Cabinet of curiosity

What is a Cabinet of curiosity A Cabinet of curiosity is a collection of unique and unknown items. these were very popular between the 15th and 17th century, before the rise of cinema, film, photography and easy form of accessible transportation. Since they were the main and sometimes only way that people of lower classes could see things from other parts of the world. The cabinet of curiosity could also be used to tell a story or event. However this might not be clear to the viewer as it might only be recognisable by the maker of the Cabinet of curiosity.

Idea generation (mind map)

Idea generation 500 word explanation part1

• To start off my interest in fantasy started at childhood. It began with my disability putting me in a wheelchair this then led to kids at school picking on and bullying me. This then led to my social difficulties developing this then led to redeveloping escapism. (Escapism refers to a situation where someone constructs fantasy and make-believe worlds to escape from the hardships of real-life) This illness led me to have counselling sessions.

• Then as a back story I will look into the fantasy that interests me. We begin with Disney, after all Disney films I’ve seen. There are three main ones that have inspired me over the years. This would be the Jungle book, Peter Pan and the Lion King. The next set of animated films that inspire me the most were the DreamWorks films. Shrek, Kung Fu Panda and How to train your Dragon and its spin-offs ,TV series Dragon Riders of Berk. The two main film series I watched growing up were Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. These films are very popular with young people so I naturally got drawn into them. James Cameron’s Avatar was a film inspired me a lot in my graphic and animation field due to its state-of-the-art CGI and special effects it was also influenced by a long love of sci-fi. The three main sci-fi franchises I have enjoyed are Star Trek, Doctor Who and Star Wars. This sci-fi interest would also lead to me taking a great interest in many games such as Halo, Mass effect and Ratchet and Clank. …

Idea generation 500 word explanation part2

• Another thing that would inspire me to play games was how restraint I felt by my body. Games like Assassin’s Creed increase my escapism that I could imagine myself doing things such as running and jumping like the character in the game. Things I knew I was physically incapable of doing in real life.

• I first got into animation by watching the Disney films listed above. Also watching Saturday morning cartoons such as Looney Tunes on BBC and Transformers on ITV. My biggest inspiration was Scooby Doo which I got into while I was in St James’s Hospital having operations performed on my arm. It was also around this time I first got into comic books this was also inspired by Saturday morning cartoons of famous comic books such as Spiderman, X-Men and Batman. However I would not get fully into books until year seven. When we had an author who came to visit us called Peter J Murray. Who presented his book Mokee Joe which became the first full paperback book for me to both own and read. In secondary school I would listen to lots of audiobooks while doing homework. This would inspire me to read several book series such as Redwall, Narnia and Inheritance Cycle.

concept 1

• This is my first concept idea I came up with after receiving the project brief. It is a very simple idea of a normal box with colleges of images from the different medias listed above fixed to the sides.

Concept 2

• This is my second concept idea is a virtual repressentation. It was inspired by Dr who’s Tardis the way it worked was by spinning round on the spot then the doors opening to reveal a different theme of images.

Concept 3

• My third concept will return to a physically built piece of work. It was a simple scroll with some visual images on it that’s moved and changed as you rotate the handle.

Roller handle.

Concept 4• The 4th concept idea is

my final one. This was an animated piece based around the idea of the old film spinners. It will be made with a large hexagon with a couple of images placed on each face of the hexagon. It would then rotate at high-speed to give an illusion of the images moving and blending together.

Visualization sci fi

• This next slide shows a concept idea for the visual language. This would be used in my box. This is my sci-fi mood board it combines images of Star Trek, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Stargate and Andromeda.

Self criticization of work so far • To start by criticising my work so far I have come up with

a main theme for my project and four possible roots for it to take. I still am not clear on the visualisation and have not managed to understand how to use symbolic and metaphors to tell my story. I also feel that I might change the plan of this project a bit due to the fact I cannot in good faith say that. I am completely comfortable with diving into my troubled and in some cases painful childhood memories. For that reason I have spoken to my tutors about some of these problems mostly the metaphor and symbolic one and have this and have decided to do a section of in-depth research help me better metaphors and symbolisms in art “

Joseph Cornell• Joseph Cornell was not a sculptor, a

draftsman, or a painter. This internationally renowned modern artist never had professional training. He was first and foremost a collector. He loved to scour old book shops and secondhand stores of new York looking for souvenirs, theatrical memorabilia, old prints and photographs, music scores, and French literature.

• “http://www.josephcornellbox.com/lifeart.htm”

Cornell Family, c. 1915 Joseph Cornell Study Center,Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Why I'm researching Joseph Cornell

• I am researching Joseph Cornell due to his extensive use of boxes and his style of telling a story within these boxes. I hope to use these as inspirations to create a better cabinet of curiosity and making sure I can tell a decent story with in that cabinet.

Rene Magritte• “Belgian Surrealist painter. Born at

Lessines. Studied at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels 1916-18, and settled in Brussels. Made his living for a time by designing wallpaper and drawing fashion advertisements. Became very friendly with poets and writers such as Mesens, Goemans, Scutenaire and Nougé, who shared his interest in evoking mystery and were later the founders of the Belgian Surrealist group” “http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rene-magritte-1553”

Why I'm researching Rene Magritte

• I am researching Rene Magritte to help me get a better understanding of symbolism and methodology.

• I also researched him because a lot of his work is inspired by the idea of dreams and fantasies in the mind similar to what my project is based on.

Pink Floyd album covers

• Pink Floyd were a rock ‘n’ roll band in the 60s.

• Their album covers are very much about symbolism and methodology. Like using a man on fire from the wish you were here Album cover symbolises Alienation

• While the covers have been made by a number of different designers and artists. The visual language always has symbolism and methodology.

Research in to boxes and cabinets

• To help me better understand how to draw concepts and ideas of what the exterior of my Cabinet of curiosity look like. I have looked at several different boxes and cabinets in order to help me get a better idea of what my final piece might look like.

Result of the combined research

• After researching into the several different fields. I feel, I have a greater understanding of symbolism and methodology, as well as a good idea of how I want to design to look like in the animation.

Box concepts

• Above you can see several hand drawn concept ideas for what I want my boxes to look like for my animation. I hope to build one of these concept ideas in 3-D.

• These concepts were inspired by the research I did into boxes and cabinets see previous slides.

Limitations

• I would like to confess now that due to limitations in my design skills I am going to use photographs to create my animation. The two main reasons for this are as followed.

• Firstly I do not have a very good drawing skills which removes the possibility of using traditional hand drawn cell animation.

• Secondly I have not yet learned how to use Cinema 4D, so for the moment 3-D modelling animation is also not a good route to take.

Solving the problems

• Because of the problems I previously listed the technique I intend to use is photographs combined with After-Effects. This eradicates the animation problems as I mentioned before.

• I have also decided to make sure I do not require any physical practical work in this project due to my own physical limitations and time restraints.

Simplifying original project

• After speaking to one of my tutors about my project. I realised the main problem with it was time restrained and I only had two weeks left at this point.

• So to simplify the project down. I decided to tell a story. In my box based around sci-fi and the first sci-fi film I ever watched Star Wars by thinking of the first thing that came into my mind. Then writing it down and continuing the journey. By writing down the first thing that came into my head until I reached a dead end or it got too low to animate and would be shortened down.

The journey

Explaining the journey

• As shown on last slide the journey is nine things that are my first thoughts when I think about the previous item on the list.

• The way I intend to use this list is by getting a photograph of each item and a box and using after effects to fade the images of the items listed gradually following into the box the journey as shown on the previous slide.

Criticising journey

• My main criticism about the journey is the length of it while originally I had planned to do a long in-depth journey. Time restraints have forced me to do a journey of only nine different images of the thoughts I had about sci-fi.

• My second area criticism of the journey is that no one but me can understand it on its own. So I am not sure whether this piece will work or not. I guess only time will tell.

Storey boarding journey 1

• Continued on next slide

Storey boarding journey 2

• This is a storyboard of how I imagine my journey will look in after effects. It is the first step of my visualization and I hope that it works in after effects.

Creating animation

Creating the first animation I started by collecting images of the things listed on previous slides as well as a background image of a box interior.I then brought the images into after-effects and turned them into animation by having them fade in order of how they appear in the journey.

Criticising first animation

• The first major problem with the first animation was the length it was only five seconds long which did not give me enough time for people to view and understand the work.

• Another problem was that the way I positioned the images originally covered the box and did not look like they were in the box which led to a misunderstanding of my work.

Creating second animation

• The second animation was just slight alternate version of the first. The main different in this animation was the position of the images. these were now in the center of the box and not on the edge like they had previously been giving the illusion that they were in the box.

Criticising second animation

• The main problem with this animation was the same as the first in fact it was shorter than the first due to a mistake I made in editing the timeline.

• Another problem that they brought to my attention was the fact the animation did not feel complete as it only had a middle and not really a beginning or end.

Creating third animation

• My third animation is in many ways a longer version of the second one as the animation is now just over a minute long.

• I also added text at the beginning. Introducing the animation and text at the end to mark the ending solving one of the problems listed on the previous slide.

Criticising third animation

• While previous main criticisms have been addressed in my opinion on the third version of my animation. I feel that I could still do with finding some sound for the animation.

• As well as some of the text animation is a bit quick and not always readable could do with some future work on this.

bibliography

• Slide one image found at http://www.sil.si.edu/Exhibitions/wonderbound/crocodiles.htm.

• http://www.josephcornellbox.com/lifeart.htm• http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/online/c

ornell/imagination/

• http://keepcalmitsonlyart13.wordpress.com/about/

• http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rene-magritte-1553

• http://images.miandn.com/www_miandn_com/8fadad18.jpg

• http://whitney.org/image_columns/0008/6090/92.24a-k_cornell_imageprimacy_800.png

• http://www.surfacetoair.com/blog/V2/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Wish-You-Were-Here-Man-on-Fire-Pink-Floyd.jpg

• http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://images2.fanpop.com/image/photos/10500000/Pink-Floyd-pink-floyd-10566687-1920-1200.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/pink-floyd/images/10566687/title/pink-floyd-wallpaper&h=1200&w=1920&sz=134&tbnid=Tq0tV2l1xLPPPM:&tbnh=92&tbnw=147&zoom=1&usg=__DPiSilJi9riZU35L89_NhsJQ0Ow=&docid=8P_iHZA4ibIKaM&sa=X&ei=nESiUqrbKcWShQfA4oGYBA&ved=0CKEBEP4dMA0

• http://www.pinkfloyd.com/history/biography.php

• http://www.woodencraftsshapesandboxes.co.uk/products-page/wooden-craft-boxes-unfinished-to-decorate/small-blank-wooden-treasure-chest-craft-to-decorate/

• http://www.cropmobilya.com/masif-kitaplik-modelleri.html

• http://www.deanorgans.co.uk/

Sci-Fi mood boarded bibliography

• Star trek image from http://wall.alphacoders.com/big.php?i=399164

• Tardis image from http://www.adaptiveglass.com/build-a-tardis/

• Stargate Atlantis image from http://www.ebay.com/itm/STARGATE-ATLANTIS-ORIGINAL-Daedalus-Intruder-Uniform-COSTUME-Prop-/280888449450

• Star Wars image from http://www.rabittooth.com/800x600StarWarsWallpapers2/AnakinSkywalkerV2Wallpaper.jpg

• Dr who image from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/7544817/Doctor-Who-Matt-Smith-interview.html

• Andromeda image from http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/Andromeda

Images used in animation bibliography

• Image of Box interior from http://scrapngrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Edited-Bottom-of-Toy-Box-Interior.jpg

• Image of Star Wars logo from http://www.wallpaperhi.com/Entertainment/Movies/1977_awesome_The_Star_Wars_Logo_17476/download_2560x1600

• Image of Light saber from http://ultradownloads.com.br/papel-de-parede/DOTA-2/

• Image of Lightning from http://www.solarfeeds.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/lightning-blue.jpg

• Image of magic from http://dc127.4shared.com/doc/VZHMmTUn/preview_html_3f1fdfa3.gif

• Image of Negima from http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc16/chisame-h/negima-book13.png

• Image of Manga logo fromhttp://www.news-anime.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Manga-Entertainment.png

• Image of naruto fromhttp://webtaj.com/naruto-shippu-pisodes-vostfr-hunter-tail-17461.html

• Image of ninja from http://kushanku.de/grafik/ninja_nic_ohne_hintergr_k.gif

• Image of Japanese flag http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/4017170/Dear+Lord/6#6