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.
