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Time management:

•How did you manage your time during the project?

•Were you in time for the deadline or did you have to run in the last moments?

•How would you organize your time and work on a next similar project?

I think that during the first week of project our work was kind of stuck and we were trying to start giving too many steps in different directions without going anywhere, but after the action plan and starting to actual make the animation the project started to develop better, specially because we were working together as a team. Probably because of the techniques we chose to animate our video, the deadline was not a problem, at first it was kind of hard to use illustrator and after effects but after half a day I got the hang of it and things started to flow way better, making it possible for me to finish all of my part of the work at 5pm on Thursday. Next time I’ll try to organize my work with my partner at the beginning of the project, so we don’t waste time with communication issues.

Feedback:

•What feedback did you receive?

•What is your own critique (positive or negative points) on your work?

The clients were very satisfied with our final outcome, they emphasized as positive points our color choices for environment and skin-color of the character, the music that ketp the animation with a calm aspect, not imposing what we wanteded to raise awereness of to the workers. I’m very proud of my final outcome with Igor, mainly because this project provided me time and opportunities to learn a type of animation that I had never done before, and I think both of us communicated what we wanted to show in the best way possible. During the presentation I notice only one problem with the audio and another with Mestres da Obra logo, but we already resolved it before lunch. The only think that couldn’t be changed was was the duration of the lunch scene, even though we agreed with Sol when she said that maybe the scene should be longer since is the most important momento for the character, but because the video was already rendered, we were unable to change it today.

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My first work with a client during Foundation Art & Design course. We made this animation to raise workers aweriness of healty and higene on construction sites workspace.

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What have you learned from the way your worked with your partner?

I learned about the importance of working together, sharing the same space, because we could evaluate each other’s work during the process, and unconsciously the project ended up having an unity. Also was very important to sit down and organize our action plan, because that set small goals for each of us and made the work flows much better afterwards.

How you think is the best way to present the project tomorrow?

We need to show that we thought about both content and design. We established a color palette for the animation with orange and blue, having both complementary colors in every scene, and also mixed two types of animation to differentiate the characters, keeping a minimalistic visual during almost every scene, making the animation ease to get. We also tried to create an more abstract character, the Hand, but we wanted to make it clear that it wears the same glove as the worker, showing that it is one of them, and that, at the same time, it is the voice of reason, like a illusory worker that makes all the right thinks and it’s telling our other worker what he needs to do because it’s what’s better for him.

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Zaíra Araújo (production Padlet August 30)

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Zaíra Araújo (production Padlet August 30)

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During the whole day finish the 3 scenes left

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Hallway

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Today I was able to finish almost all the scenes left for me to animate, because most of them were connected, so I could use a part already done to create another scene.  At the same time it was an exhausting manual work, because it was the first time I had to make an walk cycle (and also learn by myself how to break it without looking abnormal), but it was the day that I had my greatest personal fulfillment till now during this project, because I didn’t think I would be able to learn how to animate with After Effects so fast.

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Brushing teeth

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Working (with walk cycle)

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Today was a very productive day, because I was able to finish all the pendent props before lunch using Illustrator, and consequently finish some simples scenes, like the washing hands one, afterwards. Luckily for me I brought my laptop to class, and at some point in the afternoon all the pcs and macs restarted, unfortunately making almost all of my colleagues lost they progress of the day. My partner lost part of his work so my project was affected as well. After class I finished one more scene, this time reusing the animation of the washing soap one, and that strategy was something me and Igor planned in the beginning, we thought that maybe the repetition of similar scenes over and over could not only save us some time, but also to make the animation more comic.

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AM- finish thumb scene and props
PM- add backgrounds to the scenes that are already finished.

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Washing hands with soap

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How effective was my production schedule today?

I noticed that today my work with Igor started to get better, we sat side by side and asked for each other’s opinion during the whole process. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to complete my tasks for today because I did not separate the props creation and scenes animation in my action plan, so I did not expect that making this scenes would take so long.

What do I need to plan/ improve in my planning during this week?

I need to put as a priority to finish all props before animating the next scenes, and that’s something I can try to complete today after class, because I noticed that after the props are ready most of the scenes can be animated very quickly using After Effects.

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Zaíra Araújo (production Padlet August 27)

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Zaíra Araújo (production Padlet August 27)

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AM- Finish at least 2 scenes on After Effects
PM- Finish 2 more

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First scene finished

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How was the first meeting?

How did I manage to express my ideas to my partner?

During my first meeting with Igor I think we both shared similar interests on the themes that were given to us and on the type of animation that we wanted to do. We didn’t have communication problems at first, while revealing and developing our 3 ideas, but I think that after that something changed because we weren’t focusing on the same things anymore, he wanted to go straight to computer, and I was still working o paper.

How did we organize the work?

How did we deal with planning, communication, division of work?

At first we didn’t talk about it explicitly, so each one ended up working alone. The communication wasn’t so good because were used to work in different ways, and that led us to work even in different floors. I think it was kind of implicit that I was going to make more the concept, storyboard and mood board while he was experimenting with the hand animation and trying to learn how to animate with After Effects.

How can we do better in our teamwork from now on?

I think that after the talk we Sol today we’ll probably start to work better, specially because we broke this wall of working separately and also created an action plan for both of us, setting goals that we can complete on a daily bases til the end of the project, and also because we realized that we have to work side by side to make it easier for both of us to have an idea of how the whole project is going.

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Since I had some difficulties with developing the backgrounds for the animation, I asked for Daniel’s help today. He showed me this “Cartoon Modern” book about design of fifties animation, and it inspired me a lot because of the different styles of backgrounds that were explored in this decade. The ones that called more my attention were the more abstract ones, with more texture than detailed lines and shading, because I’ve forgotten about this type of background that, in my opinion, gives personality to the animation without calling too much attention to itself. It’s also a good alternative to insert the colors we are focusing on for the project, so I tried to develop some sketched versions with color and really liked the result. The inside backgrounds unconsciously ended up more realistic than the outside and transition ones, but I think it’s a good thing because the outside is the space being built so it has this freedom to be more abstract.

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First background done

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Today we needed to create a mood board with Leo’s supervision. Me and Igor made some previous research about style and gloves for our characters, but we realized that the research we made was not appropriated to a mood board, because Leo told us that we should include more objects, color pallets and scenarios that would work as actual visual reference. We started to look for helmets, gloves, soap, toothbrushes, etc. and again Leo helped us telling something that will probably make everything easier in the future: if you have a lot of images of the same type of object, choose one and keep it, if the color is not right, change it before adding to the mood board. In the mood board you need to keep visual reference that’s is as much similar to what you want to represent as possible. For color reference he also showed the Adobe Color Wheel software were you can create color palettes choosing a lot of different criteria, and it helped us with the colors for our mood board, because after taking a lot at all the selected images we noticed a lot of orange and blue present in them, and using this software we created 3 similar color palettes to have a lot of color to choose that follow almost the same tones, giving a unity to the animations visual.

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Today we presented our 3 ideas to the class so we could have some feedback and also to avoid similar approaches in the final outcomes. I think it was very useful, because me and Igor were thinking on combining parts of the 3 ideas we presented, and Henrique said that maybe if approaching skin protection, it would be better to talk about clothing and helmet as well, and that we should be careful with how many themes we want to approach and if they are related, specially because of the time limitation. That made my think that maybe we should stick with the themes related to eating, like removing equipments, washing hands and brushing teeth, because we want to use a type of animation that neither of us has experience with, so we’ll probably face some difficulties that will consume our time while animating. Maybe if we have time we can include the use of sunscreen, for exemple, because the character “Hand” represents the voice of reason, so, in my opinion, he could talk about other themes.

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What did you learn from your research?

I realized that even though most of the things I researched looked like higiene methods being taught to kids, some of them, like the importance of using sunscreen and brushing teeth, also referred to a older public and even the workers themselves, like in the sunscreen case.

Which idea generation did you choose? Was it appropriate?

I choose the “10 ideas in 80 minutes” we used for the last project, because I really liked how I have time to develop my ideas, not letting the ones I already thought about be forgotten, and also because I can differentiate ideas that are too similar, something I find difficult in the “30 ideas, 30 minutes” process. At the end it was useful because after registering 10 well developed ideas in my sketchbook, the essence of each one of them was clear and defined in my mind, so it was easy to choose the ones I liked better.

How were the first hours of working in pair? What did you learn from working with your colleague?

It was good, because both of us shared interest in similar themes for the animation, and listened to each other’s ideas without wanting to impose our own. I was also nice that Igor liked my proposal of trying to make the animation with a After Effects style, because I think it’s easy to get and has an informative language. By working with him I noticed that he has experience with animation, specially the frame by frame type, and I noticed that he’s willing to use it in part of our animation if necessary, even with the time limitation.

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Today we were introduced to Mestres da Obra project when Angela came to talk to us. She showed all the good actions that the NGO has done during all this years in activity. It was really inspiring to see something like this happening in a reality in my country. But she also listed some negative points about the worker’s health and higiene, like using sunscreen, brushing teeth, etc., and that revealed what’s is our goal for this project: we need to select and approach some of the presented themes and create an animation to make the workers aware of their health and hygiene. After lunch we made research about the subjects that were given to us, and I focused on looking up which are considered the right ways to execute this activities, such as washing hands, brushing teeth, etc. since I was sitting next to Igor and Lucas, I also got some inspirations about the style, because they presented me Kurzgesagt, a YouTube channel that focus on animated educational content, what in my opinion have a lot to do with this project.

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Today we presented our outcomes and I liked the way the Crit was made, because we first explained our project to a colleague and then he/she would talk about it to the class giving a feedback, so it stimulated each one of us to individually give a better and well developed feedback to the next student. In my opinion I got a positive feedback from Otávio and the class, specially because of my documentation on sketchbook and how I made the model meticulously. The negative point was about what I already expected, the acrylic plaster not covering the drawings entirely, but that’s something I started to rethink about afterwards, because some of my colleagues that were more involved with the stairs issue pointed me that this low opacity effect it’s actually interesting, since it gives this idea that the drawings were covered but you can still see them there, like a representation of memories, and I really liked this interpretation of my outcome.

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What difficulties have you faced during the last two days of this project?

I had difficulty to write my personal statement, because I spent too much time this weekend doing manual work, like gluing photos to the portfolio sheets and taking the photos for the stop motion, so when I stopped, I was only able to write short sentences for the draft, because I was exhausted, and didn’t expect that writing about myself and the future would be so hard, especially because I already did it once last year.

What could you have done differently to avoid this kind of situation?

I could have written the personal statement before, because since I was going to travel during vacation it would be difficult to make the portfolio sheets due to transport and time, but the personal statement was something that I could’ve written in any computer or cellphone, even if it was just to make better drafts than the ones I have today.

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I wasn’t sure about what I wanted to do, however I knew that it was something related to arts because I didn’t identify with any one of the common career choices. Last year I moved from a Teresina to São Paulo to study at EBAC, because here I would have a much bigger range of possibilities to explore. The school's promise caught my attention by investing in the growth of the creative market of the country. Also, by giving me the possibility of having an international education, since I had the chance to study at other brazilian university and didn't identify with their teaching methods.

During the Foundation course I gained a lot of new references since we were encouraged to do independent research constantly, and also because of my daily contact with teachers and students that have different interests than me. It taught me the importance of reflection and registering my processes which helps me think on what I did right and wrong and learn from it. Also, I have learned how to present my work in public and improve myself when facing constructive criticism. Sketchbook stimulated me to experiment more and not to stop on the first solution, developing my ideas more thoroughly.

On the Moving Image pathway I had projects that required manual abilities. One that meant a lot to me was Moving Sculpture, when I had to create a sculpture that moves or represents movement, so I tried to associate it with animation by making a stop-motion puppet. During this process, trying to represent a man almost falling in the subway, I realised how I’m interested in creating visual narratives, no matter how quotidian they may seem. When maturing my practical skills I became interested in making 3D pieces and that helped me improve my three-dimensional perception and, consequently, made it more natural for me to represent 3D in a 2D medium.

My interest in 2D animation is directly influenced by contemporary children's cartoons, specially ‘Irmão do Jorel’ and ‘Gravity Falls’, created by Juliano Enrico and Alex Hirsch, respectively. Both I admire not only because of their animations, but also due to them as professionals. The first one is an brazillian animator whose path I admire, since he was able turn his life experiences into the first original Cartoon Network program in Latin America. It’s really inspiring to follow closely someone who is successful in the medium I aspire to work on and shares a similar background, specially considering the national animation industry is very young and suffers from a lack of professionals in several areas. This is unfortunately a reality of the market, but it also allows him to be part of the whole process and gives an unity for his creation. The second one I actually admire because of his writing, being able to create a show that has a complex narrative but is presented in a simplistic manner. The narrative he built marked me and made me start considering story telling as a professional path inside the animation medium.

As an independent leaner I like to develop new skills. In this course I intend to improve my creative writing abilities while evolving my experience with character and environment creation, because I think that to become a storyteller it’s crucial for me to both create innovative narratives and be able to represent my ideas visually. I’m going to learn all the process behind an 2D animation so I can expand my range of skills on this medium. I want to work at studios that are trying to create a path where 2D is used for entertainment in Brazil, like Split Studio and Copa Studio, since publicity still is the main pillar for this type of media in national industry. I think this course will help me not only with technical matters, but also by giving me opportunities to try and make a difference in brazillian animation history.

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11: I took the day for portfolio preparation because I already had all photos printed, so the whole day was just a time consuming manual work of cutting the excess of paper, measuring and gluing the photos on the portfolio sheets.

12: Since I couldn’t find enough colleagues to intervene on my model on Friday, I decided to take some elements from photos I took of the stair and recreate them smaller to occupy the blank spaces. It’s also a good way to make people associate the model I’m making to the actual stairs they know. After I glued the stairs and noticed that at some point they started to glue a little bit lower them what my calculations predicted, and because of that I had to make some adjustments on the drawings, and that took me a lit bit of time. For the actual stop motion I started experimenting with lighting and backgrounds to see which scenario was best to get the black background without underexposing the model itself. I ended up making an seamless background with a big piece of black fabric and used the lights of my kitchen, because if I used the other lamp I was planning on using, the model would be overexposed and there would be too much work to do during postproduction, and one thing I learned during some Masterclasses at Anima Fórum about stop motion is that you have to leave as little as possible to postproduction. While taking the photos I realized that the white plaster was mixing with the color from the drawings and becoming lighter versions of them, but since I could only make this process once, I decided to keep it that way and be able to finish the animation. I took all the photos of one side first and them of the other one, so after, while arranging the photos in Photoshop, I alternated the groups of photos of the walls showing side A, then B, then A, etc. to make it seam like the paint “going upstairs” and covering the drawings.

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How am I with my action plan in the current project?

Since at the beginning of the week I was able to change my idea to a meaningful yet not so complex to do one, I was able to stick to my action plan, today asking my peers to make interventions on the model (with delimited areas so the stairs don’t cover it) and finishing cutting the duplex paper pieces.

What do I need to plan and do for my BA application?

Since the project is going as I planned, I’ll hopefully be able to organize my sheets for the portfolio tomorrow and reorganize the drafts for my personal statement by the end of Monday. And if I have time, choose previous projects I like (but didn’t include in my physical portfolio) and put them in my online one, so it won’t have only videos.

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Today I started doing my model of the stairs. For the column in the middle I decided to use some balsa wood I already had from a project from last year. Since it was too thin I cut it in the middle and glued the parts together. After that I started painting it with acrylic plaster and repeated this process during the day, so the surface would be harder, better to draw on top of and with a texture similar to the walls from the real stairs. While the piece was drying I measured the proportions of the stairs and coincidentally the balsa wood matched then perfectly, so in my sketchbook I made some calculations and sketches of the floor piece I needed to cut, and chose duplex paper because it was a material I already had, and the darker side has a texture that is visually similar to the real stairs. I managed to fit the seven parts I need (according to my calculations) in the A3 sheet of paper I had, but decided not to make the whole concrete structure that would make the stairs thicker and more realistic because: A. There was a part of the stairs that was too difficult to represent without it looking wrong; B. Maybe there wouldn’t be enough paper; and C. It would occupy too much of the model and divert the focus from what really matters: the art on the walls.
A:

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How the activity of generating ideas helped me to choose the more appropriate for the project?

This activity probably saved my project, because I could develop better some small thoughts I almost ignored at first. I decided to substitute my initial idea for another one that would not be too complex to make and still have a meaning and interesting narrative, because this week I’ll have to manage my time between this project and the portfolio. By choosing to represent the stairs being painted I’m also trying to protest against this decision, and since it’s a issue that involves a lot of people, the narrative will be clear for my peers.

Did I follow the creative processes of the project as requested? If not why?

In my opinion I did, because after having the problem with the first idea (since it would demand a lot of time that I don’t have) I decided to try not to rush things and spent some time considering the other ideas I developed during today’s activity. And after choosing another idea as the one I’m using for this project, I remade the process of studying the space I wanted to intervene before actually starting to make my outcome, because the first time I did it I focused more on spaces like the rooms, so now I had to focus on the stairs.

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How effectively did I plan my action plan?

Since my idea requires complex model making techniques it was hard to list all tasks I probably will have to do, and even harder to find time to include portfolio related ones at this week, so, based on the research I made during the weekend, I prioritized the tasks that will be more time consuming and, of course, portfolio preparation, leaving blank spaces just in case some new project tasks appear.

How important the building is for me to use as a resource for my project?

Since the architecture of EBAC’s building is really similar to the style most people visualize when they think about big cities, I think that for my theme it’s important to include it because of the big contrast between nature reclaiming its space and the concrete destroyed building occupying it.

Did I have the materials I wanted to work with today?

I imagine that today I had enough materials, like markers and colored pencils, to represent elements of EBAC while documenting the place. Adding color to the drawings helped me to have a more realistic documentation, and since I intend to make a model, the more realistic my references are, the better.

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Today we were introduced to the Building Narratives project. The main idea of the project it’s to represent a space (having EBAC’s building as a starting point), but we must make interventions for our representations so they can tell a story. I got really excited about this project because Daniel said that we could use models (not specifically for the final outcome, but to study better the places we want to represent), and since the options for outcomes include animation, maybe I could make a well detailed model and make some kind of stop motion with it. It would be good for me to have this type of outcome because I feel like there’s a lack of animation in my portfolio. I know the model itself isn’t enough for the project because we have to present something on paper (concepts) or on a screen (animation, game, 3D model), so if I don’t manage to finish an animation, I can still use the model for a series of photos of environment concept for example. My first idea is to represent EBAC being taken over by nature, because yesterday I watched a video about Earth Overshoot Day (the day each year when our species overshoots the planet’s ability to annually regenerate itself) and it caused a big impact on me, especially since this year it was in the first of August, earlier then ever, so my idea is to represent nature getting revenge and reoccupying its original space.

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Today I decided to take the day to make the watercolor in homage to my cat called Gâteau. For the photo I chose one where he is with my other cat sleeping, and it’s one of my favorite pictures of them. Making this painting was good to me because even though it took me 8 hours to finish it, it was kind of therapeutic to pay attention to the shapes, lighting and shading, and also challenging to paint my other cat, because she is white so the shading had to be very subtle.

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With the help of a welder friend of the our beach house housekeeper I managed to create my sculpture today. He came to the beach house and welded the pieces of the hand together during the morning while I was giving him instructions, because I don’t have experience with weld and it wouldn’t be safe for me to do it by myself. He brought sobre pieces of iron bars and after having the hand part ready we planned how could he cut the bar to make a stable base. At first the hand would have some balance issues, because the thumb part would have too much weight, so one side was weighting more than the other and the hand was unstable. To correct that we welded more pieces to the bottom part of the hand piece so the piece itself would appear more straight when it’s not moving, and make the movement of the sculpture more balanced.

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Balance problem

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Final sculpture:

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Today I went to a junk yard to look up for pieces that I could use for my sculpture. While searching for the parts my criteria were objects that look like fingers, palms, forearms and also parts that had weight, so the physics of the sculpture works. After buying the selected pieces I spent the evening cleaning them up and trying to create hand-like shapes that would work for the sculpture.

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Written Evaluation
I selected the Moving Sculptures project, because I don’t think I took as much as I could from the project brief, so I wanted to explore more with different materials and techniques and also develop better ideas that were discarded the first time I did this project.

Since I knew I could probably only find the materials I needed during school time (and because of the game on Wednesday the stores would be closed on my independent study day), I took this week to make research related to the ideas I choose and start developing different approaches to them so I can build the outcomes during winter vacation.

I’ve considered working with wire, copper and paper for the spinning top sculpture and with wood, junk, clay and old clock parts for the waving hand one, and will try my best to execute this projects, that are already well explained on my sketchbook to guide me during the making part.

About the research I tried to find references not only for the content and ideas I intended to represent with my sculptures, but also for different techniques I wanted to use, even if I didn’t find something really similar to what I was looking for, just things that would help me visualize better ways to develop my ideas, for example researching about Maneki Neko just to understand the physics behind it that would help me with the waving hand.

My aims and objectives were to make more things, varied outcomes that could show different ways of representing movement through sculptures, and I think that, since the project it’s not over yet for me, at this point of the process I did achieved what I set out since I’m almost ready to really make the sculptures. My only limitation is the time to go to stores to buy specific materials.

I can affirm that my work already improved since the first time I did this project, because I can see evidence on my sketchbook that I did not make the same mistake as three weeks ago. This week I spent a lot of time thinking about the brief and the ideas I had, researched about different areas related to those ideais and specially did not jumped into the first one that seamed better to start making it without looking to the other ones, I took time to think about the project itself.

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Develop at least 3 designs for the hand, and sketch those ideas till 3pm, so I can look for the best materials to make them after class.

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Today I started the day by setting my tasks for the day on Production Padlet. Following this tasks, I sketched some 1:1 drawings of the spinning top idea on my sketchbook and started making it with both iron and copper wire. By making it, I started taking some notes about what I could change and what aspects of the model are important to pay attention to while changing it, like how to make the joints of wire so they are fixed and the 3D shape of the object doesn’t change so easily. Then I had the tutorial with Michael, and he helped me by sugesting I should make a bigger model so I could experiment with more appropriate materials, and also to think better about the way the object stands by itself, so it’s not visible the “magic” behind it almost falling. His suggestions were really good to make me think of how to experiment more with same idea, and I decided that, after finishing this model (that now can be a maquette), I would start making a bigger one already testing the new ideas that appeared after reflecting about the first model.

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Tutorial sheet

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Zaíra Araújo (production Padlet June 26)

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Zaíra Araújo (production Padlet June 26)

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A.M. Sketch how to make the first idea I developed till 11, then start making it until lunch time.
P.M. Pass to the second idea and repeat the process. Use time after class to continue working at the studio

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Today we had the induction for the new project brief about revisiting a previous work. Since I already started developing my ideias for this redo project last week, I definitely felt less nervous about it, specially because I had time to think about my rationale, and that helped me to determine the main goals for this process. By making me reflect more about how I would face this project and organize myself without being already in the middle of the process, I could see more clearly the different paths I could follow in this project, like the different ideas that weren’t explored enough the first time. I had some problems when making the action plan due to feedback, because Aline pointed that my ideas were maybe too literal, and I started fighting with myself if it was something bad or not and if I should develop other ideais just to have more abstract approaches for this project. That got in the way of creating my action plan, since I started to feel insecure about my ideas so I couldn’t list tasks to help me achieve my goals. So then I talked to Michael, and he said that even tho feedback is important, the project still is about your ideas and how you’re going to solve the problem given. It really helped me because I tend to receive feedback as a truth, when actually it’s just opinions about your work and you have to select the ones that have enough relevance for you to make your work in a different way. Since I decided to revisit the moving sculpture project, I realized the my main goal with this brief is to focus on experimenting with different materials and techniques, and exploring more the physical outcome, since it could be noticed a certain lack of experimentation on my last one. And because of it I already developed some ideas on my sketchbook last week, so this week I could have more elaborated ideas and choose at least one that will require a lot of experimentation by itself. Because of that I started listing goals that are more achievable for the beginning of the project so I can hopefully adjust better the other tasks later, but I certainly can see now that what I intend to do is focus as much on the process as on the final outcomes, considering what the project brief asks. Finally the SCAMPER technique was crucial on today’s process when I noticed that it could help me to think of different approaches to the same idea, by changing materials, scale or even propose, because this it’s exactly what I aim to experience during this project.

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Today we had the Crit, but I didn’t like the way it was organized, because it took us all day to see everybody’s work, and since we were fallowing alphabetical order I was the last one and everybody was exhausted during my Crit, so I was in disadvantage. I found unfair how on my turn I only had one minute to talk about my work, when almost everyone else had more time to make their ideas clear to the class. You can also notice on the audio that a lot of time was lost with no one talking and only a few people gave me a feedback that was actually constructive. About that, I agree with most of the negative things said about my project, and that’s why I want to do it again, experimenting more and expressing my ideas better. Explaining a doubt in the audio: I couldn’t make my puppet look like he was falling more because it would be too risky and he’s arm was already broke since yesterday, and that’s why I positioned him as close as possible to the wall.

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Answering Sol’s questions:

I read the brief in advance and it helped me to look for inspiration, especially because since my mother was here, we went to a lot of places like CasaCor and Pinacoteca and I could register and analyze sculptures and other art pieces in a way more directed to this project. For this project I did a lot more of primary research because I noticed there was a lack of this type of research on my previous projects, and the influence was really positive since I could visualize better 3D objects and see also how they were disposed and how they talked to the space they were in. I have to admit that I could have searched better for materials, and since since I gathered more raw materials like wire and fabric, I ended up doing something that required more this type of materials. I tried to follow my action plan but right in the beginning of the process I already had to update it so I had some difficulties to keep up with it, on the other hand, when I saw some things couldn’t be finished, I already reorganized and changed some goals so they could be more achievable in the remaining time. Since it was my first time doing this time of object, that require a lot of different steps using a range of materials, I found it challenging to mold epoxy and clay, sew really small clothes on my puppet and also find positions that expressed the movements I wanted but at the same time kept the puppet balanced, but I can surely confirm that I acquired new skills during the process, skills that I motivated me to look up more for a specific progression opportunity. During the digital documentation I learned that when taking photos of a sculpture, the surroundings are really important, so you have to position it in a space adequate to its size and theme, and you have to use angles in your favor, for exemple angles that show a vanishing point to give an idea of depth, or a camera coming from bellow to make it feel like the puppet is falling. Since only photos wasn’t the technical choice of representation I initially wanted, I think it ended up being better them I expected, but I still intend to make a stop motion for the next weeks.

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Today I went to EBAC to finish the pole and mold the strap. Using epoxy this time was harder because it was sticking more to the gloves I used for protection and also was deforming a lot while I was holding it. The type I used doesn’t dry so fast so I had at least 2 hours to mold it, but with the gloves it was almost impossible to give an regular surface look to the pole. After I decided to follow the tip on the epoxy package and use water to mold it better without it gluing to my hand. The result was the best I could achieve considering the time , but the material was really resistant, so I think that for this outcome it was not so bad. Maybe a thicker wire would visually be a better choice, but it would be as rigid as I wanted the prop to be. The strap I also did using hard dim clay since the puppet it’s not supposed to actually hold it, so clay is better to just mold it the way I want it. I used some photo references but also adjusted the design of the object so it could fit better my sculpture as also be more stable. Finally I used some silver spray to paint the pole, but since the result was too bright I had to use some matte varnish till I got to a apparel I liked better.

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I tried to create the pole with the wire I already had but I realized it would not balance unless the puppet was holding it, so I made the base as big as I could and put more wire on the other side. My intention was not to make it balanced because I know it wouldn’t work, but just to keep it more stable so the puppet doesn’t have to hold too much. For the surface I thought about using foil paper but it would definitely crumple so I decided to use epoxy instead, since it’s pretty rigid when it dries and it’s also grey, so it won’t be hard to paint it the right color. Since it was already too late to start the process I decided to study some poses for my puppet so it could represent someone falling on the subway. For that I mixed drawing studies I found about falling poses and the ones I knew my puppet could do while standing by himself, and registered them on the sketchbook, making notes about what I notice it’s present in this kinds of poses and what I remembered about my physic class back in high school.

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Since I realized making the clothes was taking too much time, I gave up on the idea of making an stop motion this week. I knew it would just make me more anxious and since I had some problems with anxiety this weekend, I realized it was not worth it since we had the “do, redo, undo” project, and I’ve already decided that that’s is the one I’m going to choose. Today I mainly sewed the hoodie, and it was indeed hard to do it already on the puppet, but I don’t regret it because the result left me satisfied. After finishing the clothes I started sketching the props I planned since the beginning that could represent the inside of a subway train in a minimalistic way, so my work could still be more of a sculpture, and not so much a scenography. The final piece was just a subway pole and one of the straps usually attached to them, because it could refer to this environment without too much information.

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Since my puppet was made based on a drawing of a stylized character I created, I didn’t lose time looking for clothes for him because I knew it would probably be impossible to find ones that fit and with the right proportions. For that reason I searched how to make clothes for dolls and chose the ones that matched the style of my character. Then I bought different types of fabric to see which ones would be better to make the clothes, and drew on my sketchbook the pieces I would have to cut already with the size for my specific puppet. It was good to register it on my sketchbook because most of the pieces had to be cut out more then once, and when the size was not good I could just change the drawing to the size I wanted. For the pants I tried to make them as large as possible so the feet could go through it, then I just made some minor adjust on the hip. I knew the hoodie was going to be the hardest part because both head and hands are a lot bigger if compared to the thin arms and body, so a only sewed the pocket, the hood and cut the remaining pieces, so them I could just work sewing them together.

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Today I spent the day making the structure of my puppet with size based on drawings I did on my sketchbook. Since almost none of the videos I saw to learn puppet making methods showed results I really enjoyed, I tried to combine the most effective materials and techniques used in each one to create my own way. For example, one video used just one long piece of wire for the entire basic structure, other used epoxy to make kind of a bone structure and other used foam for stuffing, and I also saw a picture that used copper wire for the fingers since it is thinner the the wire used for the body. I really enjoyed making it and it was the first time I did something that I could really imagine myself working with in the future. The hardest part, in my opinion, was modeling it with dim clay, because the soft one was indeed too soft, so I had to work with the hard one, and it was only possible by using small pieces of it, since it would hurt to try modeling it also because it’s too hard, but since I only had to use clay on the hands, feet and head, it didn’t take so long.

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Today we had a workshop with Kevin about photogrammetry, and I think is something I could use to represent my 3D model digitally, since using this method you take photos of your model and then the software makes everything for you. But there are some disadvantages, since you have to take as much photos as you can, but at the same time the free versions of photogrammetry softwares limit the amount you can use, so if I end up doing something too big or complex, maybe that’s not the best way to make a digital representation of it.

Answering reflection questions:

1. I looked up for materials I had at home from past projects, and also at stores I went with my mother while she was staying here. I don’t think that the materials I gathered were enough, but since the idea I decided to work with will require a lot of time, I already know where to find the ones I need. I think the materials I gathered are relevant because wire and fabric a very related to the puppet idea I had, even tho I plan on looking up for types of fabric more suitable for my project at a store I already know near home. The other materials left can be found on construction shops (I know at least 3 so probably won’t be so hard to find what I need) and on Papelaria Universitária at EBAC.

2. I think going to Pinacoteca, CasaCor and MuBE helped me a lot, because the sculptures I’ve seen made me analyze what’s more affective when representing movement using a still object, and I could see connections between it and the ideas I had during class. Also stop motion movies I rewatched recently and associating the format of sculptures with objects I already know helped me create concepts for possible outcomes.

3. I followed all the steps but found it difficult to plan too much ahead, since it’ll be my first time making a puppet and I don’t know how long it will take for me. Of course I can adjust the action plan later, but that’s something I don’t really know how to do, because for me it seems like if I add new tasks and remove others, they won’t be in the right order and my action plan will be messy. It helped me to have an idea of all I had to do and where should I start. A positive aspect about this action plan was that I took less time to make it than the last one I did, and it’s good because I got too confused and worried before, and now I starting to understand better how to do it.

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Today I went with Bia to MuBE for some primary research, but the exhibition this time was more focused on ecology, so there weren’t too much sculptures in there. There was one that called my attention that combined fish’s made out of metal with glass layer, and made them look like they were swimming. Most of the sculptures we saw were on the garden and all of them were static, what was interest because since the beginning I was thinking about making a still sculpture that expresses the idea of movement, so seeing them really called my attention to details that could help me represent movement is a static way, like using organic lines, maybe parts of a human figure or even giving a unbalance look to the sculpture.

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Seeing other artists 3D work today really helped me to reflect about what kind of materials I would like to use on my project, since I usually work with raw materials to make sculptures and Adriano Costa, for example, uses existing objects that he collects to create his works. I try to use this kind of materials more especially because of Mateus explanation at the gallery: We have a lot of things and create too much trash, so we can’t only discard them, we need to give them another meaning. Jac Leiner’s work, in the other hand, showed me how you can represent sculptures in a still format but giving a movement aspect to it due to the way she displayed the photos, similar to a timeline. On the other hand, the exhibitions didn’t give me a lot of ideas about the sculpture’s theme itself, maybe because Adriano’s work was focusing too much on the materials in my opinion, and since it’s not actually moving, I think the idea of movement (if he had the intention to express one) is overshadowed by the materials chosen, and by the way they are displayed, and Jac Leiner’s work gives the idea of movement using photos, it’s not the sculpture that does that, so for this project brief it is more useful to inspire the digital outcome than the 3D one.

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Otávio’s feedback:

“You showed a very remarkable ability to record and display your creative process in a manner that makes the core message and steps very easy to understand. I see also a lot of experiementation that makes the final outcome feel like a byproduct of a throughout research instead of a sequence of decisions made on a whim. The final product displays concerns for composition, color palette, video quality, shading and lighting. Though I did notice a lack of archiving the filming and editing process in a detailed manner, so listing possible effects and editing techiniques and the likes.”

On today’s class I presented my work on the Crit and, in my opinion, Otávio’s feedback was positive, but also constructive. It was the first project I really felt connect with my sketchbook, and tried to register my thoughts and process as much as possible. I agree with him about the editing part not being detailed on the sketchbook, probably because I’m not used to make things on the computer for more professional proposes, so I have some ideais of what I’ll try with the software and keep deciding things during the editing process. But that’s something I’ll try to work on, since I realize that both physical and digital parts are equally important for the final result, so both should be registered as much as possible in the sketchbook.

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Moving Image project for EBAC Foundation Art & Design course

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Since I already had the scenography ready, my focus during the final editing was mainly on the performance and on syncing both of them together. As expected, removing the green screen wasn’t a problem because the division between it and the performance was really sharp, due to previous thoughts about lighting. The performance was dark, what was my intention, but the red parts weren’t so evident, so I had to use Change Color on After Effects and reduce the matching tolerance so it would only affect only the actual red parts, then increase saturation to show a brighter red. The result was satisfying because the most distorted area is on my face, and since the gif shows me entirely onscreen, me face is really small so you almost can’t see the distortion.

As for the syncing aspect of the video, it was the hardest part, because I had to make the background footage go faster and repeat so I could give this breathing idea, but also had to make it interact with the performance, since the background was supposed to look like it was crushing me. I ended up having to make part of the performance slower, so the performer would go down at the same time as the plastic bag. After trying a lot I found a midterm where the gif wouldn’t be too short and the performance wouldn’t appear to be artificially slow, and it seemed the better of all the ways I tried. Finally I thought about how to frame the gif, because both elements (scenography and performance) give an idea of movement, but still the final piece was too static. I experimented three ideas: one with the camera following the movement of the scenography, one where it only closes when the background it’s going to crush the performer and the one I chose, where the camera is closing during the hole gif. I chose it because it was the one were you could see everything more calmly, since it’s the one in which the camera closes slower.

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Today I went to EBAC only to film my performance and help Fan and Otávio. The head accessory was a bit flattened due to gravity while drying, but it still fit well so I just tried to be more careful so it wound fall. I wore the white clothes for the performance and used artistic makeup I already had to make my face as white as possible, and with red lipstick made the color details. Since I didn’t find any red paint proper for skin, I used some acrylic paint and covered my hands and feet with it. Since the Studio didn’t have proper light and opening the curtains would make the room too bright, I took the two white lamps for photography of 2D works and positioned each one in one side of the chroma key to avoid shadows. It was also useful because they were lighting up the background, so it will be easier to remove it later, and as I was standing a little bit ahead of the lightened area, the performance itself is a bit dark, what is good because it will match the scenography and the video will look more realistic. As for the performance itself, I wasn’t able to film more than twice, because as I was trying to recreate someone breathing heavily, I hyperventilated and got dizzy, but the first footage as actually good so I didn’t worry about filming it again afterwards.

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Today I started making the head accessory for my perfomance using red paint and biscuit. It was my first time using this kind of material, so while I was mixing them I tried to see the consistence of it and think how I would make my piece. Since I wanted to create kind of a brain coming of the the persons head, I looked for reference on google images, so I could make a realistic brain. My first issue during the process was to decide how to make a 3D object that could fit my head, since I needed to look at it while modeling. I tried to measure the size of my read and recreate it using a plastic bag, but it was too unstable. So I went to Pomar da Vila to buy aluminum foil to make the mold of the top of my head properly, and put my coat inside to keep it as rigid as possible. Then I split the biscuit in smaller parts and started making long strings to arrange them as the ones on the real brain photo. I first made flat parts to unite them only when putting on the aluminum foil head. I was a good method because when they were flat, the strings glued easily just because of the biscuit itself, so I only had difficulty to connect bigger parts of the final piece. For that I used a super glue Otávio lent me, and hold two parts together at a time to let the glue dry, till all of them were on the aluminum foil head. It took me a long time to do this since the biscuit wasn’t totally dried yet, but I wasn’t so worried because I predicted it in my action plan, so I stayed doing some adjust to minor issues that appeared till the end of the day and let the accessory at EBAC to dry better overnight.

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Today we had some issues to get the photo studio at the time we booked it, since Duílio and Leo were unable to get to ebac because of the transport problem. We lost some time waiting for someone else to show up with the key, so I decided to buy already the materials for my head accessory, such as biscuit and fabric paint. When we got to the studio, me, Bia and Gabriel helped each other with filming and photographing during the 2 hours we had there, and in my opinion it was really important to ask for help, since I was not sure how much time it would take to get good take of the model. I only had some problems while recording my scenography, because, since the studio doesn’t have appropriate light and the ones in there didn’t have power the day we booked, I had to use cellphone flashlight with the studio lights off to keep the scenario not too dark, but also not too bright, since I knew that if I left this to fix on pos production it would be too risk. After a lot of takes I went to the Mac lab and started adjusting the footage I liked the most, so when I record the performance I’ll have almost half of the editing work done. Most of them were darker them I wanted them to be, so they lost quality when I adjusted brightness. Because of that I tried to reduce light and increase constraste to focus on the movement (evidenced by the reflections on the plastic bag) and hide the bad quality keeping the background darker.

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Today I was supposed to go on thrift shops with Otávio to look up for cheap clothes that would be useful for my costume, but we both left home a bit too late, and due to the transport problem related to gas, it took us a lot longer to get to the place we were supposed to go. I arrived early and could find white pants and a white long sleeves shirt for my costume really fast, but the shop had to close an hour earlier than expected  and Otávio didn’t make it in time, so it wasn’t possible for me to help him with his costume. We should have left earlier, especially because of the mobility problem, and that time management it’s something I intend to be better at on my next projects.

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Today I started the day talking to Cézar, because I felt a little worried about my project since I was one day late on the action plan. I showed him my ideas for the scenography and costume, because today I was supposed to already have the scenario and start doing my mask for the performance, and he helped me by giving other ideas for the costume that were in my sketchbook but I didn’t see it as a costume yet. This made me calm down because doing the other outfit rather than the mask will save me a lot of time. I started thinking clearly about the scenography as well, and took a cardboard to create the box in the proportion I needed. It was hard to glue the parts together, but I used the lunch brake in my favor to let it dry without wasting work time. In the afternoon I used black spray to paint the inside of the box, then glued parts of the plastic bag and started testing if what I wanted to do using the hand air pump would work. Eventually I faced some problems since I needed the joints of the box to not let the air go through them, but with both paper and styrofoam glue I managed to create a thick layer and the result came out as I expected. After that it was possible to glue the entire plastic bag and the scenography was ready to be recorded. I liked the final result a lot and it came out better than I expected.

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Today we started the day having a workshop with Lauren, and even tho I already knew most of the things she taught us during the workshop, from animation and stop motion principles to gif making, I enjoyed the way she introduced those themes, and I liked discovering new artists and the different techniques used for gifs, like graphic, printmaking, paper, etc. It was also interesting to merge software, because I’ve never done this before, and the simple way she showed us helped me to see this as something that could actually be more simple than I thought. During Cézar’s workshop I as surprised because I expected the same workshop we had last year about the photo studio. This workshop was more focused on showing us the new equipments we could use to photograph our scenography and performance, and we learned some interesting things about using multiple flash lights and how to adjust the camera functions with the help of a photometer. I know that I won’t use it for this project since both my scenography and performance are going to be recorded, but will certainly be useful for future works. I could get much done today after class because the studio was closed at 6 pm for open day activities for EBAC, so I’ll try to reorganize my activities for tomorrow so I can keep up with my action plan.

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Today I went to ebac to start testing the scenography ideas I had in a smaller scale so I could decide which one to remake bigger as the official scenario. I sketched better the three main ideas I had, one with plastic bag, one with crumpled paper and one with clay to represent buildings. Since the first one was too complex to make in a small scale, I just developed different ways to put cardboard and plastic bag together, since I’m not sure if the first technique I imagined will actually work, and decided I would only try to do it in the size planned if none of the other two turned out better than expected. Then I tried to make the crumpled paper scenario by constructing a box out of a big piece of cardboard that I could also use for the official scenography, but after finishing it I realized it didn’t represented the “anxious” quality as much as the other two could. As for the clay one, I noticed that this material would be good to model the buildings because of quantity, it also doesn’t dry well and is difficult to make complex things with it, and I noticed that this “scenography moving and crushing the character” thing would be better represented by the plastic bag idea, especially because it matches more with an abstract background, since it plays with imagination and make the gif more relatable to people with anxiety in my opinion.

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Today’s workshop with Elsie Diamond really helped me to understand the importance of costume and performance, because she opened my eyes to the power of body language, use of space, prop, facial expressions, etc. and that’s something I wasn’t pay too much attention in my project. The activity she made with us inspired me to think of my performance as something more exaggerated and theatrical, since evidences of the “anxious” quality are usually subtle, and I need to make them be noticed from a certain distance since I want the footage to be from my role body performance.

As for my action plan, it took me too long to organize it since I’m not sure about my costume and performance yet. And also I’ll need help to record both my scenography and performance, but for that I’ll depend on my colleagues so I couldn’t plan too much ahead without talking to them to see what’s gonna be best to all of us, like when to book the photo studio and this kinds of thing. Next time I have to organize my action plan, I’ll try to skip the spaces I’m having trouble with (obviously leaving an extra time if needed, since problems can happen) and try to fill as most as the planning as possible, coming back later to adjust the activities left on the blank spaces.

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Today we started the class with Daniel’s presentation about the new project, and I enjoyed having a tutor showing us exemples of artists and works related to the techniques and theme the brief requires from us, because it cleared my mind about what we’ll do as outcomes for this project since I had some doubts while researching from the brief. We then chose our identities, and I picked “anxious” because I wanted to create a work related to this theme since the “30 ideas, 30 minutes” activity from self publish project, it was actually one of my three final ideas but I decided to save it for later. The drawing activity helped me to understand more how could I represent this identity, not only in a narrative way but also in a technical way, because by experimenting expressions and styles I learned, for example, that drawings with trembling lines express anxiety better, as thicker lines and darker tones. From the drawings and gathered materials I developed some ideas for the scenography and, since it has to represent the quality by itself, most of my ideas are very abstract, what I think it’s a good think because I’m not used to doing this kind of approach to my projects.

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I contributed to the success of my team by doing the audio and video recording and editing parts of both song and video outcomes, since I was the only one with a little experience with this kind of work using softwares. I’m happy with my contribution because I think the audio was the main thing that gave us the idea of a horror visual identity, and the video matches this identity really well in my opinion, the animation being actually reviewed by my peers as the most successful outcome of my group.

Our feedback was mainly positive since we managed to have most of our outcomes matching the visual identity, the song and video being a bit creepy, and the album cover mixing this horror movie thing with a bit of humor. The only negative review we received was about the instrument, because we did them before becoming a team so they seemed disconnected from the visual identity, and from each other also. For my next projects I’ll make sure to always come back to inicial outcomes and be willing to change them to match the rest of the work, if I think is necessary according to the instructions given.

I think most of the Assessment Criteria can be evidenced on this project, since I researched about instrument making and visual representations of sound, and then in works that were related to the visual identity of my group, as far as possible considering the events that happened in my personal life during this project. I also took responsibility for tasks that ended up forcing me to learn new skills that will help me on my pathway decision.

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Sound and Vision Project for Foundation Art & Design

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Since my group had already finished the outcomes by the beginning of today’s class, we spend the first half of it working on our portfolio, and I tried to register the process of creating my instrument because I didn’t have much time last week to do so. I registered my different ideas of using the copper tubes I already had and also tried my best to show what I experienced, my failures and the things that I was successful in. It was kind of hard to remember everything, and it helped me to realise how important it is to register the process in real time during the project, because I know this time there was a reason for me not to focus on EBAC, but on future projects I’ll work better with my sketchbook. After lunch me and my group started organising the presentation for our Crit tomorrow, we decided to separate the space following the four sides of the table, each one for an outcome of the group (instruments, graphic score, video and visual identity) along with the processes, because this way the work was displayed in a way anyone could see our project clearly just by moving around the table.

Good thing about my group:

Communication

Separated things so everyone was comfortable doing their tasks

Give space so everyone can participate equally with the ideas

Good listening

Make it so no one of the group was disposable

Ask everyone’s opinion about the changes you wanna do

Brainstorm together so people from different areas can show their point of view

Each one did as much as they could as soon as possible by their own and maked changes after the rest of the groups gave feedback

Respect everyone’s opinion and ideas

Bad things:

since no one was disposable, it was hard to do other people’s work if their were busy or sick

Maybe we felt too comfortable with each other, since we didn’t have any discussions, so possibly we weren’t challenged enough, and we don’t know were our project could have gone if we faced this situations

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Today we came to EBAC only to do the visual identity of the band, and I decided to render the video already so any problem could be solved in time. My group and I used the photo studio to take photos of the band with the instruments, suits and masks of serial killers, so Julia could create an album cover. Jade came up with names for fictional songs in the album and I really liked how everyone on the group got into the mood of this horror movie, serial killer theme and we tried to make every outcome really related to it. After the photoshoot, I uploaded the video to my Vimeo account to create this habit of posting university projects on social media, so people can see my work.

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Today I started working on the pc lab, and I lost a lot of time trying to get the computer to start, but only when Duílio told me to change the machine, I was able to get some work done. Then I asked Jade and Fred if that was something they wanted me to change in the video, because Julia was sick. They told me that the synchronization between the eyes footage and the strings audio could be improved, and I agreed because when I did it the first time I didn’t know a lot what could be done on After Effect, so I did it all over again in a new project, to get another results that had no connection with the first one, and it was a nice process to create the same thing in a lot of unrelated ways to pick the best outcome. First I did it with Jade’s eye footage to make sure which style my group was looking for, so I could do something similar with my eye footage. I tried to take one nice blinking part and used it repeatedly to the sound of the strings, what actually made it easier to cover the earring again. Since I was fully responsible for the video, I didn’t have much contact with the graphic score part of the group project, but it wasn’t something that bothered me, was actually really helpful because this responsibility kept me focused on learning new skills and how to use After Effects.

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Today I showed the first version of the video to my group, and already found some minor changes I needed to do, like using the chroma key tool better on Jade’s footage, and creating a better way to synchronize the eyes with the strings audio. We also started thinking about an visual identity to our band, like a name and an album cover, because we were having a lot of ideas related to horror and scary movies that would be discarded if we only did the video and the graphic score. The name ended up being Psycho Club and each one of us is related to a serial killer from classic horror movies, so we started thinking on a band photo and decided to print some paper masks with the each killer’s face, and try to bring suits tomorrow to take the photo. As I was the main responsible for editing the video, I didn’t spend a lot of time working on the rest of the visual identity with my group, specially because we showed how our video was to Monique and Cézar and they gave us a feedback with some things we should correct, like putting a fade in and fade out effect, and removing Jade’s earring in a footage of her eyes. This last part was kind of difficult because I needed to create a black shape layer and place it frame by frame to cover the earring that sometimes moved, but was nice to see that it is possible to do things like that on After Effects and that I’m already capable of doing it.

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I decided to edit the video tonight because I wanted to create a first version as soon as possible, so any changes my group or the tutors suggest can be made already at the begging of the week. It was a good way to learn how to use a software, since I already knew what I wanted to do, because of the storyboard, so any tutorial I had to search for was really quick and for specific tools. I knew my limitations, so I used my patience to do a hard work, like synchronizing video and sound, and if I didn’t know the faster way to do something, I still tried to do it with more basic tools, even do it would take me more time to complete the task, because I wanted to do my best.

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This morning we had a quick workshop with Kevin to learn some basics on Adobe After Effects, and me and Jade went while Julia and Fred worked on the graphic score. In my opinion the workshop was really helpful because it introduced me to the software, and although it was kind of fast, Kevin taught us the basics focusing on visual reacting to sound, so I learned how to do most of the things my group initially wanted us to have in our video. After lunch I sat with Jade and she showed me an storyboard she came up with during the break, and we decided it would be better to film the most amount of scenes we could today, so I could have time to work with the footage during the weekend, since I still have much to learn by myself on After Effects, and we planned to only do some final editing and film any missing parts next week, if needed. I started to organize the audio tracks and make what was already possible until the end of the class, so Jade could finally pick up some different clothes at home that would match with the style we want, and we could film on the photo studio. I tried to get footage that matches the sound they are related to by playing each track while filming, and I think that turned out well, except for a footage of Jade I tried to do experimentation messing with track time and speed of the video.

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Today we presented our instruments to the rest of the class, and our group decided to show the sounds separately, because we were still experimenting, and since our instruments could do more than one sound each (but not at the same time), it would be really difficult to do a live performance similar to the song we were trying to make. After the presentation we went the the maclab and, since I already had some experience with GarageBand for sound editing purposes, I was the one mixing the tracks we recorded in the way my group was suggesting  until everyone was satisfied. We had enough files to make the first 35-40 seconds, so then we went to an empty room and recorded another sounds to fill the gaps. We were able to get to a final result that everyone liked before lunch, so I exported it as a song and also the tracks separately to make the video work easier. After lunch there was Jaygo’s lecture, and I really liked seeing all the references he showed for his work with Franz Ferdinand, because I learn of things I never heard about before, like Italo Disco and some specific characteristics of Italian movies, and he also cared to show some softwares and effects we could use for the video, like Isadora Troikatronix, that gave me ideias for visual representations of sound. After the lecture, me and my group organized to make a brainstorm for both the animation and the graphic score, so after we could split in pairs and works well on both of them. Our main idea was to keep a dark, scary look so we listed some elements that could be associated to each instrument, like foot for the main beat, nails for the keys, etc.

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I didn’t had much time today to dedicate to my group or the project because of the funeral, but I came to ebac after lunch to record some tests with them in the photo studio. We ended up being very critical with the tracks, deleting and recording again several times, so most of the ones we kept actually became part of the final song. It was nice how we could find a place for each instrument, even Jade’s, because since hers has a very unstable sound, we decided to establish it as an element that makes a intervention on the melody the others are creating. The group also decided that the sounds we made were kind of dark and reminded scary movies, so that feeling is something we want to bring to the video as well.

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During the first part of today’s class I used sandpaper to make the copper tubes safer to use on my instrument, because that was a risk that the parts I cut yesterday would scratch someone, and I think the result came out well. After that I measured the tubes so I could placed them equally spaced on the wood board, and united both materials using Velcro, because I was afraid that using some strong glue, the tubes wouldn’t be able to vibrate so much and the sound would change or not appear. The sound came out well and was similar to a xylophone, so then I cut the excess of the wood board, because I didn’t want my instrument to be too big, since I will need to carry it around, and used sandpaper on the wood board to make it more comfortable to hold. Before the class ended, me and my group organized our action plan for the next week, and to start following it we decided the sounds each of us should rehearse to test recording tomorrow, so I draw something similar to a music sheet, specific for my instrument so I wouldn’t forget it.

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Today we started the day giving our 5 minutes presentation, but due to some technical problems, we spent all of our class doing it. It was really useful to see what everyone researched, especially because of the independent sourced exemples of my colleagues, and it helped me to think of more ways to represent sounds through visual, like the game “Just shapes and beats” Otávio showed, that makes this representation interactive, and the videoclip “SOURCE” from Fever the Ghost that Fred exhibited, that shows you can tell a story and still relates sound and vision. After class I started cutting my copper tubes in different sizes, because I wanted to test if the length of the tubes would really make a big difference in the sounds, since that’s what I learned in physics back in school. The result was positive, and by cutting the sizes precisely I got two little remaining parts that would work as metal pieces to play the instrument.