Okay - well, in all truthfulness I'm a bit disappointed by your OGR, both in terms of content, presentation and creative ATTACK! It does feel as if you're struggling to think more laterally about this world - more symbolically, emblematically, theatrically, creatively...
One of the issues apparent from your thumbnails is how 'non-subjective' your compositions are - i.e. that while they might be moving towards effectively depicting an urban sprawl, what they're not yet doing is seeking to communicate the emotional experience of those spaces; i.e. what it feels like for the protagonist to be as lost and alienated within these dense, labyrinthine environments. This is what I mean by lateral thinking; there is something utterly essential to evoking Metropole's world - and that's somehow identifying a visual means of making us feel like the character does. You're not simply outlining buildings as described, your designing a visual experience in which the very formulation of the space can depict the effect of that space on its occupant - this is anxious architecture, neurotic architecture - this is the city as an antagonist. Even the front cover of the book itself manages to convey a sense of the dislocation and fracturing of cohesion and communication which the book itself expresses.
Really, all I want you to do is loosen up a bit - think more like a production designer for an avant-garde animation studio. It seems to me that you're still lacking an actual design logic which might help you approach things differently - and that design logic might be as simple as a single word or image; for example:
labyrinth...
cubism... (because it helps describe the complexity of the city and its many facets and confusions)
fragmentation...
incoherence...
Why not check out a good thesaurus - and look up key words deriving from the novel - (i.e. alienation, confusion, isolation) - and then track through the various synonyms until you find an associated term that gives you a new way into envisioning these environments.
You need an actual idea underpinning your conversion of these various spaces into paintings - some kind of rationale or visual rule book. Your OGR disappoints because it doesn't contain any 'ideas' in design terms. I'd suggest your life would be easier if you could identify a visual concept governing the look of your world, because this could and should give you forms, colour palette, composition. I look at your thumbnails and I see drawings of buildings and cities - many of them effective in their own right as perspectival exercises - but not yet a depiction of what Metropole 'feels' like. Your character is lost, alone, bewildered, confused, frustrated - your design for these spaces MUST capture this somehow. In composition terms, you're favouring a kind of objective, non-specific point of view that has the effect of shrinking the buildings you're describing - making them feel manageable and ordinary; but you need to manipulate the pov so that the city feels much-less manageable, much more 'in your face' and 'out of control'.
You need to be braver, bolder and much more responsive to the tone of the book and its themes, or risk authoring some generic images of a city that is 'anywhere'. In short, I'm suggesting you have a bit more fun with this challenge!
In terms of your presentation and polish and professionalism - I'm hoping by suggesting you check out some of the OGRs of your peers, that I won't have to commit too much time to communicating where and how you should think about improving your own output. Check these out - and draw your own conclusions please:
Final word then, Kym: I have high expectations of you; unlike your classmates, you're not adjusting to a new life at UCA in a strange place; you're confident and charismatic and this is the second bite of the cherry for you, so I'm expecting you to be a role model and exemplar and set the creative pace. Don't disappoint.
OGR 13/10/2012
ReplyDeleteHi Kym,
Thanks for being patient :)
Okay - well, in all truthfulness I'm a bit disappointed by your OGR, both in terms of content, presentation and creative ATTACK! It does feel as if you're struggling to think more laterally about this world - more symbolically, emblematically, theatrically, creatively...
One of the issues apparent from your thumbnails is how 'non-subjective' your compositions are - i.e. that while they might be moving towards effectively depicting an urban sprawl, what they're not yet doing is seeking to communicate the emotional experience of those spaces; i.e. what it feels like for the protagonist to be as lost and alienated within these dense, labyrinthine environments. This is what I mean by lateral thinking; there is something utterly essential to evoking Metropole's world - and that's somehow identifying a visual means of making us feel like the character does. You're not simply outlining buildings as described, your designing a visual experience in which the very formulation of the space can depict the effect of that space on its occupant - this is anxious architecture, neurotic architecture - this is the city as an antagonist. Even the front cover of the book itself manages to convey a sense of the dislocation and fracturing of cohesion and communication which the book itself expresses.
Really, all I want you to do is loosen up a bit - think more like a production designer for an avant-garde animation studio. It seems to me that you're still lacking an actual design logic which might help you approach things differently - and that design logic might be as simple as a single word or image; for example:
labyrinth...
cubism... (because it helps describe the complexity of the city and its many facets and confusions)
fragmentation...
incoherence...
Why not check out a good thesaurus - and look up key words deriving from the novel - (i.e. alienation, confusion, isolation) - and then track through the various synonyms until you find an associated term that gives you a new way into envisioning these environments.
You need an actual idea underpinning your conversion of these various spaces into paintings - some kind of rationale or visual rule book. Your OGR disappoints because it doesn't contain any 'ideas' in design terms. I'd suggest your life would be easier if you could identify a visual concept governing the look of your world, because this could and should give you forms, colour palette, composition. I look at your thumbnails and I see drawings of buildings and cities - many of them effective in their own right as perspectival exercises - but not yet a depiction of what Metropole 'feels' like. Your character is lost, alone, bewildered, confused, frustrated - your design for these spaces MUST capture this somehow. In composition terms, you're favouring a kind of objective, non-specific point of view that has the effect of shrinking the buildings you're describing - making them feel manageable and ordinary; but you need to manipulate the pov so that the city feels much-less manageable, much more 'in your face' and 'out of control'.
You need to be braver, bolder and much more responsive to the tone of the book and its themes, or risk authoring some generic images of a city that is 'anywhere'. In short, I'm suggesting you have a bit more fun with this challenge!
In terms of your presentation and polish and professionalism - I'm hoping by suggesting you check out some of the OGRs of your peers, that I won't have to commit too much time to communicating where and how you should think about improving your own output. Check these out - and draw your own conclusions please:
ReplyDeletehttp://samantha-niemczyk.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/cinematic-spaces-online-greenlight_10.html
http://jakejbryant.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/space-and-environment-cinematic-spaces_11.html
http://kinblob.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/online-greenlight-review-cinematis.html
Final word then, Kym: I have high expectations of you; unlike your classmates, you're not adjusting to a new life at UCA in a strange place; you're confident and charismatic and this is the second bite of the cherry for you, so I'm expecting you to be a role model and exemplar and set the creative pace. Don't disappoint.