Collaboration: Character Design - The Granny

Makeup/Accessories/Details

Glasses No. 1

Hairstyles

Accessories

Glasses No. 2

Combined Elements

Toolkit 2 // Pipeline 1: Head Modelling Part 3 - Rough Blocking Continued

Perspectives: 5 Reasons Why Funny Games is Postmodern

1: The film challenges the ideological genre of horror films. The director Michael Haneke draws the audience in but deviates the expectation of the horror genre. In the horror genre the viewer is expected to see the most brutal scenes, Haneke has deconstructed and flipped this making the most macabre parts of the film unimportant to its understanding showing it as an anti-horror horror film. A loud gunshot is heard but shown while one of the Antagonists Paul is seen casually making a sandwich.

2: Haneke appropriated his own film as the original was German, Haneke remade it shot for shot for the American audience with American actors.

3: Heneke also breaks the boundaries of horror genre with the set design and costumes, usually we are familiar with the antagonists wearing dark colours and the set reflecting the scenes which unfold in horror with dark hues prevalent, however Paul and Peter the main protagonists are seen wearing white which represents purity and innocence while the house is also of light colours.

4: Parts of the film are non linear and fragmented as Paul and Peter make a bet with the family that they will be dead or alive before sunset, Paul turns to the camera and asks the viewer "who are you betting on". Paul and Peter are also seen towards the end of film dictating the pastiched way in which the horror genre is structured saying"struggle is boring" and "we want a real ending with a plausible plot". The most unfathomable scene in the film is after the mother Ann shoots Peter and then Paul picks up the remote to the TV and rewinds the whole scene to revert back to before her grabbing the gun to which he then now knows to reach for it before she gets the change to kill his sidekick Peter.

5: Funny Games is a simulacra of film. The ending sees Paul and Peter saying "But isn’t fiction real" “Why?” “Well you can see it in the movie, right?” fiction is described as not being real but if our viewing of something is the only connection to the outside world, and if both “fiction” and “reality” can be seen, how can someone distinguish between them?. speaking of the self referral parts of Funny Games where Paul speaks to the camera Haneke describes "It allowed me to understand illusion intellectually.”

Perspectives Lecture 6: Key words

Normativity

Concerns what we should or ought to do and our evaluations of things or states of affairs

Binary opposition

A binary opposition is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning. 

examples include-  

White/Black

Straight/Gay

Rich/Poor

Healthy/Unhealthy

Fat/Thing

The tendency to dissolve binary categories and expose their arbitrary cultural co-dependency is associated with postmodernism.

Deconstruction 

To “deconstruct” is not the same as to destroy. Deconstruction attempts to undo logical contradictions, to overturn rigid conceptual oppositions while releasing new concepts and meanings that could not be included in the old system. 

Différance

Différance is an attempt to conjoin the differing and deferring aspects involved in arche-writing (an original form of language which is not derived from speech)  in a term that itself plays upon the distinction between the audible and the written. 

Derrida finds the opposition between “speech” and “writing.” This binary logic functions in an illicit way to establish speech as the means of giving “presence” to the world, while writing is deemed derivative and inferior. 

Reinscribe

Establish or rename in a new and especially stronger form or context.

Cognitive dissonance 

Having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially relating to behavioural decisions and attitude change.

Toolkit 2: Life Drawing Session 6

Collaboration: Character Design Sketches - The Granny

Three Act Structure in Avatar: Review

Avatar Poster

Avatar directed by James Cameron follows the three act structure in telling the story of how the protagonist Jake Sully goes on the Hero's Journey.  Jake leaves the mundane human world and travels to Pandora showing the obstacles he faces along with the final resolution.

"The 3-act structure is an old principle widely adhered to in storytelling today. It can be found in plays, poetry, novels, comic books, short stories, video games, and the movies. It was present in the novels of Conan Doyle, the plays of Shakespeare, the fables of Aesop, the poetry of Aristotle, and the films of Hitchcock. It’s older than Greek dramaturgy. Hollywood and Broadway use it well. It’s irrefutable and bullet-proof" (Moura, G 2014)

Jake is introduced to the story as a veteran who is a paraplegic. His twin brothers Avatar was created which is a duplicate of the Blue skinned Alien like hunters gatherers called the Na'vi that roam Pandora. Jake travels to Pandora and soon starts to feel one with the Na'vi as he is seen as one of their own and is treated as such, gaining their loyalty and learning the lay of the lay of the land

The Na'vi

The second act showing the obstacles that Jake faces are when he starts to feel more comfortable in the Pandora universe rather than earth as he is loyal to the Na'vi the military that he is supposed to be working for are out to destroy the Pandora universe and all the creatures, plants and life that resides in the technicolour world. The whole objective of the military is to take a precious source of energy that is abundant in pandora. 

War is the conflict that Jake now faces as the antagonist Colonel Miles Quaritch is violent and aggressive and sends flying however crafts equipped with missiles to bomb the dreamlike world as he cannot fathom getting the source of energy without killing everything in his path.  
"Now we’ve been thrust into Act II (film-speak for Parts 2 and 3 of the equivalent novelistic storytelling model, comprising the middle 50% of the total length), where the story is no longer in set-up mode, it’s in response mode.  The context of everything Jake does until the Mid-Point will be his reaction to his new quest in the face of the obstacles placed before him." (Storyfix.com, 2017)

The third act sees the resolution and climax to the obstacles that Jake has had to face. Many of Jakes friends who were in the military decided to fight along side him as they repelled the barbaric brutality that Quaritch has put in place against Pandora and many of them have paid with their lives. The ending sees Jake almost dying but manages to win the battle against the military and Quaritch who is killed. Jake's human body is laid at the tree of souls where his life form is permanently transformed into his Avatar so that he can truly be one with the Na'vi and Pandora. 

Final Scene

Bibliography

Storyfix.com. (2017). Deconstructing Avatar: Act II (The First Half Up to the Mid-Point) - Storyfix.com. [online] 

Available at: http://storyfix.com/deconstructing-avatar-act-ii-the-first-half-up-to-the-mid-point [Accessed 22 Oct. 2017].

Moura, G. (2014). The Three-Act Structure. [online] Elementsofcinema.com. 

Available at: http://www.elementsofcinema.com/screenwriting/three-act-structure/ 

[Accessed 16 Oct. 2017].

Illustration List

[image] "Avatar Poster" Available at: https://www.europosters.eu/posters/avatar-limited-ed-one-sheet-sun-v13494. 

[Accessed 22 Oct. 2017].

Anon, (2017). "Final Scene" [image] Available at: http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/File:Jake_stays_on_Pandora_forever.jpg 

[Accessed 22 Oct. 2017].

Anon, (2017)."The Na'vi" [image] Available at: https://moviepilot.com/posts/3755046 

[Accessed 22 Oct. 2017].

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Photos from The Battle of Hastings reenactment

Perspectives: 5 Reasons Why Moulin Rouge is Postmodern

1: The film appropriates many pop songs and mashes them together in a bricolage of telling the story of the characters emotions through the lyrics of the songs. Everything from David Bowie, Madonna and Nirvana is heard.

2: The films storytelling is fragmented with a non linear narrative. The start of moulin Rouge has very quick edits with fast past fades blending the different cuts into one. The main protagonist Christian tells the story at the start of how his one true love Satine died, setting up the viewer for what will entail making it seem almost dream like as the whole film is played out from Christians memories.

3: The film is a pastiche of many different genres, not just musical but also a mash up of comedy with drama. The more surreal elements of the film such as the singing moon, and Kylie Minogue as a flying fairy give a sense of a whimsical fantasy genre.

4: The overall set design of Moulin rouge is a feast for the eyes with many different styles juxtaposed together, 19th century Paris nightclub scene, mixed with can-can and Indian design influences are all prevalent with a lustful red denoting the romance of Moulin Rouge.

5: Moulin Rouge also shows signs of a show within a show telling the audience that the show must go as they try to perfect the show "Spectacular Spectacular"
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Perspectives Lecture 5: Key Words

The Canon

Refers to a classification of literature or art. It is a term used widely to refer to a group of literary works or art that are considered the most important of a particular time period or place which is established by critics.

Dead White European male (DWEM)

A writer, philosopher, or other significant figure whose importance and talents may have been exaggerated by virtue of his belonging to a historically dominant gender and ethnic group.

Phallocentricism

Phallocentrism concentrates on the idea that masculinity is the central focus and source of power and authority.

Eurocentricism

Eurocentrism is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing emphasis on European (and, generally, Western) concerns, culture and values at the expense of those of other cultures. 

PostColonism

The consequence of exploitation of native people and its lands.

Multiculturalism

 The support of many different distinct cultural or ethnic groups within a society.

Feminism

A patron for Woman's rights which supports equality between both sexes

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Maya: Lighting & Rendering In Arnold with standard surface shader

Toolkit 2: Life Drawing - Session 5

Toolkit 2: Character Design - Eerie Theatre Thumbnails

Toolkit 2: Character Design - Kitten Designs

Toolkit 2// Character Design: Lesson 2 influence map

Toolkit 2 // Pipeline 1: Head Modelling Part 2 - Rough Blocking

Toolkit 2 // Pipeline 1: Head Modelling Part 1- Preparation

Perspectives: Sherrie Levine

Sherrie Levine

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a group of conceptual artists—including Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, and Sherrie Levine—known as the Pictures generation, began using photography along with appropriation techniques to scrutinise the strategies of visual representation. In 1981, while many of her coevals got their inspiration from everyday life images and the mass media, Levine began re-photographing abstracting or digitising reproductions of photographs by canonical male modernist photographers like Edward Weston, Walker Evans, and Alexander Rodchenko. Levine says "I want to put a picture on top of a picture, This makes for times when both disappear and other times when they’re both visible.” Sherrie Levine

(Left) Walker Evans,"Alabama Cotton Tenant Farmer Wife," 1936

(Right) Sherrie Levine, "Untitled" (After Walker Evans) 1979 

Levine has injected herself into the heroic male dominated world of photography. As a woman Levine is appropriating around the critique of art with a feministic point of view, adding a parasite meaning. Levine is using a postmodern manoeuvre to bring the discussion around to what is art? by removing the boundaries of expectations. 

"I try to make art which celebrates doubt and uncertainty. Which provokes answers but doesn’t give them. Which withholds absolute meaning by incorporating parasite meanings. Which suspends meaning while perpetually dispatching you toward interpretation, urging you beyond dogmatism, beyond doctrine, beyond ideology, beyond authority." Sherrie Levine  

Marcel Duchamp - Fountain 1917,
Right Sherrie Levine, Fountain (After Marcel Duchamp: A.P.), 1991

Marcel Duchamp's Fountain can be considered as one of the most postmodern pieces there is as he is denoting that art doesn't have to have a meaning or skill behind it, art can be something as mundane as a toilet if i say it is. Levine has interpreted herself as a parasite, turning something as tedious as a toilet into something which looks like it costs millions, also critiquing the market.

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