Moe - Film & Television Foundation Student

[macharki]

Final Blog - 29/04/2019

So this is it. Since I’ll need to make my way to Manchester Airport tomorrow to go back home to Gibraltar, I’ve finally handed in everything. Not going to lie though, looking at how much others have handed in, I worry that what I’ve done isn’t enough but I’m sure I’ve done everything needed! So everything has been put in a bag and left in room 101. In total I’ve handed in, 1 A3 sketchbook, 2 A4 sketchbooks, 1 A3 display folder (portfolio), Catalogue, A4 display folder (containing all of my documentation and other things), 3 ceramic pieces, 1 USB stick... and I believe that’s it, if I’ve forgotten something then I’ll come back to this blog and edit it! 

But anyway, overall I’ve enjoyed the foundation year and fingers crossed I’ve made it into level 4. It was a pleasure getting to know all the new people I’ve met as well as all the teachers as they were all wonderful! I look forward to possibly seeing them in the near future. Farewell. 

[macharki]

01/04/2019 – Session w/ Maggie on other pieces of art including Fountain

In this session, Maggie should us more pieces of art which would provoke a discussion. The main thing we investigated are Readymade Art. This is when artists would get already made things and give them a brand-new purpose or change the way we view them. The one piece that we specially investigated was Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain. This got a very mixed reaction from us as most of us believed that the original creator of the urinal should have been the one to get the credit and not Duchamp himself. But there was always the argument that he didn’t necessarily create the urinal, but he did create a new point of view on the way we see it which is really what he has been created for. 

(Image above taken from - https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-duchamps-urinal-changed-art-forever - 2017)

[macharki]

29/03/2019 - Tim Burton’s Latest Film!

Now, its no secret that Tim Burton is one of my favourite artists and that a lot of my work during this academic year has been inspired by Tim Burton himself. Coincidentally enough, this year his latest film also came out (Disney’s Dumbo) and as part of my ‘Artist Research’ (despite the fact I would’ve gone to see it regardless), I had to go and see his latest project. 

Overall great film, both emotional and engaging, definitely recommended. Obviously no film is perfect but for what it is, still pretty great. 8/10

Plus on a side note, it has really helped provide me with more inspiration for more work to come.   

[macharki]

20/02/2019 – 26/03/2019

Since the last time I documented, only a couple of things have happened. It is important to mention that most of it has been independent study so I’ve just been adding to my sketchbook and starting to look into what to include in my portfolio. Most of the Monday morning sessions throughout those weeks have consisted of Maggie showing a number of paintings and we would discuss them as a group. These paintings include:

·         John Constable’s The Hay Wain (1821)

·         JMW Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire, Tugged to her last berth to be broken up (1838)

·         Eugene Delacroix’s The Death of Sardanapalus (1827)

·         Gustave Courbet’s The Stone Breakers (1849)

·         Millet’s The Gleaners (1857)

·         Claude Monet’s Impressionist Sunrise (1872)

·         Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party (1880-1)

·         Berthe Morisot’s The Cradle (1872)

·         Ford Madox Brown’s Work (1852-65) – (Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery)

·         Gauguin’s When will you marry? (1892) Tahiti

·         Henri Matisse’s The Red Room (1908)

·         Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907)

·         Abstraction’s Mondrian (1872 – 1944)

·         The Red Tree 1908, The Grey Tree (1912), Blossoming Apple Tree (1912) composition in Blue, Grey and Pink (1913), Composition with Grey and Light Brown (1918), Composition with Red, Yellow, Blue and Black (1921)

·         Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942)

·         And much more…

One of the other things that we also did was have a tour of the fourth floor of the building which mostly specialised on 3D Design. We were taken through all the rooms with Reece leading us and explaining how each room/machine worked.

[macharki]

19/02/2019 – Illustration Talk & First Video Game Session

As for this session, we were given a talk about illustration, the purpose for this was to give us more context on what the subject is about and what we would expect to do if we were ever to choose it later. They were there to answer any questions that we may have had on the subject as well as they brought some sketchbooks/Used Illustration Pads to show what sort of work we would be expected to produce as well as the career it could lead to as they also showed published illustration books from previous students of the university.

That afternoon we had our first session of Video Games (As I chose the Media Workshops Group as the group in which I’d be rotating every three weeks – this comes with Video Games, Animation and Film & Television) and in this first session, Bryan spoke to us about the characteristics characters have. In other words, what physically makes them, them. We investigated different examples of video game characters and how they act both personality wise and mannerisms.

It is worth mentioning that since we had the session on the Thursday afternoon, it meant we weren’t required on Wednesday morning as we usually are.

[macharki]

18/02/2019 – Presentation Planning & Presentation Board

The following few days that followed the last time I documented, a few things happened such as finishing off Media and having a week off due to Career Development Week. But once it was time for us to come back, we had a usual Monday morning session with Maggie. In this session, we looked at some pieces of art that had the theme of ‘Being Human’ and this was to help us gain some inspiration from it as well. After we did so, we were shown some of these pieces of work again and then we were asked to choose three of them and explain why we think they connect to each other better in comparison to the others.

That afternoon we had an IT session where we investigated Presentation Boards. By doing so we were asked to look up one online and fill in an Analysis sheet about how we felt about the Presentation Board; I ended up basing mine on a Cat Friendly Chair. 

(Presentation Board taken from - https://www.pinterest.com/pin/124974958386687054/ - 2019)

[macharki]

29/01/2019 – Paul McAllister & Video Games with Bryan

During the morning of this day, we were given a talk by Glass & Ceramics Course Leader Paul McAllister. He showed us images of his work from the course of his career and in some cases, even before that. We explained how this was something he enjoyed doing since the age of ten and how he dropped school and didn’t get back into it until later in his career when he ended getting his degree on the subject.

That afternoon, I and a few other people went into a room with Bryan where he showed us what we would be up to if we were to pursue Video Game Design as a degree. I found this to be quite interesting and is a possible alternative if Film & Television Production doesn’t work out for me as some of the things they do is Motion Capture Animation which is something used in various films like Beowulf (2007) and A Christmas Carol (2009).

[macharki]

28/01/2019 – Session on Catalogues & AutoCad Blocks

During the morning, we were given a talk about catalogues and how we would create one for our piece of work that will be put in an exhibition. We looked at the catalogue that was in the exhibition we visited last week and as well spoke about what catalogues need to contain. After that we went to the university library in which Maggie and one of the librarians showed us how we can track down various catalogues that are within the library. After that we were left to explore the library and search for as many catalogues as we wanted.

During the afternoon, we were in IT and this time, we looked into creating blocks in AutoCad 2019. By doing so, we were asked to create a door using the programme and this was this was the end result:

[macharki]

23/01/2019 – First Media Workshop

This was going to be our last rotation as we were finally going to start Media. The first thing that happened was that we were given two poems, the first being ‘Human Beings’ by Adrian Mitchell and the second being ‘Being a Human Being’ by Tom Leonard. We were told to read both and then decide on one that I would want to adapt into a video. I read both and I realised that Adrian Mitchell’s ‘Human Beings’ was a lot easy to understand so I went with that one. We were shown how to use an editing software (although I didn’t quite need it as I was already familiar with how to video edit) but it was interesting to see how Premiere Pro worked.

After the demonstration, we were told to look for videos and pictures to include in our video adaptation of the poem, so I started researching some. It is important to mention that we were told that whatever we decide to us, it has to be referenced.  

[macharki]

21/01/2019 – Museums & Art Galleries

This was our first day back from the Christmas holidays and we had a lesson with Maggie about museums and art galleries. We investigated their architecture and the types of people visited them when they were first opened. We were told that we would need to create a piece of work that would be displayed in an exhibition, so we were advised to familiarise ourselves with art galleries and museums. We did so by looking at different examples of different ones such as the British Museum and the Louvre. After we did so, we as a group went all the way to the Wolverhampton Art Gallery and explored all of it and even looked at this new exhibition that was going on. When we were at the exhibition, we were told to pick three of the artists who had their work on display and so I picked Marcel Dzama, Yun-Fei Ji, and Inci Eviner. We were even shown this catalogue that had images of the work in which we could take a picture of.

A couple of examples of some of the work displayed in the exhibition (taken from the catalogue)

Later that afternoon, we had IT in which we familiarised ourselves with the program AutoCad 2019 by making various squares. 

[macharki]

10/12/2018 - Session on referencing

This was our last session of the term as we were going to break for the Christmas holidays. This lesson was given to us by Julia and she showed us how to reference our work if we were going to use a bit of someone else’s work and the importance of doing so.

[macharki]

05/12/2018 – Design Model Cutting

Now that I had my pattern decided, it was time to think of what to have the pattern on. Since the spirals is going to be added as a tribute to Tim Burton, I thought the model should be a tribute to German Expressionism. So, using the design I’ve used on previous projects, I decided to go with the image I used for the ceramics tile. Since it also had to be in 3D, I had to think of a way to get the image to stand up and this is what I thought of (see images below).

[macharki]

28/11/2018 – Design Pattern

*This is a session I forgot to blog about so adding it now as a catch-up*

This was our second lesson with Design and by this point, I’ve decided on what pattern to use. Since I wanted it to somewhat relate to Tim Burton, I decided to use the pattern that he uses quite frequently and that is black and white spirals. Before I decided on that pattern, I did spend the session experimenting with different other patterns. Here is the paper that I spent trying to figure out a pattern.

[macharki]

03/12/2018 – My Collection & Drawing Based on Description

For this session, we investigated what we would consider to be one of our most treasured possessions. We were given a piece of paper in which we had to draw an item that meant a lot to me. So, I thought hard about what to draw and I thought about my childhood and how I used to watch a lot of films on VHS, so I drew a VHS tape. This was the result:

After we drew the pictures, we were asked to swap with someone and discuss with each other what we drew and why we drew it and then we had to write a summary about it on each other’s paper.

Later that session we started a new activity. We were put into groups and each group was given an object to describe. Once everyone wrote their description, each group swapped with another to guess what the other groups’ object was. By doing so I made a sketch based purely on the descriptions given. We did this twice.

[macharki]

26/11/2018 – Importance of Colour in Art

For this Monday morning session, we explored the importance of colour in art. We did so by looking at different types of art that used colour to its advantage. An example that we explored was in the film ‘The Wizard of Oz’ (1939) and how the scene where Dorothy goes to Oz for the first time goes from black & white straight into colour. The reason why we focused on this was because the fact that it turned colour was to show just how colourful and surreal the land of Oz is, making the audience feel like they really have entered a completely different world. Obviously, we investigated other examples like films such as ‘Alice in Wonderland’ (2010).

[macharki]

21/11/2018 – First Design Lesson

Since my group had done Print with John and 3D with Julia, it was time for us to rotate to Design. For this session, we were given a talk and shown different examples of patterns. All sorts of patterns by different artists who specialise in that art form and different objects that have these patterns printed on them. After having had an entire session about this, we were told to spend the entire week to think about what pattern we would want to design and then eventually have it decorated on an object that we would have to create ourselves.

[macharki]

20/11/2018 – Presentation by Dr Max Stewart

For this session, we were given a talk by Dr Max Stewart about the different work he has done. He specialised in set design mostly, so he showed us some of his work and sketchbooks. He even brought a DVD of a film that he worked on the set design for; the name of the film was ‘Rigoletto’ (1995) which was a stop-motion animated film based on the opera of the same name. We watched the whole film and he even had one of the animated puppets used in one of films that he worked on.