Frank Lloyd Wright

I've been doing research for my Art Theory course, on the topic of modernist architecture. I'm reading through a large number of journal articles on Frank Lloyd Wrights architecture, and he did have a lot of things to say about art in general that seem to make a lot of sense to me in a way. In an academic sense the concepts that he conveys through his writing, and that is embodied in his architecture, speak to me in a way that I haven't found many others to. A particular example is an excerpt is this one: "Consistency in grammar is therefore the property -solely- of a well developed artist-architect. Without that property of the arist-architect not much can be done about your abode as a work of Art. Grammar is no property for the usual owner or the occupant of the house. But the man who designs the house must inevitably speak a consistent thought-language in his design. It properly may be and should be a language of his own if appropriate. If he has no language, so no grammar, of his own, he must adopt one; he will speak some language or other whether he so chooses to or not." (Wright F.L, 1954 The Natural House, pages 182-183) This excerpt is the first written example this concept I have found so far (maybe I'm just not as literate as I thought I was). I interpreted this as applying to all art, as opposed to being useful merely to the "artist-architect". Using consistent "thought-language" in an art piece is important and a concept that I think is often overlooked when comparing a seemingly well structured piece and a not well structured piece. Often I have found myself admiring pieces that have consistent thought-language and grammar throughout. A couple of artists and pieces that I feel follow this very structurally sound model of creative design through thought language are Boards of Canada (in particular Geogaddi and The Campfire Headphase), Venetian Snares (Rossz Csillag Alatt Szuletett and Detrimentalist), Anthony Fransisco Sheppard (Two Against One and Blockhead - The Music Scene), and Naoto Hattori (in particular his symbolic/communicative work). I find this kind of expression a very satisfying model to use to consider the quality of art, or at least whether I have a purely physiological reaction to the piece or whether I have an aesthetic attraction to the artwork/artform itself. Another property that I have noticed of these structured and consistent pieces is that their aesthetic form and their function are blended. When this happens, and is accompanied by consistent grammar, it seems to have a synergistic effect on the piece. I notice now that FLW was the a major proponent in the adoption of this concept (form and function are one) and have now completed a circle back to my original point. I will end here.

Messing around in final cut

So I was messing about with FC Studio waiting for a friend to pick me up, and I started playing with some of the filters. This resulted in a very short... thing... that me and my girlfriend really like.

Despite its simplicity it was quite hard to produce, each character was individually animated with the text scrambler. Basic fade ins/outs.

Then stuck some white noise to the back and gave it a build up for dramatic effect.

And done.

NO LONGER my main piece for Digital Video

So this post was for the first project for digital video.

I'd been creating a calming advertisement to try and get people out and about.
Not hugely filled with effort, and I didn't spend a huge amount of time thinking about the layout or storyboard etc.

I got most of  my influence for this piece from the movie Baraka, and Boards of Canada (as can be seen that I'm using one of their songs for the audio track).
Ideally I would have loved to do this piece in widescreen with 12 panels instead of just 9 however this would have taken me too long, and I didn't want to go overboard. Not just yet anyway.

Most of the time that I spent creating this piece was timing the fade ins and outs for the different panels, so I didn't do anything particularly complex, maybe in a future piece I will go back and explore doing this in widescreen with more panels and more complex fade ins/outs for them.
Also with the fade ins/outs the last pale to be displayed does take a little longer to fade in and also is left to fade out a little longer. This was done intentionally to bring sue resolution to the action, and to draw the the sequence out a little longer to give a more calming effect.

I tried to make sure that I didn't use the same clip twice for any of the panels, I did this by renaming all the clips that I used in the previous wave before moving onto the next one.
I got the panels symmetrically placed and evenly spaced by placing the corner one and then placing the rest based on the values of the location of that corner in relation to centre (i.e. the bottom corner was at 226,174, the centre at 0).

The text used in this piece is designed to be personal, so that it can be a little funny towards the end. The video calling you a lazy bastard would be quite insulting if the video didn't a) introduce itself, and b) use slang implying friendship/personality behind the video.

This is my first experiment in giving character to a video, hopefully this will evolve into being able to develop some more interesting and relatable characters, rather than ones facelessly that tell you to go outside.

I really like this piece, its slightly humorous, touches on an issue which is difficult for many people act on, and in my opinion stylistically enjoyable to watch.

The video should be embedded below.
And some screenshots of final cut during production should be below that.

 

Anthony Francisco Shepperd Animations

Just posting some animations that i have real respect for the animator.
This is a music video for the band Blockhead and their song "The Music Scene".
The animator is Anthony Francisco Schepperd.