At 80
Brief: produce either an animation, a documentary video, a series of gifs or a book that represents an aspect of the history of the building and the community that it is part of.
This project was in collaboration with the De La Warr Pavilion to celebrate its 80th year anniversary and to establish a visual description of the heritage of the building; and the final outcomes will be shown in an exhibition at the D.L.W.P. In 1935 the Earl De La Warr said on opening the new pavilion “This new venture of ours, a venture which is going to lead to the growth, prosperity and greater culture of this our town”, this statement was a source of inspiration to start my project. I began my project development by researching the history of the D.L.W.P. to find any interesting or outstanding events, themes and subject matter I could base my outcome from. The D.L.W.P. allowed access to their database, but also the Bexhill Museum where I went on a study trip; while sieving through hundreds of old photos of the D.L.W.P. I found a series of photos documenting a variety of different events, such as dance competitions, wrestling nights, concerts and much more. The sheer variety in different occasions that the D.L.W.P. put on was an interesting aspect that I wanted to explore further and perhaps base my project on. After visiting the Bexhill Museum I went to the D.L.W.P to take photos and gain further research and inspiration but ultimately to explore the building and get a sense first hand of the 80 years of history that has been celebrated.
Following the study trips to Bexhill Museum and the D.L.W.P. two artists, Martin and Griff, came into the studio and gave a group workshop on exploring animation. As a one day experimental workshop, we were introduced to multiple variations of techniques surrounding animation, from stop motion to after effects, but the main focus of the workshop was to produce quick experimental short vine animations based on the theme of 80 years at the D.L.W.P. Vine is an app that enables users to record short video clips up to around six seconds long, so it was perfect to explore and generate quick fire works. Through out the workshop I experimented with collage, traditional drawing and photo manipulation, at the end of the day I had accumulated multiple rough outcomes that in turn supplied me with new inspirations to look into, but ultimately the workshop opened me up to new animation techniques and process's that I could take forward and explore further with my final outcome.
After researching into the history of the D.L.W.P. and experimenting with Martin and Griff's workshop, I had gathered enough first hand resources and inspiration to start planning my project outcome. I began by drafting initial ideas that sprung to mind during the research process, listed were ideas ranging from creating animated posters for a series of music events, to an illustrating a fashion show that happened at the D.L.W.P. during the 1960s. However my first initial inspiration gained from looking at photos at the Bexhill Museum sparked my chosen idea; create an animation documenting three events that happened at the D.L.W.P. over the 80 years, dance, wrestling and singing. For the animation I looked at various different styles and techniques, but then I watched a music video for Tame Impala's "The Less I Know The Better" and loved the colourful hand drawn elements of animation.
Inspired by the music video I decided to use similar hand drawn animation techniques, but introduce and experiment with colour in the editing stage. Once I had established a narrative and a format to present it, I started to sketch out a rough storyboard to give me an initial view of what the animation could look like; then I explored different drawing styles and techniques that I would use to form the basis of my short film.
After selecting a drawing style that I thought suited my narrative, I started work on my final outcome, beginning with sourcing videos of each event then screen grabbing each frame, printing them of and tracing over them in my suited drawing technique. From there once all the frames of each video were all drawn out, I scanned them into photoshop made each drawing its separate layer, took it into illustrator where I placed a black and white logo layer over each drawing, this allowed me to increase the image without pixelation. Next I took each image back into photoshop where I placed each drawing into the timeline bar to create a moving image; I then transferred the moving images of each event into premiere pro where I edited each clip. Then I placed each clip into a sequence, experimented and played with rotating squares of colour, added music and finally created titles to establish the start and end of the video. Below is the final video.
However after a critique with D.L.W.P. curators it was suggested to re-examine the narrative of the piece; they really liked the style of the animation but felt focusing on one event rather than three would be better. In addition they gave me access to an interview they did with Richard and Pamela who met at the D.L.W.P. at a dance night, fell in love and got married. After listening to the interview of how the two met, I was intrigued and interested and felt I had to represent and tell their story visually. So I began on a secondary animation focusing instead of three events just one, dance and how Richard and Pamela met and fell in love. I started in the same process as before by drawing out a new storyboard and then sourcing new videos to then trace over scan into the computer to edit and create the animation. Below is the new animation:
Overall I am happy with both final animations; however looking back I prefer the second. I enjoy the visual side of my first attempt, the colourful rotating squares alongside the tonal hand drawn elements, makes for a visually interesting and exciting short film; yet the narrative and content gets lost among the animations. But my second video has a much stronger and powerful storyline, the audio clips from the interview at the beginning and end of the animation, generate a personal connection between the audience and the two lovers, and draws the viewers into the very intermit and personal story, which in turn reinforces power behind the short film. In addition the music emphasises the celebration of dance, and brings a tempo that lifts and generates life to the video, which in turn describes emotion, movement and character building upon visual excitement and interest, whilst at the same time indicating the section of events that happened at the D.L.W.P. My first attempt is the backbone to my second, both samples illustrate and celebrate 80 years at the D.L.W.P., but the second is much more personal and intermit and shares the values of happiness, affection and passion, thus highlighting the personal connection that many people have had with the D.L.W.P. over its 80 years.