#UnitSummary

[finalyearillustration-blog]

Unit Summary

BA3b Unit Summary

To summarise this unit, I have broken it down into projects for ease of understanding. The first project Ampersand, was a collaboration between a Creative Writer/Rapper and an Illustrator/Visual Communicator. For this short project, we both wanted to be playful and explore something new, I wanted to experiment with animating my drawings, and my collaborator wanted to utilise his hobby of rap. Together, we wrote a narrative, exploring the impact of technology on family relationships regarding political influences. I drew out the visual elements of the narrative which my writer altered into a rap; I then animated my drawings to match the timing of the rap. I learnt important skills in using After Effects and Premier Pro to animate my drawings which will be useful for my future practice, experienced working with a collaborator and communicating ideas via messaging rather than in person. I found it rewarding to give my collaborator the opportunity for his first live performance, the audience created an exciting atmosphere which added a new dimension to my animation. Our collaboration was successful in how we communicated our ideas, by using the Google Drive folder we could share our files easily, my drawings and film files and his writing and audio files, which meant no time was wasted in the practical process. It helped that we both got along well together and respected each other’s work and ideas.

My final major project, Observed, followed on from my research into the use of drones by the military for my research report. My practical work has been influenced with the aim of informing an audience about this subject. The project focuses on the surveillance aspect and censorship illustrated through moving image and publications to convey a narrative.

The film piece as a visual essay conveying the contexts of surveillance and censorship through moving image. There have been many experiments for this film, exploring length and pacing, plus the clips used to communicate the topic. I struggled keeping the film concise, and included too much material for the meaning to be gained. This has since been cut down, improving the flow and giving space for pauses between impactful shots. I have also created a title scene, which has been missing in my previous experiments. It was difficult to come up with a title at first but I feel the simplicity of the one I went with leaves the audience to piece together the information and hints at the tone of the research material.

A publication providing background information to the project felt necessary to combine all elements of my practice. My research for my report gives context to the journey of this project, with my thought processes and ideas included for a greater understanding. I created four variations of this during the practical process, experimenting with typography, page layouts, image positioning, colour and size. These were tools to design the publication in a way that helped the audience navigate through the large amount of text included, whilst still being playful and informative. To do this, I included the visual identity of glitches; which I have been experimenting with throughout this project. These communicate the technology and censorship theme and act as visual breaks in the pages.

I decided that the publication should be printed professionally, after many experiments in cropping and binding my dummies myself, there were many mistakes with alignment. For the degree show I wanted my publication to look professional, as with all the design decisions I had been making the print quality could let it down. I have therefore sent for five sample copies to be printed for submission, I can then re-order with them if I want more copies for the degree show or get a larger batch with another company, such as ExWhyZed. It was simple to upload the files to their website for print, with step by step guides on document set up which was helpful. Unfortunately, the print quality of these wasn’t quite as high as I had hoped, so another order may be necessary for the degree show.

In receiving a commission recently for a collaborative project between a Poet/Thatcher and an Illustrator/Visual Communicator to create 10 postcards; including illustrations of each poem and the writing to grab the attention of an audience. The main purpose is to promote Olly Watson's poetry at his show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the illustrations capture key visual elements of his poems to entice the audience. This project has given me experience with working for other people and practice in negotiating terms for briefs and fees. I had never done this before and received help from various tutors on emailing and setting terms. I found this very useful and feel more comfortable about doing it again in the future. This experience has also provided me the opportunity for promotion of my work, producing work at a fast pace and experimenting with my sketches. It allows me to be playful in my drawings as well as my text and image layout, which is something I have been exploring throughout my work and will enjoy experimenting with further.

For the exit strategy, it was difficult to start this part of the criteria as I didn’t know who I could approach with my work and where it fit in the industry. It was a similar block to starting my research report, so from that experience I knew to talk my thoughts through with people as voicing my issues helped before. Looking objectively at my own work and seeing correlations within the industry, I quickly established that advertising agencies would be useful to pursue combining my interests in printed matter and moving image. I am pleased to have been able to see an obstacle and overcome it with the knowledge I have gained from previous issues over the course of my degree.

Another issue I encountered involved my portfolio, which I realised would be easiest in the form of a website to show my films. I have never created a website before so had to learn how to do this. By using wix I could start with a template design to understand the key components, after establishing the transitions and layouts that worked best in showcasing my work, I laid out the site from scratch. This took some working out and several drafts, I found it difficult to keep it easy to navigate with individual projects including outcomes of film and printed matter appearing messy when laid out next to each other. After writing out outcomes and projects I found correlations and made individual project pages, which can be reached from the home page. I also created separate pages for publications and moving image to highlight the mediums I work with, after discussions with art directors stated this is important, which have links to the project page. I am pleased with the final design of my website and its simplicity. Another problem I faced surrounded the blurbs for my portfolio. Particularly, when writing about myself, which transferred into talking to potential employers. After a portfolio workshop, I was reassured about this issue and wrote bullet points in my draft site which I built up over time into succinct sentences. This was a useful process in understanding myself as a professional and how to portray myself digitally.

Overall, I am pleased to have achieved my goal to create a film using my new skills, a publication using outsourced printing and a takeaway object informing an audience.

[writingandresearch-chloeallen]

Key images for BA2a

-Printing a paperback size book as the final outcome for The Landlady

-Working collaboratively to produce an exploratory body of work and intriguing final outcome for High Rise

-Pushing my boundaries by experimenting with animation and immersing myself within a community to collect vital primary research

[finalyearillustration-blog]

BA3a: Unit Summary

In this unit, I have been researching the ethical, social and political issues, surrounding the use of drones by the military for my research report. The information I have found has influenced my practical work with the aim of informing an audience about this subject. The project focuses on the surveillance aspect and the element of humanity within this, illustrated through film to convey a narrative within it.

My initial research included visits to The 100th Bomb Group Memorial Museum, Diss, and The Imperial War Museum, Duxford. These visits provided me with the context of secrecy in the government’s decision making process, such as the briefings’ exclusion of information.

In writing the Research Report Draft, a strategy was established to overcome my writing issues; specifically, starting and structuring the assignment. This strategy was to bullet point a rough structure, which I then filled out through a “stream of consciousness” style. This was edited afterwards, with grammatical and structural errors corrected, assisted by my Dyslexia support tutor. It is pleasing to have overcome my struggles with writing in this unit, which will help with my future assignments. The feedback for my draft concluded that it required more critical analysis on artist’s work, further reflection on my own work and better “flow” between chapters. This has been improved upon in my final draft.

The publications Giant Flash and Pixelated Feed, were created to experiment with image and text layout provided by research material, including interviews of drone pilots. These outcomes helped me to understand what I want to achieve in my final show, which is to engage my audience with my work and make them begin to question drone usage. Informing my audience about this subject, regarding the issues surrounding secrecy using the visual language of drone footage as context, could be achieved using a publication providing information from my research, which could be read whilst viewing the display.

My experiments with film include four individual pieces, two music videos, one movie trailer and one moving mood-board. These all experimented with techniques in the programs After Effects and Premiere Pro, to create films using both moving image and sound in different ways. For my final display, I intend to create a film using what I have learnt from these outcomes; including overlay of different clips, cutting them in-time to sound as well as panning of the camera.

There were some useful lectures too, including one by a member of The Association of Illustrators which provided me with useful information regarding my future practice; such as contacting commissioners, contracts and pricing of jobs.

For the Publish Event our collaborative publication included three films created by participants in our workshop. These were time-lapsed over the course of the event and later edited to a slower speed; which provided narratives using images, words, objects and text collected from our individual project research. This work was successful in achieving our aim and uncovering new avenues to explore in our own work. For me, this included the idea of animating still images with text from the printed publication displayed at this event. Combining the effect of a panning camera on the images and typing text; I created a series of animations conveying the narrative with motion. I intend to explore colour scheme further in my practical work, specifically; how the bright colours work with the grayscale scheme, how it is eye-catching in the sequence and what effect this has on the narrative.

The outcomes I have created in this unit have provided me with stepping stones to create my final pieces in the degree show. The research used to define the conclusions of my report provided the idea of a collection of pieces for the final show conveying a narrative on this topic. This includes an installation, a film and a printed publication published through social media to reach a wider audience.

The information I researched in my report was complex and I found it difficult to evaluate it from my point of view. Therefore, I used the government instead to distance myself. I will be exploring my view throughout my practical work, involving further research into this subject as I have uncovered more questions regarding wider usage.

The issues covered in my report continue to present questions and I look forward to trying to answer them over the next unit.

[writingandresearch-chloeallen]

BA2a Unit Summary

Overall, I would say that BA2a has been about finding the most suitable manner in which to communicate aspects of Fact and Fiction. I began the year exploring The Landlady for Narrative Fiction. After researching and exploring ways to communicate the story through image, I found I was primarily using traditional media. This is my most familiar way of working, especially in response to a fictional short story. Personally, I felt that traditional media was appropriate, because it offered a sense of comfort, which is what the Landlady aimed to convey. Something I found particularly challenging for this project was consistency. It was easy to keep exploring new manners and materials to work with, but it resulted in a body of work that wasn’t necessarily interchangeable. For example, the chalk drawings didn’t fit beside the collages. I worked with this problem by focussing on what I felt was a more effective reflection and response to the narrative. Exploring collages enabled me to move away from drawing and play with ideas of concealed and revealed, which I felt was an important aspect of the story. This project also challenged me to begin to get to grips with InDesign and Photoshop, which I now feel quite comfortable using. Plus, there was a great delight from finally being able to print a booklet successfully in the Printing Studio.

The response to Experimental and Expanded Forms differed greatly to Narrative Fiction in a wonderful way. I believe this is due to working in a group and finding a way to respond collaboratively to a fictional narrative. Throughout the weeks leading up to the Storyville exhibition, we worked hard together to explore how we could visually reveal High Rise, which also resulted in us learning how to do new things, such as film and sound recording as illustration. Personally, this project was a highlight of BA2a for me, because of the way we managed to overcome problems and how we explored more adventurous explorations, which I don’t think I’d have felt comfortable doing alone. This really surprised me, because I’ve always preferred working individually. I think that the Installation was very successful and invited people to explore and engage with it. There was a real satisfaction seeing objects come together to produce an effective final piece that encompassed all the ideas we had explored and thought about over the previous weeks. It makes me wonder whether my response to Narrative Fiction would have been different after pushing boundaries and materials for High Rise. The enjoyment in working collaboratively also encouraged me to research a collaborative aspect of illustration within my Industry Report, and so I feel like this was definitely an important project for me as an Illustrator.

Fact has been perhaps one of the most stressful and challenging projects for me, however I feel that I managed to explore some interesting techniques with the Brusho Inks and also experimenting with Animation and sound.  Choosing a subject was particularly difficult for me, because I felt overwhelmed with things I could explore. Ultimately, I decided to explore a subject I knew nothing about, which was Raqs Sharqi, and push my boundaries by connecting closely with a group of people. I feel I learned a lot about a hidden pocket of Middle Eastern Culture in Norwich, but also in how I communicate and intermingle with people within the community. I attended multiple events and conducted a one on one interview, which I feel was the best form of research I could conduct in relation to my subject. I feel that this exposure to something previously unknown enabled me to explore visual languages that would offer other people a more authentic representation of Raqs Sharqi, rather than simply the preconceptions that come with the term Belly Dance. In the previous projects, my research had been mainly secondary research, however I feel like the first hand primary research for Fact definitely made an important impact on my work. Thus, I feel that I recognise the value of putting yourself out there and collecting primary research a lot more than I previously had. This also encouraged me to contact people via email as part of collecting research for my written reports.

I think that there have been a lot of new experiences that have happened over the course of this unit, which I believe will be beneficial for how I approach future work. The Adobe Suite inductions have been vital in terms of my creative development and have come into play within each project. The visit to the Archives was eye opening, because it has opened me up to the possibilities of using its contents as research or inspiration. Furthermore, I found that connecting with people face to face and being on location to be incredibly helpful in producing work and generating ideas. Something I feel I still need to work on is more effective time management so I have enough time to come to optimum conclusions, rather than panicking because I’ve spent too much time on developments. I found the group feedback sessions to be incredibly helpful this unit, particularly the post-it notes, because it offered an immediate insight into how other people viewed the work. The feedback definitely helped to refine ideas and focus my work into communicating concepts more effectively to an audience. I feel that the written reports served well as a means for me to reflect on how I work, as well as what sort of direction I would like to take my creative practice in the future. The research helped to contextualize Illustration as a whole for me, as well as understanding how my work can fit within it.

Conclusively, this unit has encouraged a lot more variation to how one can approach the practice of Illustration, and I feel that this will help me immensely for the next unit and final year.

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