Lecture notes// 'The Auteur'

The Auteur is a filmmaker (usually the director) whose movies are creatively influenced and characterised by THEIR influence. Auteurs are often seen as breaking the rules and making the rules...Personification of the genre. Auteur is also French for 'Author'.

One of the most successful and influential characters of the film industry was ALFRED HITCHCOCK. Influenced by the less 'mainstream' movements such as 'surrealism' and 'expressionism' as oppose to 'Art House'. Working for over 50 years in the film industry can only mean one thing...success. 

Below are a few reasons why Hitchcock was so important to film;

• The dolly zoom, an unsettling special effect caused by the cameras movement to undermine the normal visual perception in film.
• He was a pioneer of many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres.
• The backward zoom, while travelling.
• The 'Vertigo effect'.
• To create tension he would cleverly use a montage and cut despite the production code (39-60)

Montage = an assembly of pieces from film. "What is drama, but life with all the dull bits cut out?" - Hitchcock

The Lodger 1927

His first recognisable and acknowledged film. Explained: the choice of his music created a specific mood for each scene. The clever use of overlapping and montages created a ghostly appearance.

Colour being used expressively; creating a sense of realism with the audience - making them suffer - bringing them into the film.

Hitchocks impeccable style...

Expressionism - form evokes emotion

Cameo appearances by the director (Signature)

The narrative is often visual as oppose to being told through a dialogue.

Obsessive use of Blondes.

Use of certain actors.

&

Suspense - "There is no terror in the bang, only the anticipation of it."

Cinema had changed, photographs of people talking bared no resemblance to the art of cinema.

Self Proclaimed fears: 

• Small Children
• Policemen
• High Places
• That my next movie won't be as good as my last.

Saul Bass

Colour and its meanings...

The eye contains two kinds of receptors - rods and cones, while the rods convey shades of gray, the cones allow the brain to perceive colours.
There's 3 types of cones. The;
1st - sensitive to red-orange light
2nd - sensitive to green light
3rd - sensitive to blue & violet light.

When a cone is stimulated, the brain perceives the corresponding colour. If our 1st cone is stimulated we see "red", if our 2nd is stimulated we see"Green". If these are stimulated simultaneously, we see YELLOW.


Primary & Secondary
Primary colours differ depending on the colour mode (RGB/CMYK), Colours seen when lights shone through a prism are known as Spectrum colours consisting of; RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE, INDIGO AND VIOLET. When the base of the primary colour system is RGB (Additive), these ROYGBIV colours are reduced to red, green, blue and violet.

Secondary Colours are simply created by mixing 2 primary colours, Using the picture as evidence we can see that when you mix red and yellow, produced is ORANGE.


Tertiary
These consist of browns and greys, produced by either mixing all 3 primary colours together OR mixing a primary colour and a secondary colour. There are six tertiary colors; red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, and red-violet.

Symbol: Symbolises an Apple (Company name)

Sign: it's reminiscent of Apple products e.g: iPods, iPhones and Apple Macs.

Signifier: Suggests quality, creativity and technology.

Visual metaphor: An object that is a representation of something else e.g. APPLE. A metaphor conveys an impression about something relatively unfamiliar by drawing a comparison between it and something familiar.

Metonym: A symbolic image that is used to make reference to something with a more literal meaning. e.g. a Cross is usually associated with a church.

Synecdoche: When the main subject is substituted for something that is inherently connected to it (A part used to represent the whole) e.g. The Statue of Liberty represents NEW YORK.

Type and its meanings...

Typography - the effective delivery of a message though the use of visual language.
Visual Literacy - the ability to construct meaning from visual images and type.
Visual Communication - is based on a level of shared understanding of signs, symbols, gestures and objects.

TYPE IS SPEECH MADE VISIBLE.

Hierachy

An arrangement of items, in which the items are represented as being 'above', 'below' or 'at the same level as' one another. Abstractly, a hierarchy is simply an ordered set. A Hierarchy can link entities either directly or indirectly and either vertically or horizontally. This is akin to two co-workers or colleagues; each reports to a common superior, but they have the same relative amount of authority.

 The type below demonstrates a hierarchy of point size.

Colour Theory / Jen Stark

Jen Stark is a contemporary artist whose majority of work involves creating paper sculptures, her work uses inspiration from microscopic patterns in nature, wormholes, and sliced anatomy. The ideas are based on replication and infinity, echoing patterns and intelligent designs found in nature.

Context of Practice 11/11/11

The task was to find 5 examples of imagery that we found aesthetically pleasing. They didn't have to be pieces of graphic design but what we personally liked...

Unrealistic scenes by Professional Freelance Photographer NATHAN SPOTTS

The scene looks as if it was created by merging scenic photographs, I love the smoothness of the transition, from the light clouds to the dark clouds and the slow fade of colour into the black sky. All of these things make the photograph look somewhat real.

Work collection by Michael Kutsche

The artist specialises in film and character design

 I admire the talent that went into these designs, at first they look like extremely detailed paintings, but as I keep looking at them I think they've also been created using design programmes, but maybe that's just because they look so perfect.

 The amazing thing about his work is that they look like actual photographs creating realism with the audience, he really captures the mood and lighting of the setting creating picture perfect designs. In the image below the light shining through the hood radiates the characters face, almost forcing you to look at the detail in the weathered mans face, the eyes slowly draw you in and create a mood.

Layouts, illustrations & info graphics by Francesco Muzzi

Specialising in Editorial design and Illustration. They're so aesthetically pleasing to look at because they're so easy on the eye, When I see this set of images, I'm not even considering what the text might say but admiring the style and layout choice of this artist.

Recent Illustrations by Jonny Wan

Although the artists using different directions he still maintains his experimental style.

Anti-Smoke pack by Reynolds and Reyner

Daily people are dying throughout the world of diseases, caused by smoking. This package concept shows how close this problem is to us. As every day each smoker carries this problem in his/her pocket.They carry death.

When choosing aesthetically pleasing designs I base it on the 5 aesthetics that follow: 

• Intricacy
• Imagination
• Colour use
• Boldness
• Graphic

5 experiences I'd like to achieve....

Admire the aesthetics in a city surrounded by culture and vibrancy, somewhere like Beijing.  Were the city is renowned for it's palaces, temples and huge stone walls.

Be inspired by other aspirational designers to do something different! 

Attend a convention or exhibition and be blown away by the imagination of a design. 

Collaborate to create an equally brilliant design. 

I used to work in a kitchen as a starter chef, so it would be pleasing if I found some way to exquisitely lay/stack or perch the food on a plate to massively improve the aesthetics of it.

An Example of Modernism & Post Modernism

1 example of Modernism within Graphic Design...

The simplicity of this piece, the block colours and simple shapes are a common aspect of modernism within graphic design, it's also a representation of the new age of science and progress.

1 example of Post-Modernism within Graphic Design...

This poster about Post modernism really focuses on the apparent qualities within post modernism. The type appears to be scattered across the page instead of being in a structured format, it goes against the rules of modernism in every way.