Throughout June, Level 6 students Amy Norris and Rory Henderson presented their collaborative Final Major Projects in Hartlepool Art Gallery. They worked on a live brief with County Durham-born folk singer Harri Endersby, where their task was to create a whole cinematic experience to accompany a performance of her new folk album, Home and Lives. Costume student Amy, created her costume for the installation which was a reflective dress used as a canvas and Graphic Design student Rory created an animation synced to an 18 minute excerpt of songs which was projected onto Amy’s work as well as the ceiling and walls.

We caught up with the pair to chat a little bit about the process;

Can you both tell us about some of the techniques you used throughout this project?

Amy: For Harri’s dress I used double layers of crinoline wires to get the skirt to stand out as it’s a really big skirt, so that was really the main challenge I had! Another hurdle was to make the skirt to be super flat so that the video could easily be projected onto the material without any shadows. I also used French seams for the silk material and constructed a cowl neck as a top feature.

Rory: I made the projection animation video completely on my computer meaning there was no filming or photography involved and it’s all done using computer generated images. I tried to draw on the themes of home, memory and belonging which are the themes raised in the songs. I wanted the animation to react to the audio and create a visual experience. I started the project by creating a story board and then mocking up my initial plans.

How long did this Final Major Project take?

Amy: We’ve actually been doing this project for over a year! We came up with the concept then with spoke to our tutors about what we wanted to achieve.

Rory: Yeah, the ideas for the project started being thrown around last summer, and in the run up to Christmas was when most of the research and preparation was done. The actual animation I created was completed in a two month period after Christmas.

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Both Amy and Rory graduated in July and will be expecting their results today, so we want to wish them the best of luck and we’re looking forward to watching their creative careers flourish in the future.