FMP Research Proposal

Intent

"Whence did the wond'rous mystic art arise,
Of painting SPEECH, and speaking to the eye?
That we by tracing magic lines are taught,
How to embody, and to colour THOUGHT?" Marshall McLuhan 1967

For my Final Major Project I am writing, illustrating and animating a narrative about fear of the dark. 

My intent for this research and practice is to discover and use to my advantage the ability to convey powerful mood and emotion. I would like to be able to take my viewer on a journey from immense fear and anxiety to relief, understanding, joy and hope. I will look at works which I feel have created these mood swings for me. I will also interview other people, artists, friends and relatives to determine their responses to the works that I am going to research and also ask them to view my own experiments and gauge their responses. This evaluation will be an ongoing element of my research so that I can fine tune as I proceed in order to achieve the desired outcome.

Notes from Keiren Phelps - Module Tutor 2015

How are you going to achieve this?

In order to fully understand the visual language used by the artists and works I will be dissecting and examining, I'll consider this "shopping list" of ingredients to kick-start my investigations:

Composition

Colour

Metaphor

Perception

Disruptors

Constraints
Sequential flow
Stop motion

I will be researching the work of:

Shaun Tan is a multi-award winning artist and author- analysing how he represents moods, particularly depression, fear & hope. His use of metaphor, character facial expression and gesture and his sequential art methods. Tan's working practice interests me particularly the evolutionary process from sketchbook to final artwork. It will be interesting to try this out for myself.

Nobody Understands, from The Red Tree - Shaun Tan 2000

David McKean - McKean puts to use all of his creative skills in combination, illustration, graphic design, sequential art, film making, sculpture, found objects and digital art.  He communicates fear, horror, distortion skillfully, and makes good use of constraints & disruptors. McKean has many different styles of working, although darkness is consistent throughout his oeuvre. Although I am not currently a fan of his work, I think that his ability to communicate visually is undeniable, as his flourishing career suggests. I am looking forward to exploring his work in more detail, I think there is a lot that I can learn from his practice.

Catalogue for the British Library - Dave McKean

Octopus from Crazy Hair - Dave McKean 2010

Charles Keeping - beauty of varied line thickness & horror, dark narrative. I am determined to breakdown Keepings images and fully understand how on earth (!!!) he painted those beautiful varied lines and mixed the colours throughout the lines at the same time...this will take much trial, and undoubtably, error on my part to discover his secrets once and for all or maybe not, but the journey will be invaluable I am certain. I will be going to visit his home, which is kept as a gallery by his family, so that I can view the original illustrations.

From Beowulf - Charles Keeping

From the Highwayman - Charles Keeping

Wayne Anderson - Surrealism, sinister, dark, shadowy beauty. Ratsmagic was one of my first favourite books as a child. I was always drawn to the darkly, weird and bizarre stories; Sendak's The Night Kitchen was another one...anyway, I digress, back to Anderson. My love of his work has never subsided and I am delighted that he still, although laboriously, produces his images in the exact same way he always did, with crayons and colouring pencils. It is Anderson's compositions, particularly in his earlier works, that interest me along with his gentle distortion of proportion of his human-esque and anthropomorphic characters. Again an exciting experiment to be had here!

Wayne Anderson

From Ratsmagic - Wayne Anderson

Chris Ware - layout, time passing, colour planning, tackling everyday subjects, sequential art
This for me will be the most challenging experiment. I adore Ware's work, I think the man is a genius. And I have attempted his portrayal of time passing with my own narrative before. It is NOT easy...I think a great deal of planning will be required here. I will also be mapping out his colour palettes as I do find these appealing in his work. The analysis of his sensitivity to everyday subject matter will be especially useful to apply to my final project too, as I will be tackling an everyday fear in my story.

Jimmy Corrigan Back Jacket - Chris Ware

Quimby Mouse - Chris Ware

Shirley Jackson/Robert Wise: The Haunting (1963)- power of the imagination, psychological, horror, fear, despair. I saw this film in my teens and it terrified me. I do intend to watch it again, this time with an analytical eye (the other one will be tightly shut!!). Why was it so frightening? How did they do it? Shockingly, the film is rated certificate 12??!! The thing I remember that was so disturbing about it was how it plays on the imagination, the actors' fear portrayal, lightning/shadows and sound effects. How can I convey this essence in my work? I am currently reading Shirley Jackson's novel, The Haunting of Hill House (1959), at the beginning it is light hearted and comical, as the guests begin arriving there are hints of distress which are brushed aside...the first night is drawing in...the tension is emerging...

The Haunting (1963) - Robert Wise (Director)

The Haunting (1963) - Robert Wise (Director)

I have just made an awesome discovery!! The house from the movie, is in Alderminster, Warwickshire. I am so going to visit, could even be a possible setting for my narrative...? It is supposedly the most haunted house in Britain. The mansion is now a 60-room luxury hotel. And yes I am scared...

Stop Motion Animation Techniques - I have already made a short stop motion animation using a 3D wire armatured puppet. I have been exploring the other methods of stop motion animation and enjoy immensely the whole process, from writing and storyboarding to shooting and editing. There are several methods that I am aware of namely, oil on glass, sand, charcoal, silhouette, wax on glass and puppets/models. Lotte Reiniger is the name that is synonymous with silhouette animation. William Kentridge for charcoal. I hope to find the technique that will best suit my film and one which I can associate closely with the illustrations for my book. Although I have decided that the styles for the book and film may indeed be different i.e. charcoal drawings for the book and silhouette puppetry for the film.

John and Michael by Shira Avni, National Film Board of Canada - Wax on Glass

Felix in Exile - William Kentridge - Charcoal

Hansel and Gretal - Lotte Reiniger - Silhouette

My experiments

To emulate the working practices of the aforementioned artists and in turn solve the mystery of mood projection in my own work. This will directly feed into my Final Major Project. I am hoping that by breaking down their images, secrets will reveal themselves to me and I will be able to create my own formula for visual communication, specifically mood and emotion. At this stage (the beginning) of my exploration, I imagine I would like to produce my Final Major Project book and film in black and white, however, I am willing to accept the fact that my opinion may change during the course of my journey.

My own work tends to be pretty and jolly and clean cut. I would like to achieve something dark, dirty and disturbing as a contrast to my usual way of creating. The narrative that I will be illustrating requires both dark and light moods. As I will be making an animated film of my story, I think it will be invaluable to study closely the sequential techniques employed by McKean, Ware & Tan and the lighting and sound in The Haunting.

Week Four: Level 5 theory Major project and EP planning

1. What are you going to investigate?

The influence of visual language and devices on narrative

2. What is the test content you are going to use for your experiment?

A narrative situation informed by my own sketchbook observational notes - university mouse & hotel mouse narratives

3. What are your communication objectives for the test content? What do you want people to think or feel when they see it?

Initially I want the viewer to be intrigued a little afraid, uneasy, curious, to see abstract shapes, shadows, close ups,

Then they ought to be charmed when the reason for the movement in the shadows is revealed,

Followed by concern for the mouse, will she make it safely?

4. Starting reference point:

North by Northwest storyboard/film

What is it? Identify and define your reference/starting point/example of work

A storyboard for a film, a spy thriller, mistaken identity, Alfred Hitchcock

What does it make you think?

I am intrigued, it's odd, a man waiting in the middle of nowhere, why is he there? What will happen next? He appears fairly relaxed, how long has he been there already? There is an air of mystery.

What does it make you understand?

Something's not right, the stranger mentions that the crop dusting aeroplane is dusting where there are no crops, why!? When the plane chases the hero there is fear, panic, the need to escape, the only place to hide is a corn field, but this is feeble protection.

What does it make you feel?

Anxious, tense, perplexed, concerned for the hero who appears nonchalant, rather than confused & scared. What is he thinking?

What is the general intent? E.g. To amuse/entertain/record and understand/intrigue, mystify, puzzle, fascinate/inform/educate/question, explore, challenge/satirise/investigate/horrify, frighten, disgust/thrill, excite/distract, transport, transcend

The general intent is to entertain, intrigue, interest & thrill.

How does it work?

You will investigate this visually.

Languages – Mechanisms of communication./Surrealism/ Humour/ nonsense/ Abstraction, decorative, pattern./ metaphor/conceptual/symbolic/ montage/juxtaposition/ emulation /documentary, reportage/ interactivity/ realism/ anthropomorphism

The hero is on a road running through rural farmland, he is wearing a suit, shirt and tie. He has an air of confidence about him, his body language suggests he is waiting, hands in pockets, facial expression. He is out of place, it is surreal. Another man appears apparently directly from a cornfield, also suited, he comments on a bi-plane crop dusting where there are no crops, before getting on a bus which stops 

Aspects of production / Composition/ Viewpoint / people/gesture/expression/performance Character/ / Simplification/stylisation / Scale . Narrative structure/sequence/ Time colour / place/context/background / 3d elements, made objects / platform- – Layout.

My intent: To create a sense of intrigue and fear, anticipation of an impending danger, followed by relief, joy, hope with realisation. Using this narrative:

The Early Morning Mouse

Early in the morning, blink and you will miss her

Is the early morning mouse, scampering through the tiniest shadowy corners of the university corridors, before the cleaning ladies come and vacuum up the crumbs

The all nighters on their way home do not see her in their sleepy haze although they sense that they are being watched.

And they are...she watches tentatively, hopefully, that any morsel might tumble from their laps, a speck of the midnight snacks long forgotten fuelling words on the page. Crumbs that will feed a mouse's family for another day, another night until the next early morning...blink and you will miss her.

Evaluation

I think I achieved a certain level of curiosity at the beginning with the use of abstract long shots and close-ups. Fear and anxiety...mmm...no...concern for the protagonist, yes. Perhaps a sense of worry when the cleaning lady arrives too. North by Northwest has a man out of place - I have not addressed this in my experiment, mainly as I did not fully understand the task at first. More simple than I thought (which is often the case!). However, I have learned from this and will endeavour to emulate more accurately when commencing the practice as research for my Final Major Project. 

Week Four - to investigate the visual communication of abstract – feelings and thoughts

Memories of Childhood

Girl with dogs - Kitty Skye

1. Poem. half remembered Childhood .

Some of these things are true

Fern Hill

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs

About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,

The night above the dingle starry,

Time let me hail and climb

Golden in the heydays of his eyes,

And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns

And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves

Trail with daisies and barley

Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns

About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,

In the sun that is young once only,

Time let me play and be

Golden in the mercy of his means,

And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves

Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,

And the sabbath rang slowly

In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay

Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air

And playing, lovely and watery

And fire green as grass.

And nightly under the simple stars

As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,

All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars

Flying with the ricks, and the horses

Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white

With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all

Shining, it was Adam and maiden,

The sky gathered again

And the sun grew round that very day.

So it must have been after the birth of the simple light

In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm

Out of the whinnying green stable

On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house

Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,

In the sun born over and over,

I ran my heedless ways,

My wishes raced through the house high hay

And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows

In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs

Before the children green and golden

Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me

Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,

In the moon that is always rising,

Nor that riding to sleep

I should hear him fly with the high fields

And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.

Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,

Time held me green and dying

Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Week Two - "The Arrival" and its use of metaphor

Metaphor

“… I often like to think of words and images as opposite points on a battery, creating a potential voltage through a ‘gap’ between telling and showing. It requires the reader’s imagination to complete the circuit …”(1)

Metaphor definition and news clipping for narrative inspiration

The Arrival

"The Arrival is a migrant story told as a series of wordless images that might seem to come from a long forgotten time. A man leaves his wife and child in an impoverished town, seeking better prospects in an unknown country on the other side of a vast ocean. He eventually finds himself in a bewildering city of foreign customs, peculiar animals, curious floating objects and indecipherable languages. With nothing more than a suitcase and a handful of currency, the immigrant must find a place to live, food to eat and some kind of gainful employment. He is helped along the way by sympathetic strangers, each carrying their own unspoken history: stories of struggle and survival in a world of incomprehensible violence, upheaval and hope."(2)

Analysis

•  A man leaves his wife and child in an impoverished town
• The old country is portrayed with a sense of doom and gloom, the image is dark with an unknown, faceless, creeping monster with tendrils seeping around the streets and houses. There appears to be no end to the row upon row of streets of austere tiny windowed homes. It is unsympathetic, hard and grim.
•  an unknown country on the other side of a vast ocean
• Tan uses scale expertly in his works, and has done so again in this narrative. In order to demonstrate the almost immeasurable expanse of the sea the man has to traverse, a colossal cloud hovers darkly above the expansive ocean and the ship appears tiny, and we know from our own experience of grand sea travel, that this vessel is in fact itself titanic in size, accentuating even more so the huge distance the protagonist is journeying away from his family.
• He eventually finds himself in a bewildering city of foreign customs, peculiar animals, curious floating objects and indecipherable languages
• They say that you can usually tell a tourist because they tend to look up and around and point at things which we take for granted. The first  sequence of images we see is a close-up of the man looking up and around, he looks up, his hand shielding his eyes from the light to see a flock of seabirds, not the usual seagulls one would expect. The view changes to a long shot where characters are also looking up and pointing up at the birds. Then an extreme long shot shows us the harbour, city skyline, again with the crowd on the ship gesturing towards this unfamiliar metropolitan land of hope. Tan has devised characters to form "any" foreign language. 
• With nothing more than a suitcase and a handful of currency the immigrant must find a place to live, food to eat and some kind of gainful employment
• The protagonist communicates with a notebook and pencil and draws a bed and window to indicate that he seeks somewhere to stay, he continues to use this form of communication.
• He is helped along the way by sympathetic strangers, each carrying their own unspoken history: stories of struggle and survival in a world of incomprehensible violence, upheaval and hope

Conclusion

Tan uses weird and wonderful surrealist creatures, symbols, landscapes and cityscapes to communicate with the viewer. He also uses sequences of images in the comic art style.

The Arrival - Confused Man - Shaun Tan 2007

Evaluation

I thought it would be interesting to represent the tidal wave as giant hands embracing the children to show that they are safe even though they have been torn away from their family with such a great natural force. They are then transported to a foreign land where the sun is shining and there is hope. 

References

(1) Tan, Shaun http://www.alma.se/en/award-winners/2011-Recipient/More-about-XXX/
(2) Tan, Shaun http://www.shauntan.net/books/the-arrival.html

Week One - Caricature

Nigel Farage Clay Model Caricature

I have confirmed what I suspected - that caricature is not for me!

That said, I suppose I ought to explain why...?

Whilst I can appreciate the skill and background knowledge of the illustrators who depict the persons in caricatures, I find the images bawdy, garish and singularly unattractive. No offence to the talented artists who produce this often comical and intellectual art form. 

Sketches made from head sculpture

Conclusion

I can definitely appreciate the usefulness of have a 3D model to draw from. I do use myself, friends, my daughter and her toys quite regularly for this very purpose. But having a specifically designed model is even better! They keep still for a start and there are more options for drawing from many angles.