Controversy.

Hey everyone,

I'm not sure how many of you are apart of another culture or speak a different language but I am lucky enough to be friends with people of several different cultural backgrounds. Many of my friends are Indian and take me to watch Bollywood films at the local theatre. One day a few of us went to see the movie 'Rab Ne Bana di Jodi'. It was about a couple who are arranged and live together, married, while the man loves his wife but she does not harbor the same feelings back. The woman sees a flyer for dance classes and asks if she may go. Her husband says yes to make her happy but then comes up with the idea to dress up as a different person so he can be close to her. I won't spoil the ending but this is one song from the movie that caused a lot of controversy. It is about how he sees God in her and how much he loves her. He doesn't need her love back because God blessed him by making her his wife.



Without knowing what they are saying you can see that the pair goes to many different places to pray but they go to different sites for different religions. When I was watching this I was so confused not being able to speak Hindi. Many people are shocked at this scene also. Some say that it is outrageous that the director made people of most likely Hindu faith mime other religions and faiths where other people are happy that their faith was shown in a Bollywood film. This video's comments are full of controversy and opinions.
As an artist, I want to be able to stir opinions and thought in people. This song is beautiful as well as the shots and props used in it. Every scene is so bright and cheery conveying his heart's feelings. The dancing works with the rest. This video is art. I think often times we forget that art doesn't have to be spoken in a language we understand or one at all for a message to come across strong and clear. I think this scene is meant to show the feelings of this man towards his wife but also the feelings of the creators behind it. I think this video sends the message that everyone in the world is different but compassion lies within us all.

Katelynn

Creativity Still Lives

Hey Everyone,

Lets just say I was in shock watching this. It amazed me and made me do something I have not done in a very long time. I watched a music video.



Wow. That was the word I kept thinking while watching this. Well, that and what the heck is going on? I'm not sure where to start. It is so beautiful yet extremely weird. I love how as the camera rotates, the room is set as a colour wheel. I've never seen something like this. Why did they choose to do that? Do the colours stand for something? I'm not really sure but it keeps me interested. Another weird thing is that only one whole person is in the entire of the video. What I mean by that is that they only show parts of people. Their heads, their torsos. their hands but never the whole body. I think that it shows how music is made up of many parts. The video shows it because if you hear a drum there is a part of a person playing the drum. It is simplistic yet so complicated. I also love how the video brings a sort of old world charm. It doesn't quite feel old but it is not quite modern. Some aspects of historical home decor are present. The details on the fire place are very ornate and organic yet the colours some how speak 2010 to me.

I hope you enjoyed this video from an artistic perspective if not a musical one. The next time I make a video I hope I can make people think and wonder as this video made me. The artistic detail is truly amazing and was nominated for a Juno award.

Sprockets Film Festival

Hey Everyone,
On Tuesday April 20th my class attended the 2010 Sprockets Film Festival. We spent the day at a movie theatre watching an assortment of small shorts and one full length film. The age range was vast throughout the event and many had the opportunity to talk to those who had a role in creating the films. Directors, writers and artists were all available for a Q and A session.

As for my favourite film, I liked one of the short films best. It was called 'Iran: A Nation of Bloggers'. This was may favourite for a few simple reasons with the first and most important being that it made me think. The film was just a short animation about new technologies, in specific blogging, that allow opinions to be formed and presented to the world in a place that you could die for having an alternative opinion. According to this film Iran has the 3rd largest collection of bloggers. Can't they die if caught? Why risk your life to state an opinion? What sort of opinion is so important? How will figures in power handle this? How are figures in power handling this? ... These were some thoughts that were brought up in my mind as I watched. The animation seemed to fit the mood. Fast flashing images formed an intense visual to go with the facts being told. I found them very effective as well as the colours and artist choices made.

If you look at this still frame taken from the film you can see many things. The lighting is dim and the colours dark perhaps showing the darkened times Iran is facing. The thing though that I love so much artistically in this still in particular is the wall paper. It is damask wall paper which was used in powerful, rich , well respected homes in the past. It was a traditional wallpaper and still is today. I think this could contrast against the blogging as writing a blog is not traditional or considered 'proper' there. Are these blogger's opinions breaking the traditions found in Iran? The computer screen does split the wallpaper in half and cover most of it up. What do you think?


As I mentioned earlier we watch a full length film as well. It was call 'U' (pronounced "ooo" like ooo la la) and made in France. It was interesting to watch as it was in french and so different from any animation I've seen in North America. Even the drawings were weird to me (Picture of U on the left and Lazare on the right). The story was about a dog princess that is lonely and lives with two rats who are her guardians. She then meets U a unicorn who makes her very happy until Lazare (a lizard) and his family come to live in a nearby tree. The princess falls in love with Lazare's brother which causes U to shrink because she no longer in need. I found the story a little too jumpy in the film and way over sexualized for a children's film. It seemed like every few minutes a hidden sexual comment was being told and almost every character was naked in the film. These two things sort of bothered me as I am not sure I would want young kids watching it. Maybe in France this is normal to watch but living in North America it is not so obvious in children's films. With that beings said, Disney animations do have sexual jokes hidden in some of their films but I find them to be much more discrete and the characters are not obviously naked. I also enjoy the style of cartoon drawing Disney films rather than the style of 'U'. This may be a bit biased as I grew up on North American films rather than European ones. It was a good experience to see different perspectives on animation and film though. It was a good learning experience.

Katelynn

Mystery Guitar Man

Hey Everyone!

Once again wandering through Youtube videos, I came across something great. The Mystery Guitar Man. Below is his latest video.



I cannot begin to think of where his ideas come from. It is so interesting to see what new musical sounds he can create. On his Youtube channel he has posted videos of him making music out of the oddest things in the weirdest places. He created a samba tune out of phone books and another cool tune at an airport by using the sounds in the terminal. How did he think those up? I like that he actually has music talent and that he is interested in computer animation. In another video he animates a fake laptop made out of Styrofoam. It appears to work like a real laptop but a in weird imaginary up way. How cool is that? He seems to play every instrument you could think up including the guitar, drums, rubber band and cereal bowl. Now that is knowing how to play music. I also admire that he likes to include those who watch the videos as if they were right there with him. He has created videos that you can react with and asks for viewers to leave comments about different opinions he brings up.
Below is my favourite video that he has made.



The song, although made by someone else, is just made to be put with a video like this. I was truly inspired by this. It is a technological flip book. Old animation traditions are being brought into the year 2010!
He is a great artist and I hope that he one day is able to inspire the world like he has me.
Here is a link to his store. Check it out! Don't forget to comment, leaving your thoughts :)

Katelynn

Advertising In Strange Ways.

Hey Everyone,

Perhaps many of you have noticed that ads are everywhere. The bus, the mall, on T.V.... Everywhere! I was exploring youtube one day and came across some great ads and some not so great ads for different products such as phones, laptops and video game systems.



This is an odd ad that is strangely appealing. I'm not totally sure why they launched a chair into space when their product features a laptop but perhaps that is the beauty of it. Its a mystery that pulls the viewer into wanting to know more. Maybe the chair symbolizes comfort and by launching it into space the makers of Toshiba are saying that you can use their products in comfort wherever you are in the world. Maybe they want you to interpret their products to whatever you need. I thought the ad was interesting but did not make me want to buy one of their laptops.Artistically, the red colour of the chair really draws your attention and makes you wonder further. The colour red could mean many different things just like this video could. I liked the camera angles because they gave the video a edgy look that you don't typically see in most ads. Here is a video of the launch.



This ad is for xbox 360. I am not a fan of the system but whoever thought up and carried out this commercial was a genius. I think it is one of my most favourite ads ever. Every shot taken on the screen has purpose. At the begining, the quick facial shots build suspense. You don't know what is going to happen or why they are holding up finger guns. Then BAM, literally, a full blown gunfight takes place in a mall. I find this sooooo funny. The music and human sound effects bring the piece all together. The motions are choreographed in such a realistic yet imaginary way that it just fits. The concept for me was that all the people in the mall begin playing an xbox game in the mall by using pretend guns. This is sort of like a video game. It is pretend. Then one "gunman" shoots a man on the phone. This is my absolute, favourite part. The man finishes his phone conversation then once he hangs up, fake dies. This is showing that when you play video games, real life comes first! GENIUS! I love the comedy of the video and hope you do too.

Katelynn

Tim Burton

Hey everyone,
I wanted to share with everyone my favourite creative mind, Tim Burton.

The reason I say creative mind instead of something else is that he does soooo much. He draws, makes clay animation, directs... He is a true artist. I am a big fan of his. I enjoy that all his work is so conceptual and looks beautiful. Check out his website (2010)! When I opened it I could instantly tell that it was his website. All his work leaves a unique impression. You can tell when something was created by Tim Burton. Some of his works include Coraline, Edward Scissor Hands, Sleep Hallow,The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride.

Corpse Bride

Edward Scissor Hands

All his works seem to feature dark, mysterious characters but in my opinion usually aren't as dark as they seem. I find that most of his works show positivity hidden in darkness. From watching documentaries and interviews featuring him, I learned that he used to work as a storyboard artist at Disney! I could not believe it. His style is far too enchanting to be locked up in with singing animals and happy little dwarfs. Some other interesting facts about him are that he works with Johnny Depp in many of his films, he is dating Helena Bonham Carter, has two children and his character Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas appears in several of his films in the background or as part of objects.

I don't think I'll ever get enough of seeing his artwork or films. They are all so creative and entertaining. They offer Humor, Romance, Mystery,Action... Everything I could want to see in a film.
I'm not sure if i could pick a favourite film of his but I can say that I can watch Coraline, Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas over and over again. Comment below if you are a fan of Tim Burton too. If you aren't.. Comment and tell me why! :)

Katelynn

Tips and Tricks: Creating Chinese Bamboo

Hey Everyone,
On the post below I linked THIS website for you all to take a look at. Well as I was finishing that post, I began to look at the other tutorials and found THIS. It is a tutorial on how to make Chinese Bamboo chutes in Adobe Illustrator! This caught my eye because we created bamboo chutes using Chinese water colour ink in art class. The guide lays out simple yet detailed steps on how to create such an image graphically but I do find the guide a bit long. They show steps ordered 1 through 15 to teach you how to duplicate their interpretation.
They start off by creating outlines of the bamboo shape with the pen took using a green coloured fill. Then use the mesh tool to create a 3D effect on the image. The steps continue to walk you through creating a bamboo image but what I found most interesting was how they used the symbol tools. To save time, the artist created a sort of spray paint version of a bamboo leaf to create more leaves on the image without drawing them all out or copy and pasting. It is so simple it is genius! I really liked this tutorial and found it very easy to understand.

Katelynn

Tips and Tricks For Tracing A Photo In Illustrator

Hey everyone,
I wanted to share a great new project I have started working on for a class assignment. We are each choosing an art style (such as Art Deco, Impressionism, Surrealism, graffiti...) , taking a self-portrait, importing into Adobe Illustrator, making it into a graphic image true to the chosen style and then finally printing the image so we can paint it on MASSIVE canvases. Right now I am turning my photo image into a graphic image. I chose the art style surrealism and am trying to make my self look very realistic. I am creating this by using the pen tool. As many could imagine, it is challenging to do this on a computer. I am very excited with how things are going but I wondered if there were some other ways I could make my creation more realistic.

As usual, a great way to find out something you don't know is by Googling. I hit GOLD! I found THIS. It is a website that describes a few simple steps to creating a realistic tracing of an image. I found it very helpful. The quick guide showed me how to make shadows very easily. It was in a way I had never thought of. Intersecting shape areas... using the pathfinder. I do not believe I've ever even tried to use that tool but now is a great time to start. Check it out!! It also shows gradients as a fill to express shadow and detail in a human figure. I find this extremely helpful to my realistic self portrait! Thank you kind people of
ndesign-studio.com!



Katelynn