O Clone (Brazilian Telenovella "The Clone")

Now that I am thinking in terms of abstract motion graphic pieces, I have been collecting some sources to draw my inspiration from. My mother is really into learning different languages so we happen to have the Brazilian Portuguese channel Globo. The channel is known for its various entertainment programing but its mainly famous for its Telenovellas. A Telenovella is a form of soap opera that runs for about 100 - 200 episodes. They are very popular in South America and for some reason the Brazilian ones seem less cheesy!

Anyway, enough with the rambling but straight to the point. A few years ago, Globo shown the series called O Clone, or in English, "The Clone".  It has an interesting plot in the way that it questions various modern issues and also those of posthuman world.

Here is the synopsis: 

The series has two storylines. One, that explores the impossible love between son of a magnate, Lucas and a Muslim of Moroccan descent Jade and the other story deals with Leandro, the unknowing clone of Lucas, growing up and trying to find the truth from his surrogate mother and her husband Augusto about his origins. It begins with Lucas' twin brother crashing in a helicopter, but their godfather Albieri (who is a genetics professor) cannot cope with the death very well and so he starts to experiment with cloning after doing a biopsy on Lucas' mole. But the eggs get mixed up and get artificially inseminated by mistake. The woman who chose to become inseminated, is unaware of the fact that she, in fact, became a surrogate mother to a clone. The novela progresses to see the clone growing up in a different environment from his father/brother Lucas, which makes him a totally different individual, even though they both share the same genes and even the same thoughts and interests. They later even begin competing over the love of the same woman. 

While the plot has relation to our general project theme, I am particularly interested in the title sequence for the series, which can work as an experimental piece alone. I love the way they have represented the theme of cloning in such a simple yet beautiful way. It has a bit of performance art flavor to it and I love the way that the human form was used through out the clip.

Sorry for the abysmal quality!

Committing to a genre

I missed last week's class, due to not feeling well. So I'll need to ask around and do a little catching up. In the meantime, I have been doing some thinking in regards to my project and have managed to commit myself to a genre and begin development. I decided to go along with the abstract piece because I can allow myself more artistic experimentation and expression and it is easier to accomplish in the timeframe that has been set. The second idea with the more traditional take on animation would require more time and more skills with After Effects and I need more practice with the program before I attempt something so ambitious. I would like to try out some effects like speed variation (from slow to fast and vise versa) to add interest to my piece I would also like to experiment with camera movements. The nature of the movement within the piece is going to be organic and fluid movements are going to suggest the process of change, evolution and simply time passing by. So to sum up, the motion graphic piece is going to show the process to becoming posthuman.

Project 1 - Animating the Posthuman

Ok now, the Posthuman is the theme of our animation/video that we have to make for the first project of the semester. I am not really into sci-fi so this is a little bit out of my comfort zone, but in a way its good because it is a challenge. We were shown different videos dealing with the theme, such as Akira and the infamous Chris Cunningham's music video for Bjork. 

The technological theme and robots do not interest me, in fact, I regard it as being a type of cliche for what science fiction stands for. There is just too much of it. 

I like to interpret the term Posthuman as 'after human' or 'beyond human'. 

These are the subjects that interest me:

• Human Cloning
• Metamorphosis/Evolution
• The Afterlife

I have currently two ideas - one being an abstract piece that represents evolution and the metamorphosis of the human being using an ordinary white stretchy fabric and some footage layered over it and using various video effects for visual interest. 

Working title - Homomorphosis

The second idea is to make a collage/2d  educational animation that mimics the style of the old 1950s animation such as the old UPA educational shorts. The piece will question the ethics of human cloning and how will the world be if everybody were the same.  

Working title - Double Trouble

Ist Lecture

The start of a new academic year began with the introduction of the Multimedia and Digital Arts Unit, followed by a showcase of various motion graphics works. The lecturers Mark and Troy took turns in showing their favorites. Some of it was hard to watch because of the frequently flashing graphics and  loud and repetitive sound effects, it hurt my eyes a little bit. Others were good and I particularly liked the examples from the studio MK12, as a lot of it represented the type of thing that I aspire to achieve. While the graphics were bold and innovative, I also liked the fact that most of the pieces made a reference of some sort to the past, for example, in the Ultralove Ninja video there are obvious references to the James Bond title sequences in their use of the silhouette footage while the general colour palette of the video belongs to the early 90s era.  Have a look for yourself : www.mk12.com

And finally the other video that I really liked was a 3d piece executed more in the style of a traditional animation fairy tale - A Gentleman's Duel by Tim Miller. I felt that this one went for a little long in some places, but still an interesting story and talk about eye candy!