"More Than Meets The Eye" Animated VR Experience

Brilliant. Invisible art direction and acting. Utterly convincing and complete entertainment from the 20th Century Fox intro to the final credits.

So to encourage divergent thinking I took myself off to the DCA on Saturday, to have a look around the installations and people-watch. Santiago Black Flag  http://www.dca.org.uk/whats-on/event/santiago-sierra-black-flag  was a black and white photographic exhibition "documenting Santiago's process and planting of the universal symbol of the anarchist movement's Black Flag at the North and South poles. I particularly liked the two huge black and white photos - both placed in a landscape orientation, but the lower one (south pole) was upside down. Mike Kelley - Domestic Homestead. It wasn't so much the content that got my attention, but the layout of the space. Food for thought for how to showcase the final film(s) once done... Portable, scaffolding, headphones and multi-screen

https://northeastofnorth.com/theme/ I attended the NEoN Digital mini-symposium at the V&A on 9th November... Interesting mix of digital practitioners, with a lot of experience stemming from the 1990's. And a term that I'd not heard of before....'Digital Natives'  meaning: those that were born after 1980. Mouchette.org, created by Martine Neddam in the 90's... http://www.mouchette.org/ Pretty dark themes, suicide advice from a 13 year old's perspective. I considered that this may have been one of the first online examples of Catfish. Interactive website that still operates as it did originally. Neddam has now revealed her identity  and gave a full presentation on Mouchette. Many people don't explore the website as they many of the links are hidden or change frequently. The Endless Forest screen saver game.  http://tale-of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/ . This has become a community and the game's creators intercept the game occasionally as ...

As part of Joe de Lappe's presentation at the Research Away Day 29th October, there were a few slides on Chronocyclegraphs. Invented by Frank and Lilian Gilbreth 1914 small light bulbs were attached to finger tips, to capture motion patterns with light. https://nptel.ac.in/courses/112107142/7 "Cycle graph and Chrono cycle graph These are the techniques of analyzing the paths of motion made by an operator and were originally developed by the Gilbreths. To make a cycle graph , a small electric bulb is attached to the finger, hand, or any other part of the body whose motion is to be recorded. By using still photography, the path of light of bulb (in other words, that of the body member) as it moves through space for one complete cycle is photographed. The working area is kept relatively less illuminated while photograph is being taken. More than one camera may be used in different planes to get more details. After the film is developed, the resulting picture (cycle graph) sho...

https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/ocean-liners-speed-style?gclid=CjwKCAjw6-_eBRBXEiwA-5zHadIGJHVdDJDkxy5muyn5SpD4U3wi3fNdR5yKOUUloPsNUWW3Z3DSHBoCZEsQAvD_BwE So for date night last week, we'd booked for desert and coffee at the V & A. The Tatha bar and restaurant is loftily high on a mezzanine level and an event was on that same evening and the place was packed. Live Jazz down in the main concourse created incredible acoustics and provided a very loud soundtrack to our pudding (apple tart!). We were given free tickets as a consolation for the live music (!) and were able to get a free viewing of the first exhibition 'Ocean Liners, Speed and Style'. The exhibition was stunning and full of costume, great theatrical room presentations, including a full height film of sea and sky, projected behind ships railings, fake swimming pools and VFX footage of 1st class passengers heading for the dining room. We bought a poster as a momento! Great to see such good use of colours (d...

As part of the Festival of the Future 2018 in Dundee, I went to see an 'Animation and Digital Design workshop' at the Bonar Hall. John Butler lead the workshop and showed examples of his motion capture films, plus introduced us to his 'smart suit', which uses the same auto-rotate smart phone tech, on each joint of the suit, as a new motion capture technique. His focus and theme is about work of the future; with a particular emphasis on fabric, childlike fabrics at that, plus bright directional lighting. Frameman John Bulter People should work from john butler on Vimeo .

So for date night each week we choose something/somewhere....last Friday it was the cinema. First Man. Interesting to review some of the trailers, to post with this blog. Some of the trailers steer clear of the emotional storyline and simply aim to present a 'block buster' space film. This trailer captures more of the essence within the film that appealed to me. Very realistic portrayal of flight and the enormity of what was trying to be achieved and overcome. Although there was CGI, it was invisible and the grain, quality and footage from a purely technical point of view, made a very convincing 1960's film. It lacked gloss and this only served it all the better. The protagonist's emotional journey, separation and connection of his trip to the moon and his acceptance of the death of his young daughter was powerful.

For date night, last week, my husband bought us tickets to see Solar Bear's   http://www.solarbear.org.uk/ The Arrival , at the Tayside Deaf Hub. Wow! Highly imaginative and creative use of space, sound, silhouette, puppetry and scaled objects; including minature ships, kitchens, family and silhouetted tornadoes. Very moving and I was struck by how quiet we as an audience were, during the 20 minutes before the play started. The play included some scenes in sign language, but mostly the action was without dialogue and the props, lighting and sound told the story of a man starting life in a bewildering new city. Poetic sound and lack of speech was truly noticeable...this play was accessible to all.