DR ME collage workshop

As our new brief requires an analog method of approach as opposed to digital DR ME came and did a workshop on collage.

Working in pairs, our brief was to create a 10 frame gif based on a random word given to us, on 15x15 sheets of card.

Our given word was beat

• violence (eg beating someone up)
• victory (beating someone at something)
• music 

We decided to go with the music idea as we didn't want something too violent and there was a lot to be done with music.

We started by collecting collage material which was anything music related but we soon developed an idea we could progress. We wanted to stick to the word beat but display it in an un obvious way. Our intended idea was to have an element that would be repeated through all slides of the gif.

We settled on a circle and initially were going to have a dot in pink tones, from sections of magazines we had found, which would move across the background, symbolising a beat. We were stuck on a background idea but after a little guidance we settled on using contrasting colours - which meant changing the colour of the dot each slide. 

We planned our gif out, using the colour wheel to find contrasting colours and allocating each slide with them.

For our backgrounds we again began to collect material of each colour. We varied shades and textures to create a more interesting and varied background for the gif.

After creating our colourful backgrounds we also cut out circles from our magazines. Instead of having the circles in one place across all the slides with just the colour changing, we decided the circles from side to side across each slide, creating the feel of a beat. Instead of sticking these on we decided to layer them digitally - giving us more precision, and therefore making the gif flow better.

After doing this we had our final slides, which we composed into a gif. We reversed our original order as we wanted to end it on a colourful note. 

Creating the gif was fun as it was something I had not done before.

1. Have all images open in the same document, on different layers.
2. Click Timeline
3. click Create Frame Animation.
4. Create 10 new frames
5. Unhide each corresponding layer so layers are visible in each frame
6. Determine amount of time wanted for each frame (we chose 0.5 to match with a simple beat)
7. Click loop forever to make the gif replay over and over

Finished gif:

I really enjoyed the workshop as it was something new and unexpected. Before the workshop I had wanted to experiment with collage as a technique, as I have been more digital in the past and wanted to expand my range of skills. The workshop was so useful and really spurred me on to create more similar content in future. I loved our final collages and the gif we made, which was also great as I would have never have thought of making one myself. I also think the restraints given to us - the size of card to work on and the allocated word - really helped in creating the collages as I had a brief to work to.