#projectsummary

Project Report For Bank Loan

Project Report for Bank Loan

Moving into BA3b, I was very conscious to approach my final self-initiated project with as much a professional mindset as possible. This meant, deadlining, scheduling, efficiency, and proper handling and management of multiple responsibilities at a time. When making any kind of film, whether long form or short, it is a really necessary thing to plan and schedule the different stages of the project in advance, and do your best to keep to them, I have found. I have had enough interactions with film-makers and spent enough time studying the craft of film-making through reading and examination of the behind-the-scenes process to have built a fairly solid idea of how a production company might go about planning a project, and I took it upon myself to plan my own project with that in mind.

Though I hadn’t set out to work with others on the projects that I was developing, I quickly realised that another aspect of maintain a career in the creative industry was an ability to recognise where the limits of ones abilities lie, and when it might be important to draft others in on a project to help the outcome to be as close as to the vision as possible. It has helped me realise that the ideal position for me to have on a project may well be that of a director. The most important thing in developing a professional approach this past term was my involvement on the Curation team for the Ampersand exhibition in February. I found the governing position I had taken with organising all of the work, placement, curation, and show set up a very engaging and practicing experience. Moving forward I believe that selling myself as someone who can handle a directorial position may be a very worthwhile thing to do.

In terms of the next 3 or so years, I have a good idea of how I would like to start my career in the creative arts. For one thing, I don’t think I have finished honing my craft in an educational environment yet. The array of different practices that I have dappled in, though all sharing a consistent visual flair and narrative approach, have left me a bit in the woods as to what I do best. I think that extending my creative education into an MA might well be the exact opportunity that I need to discover this. Ideally I would move to join an MA course as soon as I can coming out of my BA, but then the expense factor kicks in. To be able to fund moving back to London and pursuing an MA, which would be my port of call, I would have to spend upwards of a year earning and saving as much money as I can doing whatever I can to earn money.

The thing that worries me about this is the potential to lose focus on my career and be sidetracked by the ebb and flow of an economy I won’t really fit into yet. For this reason, I am hoping to stay in Norwich to work- where I am aware both that I can keep cost of living down (in comparison to London) and also that I can still be surrounded by a creative culture. I have been in contact with a number of other students all with a similar game plan to me and we are working towards contracting a shared studio space from the end of the summer onwards where we can work on self-initiated and (hopefully) some commissioned briefs over the course of the year at the same time as working part-time elsewhere.

The thing that I have really come to terms with in BA3b is how well a collaborative creative effort can go sometimes. The end of second had left a sour taste in my mouth when it came to working with other people on one project. Whilst the year had been full of successes in collaboration, it didn’t happen without a real struggle. When it came to BA3b, both my work with Stevie on MAC YAMAMOTO and Maylott on DRIFTING went off almost without a hitch- and I say almost since I think part of the reason me and Stevie worked so well was that our supposed partnership with a UEA writer went so badly on our side. It forced us to design and decide of our own creative practices, rather than having to apply it to another persons, and soon we came to really we were pushing each other in really positive directions. The bounce back of ideas was really fluid, and there wasn’t really a point where either of us didn’t get each others thinking. The same could be said of working with Maylott. It really helped that he and I have very similar tastes in the kind of work we were going to be making, and so the vision was shared as well as the influence.

This isn’t to say I wouldn’t change how things had gone. There are a couple of areas of both MAC YAMAMOTO and DRIFTING that I feel could do with a slight retouch or shift.

When it comes to MAC, I think it’s the format that might need a rejig. Whilst the size of the book and the weight of the paper was very much a decided and intended thing for the exhibition copy, I think potentially producing a mass print copy in the future offers us an opportunity to play with how we size it. We had been aiming for a kind of ‘style magazine’ sized edition when it came to the exhibition copy, but I think the book could do with scaling down very slightly for mass print, and maybe adjusting the glossyness and weight of the paper stock so it feels more pocketable. A nugget of creative mystery, a kind of compact postcard book of narrative visuals.

With DRIFTING, maybe the only thing that I would like to really play about with now I have the film at this stage would be the sound design. I was reliant on the music to carry the film in a classic film musical sort of sense, but in retrospect I think it could do with some even subtle hints of ambient room sound. Engine noise, computer alerts, door openings, suit compressions. Even a continuation of the repetitive heartbeat sound to carry on behind the credits as they roll. Like I’ve mentioned, these are things to correct in the future when I can owe the film some more time.

A thing that both I as director and the audience need to bear in mind is that I had envisioned this to be the first entry in a series of music videos that would tell the entire story of Lt Henry and his Drifting in space (as detailed in BA3a). I think as it stands, this cut of DRIFTING acts as a stand alone music video. It is concise, and starts and ends. I would like to continue on with this project, and potentially expand it into the live performance event. When I started writing the music about a year ago, it was born from a love of the 70’s concept album and a challenge set by my tutor to ‘write a space opera’. Live performance could really be the thing that sets the project a flame in terms of finding and delivering to an audience. Even the notion of putting a collection of musicians together to perform the music live in front of the film as it plays would be an interesting interactive experience for an audience member. If anything, there’s something about live performance that can redefine what a script or a recorded tune is actually for.

I think the main thing I set out to do in this final unit was to make the best use of the facilities and time as I could, and in when it comes to both of these projects I don’t think I could have done so any more. I set myself tight deadlines as to getting every little section of each project done within, as to maximise my efficiency and the constraint of having that final cut off date. Everything essentially went off without a hitch. In the time, I’ve also managed to secure solid and engaging roles in both the curation of Ampersand show in February, and our upcoming final degree show. Balancing my inclusion in these teams with managing all of the project work was certainly a challenge, but keeping myself to tight weekly deadlines and quotas really helped to keep everything under control and moving forward at a steady rate.

 Third year within my course has been a year of reflection and critical analysis on my ability to overcome boundaries and comforts in image making. From ‘Ampersand’ all the way to preparing for the end of year degree show, I have really pushed myself to try new ways of visual communication and find a style recognisable as my own. Both within the collaboration and working individually I have explored ways to illustrate the sleep disorder, sleep paralysis, one very personal and close to me as I have suffered from it recurrently since I was 16, making it even more vital to illustrate.  I received crucial feedback on my work at the beginning of each term which opened my eyes to how sheltered I was being in the work I was creating, I needed to take risks and use all the skills I had learnt over my degree to really showcase my ability within illustration.   Reflecting on my work produced this year, I focused primarily on printmaking as I have done since second year. Printmaking is the process of visual communication I wish to pursue post-graduate, so I ensured that I continued with this process, while also developing new skills and expanding existing skills. The progress I have made over the past three years is so exciting for my future as an illustrator, which has flowed naturally, and I never thought I would be able to draw to the scale I do now.  I have overcome a lot of setbacks this year, with struggling to find a purpose and reason for my work during Ampersand, to creating emotive and empathetic visuals for my degree show.

Project Summary | BA3a

I would best describe this term to be one of Process and Development. I’ve been incredibly uncertain of what kind of Illustrator I am, however, through my research and practical explorations I feel a lot more confident. Overall, it’s been a very challenging term, however, I feel I’ve learned a lot from it. I now have a clearer understanding that my interests lay within the traditional avenue of responding to written narratives, with a particular interest in the format of the picture book. This has been greatly supported and encouraged by my research report. I feel that I’ve gone an incredibly long winded way around getting to the core of my revelations, however, I think that each avenue was vital to the eventual discovery and learning.

I’ve explored many different visual approaches: sculpture, framed sequential narrative, abstract painting, etching, watercolour, digital design, animation and sublimation printing. At times, this felt like a lack of focus and seemed to present a multitude of different ideas followed by incomplete projects, which resulted in a lot of uncertainty and stress. However, upon reflection, I feel like it was a necessary part of developing my understanding of how I make work, and what I enjoy and feel strongest at. I’m proud of my developed technological skills, however, I feel that my strengths and enjoyment lays within water based media and printmaking approaches. The print making process was something that really resonated with me and I’m interested in pursuing further development, as well as exploring the other techniques that are possible within the process. I’m proud of my developed technological skills, however, I feel that my strengths and enjoyment lays within water based media and printmaking approaches. The print making process was something that really resonated with me and I’m interested in pursuing further development, as well as exploring the other techniques that are possible within the process.

My approach to creating imagery for the picture book was with watercolour and chalk, which came as a source of relief after working intensely with digital. It was an enjoyable process and I feel like it’s my strength, which I’d like to develop further. I’ve felt a lot of hesitancy and insecurity in using traditional media, due to a concern of regressing in terms of my practical development. In reflection of the term, I realise that I should strive to make work that I love and enjoy making. My focus of The Yellow Wallpaper has enabled me to practically examine narrative and has led to the development of a larger project focus for next term. In my report, I’ve investigated challenging and controversial picture books, and I think that it has provided a firm support to further my practice. My main area of improvement is to make more practical work that is focused and rigorous. I feel that this will be possible now that I have a clearer project focus to work on next term. 

I’ve done rigorous research for both my report and my practice, which I feel is one of my main strengths. This was conducted through reading, online searches and visits to different locations. Communication with people was a vital form of research, which also enabled me to start thinking about my work and interests in a context outside of university. Working at Waterstones provided me with a network of wonderful people with lots of knowledge on books, as well as an insight into the industry of bookselling, which relates to my interests in book publishing and illustration. I also got to speak with people at The Norfolk Picture Book Centre, and the founder of Little Parachutes, which is an organisation related to darker books aimed at providing help and support for children in the face of difficulties. 

I enjoyed the period of working individually, because I felt that it allowed more freedom to explore different avenues and think about where my interests were. At times, however, I found it overwhelming. It’s definitely taught me the importance of planning- setting goals and having a focus is something that I feel will definitely help, both in the next term and after graduation. I think that having a structure to my projects will benefit my productivity, quality of work and mental health. Now that I have a focus on what I’d like to do, I think that I’ll have better clarity in the approaches I take to respond to projects in the future. It’ll also help a more efficient research/work balance. 

The collaboration was a challenge, however I think that as a group, we demonstrated resilience and persistence in the face of difficulty. Translating our work into a new environment allowed the opportunity to consider our practice from a different perspective. It also presented the opportunity to develop work using Sublimation Printing, which I would like to experiment with further in the future as a way to introduce materiality into my work. The collaboration also provided us to gain a greater understanding of our developing practices as a collective and how we can transition into the world outside of university. We’ve spoken of visiting the Bologna Book Fair together and the potential it has to access a network of relevant people.

PROJECT SUMMARY BA2b CHLOE ALLEN

This term has been highly focused on Collaborative work, which I have found to be challenging, yet supportive of my creative development. I feel that I have managed to learn skills that I wouldn’t have thought of acquiring had I been working individually, which is a significant positive result of collaboration.

The Fine Art Illustration project enabled an interesting fusion of different, but similar creative practices. It was insightful working with a different course, because they seemed more connected and certain with their work, however they also ceased to contribute to collaborating after a few days which was a shame. Contrastingly, those of us on Illustration possessed a more hesitant nature in approaching the brief, because we were surveying the potential and how it could relate to working collaboratively. I was unsure how to begin with my own response, because the location could have been responded to in a multitude of ways. I chose to respond with traditional drawing and inks, because I felt that it would be the most effective way to transmit my perception of Restriction in relation to the location. It was nice to work with traditional media, however I think the conclusive piece of the group was most effective due to the range of approaches. As a group, we used our wall space in St George’s to communicate our ideas through layering and arrangement of our work. By going away to produce our own response and bringing it together to build a body of work, we were able to edit down and create a conclusive result. I think it was effective, because we introduced the opinions and voice of other people. Our location was a building site, open in full view for all to see and everyone that walked by it formed their own opinion of it, because it was impossible not to notice. Thus, the interactive element for the exhibition of the collaborative work was necessary and appropriate for our group. As it was a two week task, we had to be decisive, observant and focused to create work and come to a point of conclusion.

This is the shortest time period I’ve had to complete a brief. It was a challenge, however I think we worked well as a group and it was surprising how much we could achieve in the time we had. From this, I think my decision making skills have improved due to the faster pace of working. While the cross course collaboration didn’t necessarily fully work within our group, I can see how utilising skills from other courses can be beneficial for developing my own creative skill set and practice. It also revealed how much more efficient myself and other illustrators in my group have become at working as a team within a collaborative project since being on the course.

I found the Interchange days to be helpful, because it enabled an insight into various other interests. It also provided another introduction to students from different courses. I chose to attend a Human Anatomy lecture and a Creative Writing workshop, because I felt that both would help support my future work. They were also supportive of the topic of my Research Report Proposal.

For the Human Library unit, my group had the topic of Economics. This was one of the most difficult projects I’ve participated in since being at NUA. The subject was both unfamiliar and unappealing, however I think as a group, we succeeded in creating various ways to explore it in a creative and visual way. It also presented the opportunity to create a textile illustration using a Canon Embroiderer in the Textiles department. This was something new and inspiring, which I would have not thought of, had I not been within a group where a member had an interest in Fashion. For this project, I think that research was an incredibly important aspect. By a continual accumulation of knowledge on the subject through various means, it enabled us to generate a constant development of ideas as we delved further into the world of Economics. I appreciate the challenge, because I feel a lot more confident in my ability to work on future briefs or opportunities that are of an unfamiliar subject. This project was challenging not only in subject, but within the group work itself. The past few weeks have proved the importance of persistence, patience and compromise in order to keep the creative work developing and moving forward. I think that the final Forum Exhibition went very well and I was incredibly happy that we’d managed to come to an effective conclusion for the event. We successfully interacted with a variety of people through presenting current and important information in the form of play. I think that we achieved our aim to inform the public about the recent UK Budget in an accessible and engaging way.

The Research Report Proposal has been incredibly helpful in presenting the opportunity to focus and think about what I would like to pursue next year. I have chosen to examine storytelling and how to construct Horror narratives visually. I found the group tutorials and Pecha Kucha presentation helpful, because it encouraged me to talk about my ideas out loud, which helped my decision making. By talking through various lines of inquiry, I was able to work out what my key interests were and how I could investigate them within my research. I feel engaged and intrigued by my topic and think that it’s something I can continue to edit and focus and investigate over summer.