Personal Evaluation

Unit x has been very different from any other project I have done. I have never really been involved in a project that is so group based and has huge emphasis on collaborating with other people one our course. I was very lucky that I had such a good group who were very keen to do well on this project. There are pros and cons when working in a group. 
The pros I found were that you never run out of ideas because when one person says on thing that triggers some on else to come up with a different idea. We found this in our group,we had too many ideas to go from, so this can also be seen as a con too. when you have too many ideas it makes it hard for a group to decide on just one. One of the biggest pros I have found is that I worked a lot harder in a group. Working on my own I have a tendency of being more lazy and only having myself to blame if I do not it. However in a group if you don't turn up to group meeting, your not only letting your self down but others. This has given me the push I needed all year to get up earlier get more things done during the course of the project instead of doing everything really last minute. I can see this could be really positive for the projects to come. Another Pro is that no one has the same textiles skills and everyone has different strength so we had a wide range of samples through out our project. However one of the disadvantages our group had is that none of us are very experienced digitally and we had to have a digital outcome, which brought us all out of our comfort zone. 

When we found out our digital outcome was going to be shown at Museum of Science and Industry we wanted to really impress our audience so decided to make a short film, which none of us had any previous experience with. We rented out equipment from the AV store got a lighting induction and had a day tutorial session on how to use a camera. It was tough for us to know what to do and now look back at it i realise how we could have improved. When you are filming you really need to have a clear plan of what you are going to film, so a story border is key. We had so many different ideas we did not know which direction to go in and we wanted to include everyone's work in it. This was a something I have learnt from we should have homed in on the best pieces of film we had done and worked with that instead of trying to fit everything in. I have learnt a lot of different skills on imovie which i think i will use in more projects.

I feel our final film is successful and hopefully the audience will get a sense of what we are try to portray however I think we had better footage we could have worked with but it did not include everyones work. This is something i am going to take with me if i use film again. 

Projections on Vincent

The second session we had with Vincent was a lot more successful then the first, the colours of our samples were brighter and bolder. We combined all our samples and the big drawing we had done to project on to his bare chest and see what different body textures it would create. These images just look amazing by themselves each one is so interesting and has so much texture to it. 

Hidden in the jacket

I had brought a jacket for all the samples to be projected on at the beginning of project and decided i wanted to create an embrodiary sample hidden inside the jacket that looked like the inside of the body. Connecting all of the different ideas we had been looking at. 

The sample turned out better then i expected except I put the sample a bit tooo far in the jacket so you could not seen it at all when the jacket is being worn, it is hidden to the extreme. 

Drawing

The drawing day was very successful, there was a real sense of team work between Grace, Lamia, Sophie and I. Creating a drawing based on our samples and the brick work of Manchester, Making us form a variety of different marks on the page. Eventhough, everyone had their own individual style the drawings as a whole worked really well. 

Dissolving onto the body

I experimented with small dissolvable samples and see what they would look like dissolving on the chest.

I found these piece not as successful as the group dissolvable session but it was intriguing to see how they changed and the dissolvable material at the end looked like grease on the body

Projections on the inside

Grace and I experimented with trying to project onto the inside of the shirt today going back to our intiual idea of 'hidden gem' projecting everyones new samples on the inside of a shirt giving the illusion to the audience that it is stitched into the inside.

This pieces were very successful and created really intriguing shapes on the garments. I would like to use this idea possibly again in another project. 

Dissolvable sample stop motion

Learning how to use imove I experimented with using stills of a sample I hand done and bringing it into imovie to create a short stop motion film. The sample was a hand embroidered piece slowly growing. The embroidery sample was inspired by the inside of the body using different embroidery techniques. 

FILM

There are so many parts of the filming process that Grace and I were discussing that we need to think about:


Location
Story board
Colour palette(filters)use dye samples
Colour/ Black and white
Lighting
Sound




All these parts are very key. Location wise we are using what is around us red bricked Manchester! There are so many contrasting area from the northern quarter to spinning fields to the curry mile. It will also look different what time of day we film it the day antagonisting the night. The story board is planning the film down to every last shot that is shown. Getting a variety of different angles, close up and distant shots making sure the film has variety and keeps the viewer interested. 

Colour Filters are not often uses in many films but in artistic films to create a different atmosphere or give an illustion to the viewer for example the weather. A recent film that just came out 'Hunky dory' was set in the hottest summer in England 1976 so uses a yellow filter through out the film make it seem hot, shown below.This also links with whether you want the film in colour or black and white. Colour and different coloured filters can work. However black and white and colour filters highlight the different colours making it stand out.  

Lighting can change the atmosphere of the film giving it an eerie or a normal feel. This can be seen in the music video below it is very simple but lighting gives it edge, the sound complements the lighting in this music video. In a lot of the fashion films they have a simple sound and a big beat to change the image. The sound can often make or break a film. 

Here are some example of songs that i have been looking at that are slow but have a beat which i feel complements our project title 'slow is beautiful'. 


James blake -The wilhelm scream
            -Fall creek boy choir (Bon Iver)


Bon Iver - Wood
         


James Woon - Secondbreath 
           - Street


The Horros - Still life 
           - Endless blue
           - Ocean burning

Gil ScottHeron- Jamie xx- Home
                       - I'll take care of you


The Kills - Tape song


Radiohead - Lotus flower (seen above music video)


Little Dragon - Brush the heat


Crystal castle - Violent dreams


Ratatat - Tropicana

Samples used in projecting session second time

It was so interested looking at the inside of bodys that i feel it inspired my samples they look like organisms that would be seen inside the body, so therefore it was very interesting to see them projected on the outside of emma's body and onto garements. 

Our samples all link really well but are very different and reflect each of us which is so key when working in a group. It shows we work well together but have our own individual stamp!

Garment Ideas

Grace and I were discussing possibly not making a garment but an element of one as shown below by the embrodiery designer Scott Ramsay kyle. We all have different strenghths in textiles so using that to our advantage we could create something that was a collaboration but had our own unique stamp on it. This is just an Idea. 

However the idea of hiding stuff in a garment so the orginial idea we had of buy old vintage and charity shop clothes and stitching, printing, lazer cutting etc bit of Manchester or even parts of the body like veins which I have started looking at and have found very interesting. 

We have so many great ideas we just need to decided which one would be the most effective and possible to complete as well as showing it through film.

  

Iris Van herpen

I looked at her when I was doing the 3D workshop and found this film on a really cool site called Sex Mode and Digestion. It is a really weird and quite freaky film but you can’t look away. Here clothing is insane and pushes the boundaries of fashion. Her work also has a body feel to is mimicking the skeleton and focusing on complementing the form

I cant put the film up but here is the link to it

http://www.smd-mag.com/en/2011/09/30/iris-van-herpen/



However there is a film by the same guy that i could access on youtube which looks at milk





Zombie Boy

I was just researching further on the internet about the body and veins as I feel this would be quite an interesting way to make a garment that is actually the veins of a body.  I came across this insane guy known as ‘zombie boy’ who has had his whole body tattooed like a skeleton even his head has a brain on it. He has become a household name in the fashion industry as no one has seen anything quite like him. He appeared in this fashion show by MUGLER called ‘anatomy of change’.  He is filmed with just a simple piece of black chiffon fabric blowing over his body and it looks so amazing just seeing elements of his skeleton figure.

Here is a video of the same guy ‘zombie boy’ being used for a foundation advert. He is covered with foundation and reveals parts of his self. Taking a layer of skin away to reveal his skeleton (his real skin) I prefer the vein idea in my previous post with the jacket but the story about this guy is so fascinating. Made me think of every garment could be a layer of something and slowly reveal the last layer as your body as if the body was slowly decomposing through each piece of clothing.Slowely but beautifully.   

Samples inspired by the body

Similar to Gunther Von Hagens work with veins. The samples have organ like qualities. 'Hidden gems' doesnt have too just reflect the inside of Manchester It could reflect the inside of the body. This element could also be links to 'slow is beautiful'  ageing you slowly get older and your veins become more excentuated.

Human Veins

The scientist/artist Gunther von hagens is the creator of body worlds. He invented a technique which can preserve the biological tissue called plastination. These images are his creation. I in fact get quite sick when I look at blood and even though I know these pictures are of real blood, they are so beautiful I can take my eyes of them. I want to do some studies of these in my sketch book.