Animation

Biography-

Remidos Varo was born in Spain in 1908. She learned drawing from her engineer father and went to art school. In 1937 she moved to Paris to study surrealism. She learned she could not go back home because of the Spanish Civil War and later fled Europe to escape WWII. She moved to Mexico in 1941 and made money doing commercial illustrations alongside her surrealist paintings. She lived in Mexico until her early death at the age of 54. Through her work she helped fuel the Mexican surrealism movement.

Artwork-

I chose to analyze Varo’s painting, The Creation of the Birds. This painting as with much of her work shows her interest in spiritual mysticism. This common feature in her work comes from her Catholic background. She was always fascinated with magic, alchemy and the occult. The painting envisions a bird-like creature creating tiny birds at its alchemy bench. Many small birds can be seen flying around its room implying this creature has mastered the process. The painting also features much alchemic and occult imagery as it can be seen with artistic supplies and what looks like chemistry equipment. The creature is also using starlight to create the birds with a triangular magnifying glass, which is another  occult/alchemical reference.

Strategies-

Varo uses many symbolic strategies to tie symbolism into her work. In a reference to the bible, the bird creature is creating life in its own image. A small stringed instrument can be seen on the creature’s chest which is another reference to the bible where music played a large part in creation. Varo also uses the scale of the creature to inform the viewer that it has power over the smaller birds it has created.

Inspiration-

This painting not only shows varying symbolism but also implies a lot of motion. Through the flight of the birds, the flowing of the liquid through the tubes, The gestures of the bird creature and the starlight streaming in, this painting practically moves on its own.

Application-

I plan to apply the use of motion to enhance the symbolism of the painting. Each critical element is one I want to emphasize with motion.

Found Footage

Our group decided to orient the project around a found footage horror theme. We focused on making sure our backgrounds looked the same. This was imperative because we needed the whole look to be cohesive so that it could create a horror-themed atmosphere. Another way consistency was achieved was by generating backgrounds with very similar prompts. These prompts were fashioned so that they would give similar results in a short amount of time. Each prompt took about four to five times of adjustment to get satisfactory results. Even after that photoshop was often used to unify colors and themes so that they could be recognized as part of a whole. Colors were often desaturated and made darker to unify the backgrounds and give a more eerie atmosphere. Sound design was also a large part of the process. It was very important that we used as many avenues as we could to make this project very creepy. Not only sound effects were used, but atmospheric sounds to give the video depth and a sense of fear. The erratic movements and quick cuts also were used to demonstrate the fear and urgency of the main character in the video. I covered the first part of the video, the sound, both opening and closing credits and joining the pieces together. Evan made the second part of the video. The video did not end up getting a finishing scene, but it partially worked out because the nature of the found footage film is that it jump cuts a lot. This gave the ending a little assistance even though it ended up being cut short. Sound, layout, progression, color and timing all came together and were important factors in making sure that the movie was somewhat interesting and had a partially linear story line to follow.