. : Studio Brief 02 :.
Huddersfield vernacular Winter 2014
Road Map This road map shows the requirements of the project highlighed along with some initial ideas and connections I had from the initial briefing meeting, I usually make a road map at the beginning of a project as it clearly lays out for me what needs to be done, which is good for future reference. Plus the array of ideas I put down to start with is a good tool to come back to if I get tunnel vision later on from over developing one idea.
Textures These are the textures I found around Huddersfield. I tried to pick out that were unique to the area. The sandy coloured stone used for buildings, for example, is particularly unique to Huddersfield. I am, however, finding it difficult to develop this idea into something that could be a 30 second animation.
Primary Research
(Stanton, 2014)
Primary Research
Population This is one of the main philosophies behind blogs like Humans of New York. There is an opportunity here for me to produce a version of this for Huddersfield in documentary format, however this is too predictable and lacks innovation. An idea I had would be instead to purposefully focus on the inhabitants of Huddersfield that aren’t quite as human, the pets or birds for example. This I feel has potential to go somewhere, as I can either do a satirical bird version of the well known Humans of NY, or I could frame the vernacular of the town from a birds eye view. This is a new perspective through which a familiar town can be reframed, even for those who had lived there for years!
Idea
Lights
Inspired by the 1982 cultural observation film, Koyaanisqatsi, where I was particularly taken by the day to night transition. I took two pictures of Huddersfield to compare day and night. I liked how the lights from streetlamps and buildings created a unique pattern in the dark, like a fingerprint for the town. Although which lights are on or off, (and for how long) cannot be controlled, and the pattern is always changing, what remains the same is the positioning of these lights. This is solidly integrated into the shape of the town.
My idea is to use the pattern of lights in a stopmotion animation. I want to collect photographs of Huddersfield at night each framed identically (a stationary camera should do this fine) so that I can create a coherent stopmotion from them. I am working under the expectation that lights will be turned on and off throughout the night so that my photographs have some differences. I’ll be able to exploit these, as they will be the main changes between frames.
Leon Hong’s Google Doodle to comemorate Charles Debussy’s 151th Birthday. glowing lights along the Seine flicker in time to the melody of Clair de Lune. I also have the opportunity to syncronise this to music, very much like Leon Hong’s composition I could chose a piece of music with significance to Huddersfield, allowing me to express the vernacular of the town through two meduims synchronously. I want to see what sort of images I can get and from different viewpoints of the town, possibly even experiment with daylight. I could capture a timelapse of the sunlight moving shadows and remap this to synchronise it to the track. If I have trouble capturing what I need, maybe due to the lights being beyond my control, there is always the option to interfere more with it. I could compose the scene from scratch in Cinema 4D, or I could capture each light individually, even edit together pieces from different viewpionts to fit the flow of the track.
Doorways Another interesting thing I found about Huddersfield was that there was a diversity of doorways. Many of them somewhat reflected the nature of what was behind them. Some of them simply didn’t. For example there was one coffee shop which designed itself to fit with the style of the building, as it was archaic. The doorway was huge and the ceiling very high but it was styled this way, not dissimilar to how the stature of an animated character would be partially dictated by its personality. I had a few ideas as a result of this discovery.
Primary Research
Idea 1 Doors to Huddersfield
I select a number of doorways to try to represent as much of Huddersfield as possible and recreate scale versions of them. Decorated with scenes and props to do with what’s behind them. Then I set up the doorways in line like dominos and set a camera on a track to move through each one. The result will be an immersive video, taking the audience on a journey through the doors of Huddersfield and displaying what is behind them.
Idea 2 I am Huddersfield
A range of distinctive shops and businesses are embodied in a range of characters, styled to represent the look and feel of each one. They could be talking about Huddersfield and then at the end say ‘How do I know? I am Huddersfield’ and then transform back into the building they were.
Seco Re
ondary esearch
Continuing with the I am Huddersfield idea, I want to mock up character designs for a number of different buildings by taking certain properties and features of these sturctures and converting them to bodily or facial features.
A good example of this is in Walt Disney’s ‘101 Dalmations’ at the begining of the film, where the dalmation Pongo observes dogs and their owners walking in the street. These passers-by were designed to have similar features to their pets. This is the sort of feature heavy caracter design I want to achieve
Character Designs
Rubarb (Pub/Bar)
Potential Formats
Cinemagraphs
Cinemagraphs are high resolution animated GIF images. The term was coined by Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg who work together creating cinemagraphs from high fashion industry shoots. This is a very powerful imagery tool as, for the most part, the image is still, save for one or two subtle movements. For instance, in the image above the models hair moves Motion Infographics lightly in the wind. This draws the viewer’s attention instantly, giving the photographer More specifically I am interested in Animated Isometric Infographics, H5 Studio’s work on power over where the audience looks. the music video for Royksopp’s song ‘Remind I don’t have to produce GIF images as the Me’ is a good example of this. It follows a effect would still work as a video. However woman’s journey through an entire working there are some options to create something day, revealing the details and data of almost Web-based and interactive with gifs. everything she interacts with. Its an different style of storytelling, leaving nothing up to the imagination. Much in the style of the Isometric Drawings that preceeded them, all parts are exposed in the name of function. The user is able to see how everything is constructed. Infographics are a good way of delivering information, adding an element of time to this allows for this information to be delivered at a pace that is good for the audience. It also yields the opportunity for links to be made clearer, between subjects as they flow along a timeline.
(H5 Studio, 2002)
“The sandy coloured stone used in the buildings around Huddersfield is called Millstone Grit and it has a long history with the town.“ I could research and deliver the history of this stone in the form of a story,
“Huddersfield had a problem with starlings in the 70s, the overpopulated the area and destroyed the millstone grit in the buildings.”
In the form of a motion infographic?
I think there is pontential for other ideas to come from the ‘shape and feel of buildings’ concept. It could be pursued more before I narrow down on one idea. I could interpret the buildings as abstracts shapes/materials using Cinema 4D
Feedback
“The bird’s eye view of the town could be filmed with camera drones or from high windows”
Analysis of the ideas so far
A cinemagraph of this idea would be more interesting than just film.
The compsition could be split onto different tracks, each represented by different lights, allowing the user to build them on top of each other. “The lights idea is good but consider the user. This could be interactive”
Farming
Rock-Climbing
The name of this stone comes from the fact that it was used in the building of Woolen Mills. Local sheep farming on the moors allowed for the growth of the woolen industry. Alongside coal mining, it was one of the main industries that helped to develop West Yorshire.
I found quite a few rock-climbing mazagines when searching for information linking to the Millstone grit. Yorkshire Gritstone is just one of a number of climbing magazines that focus on Yorkshire stone in the Dales and Peak District. Many dissused quarries are also used for climbing, these are more numerous around build up areas. Crosland Moor Quarry and Longwood Tower Quarry are the two closest crags to Huddersfield. I can find data about their visitors and how to climb for this infographic
Links to the Yorkshire Stone Story
In a standard isometric motion infographic there is usuallly a storyline that is central to the video and much of the inforamtion comes from links that spin off from that. For instance, in H5’s Video ‘Remind Me’, we follow a woman through her day at work but along the way also investigate the city-wide water sytem that her bathroom connects to when she uses it, and the proccess that went into making the burger she has for lunch. The aim of my research here is to find links that involve the Yorskire stone
Quarrying Possibly the most obvious use of the Millstone Grit native to the area is in architecture. The stone is quarried to make bricks for buildings in the area. As a result, the town looks very different to settlements in the south of England which use red bricks for building. The process from rock to buildings is a strong enough storyline to become the main string for the film. First of all, the stone is quarried from cliff edges and
outcrops. Then it is taken to stone masoners who craft bricks/archways/windows from the stone. I will need to look for some books or documentaries that describe these processes in detail, so I can be accurate with the information I present.
History Its important not to forget that the rock years later, the land was pushed up out of Huddersfield is built on was formed long the sea and the Millstone Grits cover most before Humans exsisted. According to of Northern and West England. Peakscan, Millstone Grit was formed form deposits 300 Million years ago. When the land lay below sea level grits would be deposited by tides and floods. These grits were buried by muds, sands and limestone. The pressure from these meant that chemical change turned the grits into rock. Millions of
Plan Many animated infographics take up any opportunity to present data. They are, in fact. very thorough. As a result they often branch out from the main storyline to investigate other parts in great detail. This is an interesting style of storytelling and traditionally it works better in literature than in film however this form, I feel, is an exeption to that rule. Below I have illustrated the topics that will be covered in the infographic and how they will link to each other.
Secondary Research
Monument Valley
Monument Valley is an IOS/Andriod puzzle game, created by ustwo™ games and powered by Unity. What strikes me most about the game is how harmonius the colour and shadows are. As an animator who is still a novice to colour, this level of understanding is my ultimate goal. From viewing some ‘making of’ videos released by ustwo, I actually discovered that the shadows were computer generated, not painted. If I was to recreate this art style, I should consider using unity or cinema 4D to generate these accurately. Pictured below is a small conceptual mockup I did in Illustrator.
Recently I have noticed in my work that the theme of floating or suspended objects appears in almost everything I produce in some form or another. However I don’t see it to be limiting in any way. I aim to embrace this as a trademark of my work, not by making the effort to include it but by acknowledging it whenever it arises. For instance, my attraction to this particular game is very likely the result of the comfort I find in suspended objects, among other factors.
Idea
OR...
Interactive map of people, places and conversations Use Cinemagraphs Though documenting people, quotes and places gives a more rounded view of the activity of a town or city, I would like to use this opportunity to incorporate cinemagraphs. Not only because narrowing down the content to places only givea the appliaction more focus but also because it My vision for this feed is a full screen opens to way up to public contrubution and experience, observations are mapped in 3D the possibility of app development. space depending on where and when they were made. As XY represents geography and Z represents time. Older observations are pushed back into Z space as new ones appear. The fact that this style of design is so widely applicable inspired this idea for a type of news feed of observations around huddersfield. I could create icons for people, quotes of conversations and places I observe and place them on a live feed.
Though I originally envisioned this idea as a smartphone app, there are many other platforms it could be transferred to. I even considered this becoming a new way for This page shows some further details of my google to provide images of the world, and idea, its function, its aim and its potential something immersive to go alongside Google applications. Maps and Google Streetview.
Interactive Cinemagraph Archive
When?
Quality control
Explore the same area through hours of the Opening up to users of the appliaction for day by scrolling (computer) or pinch zooming contributions brings with it a risk of the app’s mission being compromised. A set (mobile/tablet/installation). of submission guidelines and a panel that view and select submissions may also be Where? necessary. Browse though the area geographically by moving the cursor to the screen edge World Archive (computer) swiping the screen or tilting the device (mobile/tablet) or waving left/right On a large scale, Google does a similar thing, the main difference being the public influence or up/down (installation) on content. However now companies are becoming more sentimental toward their Privacy Policy users this may be an appropriate new A terms of use contract would need to addition. be drawn up with regards for use and permissions of these images.
Aims The main aims for this appliaction are: To provide people with an immersive experience of an area. To put the focus on the area’s environment, not the people in it. To put man in the position of the observer not the subject. To build up a social culture of people contributing their own observations.
Mockups Interactive Cinemagraph Archive for mobile, tablets and desktop
Mockups revisited
View video
vimeo.com/127846208
on vimeo