mix mix render

working today on final changes to the film. The section with Leila is  in response to McLaren's letter from America about fireflies. It makes a really good combination with the skating animation sequence. Great to nearly be there!! .

I also feel this particular piece of the final film sits very well with many dance films I have seen.

I looked at a film yesterday which uses motion graphic really well. Its the first I have seen which I feel uses the technology in a great way and something to think about collaborating on in the future. Masters peer Link has expressed an interest in my future project on McLaren and it would be great to work with him on developing the ideas we started on...

EMBRACE from Ashley Rae Pearsall on Vimeo.

a busy week!

This week has been a bit crazy...the first of many such weeks to come is my guess! On the 16th July I had to search for clips I could not find of Zoe...found in capture scratch...under alicia!!! Then I continued editing and the drawing for the short dance sequence I am adding as an animation. I made them into a short movie to test them.I am spending so long in edit I am frozen by the time I get home at 9.00 pm. On the 17th I drew in the studio I am using...on the wall...and at home. On the 18th I had a job interview...huge!!!...but did not get the job On the 19th I started adding the animation to the live action to test. On the 20th I did one more film sequence in the studio...the last...which went really well.That was after a tutorial in the morning...which also went well. On the basis of the work done this week it is obvious that the film is now a response to a few of McLaren's letters but in particular the ones which signify his leaving Britain for America aboard a ship I now know througjh research was commissioned to take passengers on that journey during the war.(SS Caledonia). I am really excited about having made this journey in creative process and about this new focus. This trip was huge in terms of McLaren's future as it led to his going to join NFB of Canada eventually.The letter he wrote aboard the ship ...many pages...were beautiful in the way they express his feelings. It was a parting but an arrival I believe, to himself. And after all that I had to assist my husband in the running of Big Tent!! cooking for 30 and car park duty!!

Norman's Voyage to America

 In October 1939 Norman McLaren set sail for America on the SS Cameronia with his partner Guy Glover.
Only a month since the war had begun, the Cameronia made the passage to New York unaccompanied.
At the time the passengers had been told a convoy system was in operation but McLaren noted that no other ships had been seen
McLaren describes the journey in great detail, down to the colour of the ship's paint...on this occasion ( and it turned out a dozen others during the war) it was a dull grey...to blend in with the grey sea!!
On the seventh day of sailing was ''the first fine day we've had''. After dinner he sat out on deck with Guy and Jimmie,a passenger they had befriended from Canada.
" It was a pitch black night, heavy clouds, raining cats and dogs- and not a single light from the ship.
Nevertheless the sea just around the ship where water was being stirred up was giving off clouds of luminous and phosphorescent light, and sparkling and twinkling with fierce little bright spots."

McLaren goes on to give the most beautiful decsription of light on the water where no light should be...there were no lights as the ship traveling in war time would be in blackout for safety. It is a description which reveals some of the vision of a creative mind....and the child like wonder with which McLaren viewed nature.

" It was as if there were thousands of little electric bulbs flashing on and off and dancing about in the water, as well as clouds of white frothy light streaming past us! "

Guy went on to explain why this phenomenon happens....caused by little fish and other sea creatures......

I love the thought that Norman was as fascinated by water as I am and that he describes it in this way!

Both photos here are of the river where I grew up and which I still love to walk beside...and look at endlessly......constant motion...never the same water.

this image I love especially..I took it just after the snow melted in March 2011. the water looks so diffeent on either side of the dam...it used to be used to power a mill wheel many years ago.But here the drop in height alters the flow and the way the light hits it and reflects. The scientist in me wants to know how that happens...the artist just appreciates it. Maybe Guy could have told me how?

MRI scanner...and imaging

I have been interested in the science of movement for as long as I have been involved in dance!!! In 2003 I was involved with a pilot project looking at heart and nerve cell research material and trying to visualise this through dance and music....The work that resulted ' The journey within' was my response to that material..I would have loved to take the project on..we narrowly missed funding ...The project was called dance spark( from the spark of an idea that occurred when I sat down first to talk with the scientist Mark Evans and theatre manager Colin Veitch....how to create the Eureka effect in a theatre show about the body). The slides and small movies I watched then really inspired me....to watch what is happening inside the body...to try to understand the process of ....growth....chemical messengers.....etc...through these images was amazing. I wanted to have an interaction with dancers and the slides.                                                                       

I also went to a talk a few years ago about CT scans  by Mark Lithgow ..who has conducted many studies of scans and their resulting diagnosis........ and was fascinated by his work...he was looking into the variuos characteristics of artists and scientists...I feel I am somewhere between..  

I also have always loved the picture Norman McLaren made on an X ray of his head. I listened to him talk about it...he had had head pains and had the X ray to check him out...and kept the copy as he felt it was a kind of portarit...At one time I wanted to explore the brain and creativity within this masters project. I had a preliminary talk with a radiographer last year. She felt there was a whole world of possibility in this idea. How much could you tell about creative activity and the brain ....I know many studies have looked at for example... brain activity and meditation ( the Dalai Lama was involved in such a project three years ago) and brain activity in relation to musical activity . I would love to examine choreography and brain activity!!   

                                              

So it seemed a logical next step to make contact with Ninewells and to go and have another look at scanning.I set up a visit with Margot McBride who taeches radiology at Dundee University. I was given a guided tour of both scanning and CT facilities, and saw some 3D imaging work from a cardio echo scanning machine ( doubly interesting as I have recently been through this procedure as a patient both in Greece in November and in Perth ) Great  to have someone with teaching expertise take me through this material tho. In the end I may not use this idea...I will work on mcLaren's sketch tho and want to make one for my own brain!!                                                                                                                                                

Dreamtime- exploring light and time

dreamtime from kyra clegg on Vimeo.



This was a collaborative project between Sculptor/ filmmaker Kyra Clegg and myself.
It was inspired originally in part by a workshop and talk we both attented by a pair of artists who work in New Zealand..Edwards and Johan....(.they work with place and costume. recording their work on film)...but took on a life of its own when we worked in an empty studio with light....and a variety of props and costume and light.......and explored the idea of time seen as if in a dream.

The dance moves in this piece have had a number of influences......Martha Graham yes...I did Graham technique as a student.....and I really love the strong line of Graham technique...and the costume choice of one pieceof Dreamtime is reminiscent of a small section of her work..set to Aaron Copland's music   Appalachian Spring   interesting that she like McLaren used Folk song and dance in her work.

Looking again at this work I still love her sense of space form and line....

 Back to our film, Dreamtime

It has been a joy to work with somone new on a collaboration, and Kyra and I seem to allow each other a freedom to explore when we work. This is just a beginning...I hope we will take the project on.
This new edit will be at PVAF exhibition...Encounters with Time...in Perth Theatre in the next month or so.

Something about the quality of the light in the window ...the solo with the hands opening the shutters.....reminded me  a little of pastel colours.and the effect they give..such as the light quality McLaren achieves on C'est L'Aviron. ( Part of a series of pastel animation he created to French canadian Folk Songs)

I like the dream like quality of this work
McLaren is regarded as the inventor of pastel animation technique

On The Lawn

 When I watched one of the clips of Norman McLaren being interviewed about his life he talked about the making of A chairy tale....The film , made in 1957...explored the notion that a chair has feelings.....and McLaren turns this chair from an inanimate objest to a moving one. (see below)

This clip was very important for me. McLaren showed how he moved the chair.....

.and did a little demo of how he worked on it....in his garden......white clothes, green grass, chair. I have an image of him in my mind dressed like this.
( This has always reminded me of the look of  'The Green Table' ..a ballet which took place over a green baize covered table).

This was also the moment I heard him talk about being a film maker versus a dancer. He recognised that if he had been a dancer he would have moved things/people in a completely different way. I am not sure I agree with him on that! For me he already had many of the prerequisites for choreography!!!
Looking back on the original film now ( A Chairy Tale) I see the potential McLaren would have had as a choreographer. His sense of timing, his spacial awareness in the placing of man and chair, his exploration of the relationship between them both...all are similar to the process of choreography. The design of set and costume and lighting..all very dramatic visually. The image that stayed with me of the elder McLaren sitting on the grass with his white cap on explaining his methods was one I always felt I would include in my work one day......It seemed appropriate to include it as an exploration here!
So I took my son Finn outside at home on a daisy covered lawn... dressed in clothes that remind me of that original image..and used a kitchen chair to try my own animation.
The chair as closely resembled Norman's as I could find ..tho I do not really think it mattered...
Finn had some great ideas for where this could go too. I will ask him to look at music he might make to accompany it....I feel the timing is better in this than my last attempt, but still need to work on this.
I have looked at it afew times ...wondering where it could go next. The chair in my mini exploration takes on a character but so does the cap......the story has only just begun really......It was good to take myself through the process.

Finn questioned the need to wear white, but in end really liked the look. The Green Table ballet had men with black tailcoats, white gloves and green table.....and quite randomly our black cat suddenly decided to join the action...(.and we liked the addition of black to the colour scheme!!!!) So we enticed her into the picture and worked with placing her to follow the action!!  This gives the film another level.......