Film/TV Title credits

I am aim to create a film that tells the history of Scotland: Battle of Bannockburn to Independence Referendum on onwards. There will be little narrative as I want tell the story primarily with visuals.

For this my inspiration came from film and TV title, especially those of the James Bond movies by Maurice Binder and Daniel Kleinman, and the TV show The Americans - the titles are only 30 seconds but they perfectly tell the story of the Cold War (flashing images of the space-race and moon landing, missiles, the American presidents and Russian leaders.

 The Americans (2013- )
Jon Forsman

















Skyfall (2012)
Daniel Kleinman

GoldenEye (1995)
Daniel Kleinman

 

Timeline

Scottish History

My own life...

Scotland: History and Imagery

 

"Where do do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?"

For this new brief the first thing I thought was: avoid your own life. My project will be personal and I will have a connection to it, but it will not be all about who I am. I will instead look at myself as part of a nation and community: national identity, not personal identity.

Scottish History/Identity 

Imagery: Highlands, Stags, Saltire, Lion Rampant, Irn Bru, Whiskey, Oil, Edinburgh, Tartan, etc...

 History: Starting from 1314 Battle of Bannockburn, through 1603 joining of crowns, 1707 joining of parliament and formation of Great Britain, and up leading to the 2014 referendum and on into the future, whatever it may be. 


My main goal is to show Scotland's history visuals alone and very little narrative (if any).
 

CITY: An Edinburgh Crime Series (Statement for Assessment)

In the end I was pretty darn happy about how my comic came out, and the fact that I had actually completed a full comic book. Totally chuffed and pleased with myself. The story I came up with came together rather nicely and stayed true to my original brief and plan. Which was to create a black and white crime, noir comic set in Edinburgh and based around its graveyards; Ian Rankin's Rebus stories were a major influence. Due to time constraints however, the page number went down and down. 8 Pages of story and a cover is pretty decent though - the story makes sense and I like how it ended. Nothing like a good ol' "To be continued...".

My drawing style became more my own on this project, I feel that my influences are slowly getting weaned out and I have started to form my own approach. I use a lot of big black areas, with some hatching and crosshatching, and experimenting with negative space. If in doubt, black it out! 
I had originally planned to get the comic booked published professionally but due to time (Christmas period) I decided against this and to do it myself. Not only did I save myself a lot of money, but I was very please with the results. My DIY printing, stapling and trimming, and size of the book perfectly highlights the independent comic book mentality. That being said, if ever I was to do anther comic - which I probably will - I would get it printed professionally.

Throughout my project I stayed true to my original intentions and researched only relevant imagery and information. I looked at Edinburgh itself, its cemeteries and crime fiction based in Edinburgh; primarily the books by Ian Rankin. I even went to see him talk at the Bloody Scotland crime fiction festival. For my main artistic inspiration I turned to Frank Miller's crime-noir, comic series Sin City (a black and white book drawn with a lot of positive and negative space). My only downfall however is that sometimes I look up something or discover something and not take note of it in my sketchbook.

From the get go I knew I wanted to do a black and white comic using the methods I knew and wanted to use - pencil, pen and black ink, lots and lots of black! When I am so set on my methods though experimentation does not really vary, and when it does I tend to focus more on certain techniques over others. For example, I did a lot of drawing onto black with a white pen and tip-ex. I was totally open to new techniques; maybe I could of experimented with a little print making to get my nice big black areas.


Probably the main thing I learned during this project is time management. I had set myself a big task, and even though I am so pleased with the final thing, I believe I could of done more. I also learned how to acquire and ISNB number and create a barcode if I wanted to sell my books professionally, and even though I did not do this for this project, its a skill that can be transferred over to another, similar project.

CITY: An Edinburgh Crime Series

 Detective Inspector Colin Morrison is a Glasgow cop transferred to Edinburgh. He is overcome by the city’s size. Yes Glasgow is big city but there is something different about Edinburgh; it’s vast and scatted. He is used to crime in Glasgow, it more often than not is drugs and gangs or fueled by religious divide. But Edinburgh is old. It has many secrets. It’s a city full of conspiracy and shadows. Oh yes, it may look bright and put on a good show for tourists: but the brighter the light, the darker the shadow. The first case DI Morrison is assigned is a kidnapping. A little girl from Dean Village was stolen from her bed in the night. When we meet up with our protagonist he wakes up in coffin; buried alive...

 

 
 
 

Pathways: Journey Book

I have always loved western films, primarily those by Sergio Leone, and one of my all-time favourite films by my favourite director, Quentin Tarantino’s latest release “Django Unchained”. With this, I have always wanted to do some piece of art based on westerns, and journey book seems the perfect opportunity.

The journey I have in mind will be a wagon trail through the old west. On the journey our travelers will encounter vicious weather, native American tribes, perhaps bandits. They will stop and set up camp, singing songs around a fire, may have to hunt buffalo.

As for the book, I have several ideas of how I am going to put it together, although I am not too sure yet. Perhaps a historical book about the wagon trail, or a diary of someone on the journey documenting it.

I really look forward to getting properly stuck in! Till next time...

"How do you celebrate the ballpoint pen?" A summary

The last brief we completed was our introduction to the pathways project. I chose the one on the ballpoint pen! We had to create and come up with a series of ideas and possibilities under each pathway: visual communication, contemporary art and applied crafts.

In order to celebrate the pen, I first through it a party! Biro could't handle his drink. Threw up ink everywhere. After that though I got actual work done.

Some of the highlights and things that I am proud of,  across the three pathways are the illustrations of hands and the photoshopped drawn hands drawing the real hands, portrait paintings that were doodled on top of, and the computer drawn pen and orthographic technical drawings.

Very sparse post I know, onto the new brief...

Remediation

Well, I haven't wrote a post in a while, so I thought I had better write one.

I failed "Scale" I was severely disappointed, confused, and pissed off. It was incredibly dis-heartening after all the time and effort I had put into it. And I found out on a Friday and I couldn't speak to anyone about it, so I had the weekend to come with as many possible scenarios and reasons for not passing and how I would react. My main concern would be to be told I put in no effort!

Thankfully though, that wasn't why I failed. First of I didn't have enough concepts, which is fair enough. I was pretty set on what I was doing from the beginning. The other reasons though are mostly stupid though. At least though my mind was put at ease and I knew what was wrong.

I was given a few weeks for remediation and fix what was needed, which I did. Handed it in this Friday gone. So we shall see how that goes!

Fruit, new brief and mind expansion

Fruit is finally over, thank God! Our task was to research and design a fruit and then make it. And that we did. The class had a wonderful variety and in the end we all passed. My concept for my fruit was this: There is a forest at the foot of Mount Fuji called Aokigahara - next to the Golden Gate Bridge it is the second most popular suicide destination worldwide - in this vast and green forest people go to kill themselves. The forest is so dense there is no wind, making it incredibly quiet. It is beautifully haunting. Anyway, when trees grow up, through the corpses the roots have absorbed the chemicals from the brain, and the fruit that is produced when eaten will raise endorphins and make you happier and hopefully not kill yourself. However I was not able to make my fruit as I did not have time due to joining the class  month in.

Our next brief following that, is "SCALE". On word, that's it. We get to wild with this and interpret it anyway we want. Whether it be scientific scales, musical scales, scales for weighing, scaling up/down, scaling a building, whatever! We also have freedom with the work we produce at the end of it. Painting, 3D sculpture, film, photography, textile, you name it! I'm really looking forward to getting stuck into this project, already I am envisioning the finished product, and I haven't even started yet! But you shall need to wait and see what I have planned...

Now getting into "serious" stuff. Signs! Symbols! Semiotics!!! Oh the horror! What fresh hell is this you ask? Well, its hard to explain without sounding like a lunatic, but thankfully I already am one, here goes my best shot. Here is an example: We know a door to be called a door because we have taught all our life that the thing that opens and closes and allows us to enter and exit a room or building is called a door! However no matter what we call a door does not change the function and purpose of said door. Same with other languages; porte in French, porta in Portuguese, deur in Dutch, puetra in Spanish, and so on and so forth. No matter what you called a door, we still recognise the oblong thing with a handle that opens and close allowing entrance and exit from a room or building is a door. But what if we, in our own communities gave it a new name, like fnahefa; it still does not change that a door is a door. MIND BLOWN! Now, what any of that has to do with art or how it will get us through is beyond me and maybe its a waste of breathe for everyone involved. The oxygen used teaching and learning it could be put to better use in my opinion, but hey-ho!

Till my next post.....

Changing Over: Time to catch up

  When I started my time at college I was studying HND Visual Communication (a graphic design course), alas however, although I was so looking forward to the course, it was not to liking. Which is putting it nicely, because I seriously was not happy! The course was not as it was solicited and sold as, everything was driving us towards employment and I don't want to be a graphic designer! Not only that but we were always in the computer room on computers, believe it or not, and I don't like that atmosphere. I needed to be in a more creative place; stretching my imagination and getting those artistic juices cascading. So I did the sensible thing, change course! I am now in a much more comfortable and enjoyable class, Bachelor of Arts degree in ART and DESIGN.  

   Over the past weeks I have thrown myself into the work, trying to catch up on a months worth. So it has been all go. Busy Jack!

  The first project is FRUIT! After researching and studying of fruit of all kinds in all manners, climate, habitat, structure, what have you. After painting, drawing and writing, the task is to design a fruit, concept and all. Considering the aforementioned factors. It is all relentlessly fascinating: riveting stuff! 

  The next and more interesting project is "Transformation", and that's it, we can do, design and make what we want with it. We have however been taught a variety of crafts to help us with our design. The diverse assortment of skills include: paper folding, cut paper, slotting, making felt and the shaping of plastic sheets in a heated vacuum. My design will be centered around "The Metamorphosis" by Franza Kafka. Basically it's about a man who wakes up one miserable morning as a giant bug, or "monstrous vermin". 

  For the drawing class our current assignment has been to look at structures and areas with abstract eyes, considering positive and negative spaces and colouring. When we go back to college we will be starting figure drawing, with nude models and everything!

  Studying that glorious decade known as the nineties has been as exciting, daft, boring at times, the oppostie at others and variable as the decade itself! 

  And finally we have Personal Development Planning, a personal and reflective section that has you discuss all your good points, highs and achievements. But also where you were, where you are, and where are you going! It's all very egotistical. 

  And that has been my first month in BA Art and Design, and tomorrow the new term begins! Goodbye, till I blog again!