Architecture in Motion - Process Work (Film Stills)

Task - Meditation on an Old Abandoned Russian Church

The following photos are a combination of still images that made up part of my stop motion animation. The animation is a mediation on an old Russian Church, a space dominated by windows and a staircase. The captions accompanying the images allude to the materials used to create the visual effects.

Window and stairs come down like a curtain onto the black card:

The light through the window appears against the shadow:

Shadows colliding into a single window:

Cardboard window cutout draws back to reveal to space within:

Shadow of the window facade moving away to reveal the interior depicted in ink:

Shadow of window cut-out against black card:

Architecture in Motion - Reflection

“Flex you drawing, seeing, crafting and imagining muscles”

The Architecture in Motion elective provided me with an opportunity to build on the skills I gained through the Atlas of Colour.

The idea of using careful sequencing to inform the viewer was intrinsic to this workshop, just as successful navigation was critical to creating a captivating atlas. I also bravely used my newfound painting techniques/cut-out techniques to create several of my film sequences.

Architecture in Motion seemed scary at first in that I wasn’t sure how successfully I would be able to create a 3D experience using just my hands, pens, paints etc. The process got a bit addictive however, and I ended up taking so many photos that my camera could barely fit them all in.

Making the film taught me a lot about the effectiveness of an extensive drafting period – something that I had always struggled with. I ended up with minutes and minutes of off-cuts and ‘deleted scenes’ that ceased to be relevant as the film unfolded and informed itself.

The process of creating the movie felt more comprehensive than the atlas – I feel like I had too much control over the direction of the atlas whereas my movie my movie directed itself once I fully understood the space I was working with.

I found I liked the term ‘spatial narrative’ after a while, even if it sounded like jargon at the beginning.  

Working with relief and 3D turned out to be a beautiful way of evoking the nature of a space – it’s a technique I would definitely consider using in a future design studio.