Evaluation

Right from the start this project drew a huge amount of interest for me. I believe recycling and sustainability are important issues, which we can all help with. From start to finish I have worked enthusiastically producing relevant idea's and showing improvements in skills such as my organisation.
The initial stages of filtering through many ideas to find something to suit me and my client were very time consuming and thorough. From the word 'go' recycling in my head was all about turning something which would grow old in a landfill to something new. Looking at lots of companies and methods of recycling opened my eyes to the fact that things don’t always need to be recycled but can be reused. This idea intrigued me which was part of the reason I chose Scrapstore.
When exploring ideas around recycling I came up with a lot of ideas and contributed well to discussions and mind maps. It was fairly easy to take these ideas and expand on them however sometimes I found I came to a dead end in that not all of the ideas were possible what with time and budget constrictions.
To help me I researched lots of artists, the one most relevant to my project was Jeff Pigott and Julia Warin, who did a spaceship project involving building a spaceship similar to the one I had planned. I found that through email I could get loads of specific information which could help me in my project.
Before we met with the partners I thought of questions I wasted to ask before and what I wanted to get from the meeting. I used the internet to find background information about the different companies. I found this quite effective and a way to get specific information from the meeting. I found I could use this information later on and taking notes was very effective for brainstorming ideas later in the project.
After writing down lots of idea's I made a decision on who I wanted to work for. I chose Scrapstore as they seemed extremely creative and experimental and I thought I would be able to work well with them. I wrote down all my ideas and after arranging another meeting I presented these idea's to John. I found this very effective as the feedback was extremely helpful in narrowing down my idea's.
The communication between my partner and I, I feel were very good. I think email was the most effective and convenient was for both John and I.
During our time in class I found it very productive to experiment with materials which can and can't be recycled to explore possibilities around what they could be used for. I made objects from card and experimented with techniques of folding paper. I liked the weaving technique the best so decided to use this for something which can't be recycled to create a new material which was flexible and easy to manipulate. I also experimented with origami and found this a charming way to use paper rather than throwing it away. After having an idea that I wanted to use animation I started to experiment with my own animation. I already had a good background knowledge of animation so just needed to experiment. I have already tried 2D animation and so I bought some plastercine to experiment with. Although this was fun I didn't end up using any of this.
Tim Burton is one of the animators I looked at, especially his 'Vincent Price'. I like Tim Burton's animations, poetry and creativity and this was the film I liked the best. It had a narrator reading a poem which I thought was very good as it reminded me of being read to as a child. I expanded from this trying to think of nursery rhymes which work well but I found I preferred to write my own poem. The first draft of my poem was extremely long and ambitious, I found I needed to change it in the end to fit in with the film I shot. If I did this again I would certainly swap this doing the filming first, especially as the children were very unpredictable.
I knew I needed some backgrounds for my film and found inspiration for these from various artists such as Van Gogh. For instance I used his 'Starry night' as inspiration for my sky theme. I used different types of paint to get nice effects and then manipulated the image on Photoshop. I found this fairly easy to do but I didn’t actually use this in the end as the part of the poem it was for was cut. Another artist I took inspiration from was Henri Rosseau, I particularly liked them and tried to mimic his style with my own twist. I found using programs such as Coral Painter and Photoshop fairly easy to use to manipulate my images.
Before shooting my film I needed permission from my friend to borrow her children, this all went smoothly although as I found out on that very difficult day is that children are a handful, unpredictable but charming and I think their personalities shine through on the film. I would definitely need help if I did this again as I struggled with supervising the children as I have not had an awful lot of experience keeping them entertained and happy. At first I had an idea in my head of what I wanted them to do but I found I just had to let them be creative in their own way and how they felt comfortable as this is when they were truly happy and I wanted this to be obvious in my film.
I planned my film well getting everything I needed such as scrap and camera's in plenty of time.
The animation of my backgrounds went quite well but I should have planned my time a little better as I spent more time on some than others and I think this shows. The editing of my film went well and fairly smooth. I felt the sound effects and voice over enhanced it and made an overall nice video.
Feedback from my partner was good. He said that the film I made was very positive and cheerful. He said it was aimed at the right people and the content was very reminiscent and childlike. He liked the artwork included in it and said it gave the film personality and charm. He said that he would liked to have seen some more of the scrap in a before and after way, or actually being made because this would show a deeper meaning of how the scrap is used. John enjoyed the use of sound effects and narration although the narration was a little quiet. And the titles at the end were very clear easy to read and didn’t drag on for too long.
Overall I am very happy with this project and my film and I think I did well considering I possibly bit off more than I could chew. If I worked with children or filming equipment again I would definitely get someone to help me and work alongside someone else so I could get lots more feedback and a combination of skills. I enjoyed working with the children but I definitely could have had some help. I think the research went well although sometimes I was too busy looking at one artist to notice another which was also relevant. I think I learned from this that I should listen to general advice given to me and I should have researched more thoroughly.

Final version

transitions

I didn't use many transitions, I inserted channel map to show progression from one verse to another, I also used fading. I also decided to enter some sounds such as jungle and spaceship sounds. I looked through the library of royalty free sounds and chose some which were relevant to save to my desktop. I found a whoosh sound, children cheering, jungle day and various other sounds. I added them to my film and faded them in and out or kept the decibels very low so it didn't interfere with the voice over and added the correct effect to my film.

Budgeting mock up

Costs
Travel- £60
Materials- £30
Labour- £40
Rental of equipment- £100
Total- £230

I would also nee to consider filming on private property and in the public and informing the neighbors of my actions. I slipped a note through the doors on my street to let them know I may be filming in the house and garden.

scrap!

Today we used various bits of scrap to spell the word scrap, this was so all our films had something in common. My idea was to use the buttons inside plastic trays to spell out the word scrap. We filmed this and then someone in the group had the idea of sweeping it away after.

Voice over/subtitles

Today I needed to work out whether I wanted to use a voice over or enter subtitles for narration. I experimented with a voice over recording my voice and reading the poem. This proved very difficult as my voice sounded boring so I had to try and sound happy. The original plan was to get a child to read it but neither Amelia or Harry wanted to so I had to improvise. I should have thought of this earlier so I could think of something in case this happened. For now I had to find a solution. I asked my classmates if anyone could help me but everyone was too shy. I attempted to add subtitles but this confused the film a lot and feedback from my peers told me it was too complicated and you spent longer reading the subtitles than looking at the film. After experimenting with different styles of reading the poem I found if I read it with a smile this came across in my voice. After lots of trials it sounded better so I decided to use this. It was meant to sound as if I was reading for a child to fit in with the theme of my film and I hope this comes across. I could move the voice over around so it would fit in well with the way I arranged my clips.
I had to edit the sound of the clips so you could hear the voice over or fade the sounds in and out to match and work together.

In this lesson I also inserted my animations into the film. I put the castle and the spaceship animations where in the film they were relevant. When watching it through I am happy with the way it looks but wanted some differentiation between verses of the poem and film. I decided to fade in where some of the verses began to make it flow more.

Some of the film was a bit bright so I used a three way colour corrector to make the clips better exposed, after this I copied it and pasted the attributes to other similar clips which were also incorrectly exposed.

Amelia's Story

To start the film I created an image on photoshop using a photo of Amelia, the scrapstore logo and some type, I thought this would be a nice way to start the film. I kept the origional logo but used the lavendar colour as a block background rather than the splat theme. I then uploaded this to my film.

creating more backgrounds

In this lesson I focused on creating my spaceship background. To start with I experimented with filters, each creating a nice effect but not quite looking how I imagined. I decided I wanted the sky to look different and change colour the same way I made the sky background earlier. To separate the sky from the ground I rubbed it out using the rubber tool. I made the sky look more alien using the neon filter then pasted it onto the copy I had prepared. This gave a really nice effect which when the hue was changed looked very 'other worldly'. I next prepared my spaceship on photoshop, this was just a simple drawing coloured with bright colours. I pasted this onto my image of the space scene many times so I could later animate it. I positioned every new layer slightly above the other to make it look like it was taking off. To animate the sky I moved the hue by 5% and created a new layer with each different coloured sky. I opened the animate window and created enough slides to allow the rocket ship to fly out of sight. This was extremely difficult. It seemed after I positioned them perfectly and started to choose which layers should go in each frame they had moved so the animation didn't work. I discovered this was due to 'snap' which needed to be turned off. After I had arranged the layers and frames how I wanted I set the time to 0.2 of a second and the spaceship flew off as I had first wanted to. I liked the way it wasn't perfect so I decided to not use 'tweening' to keep that effect. I am very happy with this animation it was the most difficult so far and took me almost five hours but it works. To export I needed to reduce the Pixels per inch to 100 and the image size by almost half to make a smaller document which was easier to export.

Artwork for backgrounds

Today I drew some more artwork to use as a couple of backgrounds in my film. I needed to draw a castle and a horse, and a little girl. I sketched these out and scanned them in using photoshop to colour and edit them. With the castle and horse I wanted it to be like what would be in a children's story like the other backgrounds I drew. I also drew a space scene and space ship inspired by the 'forbidden planet poster'. I drew out the background from the 'Forbidden Planet' poster and separately drew a spaceship I could later animate in photoshop.

Editing my poem for narration

Some of the footage was too dark to use so I also had to edit the poem to match the footage, I wrote a new one which was shorter and in a better order which would hopefully work.

Narration

Amelia Harold is five years old
shes quiet and shy and not very bold
her favourite toy is her cuddly raddy
the head of a dog just a rag for a body.

Amelia liked to make things and play
She wanted to mess around every day
She even liked grown up things like reading
but her favourite game was pretend to be cooking

She was a bit different from her older brother harry
Who loved outer space and anything hairy
He would take his friends to the moon on a trip
and pretend to be an astronaut in his magic rocket ship.

The jungle was the place they longed to see
To swing with the monkeys in every tree
The jungle they made looked just how they wanted
But didn't expect the elephant which squirted

Amelia's dream was to live like a Queen
In a Castle of colours, silver, blue and green,
They built a fort which was fit for a King!
They wanted to stay there and never stop playing

Editing

Today I carried on editing my film, I put all the clips in order of the poem I had redone because of the change of subject matter. This was quite difficult and took a lot of improvisation and time to be satisfactory. I cut the clips down a lot so the film didn't get too long and I wanted it to stay in time with the poem, I'm not sure this will work out as planned but I am hoping I can get it right the first time. I planned to keep every 2 lines of the poem to 8 seconds.

editing my film

Today I started to edit my film using Final Cut Pro, I already knew how to use this from previous experience. I made a rough cut by selecting the areas which were good but I knew the brief wanted my film to be quite short so I had a lot to cut out.

transferring the video

Today I transferred my video onto final cut pro using log and capture. I chose the part of the film which had good content to use in my advert.

Forbidden Planet Images

I took aspects of these images as inspiration for my backgrounds.

Filming the advert

In preparation for when the children came over I cleared some room in my living room so they could use the scrap. First I got them to make everything for the film. This was extremely difficult as I had not anticipated they might get bored or not want to co-operate. Amelia made her fairy wings perfectly which were beautiful and Harry took charge in making a castle in the garden from a blind and material I got from the scrapstore. After this the children became quite uncooperative and didn't want to be filmed doing what I asked. They wanted to make their own things and if I work with children again I will certainly consider this. I got most of what I wanted to film but when the children got tired I didn't want to make them do anymore. As I was supervising them I could not spend enough time with the camera so the focus and position is not how i wanted, if I do this again I will definitely have someone else to help me. I was also hoping for Harry to read the poem so I could use this over what I filmed but he didn't want to. I have an opportunity to see them again tomorrow and Monday so I could try again then. If he really doesn't want to I will have to consider sub-titles or finding someone else to do it which will be disappointing as Harry has a very cheeky characteristic voice.

Editing

Here I edited my Jungle theme background in Photoshop. After colouring it in using the paint bucket I experimented with different filters, there were two I liked. These were paint daubs and neon glow, but I decided to leave it as it was as the filters didn't enhance the image that much. As this was a background I decided to animate it slightly I thought the easiest option would be to make the parrot move a little. To start this I cut around the parrot with the polygonal lasso and copy and cut this, I then pasted it into a new document. I had to draw in the missing background using the paintbrush in Photoshop. I then started manipulating the parrot in a separate document on Photoshop and each time I animated the image slightly I saved it so I would have a succession of movements I could then paste onto the original image and use the animation window to animate the image.
I reduced the size of the animation and saved in 'save for web and devices' to convert it into a 'gif' file. I then opened in Final Cut Pro so I could export it as an actual film and upload it to blogger.

Scrapstore Visit

Today I visited the Scrapstore and got some things I needed. I planned to make a spaceship with the children so I found a barrel and some silver paper and items. I also found a plastic dome they could use for a space suit and loads of materials and items to play with.
I also met with John pedlington and gave him a brief update of my progress. I told him my plan of action and what I needed to get from the scrapstore. We also arranged a date for our next meeting which would be in November.

Permissions

Letter to Mr and Mrs Cottle

Dear Mr and Mrs Cottle
If this date suits you I should wish to film your children on the 22nd.
Many thanks
Kate


This is the reply I got.

Hi Kate,
Yes this date is fine thanks for taking them for the day. I hope all goes well I gave Adam my phone number to give you in case you need anything.
Good Luck,
Andrew.

Creating my animation

To create the animated background I used the animation window in Photoshop. I chose the image I wanted to use and saved it twice. I opened the image in Photoshop and multiplied the slides in the animation window so I could copy the image I changed slightly onto the image. I decided to change the hue as this changed the look of the image and made the stars almost sparkle which I liked. I changed the hue by 5% each time and copied and pasted this onto each slide in the animation window. This slightly changed the colour of the image each time and after getting to the desired effect I chose which layers would be seen on each image of the animation. This is the final animation.

Email from school

as a group we thought it would be a good idea to visit a playpod in action. After writing to a primary school this is the reply we had.

-----Original Message-----
From: School Cabot Primary [mailto:cabot.p@bristol.gov.uk]
Sent: Thu 9/23/2010 10:33 AM
To: Jo Sanders
Subject: Re: Fwd: Collaboration with Bath College students,



Hi Jo,

we would be very interested in the project.

Would you like to come in and meet with the deputy head, Tom Burton to get something started. He is out of class Mon, Tues and Weds.

Things we would need to discuss would be which year group you would like to work with, the focus of the art, permission slips for filming and dates.

I have copied him in to the email and he will call you next week.

Hope that Sian had a great summer travelling and is looking forward to her course.

Best Wishes
Richard Riordan.

I think it would benefit me to see how children play to think of techniques to get my children involved as I am using two children who are friends of the family. I have chosen this because I feel it will be easier to communicate with children you already have a familiarity to and this will come across in the project.

Summary of artists work

Noble and Websters work is made from rubbish taken from the streets of London, they transform it into works of art which surprise the human mind. Their method of re-using is similar to that of Christo and Jeanne Claud's artwork although they have slightly different meanings. Noble and Webster got inspiration from the Egyptian themes of mummification and sculpture and this in a way links to how Christo and Jeanne Claud have used wrapping in their sculptures like how the Egyptians wrapped the dead to preserve them. In some ways the sculptures are similar in the materials used, Christo and Jeanne Claud use the landscape and use materials to wrap it or they re-use materials to make a statement. This is similar to how Noble and Webster re-use rubbish they have found and collected. Julie Starks's works of art re-create the natural world using natural materials, some of her work is created by children as opposed to Noble and Webster who create it themselves. Jeff Pigott and Julia Warin have done a lot of community projects working with children similar to Julie Starks although the 'Insectabike' was a huge projects compared with Starks's 'Seeds'. They both reuse materials but the 'Insectabike' was very unnatural and not organic like the seed's project. The colours and tones are very different. Jeff Pigott created his spaceship work of art with the help of children, he also only used recycled materials and makes a statement similar to the way he made a statement using the shopping bags to create a huge wall of shopping bags. This statement was to raise awareness of how many bags are used where as Christo and Jeanne Claud liked to made political statements. Their work was environmental, interactive, and collaborative, they used a lot of materials and made a huge statement where as Pigott made smaller but equally important statements.

Bibliography

Bibliography

Primary sources
Email to Jeff Pigott
Lecture about Christo and Jeanne Claud

Secondary sources
http://www.gagosian.com/artists/tim-noble-and-sue-webster/
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/noble_webster.htm
http://www.britishmuseum.org/the_museum/museum_in_london/london_exhibition_archive/statuephilia/noble_and_webster.aspx

http://www.juliestarks.com/

http://www.artspark.net/
http://jeff-art.artspark.net/indexart.html
http://www.artspark.net/projects.html

http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/

Tim Noble and Sue Webster

Tim Noble and Sue Webster are artists based in England whose work is collected by Charles Saatchi. They are associated with the post-YBA generation of artists. They live and work together in east London where they collect rubbish from the streets and transform it into shadow sculpture. When a light is directed on the pile an image that is totally un-expected is shown on the wall, typically the image is of them. The art of creating a shadow sing projection is usually referred to as transformative art, it echoes the idea of perceptual psychology, a form of evaluation used for psychological patients, they are familiar with this form and I believe using this technique they challenge and surprise the human mind. They have also taken transformative art further after being inspired by an Egyptian collection of art. They have created sculptures made from mummified creatures into silhouettes of their faces when a light is shone over them, their use of animals echoes our Egyptian predecessors who believed that gods could take the form of animals such as cats or dogs, these were mummified and sold to pilgrims who would then use these as offerings to the Gods, I find it intriguing how they were inspired by the Egyptians use of animals, mummification and sculpture and managed to combine these to create the dark yet witty works of art. Noble and Webster have developed their own cult of personality and an entirely original and different style of art, their self portraits have been made from garbage, dead animals and in the form of Neanderthals. Their work also includes large electric drawings of tattoo ideology and ‘bling’ logos.
I think their use of reusing materials to create artwork is very similar to my project where I reused materials to help children create art. I particularly like the use of materials to create shadow. I think the colour of this art is very monotone and does not stand out much; the shape of the artwork and the shadow it creates is the eye-catching part of this artwork. Their work relates to re-using of materials which is similar to my project as it focuses on creating new things from old. I used a creative method to reuse scrap in similar way which they did.

Backgrounds

In this lesson I chose to create my jungle themed background. I found some images to help me and was really interested in the artist Henri Rousseau. I printed off his images and began to draw my own interpretation of his artwork.






These are some of the images I was looking at and this is what I came up with. I used Coral Painter and Photoshop to colour in the image.

Julie Starks

Julie Starks creates artwork that reflects her fascination with ecosystems, sustainability and the fragile nature of this world. Much of her work is looking closely at the small worlds which surround us, sometimes to microscopic detail emphasising structure and detail in a beautiful way, her work shows texture and pattern and explores a reality of looking at things in a different way. Julie uses a variety of materials most of which are organic and natural, such as wood, metal, willow and others. She uses these materials to create sculptures and artworks. Her photography records the circle of life embarked upon by plant structures and surfaces, and is a constant inspiration for other artwork. Julie works for exhibitions, to private commission and deliver creative projects within community environments.
Julie has worked with a diverse range of client groups such as Greenpeace, the National Trust, Westonbirt Arboretum, Bath International Music Festival and Womad Festival as well as many other youth and community groups across the UK. One of the community projects Julie has done is called 'seeds'. It involved residency at the National Trust Gardens at Barrington Court, working with inner city schools from Bristol, to produce sculptures inspired by the gardens using seeds and clay. I liked the innovation of this project and the simplistic theme. I think the outcome was very organic and educational for the children.
Another community project was residency at the National Trust Gardens at Dyrham Park, Bath, this involved working with inner city schools from Bristol to produce sculptures inspired by the gardens using scrap materials.
My favourite project Julie did was the ‘Insectabike’ project for the recycled sculpture workshop at Bath children's festival, they used scrap materials to create a huge insect themed bike. This was similar to my project encouraging children to manipulate scrap. The outcome was very bright and colourful and had very interesting textures. The shape was very bold and eye-catching creating interesting shapes and ideas. I like how they used a variety of materials in an innovative way, I have used similar techniques to re-use materials.
Another project which involved the community was part of the London Road Carnival in Bath where she worked with Batheaston Primary school to produce costumes to lead the procession.

Jeff Pigott and Julia Warin

I wrote to Jeff Pigott to find out more about the space mission project, I thought maybe it could help me when doing my space theme with the children.
This is the email I wrote to him.

Dear Mr Pigott,
I am a student at Bath College completing a recycling project very similar to your Space Mission Project.
I would appreciate if you could give me some information on who got involved in this and how, and whether it was successful and some tips on doing this myself.
Thanks very much,
Katherine Howes.

This is the reply I received.

Hi Kate, Thanks for getting in touch.

The rocket project was a commission by Bradford-on-Avon town council to celebrate the anniversary of the moon landings. It was to be a centre piece for their display at the West Wilts Show. It was made by 3 artists - myself, Julia Warin and Keith Wright and with some help from others. It took about a month to build and is based on a children's climbing frame which we were given for free. The legs and struts are cardboard tubes and the main rocket is clad in thin mdf and then dressed with scrap materials. The hatchway is the lid of a wheelie bin! The point of the rocket is an Ikea lampshade on an exercise ball.

Making something like this would not have been possible as a community or group project without a lot of co-ordination and management. The whole rocket comes apart so that it can be stored. Do you want to buy it????

Hope that helps. If you want to know more, then send me some specific questions. And best of luck with your project.

Regards, Jeff

From this I realised I would need to make a very small scale rocket ship and look for materials such as cardboard tubes and silver paper.

This is information retrieved about the rocketship from the website:
Rocket
Height - 4.6 metres
Base width - 3 metres
Materials – Recycled metal, cardboard, paint, paper, found objects, wood, imagination.
Astronauts – 2 m and 1.4m tall
Materials: recycled wood, tents, pillows, paint tins and found materials.
Artists/tech - Julia Warin, Jeff Pigott, Keith Wright, Holly Pigott, Karen Pigott
Brief – to create a spectacular object to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the moon landings as a centrepiece for a marquee at a County Show.
Research – NASA rocket and moon lander images, footage and recollections.
Collected designs, imagery and music circa 1969. Sci fi, fantasy and comic book imagery.
Construction method - Wallace and Grommit, in ”A Grand Day Out". The deconstructivism of Ikea. Looking at collected, found and leftover materials on the studio floor.

This particular project is very relevant to my project and I took a lot of information from this to help me in my project, for example I took some inspiration from the materials they built their spaceship from and tried to find similar items when looking for materials to build my spaceship. The spaceship they build was very tall and streamlined. It had very futuristic colours and complicated detail to give the impression of sophisticated technology. As I am working with younger children they will not be able to create a vessel as detailed but they have the basics to create something outer-worldly.



Julia Warin worked with young teenage girls at the girls group run by Barnardo's, this was called the mural project. Over 10 weeks they worked with collage, paint, drawing and words to create the elements, which went into the finished mural panels for Barnardo's offices. Looking at colour combinations, words of popular songs, retro 60s and 70s graphics, textiles & design elements and considering positive, active images of girls, they generated a mass of material. All this was then combined to create the final piece, reflecting the bubbly excitement of the group and the diverse identities and interests of the girls. The final piece had lots of interesting colours and tones. The shape was fairly basic but combined with the tones made an interesting piece.



Together with another artist Jean Edminston, Pigott and Warin created a project called Journeys to the edge, this was to explore the urge to visit the sea. They created a collection of photographs, paintings, ceramics and sculpture to present the artifacts and objects found on their creative journey. I enjoyed looking at the collection, which told a story of 'Journey'. There were different textures, which gave you an idea of the places they visited, and the variety of colours show a variety of areas.






Another project Warin and Pigott were involved in was commissioned by ‘Envolve’, also involved was Keith Wright. This project was commissioned to highlight issues around waste and recycling during national waste month. The sculptures are situated in a shop window in Bath to be seen by the public, it encourages us to think twice about what we buy, consume and throw away.





Pigott, accompanied by artist Shelley Wilson ran three public art workshops in a shopping center in Boscombe. To promote waste knowledge customers were given a 'bag for life' in exchange for the typical carrier bags which get thrown away and take a vey long time to decompose. Instead the customers were encouraged to create a quilt square from the carrier bag and use an 80-year-old sewing machine to combine them. Most people found this extremely enjoyable. The resulting wall hanging 'please use this bag!' made of 286 squares of plastic carrier bag was displayed as part of the PLASTIC! Exhibition at the Russel-cotes art gallery and museum, this artwork was very bright and bold and could be seen from far away and was eye-catching, I believe this was done on purpose to raise awareness of the issues of plastic bags. Jeff also worked at Kings-park primary school with over 100 students to create a second wall now hanging on the wall of the school. There were also workshops at the neighborhood nursery, where children under 5 played with scrap and coloured gel to create stained glass type artwork. The outcomes were very creative and similar to the project I did encouraging children to manipulate and create things with scrap.

Christo and Jeanne Claude

Christo and Jeanne Claude are married artists who created environmental interactional collaborative and interactive works of art. Their works were credited to Christo until 1994 when the outdoor works and large artworks were credited to both. Their work is extremely visually impressive and controversial as a result of its size. In 1961 they covered barrels at the Port of Cologne which was their first collaboration, this was associated with post-war economics, the wrapping could symbolise protection and preservation as you often wrap things you want to look after, showing oil needs to be used carefully. The barrels themselves gave a very strong message as they looked very cold and foreboding.
In 1962 the couple tackled their first major project. Without consent of the authorities the artists made a statement against the Berlin wall blocking a street with oil barrels, this was named the Iron Curtain. This took 240 oil barrels and 8 hours to complete. It was extremely eye-catching because in my opinion it was extremely ugly. This sent the message very well and gave the effect desired. The 'Iron Curtain' was very tactile and had a cold hard effect because of the colours and textures.
Christo and Jeanne Claude wrapped the coast of Little Bay in Sydney, Australia at the end of 1969. This required 130 workers who devoted 17,000 hours work. The project required 9,5600 m2 of synthetic fabric and 56 km of rope. The effect was stunning and I was awestruck seeing this. There was a very vulnerable yet unforgiving feel when looking at this as the texture of the fabric juxtaposed with the harsh rocks and underlying landscape beneath.
Jeanne-Claude and Christo began preparations for Running Fence in 1972, a fabric fence, made from steel posts and steel cables, running through the landscape and leading into the sea. The fence was planned to be 5.5 meters high and 40 kilometers long. In terms of permission 59 families of ranchers needed to be convinced and they needed permission from the authorities. At the end of 1973 the path was marked for the fence with wooden stakes and three years later the work began. In September 1976 the work was completed, 200,000 metres squared of nylon fabric were used, 2050 steel posts and 145km of steel cable. Although the fence crossed roads and paths room was left for cars and livestock, this defined the fence interestingly as not a fence, as it doesn't enclose an area or prohibit entry. The fence itself was beautiful, it somehow fitted into its surroundings while at the same time making a statement without disturbing it's environment. It used its surroundings to stand out in contrast of colour, shape and tone. The colour was dull but stood out against the organic landscape surrounding it, the shape was curved when the wind blew and the lines created seemed to go on forever. It adapted to its surroundings reacting to light and weather. Its ever-changing state creates suspicion and wonder making you want to follow it. It follows the curves of the landscape being tense and taut but free flowing at the same time. No visible evidence of the fence existed when taken down after 14 days making it a legendary memory; this is my favourite interactive project giving a strong message and a beautiful intriguing addition to the landscape around it.
Jeanne-Claude and Christo experienced and lived through epic landmarks of History. They found it important to involve art in history and politics to highlight current affairs shown in the wrapping of the Reichstag. 10 years after the construction of the Berlin wall they conceived the idea of wrapping the Reichstag, which as the former seat of the democratic German Parliament. It had become a symbol of a country and city divided. They did not receive the permission they needed for 24 years. With the work of 90 professional climbers and 120 installation workers the project was complete and when taken down all the materials were recycled.
For all of time fabric has been used in all aspects of life, from birth to death wrapping is used by all mankind. When a baby is born it is wrapped to preserve, protect and give warmth. Wrapping can also be used to preserve food or wrap a present to provide excitement, Christo and Jeanne Claude took a meaning from fabric and interpreted it in an inspiring and original way. They not only took the subject of fabric but the meaning of it too, they came up with a way of symbolising issues in a way everyone can relate to.
They will have had many meetings with authorities, planners, councilors and politicians to seek permission for their projects. This is as important as the actual artwork. Peaceful pursuasion, explaining and negotiating makes it politicl, resolving differences through dialogue not warfare.
Like my project they

Creating Backgrounds

To accompany my film I wanted to create some backgrounds showing where the children were when they used scrap and what their imaginations might look like. I started with the easiest option which was the starry sky where they are transported when flying. I looked at some images of stars and one caught my eye, Van Gogh's Starry night. This gave me an idea to theme all of my backgrounds on different styles of art or artists. I found some images of Starry Night and printed them off to use as inspiration for my drawings. I sketched some images in my sketchbook and then photocopied them so I could do different things with each one without having to draw it out again. I used paints to recreate the colours in the sky and inverted the colours to get a really nice effect. I then scanned these in to manipulate digitally in Photoshop. The first image is the un-edited version and the second two are examples of my image with filters applied through Photoshop. The second uses the filter 'dry brush' which was effective but I felt the other stood out in which I used the filter 'coloured pencil' and adjusted the contrast to make the colours stand out.

Keynotes

Today I carried on with my keynotes presentation adding the sound clips which I had chosen and edited last week.

Letter to Scrapstore

Today we wrote a combined email to the Scrapstore explaining our current ideas before we actually commence with creating the advert. This is the email.

To John

This is the Creative and Media group updating you on our progress with the project.

We've all now finished the planning stages and are ready to move on.

Jack
My part of the project is to create a film to bridge the other group member's films. I am sticking with my idea of a Rube Goldberg machine, but I am taking your advice and creating and filming it here at college instead of the school. This is due to the complexity of the task and I also thought it could show how college students like us can use the Scrap, not just children. I have drawn up several sketches for ideas and experimented with the limited materials I have to hand at college, but a final idea will come once I collect some more from the Scrapstore. I will design the machine to slow down or stop at various stages where it can introduce the other films.

Oliver

I have finished my planning stage and I am now ready to commence with the next level of my project. After our last discussion when we all decided against working on one big project I decided to go ahead with a single activity with a group of schoolchildren. My first idea was to work with one big sculpture that all the children would contribute towards, maybe with their own scrap along with Scrapstore's scrap. After going through the initial planning stages I thought that maybe working on a large scale 3D sculpture would be too time consuming and the children would lose intrest quickly. I decided to scale it down by getting the children to make loads of small sculptures but again though it would be too time consuming and the children would quickly get bored. I decided to go into two dimensions and appeal to the kids more on their level. I decided to make outlines of things that would interest them, thus holding their attention keeping them occupied. After drawing up test outlines, I thought that the different shapes would possibly confuse them and decided to stick to one simple, recognisable shape that most ten year-olds would know. So I have created pseudo-Lego figures that will be drawn onto cardboard or similar that the children can place scrap around, create clothes for them and generally mess around with. I will then combine all these small (around A5) drawings to create one big picture using a colour coding system (picture still to be decided upon).

Kate

I have decided to do an individual project filming children playing with scrap and use it to create a promotional film appealing to companies to persuade them to donate scrap. I have found two children to help me with this and I am going to set up scenes in which they are exploring different environments such as the jungle and outer space. I will them use an animated background to show their imagination and show how playing with scrap has helped them use their imagination. I am interested in seeing children playing with a playpod at a school and think it could be good inspiration for ideas, but I think it would be more effective and easier to film children I know and can instruct so the film follows a plan. The film will be narrated by one of the children in the form of a poem.

Lauren

my proposal is to use steiner school methods to teach the children through play, so they don't think of it as a lesson but still learn from it. I have come up with a rough lesson plan for the children which is to build bridges out of the scrap and add weights to them so its kind of like a science lesson. I will show them how they can be joined differently what different shape bridges are stronger and how the amount of weight held is dependent on the strength of the bridge. i am going to film the whole thing and take photographs and make a short film to document my time at the school and to show how children can really make use of the scrap and to hopefully encourage companies to donate more scrap!

Tim Burton Poetry

I chose to look at Tim Burton's poetry because I think it is very imaginative and childish. I found an animation he did and looked at using the poem's rhythm to create my own.I really like the way Burton manages to show two different worlds the child lives in. This is what I want to achieve, I am creating backgrounds to show the childrens' imaginations then a smaller screen showing the children playing in the real world.

Vincent Price.

“Vincent Malloy is seven years old,
He’s always polite and does what he’s told.

For a boy his age he’s considerate and nice,
But he wants to be just like Vincent Price.”

“He doesn’t mind living with his sister, dog and cats,
Though he’d rather share a home with spiders and bats.

There he could reflect on the horrors he’d created
And wander dark hallways where no man tormented”

Vincent was nice when his aunt came to see him
But imagines dipping her in wax for his wax museum.

He likes to experiment on his dog Abercrombie
In the hopes of creating a horrible zombie

So he and his horrible zombie dog
Can go searching for victims in the London fog

His thoughts weren’t all of ghoulish crime
He likes to paint and read to pass the time

While other kids read books like go jay go
Vincents favourite author is edgar alan poe

One night while reading a gruesome tale
He read a passage that made him pale

Such horrible news he could not survive
For his beautiful wife had been buried alive

He dug out a grave to make sure she was dead
Unaware that her grave was, his mothers flowerbed.

I really tried to use aspects of his writing and style to create my own which would be easy to be read by a child and keep the viewer intrigued. This is my first attempt.

Amelia Harold is five years old,
She’s quiet and shy and not very bold,
Her favourite toy is her cuddly Raggy
The head of a dog, just a rag for a body.

She always had to play with her older brother Harry,
He likes worms, bugs and mud and always gets dirty.
Away from watching eyes he hid spiders out of sight,
For Amelia to find and get quite a fright.

Amelia and Harry had something in common
They liked having things to play with, under and on!
Scrapstore could give them whatever they wanted
like send them to jungles and territories uncharted

They explored outer space and lived like the martians
Or played grown ups making executive decisions.
Amelia could make whatever she wanted
But had a hard time stopping harry destroy it.

Harry was good when his mother was watching
But when her back turned he’d pretend he was flying.
Amelia’s fairy wings took her to the stars
Harry’s cape was made from curtains.

He was King of the castle and all of the land!
And made servants suffer under his hand??
He wanted to be rich and rule all the word
So he stole the map and found the treasure hold

I tried to write about things which could be easily shown in a film which would show off children playing and the benefits of this.

development of storyboard

From looking at many films and adverts which I like, I decided to use a poem to narrate my film much like the film Vincent Price by Tim Burton. I think it will show a more childish side to the video and make it more interesting. I started thinking of poems which children know already such as nursery rhymes but found I could not change them enough to make them relevant to my advert. I then decided to try and write my own poem following the same beat and rhythm of Tim Burton's.

playdo animation test

Planning

To organise myself I Made various plans and records to help me with research, time management etc.

Planning

To organise myself I Made various plans and records to help me with research, time management etc. I created a monthly and a weekly time plan to ensure I was organised and didn't forget anything. The weekly plan was more detailed including personal research, trips, filming time etc and the monthly plan included wider items such as deadlines and meetings.
I recorded what and where I found research.

Letter to scrapstore

To get in touch with Mr. Pedlington I took charge of communications. I emailed him asking to arrange a meeting to propose our ideas. This is what I wrote.

Dear Mr Pedlington,

We are a group of students from City of Bath College who previously met with you regarding our project, “Interaction” on Friday 30th April.

We are ready to meet with you again to discuss each of our ideas in further detail. We would like to request a meeting on a Tuesday or Wednesday sometime between the 9th and 25th of June, if that is convenient for you.

You can contact us through the following email address:
Kate1701@hotmail.com

Thank you, in anticipation

Yours Sincerely,

Jack Crossley Oliver Thurston Katherine Howes Lauren Wilcock

scrapstore

I have an idea of what I want my project to be. A short animation and filmed advert showing two children playing with scrap. I want them to use the scrap to take them to different environments and use an animated background to show their imagination. I have drawn up a storyboard of the kind of story i want it to follow.

storyboard

this is an example of my storyboard.