Mark & Rachael's Palace...

So in July, my friends moved in together. They're my age, and have been together for 4 years, I've known them both prior to and throughout their relationship, as our friendship developed from sixth form. They're two very different people, and they differ in opinions immensely. However it somehow manages to work. For a while, they've been asking me to help design and decorate their new rented place, which in size is vast, but is very much to a required taste.

To put it simply, the house hasn't much appeal in it's current state; The smell of cheese & onion pasties from the bakery downstairs, is constantly present, matched with the distasteful carpets, woodchip walls and a vast array of one-off pieces of furniture, the place does not seem to collaborate together very well.

I decided that now was the time in which I could help them, as mby doing so, I could gather a few different varieties in collections. And this could therefore be a very good learning expereice, as it would involve myself researching, then discussing and giving examples to customer, finding out their requirements, and using this information to further develop examples and discuss intial designs with them, before making needed alterations and then progressing with the project. I feel that this would be good practice, and could easily be one of the few projects which i will hopefully carry-out during this project.

The first example of this happened today. For the last few weeks, I have been collecting interior images, on a large scale, along with going through my own varied collection in interior and art magazines, I prepared a vast array of images, in which to show them, by seeing what likes they have indivually and shared, to get a feel for how broad of a variation would be acceptable to them.

I've been through this with Rachael, and with Mark vaguely, and this worked for them, I have a general idea of thier likes and dislikes, and I compiled a folder of these designs, which I shall now create a "mood board" from, and develop more ideas from, based on this...

Playing around with blog settings...

I've just spent the last hour or so, playing around with this blog I call a chore! I'm liking it a lot better now, as it feels a tad more like "mine" now.
I went through a great few changes before "settling" for this one now; here are a few of the key changes made...




I would in future, like to create a theme, whereby my blog looks like a notebook, as I am quite keen on my reflective diaries, and the diary is something I feel to be very personal, which is what I want my blog to feel like, rather than just another technological conformation...

Year of the dragon 1988...

The key to the Dragon personality is that Dragons are the free spirits of the Zodiac. Conformation is a Dragon's curse. Rules and regulations are made for other people. Restrictions blow out the creative spark that is ready to flame into life. Dragons must be free and uninhibited. The Dragon is a beautiful creature, colorful and flamboyant. An extroverted bundle of energy, gifted and utterly irrepressible, everything Dragons do is on a grand scale - big ideas, ornate gestures, extreme ambitions. However, this behavior is natural and isn't meant for show. Because they are confident, fearless in the face of challenge, they are almost inevitably successful. Dragons usually make it to the top. However, Dragon people be aware of their natures. Too much enthusiasm can leave them tired and unfulfilled. Even though they are willing to aid when necessary, their pride can often impede them from accepting the same kind of help from others. Dragons' generous personalities give them the ability to attract friends, but they can be rather solitary people at heart. A Dragon's self-sufficiency can mean that he or she has no need for close bonds with other people.

CHARACTERISTICS
Innovative
Enterprising
Flexible
Self-assured
Brave
Passionate
Conceited
Tactless
Scrutinizing
Unanticipated
Quick-tempered

THE EARTH DRAGON 1928 AND 1988
Earth Dragons make great managers because they are practical, levelheaded and demonstrate a knack for organizing. They still have the need to dictate and be admired, but they are affable, congenial and supportive. Compared to other Dragons, Earth Dragons are less likely to breathe fire at the least irritation. They will work diligently to complete their life goals. The Earth element adds a greater portion of self-control to the Dragon's personality and usually the Earth Dragon is deserving of the respect he or she desires. These Dragons take their life and romantic responsibilities quite seriously.

http://www.usbridalguide.com/special/chinesehoroscopes/Dragon.htm

Sorting some of my collections out...

Well today, I finally started to tackle my room, on the tidying part, as it's been in disarray ever since my deadline on Wednesday. I decided to do it properly, and look around seeing what type of collections i have that I may have even forgotten about. Amongst the chaos I found, cinema tickets, ribbons, scrap paper, empty ink cartridges?... and plenty of pieces of previously finished and unfinished work, it was this that lead me to thinking about the looking at this unfinished collection, of unfinished work, and think about maybe doing something about it in this project.

I do have a few ideas for nthis project, including looking at collections from childhood, such as the the cassettes which I would listent to to help me sleep when I was quite young; I still have a clear picture in my head of how I imaginined these characters to look. However I do not have the tapes, and due to commitments in Leeds, am unable to get home before christmas, and so as this brief is one in which I inteneded to divide into a series of shorter, self initiated projects, I feel that completing some of my previously unfinished projects, may fit in nicely with that...

Belly-fulla-suga!

Well today was brown day, and was much better than expected. Expected the usual kinda failed fundraiser, but it really was brilliant! I had a really good day, and i think everyone else did too, ?150 for cancer research, whoop!
Some really good stalls created, made me feel good to just pluck an idea from nowhere and create a game from nowhere! Me and charlotte had fun creating our cardboard mini-golf, which was ridiculously hard for how easy it looked! Won a prize too for the best thrill seeker, which is always good.
Plenty of cake and lots of games, makes viscom a very happy group! Well done everyone.
I'm going to bed now to rest my still full stomach!..

Blu Tac Platercine Animation...Take Twooo...

Blu Tac Platercine Animation...

Evaluation...

Evaluation (Animation)
Communication Technology Two
Visual Communication

First and foremost, when this project first started out, I decided to look back at the previous Communication Technology brief from last year; a project about Social Networking, and trying to understand peoples fascinations with it. This didn’t work out, and I ended up disliking it more; and so for this project I wanted to do something which captured my attention, and that I would not end up condemning it later on.
I changed my mind a lot with the choice of topic, at first wanting to look in depth at hand crafts and becoming a self-sufficient artist. However then I remembered the interest that I had developed with video in my self-initiated brief before summer, this therefore led me to the video group, and before I knew it, I was somehow in the animation group, of which I am still not sure of how I ended up here, however I am very glad I did.
At the beginning of the summer, I made a conscious decision to make the most of the course, and its facilities and try and do as much that I am interested in, as possible, and animation was one of those interests.
The project has been an eye-opener to me, It is one which made me realise, that as independent as I am, I am also able to work pretty well as part of a team. I do feel that the partnership that developed between myself and Hayley, is one which was incredibly beneficial, not in just finding someone that has similar interests and that we would work together relatively easily; but in the fact that we where able to really get more of a glimpse than most, as to what it would be like to be a professional animator, because as i have learned extensively, it is not a profession which one would be expected to work alone.
A few of the skills which i have learned about in this project, include, stop-frame, drawn, cut-out and cell animation; I have found developing these skills priceless, and I do hope that my works in the future, i will somehow get to experiment with animation once more. One of the key things that i enjoy about animation, is the magic of being able to give an inanimate object, such as a line, a shoe or a piece of a dough, a life force of its own, it was almost as if the objects where dictating what i did to them, and not the other way around. One of the key things that this has taught me, was whilst doing a claymation, myself and Hayley where working on a live brief, an advert for Blu Tack; and even though the project took its own format and left the brief behind, the final piece took a hell of a lot of work, considering the final outcome is a mere, 1:05 second video. The amount of changes we had to go through with set and figure design was extensive, and the amount of hours allocated to this supposedly easy project, built up, and took over from us having a lot of time to do our own things as well, until quite late into the project; it is because of this, that in the future, i would set aside a lot of time in larger chunks, as i feel that we achieved more, when working this way, rather than doing a couple of hours, and wasting a lot of that time, setting up the camera and scene, to fit with what we had ended on previously.
This project has been of great benefit to me, as it has been one, that has finally convinced me to change my ways, although I have done a fair chunk of self initiated work in this brief, i do feel that i have done too much conventional research, whereby reading into things too much, and not doing them enough, or as much as i could have, and it is because of this, that i have decided that i will for the next project set myself the task of many short briefs, in order to add pressure to myself, to have work completed, and to not spend too much time stuck on reading about them. Also, another problem i had on this, was sticking to keeping a Blog, I have never wanted or sought the need to have one, and so to be told that it was compulsory, made me not want to do it even more, and so i would update it irregularly, and keep a YouTube playlist, and reflective diary instead, however coming to the end of the project, i see the reasoning behind the blog, and will at least attempt to stick to it for the next project, hopefully another lesson well-learned.
I have also learned a great deal, from juggling my work, with my part time job, attending university, volunteering and trying to maintain a social life; i have learned that although this forced me to look at my time and use it more wisely and effectively, the concept was better than what actually happened, I found myself exhausted and getting quite ill, sometimes too much, is too much; and i will take this lesson with me as i progress, i feel that sometime in the near future, it maybe necessary to give up my part time job (and find another means of making money) and also to cut down on a lot of my wasted social time, creating a work/play balance that will be more fitting.
Finally, I do feel that this project has been extremely useful, not so much in the building of a portfolio terms, but in terms of gaining knowledge about the animation, and the many different forms it takes; but principally knowledge about bettering me as an artist, yet encouraging me to keep experimenting.

Flipbook lite...

I've just discovered an app, on my phone, which creates quick and easy animations. It's called flipbook, and I downloaded the free version. The app appears to be quite good, you create an image, and then when making the next images, the app has onion skinning, so it makes it easier to transition between the two slides. I think this is a great piece of software, as it allows even the most inexperienced of users, to create a relatively easy, and controllable flipbook animation. It is obviously just an app for people to play around in their free time, or whilst commuting ect, but it makes complete sense in a visual communication perspective, as I find often the most simplest of ideas, such as this, can be manipulated to create a grander scale of work; and so I applaud simple apps like this, for helping people to create simple artwork for fun...


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Stills (Drawn Animation)...

Here are a few of the still, from a few quick drawn animations that i hae been working on, the few kind of interlink with each other, and i may make it one animation in the end, but i just wanted to experiment with different techniques for each, so we shall see...

Youtube...

So this is my youtube page, some of the videos I have uploaded are on here, and the text box, explains my views on the piece of work in question...
I shall get a vimeo ste up too, as I'm thinking about starting a new youtube account, and starting afresh, but for now...

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pmuzza2002&search_type=&aq=f

Animation tutorial...

These are two videos which we where shown in our tutorial today, I really like them both, and admire the way that they have both worked. However if I where to have a favorite, it would most defiantly be Deadline, because of the way they have made a simple object into this huge video animation, I find it inspiring, as I do love the fact that what I feel is true, that anything can be animated, and as this is a relatively new concept to me, I find the idea still amusing, fun and incredibly inventive.
Western spaghetti, I feel is a great animation, and obviously it took a lot of time and effort, and many inventive ideas, but to me it was a little complex, with the amount of things being animated, I feel that i will come to appreciate this film more, but at the moment find the prospect a little overpowering, and therefore feel that it was not the best out of the two in my eyes, not just yet anyways...

Twitter...

So as twitter has become something that I have found myself becoming drawn to, I feel that making it part of my blog, may help me to do it more. And so I have been on the internet and found a quick and easy way to put twitter incorporated with my blog. The idea of twitter just being short little updates, and a lot less intrusive than the likes of facebook and myspace, is something that appealed to me, and the fact that I have already been using it to record interesting quotes I find, and things that influence me, are already on there, maybe it will be something that I will keep up, and make it easier to blog onto rather than a blog being a blog in the conventional style as I see it, boring and a tad geeky...

Get over it...

Well as of my rant the other day, I have spoken to Hayley, whilst doing our claymation, about blogging and ect, she thinks that I should just get over it and do a blog, as she was as hesitant as me, but feels that it has really helped her, I have spoken to a few people and gotten this response, and I feel that I will maybe give the blogging a go for the remainder of this project, and maybe the next one, if I feel it worthy, however should I find that it is not for me, then I will have no hesitance in stopping, and reverting back to my old pen and paper method.

Stubborn as a mule...

It has recently come to my attention, that I'm much more stubborn than I thought I was. I've realised that, If someone tells me to do something, immediately I do not want to do it; even if it will benefit me. This has obviously taken me quite some time to fully-realise. Since I was younger, I would always automatically stray from the norm, and not wanted to do what everyone else was; and if I am truthfully honest, I do not want to confrom and do a conventional blog.

I think this problem comes with the way I work, I am very much a pen and paper person, and I now feel that the conventional blog is not for me. I find the idea of "having" to do one, ridiculous, and quite frankly stupid, hence why I have only hesitantly done few blog entries at present. So I have decided that blogging does not work for me, and that I am not willing, at present to do it, in the way that others have, so as I've pretty much been keeping a personal reflective diary, I'm going to show a "blog", the way I want to do it...