Analysis of Artwork in Groups
The first thing we did as an introduction to this unit was analyzing 'The Weeping Woman' by Pablo Picasso in groups. We focused a lot on the context of the work. We discussed many ideas about what the painting was about and found out that the work was about the Civil War in Spain and the bombing of Guernica. The main thing we discovered is that art can have many layers, it can seem like one thing but may be something completely different.
Intro to Photography
We had a very brief photography lesson where we discussed the history of photography and talked about how photography started and photographers such as Cindy Sherman. This was all to prepare us for our field trip to the Muttrah Souq on Thursday. Then we were sent out to take at least 8 pictures and pick 4 to publish in our website. But before that we made a mind map about what we might see in the Souq and how that could be a metaphor for something.
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Field Trip to the Souq
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We went on a trip to the Mutrah Souq, it was very vibrant and exciting, we were exposed to the local market that was filled with many things such as jewelry, pottery, clothing, toys, sculpture, painting, etc. We took multiple pictures and had to pick 10 of our favorites to display. I tried to take pictures at different angles and to 'create' the pictures instead of taking them. I only took photos of object, not people.
DEVELOPING IDEAS
After uploading and picking 10 photos from the field trip. I picked two photos that I really liked and though of a meaning for. One was of a bejeweled bright clothing and the other was of chess pieces. The clothing reminded me about feminism and appreciating beauty in general. While on the other hand, the picture of the chess board reminded me of something completely different.
Feminism and Women's Beauty
"Her beauty does not diminish yours"
-unknown
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Fox
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Peacock
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Flamingo Tiger
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Angel fish
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Embroidery art?
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3D painting?
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Normal painting?
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"Whitewashing the pump won't make the water pure"
-D.L Mooddy
I thought I could use this picture to portray a something about beauty and female empowerment and about how women should learn to see other women's beauty without questioning their own.
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Stop motion animation?
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GIF
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Parallax animation
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Story:
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There are many chess pieces, like an army and there is one on the left side that is a different color (not dark!)
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Then the different one slowly changes into a white one and then fades away.
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Then a curtain closes over the whole screen.
This one is more developed than the other idea. I read an article about how this popular Marvel movie Doctor Strange is whitewashing characters. I looked up whitewashing and learnt what it meant and I thought that the picture with the chess pieces could be a cool way to represent this some how.
Develpoing Idea part 2
I am going to stick with the white washing/ chess ideas because it is more developed that my other idea and I feel like I would rather share this idea because it holds more meaning to me. I want it to be digital, like a short vodeo, or a GIF. I watched some tutorial and though that the parallax animation was too complicated for me and the Gif would be too short. I decided with stop motion, so I will take many photos and edit them on Photoshop and put them together to make a very short video that I estimate to me around 30-40 seconds. I will continue to develop my idea by making a mood and story board
Relating Artists and Artwork
I looked up some artistic GIFs and artistic Stop motion video and I fount an article and a video, one for the GIFS and the other for Stop Motion. The video is really cool, it uses clay and it depicts a battle between both sides of the chess pieces and it gives me an idea of how I want mine to look. The GIF has this washed out feel that I like, I like the colors and the mood. I think I want to some how incorporate it while I'm editing.
Riccardo Crocetta- Stop Motion Chess Clay
Adam Ferris- GIF Artist
Story Board
Mood Board
DetaIL PLANNING
I felt overwhelmed with how much things I had to do so I made a list to guide me.
To do list:
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​Get props for the filming of the chess scenes (Chess board and piece, curtain and glitter, white paint)
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Get (ask) models for the eyes-blinking scene.
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Film the chess scenes.
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Film the eye-blinking scene.
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Edit the pictures(scenes) on Photoshop.
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Put the video together and edit in.
Learning Tips With Helpful Tutorials
Glitter makeup
Photoshop editing
Stop motion skills
Making Stuff
I made the curtain with paper and a rod of scrap wood from the DT department but it seemed really stiff and hard to control. Then I decide to make the curtain with a more flexible material such as clothing.
I found a plain white scrap cloth and painted it red with acrylic paint.
Practicing
I needed a chess set but I couldn't find one so instead I practiced with the stop motion app and made a couple of (very bad) videos to get used to it and understand how it works. Its by an app called Stop- Motion on Mr.keys iPad mini. I have to make a tri pod because its really hard to keep the iPad still, I also think I want a better quality so I might use my phone and get the app.
FILMING THE CHESS PART
This part was the hardest part of the project. It was very stressful to keep everything still and perfect. Another thing was that I had to control the curtain and the camera at the same time which was also challenging.
FILMING THE GLITTER EYE PART
I got some of friends to be the models for the glitter eye part. The models had Asian, Indian and African heritage, which I think is important because they are the main races that are being white washed.
We had sessions during break-time and after school. I made sure to use the same color of the chess piece for the eye. I took 9 shots for each person so that is 2 seconds each. It took a lot shorter than I thought it would be, it was pretty simple and fast. I used a glue stick, mascara brush, and silver and blue glitter.
Editing the stills on Photoshop
I used a photo editing app similar to Photoshop called pixlr. It had many filters, overlays and features that I was able to use such as blur, crop and lights tool.
Before
After
The curtain is redder and shinier.
There is a spotlight overlay.
Blur tool for the bakground
a nostglia Filter
Putting the video together
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Putting the pieces of my video together was a short yet challenging process. This is because I realized the mistakes I made after I had put in all the effort of editing and shooting it which made me feel very frustrated and disappointed. It looked very fast and messy. The camera did not stay still the whole time and I should have checked and made sure but I didn't so now, everything looks very crooked and I'm generally annoyed. But then after some deep thinking, I decided that I worked hard on my video and my piece could even be an abstract piece of work and the wobbliness of the frames could be symbolic to how unsteady and dubious the movie business is for white washing.
Done !
Artist's Statement
This video is about white washing. White washing in Hollywood is a casting practice in the film industry of the United States in which white actors are cast in historically non-white character role, this practice is as old as the film industry itself. In my video, the unique chess piece is suppose to represent people of color in the movie business as there are not that many while the white chess piece represents the white people in the industry. In the video, the unique chess piece is stripped of its beauty and is replaced by a white chess piece, this is meant to symbolize what is going on in the film industry. Then between the shots, there are people of different ethnicity with glitter around their eyes, which relates to the glitter on the chess piece. The glitter is around their eyes because eyes are used for watching movies, most importantly, It is suppose to show that what they see (white-washing) affects them. I chose this topic because I have always loved watching movies but one day I realised that I never saw many black women on TV and I felt a sense of unworthiness. I think that people of color (especially biracial people) don't get many casting opportunities as it is so it is really unfair that when they do, they get taken away.