Today we had David Curtis - Ring to give us a talk on his practise and how he worked his way to the position he is in now. It is clear by his website (see below for link) that he is successful - he has been involved with numberous projects with set design, costumes, props & videos so it is needless to say he has many talents and is using his gifts to good use.
After our talk we had the chance to have a tutorial with David & Jo Newman, this was very beneficial and I am so pleased that I signed up to have one! Some of the points we talked about was:
- after the specimen has been created the context for display is most important, maybe using a video, photograph (or series) instead of being so static
- we talked about producing fabric versions to almost 'practise' with
- one thing i learnt from David is filmming in darkness re-creates, changes and distorts the environment whatever your filming. (maybe do a box with a slot at the top with light through it, with a tray of water inside to make it look like a sewer?) - i loved this idea that David gave me it would really help put my creature in context and animate him
- Stop motion animation is a lengthly process however it is something that i have never done (like taxidermy for example!) but i really want to consider this for this project!
- 'There There' by Radio head is the video David suggested that i researched as a basis of the principal, it shows taxidermy woodland creatures through the forest. Very inspiring for my project!