Final Project – Mia Du

In project 04 film assignment, the theme I chose was the ocean. I chose to show the real situation of the ocean from an objective perspective. In the final project, I am committed to showing the real situation of the ocean from the perspective that ordinary people can’t control, and on the other hand, showing the unique beauty of the ocean at the same time. While making a comparison, it has its own story line. Developing from the story line, it shows a wonderful and unique world.

1.Brief

WHAT

Think about the relationship between man and the marine environment, explore the marine biological chain, and face up to problems.

WHY

The theme of my project is ocean. In the process of research, I found that protecting the marine environment as a hot topic is the most familiar point. But after a lot of interviews, I found that people actually don’t have a clear understanding of the current situation of the ocean. The protection of the marine environment has been repeatedly mentioned as a slogan or propaganda. But you will find when you want them to elaborate further. People’s understanding of the current situation of the oceans and what humans are doing or should do is vague. So I hope to do a job that can play a certain role in the basic publicity of marine environmental protection. I also studied the works of art related to this theme, and I saw many amazing works. They have rich carriers, especially some installation works that impress me. They are on display in many large exhibitions. The author has a deep understanding and expression of them, which is of rich significance. But for many amateur tourists, they are not so easy to understand. Or, after some works make people have a deep memory of the concept of protecting the marine environment, they can’t let people know what to do next. Therefore, these situations make me pay attention to the balance between the artistic value and social value of the works.

WHO

My goal is to create works that are pleasing to the eyes and can directly feel the meaning I want to express. I hope people can clearly feel the content I want to convey and enjoy art at the same time. Therefore, my target group is universal, and I hope it is anyone. I hope to make them interested in the current situation of the ocean and hope to learn more about and feel the ocean. At the same time, I like reading, the experience of reading, the spirit of exploration and beautiful things. These will be relevant keywords.

HOW

I want to start with a documentary directed by Jacques Bihan in 2009. “Ocean” focuses on the “blue territory” covering three-quarters of the earth’s surface, deeply explores this profound and rich mysterious world, and shows the magnificent vastness of the whole ocean. Adventures in the real animal world are far more exciting than stories in cartoons. The next screen will show a large number of jellyfish, right whales, great white sharks and penguins. They will not hesitate to show exuberant vitality in front of the camera. I was surprised and tortured the traces of life on the seabed left by mankind. No artificial perspective, no comments, just let the camera speak. Jacques Behan hopes that this film can make people face up to the problem of economic and resource coordination, and let people understand that it is not too late to protect the ocean. In the film, the creators fully show the food chain, tell people how the whole marine ecosystem works, and predict the serious consequences if the food chain breaks. All the people and animals in the film are closely related to the ocean, and what happens in the ocean is also closely related to human society to remind people. The ocean is different from documentaries such as the Encyclopedia of nature. The film does not spread knowledge, only shares the beauty of nature, presents stories with film skills, and shows the magnificent ocean world. After the film landed in China, it was first praised by domestic film critics and highly praised by the audience. Director Jacques Behan is doing his best to carefully educate the public, such as cruelly killing sharks to obtain fins, skillfully guiding the audience to reflect on themselves and question their role in the world with real bloody scenes. So the narrative angle of this documentary is consistent with what I want to do. I also hope that by showing beauty, I can subtly influence others. This documentary has given me a lot of inspiration. I want to show this documentary in another way.

2.IDEA-Research

In project 04, the documentary ocean by French director Jacques Behan touched me very much. My inspiration comes from this documentary

The ocean focuses on the “blue territory” covering three-quarters of the earth’s surface, deeply explores this deep and rich mysterious world, and completely presents the magnificent vastness of the ocean. The adventure of the real animal world is far more wonderful than the story in the cartoon. Next, the screen will launch a huge jellyfish group, right whales, great white sharks and penguins to show their vigorous vitality in front of the camera, which is amazing. At the same time, it will torture the traces left by human beings affecting life at the bottom of the sea. There is no artificial perspective, no comments, and only let the camera speak. Jacques Behan hopes that the film will let people face up to the coordination of economy and resources, and let people understand that it is not too late to protect the ocean. In the film, the creators fully demonstrated the food chain, told people how the whole marine ecosystem works, and predicted the serious consequences if the food chain breaks. All the people and animals in the film are closely related to the ocean. What happens in the ocean is also closely related to human society, so as to alert people.

This documentary records a story line in a way of speaking, and I hope to keep this story line in another way. And in this documentary, the display of the marine food chain aroused my great interest. Because in my interview, it can be seen that people do not have a clear understanding of the marine food chain. Moreover, this work has amazing vision. I hope to extract some and show them to you in other ways.

Then I did some research on marine themed works of art

Volumes (Maxim zhestkov), immersive multimedia projection device, variable size, 2018
Among thousands of creatures under the dark blue, there is a kind of glass squid. Its outer membrane looks like the dance skirt people wear when dancing polka. The beautiful round spots on it make this kind of glass squid look a bit like the image in cartoons, and add a light color to the quiet deep-sea environment.
Volumes is a full CG experimental art film installation about nature, physics, art and love initiated by dynamic image artist Maxim zhestkov from Russia and inspired by squid. The film controls the movement of 2 billion particles through pressure and natural forces to express the relationship between people in society and explore the juxtaposition of emotion and natural laws. The motion of billions of particles is reminiscent of the trajectory of waves in nature.
Each frame in the work presents a new digital sculpture shape, which integrates the environmental sound and the movement of particles, showing a strong tension. Like a carnival squid, it continues to change its shape and color.

I think this work shows one side of the ocean from a unique perspective. After people see it and understand its meaning, they will have a feeling: Oh? So the ocean can be like this. This touched me very much.

Dark blue kaleidoscope series (Liu zhenchen), 8000mm * 2900mm, acrylic light box, UV spray painting, stainless steel, led, transformer, etc., 2019
Liu zhenchen, a French artist who once exhibited the large installation ice tablet in the square in front of the Paris city hall, created a new marine themed art installation – dark blue kaleidoscope series for this exhibition.
This kaleidoscope composed of 300 light boxes is like human consumer goods. It is deconstructed and reorganized by the sea, as if it forms a gorgeous picture on the seabed, which also reflects human invasion of the sea.

This work wants to show human invasion of the ocean, which is consistent with my idea in some aspects. And he also chose to show the beautiful side of the ocean.

3.Basic visual materials

I watched the whole documentary again and intercepted a lot of amazing visual materials from it.

These beautiful visions inspired me to show the beauty of the ocean. I want to keep the complete story line, show people the current situation of the ocean and the knowledge about the marine biological environment, and show the beauty of the angle that is difficult to see at ordinary times.

So my idea is to show them in the form of picture books or books.

4.Research-IDEA

I read a lot of art works designed by books

I want to present the content in a continuous way.

My idea is to make three books in the form of continuous folded squares. The first book I want to show the beauty of the sea. I find my favorite scenes from the documentary. I plan to draw some oil paintings to show them. In the second book, I will show three marine biological chains. I want to draw some illustrations for the vision of this part. The third book will show human atrocities and their impact on the ocean. The words in the three books will come from some meaningful narrators I extracted from the documentary. They are short because I want all three books to be visual.

I sorted out the marine food chain, which is divided into three. They cross and connect with each other to form a food web.

I have two ideas about the covers of three books. The first is to show the images of polluted oceans scanned in satellite images. The second is to use contour lines to show ocean vortices, and spray paint to show three pollution stages: clear, turbid and dirty. I’m considering acrylic board or PVC for material selection。

The visual part of the three book I want to make a series of art books, a total of three books. They look like accordions. The contents of the three books are different, but there are some connections. On the front of the three books, there are three ways to obtain different vision, while on the back, the stories expressed in the documentary are displayed through my typesetting, which is consistent. The front of the three books adopt different ways to show some wonderful vision. The back of the three books can be connected, with a complete story line about the documentary. The relationship between the three books has its own unique places, but they are intertwined. They take the same form as the nature of the marine food chain.
These three books are the carrier of an album
In the first book, I showed some unique and unusual marine beauty in the form of oil painting. I want to present a pure beauty. I used the oil painting knife to show the mysterious world inside the ocean. An abstract and direct painting style

In the second book, I want to show the marine biological chain. I consulted a large number of papers and materials and sorted out the marine food chain, which is divided into three parts. They cross connect to form a food web. The vision of the second book includes all parts of the food web. The three food chains are separated by three colors: red, yellow and blue. Some pages have only one color, and some pages have multiple colors. I collected a lot of biological image materials in the food web.

Exposure: 000 : 00 : 00 . 133 : 332 Binning: 1 x 1 Gain: 1 %Accumulated%=1

Then I integrate them, and then electronically process them and adjust the parameters. You will get some amazing visual effects. I distinguish the three food chains by color, but show their interlaced process.

For the third book, I made some retro and realistic collages to show the interaction between human behavior and marine ecology, as well as my thoughts on the current situation of the ocean.

The back layout of the three books. I choose Klein Blue as the base color, and its hexadecimal number is 002fa7. It conforms to the overall theme and is also the popular color of this year. In the process of typesetting, I used some auxiliary lines to help me divide the picture better. I extracted the important vision in the story line and colored it. I use color processing to unify them and get the visual effect of red and blue contrast. In these three books, words appear only on the back. The source of these words is also the narrative narration in the documentary. I excerpted some important phrases that can well describe the story. I keep the original French version and the English translation. Show them together.

6.Cover making of three books

I first used the foam board to make the model of the book’s cover. The inspiration for the cover modeling is the ocean vortex, which shows the feeling of the ocean’s depth contour similar to the geographical knowledge.

Finally, the cover is made of polypropylene plate, so I bought an electric heating cutting knife. This knife can cut many kinds of materials after heating, and heating and polypropylene can produce a very natural reaction. You can get some very natural texture effects. They are different from the deliberate shape and have a unique aesthetic feeling. Then I spray the color on the model and paint the finished polypropylene plate. Then about the bonding of several boards, ordinary glue and transparent glue can’t do it. I bought a glue gun and heated the glue rod with an electric glue gun to bond them.