Development in Creative Thought and Structure - 23rd November

Developing Ideational Fluency


Creating ideas is one of the most, if not the most, important part of a visual communicator's creative process. Ideational fluency can be described as ideas that fulfill certain requirements, it focus' more on the quantity and range of ideas rather than the quality of ideas. There are three main ways in which to think up these ideas, these are:

• Brainstorming
• Classification
• Mind Mapping

Classification consists of organised ideas whereby you recognise both the obvious and hidden denominators. Brainstorming is a way in which you can develop spontaneous thinking, this means the generation of more ideas. Mind mapping is more about the recall of ideas, it is an organised thought process  that develops as a network, this produces an encouragement in associations between different thoughts. 

Personally my preferred method of generating ideas is brainstorming, I find that if I sit down in a quiet place, this helps me to think properly and to get my ideas down onto paper and to generate more. Another way in which helps me to brainstorm is to talk to others about the main theme, this helps me to feed off of others thoughts and because everybody has different thought processes and ways of thinking, I find it really interesting to see how other people think and feel about the same thing as you, it generates so many different styles and ideas.

The above images are examples of my own ways of brainstorming, they show two sides of how I work, one being quite messy and thorough, and another being quite simple and orderly. I prefer to start off my brainstorm in a messy, unorganized way and to then organize it and make my ideas more neat and refined.

Getting Rid Of Assumptions

One problem with being a visual communicator is that you may start to think in the same ways, its good to keep an open mind with new ideas, these restraints can come in the form of education, rationality and experience. These restraints can have negative impacts on work which causes you to become more inhibited and it causes you to get into more of a routine, what you need is a fresh perspective that comes with each brief.

A way to keep these perspectives fresh is to look at things through similes, metaphors and analagies, these provide new ways of thinking by creating associations between objects that are different, another good thing about this method of thinking is that anything in your memory can trigger these thoughts.

Production and Outcomes - 9th November

Interpretation

One of the most important features when it comes to interpretation is the 'zeitgeist'. Visual communicator's rely on the spirit and ideas of time for inspiration and for different ways in which to express the same idea. One example of this would be Alice in Wonderland; so many different visual communicator's have produced this film but each version differentiates, whether it's through the film being darker and more sinister or through it being more light hearted and child-like.

Another example of different interpretations is the story of 'Adam and Eve'; as we know, the biblical story of Adam and Eve is all about temptation, with the both of them being told not to eat off of a particular tree, and it ending with the both of them being banished from the garden because they were tempted by a serpent and ended up eating off the tree they were told not to. Different artists have expressed different ways to represent this story. One of the latest examples of this is a film by Justin and Jeff Kanew, titled 'Adam and Eve'.

This film attempts to modernise the story by keeping the moral similar, yet placing it into the world we see today. In this instance we see a bunch of gross male room mates behaving lazily and rather slovenly, in America it would be described as a 'frat boy comedy'. The main principle of the film is that Adam and Eve meet and form a relationship, it turns out that Eve is still a virgin and the film is based on the problems that occur when two people come together but want different things, whilst trying to keep their own principles. 

When we compare the modern Adam and Eve to the traditional Adam and Eve, we can see a huge difference in interpretation. In this particular example, we have a painting by Jan Gossaert; we can see where the Kanew's interpretation has derived from regarding clothes, or rather a lack of clothes, but the main difference is the time in which each was produced. The film being produced in 2007, and the painting produced in around 1520, it is clear that interpretation is what has driven the film.

Testing Your Work

It is vital to every visual communicator to test their work and to find out what their specific audience think about that work, most creative's tend to test their work in similar ways, these mainly being:

• publishing work
• appearing in galleries
• creating websites
• forums/feedback pages

Through these different types of platforms, they are able to gain feedback and reactions, which helps to disseminate your own work. One of the easiest ways in which to test your work is to create a website, this enables you to publicise your own work but also for you to give information about yourself and your work; it also gives the public the option to contact you with their thoughts and feedback if they should wish to. An example of a good website is Marcus Walters':

The reason why this is a positive example of a successful website is that the visual hierarchy is clear, we first look at the image, then 'Marcus Walters' as it is bold and underlined in blue, we then look at the links below. This is a very simple example of publicising yourself but that is why it works. Another good feature on this page is that the image we see in the print screen is actually a slide show on the website, this feature works as it gives the audience a quick glimpse of the type of work Marcus Walters produces. Finally, we have the 'Blog' link and the 'Contact' link. Blogs are a good way for the public to get a better understanding of the visual communicator as it is a more personal part of their art. The 'Contact' link enables the audience/reader to get in touch with the visual communicator, whether it is in relevance to feedback or because the viewer wants the creative to produce something for themselves, it is a great way in which to promote themselves.

Development in Moving Image - 2nd November

Story Development -  Three Act Structure


Jean-Luc Godard - "Every movie needs to have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order"

The first criterion in a film in order to fulfill the three act structure, is the need for a protagonist. Act one is complete when the protagonist makes a commitment that will eventually lead to the main action of the movie. In the film 'Hancock', the character John Hancock is the protagonist, his commitment in the film is when he agrees to let the character Ray Embrey change Hancock's public image for the better. To narrow this down even more it is when Hancock agrees to go to prison, the thought behind this deal is that once Hancock is locked up and therefore not able to stop crime, the crime rate will soar and therefore Hancock will be needed once more.

Criterion two is that the characters start off in a state of equilibrium, something then happens to disturb this state and it starts a sequence of events. By the end of the film the characters come to rest in a new, different state of equilibrium. In the chosen film, this happens when Hancock meets Mary, Ray's wife. It eventually turns out that Mary, too, is a superhero and that they are, in their world, practically married. This threw cogs in the works of Mary and Ray's marriage for a while. To complicate things more, when Hancock and Mary are nearer to each other they become mortal. When Hancock gets shot, he finds this out. In order to keep both of them alive, Hancock musters every last bit of strength to get as far away as possible from Mary, which leads into the other equilibrium as Ray and Mary carry on with their marriage and Hancock is busy stopping crime, which is the way it was before.

The third criterion is that the 'outer story' is usually accompanied by an 'inner story', in which the protagonist changes or grows emotionally, these changes are often formed from some form of romance. I would say that in this case it is when he finds out about Mary and him being together previously. When Hancock gets shot, I believe his feelings for Mary, and maybe even his respect for Ray, are what gives Hancock the strength to get as far away from them as possible, I also believe that this is when Hancock truly changed and became the person who Ray moulded him into.

 Pre-production - Character Design


In any film, there is always a lot of thought gone into the designing aspects of the characters. The main 4 aspects of a character are as follows:

• Protagonist
• Antagonist
• Dialogue 
• Stereotype

The character I have chosen to analyse is John Hancock, from the film 'Hancock'. In this particular film, Hancock is the protagonist as he experiences the conflict, in this instance the protagonist is viewed by the audience as a mix between good and bad.

In this instance I find it hard to differentiate between what/who the antagonist is. I would say it to be the public/law enforcement of Los Angeles as they give Hancock a hard time for stopping crime as he routinely damages millions of dollars in the city and keep giving him subpoenas and lawsuits. 

Hancock has been designed as an alcoholic and somebody who could care less about various damages caused along the way between each rescue mission; as long as he gets the job done. The dialogue represents this theme by using 'slang' and not talking the 'proper' way.

Hancock is also, by large, a stereotype, this derives from the alcoholic theme in the film. With being an alcoholic comes the generalisation that you don't care about anything but your addiction and that the addiction comes first. In this film it is true, however towards the end of the film, Ray Embrey decides to help Hancock and to change his public image, which is when he stops drinking alcohol and is moulded into what the public want from a 'superhero'.

3 more important features when designing characters are:

• appearance
• action
• interaction

This image is taken from the beginning of the film, as you can see Hancock looks trampy; he's just spent the night drinking and ended up passing out on a bench, the little boy confronts him and basically says that he's a rubbish superhero.

The above image depicts Hancock as 'changed', he now has a particular image, he no longer looks trampy or alcohol abused, he is made in the image of the public.