Foundation 4D – We’ve come to the end of Foundation 4D, so I’ve decided to upload the contents of my sketchbook. Mainly, it includes lecture notes from Prof. Robert Zhao’s class, consultation advice and brainstorming scribbles. (Pause to read!)
I struggled a bit with 4D, but overall it was pretty fun and an interesting module. When it comes to modern fine arts, especially of the videography and film variation, I definitely do prefer approaching it from the audience/curator’s perspective rather than as an artist-creator.
Foundation 4D – Initially, I intended to use music as a starting point for my assignment.
Foundation 4D: Assignment 3, 50 word writeup.
Based on a soundtrack, I want to create a collection of surrealistic film stills/imagery to accompany the music. I will also explore the possibility of including a narrative.
However, Prof warned me that it would become very much like “MTV” – mainstream television; having a guiding narrative like this might result in the video being slideshow-like and sentimental, which would detract from the message of the moving image. Sound is fine though, like ambient music, but nothing leading or emotional should be driving the narrative.
Thus, I returned to think more about my concept.
Mindmap – Brainstorming for Ideas
As many of my classmates were using their previous assignments as launching points to their final assignment (in fact, we were encouraged to do so) I decided to return to my previous assignments as well. In Assignment 1, I explored the idea of death while in Assignment 2, I explored the visual imagery of clouds. I wondered, what if I combined the ideas? And wrote a bit about it. However, I eventually decided to head back to the initial theme – however, instead of death & religion, I decided on life/death instead, so as to give myself more options.
I continued to brainstorm.
Planning
There were some interesting ideas – for example, a documentary about religious beliefs about death, the record of life cycles (documentation of plants and animals growing and dying) – however, due to the lack of luxury of time, I decided to keep it simple instead, and to do a short sequence of animations. Thus, my 50 word narrative was confirmed.
Heartbeats Foundation 4D: Assignment 3, 50 word writeup.
Centred around the idea of life and death, this video presents several symbolic motifs of life and death, represented using simple, looping frame-by-frame animation and paired with suitable accompanying onomatopoeia. “Heartbeats” is made with the intention to be abstract, thoughtful and atmospheric.
Here are some of the motifs I thought about.
More Planning
Eventually I simply narrowed it down to 4: heart, fire, water, growing fetus, breathing, as I felt that it was sufficient in encapsulating the key idea of life/death.
