Jelly boobs, fruit brains, body hair and naked dancing: Nicer Tuesdays December review

Nicer Tuesdays 2017 went out with a bang last night at Oval Space, with an eclectic and inspiring group of speakers sharing their creative work. From Ivana Bobic explaining how best to make jelly boobs and Territory Studio showing how they made Ryan Gosling’s brain in Blade Runner 2049, to illustrator Cecile Dormeau’s real women and Mr Bingo’s naked dancers, the night was enlightening and brilliantly entertaining. Below, we pick out a few important lessons from the talks.

There’s a fine art to making jelly boobs wobble

Ivana Bobic kicked off the night with her fast-paced, tongue-in-cheek and ultimately headline-grabbing advert for breast cancer charity Coppafeel. Focusing on tactility and an exploration of “what hands do”, the film flits through dozens of shots of breasts, breast-like props and other things entirely (for example cats) to a percussive beat and poem. Collating these props entailed casting fluffy cats, working out how much jam to squeeze out of a doughnut, and making several iterations of jelly boobs to make them move in a satisfying way in slow motion. “The final ones ended up being from a pot – apparently it’s the height that gives you the right wobble.”

Macro fruit is the real star of Blade Runner 2049

Andrew Popplestone, creative director at Territory Studio, showed the intricate process behind making on-screen graphics for Blade Runner 2049 – one of the studio’s latest projects for blockbuster sci-fi films. According to Andrew, director Denis Villeneuve wanted the graphic language in his bleak, dystopian universe to be the antithesis of slick, high-tech, Marvel-esque visuals, and instead “organic, grubby, abstract and lo-fi”. So they “stepped away from the Mac” and played with hand-made, experimental processes, such as macro photography of fruit. The resulting imagery ended up being used throughout the film, particularly forming the visuals for the Baseline Test, where a photo of a grapefruit was used to depict Ryan Gosling’s brain.

The diverse representation of women has a long way still to go

Cécile Dormeau gave a brilliant talk about representation of women in the media, and how “this shit needs to change”. Peppered with her brilliant illustrations and gifs of women of all shapes, sizes and smoothness, her presentation explored identity and personal insecurities with humour and candour. “In society, we never show realistic bodies, that’s why I want to show girls how they really are. All girls have complexes and we’re wasting so much energy on that. It’s normal to have flaws. I want girls to say, yes I have small boobs, so what?”

Naked people dancing is what Christmas is all about

Mr Bingo closed the night with an energetic and jolly delve through the making of his 2017 advent calendar, for which he crowdsourced nude models to illustrate and cover with scratch-off clothes. Along the way he met some real characters, for example one of the models, an art historian by day and “an exhibitionist and sexual deviant” in his spare time, who by way of application sent Bingo sketches of his privates. Another applicant described his physique as a “white chocolate Magnum”, while Neil from Bournemouth sent a photo of himself naked but for a tasteful gathering of fairy lights. Faye, who can be found on the calendar, applied for the calendar eight weeks after having a single mastectomy and “wanted to celebrate her new body,” says Bingo, “so she was in straight away”. Meanwhile Bingo can himself be found under door 25.

Thank you to everyone who came along to our events this year, and see you in 2018!

Event Partner: Adobe Stock

Keep your work fresh with Adobe Stock. No matter what project you’re working on, you can always find the perfect asset in the library of over 90 million high-quality images, graphics, videos, templates, and 3D assets plus our Premium and Editorial. Join them at Nicer Tuesdays to see what amazing things you can create with Adobe Stock.
 
Click here to try Adobe Stock free for one month.

Supported by: Park Communications

As one of London’s most respected printers, Park Communications is known for its care, attention to detail and high quality, which is why Printed Pages is among the titles it produces.

Supported by: The Five Points Brewing Company

The Five Points Brewing Company is an independent brewery based in Hackney, London, brewing with a commitment to provenance, quality, consistency and the community since 2013.