As you may have guessed, this is the beginning of the brainstorming. A hurricane of ideas. Okay, maybe not as strong as a natural disaster, but a product of thinking and rambling and hopefully getting to that warm, gooey, sticky bit often found in boxes of chocolate.
Initially I had some ideas, the kind that your mind starts skipping to the moment you hear the words "topic" and "semester-long". But, I decided not to get ahead of myself and check out some motion graphics that were made with AfterEffects. I figured that I need some sort of reference point with what I am getting myself into, in terms of aesthetic and basically how things tend to look and move with this program. I started at Vimeo, which has an explore function that can be specified to "motion graphics made with aftereffects". Pretty handy stuff. These 3 videos following this paragraph are in the ballpark of the look that I want.
Dead All Along || Ceri Frost from Giles Timms on Vimeo.
This is an animation that I have been familiar with for more than a year now. I can't say that the plot is easy to follow for the viewer, but visually I am in love with the scanned ink drawings. The best part is that doesn't hide what it is all, and works with the flat-moving paper look.
The paper effect mentioned in the first video is similar this one. Again, instead of the flat trying to masquerade as true 3d objects, the appearance is more like curling and undulating paper. I also dig the palette and textures with that drawn aesthetic I can't stop mentioning.
«Огоньки» Ляпис Трубецкой «Lights» Lyapis Trubetskoy from Alexey TEREHOFF on Vimeo.
The way this animation works with space is absolutely amazing. This also appeals to my other kink besides hand drawn cutouts: VINTAGE SHIT. Plus the whole Soviet aspect really makes the subject matter that more dynamic
With the idea of how I want my work to look more fleshed out, I need to focus back to the actual subject matter of the pieces. I was thinking a lot about what Jill said about my work last semester, which is helping some direction-wise. I also noticed that in that course, much of my work involved puppets. In this line of thinking, my first big idea is...
1) Cutout textures imitating various styles of puppeting (marionettes, hand puppet shows, and definitely more shadow puppets, etc.)
Style also inspired by the mixed media graphic novel, Mr. Punch.
There is also some bizarre, possibly compulsive want to do some victorian, early 20th century inspired cut out animations. I know I heard Jill say "Are you just doing a period piece to do a period piece", so I know I need to apply this to something worth seeing. So, I just started thinking about how, in some ways, it's a bit trendy to like victorian/vintage/outdated things. (Prepare for some rambling)
Right now, fashion and hipsterdom is all about looking back, to the 60s, 70s, 80s, even the 90s (even though the 90s aren't vintage yet. It doesn't meet the qualification of being more than 20 years old, but I'm just foaming at the mouth right now and expecting my head to rotate 360 degrees at any given second.) But I guess my question is, how far back are we looking to go?
Sure, the 50s and the 40s could manifest as trendy unexpectedly, or until we see it at urban outfitters. Are we talking Jacobian? Renaissance? Are animal skins and tshirts with screen-printed cave drawings next? Before we know it, hipsters everywhere will be trading in their fixed-gears for penny-farthings and record players for phonographs. Which got me thinking. Hipsters. What if my pieces were satires of hipster trends, implementing things popular from eras that, as a whole, will never be popular? Think Abraham Lincoln drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon and wearing the Three Keyboard Cat Moon Tee from Threadless. Cutouts from Victorian lithographs dancing to Vampire Weekend. I could go on. Or maybe not. Besides the irony that making fun of hipsters is trendy in itself, maybe this is really a meta-parody. Perhaps I'll just widen the parody to commercialism and leave it at that.
Time to let these brain juices soak it, ladies and gentleman. Adieu!
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