Animation Context - Weeks 9 & 10

In this week’s animation context lesson, we were shown a video which analysed how Stephen Spielberg portrayed the terror of war through film, specifically in his film ‘Saving Private Ryan’. I think the reason that we were shown this was to help us with how to reference material and properly analyse pieces of media and/or texts. I feel as though the video analyses its material well, however there is an instance where the narrator uses a quote/opinion from a friend as a reference, which would be fine if you were collecting some primary research of your own, but not as an academic reference. However, the way that this video assesses how the shots, angles and pans are used is very well done and backed up by a lot of proof, therefore this video could help me to better analyse pieces of media, if I were to ever need to. I still do feel like I need a better grasp on Harvard Referencing in writing though, as I only experimented with it a bit when it came to my Storyboard research.

After watching this video, I searched to see if any similar videos were made regarding my favourite director, Edgar Wright. I found one video which is very similar to the one that we were shown in class, but this one instead analyses how Wright uses visual comedy. This video gave me an even greater admiration for this director, and I feel as though many of the points made that are made in this video could easily be applied to animation, and as I am very interested in comedy, it will definitely be something that I will soon experiment with myself. I found this video to be very well made and I was engaged with it throughout.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FOzD4Sfgag&feature=share

Edgar Wright

Although I really enjoyed this class session, I was happy that in the following week, we journeyed outside room 3.33 for our context session and into an art gallery, as it was be nice to get a change of scenery. In the art gallery in Manchester we were tasked to pick three particular pieces of art that we like and answer some questions about them, I documented my picks and have anaylsed them.

Artist name - Jai Redman

Title and Date - Roses (2007)

Notable features i.e the medium, structure, the narrative - For me, the main thing that stands out about this piece is the juxtaposition between life and death or alternatively beauty and horror. At first glance, I never even noticed that the roses we made out of human skulls, therefore giving me a shock when I initially realised it, which made me remember the piece. For me, I think the artist is trying to portray an insight into how pessimists may observe something that may be beautiful to another individual, as the pessimist is contemplating on the fact that these roses, like every living being will one day perish, which is given a human personification through the form of a skull, in order for the observers to relate more.

This interests me/is relevant to me as an animation student because - I could envision this being in an animated show as a replacement for foliage around a villains base or hideout, which would create a creepy and frightening atmosphere. This has shown me how you can alter everyday objects in order for them to convey completely different emotions than what they normally do, which would be very helpful when attempting to communicate a certain atmosphere in an animated show

Artist name - Briton Riviere

Title and Date - The Last of the Garrison (1875)

Notable features i.e the medium, structure, the narrative - After some very faint research on this piece, I have descovered that this is dipicting a scene from the English Civil War. I would have prefered it if I didn't find this out however, as due to the unclear circumstances and situation which lead to this painting's narrative, it is interesting to assume the full story based upon what you personally portray. I like this painting as it gives an insight onto an element which is often cast over and not considered when generally refering to war, which was the consiquences and lives which animals and pets had to endure during these times.

This interests me/is relevant to me as an animation student because - Without even knowing the narrative behind this piece, I felt sympathy for the subject, though its gaze, posture and grim surroundings. It's a huge testament to the artists ability that he can create that much of an emotional impact without even giving us any context or dialogue. These techniques could be applied to animation in order to make an audience sympathise with a subject.

Artist name - Jai Redman

Title and Date - Portrait of a Man (2015)

Notable features i.e the medium, structure, the narrative - I didn't realise it at the time, but this was produced by the same artist who painted the 'roses' art which I previously anaylsed, therefore showing that I clearly have a preference to his work and style. This very surreal scene amused me at first, as once again a huge juxtaposition is created between the serious and the silly. However, despite their similar premises, I had a completely different response to this painting than I did to his other work, as I mainly just found this one amusing. The observers are lead through the title of the piece, the tones and positioning of the subjects body to believe that this will be any ordinary 'portrait of a man', but will then be shocked to find that he has a huge piece of ham for a head.

This interests me/is relevant to me as an animation student because - Unlike the other two where they inspired me with ways to garner more of a horrified or emotional response from an audience through the medium of animation, this one has shown me how comedy and humour can be created by framing, as I can image a pan upwards being used on this image in an animated cartoon, which would be used for comedic effect when it's revealed to be a piece of ham. 

Animation Context - Week 8

After researching our chosen animation related topic (which in my case was storyboarding), we were tasked to create a poster regarding our chosen area, whilst limiting ourselves to only 5 words. The first idea I had was to lay out the poster as a storyboard itself, and have one of my own characters walk the observer through the stages of creating a storyboard. However, I eventually decided against this idea after realising that due to how storyboards are typically laid out and paced, there would be too many panels, and therefore would not make an appealing and clear looking poster. I did eventually add two of my own examples of storyboards in the final piece however, one of which was a scan of my storyboard for my media film project back in college, and the other was one that I mocked up for this piece, using two of my own characters in a simple situation, to show how movements are recorded on a storyboard. Both of these can be seen at the bottom of the poster. The rest of the poster consists of images of storyboards which I found the most visually appealing, the clearest and the most informative, scattered around in a collage style. For the five words to include, I decided upon adding words which are essentially what a storyboard should include, and the qualities they must have, as I found that would be the best way to quickly inform first years about this topic, as requested by the brief. The words in question are; Movement, expression, clear, dialogue and composition. For decoration, I added a boarder and some of my own typography consisting of yellow and purple (complimentary colours), to attract more attention. When deciding upon the style of typography, I decided to go for a loose and condensed feel, relating to the type of sketching typically seen within storyboards themselves.

In conclusion, I feel as though I have kept to the brief, and the research prior to the creation of this poster was essential. However, after seeing and reviewing the rest of the work, I feel disappointed that I didn’t include enough of my own content in there, as some others were entirely made up of their own content and I would feel a lot prouder of my work if that was the case with mine. When presenting to the rest of the class, I feel as though I improved (judging by my self-feedback on the ‘gestalt’ presentation), but there is still room for improvement.

Into to Creative Play - Week 8 & 9

In Intro to ‘Creative Play’ my group of three which was created through pairing people up with others whose skillsets will benefit each other, were assigned a brief to create a representation of ‘the city’, whilst considering the theme of old and new. In my opinion this was a very broad brief, therefore it opened many different ideas. I noted down six ideas which incorporated many of the different forms of creation that have been introduced to us over the course of this module.

1.      Create a blank 3D model of a city (either by using 3D printing or modelling), and then using projection mapping, project designs onto the models to change the buildings to appear more modern or older. I felt that this would be a good way to utilise projection mapping.

2.      Use lighting (as demonstrated in the filming session), to represent through shadows the passing of time on certain objects or models of cities, and have the silhouettes and shadows also represent a change in time, such as the style of buildings modernising.

3.      Use the green screen to place two actors (one representing old, the other representing new), and place them on top of artwork of the corresponding time periods, and have them interact somehow with the audience.

4.      Create physical mashups of city related objects and buildings, with half of them new, the other half old. This could also be done with cartoony caricatures of people, showing how fashion has changed over the years.

5.      Create a soundscape of all the different areas of a city, two versions, old and new. This will be created using Foley, a technique which I am very fond of and interested in. These sounds could be activated by pressing a button or by people interacting in any way with the designated areas or objects, this could be done using Arduino.

6.      Have a video play which shows a scan of artwork of city areas all linked up, and the areas getting progressively more modern as the film goes on. This will then revert the traditional cities and the film will continuously loop.

  

To help introduce us to this topic, we were set a task to plan and create a very simple stop motion which represents a city within only 45 minutes! As a group we decided that due to the time constraints, we should keep it simple, so we made dozens of little clay 'blobs' which were meant to be people, along with clay cars, which would all be walking across a backdrop of a city silhouette. The city silhouette came out very well in my opinion, possibly due to the bright yellow windows we cut out, which creates a huge contrast from the solid black buildings, which is why I decided that I somehow wanted to use a similar premise within my actual piece for this module. Unfortunately the beauty of the animation didn't mirror the beauty of the backdrop, however we did have a lot of fun creating it. Due to the lack of planning on the direction and purpose of all the clay civilians and cars, their movements were improvised during the animation process, which is why some inexplicably get run over and squished. The lack of planning is without a doubt what let the final animation down, but I feel as though what we have made during the 45 minutes we had, has made me very optimistic regarding what we can make for the final project with a LOT more planning.

After refining our idea for the actual piece, we decided to create artwork of cities from different time periods (Traditional and Modern), and have them laid out on separate designated A1 boards. There was also the idea to go even further back than traditional cities, and go back to when there were no cities at all, just forest and jungle, before civilisation, to show an even greater variance in setting and style. There will be 6 pieces of artwork for each time period, so 18 in total, and they will be arranged neatly and link together on the board. As for the designs of the boards themselves, we decided to have them neatly with all the buildings or scenery lined up, with a timeline bellow, in order to show the passage of time. We had the idea to have each board consist of artwork which is created with relevance to the time period they are portraying through the techniques used, for example, the modern city artwork will be made digitally, the traditional city artwork will be made using traditional methods such as water colour painting and the jungle will be created out of a collage. This will also help utilise all the teams’ skills and abilities. As for the actual setup of the project, the three boards will be hung out diagonally, thus helping the observer to understand the journey through time, and as the observer travels through these boards, they will be lead to a projector projecting a video onto a wall, which will be an endless loop of all the artwork linked together, as the frame pans through it all, showing a progression through time. This will all be edited and pieced together through After Effects, and the video will go along with some accompanying soundscapes, which we will make using Foley in a recording studio, however for the remainder of the sounds which we cannot accurately reproduce, we will use Soundsnap.

This is our idea as it stands right now, and I think that it incorporates a lot of the techniques introduced to us, and I am highly anticipating how it will look once it has been completed. During this week’s session, we also managed to make a mock-up of what one of the pieces from the jungle aspect of the work will look like, and we were impressed with the look.

A outline of a cityscape was drawn, and using cuttings from imagery of jungle, the positive space was occupied. I feel as though this creates an interesting juxtaposition of two very contrasting themes, the jungle and the city.

My next steps to take in this module is to gather visual research of all three different areas, and create a few of the digital pieces of artwork for the ‘modern’ aspect of the piece.

https://vimeo.com/193271802

This is the Maya remake of my stop motion 'block interaction' in Maya. Following the feedback that I was given from my initial animation, I was able to improve upon many of the aspects that were critisised, from both an technical and a story point of view. From a story point of view, people claimed that the block who was being crept up on didn't react realistically when turning around, as the second turn was exactly the same as the second, meaning that the block is not at all suspicious or phased about the approaching block. The way in which I have solved this issue, is by making the block turn around quicker the second time, and have it pause for longer. I also added an extra turn for the block, to make it seem as though it is trying to catch the other block out. From a technical point of view, I made the dash from the creeping block at the end a lot quicker, in response to my criticism that I gave myself last time, and now I think that the dash looks a lot more heavy. Also, the eyes from one of the blocks were removed, as I thought the story wouldn't have been clear without them, but after watching the remake without the eyes, I can conclude that the eyes weren't necessary, showing how you can make a story using only very basic assets. I am very pleased with how this has turned out, and I had a lot more fun producing it, possibly due to the increased preparation that was made. Below is the bar sheet for this animation.

'Making of' - Week 9

During this session we were tasked to research independently 'Pantomime Animation'. I have found several videos which show what seem to be some good examples of pantomime animation, which has given me a good idea on what a pantomime animation is;

From these videos, I can gather that pantomime animation is a silent form of narrative, where in order for a viewer to gain an understanding of the emotion and drive for a central character, actions as well as facial expressions are often exaggerated, and characters rely on the motions of their arms and hands to put emphasis on their mood. The exact definition of pantomime is as follows:  

Which aside from the music aspect, all these videos accomplish perfectly. It seems as though each animation features several distinct, clear and strong poses which would have an appealing silhouette in order to lead the viewer into important actions whist being visually strong. I'm sure that timing is a huge priority when animating these characters, as it would help to show where the effort and speed is being applied to their actions. My favorite of the three is the second one, as all that we see the character do is ring a bell to get someones attention, but without the need of dialogue we clearly get a sense of his irritated attitude, all though they way his eyes lead to show his intention, his facial expression and arm gestures. I have a lot of interest in comedy, so I feel that this is a perfect animation method that I should try out sometime as it offers some huge opportunities in terms of slapstick.

Weekly update on my 'Ongoing Project' #2

This week I managed to make four new Simpsons Celebrity Caricatures, all of which are based on characters from the TV show 'The Inbetweeners'.

Animation Context - Week 7

In Animation context, we were tasked to pick a topic relating to animation and research it. I decided to choose 'Storyboarding' as it's an area that I am interested in

Storyboarding

What are storyboards?

Storyboards are an essential aspect of the preparation of any professional animation. They are most commonly drawn by hand, and their purpose is to plan all the dialogue and movements for an animation or film. Before the making of a storyboard, the artist receives a beat outline, which maps out the subject’s emotions and the actions that accompany them. With the beat outline, the artist then draws out how he/she envisions the scene to play out shot by shot, the work produced is then pitched to a director, however in most cases, the initial storyboards aren’t final, as they are commonly revised multiple times in the development process. This process is carried out after the scriptwriting stage.

Why are they used?

The main reason a storyboard is essential, is the fact that it is used to help the animators to gather a feel for what the project would look like as a finished product, and to see whether it would work. It also is arguably the best way to communicate a vision to others, such as the directors, as a script simply wouldn’t visualise the idea enough for a clear understanding. Creating a storyboard will also help plan what shots will be needed, where they need to be taken and what kind of shots they will be, this may not be as important to animation based projects, as they don’t require filming on location, but it still may help when preparing the assets needed. Creating storyboards also helps you to not forget about any scenes.

What skills are required to become a storyboard artist?

I found a very useful website which outlines all the skills animation storyboard artists should have- http://creativeskillset.org/job_roles/349_storyboard_artist_animation

In summary, a wide understanding of film production is required, mainly because of composition and layout, you must be a good illustrator, but also can adopt established styles for the specific title you are working on, and presenting and computer literacy is also somewhat essential.

What is the layout like?

Layouts vastly vary from studio to studio, and there is no required design or layout that storyboards need to stick by, but the genuinely have a box for illustration accompanied by a space for dialogue and stage directions to be written for each shot.

As you can see with this one, lines are clearly included to show the movement of the camera and mobile assets within the frame. 

This one is from the very famous Pixar film, ‘Up’, and unlike most storyboards, this one is physically laid out on a wall, which is something Pixar and many other animation studios commonly do with their projects.

This is a storyboard from the animated show, South Park

Quotes from experts and authorities

“In animation, it is so expensive to produce the footage, that unlike live action we cannot have coverage. We can’t do multiple takes of a scene. We don’t have extra handles, we don’t have B-roll, we don’t have any of that stuff. We have one chance to every scene. So how can you possibly know you’re choosing the right thing?”

            - John Lasseter (Pixar)

“I loved being asked 2,000 questions a day, storyboarding every move, knowing as though by instinct exactly where the camera had to be, because it was my story.”

- Richard E. Grant (Actor)

Magazine and newspaper articles

http://elearnmag.acm.org/featured.cfm?aid=2024072 – This is a link to a digital article from ‘E Learn’ magazine, where Kevin Thorn summarises the importance of storyboarding and how it’s done.

https://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/962/nuts-and-bolts-storyboarding-basics - This is a link to a digital article from ‘Learning Solutions magazine, where Jane Bozarth discusses her involvement with storyboarding

Weekly update on my 'Ongoing Project' #1

Since starting this project one week ago, I have managed to make 6 more additions to my Simpsons caricatures. As I previously stated when I started this project, I planned to add some characters drawn in an alternative style to the Simpsons, and I have done that this week, however I have kept them related to 'The Simpsons', as it is characters from the Simpsons who are drawn in an alternate style (Rick and Morty). In addition to them, I have also drew two of my friends for their anniversary, and also Rick and Morty themselves. I am still satisfied with my decision for this ongoing project, and I am anticipating what others I can produce in later weeks.

Creative Play - Week 7

I am interested in video editing, so I was highly anticipating this session when I discovered that it would be centred around editing sound into a movie clip deprived of its original sound. We would be completing this task using a technique known as ‘Foley’, which is where the sounds that are needed to be implementing into a film or video, are reproduced and recorded, often by getting sound from objects which are entirely different from the ones that are producing sound on film. They are then later edited into the film.

We decided to add sound to the ‘Nightmare Before Christmas clip’, as there are a range of actions which all seemed as though they would produce diverse sounds, and it would be interesting to see how we could replicate them using the objects that we had on offer. It also helped that I never seen this clip before, as I would have to guess the atmosphere and mood that the clip was going for. As we were watching the clip, I took note of all the sounds which I thought we would need to add, along with the times they would appear in the video, to help us later during editing.

This list is very accurate to our final product, and was crucial to helping us later, as it allowed us to record all the sound in chronological order, therefore making it easier to find them when it came to editing, and we knew exactly what objects we needed for what sound. I feel as though we found plenty of creative ways to replicate sounds. My favourite example of this, is the glove which we created which had paper clips sellotaped to each finger and thumb. This was used to recreate the sound of Jack Skellington’s hands as they made contact with an object, as I would imagine his ‘boney’ hands to have a very distinct sound, for example when his hands griped onto the banister of the stairs, we recorded me grabbing a pole whilst wearing the glove, and I feel as though the effect worked very well.

Some other examples of unusual objects used to recreate sound include:

-A ruler scraped against sandpaper to recreate the electric sparks from the battery

-My voice being used in several instances, such as the breeze at the start, the pop as the cherry is pulled out and the squish of the cherry

-A pen rolled across a table to recreate the turn of the dial on the microscope

I am impressed with how the final product turned out, aside from the irritating background noise present within some sound clips, which I was unfortunately unable to remove during the editing process. I do however know the reason for this, and how to prevent it next time, and that is by going into a recording studio or somewhere else where there is very minimal background noise. I was able however to slightly make the background noise less noticeable by fading out the starts and ends of the sound clips gradually in the editing software. The final design choice was to place a soundtrack across the clip, I decided to go with something which has a mysterious feel to it, but also somewhat of a playful nature, as represented by the clip, in the end I selected 'Aiden's Theme' from the 'Beyond Two Souls' soundtrack.

I thoroughly enjoyed the editing process and the making of the sounds, and this remains something that I am highly anticipating to implement into my own works in the future.

Here is the final clip -

https://vimeo.com/191291572

 Making of - Week 7

In 'The Making of' we have been tasked to start an ongoing project which leads up until March. We would have to pick something that we would be able to make an addition to each day. I eventually decided to focus on my already existing project, my Facebook page under the name of 'Simpsons Celebrity Caricatures', but become a lot more active on it, attempting to produce a character a day. I chose to do this as I have a lot of experience in this style, therefore drawing each character shouldn't take up too much time. I also think the end product could be really impressive, as I would have the dozens upon dozens of a wide range of caricatures all stood together in one huge picture. I could also experiment with alternate styles, and place them in the picture as well, creating a 'Where's Wally' type image, as you can search out the alternate cartoon styles. I predict that this could be possible as a daily project, if not, I could definitely at least get a rough sketch a day and the finished character on the following day.

https://www.facebook.com/SimpsonsCelebrityCaricatures/

Here is the product from day one, Rick Sanchez from 'Rick and Morty'

'Making of' - Weeks 5 & 6

During week five in 'making of', we were introduced to a new 'noticing' task, where we had to be observant and look out for what are known as 'thankyou' photographs, capture them, and finally title them. The title is usually a play on words or an interesting observation relating to the photo. I found that when I attempted to go out of my way to look out for these photographs I was unsuccessful, but during my trip to Liverpool and at Media City, I came across many by accident, and accompanied them with suitable titles, some of which I am very pleased with, others seem slightly too forced.

Liverpool isn't a fan of 'The Sun'

Locks by the Docks

I Luve this phune case

Music gives me a smile

Taking out the hash

I enjoyed this task as it shows us how much we pass by daily that we ignore or forgot, but though capturing them, I have preserved and documented them, however I wish I would have engaged with it more and included a range of different locations.

These are the movements which I captured via film which will be studied during 'Making of'. One of them is a generic walk cycle, which is essential to learn for animation. I was temped to document walk cycles when people are at alternate emotional states, therefore showing how that may effect there walking cycle, however I feel as though I should start with a neutral walk cycle and then progress to them later. I also captured two other movements, someone hitting a ball with a stick, and someone catching a large object, as I feel that these two movements both require a lot of different movements happening at once, which would be interesting to study. Weight and exaggeration could also be explored with these two movements.

I found this very simple and informative video on YouTube regarding the animation walk cycle -

From this video, I have learnt that they are four key poses which make up the walk, all of which can be seen in some variance within my primary material above, which are as follows;

- Contact

- Down

- Pass poss

- Up

- Contact (with foot placement switched)

All these specific poses are illustrated beautifully in this diagram below, which would assist me very well if I ever get around to designing a walk cycle of my own.

Going back to my 'catching' footage, as I previously mentioned, exaggeration is a factor which could heavily impact the style and weight of the objects in the motion. The same creator who made the walk cycle tutorial above, has made a video regarding that specific animation principals, and by watching this video, I realise how someone can alter the movement and timing of a motion in animation to show a variance in effort or weight, which can be done through exaggeration.

After reviewing the footage that I captured the previous week, I concluded that there were too many issues with it for me to work with it further, especially on the walk cycle. The main issues being; as the subject isn't traveling in a straight direction, foot placement is very complex, and due to the fact that my vantage point is very close to the subject, the camera had to be constantly moving, making it hard to accurately track movements. So for these reasons, I decided to recapture one of these actions, and also record two new ones, keeping in mind what I had learnt from my first attempt. One of these is another cycle, as I wanted to experiment with something similar to the walk but in an alternate context, so I decided to perform a run cycle, as its surprising how much that alters the key poses. The other was a throw, as anticipation isn't something that can really be applied to any of the previous motions (apart from before going into a run cycle to prepare), so I really wanted to experiment with that animation principal. As you can tell, I have slowed down the speed of the last two motions, the reason being that as they are all concerned with capturing quick motions, I thought that it was essential to see every key frame in clear detail.

After all this preparation work, I wanted to make a start on working with the walk cycle, so using the reference footage above, I very simply drew out the key frames in my animation software, and then proceeded to allow the PC to fill in the in-between gaps, as I was using key-frames as appose to animating frame-by-frame, I lacked control which is why some of the joints come loose or overlap at points, but I feel that I have successfully captured the motion.

I later then went back and applied this movement to a pre-made model of myself, which has all the joints that would often move separately drawn as separate assets, therefore meaning I can apply the same process that I went through on my simplistic stick figure by moving the assets in place of the key-frames, but with a fully drawn body, below is the result.

Going through all these stages has made me realise how much work is put in an essential part of animation, and by documenting each stage, I have created an overview and reflection on the process, which is what 'making of' is all about, so I am anticipating applying this documentation to future much larger projects in the future.

Creative Play - Week 5 & 6

Due to my love of photography, and my knowledge from studying it at A level, I really enjoyed the lighting segment from this week 6's 'Creative Play' session. However I never had to opportunity to operate the lighting facilities that were available at Media City, so it was great to learn about how they work, and what certain effects they are good for producing. I felt as though during this segment, I successfully managed to direct the people posing, and feel as though I created exactly what I had in mind because of that. I have picked my three favourites that my group created, and have presented them bellow. The theme was Film Noir. I feel as though I should have opted to be in some of the photos myself, instead of just behind behind the camera, in order to get the full experience, which is something that I'll definitely consider in the future.

These are some sketches which I produced prior to this session after researching film noir. Unfortunatly, I wasn't able to recreate the one on the bottom, however the one on top heavily inspired the creation of one of the following images.

This is without a doubt my favourite outcome, as due to the composition of the lighting, a beautiful halo effect is created on the subject who is holding the gun. This helps to create enigma and mystery, as only the silhouette of the subject is shown, and the identity remains unknown, which I feel would work perfectly in a Noir film, as they are often centered around mystery. The subjects and vantage point of the camera were positioned so that the main areas of interest are aligned with the 3x3 grid, therefore following the rule of thirds and in theory creating a much more visually appealing photograph.

 I feel as though the reason that this photo stands out to me is thanks to the juxtaposition of the different levels of lighting, as the light shown coming from the subject on the left's head creates a huge contrast from the darker, low-key tone of the rest of the photograph. I feel as though that this light represents power, which is also shown through the height of the two individual subjects. My only complaint with this photograph is that I wish we explored an alternative angle as appose to sticking with a direct approach, as we could have perhaps chose an angle which represents even further the difference in power of the two subjects.

I really liked the idea behind this photograph, however I don't feel as though we pulled it off as well as we could have done. The idea for this came from my sketch shown above. The main issue was the lack of sharpness of the shadow, as I feel it is too soft which may have caused the subject to appear a lot less threatening, which wasn't the intention behind the photograph, so in future I will make sure to work out how to properly operate the camera so that the shadows appear sharper. I also don't like the brighter lighting consisting throughout this image, as it doesn't fit with the film Noir genre. However, aside from the lighting issues, I feel that the attire and composing of this photograph is really good and makes it feel very Noir themed.

Unfortunately, I didn't get as much of an fulfilling experience the week prior to this, as we were dealing with a topic which I felt really wasn't for me. Week 5 was based around a program called 'Arduino', which is an open source electronics platform used to create interactive experiences. We were introduced to this via some interactive sand-pits, which caused a disruption on the projected pattern when motion is sensed.

 

Whilst this did interest me, and I had some fun playing around with the patterns and illusions you can create, I still didn't feel invested to this topic. After we finished looking at these exhibits, we then went back to attempt some 'Arduino' ourselves.

 

This was a very stressful process, and it took our group a long time to figure out how to use this program and device to create and activate simple moving mechanisms and lights. Eventually, after a lot of fiddling, help and stress, we managed to create a motor which span a disk, which we could then temper with the speed and timing.

Though I was relieved that we actually managed to accomplish our task, I still couldn't envision me utilising this technique again later within the topic, as I didn't see how it could be of any use. That was until however, I was shown a beautiful video of how this can be used to create some wonderful interactive environments and scenery, which made me realise that if mastered or carried out further, this project may benefit later from this technique.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDDFvAYuhRM

https://vimeo.com/190776951

I attempted the Anticipation/Follow through movement exercise again, however this time it was created within Maya. I was relatively pleased with my initial stop motion exercise of this principal, though I think that on this version, I have improved upon it. This was mainly thanks to the graph editor tool, as I could easily alter the speed and build-up of the block at any time, which I think has helped me to produce a much more realistic looking motion.

This is my bar sheet for the following animation. Due to the fact that in this instance, I am working with two blocks, I have separated the top and bottom halves of the bar sheet to show the directions for each block, as many of the actions overlap with each other, and therefore it would be easier to show what both blocks are instructed to do at the same time. Unlike the ‘anticipation’ bar sheet, this bar sheet mimics near perfectly how the final product turned out, with nearly each frame the same as how it was written down. This proved problematic though, as the sprint of the block at the end of the final product should have been a lot faster, but as I was strictly following the bar sheet, the sprint was not as fast as I intended, therefore reducing the impact of the collision with the other block at the end. In order to get around this next time, I will take into greater consideration the number of frames that I wish each movement to occupy. Aside from this, this bar sheet greatly helped me during the production.

https://vimeo.com/190768124

This is my fifth experimentation in the stop motion room. This time I was tasked to make two individual blocks interact with each other, and come up with a story/situation it. I decided to have my story about block one creeping up to block two, and whenever block two turns around, block one freezes to prevent him from being caught, before finally dashing towards block two and knocking him over. I chose this story as it is relatively simple, and a good way of showing two blocks interacting with each other. As I am giving the blocks more of a character and purpose this time, I took into extra consideration how to animate certain movements, and when and when not to utilise certain principals of animation. For example, when the block is slowly creeping up, I didn’t use much anticipation, as the movement is relatively slow, however when the block dashes at the end, I used a lot of anticipation, in order to show that the movement is going to be a lot quicker. I also used ‘follow through’ for when the block stops when the other block starts to turn around, in order to emphasise the harsh stop. Overall I am pleased with how my simple interaction turned out, minis the dash at the end which I have addressed above, but thankfully I know how to prevent this next time around.

'Making of' - Week 4

After getting a chance to look at everyone's second attempt at the map making task, I found it interesting to see how this time, people were a lot more experimental, and seemed to really stretch the meaning of the word 'map', which lead to some very creative outcomes. One that stood out to me was one that utilised symbolism and simple patterns in geometric shapes as appose to representational drawings of the areas themselves, so I interviewed the creator, Ling to ask her about her inspirations and her feelings towards it- 

I liked the use of symbolism and simple patterns in geometric shapes as appose to representational drawings of the areas themselves, what was the idea behind this?

For this map, I've incorporated the colour and iconography to represent my key moments. As you see the red hexagon is the university of Salford, green represented garden, yellow obviously indicated the tram and grey implied the imperial war museum

How does this differ from your first?

Compare to original map, this one seems more abstract because I have simplified the landmarks to make viewers think about it. The first map was just detail sketches that didn't have any meaning or technique behind.

Which one do you prefer and why?

I prefer second map because obviously, I've put more thoughts and techniques in it compare to original one

Which did you have more fun creating?

I would say second map has more fun creating because I played around with colours and geometry on the illustrator, created a visual communication with viewers

If you were to do this project again, which direction would you take it?

If I was going to do this map again, I would like to transform it into 3D map. I think that 3D map is more fun than 2d drawing and will attract more people

It was interesting to gain her thought process on how she came to the final idea, especially considering how much of a unique idea it was. I find many similarities in this and my initial mapping project, as neither map is concerned with the in-between moments of the journey, and instead symbolically represents the key moments that we wish to communicate. I am very interested in character design and caricatures, hence why I was keen to implement them into my first mapping project, and from her previous work, Ling appears to be very interested in drawing patterns and nature, so she has also explored her interests in this project, which shows by the way she had more fun making it. 

Creative Play - Week 4

In week 4 of creative play, we had a guest speaker from the BBC discuss the topic of Ideation and design processes, and we had some exercises based around yogurts with this topic in mind. For example, we had to analyse people as they ate yogurts in silence whilst taking notes on how they do it, and possible ways which we could improve their experience .The speakers job title, was 'User experience designer', which prior to this session, I had no knowledge of, but since then I have grown interest in it, as it is based around graphic design, which by the work that I produce you can tell that I am very keen on. After some research on this job title, I realised that in order to get a job such as this, I would have to familiarise myself with a range of coding software, which if the opportunity comes along, I will take. Even though we were given a detailed overview from the guest speaker about what 'User experience designer' is, I still wasn't fully satisfied that I knew entirely what this job entailed, thankfully, I found this informative Youtube video which taught me some more about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ovj4hFxko7c

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Animation Context - Week 6

'Gestalt' Animation

https://vimeo.com/189777395

As I previously mentioned, as part of our 'Expert in the Room' task, we were also required to make a piece of artwork or animation regarding our phrase/word. I decided to focus my animation on the 'Figures and Ground' aspect of gestalt, as I saw an opportunity to trick the observers via framing, which couldn't have been done with a piece of still artwork. I planned to produce a stylised and short video of a simple graphic image, which is zoomed out in and out of twice, with each zoom out relieving the graphic image to be apart of something different, therefore showing how different people can view things to resemble something else.

I wanted to create my own 'Figures and Ground' image, but after playing around with different silhouettes, I couldn't manage to create a object which can be preserved as more than one thing, so I had to turn to implementing my idea towards an already established and well known image. I was disappointing with my inability to produce something of my own, but am thankful that I can take an already excising image and expand upon it and bring it some more life.

I felt that the video was a bit too bland for my taste and relied too much on reading to be really engaging, so would have preferred to communicate what I set out to in a more effective way. I gave a very simple animation to the human figures by making them hi-five eachother to add a bit more liveliness to the piece. I animated this by separating aspects of the bodies and keyframing them in there desired positions, this didn't turn out as well as I hoped as certain body parts overlap eachother, ruining the illusion, but this technique is one that I definitely think I can expand and improve on further in the future.

I like the design and colour scheme that I have chosen and everything is laid out pleasantly, but I think the favorite aspect of this piece is that it loops, therefore could be constantly playing for anyone to look up and observe at anytime to get the full story.

I am pleased with the final result, though I still feel like I should have created my own 'Figures and Ground' image, as appose to recreating, animating and presenting an already existing one. The main thing was that I took an unknown topic, and applied a moving image to represent it, which I feel I have done reasonably well.

Animation Context - Week 5

Expert in the Room

For the 'Expert in the Room exercise, I was randomly selected to research 'Gestalt', then present my findings to the rest of the class, and then the following week produce a piece of artwork or animation related to my word. I found the research hard to exactly find, as there are many different ways this word can be interpreted, but once I found a decent explanation, the rest of the information became easy to come by. Here is what I found;

‘Gestalt’, was originally German, which translated to literally mean form or shape, but since then has been widely known as a theory regarding human perception, and therefore is a theory focused around Psychology (The study of the behaviour and mind). The idea is otherwise known as ‘Holism’, which is the idea that natural systems and their properties should be viewed as wholes, not as collections of parts. This Theory was first introduced by Max Wertheimer around the year of 1890.

The Gestalt theory can be categorised into 5 ‘Gestalt laws of perception’, they are as follows:

• Proximity - Proximity occurs when elements are placed close together. When this happens, the observer tends to perceive the individual elements as a group. The individual elements can all vary in tone, value, Colour, Shape, Size or any other physical attributes and still create the same illusion.

•  Similarity - Similarity has a similar premise to Proximity. This law suggests that elements have similar properties and utilise the visual elements in the same way, the mind is more likely to perceive them as a group.

•  Continuity - Continuity occurs when you vision is driven to move through one object and continue onto another.

• Figure and Ground - This law suggests how the mind separates certain forms from the space surrounding them. These are typically created using clever use of negative and positive space. If done correctly, the negative space could also be shifted to visualise a new image.

• Closure - The law of closure states that when observing objects and shapes, the mind can visualise them as being whole when they are not complete. This occurs because the mind has a tendency to see complete figures or forms even if a picture is incomplete, and attempts to fill in the gaps.

After being satisfied with the information that I have gathered, I then compiled all my information into a stylised powerpoint to present it, the results of which can be seen below.

After having feedback on how the all the presentations went, I can see a lot of ways in which I could improve my next presentation. The main areas for improvement is how much information is put onto the slides, as I put way too much information on each individual slide, and when it came to reading out each of them, I more or less just read them word for word, meaning that I could have just sent the presentation to everyone, and they would have received the same information, making me presenting it, pointless. The way around this is to put very simple bullet points on each slide, which I will refer to, but expand on each point myself. I also feel like I needed to interact with my audience a bit more, even if it was just giving more eye contact to the people I was presenting to. Although I was terrified for this exercise, I feel like what I have learned from it will come in very valuable for any future presentations. Although I feel my presentation wasn't a success, I have learnt a lot of valuable advice, and am also anticipating taking me research of this topic further in the next task. I think I will create a 2D or possibly stop motion animation demonstrating how gestalt can be used to create visual illusions for my next task.