Available Materials; Natural & Man-made

Photo taken by me, April, 2017 at the Craft shop, near the Petrified Forest on our way to Windhoek in Namibia.

In Tanzania I have seen the plastic bottle cap be used for many things. I saw this approach again in Namibia captured in the photo above. Tourists probably would not buy the hanging decoration with the recycled bottle cap but it’s interesting that Namibians thought they might. In this sense, Namibians are treating the bottle cap as just another local material that has more than one utilitarian purpose. This suggests that for many East Africans, recycling comes naturally to them.

Sketch of a chime made out of found objects such as: plastic bottle caps, shells and seeds.

Above is a sketch from the original storyboard which I developed a bit more with ink and watercolour paint. I am hoping to create a chime like this for one of the scenes in the film. I can already imagine the movement and the sound of the wind and the items clinking together.

I don’t think I will use real plastic bottle caps to do this because this would mean creating quite a large object to animate. I would like to create miniature replicas of the bottle caps for this scene. This needs to be investigated and experimented with. I have been looking for beads that already resemble the shape which I could add details to with paint. I could also make them from scratch out of air-dry clay or polymer clay that gets baked. I should be thinking about continuity and how the bottle cap will look the same in each shot and also about their function as well. I may not need to use replicas in each shot, I may use a mix of the two depending on which shot it is and how I need to animate it.

Regardless, whenever I use the miniatures, their resemblance to the real object needs to be very clear. If the viewer does not identify the plastic bottle cap in the shot, the message of the film will lost.

The Perfect Bottle

I have been looking all over for a small, compact water bottle that I can make a toy car out of without cutting away too much plastic. I finally found the one. You can see the desired proportions in the pictures above when I used it to create some very basic movements in a stop motion film.

Based on the original story board, I developed the idea more by roughly depicting the metamorphosis of the water bottle into a toy car rather than just showing the end product. This could make for some interesting shots and movement within the shot.

Above is a more detailed storyboard of this section of the film which needs more development as the movement is not as dynamic as it could be. 

While in the Namib desert I experimented with simple movements. The aim of this film was to explore how a bottle cap could move from the top of a bottle and out of the screen.

I thought about how the cap could move more elaborately down the the side of the bottle with the aid of sticky-tack that is hidden from view. This is something to investigate further. The film below is an example what I could do after the bootle has morphed into a toy car.

Obviously this is a very basic, very short film but it gives a sense of what I could be doing when I have the toy-car made and how it might move on screen.

Skyscapes of the Namib

 

photo of me by Jean Canivenq, April 16 2017, Namib Dessert, Namibia

We stopped along the road to Damarraland whenever there was something worth stopping for. I was inspired by the skyscapes with their beautiful layered clouds, so complex they competed with the  landforms below.

I drew the left side of the road and then the right. I thought the desert would feel more empty but with such presence of the clouds there was a lot more going on then expected.

Perhaps I can use this sketch when I have the workshop with Salum Kambi this Friday for one of the backgrounds in the film.

These are meant to be the highest peaks in Namibia, they didn’t seem very high at all until we got closer. I guess the water-based mirages weren’t the only visual distortion in the desert.

I often paint my sketchbook entries after I have left the place I am visiting when I have time to sit down and apply the paint but I wanted to capture some of the colours before I forgot. It was nice to do this with everything so fresh in my mind.

Snowman in the Desert

Photo taken by me, April 15, 2017, Namib Desert near Swakopmund, Namibia 

When people travel, they find themselves in situations different from what they are used to. Placing this character who is well equipped for snow and very cold temperatures in the desert is a good example of a this. This type of juxtaposition could be useful in the film to put forth ideas of cultural contrast that eventually bring about new ways of thinking.

Photos by Jean Canivenq, April 15, 20017, Namib Desert, near Swakomund, Namibia

I spent a long time trying to get the right angle for a ‘Snowman in the Desert’ video because the sand dunes that are quite high in reality, dwarfed on film. I brought a metal jam jar lid that the foot magnets stick to and I buried it under the sand. This didn’t stop the character from falling over. The magnets in his feet and the wire support in the legs were not strong enough to hold his weight. This also stunted the attempted animation as I spent a lot of time putting the character back into position instead of animating. I also accidentally cut a few frames from the film which made it so short it’s hard to see the beautiful change of light that happened with the passing clouds over sand dunes which casted flickering shadows. In the end, I regret to say that the video was not worth posting; however, the photo was successful and was worth spending the time to select an effective background.

Photos taken by me, April 15, 2017, Namib desert, Namibia

Above are some photos I took of the semi-giraffe character wondering around the desert wide-eyed. It seems by his expression that he may not have been there before and could be lost. I feel these photos are more emotive than the ‘Snowman in the Desert’ but the contrast of the white fur against the yellow sand dunes speaks more of a foreigner in a new place then the photos above. The concept of ‘foreigner in a new place’ is inline with my MA project as it presents a situation where ‘difference’ or new places can lead to new ideas.

A Cultural Exchange

   

The photos above of myself and the Namibian lady were taken by Jean Canivenq while I was drawing at the Living Museum in Damaraland. When gathering research for the MA I often enjoy the process of onsite drawing. Although there is a bit of pressure to make a great drawing when people are watching closely,  it is worth doing because others are entertained by the activity as well. This is a more fair experience because it is enjoyed by both cultures. Often times the camera is seen as invasive and sometimes I am told not to take photos; however, I have never been told to stop drawing. The act of observational drawing creates interest, puts people at ease, and the subjects open up more which means we learn more about each other and are able to make cross-cultural connections.

Cultural Identity and Perspective

Sawubona Magazine, April 2017, p. 100

On the way to Namibia, I found the above article in the Arts and Culture section of inflight magazine Sawubona. The printmaker Maqhawe Mkhwanazi believes that identity is constructed by the events we experience rather than a set of unwavering personality traits. I agree that personality can be informed by the experiences we have but I also believe that identity is multifaceted and how we interpret these events can be based on complex cultural factors. This is supported by Kenneth Keith who has written about cross-cultural psychology and stated the following: ”Behavior is a product of the complex interplay among heredity, environment, and individual skills and knowledge..”, Keith, K. 2010: 4). Furthermore, he states ”..there is a complex interplay among genetics, culture and intelligence”, (Keith, K. 2010: 7).

Mkhwanazi describes his strong emotive line work which can be manipulated easily to indicate these events which for him are linked to identity.  The colourful approach to the portrait on the right is a good depiction of this, as the person seems to have had a life full of events. I found Mkhwanazi’s work interesting because although he is working in 2d and I am working in 3D with the puppets, we are both interested in communicating character through the expressiveness of the face.

References

 

Keith, K. (2010) Cross-Cultural Psychology Contemporary Themes and Perspectives. [e-book] Wiley. Available at: http://ebookcentral.proquest.com [Accessed 14 March 2017]

Sawubona (2017) Exploring Identity April, 2017. p. 100.

The Earliest Stop Motion Movie

 Photos taken by Jean Canivenq, Damaraland, Namibia April 16, 2017 

In the top right of the 2nd photo there is an ancient rock engraving of an ostrich with 3 heads. This dates back between 2000 and 6000 years ago in the Damaraland region of Namibia. The guide made a joke about this being the first movie because it shows different stages of the neck as the ostrich moves. Even though this comment was meant to be more entertaining rather than insightful or scientific, it could indicate an interest in not only story telling but also the recording of movement in the early days of our existence.

Photo taken by Jean Canivenq, Twyfelfontein, Namibia April 16, 2017

I thought it was interesting to juxtapose this giraffe-like character near the petroglyphs of giraffes. This set up could indicate a critique of culture and identity through the lineage of  ancestry. For me the idea of identity is tied up in the concept of perspective because we need perspective to see ourselves. Identity is a subtopic that still interests me and is linked closely to my working research question ‘The Positive affects of new perspectives which are realized when exposed to different cultures’.

     

 

 

Local Lilanga relief sculpture

Canivenq, J. April 11 2017, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.                                                 Photo taken by me, Jan. 2017, Tanzania

I went to the National Museum of Tanzania as seen in the photo on the left and was   interested in the work of George Lilanga, a local Tanzanian artist who paints and does relief sculpture such as the one above. The strong characterization of the shetani characters (a spirit and physical world inhabitant) as described on the exhibit sign board, was intriguing. It is possible that although my stop motion characters are 3d and are made out of different materials they do share an exaggeration of character and expressiveness with Lilanga’s work. This link to local Tanzanian work regardless of intention or not is good in the sense that it connects with local ideas and grounds my film within this context.  

The 3d character/stop motion puppet has a wire skeleton, the face is sculpted out of air dry clay around a piece of drift wood and 2 seeds for the eyes.  The mouthpiece is fitted with a magnet which makes it removable, there are several other mouth pieces which would allow for some animation of the mouth if that was needed. Although this puppet is fully animatable except for the movement of the irises, I like the idea of silent films or films that use other approaches to telling the story.

First Frame Trial Animation

Above is a very rough stop motion trial video shot with my iPhone using iMotion. This sketch relates to the first frame of the storyboard (posted earlier) where the bottle cap from a water bottle gets snatched up by a crab character. The final pink frame is of my thumb..it was a bit difficult to shoot on the beach with people coming by and the tripod moving, it was also hard to see the screen of my iPhone because of the sun. I have much less control on location than I do in my studio; however, the aesthetic of the tide coming in is effective. I will try to shoot the scene at different times of the day to see how that effects the lighting and process.  If I were to work inside I would have to bring in sand or buy lots of brown sugar which is another approach to consider.

Shooting stop motion films on an iPhone has it’s positives and negatives. The phone is easily accessible and does not gain too much attention in public (in a developing nation safety needs to be considered). Editing is limited as I can only delete frames with iMotion. I will need a better editing program such as Dragonframe or Frame Grabber which I have been looking into and possibly a new camera with a live feed for future MA work.

Visit with Salum Kambi, local Tanzanian artist

Canivenq, J. Mwenge, Dar es Salaam Tanzania April 7 2017.               

Above is a photo of myself and Salum Kambi (a local artist in Dar es Salaam). I met Salum to arrange a workshop during which I am considering creating a backdrop for my stop-motion film. The workshop is scheduled for April 28th. 

https://twitter.com/kambitheartist– Accessed April 7 2017.

Some of Kambi’s paintings are semi-abstract having subject matter which is recognizable but not realistic, simplified and often manipulated with a geometric approach applied with a palette knife as seen in the example above. Although he captures the element of movement effectively, this painting could be more balanced, the right side needs more space between the elements and the edge. Perhaps this is one shortcoming of working so quickly. Despite an uneven composition, it is still successful in regards to the energetic line and playfulness of the contrasting shapes, colours and textures.

http://www.shapeandshadow.com/#/undone/ -Accessed April 7 2017

During the case study I did on a stop motion film called ‘Undone’ by Hayley Morris, I realized that the backgrounds are mostly out of focus.  The simplification of reality often depicted by Kambi may work well for a backdrop in my film. Since my film will be based in Africa, it is informative to understand how African artists see their home.