Final Project/ Aftereffect

I made an video with about 50 images for this project about Aftereffect of catastrophic event happened in Korea recently.

The plot is about how a survivor of the incident lives her daily life. Her life after the incident is drawn with charcoal, black and white. I thought the emptiness and stress she felt after the incident would make her feel her surrounding sketchy as these charcoal drawings.

Her life before the incident is drawn with pencil and colored with watercolor.

 This is one of the scenes where she goes back to her school, remembering her days with her friends before they are gone. Backgrounds and friends are colored with watercolor, but the girl is drawn with charcoal.

 Lastly the incident is depicted with acrylic paints. One of the factors I like about acrylic is the possibility of painting with colors not perfectly mixed in one brush stroke. I though its unpredicted feature and brushstrokes could somewhat bring the incident into life. 

There are many unsatisfying factors in the project. First, I feel bad for not being about to make perfect art piece. As people mentioned during the critique, the sound is not good. To account for such imperfection, I could say that there were not enough time. Drawing each scenes with different matters did took a lot of time. Second, I think it would have been better if I had refined the story more. Connections betweens the scenes are not as smooth as I wanted them to be. And lastly, I wish I could draw better. Watercolor works for certain scenes are messy and I just thought overall quality would have been better if I could draw better.

It was new and somewhat fun to create this project. Some scenes were satisfying and I am glad about it. But there still are many things that could improve.

Response after watching Memento

I have heard of the movie Memento since I cannot remember. But I had no chance, or more like a will, to watch the movie. People around me would always say its a good movie, but I am more interested in movies like Pride and Prejudice, therefore I had no will to watch it. However after watching the movie, I regretted myself for not watching it. The way narrative is presented is really smart. This was my first response. The way the plots are divided into pieces and narrated in non-linear time perfectly matches the 'condition' Leonard is in. I don't know how to say it but there are so many smart tricks written by the director in the movie.

At first the movie started with Leonard killing a guy. Then the scene changes into black and white film. Leonard wakes up and reads little notes written by himself. He had a condition of not able to make a new memory since the incident which he remembers as the day when his wife got killed. In order to revenge her wife's death he tries to collect evidences that would lead him the the murderer. Due to his condition he tries to make note of every important informations he receives so that himself in the future could remember what happened to him five minutes ago. He believes in the credibility of those notes to be perfect. Well for a person with such mental state, it would be hard to question about it. Without questioning which situations he is putting himself in, he follows what notes says and end up killing four men. During the process he was misled by Natalie, who abused his situation to revenge on her boyfriend's death. However the most serious trap he was trapped was a trap he made for himself. He abused his own condition to kill Teddy, a police who have been helping him since the incident, for Teddy told him the truth he did not wanted to remember.

All these story lines were interwoven through out the movie, therefore, I felt like I am in similar condition as Leonard. I was confused about the story, and started to forget about the scene at the beginning of the movie. I had to look up for the full plot after watching the movie.
Overall I really liked the movie and I do not regret myself for buying the movie from the iTunes.

Response to the short stories by Borges

The readings were very confusing. The idea of labyrinth is suppose to be very confusing, therefore I think the author did a great job in making his short stories into a labyrinth for people's mental.

Between the two short stories I was able to understand more from the first short story, the "Circular Ruins." The labyrinth is the story is the lives of a man created in other men's dream. The idea is 'circular' in a way that a man creates a man in his dream and the created man tries to create another man in his dream. The cycle is eternal and there is the labyrinth in the story. Also the cycle of the man dreaming again and again over and over was another slump. In addition his non seizing passion to create a man was another factor close labyrinth in a way that he cannot let the idea go but stuck in the goal until he make it. 

The second story I read was "The Lottery in Babylon." I later found out that I read the wrong story. Still I read it so I will proceed on writing the response. This story was more about human nature and how it is easily trapped into certain labyrinths. The lottery itself is very addictive and hard to step out, and when there are other people who keep throw in psychological traps it is even harder for poor people to exit. The speaker successfully describe how people's mind work when certain things happen to them during the lottery and how they entangle their lives. 

Fictional Documentary

This was the first and the last group project in this class, and it was interesting. Having two different people with totally different style to work together was not easy.

My partner, Gabriel Marrazzo, and I came up with several ideas for the fictional Documentary, and we chose to film something about Selfies. The fictional part of the documentary is the significant meaning Selfie have in people's daily life.

Response to the Exit through the Gift Shop

I am a big fan of Impressionism. I love the colors and the tranquil feeling it brings to me. Degas, Monet, and Renoir are my favorites. I also like Alponse Mucha, an artist famous for creating a whole new trend of art. I love illustrations with warm and cozy colors and feelings. I generally like an art piece which gives pleasure at the first sight. There are exceptions though. Tim Burton is one. His creepy but cute drawings are a bit far from what I usually like, but still I am fascinated with his works. The other artist I like is Banksy. 

One day in my Studio class this semester, our professor brought Banksy's art works for our topic. That is when I realized that I like his works but I don't remember why and how I started to like him. After watching the very first five minutes of the Documentary "Exit through the Gift Shop," I remembered of an art class I had when I was a middle school student. The teacher showed us some documentaries about Banksy, and one of them was this Documentary. I was somewhat surprised to learn that I knew about Banksy and also MBW for a long time. 

To be honest, I thought the Documentary was not a fictional Documentary. All the clips recorded by MBW was real. Family video, street art videos, police videos, and even the disney land videos were so real I thought the whole Documentary was real. Though I had this uneasy feeling about Thierry and his more like obsession than passion. I thought this character is very unbelievable. Also the narration and even Banksy showing up though hidden under the hood seemed a bit unbelievable. 

My initial response after watching this documentary again was not that pleasant. I felt like MBW and all the buzz about MBW is a result of thorough brainwash saying that this guy and his work means a lot and is important. I am starting to think that the intention for making this video is to accuse how Mr. Brain Wash was successful in making audience to believe he is great even though his art works are collections of copies and comparatively non-serious pieces. 

Proposal for Final Project

On April 16th of 2014, heartbreaking accident happened in Korea.

One Ferry with about 3-400 innocent people were aboard got sunk due to several preventable wrong doings by some people. Among those few hundreds of people, only 176 people survived. The main reason why this incident brought the whole South Korea in deep sadness is because most of the lives that were trapped inside the ship were 17-year-old students. 

Even though I was far away from Korea, I was strongly effected by the tragedy. I've been feeling down for a few days and I wanted to do something about the topic.

For the Final Project, I knew I am going to do something along the line of graphic novel or animation, because of my strong affection toward web comics and animation. Also, I wanted to extend more with the graphic novel assignment we had previously. Though I knew about the method, I had no idea what the story would be until the incident.

Knowing that the topic is very heavy(once again...) I tried to come up with new ideas, but I could not. I strived until last Saturday night trying to force my brain to come up with some bright and happy plots, but I failed. So I chose this heavy and gloomy topic.

The plot is about how the survivor of the incident would face after they go back to their home. I cannot dare to fully understand what kind of emotional torments they would go through, but the image of empty class kept crawl back into my mind so I had to go for this storyline. 

There will be three different series of images in the video. One will be the images of the incidents and they will be drawn with acrylic or with computer and they would have very rough quality with harsh brushstrokes etc...

The other series would be life before the incident. This series would be drawn with pencil and colored with pastel or watercolor.

The last series would be a life after the event. These will be drawn only with black lines.

Those images would come and go through out the video making the video have nonlinear quality.

Storyboard

How I will draw the line drawng

 Vague idea I have for scenes where past and present meets

Story Board for Fictional Documentary

Sound

Sounds I hear in the Library

Sequential Movement

It is a short hand drawn animation to show sequential movement. I chose a kitten chasing another cat's tail. Every scenes were hand drawn with charcoal.

The working space for this project was not perfect. I had no place to hang the drawing and use tripod to take photos. Also the charcoal wouldn't work in the end since the paper had so much of erasers on. Next time, if I have a chance to do this again, I want to make the animation closer to perfection. 

Moments I liked

Graphic Novel - Denied One

When I heard we will be making two page graphic novel I was excited. Finally I had a chance to draw what I want to draw in a style I want to draw. 

There was a lingering question which stuck in my mind since 9th grade. What happens to aborted child? In Korea, the rate of abortion is not low. Especially teenager couple without proper sex related education end up having an unwanted baby. When the new life is created, the couple steps into whole new world full of stress. Views from other people including their parents are unfriendly and biased. In some cases the boyfriend would leave his girlfriend after knowing that she is pregnant. The stress they receive is massive so they come to drastic solution.There is a song about teenager couple having an unwanted baby and end up killing themselves. Killing themselves is a bit dramatic result; therefore, most of the times they erase the baby. 

I've always wanted to talk about the issue. I think it is unfair for the newly created life. I had to think of somewhat happy ending for those souls.

In Korean folk story it is believed to have a world after death. At least if they could become a flower and bloom under warm sunshine in the world after death, I think it would be less unfair for them.

Plot

A girl has a baby. Under pressure from her parents and other people around her, and sense of betrayal from her boyfriend whom left her after pregnancy, she chose to erase her baby.

The soul of the baby recognize that its removed from its mother. It changes into unstable red state and flies away to the world of the death.

In the other world, there is a garden full of beautiful various plants. In the garden there are little children who chase after the unstable souls, pacify, and plant the stabilized souls like plant seeds. The soul would later grow into a flower.

I was impressed when I read the comic about making graphic novel that closure is also used in storytelling.

I wanted to use the idea for my graphic novel.

However, since the idea I wanted to convey was too complicated and the time was not enough, I ended up making a graphic novel that, without further explanation, is hard to understand the plot. I feel so bad about the result. Story which is hard to understand is ridiculous. However I am glad that people liked the artwork and layout part to my work.

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What I learned from McCloud's Comic

1. Closure can also be used in story telling.

2. There are six different variations to distinguish the relationship between two scenes. I have never considered it but it was interesting to know that people can categorize them.

3. Having a square box and letting the scene to 'bleed' could bring significant difference in mood. Each panel is important in a way how people perceive the time frame.

Time Laps/ Still Shot vs Video

I know taking shots of sunset for Time Laps project is very typical, but I had to do it. I love the color of sky when the sun is setting. 

I took it inside the school so the embarrassment was not that big. But still it felt awkward taking pictures with tripod. (Now I am used to it)

One thing is that I had no time this day. It was my first time using tripod, so it took me time to set up. Therefore, I could not get the sunsetting part as long as I expected. Also, I do not like the spot, but I had no choice.

Still shot

Time Laps

Long vs. short

For this assignment, I had to juxtapose the idea of long and short. So I chose to make recently invented item with medium used since the birth of humankind. 

I was imagining if there is a caveman who had a chance to come to 21st century and sent back to his own time period after few days, what would he try to make from items he saw that were used now. I thought he might want to make something related to computer.

So,

I planned to make a keyboard out of clay(oil clay).

 I thought I should put ancient language instead of English or Korean. So I put cuneiform in my keyboard, since the cuneiform was written in clay plates back then.

Putting cuneiform in the keyboard

Clay Keyboard

Because the medium I am using is absurd, I tried to make the keyboard as realistic as possible. So I made it in 17in*7in size, similar to real keyboards. I sticked some cubics to where little lights come in real ones. Lastly I put some strings to resemble cord for keyboard. 

I was glad I could make the keyboard as I wanted it to be. I have used oil clay before, but the whole making process was an adventure for me. Flattening clay, cutting clay into keyboard button shape, and imprinting alphabets clearly were three major crisis. I was relieved to go through all those tricky parts without big problems.

Time Map

I wanted to show progress in time with organic and graceful medium. 

So I thought of an Ink drop in a glass of water. The event itself is very unpredictable so I had to take several shots to get the drop to drop in a satisfactory way. Thankfully I was able to get what I expected to have in the end. 

The next thing I had to think of was presentation. I needed a presentation to effectively show time progress of the event I chose. Since the event has downward(falling) motion, I thought of hanging images to something round like a mobile. For the top part, branch part, I made a dream catcher. Time map is a map which tries to grab certain time, and dream catcher tries to grab good dreams. I thought the idea is somewhat similar.

I had to hang the mobile to somewhere to make it.

It is hard to see, but the top part resembles dream catcher.

 Time Map

This was my first project for the Time class. I believe it was not easy to come up with idea, actualize my idea, and finally making the product. It took me some time and money. It was heartbreaking to see the final product in the end. I should have thought the images would get closer as I stick them closer to the center. With my miscalculation, the middle part is hard to see from afar. I learned I should calculate more deliberately when making things like this.

Overall I think it wasn't bad.