continued making – experimental rough cuts: i set the last few days aside for experimenting with stop/go animation to see what it might suggest in terms of landscape as still and moving image and all the things that i have been working through re landscape, body, image etc. no real outcome in mind except to see what would happen with a still landscape image becoming a moving image. i started with a quick sequence just to get a feel for the set up and possible outcomes.
trial one – layering bitmaps: first – i did a few still takes of layered screen print bitmaps, which is something i like to do a few times to get a sense of the image before exposing them to emulsion screens. i sequenced them back and forth a few times to see what it might trigger. already the black and white bitmaps might be more effective using more gradual progressions towards a completed image but, at the same time, there seems to be something unsettling in the lack of clear progression towards the completed image – something unfixed. i also think the transparencies and their textures are effective – leaning towards landscape as image.
next: a few ideas to go from here …. add a soundscape – as a running soundscape to contrast the stop/go movement of the image. try with a possible narration using script that this landscape/video suggests. add another stop/go component – maybe stencil over layer related or unrelated to the landscape.
trial one extended: spent today picking up where i left off by continuing with this same bitmap stop/go animation. i added a soundscape first then added an over-lay stencil suggested by the soundscape – the birdsong. i had recently bought green screen (chroma key) fabric in case i might need it at some point for stop/go animation – turns out it was really useful for adding the stencil overlay, although i had to quickly re-teach myself the keying process. again, there is definitely a rough cut but this quality is inherent in stop/go animation and should really be the reason to choose this way of working – a hand stitching of image, time and image, the real and the unreal etc. i think there is huge potential for this way of with stop/go animation – a way of exploring landscape as real, ideal and imaginary, landscape tied to time, body, movement. technically – i need to check my settings as the video took a while to export and upload and yes i see a crease in the chroma screen. all in all though, as a rough cut – i’m happy with what things it opens up and its potential as a way of working through some of the questions i’m interested in … to be continued in some way.
knowing how broad and open ended i find experimentation – i’ll keep an eye on open calls which might give me something to work towards.
links:
some animation open calls to consider: https://www.animation-festivals.com/submit-to-festival/
elaine crowe 
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