Tutorial 3

Change title to 'Importance of audio to animated performance or movement'

Tacit: understood or implied without being stated

Visual language

Chaplin economy of gestures

Wassily Kandinsky - Constructivist geometry and spiritual effect of colours

Don't bring up animated characters, just elemental figures, forms and animated composition

Visual Music

Principles of animation: acting or reacting which comes first?

Acoustic language

Dedicate a section about diegetic and non diegetic sound

Audio motives. melodic repetition.

Tacit language developed based on prior knowledge of acoustic properties such as timbre, minor/major key, pitch, layers of sound affects planes in visual composition.

Practitioners

Oskar Fischinger

Len Lye

Norman McLaren

Samantha Moore

John Whitney

Stan Brackhage (responding to organic noises)

Markus Waltz

(Contemporary ones)

Rainer Kohlberg

Steven Woloshen's Casino

Experimental Composers

William Basinski - Disintegration Loops

Keith Fullerton Whitman / Hvartski

Relevant Quotes from Animation in Context

‘The narration told the overall story, but the music created the deeper shades of meaning.’

‘The musical phrase associated with each character is known as a leitmotif.’

‘Leitmotifs can also be ‘hardwired’ into the human psyche. In other words, there are many natural and manmade sounds that can evoke an instinctive emotional feeling or association in the human mind … Leitmotifs can in this way be associated with abstract cultural ideas and evoke spiritual feelings’

Modernist Philosophy

Italian Futurism

vision of progress

celebrated the modern utopia made up of machines, revolution, movement and speed

dynamism and energy

Gesamkunstwerk

'cross-fertilisation of modernist art forms was often expressed in tactical programmings of the manifesto.'

Arnold Schoenberg

Twelve tone composition

'explore ideas of creating structures of visual pattern'

formal patterns and dynamics, fluidity

Wasilly Kandinsky

non-objective abstract art

Music satisfies the modern desire for rhythm in painting, for mathematical, abstract construction, for repeated notes and colour, for setting colour in motion.

Analyses forms and colours not from ideas association but from painter's inner experience.

'inner necessity' - Sensorially rich, intuitive, inner subjective observation.

Constructivist

Seeing aesthetic combination as a whole not as separate things.

Approach of learning: reflect on our experiences and construct our own understanding of the world.

References:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky#Theoretical_writings_on_art
• http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/constructivism
• Rodrigues, C. (2004) Introducing Modernism, Royston: Icon Book Ltd.

Synesthesia: Intuitive Scribbles

I was inspired by and loosely draw lines and forms to some of the old Blade Runner soundtrack. I realise one thing about making visual music is that you have to get the mood of the music right before scribbling in order to get the right form. The form is shaped after first few seconds listening to the music and familiarising with the rhythm.

In the first two drawings I use one continuous line to get into the flow. 

The circles and dotted lines drawing is inspired by Oskar Fischinger's Experiment Painting. Sparseness between lines signifies rhythm and the size of the circles follows fortissimo. Constructing the composition according to the flow of the music.

Examples of Visual Music

COP3 Practical Refined Idea

Practical: Sound informs the visualisation of the movement

• Sound acquisition have to come first.
• From where? Choose 3 among historic landmarks in Leeds.
• Examples: Corn Exchange, Shopping arcades or Kirkgate Market (crowded), Kirkstall Abbey, pubs, cafes or eateries (recreational), Meanwood (natural).
• Research the historical context before going to the places.
• Journal sketches while listening to the ambient sound in the landmarks.
• Create moving character that tells the story of the landmarks: Texture, shape and colour.
• Consider visualisation of rhythm & harmony and disruptive sound.
• Product: 30 seconds animation that relates to mood and audience perception.

Aim of the practical:

Storytelling through visual inspired by rhythm of sound. Focus on the sound projection in historic landmarks to relate to Extended Practice.