THE PITCH | Approached in 2004, Lumière jumped at the chance to team up with Massey University's Foundation Certificate in Design course. The assignment given to students represented surely the pinnacle in any budding artist's career – to illustrate for The Lumière Reader(!). Sarcasm aside, many thanks to Kerry and Tom for proposing the idea, and the students who by all accounts made like the youth that they are, and got well and truly stuck in. The collaboration is now in its second year; selected results of which can be viewed by clicking the respective links to the left. Scrolling right reveals the illustration brief students were presented with.
THE INTRO | The distinctive style of an illustrator emerges through persistency and experimentation. Similarly, film is a medium that also allows for the exploration of a multitude of stylistic approaches to storytelling and visual communication. Both mediums address issues of authorship and auteurism. Whether it's the director translating a screenplay or the illustrator interpreting a magazine article, both the filmmaker and illustrator offer a unique perspective on themes and ideas within a given text. Both share processes such as cutting, composing, manipulating, enlarging, focusing, dissolving, building, degenerating or montage; both require solid research and attention to detail in creating a visually striking, well-considered response to engage an audience. >>
SEMESTER ONE/2006 ILLUSTRATION NOW ONLINE [03.07.06]
THE BRIEF | A 'live' commercial job has been arranged in conjunction with The Lumière Reader. Lumière is described as NZ's definitive independent and foreign cinema publication. Based in Wellington, it exists as both a free publication and website aimed at an art and film-loving audience. It supports the efforts of emerging artists and designers by encouraging open collaboration of text and imagery within its pages.
You will be issued with a film, which you will then watch, research and write a 300 word critical review. You are required to design a well-executed high-quality illustration based on this self-generated text, which will accompany it for publication in the magazine/website. It is important to remember you are not advertising the film. Through developing your concepts, you will use illustration to expose and critically analyse and the themes embedded in the film. Your response could support or contradict these themes, or could be genre-based. It can be either positive or negative, You will go through a curative process and develop a suitable style to illustrate an aspect of the film.
Consider the following:
- What was the film about?
- What was your emotional response to the film?
- What was the director attempting to do?
- What devices (storytelling or cinematic) did they employ?
- Were they successful?
The final illustration needs to be visually striking and employ an appropriate style and medium of your choice. Dimensions will vary.