School projet S4: Editorial Illustration

For this project we had to create an editorial illustration based on a random magazine article provided by the teacher. We then had to include this illustration in a spread layout. My article, called “French Attraction”, depicts the recent popularity of French schools in the English community of Canada. French being the second official language in Canada, being bilingual open a lot of opportunities in the workplace. My illustration shows  a fictional city (mix of Montréal, Toronto and Vancouver) in the distance with a see of people lined up and seeking a job opportunity. The bilingual people, having an advantage over the others, are carried by “French” blimps over the crowd and directly to good careers high up the skyscrapers. The addition of a magnet holding the characters is a simple reference to the title. The illustration was made with color crayon and the layout in Indesign.

 copyright 2011

School project S3 – Flash animation : La liberté

For this flash project we had carte blanche. The only restriction was a minimum length of 30 seconds. It took me a while to find an idea for this animation, but after seeing “Storming Juno” a “Band of Brothers” type TV movie focusing on the D-Day Canadian landing on Juno beach, I was inspired to write this poem (translated from French).

Freedom

It’s walking on the beach and forgeting your worries
It’s feeling the wind’s caress on your skin, carrying the smell of the sea
It’s hearing the sound of seagulls and waves crashing on the shore
It’s watching and listening to children laughing and playing.
Youth, innocence … ignorance
Free as birds they run without knowing the story … the story of this place.
A story of courage and sacrifice
The history of liberty
I hear the ghosts of the past
. . .
Children will learn this story
But us, do we take our freedom for granted?
Freedom has a price.
Thank you to all the soldiers who have walked these places
We will remember them.

I then decided to make that personal project my next flash animation. After the planning process, I recorded myself reading the poem and added music and sound effects, then, I took the elaborate task to animate the poem in flash. The picture quality I had of Juno beach was average at best, so I decided to give a painting effect to the whole production. Unfortunately, it didn’t came out as good as I wanted (sound and visual) but it did translate the poem adequately. Click on the image below to see the 2 min flash animation (in French).

 copyright 2010