PRA Declassified

Started the day with a degree of uncerainty. Enjoyed singing, get my soul in gear for the day. Continued with my art piece (to show the journey of the film we are working ) which looks like a Dadaist piece at the moment. I like Dada… and surrealism, so I’m fine with that. Matt Bate’s is intriguing me. Looks like some sort of abstract board game. Very rad.

I’ve realised that some windows in our office may help creativity. I dryly asked Andrada if we could smash a hole in the wall and she very earnestly quipped ‘you’d smash straight into someone elses office, it’s not an exterior wall’. There goes that idea. I’m usually quite tidy but our office is quickly growing cluttered with dead media, snacks, papers and other bits and pieces. For some reason I don’t want to tidy it up.

Felt a little clearer about my direction after a nice chat with Mr Speyer. Had a good walk in the fresh air with Paddy too the other day. Kind of felt very father/son like… but without the need for fatherly approval.

I now realise that most of my sparks of inspiration and ideas happen when I am at home. Maybe in the shower, in bed or slothing around in my uggboots and tracksuit pants watching football shows. It’s good to get that time alone to switch off and in a weird way that switches me on.

Creating my alter-ego for the presentation. Looking forward to him meeting everyone.

We’re back at Filmlab after two days away (unfortunately I didn’t get any time off in the two days so I’m a bit of a creative windsock today) and beginning to work on this week’s presentation.

Each group had specific tasks in relation to their projects which I think will work well and give a real sense of challenge to everyone. Hugh and I have been throwing some ideas around and collecting various pieces of equipment that we hope to orchestrate into an engaging piece.

Lots of questions in my head, ideas floating around but not that many answers. I guess that’s not a bad thing though. I am probably just tired and some rest will help add some spark into my head…

well after a few days incubation, today I was lucky enough to be part of what was a really satisfying and inspiring day at the filmlab.

Today was the day we saw the presentations by each of the groups about their particular projects. The presentations were aiming to encapsulate the essence of what the filmmakers want to achieve and both answer and ask questions set by the teams themselves.

To quote Bruce Springsteen, everyone felt the as if they were somewhat ‘Dancing in the Dark’ and didn’t quite know what to expect. It was a real thrill to watch the teams honesty and integrity on display and the hearts of the projects were laid out for all to see. No flashy powerpoint presentations but really simple, low-fi stuff that included filing laptop screens of youtube footage, filming actual processes taking part on stage, paintings and even a song performed.

It was such a great thing to witness and to have the chance to do ours was highly rewarding. Our project was about ‘stripping back’ animated film to the ‘truth’. I chose to do this by setting up a camera above a sketch pad which I then drew highly improvised and un-contrived and unplanned drawings of the characters from the story we are thinking of whilst playing Billy Joel’s ‘Just the way you are’. Using the most simplest techniques (not yet animation as such) of storytelling using just a pen and paper we were able to somehow touch on what kind of film we want to make.

The response was really pleasing and the group’s supportiveness was equally as powerful.

I can’t wait to see what happens next