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1.
** Please note the grade yourself bit differs to the one I handed in as I got confused and thought 1 - very good so the one on this document is accurate.
Which practical
skills and methodologies have you developed within this module and how
effectively do you think you are employing them within your own practice?
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I feel as I’ve developed my practical skills in
this module through the introduction to new mediums, before this module I had
never used ink, Quink, had a decent blade to cut with or ever seen a Wacom
Tablet. I think by having these available to me and being able to experiment
I have been able to expand my skills as an illustrator. I have started using
ink a lot within my own personal practice now to develop my characters and I
feel like that has carried through to this module, especially within Studio
brief 1 and studio brief 3. Paper cutting too has become more of a focus for
me and I feel comfortable enough now to include it in pieces of work and work
bigger than before. I used paper cutting within three of my finals and feel
like it was successful, I will definitely be employing within my own practice
now I feel comfortable enough with the medium. I have also developed my
Photoshop skills to a higher level where adding extra tools such as a Wacom
tablet is no longer a scary thought for me, my work has benefitted a lot from
developing these skills as I show in Studio Brief 2 where I made
(successfully I think) 3 final pieces digitally which was a personal first
for me. After the brief I have gone back to digital and am practicing my
skills and feel that I am improving and am far more capable of producing
quality digital work than I was at the start of the module.
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2. Which principles/ theories of image making have
you found most valuable during this module and how effectively do you think
you are employing these within your own practice?
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The introduction of frames into my work has been,
for the most part, helpful towards my development. I find working within
frames challenging but when I force myself to do it my work benefits as a
result. Working within frames helps me conjure up a clearer idea of how I
want the composition of my pieces to work.
I have however struggled with dimensions, especially within Studio
Brief 2. I’ve learnt that working to dimensions is something I will have to
do more off and that I need to constantly double check my work to make sure
I’m not going over or under the dimensions.
Within this module I have also had to consider
composition and format more than previously and that my work is developing
better as a result. By having to consider format I am now faster at decision
making when it comes to deciding what medium my work should be on and
sometimes when I will be drawing something in a rough and know immediately
what that piece of work would look best on. I’ve wrestled with composition a
lot throughout this module and know that it is something I will have to tried
harder at with the next module. I struggle to see the bigger picture when image
making but through this module have learnt that working on a bigger scale and
working to constraints will make composition a lot easier, this is something
I will carry through to the next module and also to my own personal practice.
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3. What strengths can you identify within your submission
and how have you capitalised on these?
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Idea generation is one of my strengths within this
submission; I have had a lot of concepts for the different briefs and been
able to come up with varied and interesting pieces for each brief. This has
been helpful as it has left me with a lot of options for what I want finals
to be and also allows more of my work to be critiqued by others as well as
improving my decision making skills as an illustrator.
I have also
been relatively experimental within my submission but been able to reign in
the experiments when I have found something that I find really works for the
brief. I think I have stepped out of my comfort zone where necessary, this is
a strength within my work as it my submission is varied and on a range of
different mediums whilst also sticking to the brief. By being experimental in
my choices of medium I have been able to find things which suit my style of
work, using ink is one of these. As soon as I realised it suited my work, it
became a staple in my work and a staple in my character development (even if
the finals were not in ink it helped me created a feel for my work that I had
not previously had with fine liner).
Tone of voice is something I also think is a
strength within my submission. I feel that all of my work has a tone to it,
whether that be humorous – studio brief 1 or have dark undertones – studio
brief 2 I feel that when creating roughs I’ve kept in mind the audience and
what I want them to feel when they are looking at it, I’ve tried to give them
all a tone when creating the roughs and that as a result has carried through
to my finals in one way or another.
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4. What areas for further development can you
identify within your submission and how will you address these in the future?
Presentation is something I feel needs developing, as
there are things within my submission that I think let me down such as folds
on the poster and slightly wonky borders on my play pieces. These were picked
up in my feedback but also there were some suggestions in my feedback that
informed me on how I could be improving on my presentation such as different
tools or borders.
In the future I will try to consider the tools I’m
using, rather than using a singular blade during paper cutting I will make
sure that I buy more so that the blade isn’t blunt and I will also invest in
a metal ruler rather than a plastic one. I also think that consideration of
composition is something that needs to be developed and my work would be
neater as a result, thinking about borders and where type should be going on
my work (if at all) and placement of things I think would improve my work as
there are bits within my current submission that feel unconsidered. This
might also be addressed through more thorough drafts with more detail so I
can have a clearer plan of what is working and not working composition wise.
Narrowing down ideas is something else I think
needs further development. Although having lots of ideas is a strength I
think that my decision-making needs to improve. I need to be more self
critical of my own work rather than just coming up with loads of ideas and
asking others to help me pick out some, although I did pick some of the
concepts for my work I think I relied to heavily on the opinions of others,
particularly in studio brief 2. By having a more self critical view on my
work I can be producing a higher quality of roughs that will then lead to a
higher quality of final pieces. I think I can work on this by producing more
roughs and narrowing down from those before peer feedback and producing work
that I can root for (so to speak).
Consideration of composition is something I touched
on earlier. I think that although I struggle to do it, working within frames
and working to dimensions is something I should aspire to do as it will
benefit my work. By working in frames I will be able to see the bigger
picture and see what is working and what isn’t. I also think that if I work
to a bigger scale when roughing (especially when making A2 or A3 pieces) I
will have a better feel for the composition than I would if I create roughs
in a A4 or A5 format which is what I usually do.
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5. In what way has this module introduced you to
the Ba (Hons) Illustration programme?
This module has introduced me to the idea of having
peer feedback, this is something I never had previously and I think that it’s
helped me fit into the group. By having the feedback sessions, I’ve developed
my personal opinion and listened to the opinions of the others on the
programme.
The briefing process has introduced me into the
programme as it really outlines the expectations and the structure of the
course, its been helpful because it gives you a bigger picture of the course
and allows you to plan ahead and to know how much time you have to play
around with a brief before having to focus on making the finals. It’s been a good
introduction as it feels serious and important rather than having a first
year that is all about experimenting, this module introduces you to the
programme that you will be having for 3 years and the structure gives you a
good insight into how the rest of your time on the course will be spent. This
module has allowed me to mature as an illustrator and introduces the idea of
deadlines and briefs that you could be getting in the real world.
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As well as this the module has allowed me to
socialise through the peer feedback and see the level of work others are
creating at which personally I find motivational.
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6.How would you grade yourself on the following
areas:
(please indicate using an ‘x’)
5= excellent, 4 = very good, 3 = good, 2 = average,
1 = poor
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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Attendance
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x
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Punctuality
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Motivation
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Commitment
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Quantity of work produced
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x
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Quality of work produced
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x
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Contribution to the group
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The evaluation of your work is an important part of
the assessment criteria and represents a percentage of the overall grade. It
is essential that you give yourself enough time to complete your written
evaluation fully and with appropriate depth and level of self-reflection. If
you have any questions relating to the self-evaluation process speak to a
member of staff as soon as possible.
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Thursday, 29 January 2015
Self Evaluation
Sunday, 25 January 2015
Studio Brief 3 - The Picture Book
“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.” ― Toni Morrison
After studio brief 2 I had a lot of research but still not much of a clue what format I wanted it in. I had tested out a lot of mediums, using gouache for the first time to help form stronger shapes in my work and had been practicing with a new set of watercolouring brushes which helped the accuracy of some of my illustration work. After looking at other people in my group I also brought a thick marker that didnt go through my paper, and practiced drawing loosely with that. Later on this became essential to capturing quick emotional responses on my next cinema visit.
Our first week back I got to talk to Kristyna back in our crit, we talked about how cinema might affect my artwork, I was advised to look at Martin Scorsese's work and how he framed his work and his stylistic features. This helped later on as after looking at his films it helped me place my illustrations within a frame using a composition similar to that of a movie. As well as this I also looked at Wes Anderson for a nice comparison as his work is often very colourful and definable his work also helped influence my framing for my illustration. We talked about relationships within the cinema, whether people choose a favourite seat everytime they go or buy certain things. We talked about abstract designs, one of which was my dorito abstract design which was my favourite piece of pattern. I also discussed different mediums and decided to keep going until I felt the medium suited my piece of work.
I had a week to work on my illustrations before the next crit, during this time I invested in some different mediums and borrowed some from the illustration studio. I brought a thick charcoal marker and started drawing within frames, after discussing movies with Kristyna and looking into some that she suggested it became very apparent that frames would be a strong way to put across my work. The charcoal worked nicely with catching immediacy of places and simple frame. As mentioned before I brought a new marker pen and practiced with thicker and thinner lines ( i had been brought some 0.05 micron fineliners too and these made a massive impact on my work) and although I didnt like how cartoony it looked I liked the idea of contrasting lines and small patterns within big block pieces. I did some very small stamps with my red ink before experimenting with Quink Ink also, something which I hadn't used before (I had used indian ink). This was a key moment in the development as I've always really liked working with ink I found that the ink washes created by Quink really suited the type of work I wanted to create. I also brought some black paper and a white marker and had been playing with the idea of a book in black as most of the time spent in a cinema is dark.
At this point we then had another crit to see how everyone had been getting on. In this crit I had Matt and we talked more about my format. At this point I was still considering hot dog books as a small handout piece, I knew straight away I wouldn't want to do a concertina book as it wouldn't fit in very well with the idea of frames. After talking within my group, they helped me by telling me which of my ideas felt more prominent. They all agreed that cinema rules (an concept i had been playing with) was stronger than some of my others, during the crit everyone had something to contribute about the cinema and some of their personal experiences such as hating people taking selfies and loving the feeling of being in a dark room isolated from the outside, really helped form more ideas of what is magical about the cinema. The work I had done on black paper was also really well received and it was suggested I use a few pages in the middle, this too was a key point in the production as up until that point I hadn't even considered using black and white background pages. Later on it really helped with the pacing and sequence of the book. My small explanatory words underneath the framed illustrations were also really well received and as a result they remained in the artwork.
I went away and started developing stamps for each page, many of which I took from early stamps in different media, I then started to form different frames for each page. It started off with the intention of being only 12 pages long but when I finished the initial pages, it felt that there was more story to be told and that the sequence needed to be extended. For this I created more black pages in the middle and white pages either side, bulking out the book to a 20 page saddle stitch. For most of the white pages it was fairly straight forward, I occasionally spoke to classmates asking them which patterns they preferred more and letting them look at some pages I felt were finished I got some positive feedback on things that should be changed such as the "after toilet rush" page where I had drawn hearts on the inside of a pair of knickers, some of the girls suggested redoing or changing so they looked more accurate which is something I eventually did. As some of my pages were done straight away without much foreplanning some ended up being redone, the first page illustration about "wearing your new jeans" got changed as after I had finished more of my book it became clear that they should be better patterned.
After studio brief 2 I had a lot of research but still not much of a clue what format I wanted it in. I had tested out a lot of mediums, using gouache for the first time to help form stronger shapes in my work and had been practicing with a new set of watercolouring brushes which helped the accuracy of some of my illustration work. After looking at other people in my group I also brought a thick marker that didnt go through my paper, and practiced drawing loosely with that. Later on this became essential to capturing quick emotional responses on my next cinema visit.
Our first week back I got to talk to Kristyna back in our crit, we talked about how cinema might affect my artwork, I was advised to look at Martin Scorsese's work and how he framed his work and his stylistic features. This helped later on as after looking at his films it helped me place my illustrations within a frame using a composition similar to that of a movie. As well as this I also looked at Wes Anderson for a nice comparison as his work is often very colourful and definable his work also helped influence my framing for my illustration. We talked about relationships within the cinema, whether people choose a favourite seat everytime they go or buy certain things. We talked about abstract designs, one of which was my dorito abstract design which was my favourite piece of pattern. I also discussed different mediums and decided to keep going until I felt the medium suited my piece of work.
I had a week to work on my illustrations before the next crit, during this time I invested in some different mediums and borrowed some from the illustration studio. I brought a thick charcoal marker and started drawing within frames, after discussing movies with Kristyna and looking into some that she suggested it became very apparent that frames would be a strong way to put across my work. The charcoal worked nicely with catching immediacy of places and simple frame. As mentioned before I brought a new marker pen and practiced with thicker and thinner lines ( i had been brought some 0.05 micron fineliners too and these made a massive impact on my work) and although I didnt like how cartoony it looked I liked the idea of contrasting lines and small patterns within big block pieces. I did some very small stamps with my red ink before experimenting with Quink Ink also, something which I hadn't used before (I had used indian ink). This was a key moment in the development as I've always really liked working with ink I found that the ink washes created by Quink really suited the type of work I wanted to create. I also brought some black paper and a white marker and had been playing with the idea of a book in black as most of the time spent in a cinema is dark.
At this point we then had another crit to see how everyone had been getting on. In this crit I had Matt and we talked more about my format. At this point I was still considering hot dog books as a small handout piece, I knew straight away I wouldn't want to do a concertina book as it wouldn't fit in very well with the idea of frames. After talking within my group, they helped me by telling me which of my ideas felt more prominent. They all agreed that cinema rules (an concept i had been playing with) was stronger than some of my others, during the crit everyone had something to contribute about the cinema and some of their personal experiences such as hating people taking selfies and loving the feeling of being in a dark room isolated from the outside, really helped form more ideas of what is magical about the cinema. The work I had done on black paper was also really well received and it was suggested I use a few pages in the middle, this too was a key point in the production as up until that point I hadn't even considered using black and white background pages. Later on it really helped with the pacing and sequence of the book. My small explanatory words underneath the framed illustrations were also really well received and as a result they remained in the artwork.
I went away and started developing stamps for each page, many of which I took from early stamps in different media, I then started to form different frames for each page. It started off with the intention of being only 12 pages long but when I finished the initial pages, it felt that there was more story to be told and that the sequence needed to be extended. For this I created more black pages in the middle and white pages either side, bulking out the book to a 20 page saddle stitch. For most of the white pages it was fairly straight forward, I occasionally spoke to classmates asking them which patterns they preferred more and letting them look at some pages I felt were finished I got some positive feedback on things that should be changed such as the "after toilet rush" page where I had drawn hearts on the inside of a pair of knickers, some of the girls suggested redoing or changing so they looked more accurate which is something I eventually did. As some of my pages were done straight away without much foreplanning some ended up being redone, the first page illustration about "wearing your new jeans" got changed as after I had finished more of my book it became clear that they should be better patterned.
Apart from that most of the white pages were no problem but the black pages were somewhat of a challenge. The centre page, showing characters in the theatre posed a number of problems. The first is that white ink was not available and would have been too weak on the black paper, also that the white marker I brought was not strong enough and white pencil conflicted with the rest of the artwork. I scanned it in regardless (as I had scanned in every other page to digitally neaten up) and after numerous attempts I couldn't fix it to fit in with the book. I tried many things such as turning characters into silhouttes, using different brush tools within photoshop etc. but nothing seemed to work. I was then shown how to invert photos and decided to completely redo the centre piece on white paper before inverting it. After testing some of my other ink work inverted I decided not to use ink wash and to stick to the simple lines and patterns that were consistent through the rest of my work. I also decided to reuse some of the characters that were already in the book to also add to the consistency. As this was the last piece of illustrative work I had to do, this made it alot easier to pick out favourite characters and patterns to place them into the final piece.
Photoshop was a huge help in this as I had never really used it before I learnt a lot of new tools, such as the stamp corrector tool which helped me get rid of the creases and splotch marks in my illustrations whilst keeping them looking consistent with the rest of the page. I also learnt how to select and copy things over which helped when I was neatening pages up and helped when I was transferring images I wanted a black background on into a special template. It also helped me move the words closer in as some of them were very close to the edge of the page and I wanted to ensure everything was on the page and visable. Levels in photo shop were a key element in this as well as they cleaned and neatened my work up so all the pages were the same level of white but still retained their lovely ink wash values. There was also a decision I made to grey scale my illustrations, although the Quink was great some of the pieces had a yellow tinge to them (we guessed the paper I used was most probably not acid free but I wasn't sure). This tied my work together nicely and allowed me to create purer blacks than before.
Indesign was also a useful tool in this, I had been familiar with Indesign before but hadn't created a saddlestitch before so learning about how to align pages was interesting. When it came to printing too, I picked up some handy tips such as printing a size bigger if possible, I printed my booklet on A3 (as the double pages were to be printed on A4) because it gave me the chance to trim it down neater and also to avoid any bleed off the page.
Creating the actual book took me a few attempts. My first attempt I trimmed down my book too much and cut off the words in one of the black sections. Although it did give me the chance to readjust actually stitching it on the second one. I decided to print on the inkjet as I felt that the paper there was light and silky and created really nice pure blacks, I could have printed in the digital room but after looking at the paper stock I felt that my book would be best presented on the paper stock in the inkjet printer. It also cost less which if I was planning on making more of this book would be a bonus. My second attempt at making the book was far better and everything was in better proportion.
I kept the front and back cover really simple opting for a nice simple outline on the front (which is actually a drawing of hyde park picture house informed by my visit) and on the back is a little ticket stub with my name and some details that were on ticket stubbs I collected. The inlay I kept the same in the front and back of the book, this was my famous dorito pattern which remained my favourite throughout, although using levels affected some of its delicacy it still came out to a nice quality and was a great way to finish the book.
We then had our final crit on friday, most of the feedback was really good and pleasing to read although some one did look at the wrong book (even though it was marked draft) and picked up on the cut off words which just made me realise that it really was essential to make another one. The best part of the feedback was people saying that after reading it they wanted to visit the cinema because that was exactly what I was aiming for with my book, I wanted people to connect with the magic and maybe even make them feel a bit nostalgic for it. Overall I'm very pleased with the final piece, if I had longer on it I think I would make a few changes and have more whole page frames and more closeups. I also would like to have bound it differently, maybe using a more sophisticated binding technique such as Japanese book binding or French Knotting however for this brief I felt the binding was appropriate.
Photoshop was a huge help in this as I had never really used it before I learnt a lot of new tools, such as the stamp corrector tool which helped me get rid of the creases and splotch marks in my illustrations whilst keeping them looking consistent with the rest of the page. I also learnt how to select and copy things over which helped when I was neatening pages up and helped when I was transferring images I wanted a black background on into a special template. It also helped me move the words closer in as some of them were very close to the edge of the page and I wanted to ensure everything was on the page and visable. Levels in photo shop were a key element in this as well as they cleaned and neatened my work up so all the pages were the same level of white but still retained their lovely ink wash values. There was also a decision I made to grey scale my illustrations, although the Quink was great some of the pieces had a yellow tinge to them (we guessed the paper I used was most probably not acid free but I wasn't sure). This tied my work together nicely and allowed me to create purer blacks than before.
Indesign was also a useful tool in this, I had been familiar with Indesign before but hadn't created a saddlestitch before so learning about how to align pages was interesting. When it came to printing too, I picked up some handy tips such as printing a size bigger if possible, I printed my booklet on A3 (as the double pages were to be printed on A4) because it gave me the chance to trim it down neater and also to avoid any bleed off the page.
Creating the actual book took me a few attempts. My first attempt I trimmed down my book too much and cut off the words in one of the black sections. Although it did give me the chance to readjust actually stitching it on the second one. I decided to print on the inkjet as I felt that the paper there was light and silky and created really nice pure blacks, I could have printed in the digital room but after looking at the paper stock I felt that my book would be best presented on the paper stock in the inkjet printer. It also cost less which if I was planning on making more of this book would be a bonus. My second attempt at making the book was far better and everything was in better proportion.
I kept the front and back cover really simple opting for a nice simple outline on the front (which is actually a drawing of hyde park picture house informed by my visit) and on the back is a little ticket stub with my name and some details that were on ticket stubbs I collected. The inlay I kept the same in the front and back of the book, this was my famous dorito pattern which remained my favourite throughout, although using levels affected some of its delicacy it still came out to a nice quality and was a great way to finish the book.
We then had our final crit on friday, most of the feedback was really good and pleasing to read although some one did look at the wrong book (even though it was marked draft) and picked up on the cut off words which just made me realise that it really was essential to make another one. The best part of the feedback was people saying that after reading it they wanted to visit the cinema because that was exactly what I was aiming for with my book, I wanted people to connect with the magic and maybe even make them feel a bit nostalgic for it. Overall I'm very pleased with the final piece, if I had longer on it I think I would make a few changes and have more whole page frames and more closeups. I also would like to have bound it differently, maybe using a more sophisticated binding technique such as Japanese book binding or French Knotting however for this brief I felt the binding was appropriate.
Studio Brief 2 - The Visual Journalist
The second part to this brief was to go out and research a location and to find a story there whether it be something to do with the history of the location or a typology of collections found there.
My first initial ideas were cinemas and toilets, mostly because I felt like both places were places of interest for myself - cinemas because that was a special place for me and toilets because ever since I was little I have always judged a location on its toilet and that no two are the same.
I mindmapped them both out with different things that could be looked at there, such as carpet designs, tickets stubbs and food collections for cinema and tile designs, different smells and different toilet mannerisms. I then picked out places to go and investigate.
The first place I chose was The Light Leeds as it had both interesting toilets and a cinema within it. I went armed with food and a note pad and drew different people for 2 hours before deciding to speak to some members of staff. A lot of the earlier sketches were in pencil, I wrote down different collections of food types there and later did some watercolouring of the different foods found there. As well as foods I collected drawings on different customers who came in and out, I noticed there were a lot of people that visited the cinema but didn't go in, this was interesting for me and I spoke to a member of staff about it who confirmed my suspicion that numbers of people coming to the cinema were dwindling. We discussed different reasons for this, money prices, food prices and how piracy was more of an issue these days. This was one of the key points in my research as it was this point I decided that cinema had a better story to tell, as not many people could be spoken to in the toilet and after spending 30 minutes in one I hadn't really discovered anything that seemed like a story to tell three. I took some pictures at The Light cinema and took a few leaflets. I asked the woman who worked there questions about the atmosphere and what made that particular cinema special. She informed me of special senior nights, days when tickets were slightly cheaper and when there were special repeat showings. When I got back I also researched The Light online, I found that it was a branch of Vue Cinemas and was one of two in Leeds. The building itself had been developed a lot over the years from a set of offices to various different things until eventually Leeds Council developed it into a leisure complex with Ster Century cinemas being there until Vue brought them out and rebranded the 14 screen multiplex. Much of the original architecture is still in use and visible although the cinema section is slightly newer.
After finding out more about the place, I decided that as well as looking at big cinemas I wanted to investigate smaller ones and see if there was a story to be told for independent cinemas too. The first option I went to look at was Hyde Park picture house, the second oldest in Leeds. Built in 1914 it is almost the same as it was when it was first opened, there are small differences such as new upholstery and more advanced food machines but after to speaking to a volunteer there I discovered that part of the cinema's keeping was to make sure it was operated in the same way as when it first opened including the original gas lamps that are turned on and off by hand by attendants before a movie. When I asked more I learnt that people volunteered to work at Hyde Park picture house to keep it open, and that it had nearly been shut down until Leeds City Council stepped in and brought it making it part of the Leeds Grand Theatre and Opera House Limited which ensured its survival for many years to come. I also asked some questions there, such as what made their cinema unique, the member of staff told me that it was very cosy and had a great sense of atmosphere as well as been an active part of the community - BYOB bring your own baby on wednesdays, Hyde & Seek every saturday at noon reduced prices for families (with autism showings once a month) not to mention creatures of the night and tuesday wonders for older audiences. I was really impressed by the breadth of things the cinema did for the community and really got a sense of atmosphere when I was there.
After speaking to people there I also researched it online and found that it was one of the oldest cinemas in the country and is the online one that still uses gas lit lamps inside although the outside ornate lamp was now powered by electricity, I also learnt they have 2 35mm films and are participants in the Leeds Film Festival and help host every year.
We had two crits just before we went home (in december). The first was everyone in class looking at the research we had done so far. Mine was overall positive and many commented on the universal appeal of cinema. Some commented that I needed to start considering storyboards which is something I kept in mind from this point onwards. People also said I needed to narrow down what I was looking for.
In my second crit I filled out a project proposal form. My initial idea was to make a book about how cinema is an experience worth keeping, people who visit the cinema and what food types are sold. I wanted to convince people into visiting cinemas and to make them notice their worth. At this point I didn't know what I wanted my book to be but I had decided that concertina might not work as well. In order to develop my ideas I had decided to visit cinemas at home, look for more patterns and look at peoples clothing more. I concluded that my research over the two weeks had been helpful and that I needed to keep talking to people as it was a very people lead experience. I also decided I should research the place before I go so I can ask better questions.
Over the christmas period I went home for the holidays and visited my local cinema which is a cineworld (3rd built in the country). It was here that there was the biggest key to the whole of my research. I met a father and daughter who were coming to see paddington (one of the biggest hits this xmas) whilst she was off in the arcade section I spoke to the father who told me about how much the cinema had an impact on him and how since splitting with his wife the cinema is something that him and his daughter can still do together when he sees her. He told me about how movies became special to them and how its a routine but how movie magic helps him to connect to his daughter better. This really touched me and it was at this point I knew I wanted to make a book that reflected more about people and the excitement of visiting and experiencing the cinema rather than promoting the cinema's existence or making a book telling people to visit their local cinema. After speaking to some people in my class before leaving for christmas this was something that reflected in conversations with them, about how everyone had a special routine and how for most it was a real treat going to the cinema when they were younger and how it still retains its magic now they are older.
Whilst I was there I took some pattern designs and carpet designs as I had started thinking about including these within my work already (as it was something all cinemas I had visited had in common).
When I returned I wanted to visit one more cinema to even out my research. I picked cottage road cinema, the oldest cinema in West Yorkshire. Built in 1912 it still has all the original wooden panels it was built with and has had very few changes to structure over the years apart from a balcony that was got rid of a few years ago. After speaking to staff there I found that it had remained independent for its entire duration of being open and celebrated its centenary in 2012 receiving a Leeds Civic Trust blue plaque. I also found out that after The Lounge Cinema was closed in 2005 cottage road cinema too was also closed down, with staff being given notices until it was brought and became part of the Northern Morris Group. I was told that since been part of that group they now show classics every six weeks where patrons of the cinema can come and experience classic films in a classic cinema environment. The staff at cottage road cinema were really proud of their heritage and what movies they show, although the cinema itself only has one screen with 422 seats it still is very popular with surrounding residents. The manager was very enthusiastic about their christmas showing of a wonderful life, which was shown on christmas eve where mince pies and mulled cider/wine were given out. It was a sellout and something that they try to do every year with this year being one of the most successful. The staff at cottage road cinema were more passionate than some I found working at the big chains, when asked why they told me that it was magical to be working in such a history enriched place and the community really made you feel excited about the cinema. I took a lot of photos of the architecture as it was really beautiful on the inside. They also told me about what special offers they did and some funny stories about customers which inspired me later on in my production process.
I returned home and having thoroughly researched places and started experimenting with different medias to start to put together an idea for the next brief.
My first initial ideas were cinemas and toilets, mostly because I felt like both places were places of interest for myself - cinemas because that was a special place for me and toilets because ever since I was little I have always judged a location on its toilet and that no two are the same.
I mindmapped them both out with different things that could be looked at there, such as carpet designs, tickets stubbs and food collections for cinema and tile designs, different smells and different toilet mannerisms. I then picked out places to go and investigate.
The first place I chose was The Light Leeds as it had both interesting toilets and a cinema within it. I went armed with food and a note pad and drew different people for 2 hours before deciding to speak to some members of staff. A lot of the earlier sketches were in pencil, I wrote down different collections of food types there and later did some watercolouring of the different foods found there. As well as foods I collected drawings on different customers who came in and out, I noticed there were a lot of people that visited the cinema but didn't go in, this was interesting for me and I spoke to a member of staff about it who confirmed my suspicion that numbers of people coming to the cinema were dwindling. We discussed different reasons for this, money prices, food prices and how piracy was more of an issue these days. This was one of the key points in my research as it was this point I decided that cinema had a better story to tell, as not many people could be spoken to in the toilet and after spending 30 minutes in one I hadn't really discovered anything that seemed like a story to tell three. I took some pictures at The Light cinema and took a few leaflets. I asked the woman who worked there questions about the atmosphere and what made that particular cinema special. She informed me of special senior nights, days when tickets were slightly cheaper and when there were special repeat showings. When I got back I also researched The Light online, I found that it was a branch of Vue Cinemas and was one of two in Leeds. The building itself had been developed a lot over the years from a set of offices to various different things until eventually Leeds Council developed it into a leisure complex with Ster Century cinemas being there until Vue brought them out and rebranded the 14 screen multiplex. Much of the original architecture is still in use and visible although the cinema section is slightly newer.
After finding out more about the place, I decided that as well as looking at big cinemas I wanted to investigate smaller ones and see if there was a story to be told for independent cinemas too. The first option I went to look at was Hyde Park picture house, the second oldest in Leeds. Built in 1914 it is almost the same as it was when it was first opened, there are small differences such as new upholstery and more advanced food machines but after to speaking to a volunteer there I discovered that part of the cinema's keeping was to make sure it was operated in the same way as when it first opened including the original gas lamps that are turned on and off by hand by attendants before a movie. When I asked more I learnt that people volunteered to work at Hyde Park picture house to keep it open, and that it had nearly been shut down until Leeds City Council stepped in and brought it making it part of the Leeds Grand Theatre and Opera House Limited which ensured its survival for many years to come. I also asked some questions there, such as what made their cinema unique, the member of staff told me that it was very cosy and had a great sense of atmosphere as well as been an active part of the community - BYOB bring your own baby on wednesdays, Hyde & Seek every saturday at noon reduced prices for families (with autism showings once a month) not to mention creatures of the night and tuesday wonders for older audiences. I was really impressed by the breadth of things the cinema did for the community and really got a sense of atmosphere when I was there.
After speaking to people there I also researched it online and found that it was one of the oldest cinemas in the country and is the online one that still uses gas lit lamps inside although the outside ornate lamp was now powered by electricity, I also learnt they have 2 35mm films and are participants in the Leeds Film Festival and help host every year.
We had two crits just before we went home (in december). The first was everyone in class looking at the research we had done so far. Mine was overall positive and many commented on the universal appeal of cinema. Some commented that I needed to start considering storyboards which is something I kept in mind from this point onwards. People also said I needed to narrow down what I was looking for.
In my second crit I filled out a project proposal form. My initial idea was to make a book about how cinema is an experience worth keeping, people who visit the cinema and what food types are sold. I wanted to convince people into visiting cinemas and to make them notice their worth. At this point I didn't know what I wanted my book to be but I had decided that concertina might not work as well. In order to develop my ideas I had decided to visit cinemas at home, look for more patterns and look at peoples clothing more. I concluded that my research over the two weeks had been helpful and that I needed to keep talking to people as it was a very people lead experience. I also decided I should research the place before I go so I can ask better questions.
Over the christmas period I went home for the holidays and visited my local cinema which is a cineworld (3rd built in the country). It was here that there was the biggest key to the whole of my research. I met a father and daughter who were coming to see paddington (one of the biggest hits this xmas) whilst she was off in the arcade section I spoke to the father who told me about how much the cinema had an impact on him and how since splitting with his wife the cinema is something that him and his daughter can still do together when he sees her. He told me about how movies became special to them and how its a routine but how movie magic helps him to connect to his daughter better. This really touched me and it was at this point I knew I wanted to make a book that reflected more about people and the excitement of visiting and experiencing the cinema rather than promoting the cinema's existence or making a book telling people to visit their local cinema. After speaking to some people in my class before leaving for christmas this was something that reflected in conversations with them, about how everyone had a special routine and how for most it was a real treat going to the cinema when they were younger and how it still retains its magic now they are older.
Whilst I was there I took some pattern designs and carpet designs as I had started thinking about including these within my work already (as it was something all cinemas I had visited had in common).
When I returned I wanted to visit one more cinema to even out my research. I picked cottage road cinema, the oldest cinema in West Yorkshire. Built in 1912 it still has all the original wooden panels it was built with and has had very few changes to structure over the years apart from a balcony that was got rid of a few years ago. After speaking to staff there I found that it had remained independent for its entire duration of being open and celebrated its centenary in 2012 receiving a Leeds Civic Trust blue plaque. I also found out that after The Lounge Cinema was closed in 2005 cottage road cinema too was also closed down, with staff being given notices until it was brought and became part of the Northern Morris Group. I was told that since been part of that group they now show classics every six weeks where patrons of the cinema can come and experience classic films in a classic cinema environment. The staff at cottage road cinema were really proud of their heritage and what movies they show, although the cinema itself only has one screen with 422 seats it still is very popular with surrounding residents. The manager was very enthusiastic about their christmas showing of a wonderful life, which was shown on christmas eve where mince pies and mulled cider/wine were given out. It was a sellout and something that they try to do every year with this year being one of the most successful. The staff at cottage road cinema were more passionate than some I found working at the big chains, when asked why they told me that it was magical to be working in such a history enriched place and the community really made you feel excited about the cinema. I took a lot of photos of the architecture as it was really beautiful on the inside. They also told me about what special offers they did and some funny stories about customers which inspired me later on in my production process.
I returned home and having thoroughly researched places and started experimenting with different medias to start to put together an idea for the next brief.
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