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Working with Students - Workshop 5: Natalie

One particular ask of the students is that they must honk about how their work is interpreted by others in different practice areas. Natalie has looked at the way she works and has pushed drawings into moving images previously with some success. As with other students I felt that it would be beneficial for Natalie to look into this process again but with more focus.

This cycling animation is the result of Natalie independently investigating how her images move. For me this is a good result for a student whose level and understanding of animation is at a beginner level. 

I have highlighted that the idea of cycling images (red cape) is fully understood by Natalieand from this, as with the previous students I knew that the purpose and mode of this project would be of interest to her.

The project echoed the work that was done with Chris, we redesigned and animated the result from the previous work. The main focus points were the relationships of how to synchronise movement of two independent assets and how the time line works with imported assets.

We also touched upon how frame by frame animation techniques can me incorporated into a project/project file.

This was a light introduction to software but more importantly opened up possibilities into how a student can further progress their work.

The final outcome from the workshop.

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Working with Students - Workshop 4: Chris

Previous to this workshop I and the rest of the faculty presented the projects we have been working on so far. The findings of this talk were that all projects were touching on the theme of instilling confidence in the students who have chosen to be taught in smaller cohorts.

With this in mind I structured this sessions differently from the other. 

I had previously used After Effects as a tool with Chris in a previous project with the final outcome being something that was technically challenging. Working with Chris on this project previously I knew that the technical learning aspect of that task would not have resonated deep enough to be a valuable enough tool for her to recall in later projects. 

Based on this we took a gif that Chris had previously made for the PHA UK project and turned it into a smooth piece of motion. 

Original GIF (below)

Re-designed After Effects Animation (Below)

The over all outcome is very true to the original and it was clear that a simpler exercise such as this was far more valuable. 

Based on this I set Chris a task to see if she could replicate the core ideas of the workshop in a simple way. This was unaided and and the results were pleasing.

Going back to confidence in students and the skills that they inherit, this workshop has highlighted that even though skills can be taught directly confidence can only be acted on by students if they are given the creative freedom and reassurance to go ahead and try something for themselves.

The Finished Task below shows the main simple outcomes of the workshop, a shape moving through opacity changes, scaling, keyframe changes and position. 

The focus of this project is to create a finished piece, but after the faculty Show & Tell it seems that the time spent with the student and the following pedagogy is the main focus of the sessions and how they can evolve their practice independently. 

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Thoughts:  Boyers Four Principles of Scholarly Activity

Over the past three weeks and three sessions conducted I feel it is important to reflect on the process of Scholarly Activity and the mode in which I Have thought about it and conducted it.

 Using Boyers model of scholarship will help me to home down how I have been opporating as a scholar. The best way to do this is to simply go through each of the four principles.

Boyers first principle asks:

•    1. The scholarship of discovery that includes original research that advances knowledge.

What am I doing? Is it helping anyone? Yes, it is. The project is about

delivering information to an audience about something that is little know in the form of a video. The condition of Pulmonary Hypertension is little known about. Until this condition came to my attention, admittedly I knew nothing about it, therefore the output for this project, is designed to deliver information to such persons as myself who do not know or hold any prior knowledge about Pulmonary Hypertension.

With this said I am operating with this first principle as the foundations of this project and the outcome that is desired.

 The second principle asks:

2. The scholarship of integration that involves synthesis of information across disciplines, across topics within a discipline, or across time;

Picking this project up again with students does fulfill this principle. Students have created images/designs from primary research. Therefore the synthesis of information has already occurred, it is not about quantifying this information and extra research into a package that can be delivery to a group operating outside of the confines of the academic institution. The PHA UK charity is the final bearer of this projects out and will be of a benefit to them. The learning from the students will benefit a social and medical issue that needs more visibility and awareness in the healthcare system.

 The third principle asks:

The scholarship of application (also later called the scholarship of engagement) that goes beyond the service duties of a faculty member to those within or outside the University and involves the rigor and application of disciplinary expertise with results that can be shared with and/or evaluated by peers.

 This answer was partially answered previously as the, beneficiaries of this outcome will be PHA UK and every piece of diversity in helping them spread their awareness will help. The review of peers is something that I have not had time to address. As an academic this my be classed for me as other colleagues but as students are working with me as partners they are included in the word ‘peer’. The sessions so far are working on a 1:1 basis and that has been acting as myself having the disciplinary expertise to facilitate the students desired outcome. The element of rigor would come from the decisions later on in this process of placing the video together making sure the information within it is communicating correctly.

 Finally the forth principle asks:

The scholarship of teaching and learning that the systematic study of teaching and learning processes. It differs from scholarly teaching in that it requires a format that will allow public sharing and the opportunity for application and evaluation by others.

 Publically facing would be this information that is being read now, and I thank you for making it this far. The purpose of this blog is to document the process of working with students as partners, all out comes and imagery are documented here and available for public viewing.

  On reflection of this project so far I feel that I am working to Boyers Scholarly Model and touching upon them well. Working with students is currently working well as long as student have as much control on the process as I do.

Boyers four principles do make you think about how you create work and the pedagogy involved. My thoughts on these are that it does feel very natural to run any project through these stages, not necessarily in order but as a linchpin for a project such as this, theya re more than useful to refer to.

The part of this that I felt has surprised me is that students returning to work that is in their mind finished have been glad to do so and in the last workshop conducted my student was happy that he could see his work in a completely different light now that it was moving. It will be interesting to see how his practice now evolves.

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Workshop 3: Outcome

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Working with Students - Workshop 3: Johnny

Emma was not in today so I took the opportunity to work with Jonny. 

He had quite the challenge to present to me. Can we animate blood cells speeding around a highway of veins. 

Jonnys work has progressed recently so I thought it would be time to bring him into the world of motion graphics. 

After showing Jonny a few quick ways of moving and scaling he was well away with making his image come to life. 

As much as I enjoy showing students process I reminded myself this week that it is about them working with me. It was interesting see that Jonny was having a good time. Can one have a good tie simply with software or is it just another tool. Questioning Jonny on this, he told me in his own way, that using his work in this way would lead him to think in different modes when making compositions so that he can ‘do more’ with his work to become the final version he wanted. ‘I definitely want to do more animations like this’ 

Is Jonny working with me on this project or am I simply facilitating the students. Well one argument at this time would be that, yes I am facilitating but I can not facilitate this without the work of the students. I am mindful that student have control over the process and over outcomes they want to achieve. This week I do think I worked in this mode and the outcome was please for two reasons, a) because the quality of the animation and b) because the student was pleased with the teaching of the session and the new horizons bought to future work he will create.

To end he is a picture of Jonny having the time of his life.

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Workshop 3: Prep

For the stop motion workshop I have chosen to prepare some prints that can be used in the stop motion workshop with Emma.

I would like Emma to lead the workshop and use her concepts from her designs to create the stop motion. How she will do this is in her hands.

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Thoughts: Week 2

So far I am managing to ring fence time to work this students, this I am happy about.

I am also happy that the students are responding well to going back and working with outcomes that they may feel are done and dusted.

What does need work is students need to bring more to the table in theses sessions. It is still early days so I have thinking time as to how to approach this in next weeks session.

Things to Avoid: As ever, don’t be too descriptive with students, this is a project that we are supposed to be working together on. I don’t feel I am dictating too much at present but I must make sure that they also feel as empowered as I do on this.

Next week I plan to work with Emma. A stop-motion technique may suit her work more.

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Workshop 2 Highlights: Amy

Amy working with concepts that we decided on.

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Working with Students - Workshop 2: Amy

Today I was working with Amy in this mornings session. For her contribution to the PH project she has focused on the Symptoms of PH. She had chosen to focus this on children and how they my relate to a family member who has been diagnosed with PH. The difficulty in this is that the main four symptoms to look out for could actually be present in many people but not in fact be at risk of PH. 

Her characters were highly stylised (very different from Kurtis’ minimal approach to his communication) and therefore trickier to place in context.

Discussing this with Amy we came to the conclusion that rather take a veiw of this as I did with Kurtis the week before, and use a mode of Motion Graphics, the animation must be more simplified. With this in mind we animated frame by frame digitally. Together we found ways of animating each character to fit the symptom they were highlighting. 

Amy had made sequential moving imagery before for previous project outcomes such as GIFs but not looked into adapting these into more sophisticated movements. This was a good opportunity, show how characters can be prepared for animation and simple movements.

The out come of the session was that together we created four characters with four animated sequences that require processing for the video.  

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Workshop 1 Highlights: Kurtis

Student Kurtis working on After Effects in 1:1 session at the beginning of the PHA UK project.

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Working with Students - Workshop 1: Kurtis

This was a good opportunity and a good starting point to introduce new skills to one of the students (Kurtis) who was strong in the area of digital design. 

Using his design work from the PHA UK project we have together we have started to construct the video that we as a group plan to create.

Skills on Adobe After Effects were taught directly to the student but by having this time together, I also picked up a hand full of short cuts from him which I know will help my own digital skills.

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Initiation & Strategy

The purpose of this piece of research is to primarily engage students in Charitable work through the mode of Art and Design.

Whilst thinking about this it became apparent to me through my experience of teaching, students struggle to place value in the work that they create.

One cause of maybe due to the over saturation of visual research that they have on hand through smart phones and social media.

Previous to this process Students have completed a Project with PHA UK to support the charity in spreading an awareness of the condition Pulmonary Hypertension (PH). 

The purpose of this piece of research is to engage students with rediscovering work that they have previously finished and repurpose it as a piece of visual communication for the public. In this case the design work for the proposed outcome has already been created and therefore is in need of processing into a video that the charity PHA UK can use as a tool to spread awareness. 

The management of this project will be done through 1:1 workshops, group forums and group discussions.

A large aspect of this project is having the students as partners whilst in these sessions and not only introducing new skills but also learning from the students and inducting student to the culture of Pedagogicaly teaching environment.