COP2 - Initial thoughts on Practical

For my COP Practical piece I needed to be able to link the work that I will create to my essay, in this case it needed to depict narrative and different perceptions. I wanted to create something that would relate to how a simple narrative can change from additions of different perspectives. I first created a mind map, writing any ideas that could help me generate and develop points that could be refined into my final practical piece. I considered the possibility of designing a character but with a twist. For example create a character based on a description from someone else or from memory, this could be in the form of someone I knew or a celebrity and I would then have to draw this person. However it did not really reflect the points that I had made within my essay, it did depict how people perceive others but not in a narrative form. Continuing with the character designing theme, I developed another idea that takes influence from Miyazaki's narrative on his film The Wind Rises. In this animation he uses his own personal experiences that he went through during the Second World War weaving it into his own depiction of his hero, Jiro Horikoshi. Using this as an influence I noted how I could also choose an historical figure and add my own experiences to a narrative that they would be included in. I did however have my doubts about this idea, for my own experiences to be added to this historical figure I would have to adapt this character to suit themes from modern day, which would be interesting with the narrative and perceptions but still a challenge to create and stumbling away from the theme of my essay.

I then began to look at ideas that would involve storyboards or narrative visually displayed in this format, to depict influences from my essay. I found that these ideas worked more successfully than the character design ideas as there was a distinct connection between these points to my theme of narrative and perception. For example, the practical would include 3 storyboards, one being the actual event, the second being slightly altered and the third being completely changed with fantasy like elements to relate to both Satoshi Kon's and Miyazaki's works. I felt that this idea would work well as it would not only aid my essay but help me to develop my own skills within storyboarding, visually depicting actions and narrative.