Box Projection Mapping Live Jam

Box projection mapping live jam

We worked on box projection mapping live jam with digital media students.

Different techniques of imagery.
The imagery can not only limited in the small screen but also show on big project.

 We looked at how the possibilities of techniques can be used

I liked the geometric stuff they played on the kiosks because it gave audiences a speed feeling. Especially when it comes out with contrast colours and fast music, it just create a atmosphere of time travel or fall into a abstract world.

Photo of mapping live jam activity 

Rowena Mason

I did some research about Rowena Mason as teacher mentioned her. Her distinctive hand-woven products really opened up a new world for me!

I never thought someone can play those boring geometric patterns in such creative way. She used geometric patterns to create a feeling of weaving, pushing and a dynamic environment.Every single geometric pattern owns its unique colour with complex details.

Photos of Rowena Mason and her products from cockpitarts.com 

Saul Bass

A graphic designer and filmmaker, best-known for his design of film posters and title sequences.

image of Saul Bass from www.artofthetitle.com

I really liked one of his work- North byNorthwest. This title sequences are very effective and memorable for me.

It was first came out with a lion roaring and then lots of lines across the screen horizontally and vertically, I soon realised that they were frame of a modern building as the green background transfer to a modern building with reflection of busy city life.

Images of title sequence from http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/north-by-northwest/

His title sequence express the story in some metaphorical, way, so that when the film actually began, I would already have an emotional resonance with it.

Bill Viola 

He is a contemporary video artist whose artistic expression depends upon electronic, sound and image technology in new media. 

Photo of Bill Viola from www.smithsonianmag.com

I was surprised by his work 'The Dreamers'. People's face looks very clam and relax. Their body stand still under the water but their minds actually putting together the things happened in the day. All the stuff happened in their dream world, people can really feels pain, feels emotion through dreaming. They are surround by water, water seems a part of their body, they are flowing and circling, it is a nice moving image.

Images of Dreamer from www.blainsouthern.com

On the lesson, we were been asking the differences between past and present of Salford Media City. As we know, Salford has history of human activity stretching back to the Neolithic age. Salford and its neighbours grew along with its textile industry. Since 1990s, parts of Salford have undergone regeneration especially MediaCity. 

Photo of Salford building in the past

Photo of Salford building in the modern day

I think the most different thing is environment. Since 2007, BBC has been moved five of its departments to a new development in Salford Quays. It has created up to 15,500 jobs and £1billion to the regional economy over 5 years. It greatly increase the finance and professional service, tourism and culture...Therefore, I thought we should put the road sign of BBC, ITV, University of Salford  to imply the differences between these two images. Also, the flower can indicate that salford has changed from a textiles industry into a modern, environmentally city. 

Photo of road sign 

Photo of flower in Media City 

Evaluation 

This lesson lead me to understand the digital media and contemporary works. It made me realised that as the technology has being development, the production is no longer a single aspect of work, it can express with multiple elements like electronic, sound, animation and image technology. Bring digital media into animation not only create a better production but also has became a new tense for entertainment industry.

References 

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/north-by-northwest/ 
http://www.blainsouthern.com/films/12 
http://cockpitarts.com/designer-makers/rowenna-mason/ 

Flying Machine

Flying Machine

I've made a flying Machine with my group.
It was a funny activity that develops student's creative and imagination.
we discussed our initial idea about flying machine at first, then we decided to use one boy's idea which makes it looks like a UFO.









photo from Johny Byrne from Facebook group Animation is bae 

I quite liked this idea  because it suits the theme 'flying machine' and as we known that UFO enables to travel through the past and future. However, one thing that made me downcast was that when we started building up the structure of the flying machine with straw, glue and paper, it wasn't working very well as the glue was not strong enough to stick all the straws together.  The straws kept separate or slipped off all the time. We had to hold the flying machine for long time until the glue got dry and this has resulted in time consuming. 

We wasted half of  time on sticking straws together but this experience has made me realised we should have considered the functions of materials. If the props do not work well, we should consider using another method to approach the task.

We should have tried different materials to stick the straws when we noticed that glue did not work well. For example, we can use tapes to instead of glue, make the structure stronger. 

If we have more time, I would change the structure of the flying machine because it was heavy and time consume that we spent half of time on it.

In the future, I will make we have several plans rather than stick on one idea, I would also test the props to make the product efficiently. 

photo from Johny Byrne from Facebook group Animation is bae 

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Introduction to animation 101

Description 

Read through the introduction to the module and the assignment brief.

Photo of assignment brief to Animation 101

12 Principles of Animation

1 Squash and Stretch
2 Anticipation
3 Staging
4 Straight ahead action and pose to pose
5 Follow trough and overlapping action
6 Slow in and Slow out
7 Arcs
8 Secondary Action
9 Timing
10 Exaggeration
11 Solid drawing
12 Appeal

 

image of illusion of disney animation from rbeemadiary.blogspot.com




image of illusion of disney animation from  www.amazon.co.uk

Evaluation 

I have browsed the book 'The illusion of  life Disney animation' and started read first chapter- Squash and
stretch.


When we draw on the paper, there is a marked rigidity that is emphasized by the movement. In real life, this occurs only with the most rigid shapes, such as chairs and dishes and pans. Anything composed of living flesh, no matter how bony, will show considerable movement within its shape in progressing through an action. (Thomas F, Johnston O, 1912, p 48)

The movement of squash and stretch are very essence of animation. I learned that when we animate a character, a smile was no longer a simple line. It spread across a face; lips and cheeks, the Squash and Stretch can really make the movement alive.

Learned how to write a good blog

• document my learning process
• annotate the documents
• evaluate personal experience  
• use the formal word to express the blog, do not use slang or internet word such as hahaha, lol, CU etc.
• give feedback and problem-solving 
• make label or category to separate each module so teachers can find them easily

Stop motion Pro A to B move

-move block from A to B

-25 frames hold, 50 frames move, 25frames hold again (our brain cannot recognise first-second moving)

-use 25 frame per second for TV use

-use DSLR camera

photo of whiteboard analysation 

photo from www.chapmantaylor.com

First week in The University of Salford

I was feeling excited as I met lots of new friends!