Tony vs. Paul: YouArt?

Tony vs. Paul

Ohbijou vs. Steinweiss

Steinweiss 1940's


















Ohbijou 2008


Acey


Images Cited:

Ohbijou: Swift Feet for Troubling Times. 2006. Web. .

Steinweiss, Alex. Haydn Budapest String Quartet Columbia. Web. .

End of Ze World, complete with a frog-a-pult

My concept for my Interactive Media assignment is a Flash video called Do Frogs Have Spines? It is a cheeky and stylized comic/game. Essentially, a frog will hop onto the screen, and then through a series of prompts the viewer will end up picking up the frog with a shovel, and flinging it across the screen. First, the question will be posed to them: do frogs have spines? If they choose “yes”, the frog will hop away unscathed and the screen will read “wuss”. However, if they viewer chooses “no”, splat goes the frog.

The story was inspired by a tree planter my sister once knew who didn’t understand that frogs had bones. Thus, thinking it wouldn’t hurt them he would catapult the animals with his planter’s shovel.

I imagine this animation being popular on sites such as E-baums World and Albino Black Sheep, for it is fashioned after the popular The End of the World animation, which made those sites famous.

Do Frogs Have Spines? is a little crass, and shares the same cringing, tongue in cheek, slightly sick humour as The End of the World. However, while The End of the World has an underlying social commentary, Do Frogs Have Spines? is pure, nonsensical fun. Aside from the feel of the humour, the two animations will also have a similar, childlike drawing style, and (hopefully) mine with inspire the same urge to re-watch again and again: I first saw The End of the World cartoon approximately 8 years ago, and still find it funny to this day. This is the value of its ridiculousness.

To prepare I will review the tutorials, specifically to master the process of tweening. The frog, to be enjoyably realistic, will have to hop properly, which will probably require a movie clip in conjunction with tweens. How to make the shovel tween so the blade picks up the frog, flings it, and has the handle come down, will be more complicated. I am not sure as of yet how I will do this.

Acey

The difference between funny and insulting - I'm working on understanding it ...

Artist's Statement:
My concept for the Virgin Mobile poster is a comedic and charmingly shocking advertisement. My goal with the poster is to make the viewer laugh, and then inspire them to see the company in a cheeky, youthful light. My target audience is females in the 18-30 age range and I imagine the poster on the inside doors of public female washrooms in universities, bars and clubs.

I wanted the main focus of the poster to be the contrast between the messy, half eaten burger and the simple typeface and almost point-form message. Yet, while it was important for the burger and the message to be in the forefront, I still wanted to create a setting for the food as a story for the advertisement. To do this, but not let the background overtake the main image, I used the focus on the camera to blur the condiments in the distance. I hoped this would make the “stay virgin” pun, and the “leftovers” metaphor, clear along with their necessary imagery, while still providing context. My goal was to make the conceptually layered advertisement easy to understand, thus easily entertaining, and therefore effective.

I used a basic digital camera to photograph the hamburger. I then cropped out the background of the image in Photoshop, leaving only the burger with the blurred condiments. I did this to create controllable negative space in which to later put the text. Then, to heighten the visual impact of the burger, I adjusted the colour saturation and contrast settings. This enabled the colours to grab attention.

For the background I used the eyedropper tool to insert the colour of the plate into the negative space. I then used the gradients effect to repeat the dark-to-light shading of the plate in the negative space in an effort to create unity and consistency. Using a solid colour had proven unattractive and inharmonic, and this alternative seemed satisfactory.
The proximity of text and background of the image to the burger and condiments was an effort to balance the image. By developing a ‘yin-yang’ like shape I hoped viewers eyes would easily drift over and absorb the relevant information.

I ran into difficulty when it appeared that the colours of the food, along with the gradients effect of the background and plate, were becoming chaotic. As I felt I could do nothing to remedy these issues directly without risking the clarity of the message, I hoped to use alignment and contrast (with specific attention to the text) to refocus the image.

While I feel that my use of text alignment was effective, finding a contrasting colour to ‘gradient grey’ proved difficult. The red of the words “Virgin Mobile” were eye-dropped directly from a Virgin Mobile advertisement, and were effectively both contrasting to the background and consistent with the re-made logo in the poster. But, to solve the issue of finding a contrasting colour to gradient grey, I chose to make the grey whiter and use black for the text. Then, to contain the image and its ideas, I used a thin black border as an outline to direct the focus of the viewer.

In my original idea contrast and alignment were to be the most relevant principles: I have always found them the most effective. Unfortunately, with this advertisement I had trouble utilizing these principles as I had hoped. However, I felt that the idea and message of my poster were clear, relevant, and effective towards my target audience, so I chose to explore these principles in a second poster.

My second poster, Run, focuses nearly entirely on the principles of contrast and alignment. With it I discovered the difficulty of expressing a layered message when confined in principles. In later projects I hope to strike a balance between my two posters, employing the wit of the first, and the punching simplicity of the second.



Reflections:
For the duration of the poster assignment the main train of thought I followed was, and I quote: "This isn't AutoCAD. AutoCAD was much simpler. OH, no it wasn't. You just think that because you eventually understood how to use it... so does this mean Photoshop will eventually be within my grasp? Fantastic! Now how do I ______...?"

I learnt that these programs are not all so different, and that having a technically inclined disposition can only get you so far- the rest is up to creativity, problem solving, basic willpower.

When I brought my posters to class I wasn't sure what to expect. I knew the final product wasn't quite as I'd hoped (visually), but I also knew it was far from a disaster. I hadn't expected my work, with this program that I felt fought me every step of the way, to hold its own as well as it did.

I was particularity happy that the elements that I thought were the most effective were noted in lab. Elements such as the gradient effect, the re-use of the eye-dropped red, and the circular motion of the image. It was a relief to see that my obvious effort could stand up beside the clear skills of some of my classmates, and now I look forward to trying some of their techniques.

Acey