Year 1 Portfolio
my work :)
point of view
Point Of View project: Confrontation
collaboration project
The origins of Elephant and Castle
Introduction to Animation: Point of View
The Point Of View project
On this project, I teamed up with Sabir. We knew that we worked well together as we had already collaborated on several other group projects.
We started off figuring out what storyline to go into. To do this we discussed what sort of ideas we had in mind. I really liked the theme of ‘derealization’ – a feeling that one’s surroundings are not real, especially as a symptom of mental disturbance. I wanted this theme to be part of our project as I have anxiety and have experienced derealization because of it, so that is something very personal to me.
In the end, we decided to go with the main theme of ‘Confrontation’ a point of view of what it is like to confront your future, and have to eventually let go of the past and confront adulthood.
Here is a mood board that I put together for the project:
We both discussed art creators who we wanted to use for our influences in this project. I really look up to a modern animation artist who uses lots of colours and very fluid motions in her work. Her username on social media sites is @lonelymanslazarus and she goes by Daisy. She heavily inspires my work. I love her storytelling and tried to incorporate some of her styles into my own work and this project.
https://linktr.ee/lonelymanslazarus
Sabir suggested the artist Romuald Hazoumè. he is a really fascinating Yoruba artist from the Republic of Bénin. One of the projects which he is most famous for is where he modifies discarded plastic jerry cans and other materials to take on the appearance of faces, in order to carry on the tradition of making masks from his people. We decided to incorporate this idea of strange objects being faces in our project.
Once we had figured out a storyline we worked together to create a storyboard. This is what we came up with:
In order to bring this to life we delegated separate tasks in order to simplify things. I designed some backgrounds and so did Sabir. Here are the backgrounds:
With Sabir’s instructions, I then designed our main character and her two different outfits that are shown in the storyboards.
After that, we both worked separately on our delegated tasks to put together the below animation. I worked with photoshop, creating frame-by-frame animation, using the above designs for reference, whereas Sabir used Adobe After effects to animate, and we edited the different pieces together.
We used the sounds of birds chirping to give the viewer the illusion that everything is fine – that is until we see all the eyes opening around our main character – this is symbolism for her mind awakening. She is becoming an adult. When she looks in the mirror and sees a figure the figure is herself. She is finally seeing herself for who she is becoming, and has to eventually confront. The only sound heard at this point is her own breathing. This is intentional. We considered using unsettling music in the background but we didn’t want the sound to take away from the visuals. In the scene where the main character walks outside, we see all the shadowy figures around our main character. The objects on their heads symbolize their positions in this world and is inspired by the Yoruba artist Romuald Hazoumè. This is where the quiet but unsettling music begins, and the main character falls over and has to come face to face with who she really is.
If I could continue this animation I would add an ending where the main character wakes back up, and she herself has an object on her head symbolizing her new position in this strange but adult world.
I really enjoyed working on this project and with Sabir. I appreciated how he came up with ideas and concepts that I would not have even considered if not for him, and how this contributed to our final project. we worked really well together, with little conflict and I consider this collaboration to be a huge success.
Stop Motion
Week 1
Monday: We joined groups of 3 in order to put together a stop-motion using small pieces of black paper on a white background following instructions from the teacher. I teamed up with Sabir and Adelou.
Wednesday & Friday: in these 2 days we chose a movie in our groups. My group chose The Matrix. Using charcoal we then had to create a stop motion of how we perceived the movie without a reference to go back to.
Week 2
We were given ‘The Moon’ as a prompt. from that my group and I brainstormed separately and created an animation together using ideas that all of us contributed. I have included some of the information I contributed here:
There are three main ways in which the Moon impacts on life: time, tides and light. ‘For many animals, particularly birds, the Moon is essential to migration and navigation. Other will time their reproduction to coincide with the specific phases of the lunar cycle.
These eight phases are, in order, new Moon, waxing crescent, first quarter, waxing gibbous, full Moon, waning gibbous, third quarter and waning crescent. The cycle repeats once a month (every 29.5 days).
The moon is a feminine symbol, universally representing the rhythm of time as it embodies the cycle. The phases of the moon symbolize immortality and eternity, enlightenment or the dark side of Nature herself.
In Leonardo’s Codex Leicester, circa 1510, there is a page entitled “Of the Moon: No Solid Body is Lighter than Air.” He states his belief that the Moon has an atmosphere and oceans. The Moon was a fine reflector of light, Leonardo believed, because it was covered with so much water.
Selenophile (n.) – a person who loves the moon.
I also included an article on the moon and its influence on greek mythology
Here is the final video that we came up with:
Storyboard
Week 1
Monday: I created a singular storyboard based on the prompt “running away from a monster”
Wednesday: I teamed up with Katy and Summer to create a mood board inspired by the prompts ‘red riding hood and ‘weird and wonderful
Friday: Here is the WIP storyboard that I drew from the prompt: 2 friends/people meeting for a coffee and having a disagreement over A) Spilled coffee, B) Disagreement over the bill, C) Two spies meeting to exchange info, D) Robbery. I chose a disagreement over the bill.
Week 2:
Monday: We first started off drawing some scenery and objects and textures from around the room. then we were told to draw our surroundings from our own perspectives.
Wednesday: We went to southbank to do some live drawing. I joined a group of people and we started by going inside a cafe to draw people we saw. then we walked around for a bit and ended by going inside of the Royal Festival Hall and i drew a few people that I saw there that piqued my interest.
Friday: I updated the Storyboard WIP from last week of the prompt ‘two lovers disagreeing over the bill’. We also had to create 3 storyboards that tell a story inspired by things that we drew on Wednesday during our live drawing in Southbank.
Introduction to Animation: Collaboration project
Week 6 & 7
Project: The Origins of Elephant and Castle
We were given a task to create an art-book with a storyline based on the prompt ‘The Origins of Elephant and Castle’. In this project, I teamed up with Jelo, Julienne, Leilana, Harry, Miran, and Sabir.
To start off this project we decided to brainstorm some ideas.
We went walking around Elephant & Castle to find any scenery that might inspire us for the storyline.
After this, we started coming up with storyline ideas. these are a few of them.
We ended up choosing a mix of the ‘Tangled’ and ‘Romeo & Juliet’ inspired storylines and spent some time writing out a script for the final video. here are the results:
We then decided to create the art-book. We found a castle popout image online so we decided to use that as part of the props. I decorated it. We each drew pictures of elephants and mice fighting on an A3 sheet of paper and Julienne created an origami elephant out of it. We each created a mouse soldier and Miran made a music soundtrack to play in the back of the video. we wrote out the script on pieces of paper to show the characters ‘speaking’ in the final video.
All in all, I found that I really enjoyed this project. working together with people that I had not bonded with before that Thursday was really enjoyable and was reflective of how it might be like to collaborate with people in a future workplace. I loved how we all put forward our own ideas and contributed our individual skills in order to create something that we could not have come up with by ourselves.
Introduction to animation: Week 4 & 5
Week 4:
Task 1: Write a story in 5 lines on one of the following topics 1. Grief 2. Love 3. The kindness of a stranger 4. Sickness 5. Peeling an orange
Story 1: The kindness of a ‘stranger’
I sat in the corner of my room, all the reasons why I should end it here and now ran around inside my head. The door creeped open and a small figure tiptoed inside, glancing around until her eyes found me. She unfurled her right palm handing me the object that was inside ‘I made this just for you’ her voice uttered, barely a whisper. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes as I read the inside of the note. ‘I love you’ it said
Story 2: love
Green vines wrapped around bark pulling tight and holding it close, a toxic embrace gripping around a lifeline. I love you it whispered, I need you it screamed, keep me close and don’t let go. You are the reason why I am alive and you are the reason I continue to thrive, climbing up into warm sunlight to breathe and then crawl back to the comfort of shadows
Task 2: ‘Map’, photograph or sketch exactly what is on the table in front of you.
Week 5:
Task: go on a 45 minute walk and draw a map of where you go
3D Worlds
Week 1
We were briefed on what our final project of this rotation would be and taught some skills from Autodesk Maya. I found this very difficult.
This is the ‘Storyboard’ I had in mind for my final project. It is a floating book with mountains and a tiny house pushing stars out of the chimney into the night sky with an atmosphere of stars and planets as the sky.
Week 2
Monday & Wednesday: we explored some cinematic scenes on how to tell a clear narrative in order for the viewer to follow a storyline. I chose the Netflix series ‘Bee and Puppycat’ the task was to show how framing techniques were used in a specific scene by comparing it to framing techniques that we had learned in class.
This is the final result of the 3D worlds Project. I was really happy with how it turned out. If I were to change anything I would change the colour of the house and make it more defined as its kind of hard to make out the windows and roof from the walls. I would also add more detail to the house and more stars and planets.
Introduction to animation: Week 2 & 3
Week 2 and Week 3 homework
Week 2: 20 photos that tell some sort of narrative:
The narrative I am showing is made up of random things I noticed during my day that I decided to take pictures of. It shows the type of things that tend to catch my interest
Week 3: Visit a gallery or other venue/spaces around London and find work by artists who use objects in their work. Tell us why you have chosen this artist and why you have responded as you did.
I went to the Tate modern to see if anything there would move me when I saw ‘the black wall’ sculpture by Louise Nevelson. She uses objects that she found around New York city in order to create a piece that she can create a narrative with. This piece made me stop and look at it. I felt drawn to it. It seems to represent how chaos and discord can be rearranged into something with order and meaning, and a purpose other then what it was made for. The fact that everything is painted black in order to match each other reflects how we change parts of ourselves in order to fit in with the society around us.
Louise Nevelson was born in the Poltava governorate of the Russian empire, but she lived in Manhattan with her family. This sculpture reflects her habit of being a collector and her connection to the neighbourhood of Manhattan. She would collect objects that she found and has incorporated them into her sculptures in different ways. Her dramatic sculptures paved the way for female artists as she showed that it wasn’t only men’s artwork that could be large scale.
1988, reconstructed 2011