Back at university. Not super happy about it. Not gonna lie.
Summer felt longer than two years. I don’t remember what I was doing when Lockdown started. I feel like I’ve forgotten everything I once knew. My passion for making art has dried up.
But like a bicycle with a rusty chain, I am slowly getting into motion. Even with eaks and creaking.
I have tried to do something over the summer. I had know idea was wanted for Constellation (A huge waste of time) and didn’t even know if something was expected for Field. So I focused in entirely on my Subject project.
It didn’t take me long to pick what I wanted to do. Even if it scared the hell out of me.
I would make an animation based on the 12 glass paintings that got me onto this course. An ambitious project even by my standards. But it seemed appropriate to go back to the pieces that got me here to begin with. it meant I wouldn’t have to spend large amounts of time deciding what to do (Or so I thought), and sadly I had reconnected with the hard emotions that had inspired it to begin with.
I started out by turning the narrative behind the paintings into a short story. Some may call this a decadent choice. But I feel this was very useful for blocking out the emotions I was dealing with and seeing how all the pieces fit together. Plus it meant I had a short story to show.
It was a long process. It would have been shorter. But I often found I could only write a few words a day given how painful the subject matter was. But in the end, it was done it helps a lot that I was able to dictate it to my mother. She claims it’s a good story. I think it maybe the worst ever written.
I was lucky enough over the summer to make a friend in a man called Andy. A veteran of filmmaking who’s worked on several documentaries. He helped me storyboard another project (On I’m not sure in hindsight is actually going to be relevant this year. I hate my life) And when I had the story ready Andy was nice enough to translate the story into script form (Something I will always be grateful for) and all I had to do was tweak it to my liking and make the narrative fit the medium of film more.
Well. Turns out that easier said than done. My story idea needed a lot of tweaking to work as a film. The dialogue was unnatural. Some scenes didn’t need to be there. and some things needed to be clearer. I’m still working on it. But I am making some progress.
In between that. I’ve been working on character designs. Something from all that drawing (and painting) I did last year must have stuck, as I have basic character designs for every character in the film! Even the ones of don’t move. I even have some character sheets. Bad sadly, rather than working on those. I’m writing this.
I’ve had a lot of trouble settling back into my old rhythem. But I hope I’ll manage. Wish me luck.
John's Learning Journal 