REPULSION!

I have been searching through some "vintage" horror films to watch in preparation for the 1 minute video module and came across a few, "I spit on your grave", "rear window", "repulsion", and "The man who haunted himself" I am going to watch a couple of them and review them later, hopefully this will give me some ideas for my 1 minute horror! I am thinking of filming it in Black and white with a grain effect, and want to incorporate some of the special effects and techniques used in horror films from the 40's and 60's and later... 

I don't know what the plot is going to be yet, but I plan on making more than one of these 1 minute features, I'd love to have one as a live-action film and at least another done using some sort of stop motion technique, and then if I have time I plan on doing something a bit more uplifting and quirky!

Tara Mcpherson

I have been looking at the art of Tara Mcpherson over the holidays, initially drawn to it by a book cover I saw on Amazon, (which I bought based on the cover and the inside previews) I loved the artwork inside, it reminded me of Mark Ryden works, I love how the images are sweet, colorful and have that sort of icing texture that reminds you of cakes and sweets! but at the same time they depict somewhat gory ideals, for example Mark Ryden draws giant cuddly teddy bears that upon first glance seem cute and friendly but upon further inspection have a cold evil kind of look, it's hard to explain. He also paints little girls being eaten by trees, which I think is just F*****g awesome! and Tara's work is similar in that way, for example one of her pictures is off a happy smiling girl in a swimsuit but then you notice the rubber toy float she has is actually going through a whole in her body, she also has a fascination with hearts and most of her female portrayals have heart shaped holes in their chests which is clearly rather symbolic and alot of people will be able to relate to it, (I'm actually getting one of her artworks as a tattoo in a few weeks!) there is something odd about looking at such gory content, but minus the dark colors, slime and guts to go with it, instead you are greeted with sugary colors and almost edible textures that draw you in almost like the window display of the most scrumptious fairytale cake shop you could imagine, only when you get inside you realize your actually in Sweeney Todds barber shop! and yet you still stay because you are getting to view these things that we are all morbidly curious about in one way or the other, yet in an addictive childlike way.

This sort of stuff also makes me think of Tim Burton, I love his work too and I can't wait to go and see his new film: "Coroline" I have both "The nightmare before christmas" and "the corpse bride" and most of his films, I love his dark sense of comic horror and will be drawing inspiration from it and Tara Mcpherson's work for my next video project!

1 minute film

I thought it was quite good as it touches on something we all experience everyday, or at some 

point, and it was nice and simple and to the point!

the sound worked really well also, if it had been covered by music it would have 

glamorized it a bit, the sound of all the plastic been torn adds to 

the frustration you feel from watching it. 

this video won an award in the 1 minute film thingy, we are going to be making one 

minute videos for our 

next brief so i thought i would check some out!

character design

I've been looking at character designs and wanting to get back into it as I used to carry a little book around with me and just come up with designs all the time, I can't find the book anymore so am a little upset as it had a years worth of my ideas/drawings in it.

I wanted to buy the pictoplasma books but thought they were a little expensive so I got one called: Great new characters, and I'm glad I did! it's an awesome little book, packed full of characters across a broad range of mediums! 

and here is a picture I took of some sweets given to the kids at easter, I couldn't eat them if they were mine, they're just too cool! 

fancy a belly dance anyone?

I've been watching a few bellydance videos on youtube after 

attending some belly dance sessions at my gym and really liked 

this one, alot of it is boring, but this one really works to the beat, 

in fact if i watch it with no sound i can almost hear the beats as 

she moves to them so well, i love how she can move her hips in 

different ways to reflect the different sounds, i wish I could do that!

If you liked it.....

My mum got me to look this one up, for weeks she was talking about it,

"I don't wanna watch some skimpy gay guy doing a girlie dance", was

all I kept thinking to myself, but one day for some reason I looked it up,

(maybe I secretly did want to see it? lol) and after the initial gag at the

sight of him in those skimpy strange clothes, I began to think, "he's quite

good actually!" I mean I couldn't do it! in fact I was thinking of having a go

and sticking it on youtube, that's why I watched this, then after that I decided

not to bother! cause if one skinny man with no curves can do it better

than me then i'm not going to bother! lol

it's funny actually, there are so many video's like this of people trying to

do the dance, (and even more funny is that NONE of the girls on there

are doing it as good as this gay guy here!) there are other men doing it,

and some trying to copy this guy which is even sadder, you can hardly

mock a guy who millions, (well maybe hundreds) are trying to copy?

He even got to meet Beyonce as a result of the youtube video and he

was on "this morning" for it too!