To start with, I introduced my project again, explaining that it was a creature design project that looked into the adaptation and interpretation of creatures from media to media.
I went on to give a brief overview of what had happened up until and including presentation 1. I made it clear that up until this point, my project had focused far more on the practical side of things, as shown by my key questions and statement. Also, as you may remember from my first presentation, I said that the Kaiju from 'Pacific Rim' were designed to be cool for coolness; well, this couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, having read more into the art of 'Pacific Rim' book, director Guillermo Del Toro specifically says that the worst thing you can do is to design a creature with the intentions for it to look cool. So, at that point, I had already failed in becoming a creature designer! Oops . . .
Having discussed what had come before, I moved on to explaining what had changed since then, pointing out that I was more focused on the theory and research side of the project now, looking into adaptations and interpretations from the point of an artist in the industry with a client and brief. Of course it was important to make clear that the practical side of the project would be the very foundations of it and would still be a large part of the focus. I gave both my updated project question and goal/statement. Oh, and yes, 'Evolution' is truly one of my all time favourite films and fits in well with this project actually. If you haven't seen it, you NEED to watch it.
With my revised project area established, I talked more in depth about adaptation/interpretation and the examples I had been looking at in particular. First off is the Harry Potter books, which are a simple matter of literature to film adaptation. This means that each reader has their own interpretation of how the creatures in the books should look and so an adaptation of it means that the visuals won't please everybody. The second example is the Artemis Fowl books which have been adapted into graphic novels, so literature into visual literature. Similar to the Harry Potter books, the artist's interpretations of the designs may be very different to what people are expecting. The third and most interesting example for me, is that of 'The Edge Chronicles' series of books in which artwork of the characters, creatures and environments is printed on a good number of the pages. It's so interesting because the images are interpretations of the text, but given to the reader in this way, they can't imagine the characters, creatures or environments to look different. If it were to be adapted and the content didn't look the same as the artwork within the books, it would jar very much so with what the audience would be wanting to see. I discuss these matter in further depth in my concept development document which I shall make another post about. The 'Realistic Pokemon' book is there because it is another example of adaptation/interpretation, but I have a better purpose for it that I discussed in a later slide.
Moving on from there, but still focusing on interpretation, I went on to explain about the Hungarian Horntail challenge that I had set up for classmates to take part in. I explained all of this in the earlier post 'Evolving the Project', so I won't repeat myself here.
I then showed the examples given by my classmates and explained that the diversity in the designs was important as it showed that interpretation is a very personal thing, so working to create what a client wants, as well as what the audience wants and trying to keep your artistic licence is somewhat difficult.
From my classmates' interpretations of the Hungarian Horntail, I went on to show and discuss the practical work that I had been up to: designing all 10 dragons from the 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' book. Here you can see the size chart I created, as well as the size chart showing the chosen 4 from the Tri-Wizard Tournament in the 'Goblet of Fire' book.
I then showed the anatomical build up studies I had created of the 4 dragons and explained that it was incredibly useful to work in this way, as it built up confidence and knowledge of the particular anatomical forms i was exploring.
The final bit of practical work I showed was the revised size chart of the 4 Tournament dragons, using the more anatomically correct images, and a quick sketch of an idea I had to create a final poster-like piece showing the 4 champions of the Tournament and their dragons that they must face.
Returning to the 'Realistic Pokemon' book, I explained that I would quite like my final outcome to be an art book of sorts, displaying the 10 Harry Potter dragons in my own designs. I went on to say that I found the book itself very inspiring in the way it is layed out, what with the main creature being accompanied by minor creatures to add context, as well as concept sketches and text to help show the artist's process. I discuss this book in depth in my concept development document, so best to read more in that upcoming post.
To round up the presentation I explained as to what I believed I would be doing next. Nothing more to say really, the slide says it all!
Oh, and one last thing. I had to end on a high note, so here are a few examples of what I could call highly original and innovative creature designs. If you want to see more designs of Pokemon with Nicolas Cage's face on them, the website is on the image, enjoy!
With the presentation done and out the way, I have had time to reflect on the feedback given during it. However, we have also been assigned our project supervisors, as I previously stated, and all those who are in the wings of Ryan Locke had a group meeting with him this week to discuss our projects informally and get a bit more feedback. Fortunately for me, Ryan was present at my presentation as well, so it meant I got extra time getting feedback from him in particular.
What I gained from both my presentation and this meeting was that my project is looking strong and the practical work I am doing is well thought out and shows a high level of skill. More importantly though, Ryan made a very good point that perhaps I should not focus on audience expectation with my project as much. Of course I should accept that it would be a factor in the future, but as it stands, it's not something I need to be getting into and would only involve far more, what could be deemed as unnecessary, work. This actually lifts a lot of weight from the project, in a good way, as it means all the designs I create can be free of such expectations and I don't have to consider what other people think; it's all about my designs and what I deem to be successful or not. This is great, as it will really help to reinforce that this is MY project and I won't have to deal with questionnaires and all that faff.
On the front of my case studies, Ryan also suggested that I should just stick to discussing Godzilla, rather than trying to do one on Smaug as well, due to them both being big reptiles and the fact the former has had far more iterations and therefor gives much more to discuss. I agree with this to an extent, and seen as I'm putting audience expectation to the side somewhat, my personal vendetta against Smaug makes sense to also go that way.
So! With the feedback I have been given, there is plenty to think about and consider over the Christmas holidays. As I have said, my next post shall be on my concept development document hand-in, so I shall end this post here and get on with that!
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