Final Major Project - Final Idea

Looking back at all the work I have produced so far and thinking about what ideas and themes are most relevant I now have to embark on creating a final piece. I have looked at a lot of different aspects of pre-cinematic animation devices and optical toys. However, it is now my job to simplify and consolidate all of my work into a clear and focused final piece. The ideas that have stuck with me the most throughout the last three weeks are those of movement and storytelling and so these are the key points I wish to represent in a garment. Regrettably the work I had done on optical illusions didn't quite fit with the other two and I felt, and my peers and tutors agreed with me, that too many concepts on one garment would over-complicate it and eventually mean a lower quality outcome. 

Once I had decided this I gathered together all the work I had done on movement and noticed that a recurring theme in all the artists, photographers, and other sources I had used for inspiration is that of dance. It appears to be the most interesting and diverse way of exploring movement and so I have decided that the motif for my final project should be dance. Thinking about this it seems best to incorporate ballet, as it would the most easily recognisable in a static image while also offering a wide range of motion to study. Now it seems to be the obvious progression with which to include my ideas of narrative and character development that I set myself in my proposal, I could put together a garment which acts as a storyboard for a dance routine. I feel this will be effective as it also draws on ideas of pre-cinema animation having storytelling functions due to their entertainment value. The final link in the idea is that the individual motifs that would all work together as a story board to be created in the style of pre-cinema animation devices, e.g. an arabesque in a zoetrope reel. 

Example Image and Inspiration: Dancers in a Zoetrope Reel

Dance and Motion Study Collages In Sketchbook

This idea also means that I can use a wide range of textile techniques on my garment to create the surface designs e.g. digital print, fabric paint, embroidery etc. and so can be experimental and diverse. The next stage is for me to familiarise myself with ballet and the movement involved so I can accurately represent and convincingly depict it on my garment. I plan to do this research with the resources available to me i.e. watching youtube videos of ballet because it is very expensive to go see them live. I feel confident that this can provide me with enough visual reference to enable me to essentially choreograph a routine through static images. My main concern is that it will take a lot of components to achieve this and so making will be very time consuming. Also, when pitching this idea to my peers it seemed too complex to some of them and so I have to be careful not to overcomplicate my designs. Most of them gave me positive feedback on how I had brought together the elements of my development work into a natural conclusion. I am looking forward to experimenting with this idea to see if it will work but have to be organised as I am still a little behind in my timetabling as I am now into week five.