CMYK: Development Sketches

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Brief Description

As a film, CMYK will be experimental in nature. It will be created by composing and animating a large collection of CMYK print symbols (from labels, packages, posters, magazines, etc.). In assembling the animation, the director will collaborate with a composer to create dynamic and intriguing sound-image phrases.

Producers Notes

My notes are part of a proposal for moving to a production phase. We have reached a milepost in a sequence of developmental events with CMYK, which I will describe in the following.

Over the 18 months, Marv and Lisa Miller made a series of animation and musical sketches, and endeavoured to do back-and-forth creative play. Kunal Sen also joined the creative fold, to assist Marv with digital animation and compositing of investigate and development prototypes.

Marv has more than 30 years of experience as a filmmaker in Vancouver and has directed ten short films, his most recent being Tête à Tête à Tête (with the NFB), Beijing Flipbook, and Postalolio (which he completed earlier in 2009). He owns and operates International Rocketship Ltd., and, at that studio, has made numerous advertisements and commissioned projects for clients, including the television special Gary Larson's Tales From The Far Side and its sequel. At Rocketship, Marv has also produced short films for local independent animators, including Jay Falconer, Danny Antonucci, and Dieter Meuller. He brings to CMYK a love and passion for art, animation, music, and the production of short films.

Lisa Miller is a Vancouver-based composer and performer. Her particular artistic practice comes from her interests in contemporary composition, jazz, and musique actuelle. Her compact discs include Sleep Furiously (with the lisa miller octet) The Music of Lisa Miller, Q and The Lisa Miller Trio. Her work has been premiered by the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Left Coast Ensemble and Ear play (San Francisco), Standing Wave, the Turning Point Ensemble, and the Vancouver Chinese Instrumental Music Society. She has written for film (such as CMJ Communications, Los Angeles), theatre, dance, and for multimedia installation, including work by her ensemble edgeffect at Circus Maximus, in collaboration with the experimental Music Collective, Inter_mission, and butoh-a-go-go.

Lisa holds a Doctorate in Music Composition from the University of British Columbia. She also studied composition at San Francisco State University, McGill University, the University of Calgary and jazz piano in New York City.

Kunal Sen graduated from Emily Carr University of Art & Design (ECU) in 2008 with a Bachelors of Media Arts in Animation. Kunal was a student of mine at Emily Carr. He also has a Professional Diploma in Visual Communication from the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, India, where he studied graphic design, fine art, new media, and film. His graduation film at ECU, Key Tumi?, was selected for the Student Showcase of the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, and Montreal World Film Festival. Intervelometer, a film that he made in collaboration with Aparna Kapur and Deniz Merdanogullari, won the 2008 Best Picture at the 52 hour Trick 17 Animation Competition (where it was made). It also screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival ’09, on Motionographer, and TED India. I introduced Marv to Kunal.

CMYK has had a fruitful research period. Marv is a spirited leader. Open to ideas, he invites input as he directs his work. The three are a great team, and a “solid band.” They got along famously, particularly Marv and Kunal, who spent long hours animating together at a computer. Their energy and commitment will lead to a strong and successful film.

THE MEANING OF THE TITLE

CMYK stands for “Cyan,” “Magenta,” “Yellow,” and “Black.” The acronym refers to a colour model used in printing, such as offset printing and print photography. It is known as subtractive colour and relies on reflective light. It is possible to use a combination of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks, plus the white of a paper background, to create a full range of colours for printed material. The opposite of subtractive colour is additive colour. That model refers to the way we see light, and see film and video. White light is the result of blending equal mixtures of primary “red,” “green,” and “blue” light together. Additive colour is also known as the RGB colour model.

Incidentally, the acronym CYMK, “black” is represented by the letter “K” because “B” is used in the additive colour model, with "B" standing for “blue” with the acronym “RGB.” The letter obviously cannot be used twice, for two commonly used production systems.

As part of the offset printing process and the making of posters and packages such as cereal packets and juice boxes, print producers design and layout artwork, and add cyan, magenta, yellow, and black symbols as reference marks for the print runs. The symbols are used to calibrate and evaluate ink saturation, similar to the way that a film/video technician would refer to SMPTE colour bars at the head section of an NFB animation or documentary film. The CMYK markings are often found tucked away on a printed object, hidden and inconspicuous, such as under box flaps, near the spine of a magazine, or on the last page and near the staples. A person would only find such markings if she were to unfold a carton to flatten it for recycling. On close observation, print producers appear to use a wide variety of different kinds of CMYK reference marks. They are often unusual and worth collecting.

Marv has carefully gathered CMYK symbols for several years, with the idea of eventually using them for a collage-type animated film.

ABSTRACT ANIMATION

CMYK had been new territory for Marv to pursue and research. Marv is an experienced director investigating new forms.

CMYK is situated in a tradition of non-objective filmmaking, one that goes back historically to work created by Norman McLaren and Len Lye in the 1930s and 1940s. However, contemporary filmmakers work with experimental forms and techniques today, such as Christopher Hinton, Steven Woloshen, Richard Reeves, and others. Each new film is unique and innovative, as artists bring their own distinct interests to the filmmaking process. A particular challenge for abstract animators is to creatively weave image and sound, positioning and choreographing movement and musical phrases to construct interesting energies and tensions; visual and aural elements that attract and repel, so that image and sound both share foreground and background focuses.

As with abstract painting, art does not always mimic the world experienced by the viewing public. An artist will construct a work to take on a unique form and distinctive language, to express ideas and pose questions in interesting ways. CMYK will be that kind of piece: expressive and something that communicates with its own particular visual and aural vocabulary.

The visual source material for the film will be tiny images, scanned and photographed at high-resolution. As a result, the CMYK symbols will be magnified, bold, and colourful. As is evident in the development clips, cardboard and paper textures will stand out, as will torn edges, creases, wrinkles, and smudges. Marv will work with Kunal to animate the shapes, marks, and textures to move as bold frenetic phrases, balanced with quiet and subtle actions. They would carefully control the amount of computer animation to create movement and animation by their own hands -- as much as possible -- using digital tools. In addition, they would composite in layers, apply effects to the collage imagery, and produce subtle degrees of opacity.

MUSIC

Lisa would compose a full, uninterrupted five-minute piece for string quartet, based on four colours. Whereas the development material consisted of short and distinct sketches, the final “production piece” will be a full work, consisting of sections or portions. It will be a coherent piece, where one section would transition to another. This final version will be pliable, in that the four musicians could move independently, while following sheet music and being conducted. It will be a live recording, as opposed to something that is multi-tracked, so the musicians could then improvise and respond to each other while performing.

The score will consist of expressive aural colours or timbres that shift and change. In addition to melodic and rhythmic phrasing, we would hear rich notes and subtle noises, with extended string techniques producing scrapes, moans, “unpitched white noise,” etc.

Marv and Lisa will discuss the writing of the piece beforehand, and collaborate to a degree. Based on the development sketches, they will deliberate on how to structure the composition (i.e., select segments that they like and find parts that would work dramatically, humorously, etc.). Unlike the investigate and development phases, Lisa will not work entirely in isolation and finally provide Marv and Kunal with a recording. There will still be a surprising aspect to the work, in that Lisa will eventually provide Marv with a recorded track, when their ideas will have been translated into a musical form for the first time.