It would be wrong for me not to start from the absolute beginning when considering my relationship with technology - as this brief has forced me to recognise my roots!
From when my eldest brother was about 5 years old (making me grand old age of Zero at the time) we’ve had computers in the house. From Amstrad to Amiga to Miscrosoft PC’s, he was always programming & playing. The core of every single argument with my big brother was over the computer. That’s so geeky it’s a crime, but sadly it’s no joke! Anyway my point is that even before any of my mates had computers at all I’d always be way better than them at everything on PC’s - even showing my teachers how to use things like Corel Paint, and other Photoshop style programmes that I can’t even remember. Somewhere in between not really being clear of who I am and what I do I’ve lost my savvy-ness on computers! Just like when you’re the best in art at GCSE and then you move up A levels at college.
Since the practical side of the brief has been a lot to do with discovery of new programmes for animation I’ve realised that I’ve never really used MAC’s and after all this time turning my nose up to people who can’t use PC’s - I’m completely MAC illiterate. I’ve never really noticed as I’ve always done work at home and assumed that I’ll know how to convert when to time comes. It’s not just Mac’s either, it’s also Adobe programmes that I’ve never had the pleasure to have had access to but now I get myself in a fluster using it all as it’s all MAC’s at uni. Anyway the biggest thing that I’ve found is that I have the skills and I can learn. It’s easy once you persevere - perseverance is the answer to all my problems!
So the brief to me was largely about my discovery and willingness to learn. Everything has been so available to me and under my nose and I’m so happy that this brief has discouraged my MAC fear! I’ve really sunk my teeth into what animation technology is all about and how it works for me. I’ve asked myself so many questions and realised how I can combine simplistic technologies like pen & paper with more computer based technologies like AE.
I’ve tried to used technology as an aid to everything I’ve been doing concerning the project. Using the widest range of little things that can aid my understanding. I’ve been using my phone calendar and used it a lot to make to do lists keeping me on track and constantly productive. I’ve also been using a new website my friend has made called www.niid.to - the need to do social! As far as documenting research goes, my new little Canon digital ixus 85is has been a lifeline. I’ve really enjoyed making videos to document things like popup books, photographing books from the library and documenting my journey through the project. I feel it’s really hard to document how a book has aided your research. Books are tactile and I much prefer photographing the parts that really helped me rather than sitting with a scanner and trying to create a perfect image of what was on the page. It’s improved my lighting skills and has encouraged innovative use of composition to capture what I’ve been looking at. Blogging is always at the top of my list of fun things to do when I’m just sat in the flat. I enjoy doing it anyway, so I’ve found new ways of documenting the research I have undertaken to enable me to look forward about finding the next bit of information. Every part of research has been a creative and historic revelation to me. I’ve loved every part.
With weekly workshops on the timetable, It’s given me goals to set myself for instance if I went to a timetabled workshop on flash, I would set myself an animation deadline for the weekend after it or to create something that I could test my abilities in the programme. This was purely to persevere and get things to stay in my head rather than forgetting things after each session. I find one of the best pluses about this course is cooperative learning. One of the best types of learning is from the people you’re in a room with. I’ve found out about workshops (lightbox workshop) I would never have known about if it wasn’t for the group crit groups. Also if I’ve got stuck at uni doing bits of animation or technical stuff there’s always another student who’ll know exactly how to do what you’re trying to do. It’s really the best form of learning as you can bounce things off one another.
These are my chosen questions and the rationale behind them
QUESTIONS:
"How much do I know already and how can I improve my understanding and skills in animation?”
“Research the space race between the US & USSR: Specifically the story of the space dog Laika - Can I incorporate this research into animation?”
“What are the differences between animation found in the 1950’s US & USSR?”“
RATIONALE: JANUARY
“I am intrigued by Russian history especially the specifics of the stories surrounding the race to space between America & Russia, the Cold War period in general. Also I am interested in looking at the comparisons of propaganda & animation from the 1950's between America & Russia. Russia tends to have dumbed down, objective, communist visual representations of innovation where as America's visual language from the 50's is extremely widespread, subjective and innovative.”
At this point in my I was also researching miniatures, maquettes or animation sets. This was an interest that I decided to use more as a contextual aid to what I may use if I were to make a set this lead me to create a homage to Rodchenko’s spatial composition.
The link with my Russian History research and with my animations is not as strong as it set out to be. The more knowledge of the Cold War I gained - the less appropriate it felt to create an animation based on the research I had carried out. I just used my initial interest – the story of Laika as a basis for my animations without much of a narrative as I was not working towards an elaborate final piece, more like small animations to test my ability. With the body of qualitative research I have encompassed I hope to further this project in the future to create a more constructivist inspired animation with a wider research inspired final piece. It became clearer to me that the story of Laika was sadder than initially thought and had more of a link with the cold war than I was aware of. My outlook on history is much deeper now and I feel I have gained a great knowledge of an area of history of which I had no experience of learning. The animations I have created are widely inspired by the American animation I have researched as it is more of a mask over the heavy and sad research I had been doing on the cold war.
This project has been so easy and fun because I set myself something that I knew I’d enjoy. It was hard finding out about the things that I was completely unaware of and it’s hard writing about the whole of the project now to really sell it to the person who’s reading this without the aid of the rest of my blog to illustrate it all.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this project and I’m very sad that it’s ending. I’ve not really had the chance to maximise or master my skills in one area. I’ve had a lot of fingers in a lot of pots! The most important thing to me is that this is so open ended and I’ve learnt which areas I want to master, and gained enough knowledge in them to do so. This is just the beginning of a whole new planet of opportunities and specialism within animation for me. Also I’ve loved being able to talk about a subject with ease and even apply critical theory to it like with Lenin’s link with Marxist theory and the whole concept of Panoptiscism with Stalin’s regime. I will never know everything about the research I have carried out but my brain has certainly increased in size! I’m a lot wiser to things and my understanding of critical discourses and I’m able to focus and to learn.
