Philips Cinema 21:9's film Carousel...

Talking about tableaux vivants, today, reminded me of a short sequence i had seen in a 50 Cent video. i remember reading that it was part of a Phillips commercial, but i've never got round to watching the whole thing. Today i decided to have a look and relised that it's very much like one big tableau vivant style setup. As we see the camera pan around the surrounding environment, we see everything moving slightly, either that or our eyes deceive us, and it seems like film's response to a tableau vivant style. I absolutely love it, it's like one big theatrical stage, all shot at once. It was directed by Adam Berg and was awarded the Cannes - Lion 2009 GRAND PRIX.

So check it out, it's well worth watching... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m-uD0u7QD0

And if you were wondering how they made it, here's the scene again with some short intervening commentay... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0MjC4mh0aw

Enjoy!

Lecture #1... Tableaux Vivants...

So we had our first lecture for unit 3 today and Phil explained the brief. I was glad i did my research before this brief because it helped me to understand everything he was talking about. It was a good insight into the different artists we could research into and i felt there was a lot of diferent varities of work to look at. Phil wants us to focus on ambiguity for this unit to get the best out of our work. He also suggested using Gregory Crewdson's work as a big influence as he is one of modern tableau vivant's major successes. I particularly like his work in Twilight and Beneath the Roses as i feel this is his more eerie peices, but i love the way his characters seem to be in a trance. But, i'll write more about Crewdson when i look into more of his work. Phil also told us that the contradiction in this unit would be that we wouldn't be able to create humans, therefore we would need to focus our attention on a piece of work like Jeff Wall's, Destroyed Room. I'm hoping to look into as many of these artists as possible before wednesday, so expect a fair few posts between now and then. But a very insightive lecture today, and something i've never heard much about before, so everything was new to me.

Fine Art Photography... Gregory Crewdson Biography...

Gregory Crewdson was born on the 26th September, 1962 in Brooklyn, New York. In 1985 he received a BA in State University of New York. 3 Years later he received an MFA from Yale School of Art, Yale University. He has since taught at the State University of New York, Sarah Lawrence College, Cooper Union, Vassar College and is now a professor at Yale University. He's been teaching since 1988 right up to the present day. Crewdson is represented in New York at the Luhring Augustine Gallery and in London at White Cube. His books include Hover, Twilight, Gregory Crewdson 1985-2005, Fireflies, and Beneath the Roses. He has also won awards like The Aaron Siskind Fellowship Award, Visual Artists Fellowship Award, and Skowhegan Medal for Photography.

History of Tableaux Vivants...

So i decided to look into the history of tableaux vivants to get a better understanding of what this unit is about. I particularly tried to look into the different pathways it brought me down to get a broadened knowledge of what tableaux vivants is and its background.

The phrase and practice possibly began in medieval liturgical dramas such as the Golden Mass, where on special occasions a mass was punctuated by short dramatic scenes and tableaus.

Liturgical drama is also known as religious drama. In its Christian contexts, it originates from the mass itself, and usually presents a fairly complex ritual that includes theatrical elements. Christian tradition saw religious drama stem out of liturgy at the end of the Middle Ages (mostly the 15th century) in the form of mystery plays.

Mystery plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. Medieval mystery plays focused on the representation of bible stories in churches as tableaux with accompanying antiphonal song. They developed from the 10th to the 16th century, reaching the height of their popularity in the 15th century, before being rendered absolute by the rise of professional theatre.

Tableaux has also been used as part of passion plays, in religion, to depict the passion of christ: the trial, suffering and death of Jesus Christ. Participants play the roles of the characters within this story to represent the events.

Tableaux was also a major feature of festivities for royal weddings, coronations and royal entries into cities. Often the actors imitated statues, much in the way of modern street entertainers, but inlarger groups, and mounted on stands along the main procession.

Before film, radio and television, tableaux vivants were popular forms of entertainment. It was sometimes used to recreate paintings "on stage", based on an etching or sketch of a painting. This was before the age of colour reproduction of images.

English censorship often forbade actresses to move when nude or semi-nude on stage, so tableaux vivants also had a place in presenting risque entertainment at special shows. In the nineteenth century they took such titles as "Nymths Bathing" and "Dana the Huntress." Such entertainment was also seen at fairground shows. But the shows largely died out by the 1970's.

Tableaux vivants were also performed as the basis for school nativity plays in England during the Victorian period. Now the custom is only practiced in a single English school, Loughborough High School (the oldest all girl school in England, founded in 1850.)

In the early years f the 20th century the German dancer Olga Desmond caused scandals with her "Evenings of Beauty" in which she posed nude in "living pictures," imitating classical works of art.

A tableux vivant-style production called the Pageant of the Masters has been held in Laguna Beach, California every summer since 1933 (except four years during world war 2). It involves hundreds of volunteers from the surrounding area and attracts over a hundred thousand visitors anually. The festival recreates famous works of art on stage. nother tableaux vivant-style production called Pageant of our Lord has been held in Rolling Hills Estates, California every spring since 1985. This production differs only in that its focus is exclusively on the life of Jesus Christ as told through religious arts of work.

In photography tableau vivant was an approach to picture-makig taken up by pioneers of fine art photography in the 1840's. It has also influenced current trends in photocompositing. It has also been used in art films, as a more expressionistic and experimental art form.

Unit 3: Environment Brief... Starting My Research

So we received our brief for unit 3 in the crit on Friday and no matter how many times i read it, i still couldn't quite grasp what it was about. I understood that it was similar to the unit before and that we would combine it with our Maya work, but some of the words were new to me. So after i finished my Maya work today, i decided to get straight on with this new unit and do a bit of background research. I firstly identified and underlined any words in the brief which i didn't understand. I also underlined any key names and details that i could use as kewords when researching.

The first word i looked into the meaning of was tableaux vivants or tableau vivant for non-plural. Most people would guess that it's a French word and it actually means "living picture." it describe's a group of suitably costumed 'actors,' carefully positioned and often theatrically lit. The people do not move or speak, marrying the art forms of stage with those of painting/photography.

After that i looked into what 'The Uncanny' was. I established that it was a Freudian concept used to identify an instance where something can be familiar, yet foreign at the same time, resulting in an uncomfortably strange feeling. it often creates cognotive dissonance within a subject due to the nature of being attracted to, yet repulsed by an object at the same time. This often leads to a rejection of the object, as we would rather reject than rationalize.

As cognotive dissonance was brought into the last meaning, i needed to find out what it meant. I soon learned that it's a theory, used in social psychology, which gives an uncomfortable feeling when holding two contradictory ideas at the same time. It normally occurs when a person perceives a logical inconsistency among their cognitions. This happens when one idea implies the opposite of another. An example would be the belief of animal rights interpreted with eating meat or wearing fur. This contradiction could lead to experiencing negative emotional states, also known as dissonance.

I now feel i have a better understanding of the brief, although i have also looked into the history of tableaux vivants to make sure i have the best possible understanding before Phil's lecture on Tomorrow.

Unit 2: Space Crit Presentation and End of Unit...

So we had our crit on Friday and I must say that Phil came up with some reasonable feedback, although if there weren't s many people in our class, i'd like to think i would have received some more. I was fairly happy with the first piece and like Phil said, the second needs a focal point (the plants) and the last one was the best idea of all (i didn't execute it well). I was quite impressed with time management on the last unit, as i went home the weekend before crit for my birthday, so i had to make sure i was ahead of schedule to make up for the lost time. I felt i really pushed myself on this uniot, especially the blog, but again i feel that my final products let me down. I'm going to keep pushing myself this unit, making sure i keep up the standards of my blog, but also doing more research, prepatory ideas and designs, and this should hopefully improve my final products. I've also taking all the feedback on board to allow me to develop and improve even further on the next unit. I've really enjoyed this unit because i've learned a lot and i can't wait to combine it with the maya work on the next project.

Maya Tutorials... The Street - Week 4...

So i've finally finished the street and i must say it was well worth the time and effort that i put in. It was a big jump from the likes of a fan, magnifying glass and toaster. Although, i spent most of my time complaining about problems with extruding and the UV texture mapping, i actually enjoyed this tutorial because i feel i've learnt so much. Not only have i learned to correct some of my problems and mistakes, i have learned more tools which is helpg e get used to the softwae. I actually feel like i could start to model and create my own objects with the software now, using the basic tool s and techniques Alan has already taught us in the space of only 8 weeks. This was a tricky and time consuming tutorial, but well worth it. Keep 'em coming Alan...

Maya Tutiorials... The Street - Week 3...

Well I finished this over a week, so i'm not quite sure why i haven't posted it yet, but here it is. Not many issues to talk about, other than a few problems with extruding and UV texture mapping, but nothing unusual there. Its seems a distant memory to the final image which makes this image on its own loo vaguely average. Athough, it did take the longest to make out of everything.

Concept Artists Research... Stanley Lau...

The other concept artist whose work i really fell in love with was Stanley Lau, it seemed much more anime like. Loking at his work i can see a similarity to final fantasy, which is possibly why it interested me so much, but i feel his work is restricted to the gaming and animation world, not so much of a filmic style. I love his vibrant shades and colours, as well as the futuristic details in his work. This is a completely different style to Andrew Jones but is visually pleasing.

Concept Artists Research... Andrew "Android" Jones...

When I first got the brief i was going home for the weekend, so while i was waiting i went into WH Smiths to see if i could find any concept art magazines. I conveniently found a magazine which listed a lot of concept artist' names. Insted of buying the magazine, i decided i would copy the names onto my phone and check some of the artists out on my way home. I particularly love Andrew "Android" Jones' work, his style seemed so unique and i loved the way his images were so spooky. I also loved the patterns he used and he detail that he included in his work.

Life Drawing... Lesson 6...

I think there was a sigh of relief when we were told that we have a break from life drawing, particularly because it was starting to get on my nerves. It feels like i'm developing slowly, but it all seems quite a slow and definitely painful process. Standing up for so long is starting to kill my back and i have to keep taking breaks, but i'm definitely learning lots from the experience.

Life Drawing... Lesson 5...

I'm definitely developing with the life drawing, but i'm still struggling with it. I think my main problem is geeting the body parts in scale with each other. i'm gonna need to but some more pencils too, i seem to be going through them soooo quick.

Alien Essay Research... Alien Movie Novel...

This book wasn't very helpful when coming to right the essay, but it was interesting to see the shots from the film and it would have come in handy if i needed to use specific shots for the essay. Although i still feel it woukd be better just watching the film than looking through this book because the book just doesn't have the same effect.

Alien Essay Research... The Book of Alien...

This book was the most helpful when writing my essay because it gave loads of information on the production design of Alien and used illustrations of concept art too. I particularly liked the way it went into a lot of detail about the early developments of the script right through to the production stages of the sets and Aliens. This book had everything i could want when researching about the production design and i could have got all the information from this book alone, if needed to. I learnt so much about lien from this book and there was a lot of information i didn't know about. This is definitely worth a read as it tells you how they created this film without much CGI at all, it still amazes me that hardly any was used.

Alien Essay Research... H.R. Giger's Necronomicon...

In one of the books i read, it talked about how much H.R. Giger influenced the film and that the script itself was based on a "Giger monster." I also read that the when they struggled to find a design for the Alien, until Dan O'bannon showed Ridley Scott some of Giger's work. Scott was stunned by Giger's remarable picture named Necronomicon, which was when Giger was brought onto the team. Necronomicon could best be described as the Alien's second cousin. I thought it would be useful to look at Giger's Necronomicon book so i could see relevant examples of his work that related to the design on the Alien and showed how the idea originated. I don't think this book is for the faint hearted, but it is definitely worth checking out. I find his images completely disturbing, but at the same time they never fail to amaze me. Although, i can't help but think that the man should get some help.

Alien Essay Research... David Thomson on The Alien Quartet...

I got this book with a bunch of others when i went to the library in search of as many books about Alien as i could find. I thought it would be a good idea to collect as many books as possible to broaden my knowledge of the film, specifically its production design. I only read the introductuctory chapter of this book, which was insightful into how the film came about, but it did start to ramble on with a lot of figures and numbers which were irrelevant to this essay. That's where i stopped. I particularly liked the way the introductory chapter was worded though, i drew me in with its questions and i just had to know the answers.

Concept Design 3... Development...

This is juat some of the stages of my development in creating the 3rd final concept design. I started by adding outlines and block colours, before using light and shade to give the image more realism and life. Although, i don't feel the light has helped much in making the machines fit in with the rest of the image.

Concept Design 2... Development...

This is just the stages of development for my second final design. Similar to the other two, i started by creating the ideal composition using outlines. then used block colours to fill them in, before adding light shade and any other textures and details. I quite like the way this looks, although it feels a bit too plain and could do with a focal point.

The First Men on the Moon... Final Concept Design 3...

So this is the final image and i'm glad to get them out the way. I've really enjoyed this unit, as i've found the graphics tablets a great way of bringing the images to life. I'm pleased with my first image, but not so much the second and third. But it's probably because i spent a ot longer on the first concept. I feel the second one is a bit too plain and the machines in the third one still look a little flat. Overall, for my first attempt on a graphics tablet, i am fairly pleased and can't wait to get using one again to improve the quality of my work.

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover...

When Phil said this was a film based around theatre and tragedy stories, i couldn't help but think about Shakespeare and how much i hated reading it at school. I found it quite hard to get into this film because of the repetitiveness and the only reason i wanted to keep watching it was because of the "villain", who played the part really well. Overall, i still can't decide whether or not i enjoyed this film, i suppose i liked the more violent and vegance part to the story , but i didn't enjoy the romance part of it.

The First Men on the Moon... Concept Design 3 Development...

This is the last concept design i'm working on. I'm happy with the cavern side of it and theway the light and shade creates a lot of depth, but the machines need to fit in with the rest of the design.hey're looking at little flat and cartoon-like. This is something i need to work on to make the image better quality.

The First Men on the Moon... Final Concept Design 2...

I'm not too happy with this at the moment, so i may go back and make a few changes. But as it stands, this is the final piece. If i had the chance i'd go back and make the design more moon like, but as i read the text, i felt it described something that looked like mars more than the moon. i do like the vegetation, but i feel the rest of the image is looking a bit plain. Composotionally, it works, but not as well as the first concept design, that had a lot more depth to it. Overall, i'm fairly pleased, but again, many improvements could be made.

The First Men on the Moon... Final Concept Design 1...

This is my final concept for my first environment, unless i decide to go back and make a few changes and tweaak it a little. 'm really pleased with the end product because there was a moment in the middle of the design where i couldn't quite figure out where i was going with this one. With some great help from Phil i was able to create a really good composition which set me up for the rest of the design. i tried to create a fantasy feel to this one, with the creatures tail and the fungi, which seems quite magical. Overall i'm happy with this as a start, although there's definitely improvements that could be made.

The First Men in the Moon... Environment 1 - Concept with creature

Just an update...

Just an update... I haven't been posting much on my blog recently, but it's not due to a lack of hard work. I've currently finished the second week of Maya tutorials and i'm about to start the third week tutorials during the week. I'm currently working on the both the perception and alien essays. I'm fairly happy with how the Alien essay is going, although i'm finding it hard to cut down what i'm writing and i keep going into irrelevant details and less analysis because of the in-depth research i got from the books i looked at. But as i read more into the making of Alien, im just completely amazed. As for my three concept designs, im continuing to develop them in the lessons on Friday and during next week i will look into the feedback Phil gave me to improve them. i particularly need to look into the narrative of the text more and do more general research into how certain elements of my designs should look based on cultural differences.

Edward Scissorhands...

Watching bits of Edward Scissorhands half asleep a few weeks ago was a completely different experience to watching the film the all the way through. I'm surprised i've never watched this film all the way through because i absolutely love it. Although, it didn't get me in the christmas spirit because it's my birthday first. I think it was the feel good factor to this film that i liked the most, it follows the type of film structure i usually enjoy. Just when you think everything's going well, life hits an all time low, which pretty much relates to real life situations. I like the way the house on the hill is contrasted to the 'perfect' suburban neighbourhood, just as Edward is in contrast to the people of the neighbourhood. This is a great fairytale not too disimilar from the story of Frankenstein. It seems as though Edward is accepted by everyone at first, because of his uniqueness. But as society progresses and people turn on him, Edward comes to terms with the idea that he was much better off on his own. I particularly liked the machines in the mansion because they were almost human-like and definitely a style we would associate with Tim Burton. I've never really got into Tim Burton's work, but i am well aware of its popularity.

Maya Tutiorials... The Street - Week 2...

The house is finally starting to take shape and it's really starting to look good at this stage. I have again come across problems with the UV mapping and extruding but i'm starting to learn how to solve them (seen as i've made the same mistakes so many times). I am slightly worried about coming to texture the whole street because i think there are still some problems with the UV texture mapping, but hopefully all will end well. I'm not looking forward to thenext set of videos, as they are mainly UV texture mapping, but hopefully they should help me, and i'll be better at it.