2.1

The opening animation for “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” struck me as visually pleasing at first. It uses a more traditional visual style reminiscent of the sixties.

The font that was chosen is a sans serif all caps font. Usually using a font in all caps makes me angry. In this case, not so much. The graphics that go along with the visuals are so captivating that in order to receive any attention, all caps is required.

Another major point about this sequence is that the animations from the title tell a part of the story to come. Not so much that it will ruin the movie, but just enough to please the person who has seen it and can recognize the different scenes only by watching the titles.

2.2

The film title that I find does not reflect successfully the movie it precedes is “eXistenZ”. For having seen the movie, I think that the speed and feel of the titles almost go against what is represented in the film.

The titles sequence is predominated with stains of a brownish tint and a boring slightly serifed font. After a while, the stains become fully fledged brown background with images that are not at all relevant. (i.e. A fish skeleton).

This movie is a sci-fi action movie. The boring brown background and font are not welcome. Should be shown : allusions to the eXistenZ game, concept art of the multiple places or strange objects depicted in the movie. But I’ll get to that in 2.3.

2.3

2.4

The movie title I chose that I found visually pleasing, but that did not fit so well with the movie is for Equilibrium. It has a fast paced and 2D animation style. Link after the break.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=5XuAIe9bX18

This movie which I found excellent deals of serious subject matter within a society that has gone over the edge in seriouseness. Though it is vibrant in its two-tone animation style, the overly emphatic graphics break the overall feel of the movie if one has already seen it. And sets the wrong mood for any newcomer to the picture. I believe this title should be more calm than it currently is. Set the mood in a very solemn and posed manner rather than show it as an action movie with its posing gunmen.

2.5

The title sequence I worked on is not for a particular piece of media. It is actually for a band, namely Born of Osiris.
I wanted to convey the multiple layers of instrumentation in their music. I therefore chose to use a technique of 3D layering to represent this. The progresive, organic and evolving of their sound is represented by the evolution/spastic fade-in of the logo.

The animation is here.

More details will be added in the description on the real site.

The end of print.

What to say about this piece of lit. Hard to read, but amazingly revealing on the lifespan of an artform/artmedia.

it shows how art starts as a medium, becomes free, then beCOMEs a medium of the corporate machine afterwards. I did’t catch some parts. That’s ok.

Precedents & Narrative

The second reading capitalises on movie introduction sequences. Quite profound on covering a long span of time. Many of the plaques were non-readable due to the photocopy, but some are very advanced title animations considering the period of time when they were originally created.

My favorite for having seen it : ALIEN

About the fragmentation of everything. Modernism. The first part of the 1st text describing the creative methods of Mallarmé is just great in the extent of the creativity. All the thought that went into the creative process is original ,well thought out and deep, the second part of the text saddens me.

The second part of the text is about the modernist craze to simplify and deconstruct everything. On one hand, some believe that universal truths can be uncovered by a fragmentation so abusive of art that only its quintessential components remain. That accross cultures, languages, and hell…worlds, these concepts could be grasped, as they constituted the basic building blocs of the chosen art piece.

The second attempt of modernism was to build an art piece that was not representative, that was not a copy of something else. But instead to produce something that was. Something that was a new concept, a new idea, that had meaning regardless of exterior influence. Which in all practical terms is impossible. In terms of material, it is we as humans are limited to the building blocks available on this planet and maleable by humans, as it were.

The third category is for anyone else. Anyone who attemps to actually and truly defy the rules fits into this box.

Wow. Really? So now we understand art? All a piece of rubbish. I refuse to think that art has been so neatly stacked into boxes for philosophers to understand.

Remain creative my friends.

_{Exercise done with Faiq Hussein and Matthieu Tremblay}

Here are some fonts my team and I found on the Internet and in our troubled youths.

Click the image for a bigger view and in-depth description.

_{Exercise done with Faiq Hussein and Matthieu Tremblay}

The first montage if purely for esthetics. The layout of the pages simply point out the repetitiveness of the poem in its stanzas. The variation of the ending empahizes the dramatic effect of the text.

Poem 1

The second montage is about the strictness of poetry, reffering to the coldness of the man in the poem. The structure is extrapolated from the structure of the French sonets. 4-4-3-3 and the rhyme structure ABAB-ABAB-CCD-EED.

Poem 2

The third poem is about mechanicality of the man from the poems and focuses on the programming nature of building poems. It loops the repetitions.

Poem 3

1.3
Take one of the examples and manipulate it visually to a point just before illegibility. Use only analogue methods. Document the stages of your manipulation.

My idea of destruction : the kitchen.

First, draw an “A”.

Then, grab a knife. A big one.

Cut it up. Medium size pieces are the best.

Add olive oil to a pan. Heat to HIGH.

Drop the pieces in the hot oil.

Cook until browned.

Lay on a paper towel.

Good luck trying to find which goes where…ugh…

And there we have it. Fried A. And in the end it only vaguely resembles the original.

I choose “A“.

The letter A is at the beginning of many things. Many alphabets use a variant of the letter A to start.
Greek uses alpha, Hebrew uses aleph. The phoenicians also used letterforms of a similar shape to represent the ox. The name of the first man started with “A”, and the AAAAA sound is just about the easiest phonem to produce vocally.

I have a personal affinity with the letterform A because I have written it innumerable times. It starts my name.

Here is a document I prepared on the letter A across the ages, taken from the book…

A, a short history

As we were asked to do, here are the results of my Hunt for the letterform A.

The weird chair

A weird chair I found around my appartment. Conviniently, it is shaped like a very straight A.

The ripped screen door

This was also found near my appartment! The rip in the screen door was there before I took the picture. A very stylized A.

The overkill taxi ad

This was found on the placemat of a bad restaurant I won’t even mention, in Drummondville. This shows how the letterform A is directly related to inspiring quality and trust.

Yes, even architechture

Even the Eiffel Tower has the shape of a vertically elongated A.

Hockey anyone?

Logo of the Colorado Avalanches.

Or Canadian Football?

Logo of the Montreal Alouettes.

So that’s it for my short presentation of live and recorded appearences of the letterform A.

Prior to doing any work at all, I always do the readings.
Why? Helps me get better focus of what I might need to do. Also is good for inspiration.

I’m a programmer at heart. All of the very technical information related to fonts make me feel right at home.
Honestly.
The thing that stresses me is blending the two. Will any of the two get neglected in the process?

Other than that faraway issue, I believe that this course will be a wild ride. I had no idea what it was about before Mr. Lewis told the class. I like to keep things spiced up a bit.

The next 3 posts will include all the instances of the letterform I have chosen, its massacre as well as the three typographic treatments brought to a poem.

Until then, out.