program for “bomb diffusing”.

Throughout the animation, I traced out images in order to attain a basic shape (i.e. the helicopters) and then changed them to fit my theme. I had my images move around with basic motion tweens, and sometimes blow up in size to give the illusion that the camera was zooming in (i.e. the skyscraper coming closer). One challenge for me was arranging every layer harmoniously without throwing them into disarray, or other finicky issues that I gradually learned to fix. For example, every time I extended the time of a certain object, it would conflict with the one that followed next. I learned to avoid this by selecting multiple layers and moving them forward at a time.

I am content with the final product of my animation, although I would have benefited from creating more scenes to build more suspense. Perhaps before having my character cut a wire, I could have cut back to the bystanders, or back to the helicopters outside. I believe this animation does address my target audience in the end, because it presents to them a basket of negative emotions (nervousness, anxiety, pressure, failure, etc) that they might deal with on a daily basis, but presents it to them in such a way that it makes them laugh. This assignment gave me a great opportunity to refresh myself with all the different aspect of using Adobe Flash, from adding sound to creating motion tweens, since I had forgotten much of what I learned about the program in high school.

Additional Comments

By doing this assignment, I have attained a new appreciation for flash animations. A fan of the short webseries "Salad Fingers" by David Firth, I can now watch his eerie animations and enjoy it doubly, because I can understand, through a certain extent of experience, the level of hard work and dedication that goes into making a flash story. Although I was not critiqued by other classmates, I did receive criticism from family and friends to whom I showed this to, and learned that I could have made each scene longer (especially the last ones, where the action moves faster) so that viewers could follow the story more closely without missing key information.

Poster critique & Flash animation

After critiquing all our posters, we’ve begun working with Flash and I’m gradually learning how to make visuals move around on the screen. Yesterday I was able to make a sunrise, and in this, I believe I have just enough knowledge to make my own animation, and put a number of my ideas onto the screen, however basic they turn out. In retrospect, I know I could have done better on my poster. I thought it was too simple, and didn’t accurately represent the full extent of my Photoshop knowledge. So, for this next animation assignment, I’m concentrating all my effort into making a short cartoon that might be more successful.

Outside of Flash animation, there was certain digital media concept that really caught my attention – the art of opening credit movies. I really enjoyed that lecture given by Lori, because it’s such a unique topic that not too many people think about when watching movies. I thought about what opening movie sequences I could conjure up, and brainstormed on different opening sequences to my favourite movies, although I don’t believe I’ll be doing this for my animation summative. The most creative I’ve seen before would include the opening credits for “Spider Man 2” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSDU2tu7rpk) - in which they show artistically rendered shots from the previous movies and “Fight Club” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3Gorin3ch8), where the camera takes the viewer through the interfolds of a brain. Meanwhile, in audio class, I’m finding myself more and more accustomed to the bill studios and the Vegas program, and I’m glad with how my PSA turned out.

Poster

Death Cab for Cutie is an indie rock band formed in the late nineties, and with a considerable following of teens and young adults. I wanted to create an abstract poster to promote the band’s latest album, entitled “Narrow Stairs”, targeted towards their fans. I took inspiration from their previous artwork, which makes use of a variety of faded colours, so as to create a sombre mood that is not necessarily dark, but dramatic. The name of the band, in itself, seems like a contradiction of light and darkness, having both the words “death” and “cutie”. It was my goal to create a poster that was a reflection of that humorous contradiction – both dark and colourful.

In order to achieve this look, I first found a scene that would be fitting for the album title and also allow me to experiment with different shapes, colours and depth, so the downward-view of a staircase seemed perfect. I coated the railing of the stairs with a vector mask using the pen tool, as well as the underbelly of the nearest staircase, and enhanced the look with shadow and bevel and emboss filters. I found the closest railing to be a great place for the band’s name, so that the unordinary alignment of the words could attract attention, and also contrast with the album title on the top right corner. The curvy, smooth font was used for facility of reading, but also to add a comical touch. In making the poster colourful, I decided to use various patchwork fabrics, adding them individually and layering them on each of the most visible floors, in order to create depth and contrast between floors, and added a shadow filter to each one to fully integrate them into the picture and make them look like carpet. The rectangles on the right-hand side of the poster are meant to imitate the album’s artwork, which consists almost entirely of red and blue rectangles, making the two colours synonymous with “Narrow Stairs”.

One of the challenges I encountered during the design of my poster was how I would go about fitting the band name on the handrail, seeing as it narrows with the distance, but still make the words legible. It was at the encounter of this problem that I decided to use vector masks to increase the surface of the handrail, fit the band’s name, and decrease the size of the first word only slightly. The end result encouraged me to balance out the picture and use vector masks on the left-hand side as well, which is good, because I underestimated the usefulness of the pen tool prior to this assignment. As for the overall content, I was happy that I could convey a mood through the use of colours and shading, and I know fans of the band would value the poster for its familiarity and consistency with other band artworks, and appeal to the eccentric nature of the poster.

In doing this assignment, I learned that composing a poster entirely without the use of the internet is not as hard as it seems, and just takes a different kind of creativity. I never specialized in photography, but I'm excited to see what else I can create with my own photos, rather than relying on the images of others. I was glad for the in-class critique, because it gave me a good pointer on how to improve my poster. I was told to include the release date of the album, so as to advertise it more effectively, and I cherished that information because it truly would have improved my poster.

Posters & Photo Manipulation

Having explored the world of design principles to a certain level, I feel I have just the incentive and creative fuel necessary to start thinking and sketching out my poster. I know I want to do something subtle, with a tone similar to one of the examples shown – the one against drug abuse, where the model is standing out, painted in suave black and white shades, from a pitch black background.

I was intrigued by the cloned tool shown in our tutorial class, and I’m considering using this for my own poster – perhaps I could create an entire visual army out of a single thing, like a bird or tank, and then discover the topic of my poster out of that concept. I also liked the example with a single guitar constructed to look as thought it was smashed in half, and this is the focus of the poster. It’s a creative path to take, since you don’t have to put too much effort into it, just make things clearly simple.

Because I took various lessons in photoshop during high school, I am already familiarized with designing visuals, but there’s a lot I’ve forgotten and the tutorials recently have really helped me refresh my mind. I’m confident that I’ll be able to do this, but for now, I’m just searching for an idea. After all, I used Photoshop projects in my portfolio, so If I can do what I’ve done in the past at least half as well, I should be fine with the upcoming summative.

Principles of Design

Source: madpod.com/show/index.php?paged=2

Contrast:The Woodstock poster makes great use of colour for contrast. The triad colour scheme, consisting of blue, red, and orange gives balance to the image. Also, the use of complementary colours, such as having green and red, makes for a smooth, relaxing image. The whiteness (tint) of the bird and text contrasts with the cold colours of the guitar.

Repetition:With the exception of the consistency of the text in some parts, the poster is very sparse in repetition.

Alignment:The alignment of the guitar neck across the page makes for a good divider between the information, and the bird's alignment with the text below is a nice addition.

Proximity: The proximity of the bird on the guitar neck is simple but effective - the viewer immediately comprehends the connection between peace and music, while the title below the guitar neck shares space with the other text harmoniously.


Source: www.vam.ac.uk/.../posters_general_notes.htm

Contrast: The different shades of black and white are the immediate contrast, of the image. Looking futher, the other signs of contrast appear to be the text sizes, corresponding with the title and information.

Repetition: Evident, but not too outstanding, repetition can be found in the font type, both in the background and up front. As well, the thinner font at the top and bottom are repeated, resulting in an image that is thoroughly consistent and focused

Alignment: As a poster that runs both in horizontal and vertical, the eye will be instantly drawn to the "Live aid" and then float to the background information, and then towards the bottom line. The alignment of the title with the neck of the guitar makes for a creative logo.

Proximity: The statistics in the background share space snuggly with the other texts, without appearing overwhelming, and organizing the poster in such a way that there is no empty space.


Source: got-ads.blogspot.com/2007/02/virgin-mobile.html

Contrast: The most apparent contrast of Virgin Mobile’s ad lies in the shade difference between the tree and the axe and ground. The larger text acts as a hook with which to catch the attention of viewers, and the contrasting small text goes deeper into the product information.

Repetition: More prevalent in this ad, repetition can be found in the cut-out styled hearts, the happy faces and patches of grass. All of these go into rendering the heart-warming premise of the poster.

Alignment: In a way, the entire poster is aligned to the left, as in the placement of the characters and alignment of the text. The outcome produces a poster that is very easy to read, as opposed to having text that is aligned to the right, in which case viewers would be taking the time to find where each sentence starts.

Proximity: The two characters and the product information are fairly close to each other, establishing an instant connection between the two and ultimately helping viewers to comprehend the message. This also allows for good use of white space on the right, so that the poster does not look cluttered.




Source: http://xicanoda.wordpress.com/

Contrast: The movie poster for Vantage Point boasts great contrast with different shades (black and white), including the faded background of the pictures. The different angles on each character are a great method of setting them apart. The red letters of “point” contrasts with the other texts, causing it to stand out.

Repetition: Conversely, repetition is also embedded in the poster – in the rectangles, or the similar fonts, and even in the repetition of guns, which creates an underlining sense of action.

Alignment and Proximity: The aligning of the credits in the center of the man’s silhouette (which then leads to the title) is a clever setup that gives the poster a more organized look, while the alignment of the slogan up top is eye-catching and easy to read. The fact that all these pictures are clustered together and aligned, below “1 truth,” could symbolize the oneness of the truth, but at the same time it’s complexity.

David Bralha

As a first year student to Ryerson's Radio and Television Arts program, I was not too sure what to expect of the Fall semester. Would I be working in a TV studio? Maybe behind a sound board? I thought yesterday's lecture would give me some direction, but I soon learned that digital media encompasses much more, and I still have a lot of thinking to do.

Our professor, Lori Beckstead, brought to the screen a variety of shows, movies, and even videogames. She told us how all information could be represented by one's and zero's, to an extent that surpassed my previous impression of the term. It seemed that, despite living in a cutting-edge society of constantly evolving technology, I never quite realized how far we've come in recent years.

Prior to the lecture, I underestimated the term digital media. "MP3 Players" were the only devices that came to mind upon hearing the words. Now, I've stretched my mind to recognize that nearly all forms of media (satellite dishes, text messages, etc) can be represented by digits. It is apparent that we live in a digital world, when a person can pull out his cell phone and play pong on the surface of a building (as shown in one of the clips during the lecture). Future RTA students should take a course in digital media, if nothing else, to recognize and appreciate how central digital media is to the entertainment world, and also to explore it's potential in the future.