Vanessa and Virginia - Motion Designs.

One of the group projects I am heavily involved in is 'Vanessa and Virginia', which Sam and myself are leading. ‘Vanessa and Virginia’ is a story about two sisters and their relationship written by Susan Sellers. Dr. Elizabeth Wright (our client) has adapted the novel into a stage production, which will be directed by Emma Gersh. Our brief is to create a backdrop for the set design in which the two actresses can interact with.

During the Vanessa and Virginia meeting on Thursday 14th January 2010 with Elizabeth (Beth) it was agreed that members of the Artswork Team would come up with some ideas to present to Beth at the next meeting on 3rd February 2010.
In the meeting Beth was very open to different ideas and suggestions, however she did say she would like the backdrop to be abstract, experimental and possibly dream like.

Taking her suggestions Sam and myself decided to create a couple of scene images using the computer programme ‘Motion’,As we had only had a brief introduction to the programme, we were unsure of how the programme worked and how we could create certain images and effects. Ollie showed us certain things we could do, and how we could manipulate certain images.

One of Sam and my ideas was to create different images using Vanessa Bell’s Paintings and the colours from them.

The first image we created was the opening scene, which is described as:

Childhood. I am lying on my back on the grass. Thoby is lying next to me, his warm
flank pressing into my side.

Using Photoshop we cut a cloud from one of Vanessa Bell’s Paintings, imported the image into motion, where we then enlarged the image, added a blur and animated it; getting the cloud to move from left to right as well as moving forward to eventually filling the entire screen.




After viewing this image, we decided to change the black edges to a green colour to
give the suggestion of the grass, as well as adding a light ray effect to create the
haloed in light idea.



Looking at both images, I personally feel the first one works best as it’s fairly simple, not to much action and less distraction for an audience. I feel the first image has more of a dream style effect seeing the blurred edges of the cloud. The second image has too much going on, and could become very distracting.


The second scene we chose to make is where Virginia enters the stream.

Here we used a pre-set Motion effect, which we manipulated using Vanessa Bell’s painting colours, added a grain to create a flickering effect, as well as added a speed behaviour to slow the image down.



I personally like this image, but am not sure whether it would work that well within the finished backdrop, as it could be a strange change going from created images, to film footage that has been manipulated. Although it does have a fantastic look and would suit the part of Virginia entering the water well.



These are just a couple of ideas Sam and myself have come up with to present to Beth at the next meeting, to find out whether we are heading in the right direction.

A link to some of Vanessa Bell's artwork.

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/searchresults.aspx?entry=vanessa%20Bell%20&searchtype=p#action=refine&entry=vanessa%20Bell%20&searchtype=p&sid=af91ddcb-70ec-4c3d-805f-05aac975ac8e