It Might Get Loud

All I do nowadays is watch documentaries 

On Wednesday we were given a new motion graphics brief based around learning Adobe After Effects which is all rather exciting.

We've been asked to source a piece of spoken word audio between 10-20 seconds in length that we find 'inspiring'. Initially we were supposed to use interviews with creative practitioners, graphic designers we find inspiring etc but over the course of the briefing it seemed to transform into anyone we were creatively inspired by whether they are a designer, painter, sculptor or musician.

Once we have our audio we are then to animate the words spoken within the interview in After Effects, what we'll be creating is kinetic typography. We had a great presentation from our tutor Pete who always seems to inspire me in some way with his examples of previous work. These I won't share with you but I am already thinking about the possible mixtures of analog and digital media for this project.

I spent pretty much all of yesterday watching my favourite things, documentaries, about my second favourite thing, guitars (and their players). The video above is the trailer for a film titled 'It Might Get Loud' featuring Jimmy Page, Jack White and The Edge. I'd urge everyone to watch it, even if you're not into guitars and stuff as much as I am. It's really interesting to hear how 3 of the best known guitarists ever talk about their very different styles, techniques and approaches to playing what is in essence is the same plank of wood with 6 strings stretched over it.

We all know that we love and are inspired by graphic design, I feel like I don't need to reiterate it. After all we are on a GRAPHIC DESIGN COURSE. The thing that inspires me more than anything is listening, watching and playing music (remember the passionate presentation) hence that is what I will be basing this project around. Personal is powerful.

F.I.T. New York

So yeah about a week late, I will be going to New York and studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology for the first term of my second year, around 4 and a half months from August to December.

Excited is not even the word.

Thanks again to everyone who helped with the video.

How To Set Up Your Own Pirate Radio Station

Above is my final outcome for the 'Do This Brief' project. A not very concise guide on how to set up a pirate radio station. Overall I am really happy with the way this has turned out, the whole subculture, DIY aesthetic is exactly what I was aiming for and the tone of the piece again is spot on. I was trying to get it so that you could photocopy this and mass distribute it easily if required.  I spent a lot of time researching pirate radio trying to break it down to just the essentials which was really fun though quite complex at times. Marrying the information with how I wanted the illustration to turn out was a bit of a challenge as well but again I am super happy with it all. The whole idea of this project was to learn Adobe Illustrator though which although I was fairly familiar with anyway, spending more time with it really allowed me to fully get to grips with the specifics and shortcuts of it and I am now full competent. CLICK THE PICTURE FOR A BIGGER VERSION.

Illustrate-her

Since I have now handed in my New York piece I have been able to concentrate my efforts on some of my other projects which are currently on the go.

Now working on a "How to..." project which is based around learning Adobe Illustrator. We were asked to produce a range of instructions, guides and plans to clearly communicate a range of events and activities that will enable people to survive and thrive in times of austerity. 

We were kept in our mail art groups and each group was given a 'life theme' to take inspiration from. Our theme was communication which was a challenge to initially brainstorm but once we had completed a full workshop day in class with everyone donating ideas to each other's themes we were getting into the swing of things. A lot of people are focusing on trying to save money but cutting down on things within their various 'how to' guides, however I wanted to try and be proactive, setting up something creative for as little money as possible seemed like a great concept to start with, especially something that you can communicate with.

So with this concept in tow, I came up with the idea of:

 'How to set up your own pirate radio station'

Pretty psyched to really get my teeth into it now. I have a basic idea of what I want to do. Now the tough bit is going to be researching it and finding out exactly what I want to do with and where I want to go with it. After a few hours of note taking, book reading and googling I came across this awesome trailer for a documentary film called "Drowned City" about London Pirate radio stations and the people who run them. I'll leave you with the trailer for now whilst I go stare at a computer screen for hours on end.

SWIMNY

As promised, here is my final film.

Enjoy.

Trans-Atlantic

Tomorrow is the hand in for our New York project.

The edited film will appear here immediately after.

I have spent the last 2 weeks filming and editing.

All other projects have been sidelined for now.

Very excited to show everyone the film.

Regardless of whether or not I get to go.

I am so happy I made it

and how it turned out.

So yeah.

Tomorrow.

Good luck

everyone.

Submarine

This afternoon at Chelsea we were given a lecture by a lovely illustrator who's name is Nina Chakrabarti. 

About half way through her talk she showed us this piece of her work which happens to be the illustrations for one of my favourite novels ever. The novel in question is called 'Submarine' by Joe Dunthorne. I first encountered Joe last summer in the poetry arena at Latitude Festival where I spent some considerable listening to him and his band of troubadour poets. I bought his faber booklet there and since then have been really inspired by his poetry and his DIY ethos (he puts on a poetry night called Homework which runs every first wednesday of the month at the working men's club in Bethnal Green).

http://www.aisle16.co.uk/homework-ldn/

Submarine is Joe's first novel and one of my all time favourites since reading it last summer. Last year I learnt that the book had been taken up by I.T. crowd star and Arctic Monkey Video music director Richard Ayoade and was being made into a film. Well that film is now finished and is being released very soon in the UK after taking worldwide film festivals by storm. I have been a massive fan of Ayoade for years after he directed the Arctic Monkeys DVD Live at the Apollo and their more recent music videos. Alex Turner has even completed a 6 track EP for the film's music.

It's weird how cyclical this whole affair has been, I think that the film has the potential to be the British cinema hit of the year but then the equal potential become an indie film classic, unrecognised by the masses who are used to hollywood blockbusters and rom-coms churned out by the apparent same 10 or so actors and actresses, YES Jennifer Anniston and Paul Rudd I am looking at you!

Below is the trailer for Submarine and you can make of it what you wish...