OUGD501 / Study Task 04 / Establishing requirements of your practical investigation

1. What is your research question?

'What is the role of graphic design within the film industry'

2. Do you have a hypothesis (an assumed conclusion that you will endeavour to prove)?

That the graphic designer plays a key role in film, adding to the authenticity towards the films aesthetic and acting.

3. What are the contexts of your research interests?

Looking at graphic props in films such as Grand Budapest Hotel, Her, etc as they are especially design conscious films. 

4. Sources of primary/secondary research.

Annie Atkins talk at It's Nice That, and books such as Uncredited (graphic design and opening titles in movies), Fundamentals of film making and Film making.

5. How will your practical work relate to your written work (synthesis)?

Design graphic props for a specific scene in a film.

6. What methods will you use to research, develop, create and test your work?

Look at graphic design within films and tv shows, I will be creating the posters digitally on Illustrator and printing out mock ups to see what needs to change and whether they'd be effective if used in a set.

7. Provide a proposed timeline for your work to completion (consider carefully whether you will need access to college facilities).

Research (now) > Experiments (done by beginning of Feb) > Develop  > Mock ups (done by beginning of March) > Digitally print (done by beginning / mid April) as well as finishing touches

OUGD501 / Research / The Great Gatsby

"Filmmaker Baz Luhrmann’s take on the classic novel promises to be a captivating fusion of dashing period style and 21st-century sensibility"

Tobey Maguire (main character in The Great Gatsby) says: “Baz and his team built this spectacular world that brings you back to a version of the 1920s—one that also kind of contemporizes it. It’s the ’20s as the characters might have experienced them. The film is an amazing, immersive experience.”

OUGD501 / Research / Annie Atkins Grand Budapest Hotel

Annie Atkins graphic design for Grand Budapest Hotel

Interview with Annie Atkins about graphic design in film:

https://i-d.vice.com/en_gb/article/we-meet-annie-atkins-graphic-designer-of-the-grand-budapest-hotels-empire-of-zubrowka

Q: What's changed since you worked on The Grand Budapest Hotel?
A: "Everything! You know, I've been making graphic pieces for shows for years now, but nobody ever really showed much interest in it before. I called it "all the stuff that everybody sees and nobody cares about". Now all of a sudden the work has had a light shone on it. The way Wes used graphic design in his storytelling, I think it helped people realise that all films have graphic art in them, it's just that they never noticed it before."

Another quote from the interview which is really interesting and relevant: 

"I remember working on a TV drama set in the 19th century where I made very large banknotes (they would have been three times the size of modern banknotes at the time), but the director didn't want to shoot them because he felt they were comically large - even though they were historically accurate. On The Grand Budapest, Wes really embraced these differences. We were always studying how things had been created differently back in the day, rather than making assumptions. That was fascinating to me. So many period shows I work on, the first thing you're told is that everything should be muted and sepia toned. It's a shame, because design around the turn of the last century was so colourful and vivid and we're writing it out of history by making shows in tones that audiences assume are realistic - just because they're so used to seeing faded old sepia photographs from the time."

Another interview about Annie Atkins and the graphic design for Grand Budapest Hotel:

http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/annie-atkins-grand-budapest-hotel

In this article Annie Atkins talks about how graphic designers in film have to design the obvious things like packaging or newspapers as well as the not so obvious things, like the pattern of a carpet. Here is a few quotes from this article:

“We’re not always designing for the cinema audience, sometimes it’s purely for the director and actors.”

She points out that even if the props in the film are new in the narrative, for a film set in the past the audience expects an “old” aesthetic.

OUGD501 / Study Task 03 / Establishing a research question 2

Question ideas:

• trends - are they good or bad?
• branding - how much of it determines the success of a clothing company? 
• how does architecture influence graphic design?
• graphic design in film - what is the role?

Chosen question:

What is the role of graphic design in film set design?

Practical response: create graphic design props for a film in which I have invented.

OUGD501 / Study Task 03 / Establishing a research question

First Thoughts List 

• architecture
• trends
• branding
• print
• gender
• film

Which Of The Module Resources Does This Question Relate To?

• print making in the 21st century: http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/p/prints-21st-century/
• identity lecture

Which Academic Sources Are Available On The Topic?

• branding resources: Klein, N. (2000) No Logo. London: Flamingo. Hetherington, K. (2008) Capitalism's Eye: Cultural spaces of commodity. London: Routledge. p.25-50
• advertising resources: Bignell, J. (2002) Media Semiotics. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Chapters 1 and 2

OUGD501 / Study Task 02 / Parody & Pastiche

Write a definition of parody/pastiche based on these two documents using at least one quote from each author. Use harvard referencing to reference the quotes correctly.

A pastiche is an appreciative impersonation of visual art, literature, theatre or music that imitates that of a previous work, whereas parody is a derisive imitation of another work, artist, or period.

After reading both documents it is clear that Jameson's Marxist principles have resulted in him having a critical view on pastiche. Jameson identifies postmodern parody as "blank parody" he says that pastiche has replaced parody in the postmodern age. "Pastiche is, like parody, the imitation of a peculiar or unique, idiosyncratic style, the wearing of a linguistic mask, speech in a dead language. But it is a neutral practice of such mimicry, without any of parody's ulterior motives, amputated of the satiric impulse, devoid of laughter"

"Pastiche is thus blank parody, a statue with blind eyeballs: it is to a parody what that other interesting and historically original modern thing, the practice of a kind of blank irony..." Jameson, F, 1991, Postmodernism, or, The Culture Logic of Late Capitalism, Page 17.

Hutcheon's discusses her opposing view that a parody restores elements of the past, rejecting elements of Modernism. In this extract we can tell that Hutcheon is positive about parody. "The past as referent is not bracketed or effaced, as Jameson would like to believe: it is incorporated and modified, given new and different life and meaning." Hutcheon, L, 1989, The Politics of Postmodernism: Parody and History, Page 182.

The packaging for Stranger & Stranger is an example of a pastiche.

Adbusters is an example of a parody.