Animation Context Essay Development #2

After feedback from my statement of intent from Johny, I was happy that he liked the idea, as it makes me think I made the right decision by ditching my first two initial ideas. This now meant that I could make a start on the research and start writing the essay.

Due to the fact that this is my first ever academic essay, I wanted to assure that I got Harvard referencing right, at first I relied on a website which would automatically generate references for my text, however I soon realised that this wasn't entirely accurate and kept supplying incorrect information regarding the source material, so I instead felt I needed to teach myself how to Harvard reference. This was done through using a referencing handbook PDF on blackboard. In order to quickly find information on how to reference a specific source type, I would use the Ctrl+F shortcut to search for a segment in the text which refers to a specific word, for example, when wondering how to reference a website, I would search for 'Website'. This proved to be a much more efficient manor, as not only can I control the information provided, thus assuring no mistakes are made, but it also teaches me how to do it again for a future essay, and I now feel confident that I can do so without the need of an online guide.

The newest series of South Park had a very mixed reception, meaning that it was sometimes hard to back up my claims that this format of storytelling is not beneficial for animation with sources. This meant that the essay ended up being a lot more neutral than I was expecting, but I still managed to provide an overview my thoughts successfully towards the end. However, it wasn't an issue to find sources which back up the fact that serialised shows are becoming more of a normality, as many sources suggested this. I didn't want the essay to be made up of entirely of secondary sources, so I carried out some semi-primary research myself, I did this by looking through what the most popular TV shows were in 2016, and then compared them to popular TV shows in 1997, and whilst the top 5 shows of 1997 are all episodic shows, 2016's most popular shows are almost all serialised. By carrying out this research myself, it indirectly lead me onto a topic which ended up becoming a central focus of the entire essay, which was the influence of technology and the emergence of Netflix and how that is a huge factor in the change in structure of modern TV shows. 

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to gather as many sources outside of the internet to include within my essay, this may be because I am dealing with very recent topics and therefore haven't been translated much into less modern mediums such as books. There was one book however that I found very useful, it was focused around primarily around aging in TV shows, and therefore touches up often on serialisation. The book was called 'Serializing Age' by Anita Wohlmann and Maricel Oro-Piquears.

'Serializing Age' by Anita Wohlmann and Maricel Oro-Piquears

I feel like I managed to structure the essay very well, focusing on a new but connected area each paragraph, and I managed to cover every question and area that I set out to research in my statment of intent. However, I found that a lot of content had to be cut due to the word count, as I also included a regarding how serialised shows compare to episodic shows when applied to Todorov's narrative theory, which states that all stories go through five separate stages; equilibrium, disruption of equilibrium, recognition of  disorder, attempt the restore equilibrium and finally a new equilibrium is created. I shown how not all serialised shows manage to cover all stages of this theory in a singular episode, and instead rely on covering stages in later episodes or even seasons. I cut this out in favour of the rest of the article, as it didn't add much to my argument and wasn't needed for the audience to know what serialisation is.

Overall, I am very happy with how my essay has turned out, as I have learnt a lot about a subject which I knew very little about, learnt how to Harvard reference, and think I have produced a good discussion. However, next time I have to select a topic to research, I will before proceeding with it, make sure that there is a lot of source material from a ranges of mediums to back up the information I collect, as I feel I was lacking in this compartment in this instance. The next step is to display this as a magazine cover, and as someone who has studied graphic design, I am anticipating what I can create.