Outside The Box, Joseph Pelling

After a group tutorial where I discussed how I wasn't happy with my idea and that I wanted to have a project I could get excited about. So I found myself discussing what got me excited over summer and what I could focus on. I have written a script for a film intro that I wanted to do and I have the idea of maybe doing that for my final major later in the year. It was then suggested that I use his project to practice and build skills towards that. After explaining the basis of the story we all spoke about how it could be changed and developed into a project for the negotiated brief.

I explained the treatment and the script I'd written over summer and decided the new direction in which to go. After talking Rick showed me this which sums up where my project is heading and what areas i need to research now. Im focusing on the conversation between 2 guys and whatever they are discussing appearing in diagrams above them. This is a perfect starting point.

Domino City, Sony

This is great example of how a chain reaction can be built on a huge scale and shows how one event can change a whole city. Obviously this ad is about the colour Sony Bravia TV's provide themselves with but it can be seen in the terms of society. I like the idea that everyone contributes to the final outcome and it wouldn't end up the same with a missing link. Looking at the idea of votes, these blocks could be a physical representation of a vote. 

The PEN Story, Olympus

This is a great stop motion piece for the Olymus pen showing a journey through time and through life. It was made from over 60,000 photo's, 9,600 prints and 1,800 phot's had to be shot again. There was no post-production which i find very impressive and very skilled.

This piece I can relate to alot. Not because of the life story but because of certain shots. For example New York, paragliding and the history of motorcycling in the family. Actually, most of it reminds me of my dad and what he has done through life. He grew up with bikes and continued using them when going through the army then swapped them for paragliding later in life before starting to get back into biking again now. The only thing that is not right is the running a marathon part because he said he would never do but who knows. I love this piece and sure he will too.

The Corkscrew, Rob Higgs

This is a short film where Rob Higgs describes himself and his intentions by his work. It focuses on his piece called The Corkscrew. The Corkscrew is a mechanical sculpture made of about 300 pieces which were found by Higgs and cast in bronze before assembled together. The Corkscrew emerges from a cabinet as well as opening a bottle of wine and pouring the first glass using its own power. Below I've posted a video which shows how it does all of this. I also like this quote i found from Rob Higgs,

"I would like my work to inspire people to consider the general pointlessness and excessiveness of the majority of man-made things in our world and to smile at our tireless pursuit of happiness through the invention of ingenious nonsense."

I like the idea of some huge mechanical operation used to do a task that everyone just takes for granted. Its just an over-the-top method of dealing with a simple task. The huge chain reaction of events is such a build up of suspense for something so simple. I like of a huge operation you just to go "All that for that" at the end. This is something I want to follow up and look into for my self initiated project this year.

The Nutcracker (Eden Project), Rob Higgs

The Nutcracker is a 10 meter high mechanical structure designed and made by Rob Higgs. He has taken an easy everyday task and come up with an extravagant mechanical solution. It is a fantastic structure made from scrapped objects Higgs found and assembled. The purpose of the machine is described next to the piece and says,

"A sledgehammer to crack a nut"

This is the over the top nature of the piece. All that mechanism and all that time just to crack a nut but apparently it is a demonstration of over-processing plants. This isn't the part I like though, that is the huge chain reaction of evens to end with something so insignificant. I like this idea and I'm going to look into it as well as chain reactions for my Self Initiated Project.

JDO Competition

These were my entries into the JDO branding competition. The brief was to just use the lettering in the typeface provided to create either a moving or series of stills that can be used in a poster campaign. I wanted to use bright colours to emphasis the letters so they would stand out on a display somewhere. I was unsure whether to use full colour reflections or darker versions so I sent of both versions. I created a curvy almost liquid type surface for them to be stood on to deform the reflections and create more interest in the composition. Unfortunatly i found out this morning that I was un succesful in reaching the finals but I thought I would put them up here because I am still quite happy with them.

Buried Trailer

This is the new trailer for a film called Buried. Now I don't really put trailers on my blog but this one is a little different to the ones you usually see out there. I really like the way it has been made with a series of animated lines and reminds me a lot of the kinetic type stuff we did last year. This could quite easily be made into a title sequence as proven by putting the reviews with the images used. I also like the soundtrack to the piece as it is building to a big finish a lot like the animation itself.

Now the film doesn't sound that great. A man stuck in a coffin, with a phone, with RECEPTION? hmmm ok. So are we just going to be watching a guy in a box making a load of phone calls trying to get out? We will have to see but this makes me think. Have they gone through all this to make an interesting trailer because of a bad plot or a lot of people are thinking along the same lines and are trying to build some hype? Maybe I'm being harsh but we will have to see.