Rick Baker: Talking after MIB 2

(After Men In Black 2)
Wanted to be the alien designer for movies from a young age

Wasn't sure MIB was supposed to be a comedy or what?
figuring out what its gonna be, the second film was easier because of blueprint from the first
He didn't want cartoon characters but wanted to be funny with lots of humer

There was a tricky balance between a fun feeling and reality, and look like something that could exist but isn't scary

usually creates his designs on computer
2d art work
Can do paintings on computer that would take half a day but look like would take a week
Biggest problem instead of 2/3 choices now has 20/30 choices
Has team of people that are designers, who still use pencil paper and make mackettes

Will design aliens and then decide on approach of how he is going to create it.
All the stuff that hes been doing in his career he puts into the movie
animatronics
puppets
simple makups
complex makups
fake heads

started out thinking he wanted to be a make up artist but was limited and didn't like it
got into more animatronics and puppets and fake heads because you're not bound to just the two eyes for example.
Some aliens will be made first as a mickette then create a 3d sculpture of it and make it mechanical - no actor involved. Whats great about that is were not inhibited by the human form inside, can give it as many arms and legs as we decide and can stretch it out.


close to 100 people on pre production mib2

Spaceship Design

To get the ball rolling with the design of my spaceship i was researching concept art spaceships. For a spaceship to convey an operating theater in it with aliens, i will be exploring shapes to represent the theme of the story. 

Artists Concepts

Architecture Spaceships

Spaceships & Flying saucers in films

Whilst in search of well known and famous spaceships, it occurred to me i could already incorporate some familia shapes of equipment from an operating theatre. I could take these inspirational objects and create my own unique spaceship.

I went in search around my house of objects that could represent the identity of a spaceship. I was concentrating on light, basic simple round shapes and interesting compositions. I interoperate UFO's in my own imagination with bright lights in all different shapes and sized, aiming to confuse the audience looking directly at the spaceship.

Operating Room

Men In Black: Location inspiration for Alien invasion

One film reference i was looking at is Men in Black, in the first film Will and Agent K go and visit two dead bodys in an operating theatre.

When Will arrives to the test location on battery drive he has a load of tests to complete.

GTA Vice City

http://www.igrandtheftauto.com/news/gtavc/801/vc-behind-the-scenes-the-lab-part-1-animation/

http://www.igrandtheftauto.com/news/gtavc/802/vc-behind-the-scenes-the-lab-part-2-sound/

http://www.igrandtheftauto.com/news/gtavc/805/vc-behind-the-scenes-the-lab-part-3-city-design/

Argos Alien TV Advert

http://www.chiandpartners.com/our-work/argos

Identity COP

Lecture 9 – 13/12/2012

Identity – James Beighton

Summary

To introduce historical conceptions of identity

To introduce Foucault’s ‘discourse’ methodology

To place and critique contemporary practice within these frameworks, and to consider their validity

To consider ‘postmodern’ theories of identity as ‘fluid’ and ‘constructed’

To consider identity today, especially in the digital domain

Theories

Essentialism (traditional approach)

Our biological make up makes us who we are

We all have an inner essence that makes us who we are

Post modern theorists disagree

Post modern theorists are anti essentialist

Physiognomy legitimizing racism

Irish Iberian

Anglo teutonic

Negro

Historical phases of identity

Pre modern identity – personal identity is stable, defined by long standing roles

Modern identity – possibility to start choosing your identity, rather than simply being born into it. People start to worry about who they are

Post modern identity – accepts a fragmented self. Identity is constructed

Pre modern identity

Institutions determined identity

Marriage, the church, the state, work eg.

Secure identities

Farm working

Soldier

Factory worker

Housewife

Gentleman

Husband-wife

Modern identity 19^th and early 20^th centuries

Baudelaire – introduces concept of the flaneur (gentleman stroller)

Veblen – conspicuous consumption of valuable goods is a means of reputability to the gentleman of leisure

Georg Simmel

Trickle down theory

Emulation

Distinction

The mask of fashion

‘The feeling of isolation is rarely as decisive and intense when one actually finds oneself physically alone, as when one is a stranger without relations, among many physically close persons, at a party, on the train, or in the traffic of a large city’.

Simmel suggest that because of the speed and mutability of modernity, individuals withdraw into themselves to find peace

He describes this as the separation of the subjective from the objective life.

Post modern identity ‘Discourse Analysis’

Identity is constructed out of the discourses culturally available to us

Discourse is a set of recurring statements that define a particular culture object eg. Madness, criminality, sexuality, and provide concepts and terms through which such an object can be studied or discussed. (Cavallaro, 2001)

Possible discourses:

Age, class, gender, nationality, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, education, income ect. Discourses to be considered: class, nationality, race/ethnicity, gender and sexuality

Class

“’Society’… reminds one of a particularly shrews cunning and pokerfaced player in the game of life, cheating if given a chance, flouting rules whenever possible”

(Bauman 2004)

Nationality

“much of the press coverage centered around accusations of misogyny because of the imagery of semi naked staggering and brutalized women, in conjunction with the word ‘rape’ in the title. But McQueen claimed that the rape was of Scotland, not the individual models, as the theme of the show was the Jacobite rebellion”.

Race/Ethnicity

Gillian Wearing, from signs that say what you want them to say and not signs that say what someone else wants you to say 1992-3

“Hair has been a big issue throughout my life… it often felt that I was nothing more than my hair in other peoples eyes” Emily Bates

Gender and sexuality

‘Edmund Bergler, an American psychoanalyst writing in the 1950s, went much further, both in condemning the ugliness of fashion and in relating it to sex. He recognized that the fashion industry is the work not of women, but of men. It’s monstrosities, he argued, were a ‘gigantic unconscious hoax’ perpetrated on women by the arch villains of the Cold war – male homosexuals (for he made the vulgar assumption that all dress designers are ‘queers’). Having first, in the 1920’s tried to turn women into boys, they had latterly expressed their secret hatred of women by forcing them into exaggerated, ridiculous, hideous clothes’. (Wilson, E. 1985)

Masquerade and the mash of femininity

Wonderbra, Gillian Wearing, Lynne 1993-6

The Post Modern Condition:

Liquid Modernity and Liquid Love

Post modern Theory:

Identity is constructed through our social experience

Erving Goffman The presentation of self in Everyday life (1959)

Goffman saw life as theatre, made up of encounters and performances

For Goffman the self is a serious facades

Zygmunt Bauman

Identity (2004)

Liquid Modernity (2000)

Liquid Love (2003)

‘Yes, indeed ‘Identity’ is revealed to us only as something to be invented rather than discovered; as a target of an effort, “an objective”.

“We use art, architecture, literature, and the rest and advertising as well, to shield ourselves, in advance of experience, from the stark and plain reality in which we are fated to live. (Theodore Levitt 1970)

Postmodern Identity

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

Enlightenment philosopher: ‘I think therefore I am’ (discourse on method, 1637)

“The typical cultural spectator of postmodernity is viewed as a largely home centered and increasingly solitary player who, via various forms of ‘telemediation’ (stereos, game consoles, videos and television) revels in a domesticated (i.e private and tamed) ‘world at a distance” (Darley 2000)

“If I put up a flattering picture of myself with a list of my favorite things, I can construct an artificial  representation of who I am in order to get sex or approval. (‘I like Facebook,’ said another friend. ‘I got a shag out of it’)”

(Tom Hodgkinson 2008)

“In the Brave new world of fleeting chances and frail securities, the old-style stiff non negotiable identities simply wont do’ (Bauman 2004)

“Fun they may be, these virtual communities but they create only an illusion of intimacy and a pretense of community” (Charles Handy 2001)

“Identity” is a hopelessly ambiguous idea and a double-edged sword. It may be a war cry of individuals, or of the communities that wish to be imagined by them. At one time the edge of identity is turned against “collective pressures” by individuals who resent conformity and hold dear their own ways of living (which “the group” would decry as prejudices) and their own ways of living (which “the group” would condemn as cases of “deviation” or “silliness”, but at any rate of abnormality, needing to be cured or punished”

(Bauman 2004)

Creative Rhetoric's COP

Lecture 8 – 6/12/2012

Creative Rhetoric’s talking about creativity

Janine Sykes

Aim:

To gain knowledge of the historicism and complexity of creativity, in order to better understand and articulate your creative practice

Objectives: it’s good to talk

Clarify how creativity is talked about

Enable us to talk with precision about creativity

Develop practice: techniques/definition

Potentially expand discipline

Threads

Introduction – the blank sheet project

Genealogy – a history of the term creativity

Aesthetics – philosophy of creativity

Education – facilitating creativity

Contemporary global – discourses and practices

“Different artists often have quite divergent conceptions of what they are doing” Harrison – Barbet, 1990

Evidence classification of GK Art

Striving to imitate nature better:

Archaic

Classical

Hellenistic

Classicism

Academics talk about creativity

Complex and dynamic concept

Subjects of history of art and aesthetics

Evidenced in Banaji et al (2006) Nine ‘rhetoric’s of creativity’ contemporary review of the literature

Theoretical framework of lecture

Banaji et all (2006) Nine ‘rhetoric’s of creativity’

1.     creative genius

2.     democratic and political creativity

3.     ubiquitous creativity

4.     creativity for social good

5.     creativity as economic imperative

6.     play and creativity

7.     creativity and cognition

8.     the creative affordances of technology

9.     the creative classroom

(1) Romantic Genius

Involves looking at judgments about art and creativity are made

Romanticism

Kant wrote about artistic movements

Transformed

Movement changed ideas and language about art and creativity

The creative

Romanticism redefined the status of the artist

Valued the originality of work, in terms of reflecting a subjective vision of artist

Artist a creator – nor imitator

Artist should stand aside from rules

The artist is rule breaker and definer

Creativity

Through creating, artists create new rules

Own aster and owner of the discipline

Romantic model of the artist empowers the artist and creativity

Through creativity the borders and boundaries of art itself are visualized and transcended

Expanding the discipline

Dynamic

The creative classroom

The survival of creativity (2000)

Traces history of state funded art and design education

First academies of art in Italy in 14c

Classical rules perspective, order of architecture etc.

(2) Democratic and political creativity

Empowering properties – groups

Creative advertising and online collaborative creativity

Future everything 2012

Abundance research new media profound chance on creative and citizens

EStudio

Online extension studio

Mimics the professional studio in its online form and creative collaborations

Abstract

Art and copy teams (collaborative) concurrent practice-based orthodox UK art schools 50;s

For some, new media prompting changes at the heart of discipline; models of creativity – evidence teams are expanding in volume and online

primary sources

49 completed/valid questionnaires

32 learners and 1 tutor – ascertain impact

16 professionals – 7 top ten UK agencies

(3) Ubiquitous creativity

Communities of practice

Little c Creativity Banaji (2006)

Creativity as a basic skill to find solutions to problems in 21^st life, being resourceful, flexible – contribution to society

VCOPlife-cycle/creative cycle

1.     Potential

2.     Coalescing

3.     Active

4.     Dispersed

5.     Memorable

Successful VCOP

1.     Experts

2.      Stimulus

3.     Provide

4.     Presence

5.     Level of engagement

SHOW studio – a way of being creative

Founder – Nick Knight (photographer)

(4) Creativity for social good

Only the brave foundation

(2008) ‘Mission to fight social inequality and to contribute to the sustainable development of less advantages areas and people throughout the world’

Corporate Social Responsibility

‘Involving cooperative activity and as socially and personally empowering’

D&AD Student Awards: Unilever open brief link campaign of brand to a social or environment issue

(5) Creativity as economic imperative

Facilitating creative skills particularly important to economy

Today’s most innovative companies… succeed by designing their organizations to maximize collaboration

Good improve involves deep listening skills – working as one, idea goes places wouldn’t as an individual

(6) Play and creativity

Brainstorming

100- mile-an-hour thinking

creativity as a type of thinking

(7) Creativity and cognition

Psycho-cultural perspective of creativity

Enjoyment changes perception of time

Occurs when challenges and skills are high

Most common place flow experienced is when one is in conversation

Creativity is (and always has been) collaborative

“…a principle that I adhere to when directing is that I make goo duse of everything my staff creates… animation is a fundamentally develmental process for Miyazaki, it is also, no less crucially, an eminently collaborative effort” Cavallaro, 2006)

(8) The creative affordances of technology

influenced creative curriculum (9) Creative classroom

Flattening social hierarchies, empowering and connecting creative

New initiative launched next summer ‘connect’ D&AD community ‘richer deeper engagement education and industry’

New and exciting opportunities for creative

Beattie (BMB) ECD

Internet is the biggest idea since the wheel

Enables lots of small ideas to circulatedigital media enabled convergence on a scale not seen before opens up opportunities for creative

Visualizing Creativity

Creative affordances/possibilities technology

Capturing creativity in real time SHOW studio

Talking about creativity

What is the source of a creative idea?

How do you talk about your creativity?

You are not a gadget

Creative practicing does not necessarily entail replacing a focus on the creative sovereignty of the individual