Visual Analysis: The Hand and Surogat

The two films we watched were both from the same era (60's) and both european so they were very different to the animations I normally see that mainly come from America. The shorts very different to each other both stylistically and contextually however this doesn't mean they both didn't share some similarities.

The first film I watched was Jiri Trnka's: The Hand which was made 1965 in Czechoslovakia. This location and time where extremely relevant to the context of the film. During this period what is now Czech republic and Slovakia was Czechoslovakia which was ruled by the USSR under there communist regime. Czechoslovakia had been part of the USSR for nearly 20 years by time Trnka made his film so the messages felt from this film were very strong. The short is about a sculpture/pot maker who's life is invaded by "a hand" who tries to make him mould his pots into the shape of a hand, the hand tries to tempt the man with money and power but still he refuses. These actions eventually drive the sculptor mad until he ends up dying. The hand in the film was a representation of of the oppressive soviet regime and its extending influence into all forms of media published within the USSR which ironically banned the publication and distribution of the film until its fall in the 90's. Personally I did not like the style of the film as I feel it did not flow nicely the production value of the film felt very bad however this could also be due to viewing the film in a lower quality video online. The film had creepy feel to it which I did think worked very effectively. The dark lighting throughout and the bland colour schemes reinforced this feeling, which I felt echoed the communist architecture that crept through that part of Europe during this period. The film used a very little music the sound was mainly comprised of simple sound effects. I personally thought the film This made the film very quite and gave it a still erie feeling to it. 

The second film was Dusan Vukotic and Zagreb Film, Surogat (Ersatz). This was a lot more light hearted than the first film. I really enjoyed the style of this film was made up of simple colours and geometric shapes that reminded me of the abstract geometric art that was rising fast through eastern Europe during this period. The film is accompanied by a light classical soundtrack which I felt mimicked the movement of the main character and gave the short a more upbeat/bouncy feel to it. Although stylistically I'd assume this would be aimed at children the content of the film caters to a more adult pallet. The story felt light hearted, it revolved around the main character who goes to the beach and is able to assemble many different object by inflating small shapes. I felt surogat may have some form of social commentary within it however there was nothing blatantly obvious to me unlike the hand that had very a very strong message. To me the main character was trying to shape the world around him in the image he wants in what could almost be deemed fascist and in the end everything blows up in his face. I feel this is however a very tenuous link that may not actually have anything to do with this film.

Both films in their own way were very interesting and although produced in a similar part of the world during a similar time were very different. I felt contextually the hand was far more interesting and opened up such a huge page of history and the plight of a whole group of people but I found it visually very unappealing. Surogat was very light hearted and an easy watch, It didn't particularly make me think about anything but was very visually interesting much more so than the hand.

COP Lecture: History of Type

This weeks lecture was on the importance of type of a form of communication. Type is a form of communication that lies between visual and verbal its this which allows it to bring messages across in both subtle and obvious ways. The lecture mainly covered the history of type which has different origins depending on where the subject is taught. The route of all western type was the roman language as they created our alphabet. After this point text was changed to both reflect ideas/styles or just for easier visual communication. The main point I feel to take from this lecture is the historical backgrounds behind different type categories and using those to your advantage. In the lecture we were shown a few examples of different political campaigns using different type faces to convey different messages to the people. The Nazis used a gothic stye font to go against the modernist style fonts which were being heavily used at the time, this was to convey german historic greatness within their campaign. Shepard Fairey is the artist responsible for the Obama 2008 campaign posters. These were very iconic posters which used a very modern font. The font used was completely opposite to the one the Nazis did for their campaign who's font symbolised tradition/pride Shepard Fairey has used one that is clean and new looking that symbolises change. 

COP Seminar: Visual analysis

In this seminar we looked into visual analysis which subject somewhat crossed into last weeks lecture "visual literacy". We were shown an images from time magazine showing an iconic image of the 9/11 disaster and discussed all the emotions/views towards that image (which were strong). We were then shown an album cover from the group "The Coup" who used a badly edited images of the two towers exploding with both members of the duo standing in front of it. We discussed how the image was offensive and in the context of the two towers incident was both in bad taste and would not be good for record sales. What was interesting was that the image was created a few months before the 9/11 incident however without a date the significance in history of 9/11 was so strong most will assume that is the context of the album cover.
A similar idea was used when we were shown an image of a VW beetle painted in bright colours normally associated with the 70's "hippie" however the VW beetle was created by Hitlers Nazi administration. Even though the context of the cars origin is not pleasant the image of the car was easily changed into a sign of peace and free spirit.
These image comparisons showed us how we should think about the context of an image or subject thoroughly before making and releasing work to an audience, so our work does not unintentionally offend a group. Thinking about the context of a subject also allows us to better our work through using a subjects pre established meanings and history, which would give our animations/films a greater depth and interest to them.