Major Project
Very excited about Emedia this semester. First week and I'm already inspired to get straight in. I'm glad but also nervous to be given the opportunity to make my first major completely self directed work. Glad because there are less limitations, nervous because there's no major starting point. So in response to there not being a theme to cover, I've made a decision of my medium at this point; stop-motion.
I have been itching to do a stop-motion for a while but haven't pushed myself to do it on my own time, also hard because of my lack of software to put it together. I believe there is still a lot I'd love to learn about making a work in this medium, I think I've gotten very comfortable working in a 2D medium, and it's less challenging. I think I will still focus on animation as I have been, but I'm also thinking about maybe incorporating live action footage into my stop motion, perhaps of actors, myself or wildlife.
Mount Field
I'm very interested in getting out more and going on more bush walks. I've really wanted to get up to mount field these past few months because I haven't been in a few years. I absolutely fell in love with the place, it's really like no where else on this Earth. I'd love to go up and take photos, maybe some footage too. I very much think it will be my starting point to inspire my major project. I've been looking at some beautiful photography on flickr of the area, and it's making me really miss it.
Stop-Motion
I want to do a lot of research into the field of stop-motion, I've started reading again and I'm probably going to go into my local DVD rental and get out every stop-motion I can find, I'm interested not only in animation and character based animation but I really want to research pixelation too. The whole basis to my work is looking at images frame-by-frame.. Capturing moments, and piecing them together to bring life to an object. I'm also going to look at the philosophical concept of film and the still image, what a still image contrasted with the sequence of images that make up film and animation. Often, we just think about the end product, there isn't much thought about every single image in a film or animation meaning something. A great media piece, when you pause it at any point.. Each image can be taken as a separate piece of art I think. I believe you have to think about each point, the composition the layout, lighting and colour of every frame. I am obsessed with frames, and often when watching a film or art piece I will pause and go through each frame. I find it fascinating how things move in an instant. It's memorizing, it's phantasmagorical; it can be humorous, you can learn the true movements of beings and characters. Muybridge was hired to capture a sequence of images of a horse to prove all it's hooves were off the ground at one point. There is so much movement in a second, so much can happen in a second.
So anyway, all these thoughts have been going around in my head for a while, I think stop-motion is such a great medium because you are in the space with what you are working with, there is that direct connection and touch. I love all mediums of animation, but as far as my philosophical understanding and emotional interest in animation goes, I feel as stop-motion is the most tangible in relation to my ideas.
