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Password: part3

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On this I put all the scenes on after effects and composed the loop effects of the video. I used the 3 scenes in time order, from morning to afternoon, (scene 2, to scene 1, to scene 3). Each scene plays 3 times, on the second loop of one scene the next one shoes up, and so successively. This way there is only one loop in which the 3 scenes are visible and scene 1 is the only that is not played alone (scenes 2 and 3 have a solo loop each). I have got a problem (obviously) with scene 2 as it shakes in one point, I had to use position animation on it to compensate for that shake on the image (probably hit the camera by accident), but was not that much of a problem.

After everything was done I looked to the video analyzing it, searching for problems and I yet am not sure about the background. It is too dirty, confusing quite out of focus. Since I still have some time before the deadline I decided to try one last thing before the end of the part 3. I tried the tracing technique again, since it was the other one technique that worked well. I used the filter background for this tracing technique. It worked. The traced background was looking way better, it was more clear and easy to understand. Specially the tree lines, that were more clear.

The scenes “come in” one by one and than “leave one by one, going back to the empty street that starts the video. This way the video can be looped countless times during the exhibition, the video starts just right where it ended, just like a routine, repeating, and repeating, and repeating.
The different colours of the different scenes make it clear to the viewer that those things did not happened at that same time. This I hope will make they at least question what they are seeing. And in that question I can-through this work- make an exploration and  cause a reflection even if quick, on the modern world, our lives and the routine of a certain place.

I still got a few days before the deadline as I (somehow) managed to finish the work before I had previously planned. So I’ll use this extra days to work on improvements on sketchbook, research and reflection.

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Password; part3

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Used this day make some quick studies of colours to use on the 3 scenes and to apply those colours on scenes. The idea was to use one colour to each scene so to suggest that those things did not happened at the same time. Stead of just picking random colours and putting then together till I come to like the result (as I was used to) I decided to chose one colour for the “main” scene- which is scene one, as it is the one where most things happen- and use split-complementary colours for the other two scenes. This way they would look different but still look like parts of the same thing (am so glad that I researched colour harmony, some weeks ago). As scene 1 was recorded on midday I first thought of yellow, but yellow would not go that well with the amount of white in the background. So I thought of another warm colour, orange, but this one relates more with the afternoon. Than I realised, my object is just to distinguish one scene from the other, for that end I don’t need to make such direct analogies (like: midday = sun = yellow). Therefore I decided to make scene 1 red. Red because this way it will call more attention to it, as it is the scene that has more elements (and the one that put me more in trouble).

By using the split-complementary colours of red, I found a colour palette that works, but still was not perfect. When I put the 3 colours on paper it just looked like to many things were happening at the same time, got polluted I think. To fix that I decided to desaturate and use darker tones of the complementary ones, this not only creates a sort of colours composition on the video, but also contributes for the “reading” of it by the viewer.

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Self-direct study day. On this day I’ve worked on scene 3 roto. I was very impressed on this because I actually managed to finish scene 3 today. Maybe because I got very used to do roto or because the scene wasn’t as complicated as I first imagined. The point is that this allowed me to save time which means I will be able to actually finish the project one day before planed (if something else don’t goes wrong, what is very likelly).

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Today was the last day of actual classes, as from tomorrow on the studio will be closed. The fact of the studio been unavailable don’t quite botters me as all the work that is left to do is computer based; either does the fact of EBAC been unavailable from Thursday on, since I can keep working on the project by home. I realise that this are the last few days we have before the end of part 3 project and I still have things left to do, so I need to focus set the priorities and finish this project.

First priority is finishing the roto scene 2 just finished today, that leaves us to scene 3. This scene has a car and a person on it. Considering the time spent with previous scenes, I think I can finish it in just 2 days (by Thu). From there, I’ll have to apply colour the 3 scenes, what is way faster (in the self-publish project was), so I belive it will take maximum 2 days (by Sat). Composing the scene on after effects is actually really simple and quick, so one day should do it (by Sun). This would leave be two extra days to solve whatever needs to (if needs to) be solved.

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On this day I have worked on the rotoscope process of scene 2. Rotoscope is a very repetitive thing to do as it consists of only trace, frame by frame, certain elements of the video, what has proven to be very laborious and even tedious (some times), but after passing the entire last week doing this, I got more used to the process, what does result in making things a little faster than I was doing last week- keeping quality, of course-. On this day specifically I have managed to make 7 seconds of roto. The fact that scene 2 is way more easy to roto (probably because it has no cars) than scene 1 also contributed for this. This actually compensated the extra days it took me to make scene 1, and because of it I am a little less pressed for time. What was starting to be a concern as tomorrow is the last day of class before the deadline (due to long holiday).

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On this day I have finally finished the roto of the first scene by the morning. In the afternoon I used my time to select the footage that I am going to use for the second scene roto and than started to rotoscope it. As I want to show this specific place in different time periods of the day, this time I choose a footage made early in the morning, what causes it to have less elements to actually roto, eventually.   This second scene only has two people walking on the street so I hope it will be faster to roto than the first (that was full of cars). I’ve only managed to make just one second of the scene 2 today, but considering that I have also done the last frames of scene 1, I still kept to the “3 s/day minimum” rule.

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On this day I have still been working with the rotoscope process of the first scene, this scene is taking a little longer than what I have previously expected, but I still managed to be on time since I have been able to keep up with the 3 s minimum daily production. I’ve developed some ways of making this a little faster as I might get pressed for time if first scene continues to take too much time. One of this ways is to recycle similar frames. There is a part of the scene where I have a car going down the street, what visually is just the back of a car getting smaller on screen, after I realised this I started to draw one repeat it 4 to 5 times but reducing its scale a bit. In would, than, re-draw the frame after 4 to 5 frames so that not to be too obvious that I reused some frames. By doing this I have managed to make the rotoscope a little faster.

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Self-direct study day. Used the day to continue the rotoscope of the first scene of the animation. I have originally planned to finish the first scene today, but now I realise that I was underestimating how long rotoscope actually takes to be done. I am not that late on the schedule to start been worried, but I would be a bad idea to try finding a way of doing this faster.

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On this day I have used my time to continue the rotoscope of the first video that I’m animating. The rotoscope is taking a little longer than what I was expecting. I’m still on schedule though, I’ve manage to keep the minimum 3 second per day of production, that is the bare minimum I need to make every day in order to finish everything on time. I’ve talked with my tutor about the project and he said that the lines of the animation were creating an interesting result. I talked about my intention of overlaying the “time layers”, I was questioned about how I was going to do this overlay. I said that my Intention is to use different colours to identify the different periods of action in the animation, Daniel than suggested that I could consider using only lines in the animation stead of the scenario that I’m currently using. This is an alternative that I have been considering lately, as I don’t think that the scenario and the animation are looking really well together. I decided that I going to keep the animation production to the end of the week and on saturday I going to very quickly test the alternatives of mixing the layers of animation and the background.

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On this day I started the rotoscope process of the first scene of the final project. I have done a action plan for the animation process specifically, I intend to make 3 different rotoscoped scenes, that together will last for around a minute. There are two weeks left for making the project -10 working days or 16 calendar days- (not counting refine week). A minute has 60 seconds, which means I must produce 3-5 s of animation per day in order to get something around one minute long. I started by sending the original footage, taken on site, to after effects so that I can take the original 24 frame rate and reduce it to 6 frames per second, this way I can make the animation knowing that I can finish on time. Than I passed the it to photoshop, created a black video layer above it and started to trace the frames. Passed the day on this process.

On this day I was questioned by tutor if I was going to play the scenes in sequence or not. I did not understood at first. When I told Sol that I had different recordings of the same place, but in different times, she asked if I was going to explore that characteristic of the recordings on the final “product”. Than I understood, if you just play one scene after the other people won’t know those things happened in different day times. If the idea of my project is to cause a reflection upon the theme of the routine, by showing a place and the different things that happen on it on different time periods. I should find a way to explore that in the video.

I could consider it of the rotos as a time layer on the final video. If they are layers this means that they can be over overlaid on each other. Now, to distinguish one from the other, I could either work with colours or light. With colours, I could make solid colour shapes behind the roto to identify different moments, or even change the colour of the lines themselves. Both sound like solid ideas, but need to test them out.

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Used this day to record footage to be later used in the rotoscope and choose the ones that I would really use for the end of making the video. I had already done a little of this on wed while I was search for the right place, but I decided to do some more recording in other to have more possible sources for the rotoscope. Made the recordings in the morning, before coming to class, and used my time to evaluate all the videos I had and decide which one I was going to use for the first scene of the rotoscope. I choose one that has some cars passing by, on this moment the street was quite busy, compared to other footages that I have, this makes me indagate and wonder how the same place can have such different amounts of movement depending on the time you go there, makes you think of how different people that different things, for distinct reasons can share a place in where they coexist, maybe daily?

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Today was the adobe surgery with Alex. I already knew the technique I wanted to use in this project- rotoscope- and how to do it on photoshop, but for finishing the project I would require to send the videos from photoshop to after effects in order to organize and proper compose the final animation video. I made sure to ask Alex for advice, explained what I intended to do aked which would be the best way to do it. He explained how to export the videos from photoshop preserving transparency (that allows the videos to composited later) and the specific ways to import those into after, so that they would work the way I want they to.

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Self-direct study day.Taking the advice from last crits and now that I am sure of what and how I’ll do this project, I decided to use this day to search for the most suitable place to use in my animation. The work is about routine, so it should be a place that appears on my routine or that I could visit on a routine for the sake of making the project and still be relatable with the routine of any one how see my animation on the exhibition. A “generic” street or crossroad would be the most suitable for this end. From this thinking I started to “recreate” my routine, going to places that I usually go and search near those areas for somewhere useful for the project. From places near home, near the streets I pass every day, and around places I often go, I choose a crossroad that I frequently pass by when coming back from EBAC. The criteria I used to pic this specific place instead of the others was:

1- having a interesting composition of streets or builds on a frame;

2- be a place with some movement (cars and people), but not too much, or I will not be able to rotoscope everything in time;

3- Be a place that I can go several times and take a camera to record the space and it’s movement without been too concerned with security (I don’t want to be robbed doing this project)

I applied this criteria to all the places that I have considered and visited today and choose the one that best suited these.

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Used this day to think and plan the project exhibition proposal, after some thought on the possible ways of displaying my animation I have come to the conclusion that projecting it will be the better option. My animation, as I plan it, has two main spects: is a representation of real live place so I would like to be as wide as possible on a screen so to better resemble a real place through scale; second, it has a lot of white area on it, which will make it difficult to see in a place that is too bright. Therefore, in the exhibition proposal I asked for a projection- that will deal with the scale issue- and a dark space for projecting, other wise it would be hard to see the animation. Because of the ‘loop display’ intend to use, where the animation is on a continuous loop display during the whole exhibition time, I don’t want my animation to go on a reel (share a screen with others). For that, Leo suggested that I should propose a place where the video could be displayed. I took some time studying the studio space, the most practical place would be up stairs, but I know Zaira is already aking for that area. As a alternative for not competing for space, I suggested that two drywalls could be built by the sink, creating a “small cinema area” were my video could be displayed.

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During the weekend I draw a “character”, a person in a bicycle (that was on the test video I made for the rotoscope), using the rotoscope animation technique, but just made a single frame. I used that single animation frame as a way of testing possibilities of better mixing the “character”  with the scenario. I first just draw the “character” with lineart and coloured with a digital brush. The lineart makes the character really jump over the image, but the scenario must have a lineart too, otherwise the character looks out of place. So it worked for the “lines & watercolour style frame” but not for the filter one, that has no lineart. I tried to remove the lines and use just the colours but the character was almost invisible in the filter scenario. One solution that I found was to keep the line art, but then apply the same blur filter used for the scenario on the “animation”. This makes the two really blend well together but don’t prevents the animation from being visible.

During this morning I received some feedback on the style frames of the animation. One of the suggestions people made was that I could try changing the angle of the “camera frame” so that it could look more like CCTV footage, as this is one of my references. I actually don’t want the animation to just look like CCTV, in fact, I want it to be at the eye level so that to create the idea that viewer is seeing that place with his own eyes, not through the lens of a camera. But changing the angle of the scene might just work better for the project, so I’ll try it out.

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On this day I used my time to make a few more tests with a type of filters that I did not tried much with on the begging of the week. This time I have tried to use the “pixelise” type of filters, that decompose the image in pixels or in geometrical shapes, the stronger you apply the effect the more geometrical it gets. One problem is that the image ends up looking a bit to sharp, rough and stith. I then combined it with the blur type of filters as an attempt to create a more soft and fluid image. After quite some attempts I managed to create a very interesting image that is composed of colour shapes, but that is still very distinguishable regarding its subject. I also stared to think of some ways to adding the animated motives on the backgrounds.

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On this day I used my time to work on the scenario experimenting with the tracing technique that I used on the building narratives project. One of the things that is irritating me the most on this project is that the scenarios aren't looking as realistic as I was hoping then to look, and my own drawing skills are the ones to blame on this problem. On the other hand to work with photos and filters have proven to deliver too realistic outcomes that get hard to blend with the animation later on. So I have decided to attempt the tracing technique using photos and a light table, this allows me to create a more precise drawing than if I were freely doing it. It worked to some extent, but I need a few more tries to get it right.

On the afternoon I’ve made some more research on surveillance art, which has proven to be a great reference for my project (see research).

Now looking back to what I have done so far in this week I realise that I really need to focus on productiveness. Is not like I don't have a considerable amount of work, but I know I could have done more. I wanted to have already made up my mind regarding the scenarios, but I haven't yet decided which one I am going to use. Tomorrow I'll make sure to get to a definitive scenario, so that I won't have to delay the animation process.

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On this day I have tried to create backgrounds with watercolour techniques and see if they can get more interesting and pleasant looking than the filter ones. First I tried making a lineart drawing and watercolour over it for making the shades and giving more depth to the scene, I liked the result of it, the lineart and the watercolour shades created a sort of “dark, sad and boring” aesthetic style that I could definitely work with. I also wanted to give one more try to a watercolour without a lineart, the first attempt on this some days ago was to confusing (according to the people I asked). To try making more understandable I decided to use a light table, so that could have a better idea and control of the shapes I was making, creating a more clear drawing. Although I liked the way these watercolours look I think they will take the animation to a more depressive tone, making the routine look boring and a negative aspect of life, what isn’t exactly the sort of approach I am looking for.

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I continued with the tests on photoshop filters on this day. I’ve tested with all types of photoshop filters and lots of combinations of those filters (see sketchbook for more details). Some of those created very interesting images, for example, the ‘Dust & Scratches’ one that creates a type of distortion on the image that makes it look like a painting; ‘Add Noize’, that makes a “granulate” effect on the image; and ‘cristalize’, that decompose the image in geometrical shapes. Although all those are interesting, I am still not sure if they would fit with the animation, as all of them are full of elements that, I think, would distract the viewer from the main subject: the animation. The one filter that I think was the most successful is the combination of ‘minimum’ and ‘blur’ this makes the image into more simple colour shapes, that resembles a painting, but it is more simple than the other ones and so I think it will blend better with the animation. The reason I want this filters to create a “painting look like” image is that the animation will be hand drawn on the computer with the rotoscope technique, in other worlds digital painting. Therefore I think it is more likely for the background to fit with the animation if both resemble paintings to a certain point.

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Today as the first day of the making part of the part 3 project. I don't think that the fact of it being a making week means that I should stop experimenting new things within the project, but, unlike on research and experimentation week, this tests must be more focused towards a smaller range of possibilities. So from this day forward I'll narrow down my ideas to one (so far I was in between illustration or animation), and keep experimenting for a few more days with that idea, before setting down and producing the final outcome. I have chosen to keep working with the animation idea instead of the illustration. I personally prefer to work on a animation instead of an illustration. Although I tend to work well with illustration as well, I want to challenge myself with the rotoscope animation technique and see where this path will lead. The idea of working with an looped animation that would work like an “alive illustration” is very exciting.

On this day I have worked on the creation of the style frame of my animation, that must be finished at maximum by Thursday, so to ensure that I'll have time for animating. Testing possibilities for the scenario style of the animation, I have tried drawing with a new pen making thicker lines, which worked for some parts of the drawing and not for others. The thick lines are good for giving emphasis on a certain element of the image, but when used in the entire drawing, it looked too stiff, rigid. Then I experimented with watercolour shapes and shades, but no lines. Visually the result was pleasing but was a little confusing for the viewer (this a assumption of mine, that I confirmed asking people to say if they could understand the drawing, they couldn’t). to use a lineart in these watercolour shapes might just fix that issue.

On the afternoon was the time for the filters, I took some photos on the street (with a good camera this time) and test several photoshop filters individually and combinations of those. I got some interesting results, especially with the combination of different filters, creating noize and extracting colour shapes from the photos. Haven’t tested all the possible combinations, though, I’ll look forward to those tests tomorrow

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I had a considerable amount of delayed reflection and research left to do. Leaving those things accumulating has proven to be really stressful on previous parts of the foundation course, therefore getting those done before they get to be a far worse problem was a priority. I separated this day to work specifically with updating reflection and research. Spending a whole day doing that sounds really a harmful loss, considering that this was a precious time that could very well have been used to develop the project. But, to my understanding of my current situation, is less of a loss to spend a day with those obligations and make sure they are all attended by the end of this day, than it is to risk letting it become a tougher problem and ruin more days that are ahead on the project. I really can not afford losing more time than what I already have. And so, I choose to make sure this matter was attended, even by the cost of hours now. Preventing to lose more important days that are to come.

From this next weeks, I need to organize myself and ensure that this situation won’t be repeated.

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On this day I had my progress tutorial with Daniel. Unfortunately, I was not able to work on the project this past week. Therefore the amount of work that I had for presenting was not even close to what I wanted/planned to have before, even still the tutorial was very helpful for me as Daniel posed some questions that I haven’t considered before. On the first week of the testing in the project, I was making drawings of people and places with the idea of creating a illustration, attempted different techniques and materials. On the second I started experimenting with software and animation, this was planned, but one question made to me was “Why not keep with the drawings?” at first I did not understand. But then I realised, the animation was completely digital. I have mixed practical drawing and inking techniques with software on previous projects, but not on this one.

Daniel made it clear that it was not a problem if the animation was completely digital since I had reflected on it and came up with a reason for that. And that is what I am going to focus on the next days of this project, I need to figure out rather the animation will mix real and digital world techniques or not. I have to test with both worlds and then reflect on the pieces and make my choice.

The lost week have delayed me, truth, but I still have time to make up for it. When I visited Split Studio on October 9, I learned that one common thing in the industry is to make a “style frame” before actually getting to work on the animation. A single frame that summarizes the general looks, style, mood and aesthetics of the animation. This is fantastic, if I work just on a single frame, that would allow me to really push forward on experimentations, testing techniques and styles far quicker than if making short scenes (what I made on days 13 and 14 of the project). This is what I’ll be doing the beginning of next week.

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I used the day to conduct experiments with animation techniques. Last week I made a video of a street very know to me and to daily routine (this is important so that the video has a conceptual link with the project theme) as a reference for the project and and for the drawings that I was testing on experimentation week. The footage is really poor, it is shakky and low quality, made with a smartphone- it was just a reference after all-, but for the sake of tests with animation and software it is good enough. This way the project doesn’t get too heavy for the computer, what improves speed and allows me test more possibilities in shorter time.

The first thing I tried was to apply an effect in after effects called “cartoon”, that I learned with Alex. This effect creates lines over the elements of the footage, that makes it look like a drawing. I found the effect very interesting. On the software you can test different lines (bold, thin, lighter, darker, etc). I found the bold lines to be more interesting as they are more visible, I also chose to keep the original footage behind the lines so to preserve colour, that I found to more appealing to the eye than the “lines on white canvas one”.

The video was interesting but I still wanted to test animation (specifically rotoscope, that I found about during the research week). For making it I reduced the frame rate of the video down to 8 frames per second, since rotoscoping in 24 would take forever. I ,then, exported it to photoshop and created an empty layer above the video, were I drawn over each frame. And so when you delete the original footage, all that is left are your drawings. Again I found that just lines over white canvas was too simple (and I still want the “urban scenario”, present in our routine, to be on the work). So I exported one frame of the cartoon effect tests  and used it as background. Environment problem solved. New problem: the animation is now almost invisible. I rudely applied a solid colour behind the animation so that is visible. Strangely it looks cool, the loose way the color is behind the animation makes it look almost like a brush blending well with the animation style. Still I need to test more ways of mixing the background with the animation in the front.

I also made a visit to Split Studio that was very interesting and helped me a lot to understand the process in which an animation is made from concept to final piece and how the studio organizes itself to meet deadlines, maintaining a standard quality. One thing that was said in there was that the studio has as a daily task to produce 5 seconds of finished animation in a day. This way they can calculate how long a project will take to get done, allowing to organize teams, schedules and middle production deadlines that really help keep things moving.  I can apply the same to organize my project.

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On this day I've once more started by doing a drawing of the daily, but this time I made it in an A4 paper so that I could finish it in the morning. I used a photo that I took yesterday as a reference for the drawing. Doing it in a smaller scale work, I could stick to today's action plan since I got to finish on time. Using photoshop I mixed the 3 different drawings I made so far in a bigger composition. I tried two techniques for doing that: messing with opacity and select and cut. The opacity created a nice overlay of elements, but the lines got too difficult to see; the second one worked better and allowed me to create a go mix of the drawings, that preserved the strong lines. I think this approach of making drawings every day and using those to create something else relates well with the idea of repetition present in my project. The crit was really helpful. One of the things that people pointed out is that since this is the experimentation week and my main objective for the week was testing possibilities, they suggested that I could try techniques and materials other than drawing with pens. I think this is a very constructive feedback and I'll look forward to test different materials and styles in my drawings. Might look for some materials that can relate to the project.

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Have spent the day conducting more research on Bosch and other related artists as references for the “Big illustration” idea. Bosch was a famous painter from the last years of the medieval times, he is most known by his huge paintings of fantastic scenarios and landscapes, that portrayed an imaginative representation of religious themes, such as hell, heaven, the capital sins and others. As a way of expanding my options regarding research methods, I went to the public library Prestes Maya, in Santo Amaro, to see if I could find books about this artist and perhaps others that could be relevant. This idea was fruitful, in the library I found a very interesting book that not only talked about Bosch’s practice but also had images of most of his paintings, what was really helpful to make me better understand the artist and his work. I also came across Brueghel, who is another artist famous for making very big paintings. The main reason I have decided to conduct research on Bosch and similar artists is that one of my ideas for experimentation on this week consists in creating a large-scale drawing, and so I looked for those artists work to get references on how they compose those huge paintings, how they relate the elements in the scenes and how they build a narrative on those pieces.

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On this day I’ve planned to make more drawings of the daily in the morning and in the afternoon I were supposed to try some of the animation techniques that I have researched yesterday to create a firsts test of the animation idea. I wasn’t able to keep to this original plan.

The drawing that I was supposed to have finished by the morning actually took me the entire day to get done. I think the main reason for this is the size I am working with. To draw in A3 paper worked well for yesterday one, but it had fewer details and elements to put in the drawing. Today’s one was a lot more detailed and technically more complicated to be done in terms of perspective drawing. Since I still have lots of drawings to do before the end of this week I’ll try to work in A4 so that I can finish the drawings more quickly.

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I started this day by doing the drawings of daily scenes and other repetitive activities that I have planned to do this week according to the 6 ideas I’m supposed to develop on this week. I took photos of people, places and other ordinary scenes that we see every day in the city on the weekend and before coming to the studio this morning. With those references, I made a drawing using pens- I choose to work with pens in the begging because I am more confident with these tools, but I want to try with different materials and styles more ahead on the week-.

In the afternoon I used my time to research animation techniques that I think that would be suitable for each of the animation ideas. For the clock one, I think illustrator and after effects will work just fine for a primary test since the clock has fewer elements to animate. For the animation in the idea n.06 (sketchbook), that require more details and care on the animation process I think I will experiment with rotoscope animation using photoshop because it allows me to have more control over each frame of the animation.

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In the morning I have focused myself on planning my actions for the next week, so to better organize myself and my work, having a clearer idea of the things I should do and achieve on the next week. I have planned the week in a way that I can experiment with the ideas that chose from yesterday’s exercise. In the mornings I will work on drawings and photographs of the “daily life”, that latter can be used to create a composition other kinds of work. And in the afternoon I’ll work with the “animation front” of the project, working with research of techniques and the practical production of the ideas related to animation.

On the afternoon of this day, we had a crit, but most of the students did not manage to have the time to talk about their projects on that crit- I included-. Therefore I could not take much from that crit regarding my own project, but I tried to give useful advice to the students that actually presented their works.

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On this day I have occupied myself with an ideas generation exercise. With the objective of having at least 15 ideas for the start of by part 3 project (as described in my project proposal), so that I could from those ideas cut to the 6 most interesting ones to try and experiment with on the weeks to come. The main reason for this 6 ideas limit is to make sure that I can test them all on the next weeks before choosing a definitive one, without losing track of the time and getting to rush things by the end of the project. For the exercise, I set a timer with 8 minutes for each idea. Through the course, I have found this the much comfortable and fruit-full way to make this kind of exercise, because it allows me to generate quite a good number of ideas (I got 20 by the end of the day) and to actually think a little on their viability. In the afternoon I spent my time evaluating each of the ideas so to pic the 6 “chosen ones” (see sketchbook).

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To write my own personal project proposal was an interesting experience. It was not too challenging for me, but laborious instead. To have been doing reflective journals and written research made me more aware of how to express my intentions and reflect on my projects and experiences, what definitely helped me to confidently write the 3 sections of the project proposal (namely Review, Concept and Evaluation). But I needed to put a lot of thought into it so to make sure it was clear and well written. The action plan section was more challenging, for me it was very difficult to visualise what I would be doing in 3, 4 or 5 weeks time since I don’t have a clear idea of the outcome I’m going to pursue on this project. So instead of writing what to do and when I decided to just create deadlines along the way during the project so that I can keep the track of where I am on the project, if everything is going well or if I am getting delayed. And left the “what to do on each day” to be decided on the beginning of each week in the form of a “make week’s action plan” on every Mondays.

Regarding my presentation, I think I was sufficiently clear for people to understand it and get the concept of my presentation. An indicative of that is that some of my friends have come to tell me how they found that my project was “so something I would do”. I did not understood the comment at first, but then the person said that it was relatable with the one gif I did for the identities project. (in fact it is, “methodic” brings out the idea of a repetition or consistency, two elements that can be found in a “routine”). For me, this comment is a indication that at least people could get the concept out from my presentation, showing that it clear to a standard.

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On this week I’ve visited several locations that included museums, art galleries and exhibitions in an attempt to find references and expand my research for the project.

On monday I visited Galeria Ricardo Camargo that was exhibiting the works of Ranchinho, a painter who makes drawings and paintings that portrait scenes of the routine in the countryside. Farmers working, people in small towns, animals all this elements of the countryside. My project is more related with the environment of the city and the lives of people in it, but it was interesting to observe how Ranchinho approached the theme- although in a different surrounding-. I’ve not thought of making drawings or paintings for this project yet, but seeing his works made me think of this as a possible approach for the project.

Tuesday I visited MIS and MuBE. Since I might work with a motion related technique on the project I found that it could be an interesting idea to visit the museum of image and sound, once it is place that holds works in the same media. MuBE shows lots of sculptures and installations, which are not the focus of my research, but since it is literally by the side of MIS I payed it a visit. MIS exhibition on Hitchcock  was very interesting, it made me realise that that are other ways of presenting a video, using the space to create a relation with the video and enhancing the presentation as a whole adding meaning and significance to the video work.

On Wednesday I went to Funarte and Ink gallery in Republica. Ink gallery was exhibiting a series of photos from Valmir Dacil that were about the everyday of the paulistano. The photos were actually good, but the presentation was so poorly done that it took me a while to realise that it was an exhibition. The photos were just badly glued to the walls in very awful way, that it was actually preventing me from enjoying the artist’s work. I must be very careful not to mess things up in the presentation of my project, otherwise I’ll  be judged by the presentation instead of the work itself.

Thursday I went to the 33° Bienal, most of works in the exhibition were not really much of my interest. They too conceptual for my particular taste, but I could take some good references from it. For example Dreher’s “day by day” series of paintings, that relates so much much the idea of repetition present in my concept.

Friday I visited IMS to see the “3 Ensaios Visuais” an exhibition of photographs of the city of São Paulo and the people on it-it’s characters- from different periods of the city’s history. This exhibition was very well related with my project, the photos of the daily lives of those people made wonder of how their lives was I even made me think about the live we have nowadays and how live has changed since that time.

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I went to the project proposal workshops, not because I had any specific doubts on how to write it, but I found it would be useful to have a little more advice on how to write it before I started to actually write the proposal. Thus, I was still facing a little bit of trouble with the finding references issue, so going to the workshops was also a way to give a break from that worthless research for a while. When something is not working it is a good idea to take a break from it, by focusing your energy on another task you allow your brain to slow down a bit, and when you get back for that activity you might be able to see things from another point and actually progress on it.

Fortunately, it worked, on the workshops, some people gave references for my project, that were actually things that I haven’t thought before (like movies, comics and TV programs). This made me realise that opening up my research for other media and types of references (not only philosophy books, articles, artists and designers) could actually improve my research and get it going.

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spent the day with the improvement of my research. Using yesterday’s advice I got with Carlos I tried to look more deeply into philosophers or writers that bring a discussion on the theme of routine or the daily life such as Paul Virilio and Georges Peréc. From this two Georges Peréc have some really interesting works in literature that surround this thematic. ‘An attempt to exhaust a place in Paris’, were Peréc literally describes the things that surround him in a specific place, in details, small details, such as the cars that passed on the street or the people that are passing by. This makes think of a different approach to the thematics of this project. Till this point I was considering the daily routine as a negative aspect of our lives, but what if that isn’t really so? We are inevitably drawn to a routine, rather it is at work, at home, walking around the street, even our leisure times are inside that routine. We can try break out from it from time to time, but eventually, we are drawn back to it. And that doesn’t necessarily is bad. I could try focusing more on the routine aspect but looking more deep into it. Try to find the funny, try to find the detail, the minussy, the very little things that make the routine a routine and no one cares to look.

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Went to talk with Carlos as the begging of my day. I told him about the story of the guy with  the routine and this concept of the purpose of art in our lives. He got some key elements out of this story I told him about, like “routine”, “machine”, “Purpose” and suggested that I started my research form these themes and try to interrogate than in order to find a concept for my project.

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On this day I have planned to keep on the research, but our tutor recommended that we should focus more on the concept, and not have a short of the ready idea and with it to the very end of the project. From there I have tried to take a concept out of my two stories and see if could work better in the research and than ideas development from that concept. On the first one, a person leaves from its state of animalisation because it starts to listen to music on the second the guy finds a way of getting a little breath from his routine by drawing. Analysing the two stories is clear to me that the concept surrounds the purpose of art or what makes us different from animals and how art influences this differences.

On the afternoon I have tried to conduct some research on these topics but I found it really difficult to carry on with this research. I can’t find references or books that talk about these themes and I am starting to question what I might be doing wrong if things are not working out. Is the concept that is not clear? Maybe this ideas are not a good starting point?

For these reasons, I decided to give a try going to talk with Carlos tomorrow to see if can help me out.

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The introduction lecture to part 3 was mostly about things that I already knew from previous lectures on the second-semester schedule. However, it was helpful to kind of a mental preparation for the beginning of part 3. For my part 3 project, I have mainly two ideas, two short stories that I have in mind for making an animation. The first is about a character in a post-apocalyptical world where the is no more technology or civilization and the feel humans left only try their best to survive. The character is almost an animal (don’t talks, and just follows his instincts) one day he listens to a music and curious he goes after it, to find out that there is a machine playing the song. From there he starts to face his instincts and puts himself in danger every day to listen to the song.

The second one is about a guy that just live his daily boring routine (wake up, work, eat and sleep), but one day he sees a person doing a drawing  and he decides that he wants to try that out. His drawings are terrible and he gets very frustrated but he keeps on the same way. He is no longer doing just his boring routine, he has now found something that can take him out of it, at least for a while.

With those two ideas in mind, I have settled my research framework around the elements that compose an animation, like techniques, storytelling and film production. For the music one some research into music.