Twas our graduation ceremony this afternoon, but let's not dwell on that Harry Potter-esque clap happy torture land...
This evening I uncovered a blog post called Which Student Are You? with illustrations about art student stereotypes at Chuck Dillon's blog). It is a series of illustrations based upon Dillon's observations from a 10 year teaching career at the Hussain School of Art in Philadelphia, and although several of the stereotypes are strongly based on American culture, I found that much of the stereotypes still apply to the students that I've encountered in Britain; so in my opinion it is worth publicizing here...
I just realised how they made the advert [above] for the Honda Insight (Hybrid) a couple of weeks ago, and it really impressed me, so I've finally decided to post something about some of my favourite TV adverts...
United Airlines: Rose Created by the amazing Russian paint on glass animator Aleksandr Petrov (The Old Man And The Sea, My Love), I think this is one of his most artistically impressive pieces. Even though Petrov's films are vibrant and uniquely stunning in equal measure, I think his morphing painterly style works even better in these very short commercials - none more so than in The Night (another United Airlines commercial - shown in the image below)... This second United Airlines commercial by Petrov is available to view at this website and is located on the right hand side, four pictures from the bottom.
Nike SB: Paul Rodriguez It's a really simple 30 second advert for the Nike skateboard team, but the effective use of a basic digital/optical effect makes it stand out and live on in my memory.
Miss Dior: Cherie From the calm summery pastel colour scheme, to the Frenchyness of the song Moi Je Joue (by Brigette Bardot); this whole advert (directed by Sofia Coppola - Lost In Translation), just has a wonderfully beguiling quality to it that I appreciate whenever it is broadcast.
Ladyhawke: self-titled debut album I love the artwork of Sarah Larnach (Ladyhawke's illustrator), and the music video for Ladyhawke's My Delirium is one of my favourite music videos ever: so this advert (which is basically a 30 second showreel of them both) is, for me, simply stunning!
Honda Accord: Cog This advert is probably responsible for me beginning to pay so much attention to adverts, and it also inspired my favourite college project, Die Skateboard (which I created for Sculpture during the 1st Year general course at Edinburgh College of Art in 2005/2006).
And finally of course, how could I forget that cheeky wee meerkat?
Andy Macpherson's debut film Pigment of Imagination was produced as part of his final year course work at Edinburgh College of Art for a BA (Hons) degree in Visual Communication (specialising in Animation). It is a 3 minute animated suspense film inspired by the work of Alfred Hitchcock (Vertigo, I Confess) and Jean-Luc Godard (Bande a Part, Alphaville), with many other eclectic influences helping to further enhance the unique style of the work.
The story follows a young woman searching for her lost beagle in a spooky old mansion, unaware of the psychotic artist lurking behind one of the many doors.
Produced over an 8 month period from November 2008-June 2009, the film utilised live-action referencing similar to A-Ha’s Take On Me music video, and was drawn with black ballpoint pen on A6 paper to create a vibrant and much-praised visual style. The drawn animation frames interact with watercolour backgrounds that are painted under Expressionist influence in order to enhance the unique visual style of the overall film and break away from the constraints of modern commercial animation. Further to this, digital shortcuts were kept to a bare minimum during the production of this film, and assistance from other people was restricted in order to keep the film looking as personal and as hand-made as possible. This makes the film look like a piece of traditional artwork and helps to counter the commercial industry’s reliance upon CGI for almost everything these days, which this director feels is ruining the magic of film and television.
A 30 second trailer for Pigment of Imagination is embedded below, and more of his video work is available to view on both his YouTube profile and Vimeo profile.
Pigment of Imagination premiered on Screen 1 of the Filmhouse cinema (Edinburgh), on Monday 15th June 2009 as part of the Edinburgh College of Art animation degree show 2009, and had a repeat screening on Tuesday 16th June 2009.
His full film (plus a small selection of portfolio work) was on display along with the work of another 12 animators and 400 other graduating artists as part of the Edinburgh College of Art 2009 degree show held from 13th-23rd June.
The full film will be available to view online late-2009...
UPDATE: Please click here to watch the full film on YouTube.
We finally had our big Animation premiere at the Filmhouse cinema in Edinburgh on Monday night. Despite having my debut film on show for everyone to see, the evening didn't feel particularly special to me, and when my film came on I felt really laid-back (despite expecting to be a nervous wreck)! I'm also disappointed that the duration of our film show was so short (I don't know exactly how it compares to other years, but it certainly seemed to be over much quicker than previous years)... Although I suppose it is better that it feels compact than for it to seem to be dragging on and on.
I'd like to thank everyone who has spoken to me about my film after seeing it (either at the Filmhouse, or at our degree show exhibition space in the Evolution House cafe); but I'd particularly like to thank Hazel Leszczynska because she is the only one so far to have given me some criticism (and it isn't like I didn't try to get people to say bad things)! My preference for criticism may seem odd to many people (particularly those at ECA), but I strongly believe that you can learn/improve a lot more from criticism than from positive comments... After all if you only ever hear about the same old good things then you are less aware of what people don't like/understand, and are therefore going to find it harder to mitigate in your future work.
It is a series of illustrations based upon Dillon's observations from a 10 year teaching career at the Hussain School of Art in Philadelphia, and although several of the stereotypes are strongly based on American culture, I found that much of the stereotypes still apply to the students that I've encountered in Britain; so in my opinion it is worth publicizing here...
