Month: October 2018

Greetings, world.

On this fine evening of the 24th October 2018, I stumbled upon this intriguing stop-motion advertisement!

This French advertisement titled ‘Ready Steady Cook’ endorses 2 new vegetables sold by the Bonduelle brand. The creatives behind this are named studio Les Canailles and they created this film just 2 years ago.

 

What drew me to this piece?

At first glance, it was definitely the bright consistently patterned thumbnail that attracted me to click on this particular video.

As I delved into this world of animated vegetables, I found that the use of  bold text, carefully arranged mushrooms and lively backgrounds was in fact, very enjoyable to watch!

The Music

Aside the from aesthetics, the upbeat tune also kept me engaged despite the language barrier. I am no professional when it comes to the French language, however I was still able to follow and understand the message this short was trying to convey.

The Pace

At 1 min 08 seconds, I would personally classify this as quite a lengthily advertisement.  However, due to the pacing and unpredictability of which vegetable was to come next, I found myself deeply engaged throughout without being bored.

Everything is moving very fast here. One second a purple onion appears, the next second this onion is already sliced.

I feel that the pace chosen was very fitting. Living in an era where everything is instant, I feel that the target audience would become bored had it been 1 min 8 seconds of slowly chopped up vegetables.

Conclusion

In my opinion, I think that Bonduelle Group made a fantastic choice in choosing Les Canailles to create this kind of advertisement. The style of this advertisement suggests to me that the Bonduelle is a company that don’t only sell vegetables, they also sell uniqueness, cleanliness and modernity.

If we take a look at their previous advertisements, we can quickly see the contrast. The film that advertises the company is a lot more classic (Bonduelle Groupe, 2014).

Moreover, their advertisements also extend to 3D animation. Here, we see  little baby corn on the cobs playing in the fields (Bonduelle Group, 2017).

After seeing the wide range of advertisements of Bonduelle, my personal taste still enjoys the brightly coloured stop-motion the most!

I hope you enjoy this as much as I did!

Until next time,

Katie.

 

References:

Studio Les canailles (2016). Ready to cook – Stop motion. Available at: https://vimeo.com/189434010 [Accessed 24 Oct. 2018].

Bonduelle Group (2017). Bonduelle TV commercials. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLP2xc__f8Q [Accessed 24 Oct. 2018].

Bonduelle Groupe (2014). Bonduelle Group. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGkjHF_DDUM [Accessed 24 Oct. 2018].

 

Good afternoon! 

This morning, I found my inspiration in the postbox! To my delight, a lovely pal of mine named Bethany had sent me a postcard from France after a visit to the great Musée de l’Orangerie! On this postcard, was none other than the artwork ‘Femme au chapeau blanc’ by Pablo Picasso.

 

This oil on canvas painting is translated as ‘The woman in the white hat’. This was not the first painting of Picasso’s that featured this white hat, and he had painted many women in this white hat before. However, it is speculated that the lady featured here is in fact his wife Olga (1891 – 1955).

Both her facial expression and body language indicate that she is deep in thought. I personally feel that the colours Picasso chose really complement the expressions conveyed here. Perhaps Picasso was trying to tell us the lady was lost in troubled or worrisome thoughts.

I decided to blog about this lovely piece of artwork today because I was really inspired by the aesthetic style! I love the brushstrokes and the palette of colours that Picasso has chosen. I particularly enjoy how Picasso has used these to create different textures too, ranging from skin to fabric. Both the tones and composition of the painting work really well  together in order to bring to life a calming and muted mood.

That is all for today!

Until then,

Katie

References:

Musee-orangerie.fr. (2018). Femme au chapeau blanc | Musée de l’Orangerie. [online] Available at: http://www.musee-orangerie.fr/fr/oeuvre/femme-au-chapeau-blanc [Accessed 18 Oct. 2018].

Picasso, P. (1921). Femma au chapeau blanc. [Oil on canvas] Nice: Musée de l’Orangerie.

 

 

Today’s inspiration stemmed from one of my favourite singers in the Korean music industry, known as IU.

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM0xDI5R50E

As I anticipated her new music video release BBIBBI (삐삐), I did not expect myself to be blogging about it the next day! However, from the very first second of the music video, I was hooked. It truly felt like I was enjoying a piece of art, with each second carefully crafted to create a groovy and alternative mood that perfectly fitted the melody.

I shall share with you a quick background on this song!

This song was released to commemorate the 25 year old singer’s 10th year anniversary since debut. The lyrics express an underlying message aimed at those who have invaded her life and privacy with negative critiques and false claims over the past 10 years.

Or as Billboard describes, this song is used to “playfully declare her independence as a human whose life and actions aren’t up for debate”. We see lyrics such as ‘Yellow C A R D’ indicating a warning. BBIBBI is also the sound of a pager in Korea, hence stating, if you cross this yellow line, it’s a violation beep.

As a dedicated fan of hers, this was a very interesting release. The singer has gone through her fair share of rough press, ranging from her openly sharing her struggles with the eating disorder bulimia to being caught up in plagiarism controversies over her music.

Despite those chapters, her music has always been of a cheerful nature. Although she did not write the lyrics of this particular song, as a fan, I am proud that she is at a stage where she can openly declare and even create art out of such issues.

The art in this music video:

Initially, what struck me the very most were the visuals. The use of vibrant colours and vintage props such as corded telephone boxes really gave the entire video an interesting theme; both classic and modern.

This is really interesting, as ‘vintage’ is becoming really trendy in recent years. We are seeing high-street clothing stores stock up on film cameras and polaroid cameras. Even fashion seems to be recycled from the 1980’s, as old clothes found in my mother’s wardrobe are strikingly similar to those sold in stores today. This is interesting for me, as I quite enjoy the media and fashion from the 1970s – 1990s. I feel like it’s a theme that I can also incorporate into my own work in terms of props, what characters wear and when in history stories may be based.

Moreover, we witnessed a few seconds of 2D animation in the video! After learning the basics of how to animate matter this week,  it was refreshing to be able to appreciate these animations in a way that I never did before.

The expressions displayed in the video, such as the subtle raise of one eyebrow gave the singer a sassy character which was also very striking, as this deviates from her day-to-day image. 

I chose to blog about this music video as I was inspired by the entire concept, mood and theme of the video and song. I feel like I can really bring these sparks of modernity mixed with classic themes into my own artwork!

I hope you enjoy these 3 minutes and 28 seconds as much as I did!

Until next time,

Katie.

 

 

Reference:

1theK (원더케이). (2018). [MV] IU(아이유) _ BBIBBI(삐삐). [Online Video]. 10 October 2018. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM0xDI5R50E. [Accessed: 11 October 2018].

Greetings,

On the 3rd October 2018, I  took part in creating my very first shadow puppet production. Our group created a scene which involved an evil magician who creates his own world and lastly, creates a companion. To his horror, this companion turns out to be a monster and eats all of the magician’s creation, as well as the magician himself.

What did the workshop entail?

The workshop involved brainstorming various concepts, characters and creating a scene as a group. We then moved onto character design and made our best efforts to ensure that the shadow puppet carried features that would represent the personality we were trying to convey. For example, giving the evil magician a long, pointy nose and sharp features in order to express to the audience that the evil magician is in fact an evil character. We then created the characters and progressed to search for a quiet location with adequate lighting to shoot the scene. Various sound effects were produced using voice.

In summary, it can be boiled down to the following stages:

• Brainstorming of ideas, characters, mood, concepts and sound.
• Character design with various visual features to portray certain personalities of the characters.
• Production of the characters and background.
• Filming in our chosen location as a team with each member carrying out various roles.

Highlights from Feedback:

As this was my first time doing a live shadow-puppet show, there was a lot to learn! After gathering feedback from fellow peers as well as lecturers, I learned the importance of the following.

• Character design: I learned that each, tiny detail can be used to communicate a various message to the audience. For example, using pointy features to indicate an evil magician. Moreover, this also applied to the surroundings in the scene. Instead of using fluffy trees, we created dark, thin trees to create the darker mood.
• Materials: I learned that for shadow-puppet, we were not limited to card only. We used plastic bags to create a more ghost-like effect for the monster.
• Movement: I learned that not only could we move sideways across the stage, we could move the puppets away from the screen slowly to create a nice fade. From watching other team’s videos, I also learned that we could use camera movement to create a more realistic movement, or alternatively, we could make the background move. However, it was highlighted that we should ensure that the movement makes sense e.g. if the background is suggesting movement, one of the trees should not be still, as this may confuse the audience.

  

  

• Pace: We learned the importance of pace and movement in this workshop. As the magician was creating magic, it would have been better to have the magic appear at a faster pace, as this would make it more obvious to the audience that he was creating magic. A faster pace for such actions may also be more gripping and enjoyable for the audience to watch.
• Sound: I learned that we could experiment with different sounds, ranging from singing using our voices to tapping our fingers on a wooden table. The sound level could also be adjusted to create a more dramatic scene. For example, instead of producing loud noises throughout the entire scene, it may have been more effective to create softer sounds in anticipating scenes, and build those sounds up in more dramatic scenes, e.g. when the monster was eating the magician.
• Teamwork: It was great to listen to each member’s own creative ideas and merge them in order to create the most effective and interesting scene in the time given.