My project features my daughter enjoying a coffee. I wanted to achieve two goals, the first being to showcase her outgoing, positive, and bubbly personality. Secondly I wanted to show how a good cup of coffee can be invigorating and make you feel energized. I asked her to send me a photo and this is what she sent to be funny so I ran with it.
I show her drinking a Starbuck's coffee and the cup slowly matches the background and then she also slowly turns into the bubbles. The bubble colors came from an acrylic "stained glass" painting I did, and I used several effects and masks in After Effects to achieve the final result. This wasn't simply adding a "bubble generator".
I show her drinking a Starbuck's coffee and the cup slowly matches the background and then she also slowly turns into the bubbles. The bubble colors came from an acrylic "stained glass" painting I did, and I used several effects and masks in After Effects to achieve the final result. This wasn't simply adding a "bubble generator".
This particular project doesn't have any real deep meaning other than to show how lovely my daughter is. I felt the colors, fun movement, and the little smile behind the cup was a good way to do so. Not every piece of art has to be some intrinsic journey to cosmic meaning, sometimes it can just be playful and that simplistic transformation was my goal.
The work entitled Transformative Portrait by artist Kimberly Ballinger uses the graphic techniques of After Effects to create a five second video of a combination of graphics and videos. Looking at it visually, it is a horizontal composition with a female figure standing in the center bottom of the frame. She is wearing a winter over head jacket with a crossbody flap purse around her body while drinking what looks like a Starbucks coffee cup. The coffee cup covers the bottom of her face and her right (our left) eye while the other eye is staring directly at the viewer. The background consists of a mainly white background with thousands of different colored bubbles coming towards the direction of the viewer that disappears slowly once reached. As the video moves on, the viewer starts to turn into a liquid from the bottom of her legs to the top of her head until she has completely disappeared from the frame and just leaving the bubble-like background for the rest.
ReplyDeleteBased on the elements described above, I would believe that this was a visual personification of the figure’s personality. Since there is not much going on throughout the video, the only interaction that occurs is the movement with the bubbles moving in the frame and the figure disappearing by the end of the video. Because of this, I would say that she’s trying to describe that this individual is a bubbly person and that there’s so much of this personality expressed inside so to give a little insight on what that looks like. I would also say that this was a personification of what it feels like to drink coffee! That assumption comes from how the figure disappears at the end as she is then turned into a liquid and is no longer seen in the frame. Even so, I believe that the artist is expressing an emotion by trying to either allude to a feeling of what drinking coffee feels like or the personification of what having a bubbly personality looks like from the inside.
With the interpretation of what I was visually seeing and how I thought it was being interpreted, I would say that this video has possibly the bare minimum amount of visual clues for me to tell what it was. Considering it was only five seconds, I could only go off of the figure and mainly the background and since the background was primarily the only moving part, I would assume that it would be an important and meaningful part of the figure. Unless the artist of this work wanted to leave this up to interpretation of the viewer, I would say that it’s probably missing a couple more cues to be able to really define what this was meant to describe. Looking at the description of the artist, my assumption of what was given was accurate and because she states that this wasn’t meant to be deep, I see it all makes sense. However, when it comes to being transformative, I think it’s not quite there completely. To me, I think for something to be transformative as something that’s bigger than myself and overall expression of something relating to the figure. I think the background does a good job with that but because there’s not much interaction with the subject as much until she disappears, I think it misses the transformative aspect.
Looking at the motion specifically, there’s the movement of the background bubbles moving towards the viewer and the disappearing of the figure turning into a liquid. I think having the viewer disappear like a liquid was successful to capture the personification of what it feels like to enjoy drinking a coffee and the overall fun feeling. With the bubbles overlay, it helps with the fun feeling as well along with seeing the insight of a bubbly person. Because of the limited animations and the movements, I would say that this isn’t necessarily deepening my understanding of who this person is. I understand that the figure seems to be a very bubbly person and enjoys coffee but I don’t think that’s true and deep understanding of who she is. The singular eye look suggests something deeper is there and possibly that there’s more than what we are seeing but I would say that’s the only deep aspect of the piece. The movement of the disappearing figure does help with the connection of her enjoying the feeling of what coffee tastes like but as I said, I don’t think it’s a true representation of who this figure is as far as something being a deep understanding.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the bigger picture, I would say that this piece was able to create something that was overall relatable to most people on earth. Since a majority of the Earth population drinks coffee, the feeling can be shared within this community and can be relatable to what coffee does for most individuals. Personally, I don’t drink coffee but because I’ve been around so many people that drink coffee and how they feel while drinking it, I can still get that relation to how coffee drinkers feel. And to look at the other side of things, I think it creates another sense of connection by showing what it means to be a bubbly person. A lot of people describe themselves as bubbly and if not, people have seen/know people who are described that way. So because of those two aspects, I think this was shared with the audience to give that relatability and have that shared experience be with the viewer and the figure in the video. I also think that it was a moment to release and just enjoy the idea of being creative, fun, and happy!
With a deep analysis of understanding this work titled Transformative Portrait by Kimberly Ballinger, I would say that she did a great job of expressing emotion towards the audience. The many colors against the white background and the fun liquid animation with the figure really works nicely and creates a more visually appealing view for the audience. We get to see a little insight of who this figure is and the audience gets to see what having that kind of personality visually feels like. The technique of the animation was very clever to make it organic since the figure was already dead center on the frame. However, I do think that there is room for improvement when it comes to exploring more into a depth for the figure in the frame. I think with more cues it would help with understanding more of the individual in a deep level and something that matters more to that person. Other than that, I still think it was overall fun video! :)