Visiting Artists

John McDonnell- writer/adapter for Macbeth Graphic Novel

The first visiting artist I saw was for my Graphic Shakespeare class. Ester invited John McDonnell to come speak with us about the experience writing Macbeth. He at first seemed a little put out- I did not expect him to be British- but he warmed up to us as we continued. My prepared question was 

"How did you approach the creative process when interpreting for the graphic novel format?"

 He was really informative even though he chalked up his role as a writer/adapter to be not that important. It is however, and we all found it interesting how he arranged certain blocks of text and how he worked with the artist, turns out they didn't work closely at all!

He mainly talked about how it was to work under a contract for a company that wanted a very specific piece of work and how that experience differed from his personal work.




Lisa Kristine- Humanitarian Photographer

This was one of the most powerful lectures we've ever gotten. Lisa's work is moving and I was in tears by the end. As a social photographer commenting on human rights she risked her life all around the world to photograph struggle and unjust treatment from poverty, slavery, prostitution, and child labour.


27 million in slavery in 2009
40 million enslaved today

"Its not the work. Its the fear and lack of human rights"

Shine a Light- slaveryfootprint.com

Interview Workshop and Career Fair

Interview Workshop

Went to the interview workshop hosted by Carrie Brooks. She gave us all sheets of paper with questions on them:
"Can you tell me a little about yourself?"
"What do you know about the company?"
"Why do you want this job?"
"What is your greatest personal achievement?"

Normally it is hard for me to talk about myself, especially in a professional setting but the workshop was fun and effective in building my confidence and helping me to think about how to answer those questions. With the career fair coming up I think it will prove to be a huge help.


Career Fair

Updated resume
Business Cards
Demo Reel
Business Attire
Question Prep
Mock Interview Prep

The Career Fair went great! I had a lot of confidence and made a lot of connections. One thing Carrie told me before was not just to answer questions but ask my own as well. That was really helpful and a lot of people I spoke to were very happy to answer and open up about their company.

The people who stand out are Kate and Amy from the  Brooks Museum Community Outreach Department, Mahal Burr from Bridges and Tim Weiner from Douglas Quikut who really took an interest in learning what I could provide for him on a digital platform.

Overall it was a very effective network experience that I will only grow from!

Production Schedule

Thoughts on the Animatic

Starting the animatic process. I was a little worried and still a bit confused on how to do it. Since this project is experimental, there will be a mix of media used for animating and applied to the environment. Yesterday as I was gathering references and looking at inspiring videos I thought about how they must've storyboarded and what essentially an animatic is. These are my thoughts:

1. An animatic is a timed storyboard. 
2. It includes sound. 
3. It should be as close to the final time and look of the film as you can get. 
4. Storyboards and rough sketches are ironed out in the animatic. 
5. However, that does not mean an animatic includes final drawings. 
6. Camera angles and complicated movements should be clearly shown in an animatic. 
7. Good animatic's show depth and perspective even if there is no background. 
8. Characters' movements and any other animated parts of the film should be visually described in the animatic. 
9. Everything should be in grayscale except for red directional arrows

This seems like common knowledge (if you're in this field) but it has really helped me grasp exactly what an animatic should say and do.

Images I'll need

• sun
• sky scrapers
• buildings
• roads
• construction work
• pipes
• girders
• clouds
• bushes
• sky
• atmospheric devices
• small creatures
• train
• parts of a train
• steam engine
• smoke
• metal
• steel
• dirt
• light
• color

Ciara Phelan

http://www.ciaraphelan.com/

Collage artist and designer.

I like the fun she puts into all her work. Her collages have many elements but each has a purpose to the photo or theme she is given. 

She inspires me because she works both with traditional cut paper and digital collage techniques. 

Collage Animation 2014- Hannah Gee

This film is doing several things really well. The collage elements work together in tandem with the music. Even though the piece is without a clearly defined message, everything is slowly building up over the course of the film and getting even more crazy. It compounds any interpretation by each new addition. There are nature vs man, man vs god, man vs society, and man vs mind themes throughout the film.

This is a good example of the general mood, sense of disorientation I want to portray. I really enjoyed the technique used: combining found/ cut photos with drawings with 3d figures, all in stop motion. This film is much longer than the time we are given but it is still well deserved inspiration.