Damien Serban was born in Paris in 1982, he graduated from the Applied arts superior institute with honors - His specialities, director, screenwriter and animator. He has done a couple of pieces in collaboration with another director called Yaan Bertrand also - Which I have focused on in my previous post.
I was looking at Damien Serban's official website, and his experimental films really caught my eye. One in particular stood out to me - As i am starting to think about ideas for my final major project brief, one of my very early ideas is to go down the route of representing dreams, but in a distorted and confusing 'Mish Mash' kind of way - like you're trying to remember a dream you had last night, It's a little bit hazy, but random images pop up now and again ... I have also been thinking about including colour and symbol meanings in dreams. Water being one of them, it is a spiritual meaning within dreams. Water is used by the subconscious as the perfect symbol to represent the spiritual form.
One of Damien's experimental pieces "Impressions D'eau", focuses on the 3 states of water. Solid, liquid and gas. All three states that are represented are made from the same filmed footage. This footage becoming the atoms creating the molecule of the films. - I like this idea, very clever way of thinking. It is that way of thinking i'd like to explore within my final major project.

This is Damien Serban's experiemental film page where you can view these inspiring films: http://www.damienserban.com/filmo/xp.php

This installation consists of 3 films based on the theme of the japanese butô dance. The dance involves grotesque and playful images and taboo topics, there is no set style, although it is traditionally performed in white body make up with slow hyper-controlled motion.
The 3 films were directed by Yaan Bertrand in collaboration with Damien Serban.
"IKI"
(6'50'') | 3D Animation | 2004
Fully created in 3D and keyframe animated, IKI symbolizes the
dancer's breathing by altering his dance and his rhythm to the
complete destruction of the body.

"MONO"
(6'50'') | Mixed Techniques| 2004

Among the dancer's interaction with the elements of nature, the
filmed footage of MONO blends with the computer generated textures
creating a new matter.

"UGOKI" - part of the Chrysalide installation
(6'51'') | 3D Animation | 2004

Slowness of a movement, and the maniacal attempt to perfect it in
cycle until exhaustion. A particularly controlled walk brings the body to
dysfunction.

This video is a small preview of the 3 films - I think they are absolutely brilliant. The different techniques used are very inspiring and I have always had an interest in the body, and how other people represent the body in motion.

Another film that Yaan and Damien collaborated on is called "Silken".
"Inside the protective warmth of his mother’s womb, a man experiences everyday life as eternal bliss".
This is another short clip to represent the 10 minute film - I am drawn to the type of editing and certain techniques they have used to represent unfamiliar parts of the body. I am very impressed with the type of work these two men from Paris have produced. I like the style of editing, visual effects and filming etc.

This big art installation is based in Berlin and was done by the Brazilian artist called Nele Azevedo. It consists of 1,000 tiny ice men which have been sculptured individually to just sit there and wait to become melted. It's purpose behind it, is to open peoples eyes to the climate changes. It was done in collaboration with the WWf to highlight the issue of global warming. The men began melting within half an hour of being placed on the steps of the concert hall in Berlin's gendarmenmarkt square. At the days temperature of 23 Degrees Celsius.

I think this idea was very clever, however, I think that it could have different meanings for different people - They can interpret it in whichever way they look at it. For example, when I first saw these pictures, I immediately thought of the fragile state of the human being, be it emotionally or physically and how we're all melting away as we become older and older!

I came across this Blog and have been checking it every single day ever since I found out about it! I like the idea of creating a small illustration for everyday of the year based around random facts that people send into the site. The people behind this site, are a UK based design studio called 'Young' (http://www.weareyoung.co.uk/). They specialise in brand identity development, print, interactive design, and obviously illustration.




This is the daily blog website: http://www.learnsomethingeveryday.co.uk/

When I was researching Fire for my most recent project, I came across a music video for a band called 'Firekites'. It had nothing to do with fire, apart from the name, so i was about to dismiss it until i started watching some of the music video which was created by Yanni Kronenberg and Lucinda Schreiber. It was all done using chalk boards, chalk, and stop motion. Apparently it took 4 people working full time 6 months to complete it and consists of around 1900 frames! I really do like the style of the video, it is different and engaging waiting to see what happens next. I feel that the style of this animation suits the melodic music perfectly. I am especially drawn to how they have left on the previous marks of the chalk in previous frames to help create an echo of images representing motion beautifully.

Firekites - AUTUMN STORY - chalk animation from Lucinda Schreiber on Vimeo.

I especially like how the camera pans out at the end to reveal the working space of the environment of where it was all drawn and put together - It has a lovely charm to the whole piece and the ending just proves that they are proud of what they have produced and how they created it all.

Stockport College's Moving Image group visited the Corner House theatre in Manchester back in November to see the last screening of the best short films by UK student filmmakers from all over the country. A couple of the films had caught my imagination.
The first film, is 'Body' by Zhivko Dimitrov who is from Central St Martins College of Art and Design based in London. The film is based around the human body and a little lonely fictional character trying to find himself. This character is on a journey within a different world which consists of bodily like functions and textures and motions etc. It is a fantasy world, but the filmmaker uses body matter to create this different world. He used thousands of photos and video footage of actual intestines, hearts and fake blood and different body parts were used to create the background environments. Photographs, life action and 3D techniques were all combined in after effects to produce this fantasy world. I think that the use of rich textures and experimental design is what drew me to this piece - I have always had an interest in the human body, how it moves, what it is made up of, the different combinations of cells etc. I like how it creates some unusual patterns and visuals, it is a completely different world and I like how designers represent their own perception of the body as a different world - You tend to see things you didn't expect to see etc.

BODY from zhivko dimitrov on Vimeo.

Another film which really stood out for me was called 'Stuck On The Edge' by Jennifer Fearnely who is from Goldsmiths; University Of London. Her interest is Documentary style films and this film documents Jennifer's great aunt Mavis' everyday life, activities, stories and her outlook on life at the age of 100! Jennifer's intent behind this film was to provoke people into thinking about their own elderly relatives situations and also tap into current debates about the responsibilities of care and end of life choices. This film contains a lot of humour - which came to a surprise to the filmmaker - I think that the end result of the film had a real charm to it, mainly down to the character she focused the documentary on!
The filmmaker filmed everything herself - there are no other crew that take credit for the documentary, apart from the music score which was created by Stephen Wright.

I am unable to find a clip representing the film, but I would just like to say that if anyone ever comes across this film, I definitely recommend that you watch it! It has a lovely charm oozing from it! It is 27 minutes long, and if you find some spare time in the day, sit down, watch it, and you will learn some truths about the reality of the situations elderly people are dealing with today, along with Mavis' humorous out look on life in general!

The first thing that really caught my eye in this presentation was the way he had designed his slide show - It was almost like a webpage he had designed just for a talk with some students in Stockport College! He had his own homepage which explained what the presentation was going to be about, and then all he had to do was click on a particular link on the homepage to take him to the pages he wants to talk about. It was the first time I had seen a presentation done like this and it certainly grabbed my attention from the start!
He talked about his own experience within the design industry and about his personal life and how it has all fit together nicely. He graduated from Preston University and landed his first job in his career at 'The Chase' where he was on £13,000 - He was there for 4 years when he decided to leave and travel around Vietnam and Australia where he then worked for a company in Sydney for a while to broaden his experience in design.
He is currently based in Manchester at a company called 'True North' where he just recently handed his notice in to go back to Australia and work there again - It was the connections he made whilst he was traveling which has given him the opportunity to broaden his horizons and work in different environments.
He was talking a lot about the type of industry design is - about the positive and negative impacts of it. He then when on to talk about the positions within a design company - I didn't know this kind of information and i found it very interesting to learn about certain positions within companies such as the design manager and art worker etc etc.
Mike also pointed some negative areas within this design industry such as long hours, unpaid overtime, and the pressure. He also mentioned that placements were a very good way to get the experience you need, and getting over the fear of entering the industry - His 1st placement was with a company called 'Imagination'. But his advice was that by working on real projects with real deadlines will open your eyes to 'The big bad world!'.

He mentioned the type of work that he did when he was a student - It was nice to see he was still proud of his ideas and designs he had come up with. So one of his student projects put out a brief surrounding the subject matter of 'wind up or love?'. Where you should come up with a design idea surrounding things that either wind you up or you absolutely love, either one. So Mike decided to go for the wind up option because he felt like he could maybe come up with an idea to help solve the issue that wound him up in the first place! He decided that a lot of people could relate to how certain stock is priced in shops - for example: 39p, 69p, 89p. 99p etc, Mike decided to design a receipt that would be given to the customer suggesting to them to donate that remaining/annoying 1p to charity?!! I think it was an excellent idea.

When Mike was working at the Chase, when he had just started there, he came up with a very successful idea for the underlay for carpets!


The brand needed a fresh new packaging and I think that these new, fun and fresh designs are very simple but very effective - They are eye catching and create a boring product the next big thing to have in your house!
Overall, the whole presentation - in which he called his 'Ramblings!' consisted of some very good advice, a laid back atmosphere yet still very informative, his personal travels around the world, telling us all his own story.