I’ve been actively taking part in each and every Friday Workshop, taking notes and being a part of the conversation, but I realized just yesterday that I hadn’t updated my blog on these lessons for a good while. Because of this, I’ll make a big post detailing everything that’s happened in the month-or-so since my last Friday workshop update. I hope that’s good enough.
I’ll start by mentioning that, under Jane’s advice, I started keeping a document with most of the artists mentioned during the workshops (link below). Each session gets us talking about so many different artists and works spanning throughout decades of history that remembering them all by heart is nearly impossible- and really inconvenient at that. I’ve also been helped by my coursemate Despina, from group 2B, to keep it as up-to-date and accurate as possible, constantly sharing it with our other coursemates during the lessons, and I appreciate her help with it.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PPKjONQA4Z0Foy3j7LnOgs1AepViHeCEWA1s3zxybqk/edit?usp=sharing
After the group presentations on chosen artists, we looked at People, including ourselves, and thinking of how our work is influenced by (and influences) ourselves and our experiences, the people around us, our interactions with the world we live in.
This was a bit of a challenging question for me; I was never exactly popular at school, I’ve never particularly enjoyed going out for drinks or clubs, and I’ve never really had more than a few close friends at a time. And while the friends I’ve had have certainly influenced me, I also need to admit that I have been most of all influenced by people and experiences online; my beliefs were largely formed from information found on the internet as opposed to what I heard from people around me. My passions (such as drawing and animation) were strengthened more from being able to freely research them online than from talking about them to anyone in real life (mostly because I never had a lot of friends who shared my interest for the medium). Even my accent, which often makes people think I’m American, was subconsciously built up from years of watching YouTube videos. I plan to include the people I love most in my book, as they have certainly influenced me (my mom’s empathy and kindness, my dad’s determination, all the life lessons my grandparents have given me), but I’ll inevitably also have to include all the online friends that have given me their friendship and support through the years.
https://padlet.com/ldelazzer02202011/h7c01v4xwteeoooo
Afterwards, we were tasked to find a museum exhibit around the world that interested us. I chose the exhibit of Leonardo Da Vinci’s machines, in Venice: essentially, it’s a large room filled with physical recreations of Da Vinci’s concept drawings of hypothetical inventions, like large wings to make men fly, and a spinning machine that would’ve essentially functioned as a helicopter. I got to visit it in person years ago, as I live a half-hour train ride away from Venice, and it always fascinated me: Da Vinci’s actual ideas wouldn’t actually work, as the engineering and physics behind them were simply incorrect, but the imagination behind each and every one of his works is incredible, especially considering it was over 500 years ago, and some of his concepts would later on become reality through machines like airplanes and helicopters. I believe imagination to be one of mankind’s most important qualities, and Da Vinci let it shine through in his work.
Next, we looked at Cultural Identity, and the celebrations and traditions we each have in our family and culture. My family has a few unspoken traditions, like getting pizzas on Sunday dinner, but our main celebration is Christmas day, which is pretty standard: wake up, exchange gifts with the others, wait for the grandparents and uncles to arrive (I don’t have any cousins), and have a big lunch (usually rice and meat) and Panettoni and Pandori with custard. The elderlies will usually be drunk by the early evening, at which point the uncles drive them home, and me, my sister and my parents relax for the rest of the day. It’s a tradition we mostly keep alive for my grandparents, as they’ve done it all their lives, and not doing it would break their hearts. It’s not always perfect, and we don’t always get along, but it’s usually a happy day for everyone, and I look forward to it. As for country-wide celebrations, Italy has Carnevale: a week or so of celebrations, from a Thursday to a Tuesday (with the most important day being the Sunday), consisting of huge plays and masquerades, where people (usually kids) get to dress up in costumes, have fun outside and eat traditional Carnevale food, like galani and frittelle. It happens in February, so we got to do it in 2020, but it’ll surely be cancelled in 2021, which is a sad but necessary sacrifice. I’ve always enjoyed going out and seeing people having fun, even in the cold, so this year I’ll just look back on the good memories I have of the past years. It’s a fun and creative festivity that can be enjoyed by anyone, even if just in spirit.
After that, we looked at Places; we got to make a 15-second video of what we consider our “Here” to be (link below). When tasked of making the video, I was still in England (as I’m writing this, I’m back in Italy for Christmas break), so I based the video on my newfound life in London: my apartment, the university, the river and buildings… it’s all very different to my life in Italy, but it was surprisingly easy to get used to (in part thanks to the fact I’m living with my sister). It’s like a home away from home, and I know how lucky I am to be there, despite the current… unfortunate circumstances.
https://artslondon.padlet.org/ldelazzer0220201/av8kdaqa7kfwmh4f
We also made a little map of a walk we took, and I made mine in London, showing me walking across the river through two bridges. I made it on my phone, as my sketchbook has hundreds of pages full of drawings I still need to scan into a computer, and I didn’t want to tempt Murphy’s Law by bringing it into the rainy outdoors. During the walk, I noted how strangely normal everything felt: people chatting and walking along, gentle drizzle making streetlamps reflect on the floor, cars going on the street… nothing exciting, but considering how everything has been this past year, I found a bit of plain normality to be welcome and appreciated.
Then, we got to see 3 animated videos which all tackle the idea of Places in different ways; these were my quick thoughts on each of them.
Overall, while they all gave me very different vibes, they were all impressive and unique, and picking a favorite is hard. I loved how Marfa got people’s different experiences, their stories and their ways of telling their stories, and collaged it into a single piece. I loved how Feeling My Way gave the creator’s thoughts visual form, creating a chaotic but introspective and visually stunning short film. And I loved how Ferment showed a city’s worth of people living their lives, all within a single second frozen in time. I’m considering doing something akin to Feeling My Way for my book; taking a video of my book, and then animating things digitally on top of it. It’ll be very challenging, but it could look amazing if done right.
Then, we talked about Storytelling. Alongside drawing, storytelling and writing stories is my passion, so this was very exciting for me: the reason I want to become an animator in the first place is to one day be able to tell stories about the characters I create, as well as other stories about other characters (which is also why I’m considering of taking a Master’s in creative writing). We were tasked with creating a short story, 10 to 50 words long, and I wrote this:
“Had the aliens known beforehand how freaked out the humans would get at their arrival, they would’ve brought a cake or something.
And had they known of the way the humans in charge think of aliens, they probably just wouldn’t have come at all.”
It was fun to try and cram a story in such little words. I considered that the best course of action would be to have a more indirect course of action with it: instead of it having a beginning, middle and end, I made it so it tells you what you need to know, and then leaves you imagining the rest, in a non-linear manner.
And finally (until next Friday), we discussed Sound. Ever since we discussed this in class, I’ve started a little side project: every day, I write down on a document all the songs that get stuck in my head during that day (it happens a lot). I plan on dedicating a page of the book to music, and bring attention to these songs, which I could maybe fit into an illustration, or simply list off. It’s already a sizeable list after less than 2 weeks of me working on it, so I think it’ll have a good presence in my final book.
What I’m thinking of doing is getting 6 pieces of blank paper, sticking them together on the sides, and then folding up the pages so that it stayed closed like a regular book. This way, there’d be two ways to close it, and two ways to read it: the front pages, and the back pages (I drew a quick image below to show what I mean).
I’m considering making one side focus on my life outside of animation and drawing; things like my family, my background, etc.; and having the other side focus on the animation/drawing part of my life, what has influenced me, how I’m developing my skills, how I started VS how I am now, and more. I could do some things on paper, as the basis, and then film it, and add digital animation to the video, incorporating it into the book’s context.
I’m both excited and nervous about working on this. It’s a big project, and I’m scared of either being over-ambitious and chewing off more than I can chew in terms of work, or not doing enough and creating a mediocre project because of it. I need to remember to push myself, while still knowing my limits. Jane said that we’ll discuss the creation of the book on Friday, so I’m hoping to get a clearer idea of what we can and can’t do then.
I’ve been having a lot of fun with the workshops: I’m not used to thinking about myself so much, or in such a deep way, and thinking of how things like my cultural background impact my work is really new to me. All I can hope is that the course will continue being so engaging in the coming months and years. Until then, I’ll keep doing my best.