Rationale

The song I chose was Florence and the machine, shake it off. My approach to creating a non-linear narrative was to create a triptych where the narrative could change based on the sequence the images were viewed in. The sequence of the images would also be determined by chance to take the control away from the viewer. To achieve this, I decided to construct a box which would have the images fall out when it was shaken. I was inspired by the song and created a story that was set in a forest. I made the character of the story resemble a deer because deer is seen in popular culture as a guardian of the forest but has a negative impact on native New Zealand forest. This worked well with the story as it echoed my concept of the demon being within the character itself. I chose to have all three images set with in the same place to reiterate the fact that it’s within the same story and build cohesion. I also chose to decorate the outside of the box with tree like textures to set the scene. 

Final triptych.

This is the final triptych i created,

Final Images

Week 5 class feedback and second prototype

In preparation for class in week 5 i decided to create a second prototype to further test out my concept. i want to test out if the images would in deed fall out when shaken as the prototype i presented to class during interim wasn't very successful.

I also decided to sketch up final thumbnails for my three images as a way to define exactly what i wanted my compositions to look like. I felt that if i had a clear image of what i wanted it to look like instead of the tiny quick ones i had in my workbook, it would help with doing the finals. 

During class in week 5, I showed what i had done in the previous post as well as an attempt i had made where i took a realistic photograph and painted into it to create a contrast between the hand drawn shadows and the realistic photo back ground. Feedback I had received from matt was that the most successful image was the this image. Turned out that the reason the image wasn't working was because it was only a base and needed more layers. The technique was simply painting with the lasso tool and building layers to create a wood cut like effect. The image had improved so a lot simply with the quick demo matt had done for me.

From there it was simply building up more layers with a range of tones and working towards the Final. 

Researching more artist models and start trying on finals

In class during week 4 I was given feedback to try out a children's book style illustration.  This came after i decided to actually have the same background within all three of my illustrations to help build cohesion and contribute to the idea that it was all a part of the same story. From there Tanya suggested perhaps have the character white and i really liked it because it would create a really high contrast to the black shadow. I created a mood board of children's book illustrations scenery and decided to start drawing on some of my finals in color.

However i struggled a lot with painting the background as attempted multiple times but it all doesn't seem to work and is not turning out how i wanted it .

Interim week 3

I presented my idea during the interim on Tuesday along with a rough mock up of the box made out of cardboard I found in my flats recycle bin. The problem when i was making the box was that the sheets of cardboard for the images was too thin which meant that more than one image would fall out. This was one of the things i needed to work on and other comments that i received from the interim was perhaps think about maybe having more than just three images. By having the same image but in a different time setting or mood could add another layer of possible narratives to the story. I also needed to work more on thumbnails to work up the three images.

New Final concept

One of the reasons why i was comfortable with changing medium was because i had already had a new idea and narrative i wanted to explore. From the very start I had already started building a narrative around a story of inner demon. I wanted to create many possible narrative with different endings. I took the lyrics " So heres to drinks at the end of my road", " looking for heaven, found the devil in me" and the chorus "its hard to stand with a devil on your back so shake it off." In order to create this chance of the order i was reminded of a key ring i had when i was younger in Asia. You could shake this tube and a random slip would fall out and told you of your luck that day. When explaining this concept to my flatmates, they immediately thought of these magic 8 balls.

My concept would follow the same idea where the images would be in a box and when you shake it a random image would fall out, you could then put the image back in and retry. 

Changing the choice of medium

When I first started started think about the song, I had initially wanted to create a stop motion video but after a lack of time and me wanted to really explore the idea of the narrative changing based upon the order of the images, i decided to change the medium of my final. I had borrowed books from the Massey Library about how to create stop motion videos as well as looked up examples from films. One style that really caught my attention was the stop motion section in the film the little prince.



I really liked the aesthetic of this style but the more i read about how to create stop motion videos the more i realized that i really hadn't had enough time to do the idea i had. I would still really like to try stop motion in the Future. One of the other major reasons that contributed to this decision was the fact that I was fascinated by the idea that of the narrative changing base on the order of the sequences of the images and i felt that this couldn't really be achieved in a video. While the images can be mixed up and shown a video still has a linear start and finish so while I  can imply and put doubt into the viewers mind, in the end there would still be a set order the images appeared in.