Hybrid Practices In Moving Image Design

This book, written from the perspective of a designer and educator, brings to the attention of media historians, fellow practitioners and students the innovative practices of leading moving image designers. Moving image design, whether viewed as television and movie title sequences, movie visual effects, animating infographics, branding and advertising, or as an art form, is being increasingly recognised as an important dynamic part of contemporary culture. For many practitioners this has been long overdue. Central to these designers' practice is the hybridisation of digital and heritage methods. Macdonald uses interviews with world-leading motion graphic designers, moving image artists and Oscar nominated visual effects supervisors to examine the hybrid moving image, which re-invigorates both heritage practices and the handmade and analogue crafts. Now is the time to ensure that heritage skills do not atrophy, but that their qualities and provenance are understood as potent components with digital practices in new hybrids.

Operating between film theory, media philosophy, archival practice, and audiovisual research, Jiri Anger focuses on the relationship between figuration and materiality in early films, experimental found footage cinema, and video essays. Would it be possible to do film theory from below, through the perspective of moving-image objects, of their multifarious details and facets, however marginal, unintentional, or aleatory they might be? Could we treat scratches, stains, and shakes in archival footage as speculatively and aesthetically generative features? Do these material actors have the capacity to create “weird shapes” within the figurative image that decenter, distort, and transform the existing conceptual and methodological frameworks? Building on his theoretical as well as practical experience with the recently digitized corpus of the first Czech films, created by Jan Kríženecký between 1898 and 1911, the author demonstrates how technological defects and accidents in archival films shape their aesthetic function and our understanding of the materiality of film in the digital age. The specific clashes between the figurative and material spheres are understood through the concept of a “crack-up.” This term, developed by Francis Scott Fitzgerald and theoretically reimagined by Gilles Deleuze, allows us to capture the convoluted relationship between figuration and materiality as inherent to the medium of film, containing negativity and productivity, difference and simultaneity, contingency and fate, at the same time, even within the tiniest cinematic units.

With an abundance of information on how to create motion graphics already available, Design in Motion focuses on the why of moving image and less about the how. By unpacking the reasons behind screen designer's production choices, each chapter deconstructs examples of motion graphics by drawing on case studies of both familiar examples from contemporary cinema and unseen work from postgraduate motion graphic designers. It examines the value of image, text, motion, camera and transitions, explaining in detail why some methods work, while others fail. Whether you work in info-graphics, documentary or design, this book is structured to follow the production process and, together with its multimedia companion website, will be a by-your-side companion to guide you through your next project.

Through the lens of sensory affect, this book offers a new way of thinking about day-to-day teaching and student engagement within learning spaces in design education. The book examines the definitions, concepts, ideas, and overlaps of a repertoire of learning spaces prevalent in higher education and addresses the pedagogical gap that exists between broader learning structures and spaces, and the requirements of specialist design education. Recognising that mainstream teaching environments impact upon design studio learning and student engagement, the book positions creative learning spaces at the heart of practice-based learning. It defines the underlying pedagogical philosophy of a creative learning space in design education and reports on how practical strategies incorporating sensory affect may be implemented by educators to foster better student engagement in these spaces within higher education. Bringing much-needed attention to specialist design teaching and learning spaces in higher education, this book will be of interest to educators, researchers, and post-graduate students immersed in design education, pedagogy, and learning spaces more broadly.

This collection offers an expansive, multiplatform exploration of the rapidly-expanding area of motion design and motion graphics, taking into account both theoretical questions and creative professional practice. Spanning interaction design, product interfaces, kinetic data visualizations, typography, TV and film title design, brand building, narrative storytelling, history, exhibits and environments, editors R. Brian Stone and Leah Wahlin offer an interdisciplinary range of academic essays and professional interviews that together form a dialogue between motion design theory and professional practice. Written for both those critically engaged with motion design as well as those working or aspiring to work professionally in the field, the book features a range of international contributors and interviews with some of the best-known designers in the field, including Kyle Cooper, Karin Fong, and Daniel Alenquer. The Theory and Practice of Motion Design seeks to illuminate the diverse, interdisciplinary field of motion design by offering a structured examination of how motion design has evolved, what forces define our current understanding and implementation of motion design, and how we can plan for and imagine the future of motion design as it unfolds.

This introduction to contemporary digital cinema tracks its intersection with video art, music video, animation, print design and live club events to create an avant-garde for the new millennium. It begins by investigating digital cinema and its contribution to innovations in the feature-film format, examining animation and live-action hybrids, the gritty aesthetic of the Dogme 95 filmmakers, the explosions of frames within frames and the evolution of the ‘ambient narrative’ film. This study then looks at the creation of new genres and moving-image experiences as what we know as ‘cinema’ enters new venues and formats.

The first comprehensive history in English of film at the Bauhaus, exploring practices that experimented with film as an adaptable, elastic “polymedium.” With Design in Motion, Laura Frahm proposes an alternate history of the Bauhaus—one in which visual media, and film in particular, are crucial to the Bauhaus’s visionary pursuit of integrating art and technology. In the first comprehensive examination in English of film at the Bauhaus, Frahm shows that experimentation with film spanned a range of Bauhaus practices, from textiles and typography to stage and exhibition design. Indeed, Bauhausler deployed film as an adaptable, elastic “polymedium,” malleable in shape and form, unfolding and refracting into multiple material, aesthetic, and philosophical directions. Frahm shows how the encounter with film imbued the Bauhaus of the 1920s and early 1930s with a flexible notion of design, infusing painting with temporal concepts, sculptures with moving forms, photographs with sequential aesthetics, architectural designs with a choreography of movement. Frahm considers, among other things, student works that explored light and the transparent features of celluloid and cellophane; weaving practices that incorporate cellophane; experimental films, social documentaries, and critical reportage by Bauhaus women; and the proliferation of film strips in posters, book covers, and other typographic work. Viewing the Bauhaus’s engagement with film through a media-theoretic lens, Frahm shows how film became a medium for “design in motion.” Movement and process, rather than stability and fixity, become the defining characteristics of Bauhaus educational, aesthetic, and philosophical ethos.

This book offers a comprehensive overview of techniques, processes, and professional practices in the area of Motion Design, from fundamental building blocks of organizing time and space in production to managing workflow, budgets, and client relationships. The authors provide insight into the production process from concept through execution in areas as diverse as social media to large-scale projection mapping for events and festivals. Readers will learn through real-world examples, case studies, and interviews how to effectively use their skills in various areas of Motion Design. Industry professionals provide unique perspectives on different areas of Motion Design while showcasing their outstanding and inspiring work throughout. This is a valuable resource to students who aspire to work in a broad range of visual communication disciplines and expand their practice of Motion Design.