Check it:
Progress is happening! Everything has been shot, the gear has been returned, now we enter into the less stressful part of the process. Since we went with the whole continuous shot idea, there isn't a whole lot of basic editing, most work is going to be in color, effects, etc.
Hooray!
A bit more work with Mason Youngblood on the soundtrack, some time in After Effects, and we may be closing on on the finish line!
I had an awesome time filming yesterday with these fine folks:
Molly McNutt, Thi Lam, Megh Ahire, Joe Pennebaker, Tucker Prescott, Mickey Johnson
Also these guys:
Connor Brunson
Nathan Anderith
Thanks all for your help! While the movie is certainly not finished, the most difficult parts are over with! Everyone did a great job and I really appreciate the efforts of everyone involved. Even with the missing props, the time constraints, and the stoplights that wouldn't turn at the right moment, I think we made the best out of it. One more scene, and then endless hours in the editing room, woo hoo!
This coming weekend, a rag-tag group of renegades will finally shoot an idea that has been brewing in my head for a year and a half. Deep Comes the Night (this title may change as it seems we are shooting in the morning instead of dusk) will be shot this coming weekend. The rented camera has been insured, the props procured, the location secured, the stress endured. We'll see how it goes, but hopefully all will be successful.
In other news, the painting is coming along:
and I've started another one, Veronese's Deposition of Christ. Pictures coming soon. After finishing Brave New World, I also did a quick speedpaint of the final scene, where the helicopters land around John. Not too detailed, but no matter.
I also worked with a friend on a short manga. I haven't spent much time on it, for which he probably hates me at the moment. Here's a preview of page one.
More color, more layers, but still nowhere near the detail of the original.
There is much more work to be done, but the thing seems to be coming together.
Also, I met a new friend.
A cerulean blue glaze over the hat and more face details
Also, a figure drawing from friday
Everything has been done before.
Fayum mummy portraits exhibited tendencies toward naturalism long before the byzantine era gave way to the beautiful naturalistic portraits of the renaissance. Did Titian, Rafael, or Hans Holbein ever see these portraits? As far as I know, there is no writing that could reflect this, but the two eras certainly show more similarities than the flat art in between. Countless, nearly infinite versions of the lake, boat, and mountain as a landscape combination have been rendered. Christian religious subject matter has had it's share of copies as well. Baby Jesus, dying Jesus, ascending Jesus, etc.
Fayum burial portrait, around 1st century BCE
The interesting thing about theme replication in art, for me the strongest example being seen in painting, is that it doesn't get old. Often, it is a delight to see many paintings created within the same vein. The spread of ideas has not caused a boring uniformity, but a flux on the original idea.
This is puzzling and exciting for me because something I have often worried about is how close I come to replicating the ideas of others. The need to be original pervades artistic culture, and creative culture in general. Yes, there is a point at which one can copy incorrectly, unknowingly with little acknowledgement or awareness of the original subject matter, a sort of "uncanny valley" in plagiarism. As Warhol might show us, conscious, overzealous copying can be portrayed as a commentary on consumerist culture. But even on the other side of this valley, slightly different portrayals of the same subject yield entirely different results based on the style and emotional response achieved by each individual artist.
It's a wonderful display of human individualism for this to be the reality. I can paint a house in the woods, and no one will compare it with the hundreds of houses and woods which have made their way into my subconscious to help me create that piece. My own strokes and colors, my own interpretation of the same idea, gives the visual representation a unique register.
So go out there, paint what you want. If it's in style, great. If it's out of style, people might care even more.
After all, someone has to bring about the next big rococo fad.
TAP
I'm building up a replica of a portrait of Thomas More through the flemish process. It's something I knew very little about, so it's quite interesting. The painting is created through slow layering that creates a luminous, unified quality. I'm still in the underpainting process at the moment, which is largely to set the values in place.
I went to Ecuador over spring break. It was beautiful. I also got some sort of sick and slept for two and a half days straight. I kind of appreciated that. While it certainly wasn't life threatening, there was at least some sort of adversity faced to make things interesting. One of my favorite quotes from Yvon Chouinard:
“Real adventure is defined best as a journey from which you may not come back alive, and certainly not as the same person.”
― Yvon Chouinard
My name is Tucker Alan Prescott. I make stuff. On this tab, I'm going to be trying out this familiar yet frustrating thing called writing.
Some of it may be thought out, some of it may be as meaningful as scribbles on a page, but either way, there is a chance it will be interesting to read.
Thanks for visiting :)
TAP