OUIL504 End of Module Evaluation

I think that the early visual journal exercises in which we explored intangible concepts really helped to pick apart what it was that we wanted to extract from our chosen texts. This has made me think differently about the way I would approach a piece of text were I to illustrate from it. What I found most profound about the concept of the visual journal was not the discovery of a new way of working entirely, but rather how new methods/media can inform and push what I already do. The collage and mixed-media portraits informed my etchings in a way I never would have been able to by drawing normally. The looseness of this approach led to me making images far more expressive than I would have otherwise. 

Overall I'm pleased with how my moving pictures turned out. The head squeezing is my favourite part and was well worth spending as much time on as I did. Having drawn all the elements over Christmas, it was incredibly rewarding to just come back into the studio in January and put them all together into something more complete. I enjoyed turning what was once a sketch in my visual journal into an animation and would be interested in doing this more. The manic textures for the backgrounds were also successful, and helped to make the scenes look more "full". These were created by accident when I was etching and made a mess on scrap bits of news print.I feel that my time management was effective while working on my animation, as I knew the limits of my ability.

In terms of sound I’m relatively pleased as well; the windy sound in the first half and the creepy ambiance at the end I got from www.freesound.org - these helped against awkward silences in the animation. The other sound effects I improvised with bits and pieces in the sound booth and came out well. I recorded my own screaming and pitched it down to make it creepier and more appropriate, but listening to it again I think I am a terrible voice actor.

However, the centipedes, which I got moving in After Effects using scripts, are simply drawn and I feel like I missed an opportunity to make them more gruesome looking - as they are, they look very cartoony and don't match the tone of the rest of the animation. On top of that, Dr. Benway was hard to animate, even when rotoscoped, and ended up goofy looking. I didn't think I had time to colour him in either, so I didn’t, which is disappointing to look back on. I feel like these points represent failed aspects of my proposals – namely communicating the nature of the book and its characters.

I also feel like I could have explored more scenarios. I made one story board and stuck to it – I think I was always going to have the crushed head, but I wonder what else I could have had Benway doing, or if the centipedes could have been doing something more interesting. At the same time, I wonder if maybe I would have run the risk of it getting a bit convoluted if I had too many different things happening one after another.

For the printed pictures, I’m not that pleased with them now, reaching the end of the project. I feel like as illustrations, they are quite weak. They are portraits of characters which convey a mood, but don’t tell much of a story. Not making them floating heads as they were before helped significantly, but only to a certain degree. My favourite prints are the thematic ones, particularly the centipede. This one went through a lot of thumbnailing and I think I ended up with an interesting composition that makes for an illustration that would work standalone. I suppose they work as a set, but inconsistencies with the dirtiness of the print are there due to my inexperience with etching. The slip case was actually quite fun to make though and I’m happy that I did it in the end. It makes me feel a bit better about the images as a set.
I had wanted to do etching for years, and am happy that I finally got a chance to explore it in as much depth as I did. I enjoyed the process but think I will take a break from it.

Re-reading my project proposals for this module, it seems like I have fulfilled them almost exactly as they are written. I think it has been useful to work off of these self-set briefs as it makes your idea seem a lot more rigid, giving you confidence in what you are doing.

OUIL504 Project Proposals

MOVING PICTURES

I intend to produce....
A 30 second hand-drawn animation that will act as a kind of trailer for Naked Lunch.

The content will focus on (identify 3 specific themes, texts or concepts)
1. The concept of “The Black Meat” – a type of drug that is made from the flesh of giant black centipedes and taken as a replacement for heroin.
2.The character of Doctor Benway, who is a sadistic doctor that treats his patients with no respect.
3.The grotesque nature of the book’s handling of drug addiction

I will be aiming to communicate (identify 3 specific messages, ideas, moods etc.)

1.  The grotesqueness of the book’s writing and events
2. The wildness of Burroughs’ head through a messy visual aesthetic

3. The insanity behind the characters – particularly Benway through the way he is animated – movements, mannerisms, etc.

To an audience of ….. (name 3 characteristics)

1. Readers of Naked Lunch

2. Older viewers

3. Those interested in surreal/disturbing animation

PRINTED PICTURES

I intend to produce ……

A series of 6 A5 etchings – 4 of which will depict characters which I have found to be vividly described in William Burroughs’ “Naked Lunch”, and 2 of which will be thematic in content (also relevant to “Naked Lunch”). One of these will depict a black centipede in reference to the black meat drug in the book, and the other will depict scarred limbs.

The content will focus on (identify 3 specific themes, texts or concepts)

1. I will have a vein motif running through prints to tie them together and represent heroin addiction

2. The black meat drug which is simply gross by nature

3. The richly described characters in the book and how ugly they are made out to be

I will be aiming to communicate (identify 3 specific messages, ideas, moods etc.)

1. The strangeness of the book’s characters through their expressions and proportions

2. The grotesqueness of drug addiction that Burroughs has painted in the book

3. The haphazard style of the book’s writing

To an audience of ….. (name 3 characteristics)

1. Readers of Naked Lunch/older viewers

2. People that appreciate etchings

3. People that are into expressive character portraits

Final printed pictures

With slip case

Final animation

Visual Journal

Responsive second pitch boards

Slip Case and printing

Even though they're not in a book format I want to make a slipcase for my printed pictures

Here's a really, really rough test attempt I did, but I made a mistake with gluing the tabs so ended up with a messy little box

During this last week in which I have been printing my final designs, I've been running into a lot of problems with the etching process again:

A lot of my prints have been coming out faded (Aracknid the chauffeur had to be re-printed several times), or I've been making silly mistakes when putting them through the roller that results in them coming out misaligned/wonky. I've been working incredibly hard as well not to get ink smudges around the edges of my prints but this is difficult.

Syfy background roughs

Rough pencil sketches of what the potential sci-fi backgrounds could be. I think that these ideas would work much better if I simply kept them to web banner format. Also, having looked at the standardized web banner format sizes, rather than making each one fit into each banner, I think it would more sensible to make only certain ones fit in certain formats

Last two etchings revisited

The last two etchings re-done - the centipede has turned out really well with all lines showing through just fine. 

The arm and leg however I accidentally left in the acid for too long so a lot more of the copper eroded than I wanted, making the lines really thick and some of the detail getting lost. The speckle effect is really cool looking though, it's just a shame that the others don't have it as well. 

I think I can get away with this plate having the effect though since it is a thematic print rather than a character portrait.

At this point I just need to print the etchings on nice paper and potentially compile them in a box since I'm not keen on binding them into a book.

Title card

This is the first version of the title card that I did:

But after watching it back I felt like I was missing an opportunity to integrate the centipede with the text so have re-done it:

Last two etchings

Had the same problem as with the first etching I did for the module - lines were faded and didn't print in a lot of areas. I don't know if I didn't etch deep enough or didn't leave it in the acid for long enough. Not so bad with the centipedes but really bad with the arm and leg. Will have to re-do these.

Text for animation title card

Rockwell

Trajan Pro

American Typewriter

These are three fonts which I've found work quite well for the end of the animation in terms of tone. I'm leaning towards American Typewriter at the moment because it seems to get a good balance of formal type that would be appropriate for a book as chaotic as Naked Lunch. Also it works as a bit of a throwback to the film adaptation which focuses on the motif of the typewriter quite a lot throughout.

I'm breaking up the centipede into different segments so that I don't have to animate it by hand, but rather use key frames in After Effects