Visual Storytelling Narrative and Sequence DE7 401 The Journey
K1402999 | YA LI CHEN | MA Communication Design: Illustration
Contents
2
Starting Point
3
Planning
Concept
5
Making
Research
7
Outcome
15
16 20
Reflective
21
Bibliography 22
List of Images
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Starting Point london research trip
what interests me the most? Once the new semester started, we were given this new brief for Story Telling module. The way to be efficient is to think about what am I interested the most and try to find something that connect to me. It is a crucial and very effective principle because work with something that involves personal interests would always come up some sparkles. Before the trip of our first research day in London, I already had some target that I should pay attention to. They were people, toys, antiques and the idea of time. I got many inspirations in The Museum of Childhood, especially when I was able to observe and see all those fascinating toys and imagine how many stories and laughter behind it. It was a short day of research, but the point was to know the way of looking and get involved to the world we are living.
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Starting Point main interests
One of the reasons of choosing Jumping-Jack is that it's mobility so there are more possibilities and rooms to discover. Even though at that stage I was not quite sure what story to create with it or would it be successful or not.
I participated the workshop by Mar Rubio, she introduced one of techniques of David Hockney, photo joiner. I was so fascinated by the idea of demonstrate the time passing and movement within the 2D work. Hockney says, as'' the hand moving through time reflects the eye moving through time(and life
moving though time.)''(Hockney et al., 1988)His work made me aware of the concept of Time, we all live with this big concept, but I don't think I have much knowledge of it. It's a bit mysterious for me, but I was also excited that I found a subject to get into.
time
Fig.2.
jumping-jack
Fig.1.
I spotted this object Jumping-Jack both in the museum of London and the Museum of Childhood. Paper puppet and paper dolls are the main toys that I played when I was little. Paper always get my attention.
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look beyond
concept
How can I tell the story with this human figure? In the visual research day, I spent a whole day in the Wellcome Collection, it expanded my vision of figures, there could be many possible contexts within depends on the functionalities and viewpoints.
develope concept
evolution culture difference when you are courting a nice girlan hour seems like a second,when you sit on a redhot cinder a second seems like an hour. -Albert Einstein
repetition
forward Linear
Time
circular endless
Events in the future seem closer than those in the past The Temporal Doppler Effect (Caruso, 2013)
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There are many interesting concepts and scientific facts about time, such as time seems slows down when people are doing something they hate. Or people tend to think the events in the future are closer than those in the past. And in the western world people think that time is linear and circular in the eastern culture.
Concept
focus
Potential Format
jumping jack human beings
animation
evolve linear time There were many ideas and concepts for these two subjects. I was very happy but also worried about it. It would only make sense if I found a logical way to combine them. It might be a big disaster if I try to put too many ideas in the story without focus. So it was a big help to go through mindmap and sorted out the logical way of thinking.
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Research
narrative
The outcome of this course should be able to show the understanding of narrative. In order to have a more academic point of view, I went through Landscape Narrative, Design Practices for Telling stories to understand the knowledge of storytelling before I got into story making. At the beginning of the book, Pottier and Purinton mentions that Narrative refers to both the story, what is told, and the means of telling, implying not product and process, form and formation, structure and structuration(1998, P3); like a language, narrative is a mean of communicating (1998, P4); stories can plot events into lines, create hierarchies, unite beginnings and ends to form circles, or tie knots and design labyrinths. (1998, P9) I had a much clear attitude and manifestation towards narrative. This book provides a clear graph(fig.3) that explains what is narrative. It divides the content of the story into three parts: events, characters, and settings and lists the example of different telling formats. This graph provides the clear way of thinking in terms of narrative. And helps me get started at the building up my story structure.
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narrative Story (Content)
telling (expression) structure/ manifestation/
events characters settings
film verbal dance landscape
Time and narration The book also mentions three ways of visual narrative that shows time in spatial form. There are: The single point in time or ‘frozen moment’; linear narrative and continuous narrative. This provides me the principle of narrative and it would be interesting that my concept of Time could also reflect on the way of a narrative. The book suggests that narration time and story time are integral but different. The time represented in a narrative may be one week, a moment, or a millennium, but, the actual time tell, hear, read, or in some way experience each of these stories may be just five minutes.(1988,P44) So this enforced me to use animation to tell the story cause I can adjust the time of narration to alter the story time to demonstrate the ideas of the time.
Fig.3.
What is Narrative?
Research
jumping jack paper doll
''The jumping-jack is a toy whose origins date back thousands of years. The jointed jumping-jack figure is a cross between a puppet and a paper doll. The figures are generally made from wood and their limbs are jointed and tied to a pull string. When the string is pulled and released, the arms and legs move up and down.''(Jumping jack (toy), 2014)
Fig.4.
Fig.6
Instead of creating the story around Jumping Jack, I prefer using the features to tell the story, such as the moving bodies and the changeable limbs.I also intended to apply it with the idea of 'evolve' to exaggerate the story.
Fig.5
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Fig.7
Research
Marcel Dzama Dzama's collage and paper puppet work show me the beauty of narrative and his way of creating movement in his doll is really fascinating and interesting. His work provides me the example of continuous of narrative and has a great impact on my illustration composition.
Fig.8.
Fig.10.
Fig.12.
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Fig.9. Fig.11.
Research
Fig.15.
David hockney The geometry graphs of Hockney's stage design gave me the idea of drawing and illustration. It was a great style reference. A bit of surreal and mysterious atmosphere that adds up some imagination within his work.
Fig.16.
Fig.13.
Fig.17.
Fig.14.
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Fig.20.
Research
Henry moore Those drawing of Moore reveals the beauty of form and shapes. Moore's transforming from bone structure to organic forms of sculpture is could be a different point of evolving. It inspired me the way of discover the possibility of evolution of human figures.
Fig.18.
Fig.21.
Fig.19.
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Fig.22.
Research
evolve
How should I tell the story of evolve? How should I make it more interesting? The best part of telling a story is using a playful point of view to communicate ideas and messages. So the concept of "some parts of our bodies may have different function a long time ago", could give us some imagination of how people are coming from, and it is not a serious question to answer any more. Therefore, I did a bit of observation drawing and collage of human bones in order to find some connections.
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Fig.23.
''Evolutionary developmental biology has revealed that the some structures have adapted for different purposes in different animals: a bat's wing evolved from its ancestor's fingers and human ear bones evolved from the same structure as reptile jaws" -Hongru Zhang
explore the possibilities of compositions and meanings to demonstration the idea of evolve and transform.
Research
Fig.25.
Fig.27.
evolve transform Shape
Fig.29.
Fig.28.
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Fig.26.
Fig.24.
Research
animation movement
Fig.32.
Fig.30.
Why animation? With the moveable object of jumping Jacks and the story of Time Animation seems a reasonable format to tell the story. And I got to experience and explore different way narration. ''Manipulating the speed and amount of change between the frame are the secret alchemy that gives animation the ability to convey the illusion of life.''(TED-Ed, 2014)
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Fig.33. Fig.31.
Fig.34.
planning
storyboard stroy structure setting A road establishes a sequence while opening the possibilities of a chance encounter. (1998, P6); A narrative creates a kind of virtual space in time.(1988, P44). I benefit a lot by being aware of the setting and space in the narrative, and it helped me to create the story from different interpretations. Figures such as the road, or the garden not only structure events of stories but become central metaphors in the stories.(1998,P45) Therefore, there are many different metaphors from the setting, space, garden, island, forests and so on in mine.
evolve/ three parts shape/ of my story age/
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making
test& Collect& A bit of testing really helps to keep the ball rolling. It would only make sense when I start to make and draw.
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making
test& Collect&
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making
draw& cut I like the cleanness of the illustration. Paper collage and wash seem work fine together.
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making
filming& recording& editing It was my first experience of making stop-motion but with the help from the studio technicians I can work through the technical problems. I didn't have much time to learn every detail of animation so I kept it simple but to the point. As long as the audience could understand the meaning of the story.
The sound is another way of communicating since there are no ordinary lines in my story. But different sound effects actually helps the audience to comprehend the story. Such as the sound of water can make people think of ocean and river. I was very exciting to do a bit of experiment of sound recording. For me, this really extended the thinking of communication.
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A Short Walk with Time
outcome
Link to the full animation: https://vimeo.com/127490642
about The original target audience is young adults. A Short Walk with Time is trying to demonstrate human beings evolve through every experience in life, people are changing and growing every passing moment. And this combines the concept of linear and circular in time with stopmotion animation.
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reflec tive
With a bit more understanding of what the course work, I think I am more into the work. And take the charges of learning. Progress is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've been. If process drives the outcome, we may not know where we are going, but we will know we want to be there. (Maslen, Southern, and Unknown, 2011). At the beginning of this project, I didn't know how to answer if one of our classmates asked me what was I going to make. As I keep working through the project ans stick with the principles everything makes more sense. After the previous module, I realized that I need more time in making instead of leave work till the last minutes, therefore, I gave myself four weeks of making. Since I decided to make animation so there were many things to do. Yet without the overwhelming anxiety, I could actually enjoy the process of making.
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It was a bit terrifying before I really set my mind to start making stop-motion which was something I had never done before. But once I started making it was actually not as hard as it seems. Spacing and timing are very important in animation, only through making can really understand why and how though. Every movement of the character should have been well considered, but I had no idea until the shooting day. So the stage of editing is the only way to make the adjust, by altering the speed according to the characteristics, the messages seems clearer. Because of this project I learn how stop-motion is made and operate the editing software such as Dragonframe, Premium, and sound recording system. For me I had a great journey of learning, it's not necessary saying every experience are positive or satisfaction, however, I can spotted myself constantly self-evaluate and examine maybe this is the biggest improvement for myself.
bibliography Caruso, E. (2013) Events in the Future Seem Closer Than Those in the Past - Association for Psychological Science. Available at: http:// www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/events-inthe-future-seem-closer-than-those-in-the-past.html (Accessed: 21 May 2015) Hockney, D., Barron, S., Tuchman, M., Gallery, T., Los Angeles County Museum of Art and N.Y.) Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York (1988) David Hockney: A Retrospective. Los Angeles, CA: Los Angeles County Museum of Art Jumping jack (toy) (2014) in Wikipedia. Available at: http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Jumping_jack_%28toy%29 (Accessed: 20 May 2015) Maslen, M., Southern, J. and Unknown (2011) The Drawing Project: An Exploration of the Language of Drawing. London: Black Dog Publishing London UK Palindrome in Welcome collection - euston (no date) Available at: http:// workflow.arts.ac.uk/view/artefact.php?artefact=449520&view=65463&b lock=492341 (Accessed: 20 May 2015) Pottier, M. and Purinton, J. (1998) Landscape narrative,Design Practices for Telling stories. New York: Chichester : John Wiley TED-Ed (2014) Animation basics: The art of timing and spacing - TEDEd. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRVhtMxQWRs (Accessed: 20 May 2015)
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list of images Fig.1.Hockney, D. (1983) The Crossword Puzzle, Minneapolis, Jan Fig.2.Hockney, D. (1983) Photographing Annie Leibovitz While She’s Photographing Me Fig.3.Pottier, M. and Purinton, J. (1998) Landscape narrative,Design Practices for Telling stories. New York: Chichester : John Wiley Fig.4.Polichinelle & Arlequin - Memory of the Netherlands - Online image database of archives, museums and libraries (no date) Available at: http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/?/en/items/PO P01:00307/&p=4&i=7&t=112&st=Polichinelle&sc=subject%20 all%20%22Polichinelle%22%20AND%20%28isPartOf%20any%20 %22POP01%22%20%29/ (Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.5.Bouwplaat voorstellende een trekpop - Memory of the Netherlands - Online image database of archives, museums and libraries (no date) Available at: http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl/?/en/items/ POP01:03824 (Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.6.The Jealous Curator /// curated contemporary art /// i’m jealous of claire oswalt (2012) Available at: http://www.thejealouscurator.com/ blog/2012/08/27/im-jealous-of-claire-oswalt/ (Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.7.Sardà, M. (2014) The Bodybuilder - Reversible dummy Available at: https://www.behance.net/gallery/20844877/The-BodybuilderReversible-dummy (Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.8. Dzama, H.(2011) Silver Spoon, Avalible at: http://art9to5. blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/marcel-dzama.html(Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.9. Dzama, H. (2008) The proud of history on the path. And the angel descending, Available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/374a3984-3c6311e3-9851-00144feab7de.html#slide0 (Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.10. Dzama, H.(2011) In the theatre of our wedding day, Available at: http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2013/february/06/ marcel-dzama-comes-to-zwirner-london/?utm_source=cheetah&utm_ medium=email&utm_campaign=NL110213&utm_ source=cheetah&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NL110213
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(Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.11. Dzama, H.(2002) Untitled, Available at: http://www.moma. org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O:TA:E:ExqCor&page_ number=67&template_id=1&sort_order=1(Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.12. Dzama, H.(2007-2009) Front cover of untitled scrapbook, Available at: http://www.moreeuw.com/histoire-art/biographie-marceldzama.htm(Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.13-16.Hockney, D. (2010) Glyndebourne's production of The Rake's Progress.[Stage Design] Available at:http://dustyburrito.blogspot. ca/2012/03/david-hockneys-stage-designs-for-rakes.html (Accessed: 21 May 2015) Fig.17.Hockney, D. (2010) Glyndebourne's production of The Rake's Progress.[Stage Design] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ royaloperahouse/7650626588/in/set-72157630761693044 (Accessed: 21 May 2015) Fig.18.Moore, H(no date)[Sketchbook]http://aaw3dart.blogspot. co.uk/2010/02/sculpture-abstract-human-figure.html (Accessed: 21 May 2015) Fig.20.Moore, H(1980-1981)Eight Sculpture Ideas, Available at: http:// www.tate.org.uk/search?page=4&f[0]=im_vid_49:1930 (Accessed: 21 May 2015) Fig.19&21.Moore, H (no date) The Body [Drawing]Available at: http:// www.slideshare.net/zhoeben/henry-moore-the-body-presentation (Accessed: 21 May 2015) Fig.22.The Wing (2011) Available at: https://www.etsy.com/ transaction/40822388 (Accessed: 21 May 2015) Fig.23.Unknow (no date) skullandbone: arm/wing comparison and evolution [Illustration]Available at: http://scientificillustration.tumblr. com/post/23917609538/skullandbone-arm-wing-comparison-andevolution (Accessed: 21 May 2015)
list of images Fig.24.• trippy moon real fish cheese tentacles jelly Metamorphosis octupus phases chiasmic • (2013) Available at: http://rebloggy.com/ post/trippy-moon-real-fish-cheese-tentacles-jelly-metamorphosisoctupus-phases/36097288927 (Accessed: 21 May 2015) Fig.25. Hillier, D. (2009) At the Edge of the Woods [Illustration] Available at:http://www.danhillier.com/artwork/at-the-edge-of-the-woods(Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.26. Unknow (1775) Siamese Twins Skeleton [Illustation]Available at:http://vintagegal.tumblr.com/post/10502505251/siamese-twinsskeleton-1775 (Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.27. Dzama, M. (1998-1999) Untitled Available at:http://daily. artspace.com/post/9049500226/untitled-1998-1999-by-marcel-dzamaink-and (Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.28.Unknown (no date) Grafting[Illustation] Available at: http:// www.robinsonlibrary.com/agriculture/plant/propagation/grafting.htm (Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.29.Lattanzio, M. (2015) Photo Mosaics Shatter Portraits Into Bits And Pieces Available at:http://www.bloglovin.com/blogs/ beautifuldecay-magazine-584992?post=4232466260&group=0&frame_ type=a&context=post_page&context_ids=&blog=584992&frame=1&cli ck=0&user=0&viewer=true(Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.30.Elisofon, E. (1952) Marcel Duchamp[Photograph] Available at:http://electripipedream.tumblr.com/post/106284743805/photographby-eliot-elisofon-marcel-duchamp-1952(Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.31.Muybridge, E. (1887) Motion study of an athlete running Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/health/17cnd-run. html?_r=0(Accessed: 20 May 2015) Fig.32-34.TED-Ed (2014) Animation basics: The art of timing and spacing - TED-Ed. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=KRVhtMxQWRs (Accessed: 20 May 2015)
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