Every term we have a Cross Course Crit where a couple of students from each year group sit around and discuss what projects we are currently working on. We also had to create a poster detailing our progress, which I will upload when I can scan it in.
I spoke about both my Platt Hall project and my puppet, with most of the feedback regarding the puppet project. One girl suggested an exhibition at the Tate Modern which has a series of images detailing the separate stages of a horse running, which would be helpful to me so that I can learn how to realistically move the horse puppet to look like a real horse.
This also lead me to think of working in animation on the horse subject, and the stages of a horse running made me think of creating a zoetrope so I would be drawing the sections of a horse moving and really studying them while also creating a new piece. I would like to develop the zoetrope into more of a new idea and try experimenting with projections.
I was also asked about how I was planning on filming the horse puppet i.e. backgrounds, lighting. I was thinking of a having a black background with a blue tinted spotlight and have black paper cut tree silhouettes that would be pulled on a track against the puppet to give the effect that the horse is really running. I want to create a really strong atmosphere with this piece and with the horse being the main focus of this certain scene I don't want a background that is too fussy or bright to detract the audience's attention.
Another person's idea in the Cross Course Crit also interested me as they were working with doll houses, as am in the Platt Hall project. Their idea was to have a doll house and then project film on to the separate rooms, footage that will have been filmed, hidden camera style, in her own house. I really liked ho this project was mixing the traditional idea of doll houses with the modern technology and suggested that she could extend her work into looking more at surveillance which in itself is an interesting concept.
I'm not sure how useful the Cross Course Crit was at this stage as I hadn't developed that much of my project so think it was harder for people to give me feedback, I think if it was after Christmas then I would have a lot more to say and hopefully other people would have a lot more to say back.
