Evaluation

Evaluation

ΔT& Exertion

My main aim for this project was to create a sports wear garment that was reactive to heat and changed colour in response to this. The main motivation for pursuing this concept was to create something original that would have a practical use. The garment was intended to not only look aesthetically pleasing but also indicate to the wearer the amount of effort they were using; shown by an increased degree of colour change. This would have the benefit of motivating the wearer to engage in sustaining sporting activities. It was initially intended for dancing professionals but it is evident that the garment could be utilised by a wider range of sports.

A further aim of this project was to create a number of fashion films to showcase the entire creation and implementation of this garment. My future aspirations are closely linked within the fashion film context and I hope to pursue a career within this industry. This project was an ideal opportunity to explore my fashion film making skill and develop my directing and editing abilities.

Live Project/ fashion film student

In terms of research, this project built on resources gained from the past unit and consolidating the research I had previously carried out. This was coupled with new concepts and ideas. In the past unit, I created the floral prints which would form the basis of my current project. I also tested the equipment required such as a thermal camera and identified the areas of the body which were most effective in producing heat. Mastering these skills in the last unit equipped me significantly and increased my confidence. In the current unit I was able to hone these skills further. The last unit also provided the opportunity to test different thermochromic paints. This saved considerable time and resources when creating the garment. This offered me flexibility to experiment with different colours which lead to the identification of the optimal colour balance.

I have had some hurdles to overcome such as people failing to turn up for shoots. In response I have been able to work out strategies to resolve this. Through networking I find people and if they fail to show, I will use this networking to find another suitable individuals at short notice. This skill is one of my strongest as it can be very disheartening when models or dancers don’t uphold their commitments. But this adversity has worked in my favour, finding other, possibly more suitable individuals for the role. In directing these individuals on set, in a professional manner, with little understanding of their abilities but admiration for their skill. I feel has worked well and has benefited me as I will be working with different people and challenges every day in my field of work.

The ideal platform for marketing my Project work and my fashion films would be similar to show studio and Dazed. To market my print designs, I have used a range of female dancers to show my ideal model for my sportswear. Working with dancers outside of university has given me the opportunity to focus and network with all different kinds of creative people. Working with a fashion student, Chloe Parsonson, has given me the opportunity to expand my directing skills and creating narrative within fashion films, working in a number of different directions.  I have created a website, Instagram and Youtube channel to show case my portfolio.

My final film- Dancing Paint

My final film

Dancing paint

This part of the project has been challenging, but exciting. I felt it was important to use music in my film the music is from the Band Jungle and the Music is called Drops. My film has taken a long process of editing and filming but I feel the outcome is successful. The showgirl and the paint complement each other as they both look like performances. I had to match her hand gestures to the movement of the paint in water. I found this a challenge but it is visually effective and there is something quite magical about it. The showgirl in the film was easy to direct and her hand gestures and facial expressions really express the character of a show girl. What I felt it worked well with the timing of the paint to the showgirls movements. I wanted my film to represent something quite magical and fantasy like.

Process of Final Film

 Process of Final Film

Through the process of making my final film. I took a photograph as I thought it was visually interesting to capture it in one motion. I am working with a friend of mine called Nicole she is being my actress for my film. I have put glitter all over the face and stars around her cheek bones to represent a show girl look, so the projector that is shining on brings out the different colours of the glitter on her face. On the projector that I have lined up and she is standing in front of it is a glass of water with small plastic stars. I moved the glass of water around the projector as it created a shadow on the wall and across her face changing the light direction. I asked her to move like a showgirl would move doing slow and flowing movement. I captured this on film and will edit this with Final Cut Pro and layer it with the paint in water.

Painting

From my film of the paint in water, I decided to do a small painting to show what will look like on paper.

Drawings

Drawing

For these two drawings. I was inspired by an embroidery artist called Lou Gardiner, she is a Bristol based Embroidery artist which is where I come from. I am interested in her character like quality in her work I wanted to enforce this into my drawing of the CanCan girls.

Lou Gardiner

My work:

My work:

Psychedelic & Cancan girls

Paint in Water

As using inspiration from the Moulin Rouge clip of the showgirls skirts. I have made a video using a high quality SLR camera. I wanted  the video to have a mixture of inspirations of mine such as the psychedelic fashion of the 60s and the cancan girls flowing skirts from Moulin Rouge. In this video. I have used to edit Final Cut Pro I found it quite easy to use and I also attached audio music of my Dad's bands called the Toads as I feel it mixed well with the colours in the psychedelic feel to the film.

CanCan Girls

CanCan Girls

When I had the first idea to have paint in water and I was thinking about the film The Moulin Rouge and how their skirts are so vibrant and layered from different colours moving freely. It was this clip in particular that struck me for inspiration and helped me think in ways I can show paint as type of performance.

Show Girls

Show Girls

As show girls have been around since the 1800’s and have been a big part of Fairground. I started to look at other inspirations and sources where showgirls have performed. I started to look showgirls from the Moulin Rouge as ideas for my final project and I realized it was visually interesting and important for my project as I am thinking about using a showgirls presented in my film.

This video has inspired me for its vibrancy and interesting movements and shapes of the costumes. In this video, all the showgirls move in a specific way, working in time with each other and making sure they fit the timing of the music. For my final film timing is very important to me as I think going to layer two videos on top of each other, but they have to and sink and moving the same motion. To do this I am thinking about layering my paint in water video with a showgirl dancing in the background.

  

Colour in water

Colour in Water

I have been thinking about my final idea for this exhibition, so I have been practicing out different ideas and ways of editing layering on top of two films. I used my paint in water idea and a shot of the glass of water shadow reflecting on the surface by merging them both together to create two moving films at once using final cut pro. I did this because I wanted my video to be exciting and have lots going on at once. It is like that in a show girl’s performance, there is so much movement and excitement going on stage. It’s hard to look at it all at once and I wanted to show this in my video in a subtle way by things not moving too fast so it is easy to watch and not to overwhelming.

Show girl Drawings

Show Girl Drawing

I have made some drawings to represent the movement and fluidity of how a showgirl would perform. I wanted to mix my ideas from my films of colour in water and show how it would look through a drawing. I wanted to do this to show the impact of excitement through my drawings.

Instagram Edits

Instagram Edits

When editing my work, I used instagram video editor on my phone and as my first-hand approach to editing I felt it worked well and it was easy to use and I was able to edit it quickly and simply. In these videos that I posted I have added a music to them to create a type of mood and I wanted the sound of the music to work in time of the paint moving so it looks like the paint is dancing in the water to the music. I used quite slow songs, so they were able to work on time with the beat music.

Mark Mawson

Mark Mawson

For the motion of the paint in the water I was inspired by the international award winning Mark Mawson. I was actually inspired by one of his videos where he shows paint expanding and water with a backing track of music complementing the movement of the paint. This inspired me because he was almost showing how the paint could be represented as a type of mood or feeling. The video itself called aqueouse movie and shows paint in different forms and shapes and lines moving slowly through the water. What interested me about this video is how vibrant and voluminous it looked and I wanted to try and recreate some aspects of this. 

IMovie

IMovie:

I have always thought fairgrounds are a sort of live performance of bright lights, exciting performers and strange and different things. When creating my iMovie video again from using the same idea as my stop motion animation, I wanted a way to represent a fairground performance by using the most simplest objects.  By using a glass of water with red and blue watercolour paint, I was able to experiment with ways of showing motion of paint through the water. I wanted the paint to represent a kind of dance that almost has a life of its own. By using iMovie, I was able to edit my video and add music and sounds to the video. I wanted to use strange unusual sounds that I created myself, such as a rush of water through a tap to represent the water in the glass and also the clinking sound is me tapping a glass with a spoon and this represents the sound of the glass in the video. I wanted my video to show that everything linked together. I edited my video to change the speed and to rewind as I think it was important to show the motion of the paint swirling in the glass of water.

Drawing on Film

Drawing on film:

I have recently thought of ways of manipulating film and how one can change the mood and colours of a film. In this lesson, we had been given a range of materials to draw over a long role of film and we had to collaborate with each other to paint the film. Painting over the film has given me ideas through my own process of development of ways I can use colour and mood as a type of movement piece.

The finished film:

Editing is an integral element of making film. In my opinion, fair grounds can be a vibrant magical place. In my film, my idea is to show how colour can transfer into movement and expression. By dipping water colours  a glass of water I began to be able to see movement and lines within the paint and it simulated types of mood though the different colours.

Stop Motion animation

Stop Motion animation:

I want to start showing in my work how I can represent fairgrounds through drawings. I have created a stop motion animation and my inspiration was one of the headdresses at the pleasure Beach in Blackpool. I wanted to create stop motion animation to represent a development of the drawing that is suggestive of a show girl costume by using vibrant tones of colour, glitter and stars.

This is my first creation of the stop motion animation. I wanted to experiment with vibrant colour and almost create a still life performance by using just paint and glittery stars. 

Drawing to Music

Drawing to Music

In the past, I never thought that sound and music could be a large part of drawing and art. Through this lesson I found that there is a way of documenting music and sound through the expression of lines and drawing.

I wanted the lines of my drawing to express the rhythm of the music and if the music was fast and up tempo the lines in the drawing would be increasingly jagged and less orderly. If the music was slow and soft my lines would be straight and neat.  I chose to use different colours to show the difference of each music track.

My drawings were presented in a large scale as I wanted to express my whole body moving with the sound of the music and transferring that onto each piece I completed.

Belle Vue

Belle Vue :

Belle Vue was a fairground based in Manchester in the 1920’s where people from the city would come and see the exotic animals.  At that time, it was a luxury and people would revel in its activities and sites. It was well known that it sold the most beer  in the UK than anywhere else around that time. The type of people that visited Bella Vue were often upper class that dressed formally for their visit. Although Belle Vue had a range of exotic animals, it was renowned for keeping them under poor conditions and animals were documented to not survive for long which may have decreased its popularity. I found this information hard to listen to in the lecture as it sounded like the animals were almost treated as disposable toys and solely an object for entertainment. I find the leaflets for Belle Vue very creative and it appeared that they advertised the fairground like it was an exotic rainforest.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach

I enjoyed the trip to Blackpool, however, I found that seeing the amusement park when it is not open to the public was a somewhat eerie experience.

Costume room for ice-skating performances:

I found the costume room particularly inspiring. The room exploded with colour and creative fantasy-like costumes and I feel that this aspect will significantly inspire my creative process. The feathered headdresses that dangled from the sealing were visually pleasing as they were incredibly free-flowing and vibrant. It was almost as if the costumes had a life of their own with dominant outline structured designs to the clothing. I would like to demonstrate in my work how I can create vibrancy and originality from the costume room and develop it in a simplistic way of using colour, movement and shape.

 

Costume workshop:

When looking at the costume workshop it made me think of how much hard work and dedication is involved in making such beautiful and elegant headdresses. I would like to adopt some of the same techniques that I witnessed in the costume workshop area. Pantomime costume, in general, does not interest me greatly however,  there are a number of areas I could utilize and develop in my own work such as the expressive use of colour and perhaps using colour as a type of performance.

Rollercoaster’s :

The different shapes and forms of the rollercoaster’s at Blackpool was of fascination to me. I like the fact that it looks like the construction is built upon layers. I have tried to develop this through my drawing of the different lines that the rollercoaster’s create. I wanted my drawings to appear as if they had motion integrated within them so when drawing I made the lines very vigorous.

At the end of the trip we were given an opportunity to go ice skating and it made me think of the  lines in the ice that are carved by the ice skates and how ice skating has a flying like quality, almost similar to riding on a rollercoaster. Ice skating could be another form of drawing as the ice represents a blank canvas and the blades almost mirror a drawing tool. The different curves and swirls that are indented into the ice are formed with the tool. I think that the ice skating rink and the rollercoaster park share similar features as both ice skating and rollercoaster’s  share an element of danger, excitement and adrenaline release.