IDEAS
& WATER ax
A PROCESS BOOK
by: brinson mcgowan
CONTENT – A process book is basically a compilation of everything involved with a particular activity. In this case, I will break down my entire technique and explain the progression of my work on this piece. The following pages contain every step I took to reach the finished piece. To further explain my process, I have proken it down into the folowing sections:
&
WAT E R
PROBLEM 3 BRAINSTORM 5 VISUAL DUMPING IDEAS 7 1 – pure water 8 2 – i a m w a t e r 10 3 – w a t e r 12 S O L U T I O N 14 ENJOY
INTRODUCTION –
So, to start things off, let me explain the problem I was given to solve.
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– This isn’t a
hard read. Kick back and just soak it all in. Maybe you will leave inspired, or (heaven-forbid) learn something.
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IDEAS
In my Graphic De-
sign class my sophomore year, my professor asked our class to write a list of tangible and intangible words on the board. We then proceeded to pair all of them up, and
PROBLEM
claim them so that every person in the class had a set of a tangible thing and an intangible thing.
As you can see, I
got the words “water” and “idea”. We were then assigned to create a piece linking these two words together in an unlikely way.
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WORD MAP – quick sketches of whatever comes into my mind.
SYNONYMS – taking words that mean similar things into consideration
BRAINSTORM
FORCED CONNECTIONS – forcing two ideas that dont go together to create unique solutions
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5
IDEAS
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1 VISUAL DUMPING – Nothing is quite as inspiring as a little visual
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stimulation
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS – At this point in the project, we were to have finished our initial brainstorming and research. I then drew out a couple of sketches for some ideas I wanted to pursue further as possible solutions.
Then I realized, these sketches are ideas. My intangible word is IDEA. How
ironic. So I decided, why not take a little time to develop each idea fairly extensively, because after all, it is an idea about water. It is a solution to my problem regardless of what I do with it, so why not put forth a little extra effort and make it look good?
So, in the following pages you will find each of my three ideas about water a
little further explored. The first two I carried pretty far, but only my final idea did I carry out to a final solution.
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P U R E WAT E R CONCEPT – This idea came from an accumulation of images and the characteristics of both the mind and water. I wanted to convey the
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notion that our ideas were like water, originally pure, but quickly tainted by other things.
METHOD – To illustrate this concept, I decided to represent the mind with a glass with clean water in
REJECTION – After experimenting around a little bit with this idea, I decided to pursue something a little less cliche´ and a little more visually interesting.
it. I then took photos of the glass and added drops of ink to the water, polluting it with clouds of black ink.
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I A M WAT E R
CONCEPT – As I brainstormed, I kept coming back to the fact that our enitre bodies are made of water, and without, we would be
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METHOD – This idea stemmed from
nothing. With this idea, I
an awesome dounle exposure shot I
wanted to convey that every-
saw while researching. Of course, since
one needs water, because it
this was just experimental, I didn’t
is the physical water inside
actually do any real douple exposure
us that gives us vivacity and
with film, but I created thes shots from
maintains our health.
some photos I took and overlayed in Photoshop.
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CONCEPT – Looking back at my original brainstorming, I wanted to push deeper into an area I didn’t know much about, so I decided to explore the biological and chemical facet of water and how it physically affected the mind where ideas are formed.
3 RESEARCH – Once I had decided on the concept I wanted to approach , I immediatly started researching the biological path of water through the body, learning how water traveled in the body and how it performed its many functions.
Once I got the
details of the process, I wrote out the entire procedure and simplified it down to a simple script.
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WAT E R
IDEA – The intangible sum of
a
thousand stimuli. Every human on earth is bombarded with a steady flow of them every day, but where do they come from?
Believe it or not, every idea
you have has had the same origin –
FILM – Here
a single drop of water.
METHOD –
After messing around extensively with wa-
ter, ink and potography, I drifted into shooting some video.
water gushes through your digestive
Soon I was researching and experimenting with water and
system,entering the bloodstream,
ink and capturing its motion through video. When I decided
quickly dispersing throughout the
I had too much information to be contained in a print piece,
entire body. While every part of the
I settled on the concept of illustrating my script with water
body needs water to function, a mo-
and animating the illustrations with ink.
jority of the water you drink goes
directly to the brain where it bonds
The process of setting up, filming, painting, inking,
is a lineup of
The moment you take a drink,
and editting over and over again was not only unfamiliar,
with other chemicals, dispersing
but ver time-consuming. I learned to do many new things,
them throughout the brain to keep
and got to use many new tools and techniques in the pro-
it healthy and the mind active.
cess. After a lot of time, and with the help of a few friends,
“Water” was released onto Youtube on August 24, 2012.
and the mind creates ideas, it
a few screenshots of my film, “Water” along with the script of the video. To watch “Water” press:
PLAY
As the brain functions
uses water to conduct electrical
SOLUTION
currents,transmitting every idea you think throughout the body at the speed of light, through the nervous system, to be carried out in physical action.
Without water, none of this
would be possible. Poor hydration can harmfully affect the mind and impair the body within a matter of hours and can ultimately lead to death. Water is Important. Think Creatively. Hydrate Responsibly.
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