Project 4 - Abstract Films

Our previous tutor had to leave due to work related issues and we met our new tutor, Rozi Fuller. She introduced us to abstract animation with the work of Norman McLaren, a filmmaker and artist who painted directly onto film reel during his early work. We were tasked with similar work and were given a long cut of 8mm film reel to do with as we wanted.

This final reel is a compilation of the entire class' work. My film begins at 2:35 and runs until the end of the video.

The first thing I did with my reel was to use Copic Marker brush pens to draw symbols from a language I developed for another project a few months back. They represented a number of things; from gibberish; my own initials and the title of the project. I then moved onto simple colour gradients, both smoothly and roughly. I also added a few things such a rotating lines and an entire section dedicated to me complaining about the project in morse code.

I found the lack of meaning in abstract animation hard to get my head around - or at least the lack of narrative. I feel I missed the point by adding in things that have a definite translation. However I am quite pleased with the result of the colour gradation from 2:44 - 2:46. The colour schemes I had were quite aesthetically pleasing, as well as the effect I created by dotting the brush pen instead of blending.