art student
I have decided to display the animation on a older style tv monitor, on a plinth. Over the plinth I have put a white sheet with black splattered paint; continuing the black paint theme on the outside of the animation. So the sadness is present in the exhibition space.
I first tried to do the animation on an LG tv monitor which is more modern, and didn’t have the desired creepy effect that the older screen did. 
(the modern tv first attempt)
I used an app called ‘music video’ to experiment with sound and what different effects it would make. I used a mismatch of found sounds and my own voice to create a weird background noise- and although it was fun to make; I feel like the sound doesn’t benefit the animation so I have decided to display without sound.
My piece is a short stop-motion animation which explores the theme of depression.
The set is made from hand-painted clay, the figures from pipe clean wires, polystyrene/ styrofoam, wool, buttons and fabric. For the filming I used an Iphone 5s, a 500wt floodlight, and a phot-r photography cube. I used two apps for editing (stop-motion and iMovie) and a video editing software (Premier pro). The process of bringing the animation to life involved intricately setting up each frame and taking a photo. Once all the photos were taken I put them together into a type of slide show to give the illusion of movement. I used 5 frames per second, which gives the film a more jittery, homemade feel- intending to make the viewer unsettled. The animation is 48 seconds long played on a loop. It is displayed on a TV monitor (with ivy and moss), which stands on a dirtied sheet draped over a tall chair.
The main concepts behind my work are grief and depression. My interest in this generates from a personal standpoint as well as an interest in human psychology. The way that an entire person can be compromised by an illness such as depression, has always fascinated me- and I wanted to portray it in a metaphorical, accessible way.
I began working from my pre-drawn story board; but two scenes in, I just created the next scene that came into my head- which has connotations in itself (e.g. how chaotic depression really is). The animation contains two characters: a little boy and a monster. The monster represents depression; he is always there, and can sometimes even appear to be comforting, but ends up causing the little boy to drown in this blackness. I used the paint as a visual form of sadness, the boy tries to get rid of it but it is a part of him, and eventually he lets it take him. The graveyard was a suggestion that grief is a good place for depression to thrive; the boy represents you and I.
My main influence was the film director Tim Burton. I have always admired his unique and twisted style and wanted to harness this. His stop-motion features are not only visually stunning, but they often explore themes of death and loss in a way that seems innocent; almost juvenile- which was the aim of my piece. For example, The Corpse Bride (2005) portrays the underworld as a vibrant place and the living world as a drab place; this way of exploring the concept of death and loss is much different to that I have seen before and I wanted to incorporate it into my own work. Other artists that influenced my making process include Jan Švankmajer, William Kentridge and Don Hertzfeldt. Another big influence was I miss you, a song by Blink 182. The lyrics to the song have always provoked strange images in my head- images that made a stimulating if not slightly disturbing animation.
Edvard Munch
Munch began using his inner turmoil to create art. He suffered from deep depression during his lifetime, and his art often reflected events that happened to him. For example, after an argument with his lover he shot himself in the hand, and this moment was captured in the painting Self-portrait On The Operating Table. He was certainly never shy about expressing his inner turmoil, and his work is often expressive and dramatic. After having a complete nervous breakdown, he was hospitalized for eight months
Vincent van Gogh
Recent studies have shown that Vincent van Gogh may have suffered from bipolar disorder, and his artwork, although colorful, often reflects his emotional pain. His story is well-known by anyone with an interest in art history. Despite wanting to be a pastor, Van Gogh’s life was deeply affected by mental illness, and he went through several torrid love affairs and bouts of depression. He often coped with this through his art, and he drew the people and places that influenced his life. In later life, he found it difficult to write letters, and went through stages of not being able to work, along with stages of being extremely inspired and working prolifically. After shooting himself his last words were reported to be: “The sadness will last forever.”
Tracey Emin
British artist Tracey Emin widely uses her life experiences in her art, and her life has become an open book because of it. From her rape at the age of 13, to her long periods of depression, many of her works are controversial and highly confrontational. As well as her installation works, which often attract media attention, Emin often uses monoprints to represent difficult events from her past. Although she has often been criticized for giving too much information, it’s obvious that art has been a form of therapy for Emin.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Basquiat used art as an escape from his chaotic personal life. Although he was an intelligent child, he had a mentally ill mother and had been in and out of institutions for years. As a homeless 15 year old, he began expressing himself with graffiti around New York, before concentrating on different artistic styles such as human anatomy. He attempted drug rehabilitation and sobriety, along with exploring different themes in his artwork to cope with his difficult past. His work often looked at racial oppression and slavery.
My first idea is to display the film on an old tv with miss and such covering the sides. 
My second idea is to write the song lyrics on the wall in scrawly writing and project the film onto it.
I was also thinking of displaying the film on an iPad on the floor, and have everything but the screen covered in moss and dirt, like it’s being viewed out of a grave.
My last idea involves displaying the film on my laptop and having the characters next to the film, to bring in the process.
This scene went well and I think it is successful in he creepy cute sense.
I have purchased a Phot-r photography cube to control the lighting, which is working well. I am also using a 500wtt flood light with a navy film to make a moon light like glow.
I am filming in my phone because I can do it straight onto the right app.
I have used air drying clay to create my scene for the animation, along with twigs for the fence and some moss. I have also used acrylic paint on the ground trees and gravestones.
I did want to make the scene look hand made, but not to the extent it looked like a primary school project- so that was a hard balance to maintain.
I am mostly happy with it, i would have liked more graves but then the characters would be able to move around the scene. Maybe I would make it bigger if I redid this idea.
Given the fact I have decided to use grief as a main theme in my animation i have decided to look at famous pieces who have explored this in the past. These are some pieces I found particularly interesting.
‘Inconsolable Grief’ by Ivan Kramskoi, 1884
19th Century Russian painter Ivan Kramskoi strived to portray the realism of human emotion through his portraits. The image shows a widow, robed in black, holding a handkerchief to her mouth. Kramskoi captures the weariness in her eyes as she looks lost in thought and bittersweet memories.
The scene of the family home, with sympathy flowers and funeral wreaths piled up, is as recognisable to grieving families today as it was in the 1800s.
‘Still Life with Skull, Leeks and Pitcher’, Pablo Picasso, 1945
Painted in Picasso’s distinctive Cubist style, this still life draws on the centuries-old artistic traditions of memento mori and vanitas – paintings that showed the transience of life and inevitability of death by placing ordinary, everyday objects alongside a symbol of mortality, such as a skull.
Critics believe that Picasso was particularly preoccupied by this type of art in the wake of World War Two, during which so many people lost their lives. Like 17th Century Vanitas paintings, Picasso’s artwork invites viewers to think about where death fits into our daily existence.
‘Oak Fractured by Lightning’ by Maxim Vorobiev, 1842
Russian painter Maxim Vorobiev specialized in painting landscapes. Most of his work depicts picturesque seascapes and peaceful countryside views, but this painting is markedly different.
An allegory on his wife’s death, this emotionally-charged picture captures the shock and pain of losing a loved one. A bright bolt of lightning streaks down from the stormy skies, breaking an old oak tree in two – it is perhaps the perfect metaphor for the sudden death of someone you love.
‘Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity’s Gate)’ by Vincent Van Gogh, 1890
Van Gogh reworked this image several times in his life, based on a series of sketches he made of war veteran Adrianus Jacobus Zuyderland. Van Gogh said that the sight of the old man had moved him to think about life, death, and if there was some higher power.
Writing in his diary, he described the sight of the grieving old man as proof of the existence of “something on high”, calling it “unutterably moving” to see him bent double in sadness and grief.
‘Monastery Cemetery in the Snow’ by Caspar David Friedrich, 1819
A German Romantic painter, Friedrich painted huge, impressive landscapes, from vast oceans to towering mountain ranges, inhabited by small, insignificant human figures. Almost all these works deal with man’s place in nature and our helplessness in the face of its power, but this painting particularly evokes themes of time and mortality, through the ruined abbey and scattered headstones, stark against the white snow.
Poignantly, ‘Monastery Cemetery in the Snow’, like the mighty abbey it depicts, has been lost to time and destruction. The original painting was lost during the air-raids of World War Two and only a black-and-white photograph of it remains.
Finishing my monster involved making him a cloak out of an old pillow case and attaching a furry collar. I used paint and pen to achieve the face and features. And buttons for when his eyes are open.
I used a sharp knife to carve my monsters head out of Styrofoam. To form the body I used newspaper and pipe clean wires. I then papier-mâchéd around the whole thing to keep it sturdy and all together.
I would like my story to represent grieving and depression, but in a naive and innocent way.
My setting is in a dismal graveyard, and my characters are a little bit and a large monster. The graveyard represents grief, the monster represents depression, and the boy repqresents the viewer.
The monster is comforting but also he keeps the boy in the graveyard, in his grief. And the boy misses the monster when he leaves, when the depression goes away. Sort of like ‘what now?’.
The animation will not have any speaking or conversation so all of this is implied, although the viewer doesn’t have to imply anything at all- and just watch a short heartwarming, slightly creepy film.
This story is just about a little boy who befriends a monster. The story is sort of heRtwarming, but I want the visuals to be a bit creepy.
Jan Švankmajer is a Czech filmmaker and artist whose work spans several media. He is a self-labeled surrealist known for his animations and features.
I enjoy is work and his unusual animations have greatly influenced my own work.
I have chosen this song to base my animation on. I have loved this song for years, the lyrics are weird and creates unsual imagery when I listen to it, and I think it would make an interesting animation.
However I am undecided whether to have the song with the animation or have a different audio yet.
Some of this bands music videos have disturbing and strange stop motion animations. This is the exact direction I plan on going in now.
The whole set had been constructed and the lighting is dingy and the whole thing just makes you uncomfortable which is what I want to achieve in my work.
As well as it being a music video, and I think that’s where I’m going at the moment.
Because ‘The Visitor’ had too many elements to the story, I have decided to go in yet a different direction.
I started doing a mind map and fixated on animating a song. I went through my songs and picked out the ones with odd lyrics and I’m currently narrowing down.
When the clay dried on my trees, it crumbled and made them look quite sinister. So instead of starting over I have instead decided to use my story ‘The Visitor’ as this eerie style would fit much better.
I am using air drying clay to create the trees of my back drop, using dead twigs as the skeleton.
We went through different types of paint and the different thinners and such.
The most useful things I took from it was finding more about varnish and that it comes in an aerosol form which seems a lot less scary than one you have to paint onto the surface. Also we learnt that marcay soap suds are a great way to revive ‘ruined’ brushes.
We also learned about drying times and different thicknesses that were possible by adding more thinner or more oil etc.
Henry Selick is an American stop motion director, producer and writer who is best known for directing The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach and Coraline.
He is the director of my personal favourite stop motion animations, and films full stop.
I LOVE ITTTT
This artist also does stop motion in 2D but computer generated. These dark little stories are much like my own, and I could use some of these techniques in my own work.
We were told to pick an animal, and then draw it from different anles to get used to their anatomy.
William Kentridge (born 28 April 1955) is a South African artist best known for his prints, drawings, and animated films. These are constructed by filming a drawing, making erasures and changes, and filming it again. He continues this process meticulously, giving each change to the drawing a quarter of a second to two seconds’ screen time. A single drawing will be altered and filmed this way until the end of a scene. These palimpsest-like drawings are later displayed along with the films as finished pieces of art.
This artist has an interesting and unique way of exploring stop motion animation. These intricate animations are so impressive. Each frame is individually drawn, changed slightly (by rubbing out) and redrawn. A painstaking and slow process but with beautiful results.
If 3D stop motion proves too difficult then I will definitely consider this an option.
Caroline Achaintre is a mixed media artist living and working in London. Her work draws heavily on Primitivism and Expressionism.
Her presentation was informative but slightly dull. Her work isn’t the type I am usually interested in, however upon her explaining her concepts and process I came to like it.
This is the first programme I’ve tried but I really like it and the results came out better than expected.
This went a lot better than I was expecting. I would use a much better set and lighting, I also had my phone at an angle in which it moved slightly when I took each frame- so I would fix that.
But overall the idea is plausible. I’ll see how time consuming one scene is, and see where I go from there.
Kate
These are just little animations I made on my Nintendo DS. The stories aren’t relevant to my project, but it was good to figure out stop motion in some form.
The DS wasn’t an important part of the composition, but this could relate back to my original ideas regarding childhood.
Made of mainly pipe clean wires to make her easy to move around, and sewed her a lil dress.
Deirdre spent the residency investigating references to historical forages like Sainfoin, the name derives from the French for healthy hay, in the MERL archives and reviewed some of the extensive collection of historical documentary films produced to teach increased efficiency in agriculture.
I wouldn’t personally consider her work to be art per say; she had a lot to say about potatoes- however she made for an interesting presentation.
Rachel Gibson 