Progress Review: 1

Progress Review with Teresa:

Comments:
It was really great to be able to make it into uni and speak with Teresa after having so much time off because of my health recently. It gave me a chance to voice my own concerns about my absence, health issues and show my commitment to the course, despite the problems I have faced so far this semester.

I have been a little lost so far with regards to how to approach this brief, but i determined to turn everything around and produce something I can be proud of as well as the tutors.

To do:
All of my blog posts for this module so far are in draft form which needs to change soon if i have a chance of catching up with the work for this module. The last thing i want is it to come to the deadline and i have to spend hours updating and back-tracking. If i do little and often, I should be able to complete the posts to date and create more for future input.

I really need to produce more work for my visual journal. At this stage I am struggling so much with the text and how to respond to it visually - it is like i have hit a complete creative block. This is frustrating me and i need to pull myself out of it as i cant afford to fall any more behind. I will try and work in my sketchbook and be a lot more free and less anxious about the imagery and making mistakes. This aspect of my own personal practise is yet to be overcome and if i really struggle to work in my sketchbook after a few more weeks of trying, I may have to think about competing visual journal entries on loose sheets of paper and binding together later. 

If i start thinking now about what i want to create for the final outcomes of this module, I may find myself becoming more motivated and having something to aim for. I plan on hunting for visually inspiration asap and experimenting with different print making methods in order to make an informed decision of how to progress towards my final printed outcomes.

About the Author: Storyboarding Workshop and Study Task

Notes from workshop

I really enjoyed how the recent storyboarding workshop helped simplify the idea of animation by focusing on easy things to understand such as pan, track etc and how certain elements of a composition should enter and leave the frame.

I found it hard to complete the 3 storyboards in the session as requested, but gave it a good go and enjoyed beginning to think about what I want to achieve with my animation.
In Studio storyboarding task

I like how considering movement can give a still image context and quality.


Study Task

When thinking about storyboarding and my approach to animating stills from my visual journal, I think it will be easier to create images that already have a basis of a story behind them - instead of just creating pretty pictures.

After the studio workshop - the class were left thinking about the processes behind a successful animation. When thinking about positional elements of the subject, tracking and zoom - I couldn't help but be reminded of Drew Tyndall's work. I came across him whilst researching into looping GIF's last year, and although the animation we need to produce is more of an animation with a message than a continuous loop - I really like how he uses textures and shapes which enter and leave the frame in a variety of ways. I would like to employ these techniques within my own animation as I think it will help to add a lot of interest and a bold statement.



2014 Demo Reel from Drew Tyndell on Vimeo.

I am kind of considering this "show reel" style as a sting, despite it being considerably longer than what I am meant to produce as part of this module. It is a cleaver way in which Drew has chosen to showcase his work, similar to what actual stings do and a great way for someone who does not know of his work - to become interested.

15 seconds for our animated sting isn't long, however this "show reel" style shown here could be something I use in my own animation. I like it a lot because the breaking up of an animation is a good way to set pace and flow, as well as get a lot of information into one sting.

Each new and different piece of work in Drew's reel is animated and links directly to the next as if all the pieces were part of one whole continuous animation. My sting could also do this, taking separate illustrations and ideas representing Italo Calvino's life/works (like a visual portfolio), make individual elements in each one of them move, then piece them altogether one after the other but animate them so they run seamlessly together one after the other. I don't want each element to just cut to the next. They need to interact with one another to make the transition seem seamless and as if all the individual illustrations/animations are part of the same sting. This show reel style also helps break up the timing of the animation, helping to set key changes/stages which help with audio timings etc.

Thinking about typography and how objects/shapes enter, move and eave the frame:


It's Nice That - Animated Sting from Animade on Vimeo.



The Last Ship from Greg Gunn on Vimeo.
To promote Sting’s New Broadway musical, The Last Ship, we were presented an open brief – akin to writing for a music video pitch. The objective was to tell a visual and beautiful story that is emotionally tethered to the musical.


Surface Vs Depth from Martin Craster on Vimeo.

A fun film scratching the surface of Nicholas Carr's book the Shallows, whilst continue to dive deeper into my own world of Social Media distractions and design.
Martin Craster


Can fit an ok amount into 15 seconds. This sting is only 5secs and most of the info appears and is read by the audience by 3/4 seconds:


'Dunkin Donuts' Sting - Animation Test from Katie Hilton on Vimeo.

Digital Screenprint Workshop - Session 2

Looking at a way we can use both CMYK printing processes and spot colours together.

How Photoshop works with colour

Image > mode identifies what form of image it is (e.g CMYK)

Foreground colour square> colour picker window> colour libraries. This is where the spot colour library is for photoshop. You can also look through a physical reference book for pantone and type this number into this colour libraries window.
The foreground colour square is now this exact colour you have chosen.

When we use spot colours in photoshop - we have to use and apply colour in a different way from what we have previously.

We cant just choose spot colours and apply this to a CMYK image and they use different ways of applying colour.

Using Spot Colour Channels in Photoshop

Start with line artwork that needs colouring in. What we need to do in Photoshop is fill this image with colour separations that we want to use for screen print.
Everything takes place in the channels palette.

Channels palette> small drop down in top right hand corner of palette > new spot channel>
choose a colour that represents the colour we are going to print with.
don't use spot colour reference system because there is no way we can recreate these exact pantone colours when mixing paints from screen print.

Name the spot colour channel to remind us of the ink it is representing. It is also really good practice to include the word "spot" so you know you aren't using CMYK for this.

When working with spot colour channels - overall in the finished product we just need to work with black on the channel as we know black indicates the application of the ink and the amount. A lot of black indicates lots of that colour, white space shows no ink etc.

To make sure the foreground colour black (the little square colour picker in the left tool palette) choose shortcut "D". This resets the foreground square.

Because we chose our colour already - this is what we are painting with. the application of colour in our composition is in this blue that we chose to help us, but the over all final ink in our channels palette is black.

Black foreground colour picker applies colour and white removes it. 

When working with channels we can apply colour using our chosen colour but this is in fact creating a black and white "channel" (like a screen print needs).

Any photoshop technique that you apply to layers can be used in channels. e.g selection tools - copy & paste etc.

Double click spot colour channel and this brings up the channel options.

You can change the colour and see what your image looks like with different colours in this way. This is the quick way to do this - as in layers it is a longer process.

Using channels in this was sort of creates layers for us. We can colour in the image without obscuring the black outline for example.

 Select > colour range > set values from previous session.

This selection now creates our spot colours for us in this area of selection.

select > colour range. In this area make sure to select an area of block colour in the image. This then selects all the area of this colour in the image for us. Now create new spot channel (channels palette drop down) and change name and colour accordingly.

Switch off CMYK channel to see the area of colour in my new spot channel.


For a screen print positive we need all the pixels to be black or white.

Levels> adjust so there is no light grey anymore. (This will mean the print wont come out properly).

for the next new channel - make sure the CMYK channel is selected and then click select >  colour range > and select a new area of the image to fill in with colour. In this case we need to select all the light orange areas.

And for our 3rd channel - Black

Select > colour range

New spot channel

Name the channel

Switching off CMYK in the channels palette - you can now see the channels we created working together to make up the colour separations.

you can select just one of the new channels and clean up any little bits using the white colour selector foreground square. This is to make sure the screen print is ultra clean.

This is using CMYK separations but filling with spot colours.

Make sure when saving that the print is smaller than A3 and that "spot files" and .tiff or .PSD is selected when saving. Any .tiff options just click ok.

Using illustrator to output our positives.

Illustrator (only for files smaller that A3)

File new> make sure it is an appropriate size (a4 is fine for this image.)

Use file place and place our saved image on the new document.

Window > separations preview. illustrator has now pulled through all of the photoshop separations. Click on overview to see a preview of the separations. Turn off CMYK as we aren't using that and now you see the image as it was in Photoshop.

We can check that everything is ok and now we can go to "print" and print our positives.

File>print

We use the same settings that we use for CMYK settings.

Send to black printer and set size

Then choose output, choose separations on drop down and then next to each C,M,Y,K option of separation there is a little circle to the left. Click this and it deselects it from printing. You will now get 3 positives (one for each separation) once clicking ok to print.

For a file that is bigger than A3 remember you cant use illustrator so in photoshop go to the palette channels palette drop down and click " split channels". this then creates a layer for each of our channels in new windows. then just take them won to digital printing.
Once you have split the channels this way - you cannot go back so SAVE A COPY OF THE IMAGE BEFORE DOING THIS. So that you still have the original to work with.

Halftones and tints

Using 2 colours

working with the spot colours - different shades of black, grey and white represent different shades of my ink colour:

select area of image using colour range. create a new channel for this selection and fill it grey (edit>fill. use drop down for grey.
fill this area with a light grey (which represents a lighter tint of our orange)

Select CMKY channels >select > colour range

choose new area of colour. increase/decreases fuzziness  so that the colour is cleanly selected. (more or less texture)

Right this has now selected this area for us. so now click off of CMYK channels and go back on our new channel. now you can got edit > fill and fill this new area selection of black.

this enables us to print different tints and halftones on one image.

we can now select our channel and edit/clean up areas of the screen print positive details using eraser/paintbrush etc.

you would then save this as a tiff and open in illustrator and do the same as before.
Except think about print>output levels. frequency and angle of halftones.

if working on a larger scale e.g larger than A3, we would need to split separations in photoshop and use the "bitmap" option in photoshop.

Overprinting or knocking out-(using spot channels)


The way that the inks interact with one another during the printing process.

We can see that the are in which the 2 colours overlap - they create a new colour when overlapped.

Spot colours work in this way because they simulate the transparency of printing ink. 

Double click on the yellow channel. solidity value - allows us to change the transparency of the ink. 100% would mean completely opaque. Not see-through.

Once clicked ok - you don't see the effect of this solidarity change.
In order to see this in the composition window. - the layer at the top of your layers palette - is the nearest the front. Spot colour channels work in the opposite way around to this.
Change their order and you can now see the effect of the changes. If purple is put above yellow dots - (Yellow dots represented as an opaque ink) 

Change solidity again and you can see the effects once more.

This shows how you can use spot channels to create additional colours during the printing process.


Knocking out:

each separation of colour fits exactly into the spaces left by other separations. in the screen printing process - this is where registration marks come in handy - to make sure each colour separation is printed exactly in the spaces it needs to be.

Over printing.

this helps create additional colours and sometimes tints - just by the overlapping of colour during the screen printing process.

image> mode > CMYK

select > colour range > select the lighter ink. (make sure "white matt" is selected on the preview drop down.

from this selection create a new spot channel. choose colour and re name.

select a new colour range and adjust so that only this area of colour can be seen (using the fuzziness slider). fill this with a darker shade on the same channel so this would create a different shade on the same channel layer.