Movie Posters - Quiz 4

My first movie poster selection is that of the movie, Fight Club. The background is dark, and the color of the text is a dark shade of orange. The only photographs on the poster have very dark colors, shades, and fade effects. The whole thing has a gritty feel, like a piece of paper found in the street.
The movie is aimed towards males around 20s, as portrayed by the main characters, and the use of the word "fight" in the title. The words used to describe the movie also project this demographic (Mischief, Mayhem).



The second movie is In Her Shoes. Much like the first poster, the two main characters shown on the cover are the same as the demographic: young women in their 20s. The background is of a bright, white quality. The setting is that of a woman's shoes closet. The colors are predominately bright and happy. White, bright, green, blue, red, etc.
The words to describe this movie are less harsh (Friends, Rivals, Sisters). The only negative word is Rivals, and that in itself is fairly light as negative words go. It gives a sense of playing rough, but still friends. Unlike the word "Enemies" which is much less playfull.



Something I noticed in both posters: Everyone is young, beautiful, the genders are the same, and they're all white.

Edited poster:

The Midterm!

Here are my images from my midterm:





Artist Statement:

My Big Idea is the voice of women. I explored this by using themes of Voice, Self Expression, Perspective, Respect, and Value. I researched this by way of the 3rd blog and the brainstorming assignment. The brainstorming project helped me narrow down my interest to that of the portrayal of women, and how this viewpoint changes over time. The 3rd blog introduced me to the illustrator Justin Maller, and gave me the idea of using a clipping mask to display emotion inside a figure. This subject is important to me because as a guy, I’ve seen the social injustice put upon women through the years, and I have a unique perspective as a male. I wanted to put this perspective into a visual image, and this is what I got. For the first time in this class, I created images by “taking a risk” as William Low puts it, instead of “playing it safe” and sticking by what I thought the image should look like from the beginning. These images are nothing like what I thought they’d look like, and I’m happy about that. It proves to me I was creative in my work.

Blog Assignment #3

1) My first artist is Alice Glass, the lead singer for the
band Crystal Castles. I've been wanting to use her for
awhile now in a project, and now seems like the right time.
My second artist is Justin M. Maller, a "freelance
illustrator and art director based in Melbourne, Australia".
I like Justin's use of digital imagery, especially with
female figures, and Alice's unique and fierce voice in her
music is well displayed in her own look. I feel that these
two artists, one an illustrator, one a figure, can work well
together.

2) Alice Glass:

Justin M. Maller:

3)
ALICE:

Why does this artist appeal to you?

I first found out about Alice Glass by listening to a song by her band. After hearing it, I was hooked. I know own both of the bands' albums and know every song by heart. The band is comprised of a musical producer Ethan Kath (aka he makes all the crazy techno sounds) and vocalist Alice Glass. The style of the sounds mixed with Alice's voice are very appealing to me, and are what I would imagine to be the background music to a photoshop project brought to life (Tron movie, anyone?).

What are the Big Ideas in their work?

A Big Idea in Alice's music is Feelings, specifically, feelings and emotions that are real or fake. In one song entitled "Xxzxcuzx Me", the last echoing lyric is "Just because we don't feel flesh, doesn't mean we don't fear death". This theme of robotic love and caring is present in many songs.

What do you find inspiring about the work?

Alice is inspiring in that her music is her life. When you listen to her screaming the lyrics, you know that she is "one with the song", and that she's not just reading from a sheet. When she screams, you feel you're screaming. When the music is turned up loud, you feel it. It's inspiring how motivational and real this music sounds and feels.

What sorts of questions, curiosities, inspirations arise from your encounter with the artist's work?

I question what methods are used to alter Alice's voice. In some songs, her voice is obviously manipulated, and I'm curious as to how. Much the same way I might look at a photoshopped image and wonder how it was done.

How will you use this artist to inspire your final project?

I will use Alice's great presence on stage to portray her voice, and to represent the powerful potential of my own Big Idea.

What stylistic components can you learn to make your work stronger?

I feel that color schemes will play a large role in my work with Alice, and that it will bring an in depth element to the image.

What approaches to making an artwork that the artist uses can help you?

There's not much that Alice does that I can personally incorporate in my work. I can't sing my project to life, but I can use the visual imagery I am given and by knowing the music she is singing, I will have a great insight as to the emotion and attitude she is trying to express.

JUSTIN:

Why does this artist appeal to you?

This artist appeals to me in two great ways. The first, is the artists use of visual imagery to express a feeling or emotion. This is most visibly shown in the image "Vegas".



The second is the artists use of women in his work. Their bodies are used as a resource to work with. Whether it be a spine to match with the dunes in a desert, or filling the body with a complex pattern, womens' bodies are used in his work in a way that I find original and unique.

What are the Big Ideas in their work?

It's hard to say what Justin's Big Idea is. In each image, it seems a different message is trying to come across to the viewer. In one image, a woman's body is filled with an image of driftwood. This has many implications, as does another image in which a woman's body is filled with a black and white pattern. All in all, complex patterns that seem to attempt to fill some kind of "void" are a reoccurring theme. And it is these patterns that add another dimension of meaning to the image.

What do you find inspiring about the work?

Since Justin manipulates photos very similarly as we learn in class, I am specifically inspired when I see his work to think differently. I see these images and wonder how he went about it, and what he's trying to say in each image. Are these merely creative ideas being thrown around? Or is there something deeper?

What sorts of questions, curiosities, inpirations arise from your encounter with the artist's work?

As stated above, I wonder how these images were created. Another aspect is time. How long did it take? Where these what was envisioned from the beginning, or did it evolve? Much like William Low said, in art there are times when you play it safe, and there are time when you risk it.

How will you use this artist to inspire your final project?

I feel that I might be able to borrow some ideas from this artists images. Not to replicate or duplicate, but perhaps to use similar ideas to get a point across. I like the use of patterns in complex shapes (bodies), and the use of color schemes that match the background.

What stylistic components can you learn to make your work stronger?

Learning to use the pattern feature will significantly help. I already know how to create a pattern of a square box with a black outline in order to create a grid that can be placed on top of other images (I learned this when trying to find out how to accurately place a virtual painting on a virtual wall using transformations).

What approaches to making an artwork that the artist uses can help you?

An approach that can help me is contrast. In many images, Justin seems to cause many visuals to collide with one another. To have the background color match the main colors in a pattern, yet to have another part of the body untouched. It is these decisions that go into creating an image and a message to go with that image.

(X) Blog Assignment #2

Step 1: Make a list of 3-5 synonyms of your big idea.

INDIVIDUAL
MEANING
MESSAGE

Step 2&3: Collect 6-8 images for each term. Put them into a photoshop document in clusters.



Step 4: Add 3-4 images to the document that you find through a second search with similar tags.

(9) Big Ideas and Artmaking

I didn't fully understand what the relationship was between "Big Ideas" and "Themes", but the example of Robert Motherwell and his 100+ paintings on the theme of death helped clear things up for me. While over 100 paintings on one theme is a lot, it doesn't necessarily mean that this is his overall encompassing big idea as an artist. Motherwell's big idea "is the exploration of human emotions", death being only one fragment of that subject.

While I find the artistic attempts to make music into visual art, that doesn't mean it's my big ideas. My big idea is simply using meda (audio, video, etc) to convey a message or image. If I like a particular band and their message, I want to attempt to replicate that same message visually.

Unfortunately, this class is focused on still images, while I'd like to explore more into motion images such as gif (like the artist we saw in class today). But that combined with music is borderline music video projects, which can't be an educational class. However, I still want to explore this idea of visual sound.

(8) Screaming Voice

REVIEWING & RESPONDING TO THE VISUAL BRAINSTORMING

My Big Idea is Voice.

At first, I was merely collecting images of people who were yelling or screaming in order to capture a specific yet powerful emotion. But then I began transforming the piece into something more meaningful. I noticed that most of my images were women, whether they were 8 years old or full grown adults. However, there weren't many male subjects, and it got me to thinking about how we as a society perceive women. How men keep their cool, and women break down.



Visually, I have multiple images of people screaming all surrounding two images that are different than the rest. The first is a small girl crying, seeming scared of something. The second is an adult woman who has a seductive look about her, as if to say "I know what I'm doing" even though what she's doing might not be what she had planned for when she was younger.

The significance to me is the misrepresentations and misunderstood nature of women who are looked down upon. As young girls, we imagine them being sweet, innocent, helpless beings. Yet as they grow older, they are seen in a different light. Whether it be jokes about how women belong in the kitchen, or mens' obsession with their roles in sex, these two views highly contrast with one another.

I chose this idea because I feel that as a man, I am victim to thinking this way without knowing it, and it scares me how easy it is to just forget about women as human beings and how easy it is to see them as objects.