Darren Aronosfsky and Michel Gondry

For the visual Essay we have been asked to look at three or more possible practitioners that we admire, and that are in the field of our chosen pathways, as I am currently thinking about the moving image pathway I think back to the incredible films "The Fountain" by Darren Aronofsky and "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", by Michel Gondry, these films inspire me artistically and spiritually, intense visuals and fantastical in nature it becomes the essence of what I believe i aspire to do. Here is a trailer I could find for The Fountain. I particularly like 'Toms story' in the year 2500.. this film which spans a 1000 years, shows a transformation of human society and the psyche unlike any imagined before... This film showcases it own beauty in its unique special effects, using a technique none have used before to my knowledge... so enjoy, I shall further my explanation in my visual essay..

Am I a practictioner yet?

Hi, so... here we are, start of a new term and possibly the most pivotal moment for choosing my chosen pathway and understanding it, and I go and get sick. Great. So; sorry for last weeks absences whoever is reading, I've have had flu or something. Not nice; nor recommended. So this is late, but better late than never. I have been asked to identify and define what, at the moment, I am doing creatively to further myself and develop into a practitioner of the arts.

Well, so far I with my classes at the moment studying the flash programme, making our own quiz, which is difficult, not because of the complexity of the programming but of the creativeness or rather lack-of behind the questions and responses and trying to make it new, interesting and engaging for the players.

Other than that, I'm currently creating my own little avatar sketch, something as a recurring theme I could play with for a while in all my future drawings and works, much like a artistic signature. I do this alongside doing personal art and doodles which I have been doing for many years now, and currently I'm trying to discover my own style, as I believe that everyone has a unique aspect to their work, just depends how hard you look for it I guess.
I watch many films, always looking for new talent, recently I discovered Darren Aronofsky particularly for his use of stunning visuals (above) [The Fountain, 2006]. Have always loved Tarantino, even his lesser known stuff such as "Death Proof" from his grindhouse days.

In the future I hope to accomplish more animations, and have a better understanding of the art forms that interest me such as japanise anime, the style of it, and why it is effective in its method.

The six phases of a design project

In doing my essay I found the most interesting of techniques, i think that these are the six steps that are the most realistic when designing, for anybody interested in including them in your essay I have referenced. It was found as a notice on the wall of the Greater London Council Architects Department.

The Six Phases of a Design Project:
1.Enthusiasm
2.Disillusionment
3.Panic
4.Search for the guilty party
5.Punishment of the innocent
6.Praise for the non-participants

[Astragel AJ, 22 March 1978]

Artists, designers and filmakers i like and dislike..

Mainly, my favourite film making work comes from world cinema, people like Pedro Almodovar(the fountain), and Zhang Yimou(hero, House of flying daggers) who both use striking visuals and current techniques to produce special effects that remain unique to them and are instantly recognisable, this is think is a true stylistic quality; having something like a visual style or technique labelled with your style making you unique.
I particularly do not like the works of M. Night Shyamalan..(6th sence, the village, signs) as i find that his narratives drag, and are way to uneventful, it seems to take a linear line of cause, action effect throughout each movie known as "equilibrium, dis-equilibrium and then the restoration of some equilibrium". Its just not for me as i it doesn't excite me the way the others do with thier storytelling.

The Design Process We Went Through (-sorry its long)

In the Process' used to make the short film used; (the one shot short) we took inspiration from other forms of one shot shorts, and we decided to to develop these idea's we've seen into a first person perspective as without editing and multiple shots to switch back between we felt this to be the most comfortable for the users verisimilitude (believability in context). In understanding that the audiences that where likely to watch our film would be other enthusiasts as this was a small scale, low budget (more importantly non-distributed) experimental film, so we targeted our development stage at their expectations of our intelligence and creativity usually shown within a short experimental film.
We planned and rejected and furthered any ideas that did not adhere to this policy, we discussed a prototype of this film, but time and resources did not allow; so we could not do either an acceptance test in forms of contact with possible audience. or with our own judgment. We where to make sure that we where all content with the plan before filming to achieve maximum effect.

After the filming and sticking to the plan, we had the raw footage, seen on the YouTube link shown below, and we needed next to process the stage of evaluation, we used editing and dubbing to make the audio-visual as good as can be. after which we looked at the effectiveness of it, the most important of the process subtitles. It did fit with the specification we have given ourselves, as the impact of all visual aspects where just as wanted, the audio could have been louder in hindsight but upon completion me and my group were very happy.

Courtroom Drama One Shot Piece

ok according to blogspot.com i cant upload anything this big, so sorry, but please go to youtube and type in "courtroom take 2"; or failing that http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnYtF2nVyLI

One Shot Short

This is our one shot short, in the group was me, Harvey, Ant, Lars and Sketch. Me and Ant are in the film, Sketch was cameraman, Lars was the Prisoner and Harvey Director and general Organiser, we all contributed to idea's and we all had a certain style I feel that we all came very close to what we where trying to achieve.
We were given rules to our film, the camera must remain on the tripod, and it must be all one shot, and short 1-5 minutes. We struggled with neither of these rules, but only a way of making it new, interesting and experimental to capture the frame of mind and vision of direction we wanted to achieve, the best way we thought to do this was in first person perspective/or P.O.V
We found a great venue to shoot at courtesy of the Nottingham Galleries of Justice Museum, we wanted a dark, 19th century courtroom drama feel, so although we took lights just in case, they where not used; but take a look at the film, please try to understand the vision of perspective we where trying to achieve- all actions and directions were chosen and thought about carefully, it is experimental so bear with us, one shot is nobodies preferred cinematographic* choice *(yes that's a word)
- The File is over 200MB so i doubt it'll let me upload, if not I'll also try to put it on YouTube. (to all lecturers I'll try to put it in the drop-box on NOW too)