Context of Practice: Studio Brief 2 (Bond the Zeitgeist)

I am not quite content with the visual responses generated thus far. To remedy this I have now re-focussed my attention to the primary point of my essay, that the Bond's franchise can be seen as a distorted fun-house mirror of their respective contemporary cultures.

The Sixties

To elaborate; it is perhaps more interesting to concern with the contextual movements and events disregarded by the franchise, such as the hippie movement, the summer of love etc.

Topically, it was for this reason George Lazenby was disillusioned form the role as 007 and turned up the premiere sporting a rebellious beard. Bond was an icon of the traditional British conservatism, and did not reflect the progressive counter cultures.

http://movies.yahoo.com/blogs/movie-talk/george-lazenby-forgotten-bond-220348935.html

"It was the hippie movement... People were [about] peace, not war. And Bond was about war."

-George Lazenby during a television interview

However, the climax of the hippie movement would soon collapse under a disillusionment fuelled by a sense of futility... To name a few examples; the wide-spread drug cultures, the continuing Vietnam War, the Manson Family and the decay of the Beatles.

The Seventies

This fairly long quote expresses the sentiment with a good analogy:

"Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.…

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

-THOMPSON, Hunter. S, 2005 [1971], 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas', Harper Perennial, London 

The Bond continued to respond directly to popular contemporary cinematic genres, with 'Live and Let Die' reflecting to blaxploitation and Moonraker borrowing from Star Wars. Roger Moores' Bond projected nothing short of self-parody, reflecting a more cynical attitude in western audiences.

The Eighties

In this decade Margret Thatcher proudly announced that 'there is no such thing as society', which galvanised the Left to hate her some more.

Cinematically, the 80s has probably generated more films which have since spawned cult followings than any other decade. Within Britain there were frequent dramatic clashes between the state and the public during events such as the miners strike, marking the end of Britain's role as an industrially-motivated economy.

The Bond franchise suffered during the 80s due to large competition from a large influx of action movies (Die Hard, Lethal Weapon etc), and the self-parodying of Roger Moore's role did not appeal to younger audiences who had become more accustomed to macho archetypes.

The Nineties

This decade saw to the less than smooth dismantlement of the USSR, thus threatening the historical binary opposition that the Bond franchise had thus far relied on to create tension. Suddenly the weight of impending atomic annihilation was subdued and people invented their own preposterous apocalypse to alleviate boredom. The modern technology that we take for granted with really began here, with laptops, mobile telephones and even a poorly timed tablet.

Britain somehow managed to rebrand itself as a 'happening' place with Brit pop and YBAs making a huge global impact.

Context Of Practice: Studio Brief 2 (A Whole New Sketchbook)

 In reflection, I can now see a tangible transformation running throughout this sketchbook. Initially, I found it particularly frustrating, but now as I begin to liberalise my application of line I find that my portraiture has vastly improved.

The first examples begin in a somewhat awkward fashion:

The use of gestural brush in this instance appears to give the image a more humane feeling, rather than the dry linear images of before.

I began to add more additional lines to give the impression of depth and sculpture to faces, this appears to give Bond a more haggard and beaten look.

Though the below example is quite poor in terms of visual accuracy there are several things I can learn from it; half tones can reduce the flatness of linear imagery, and that large-ish portraits don't have to be time consuming.

The top two of the below studies are the closest to what I deem successful, they have a unique aesthetic, born from sketch-book repetition and struggle.

I have long applied this quick methodology to the inanimate, but for some reason I had not made the mental leap to use it on the figure.

I now have the green shoots of an idea concerning the project, I shall continue to use the document in order to document the visual developments.

Context Of Practice: Studio Brief 2 (Investigative Map)

In order to compress the information into a more visual format I created a 'map of understanding'.
Hopefully, the information therein is self explanatory.
I would have rather worked on a vertical surface, like a wall-mounted board. Perhaps at the next opportunity I shall do as much, because it's reminiscent of those crime boards often seen in thrilling detective dramas.