Social Networks in the News: Toddlers as Young as 3 to Learn About Internet Dangers

DailyMail Article: Toddlers as young as 3 should be taught the dark side of the internet

When on the Daily Mail today I found this story about how ministers now believe that internet education can never start too young and the government have set about creating new campaigns to educate our youngest generations. The growth in technology has led to really young children being at risk to the online world. I am always using the train and bus as a way to get around and the amount of times I have seen a parent give their child their smart phone or tablet to play on is huge. These new exciting forms of technology offer vast forms of entertainment and occupation but they also put more and more children at risk of the dangers the internet has to offer.

'With toddlers frequently using web-linked devices like iPads, the government says educating them about the risks cannot start too soon. Very young children will be told how to manage their 'on-line identity' and why they should not put 'inappropriate' information on the internet.'

The article points out that officially children under the age of 13 are not allowed to use Facebook. However it does not take a rocket  scientist to realise that all you have to do is change your year of birth when signing up to 13+ to be allowed.

I did consider using this aspect within my animation before but decided I would then be trying to cover too much ground and would risk complicating my project. I thought about using a child who had just begun at secondary school so would have been aged 11 who joined Facebook in order to fit in but then became the target of cyber-bullies. In the end I decided my project would be stronger if I just focused on cyber-bullyng rather than covering under-age use too.

My Narrative Description

When the Virtual Becomes Real is an animation short that is based around the issue of cyber-bullying. The narrative and the style of the animation have been chosen to question the psychological effects that cyber-bullying can have on an individual and how cyber-bullies can be overcome. The style of animation will be stop motion photography but with animation over the top to blend the real world with the virtual on-line world together.

When the Virtual Becomes Real starts off with Rosie Shepherd, a sixteen year old school girl walking home from school. She reads a news story on her phone which talks about how popular the social network site Your Book is and how any teenagers without it risk becoming outcasts. Therefore once she gets home she goes into the study and decides to sign up to Your Book. Once she has created her profile she goes through adding all of the people she knows from school.

The next morning when she is woken by her alarm clock she sees that a few of the people have already started accepting her friend requests. Feeling happy and popular she gets ready and leaves for school. As soon as she arrives home again that afternoon she logs straight onto Your Book to check out her profile. She sees someone has written on her profile about how they love that she has finally got Your Book, it is some girl who she doesn’t know too well but this doesn’t stop her feeling excited. As the evening progresses her phone updates her as people start to like that comment. Slowly people start leaving other comments to dig at Rosie. Over the next few days anything she does or says on Your Book starts to receive more and more negative reactions.

As the nasty comments build Rosie gets more and more upset, she gets receives a lot of nasty responses to a photo she has uploaded of her and her cat. The comments even say how the cat is Rosie’s only friend. Rosie herself suddenly becomes animated herself. All the abuse is too much and too real for her, what had just been something virtual before is completely real and the comments have become imbedded within her mind. We see a sequence which shows the comments floating around in her mind, never going away.

Rosie is then shown struggling to sleep and then struggling to get ready for school as she becomes depressed. She can’t take it anymore, finally one afternoon after receiving more cyber abuse on her profile she closes the laptop and pushes it away. She sits in bed upset hugging a teddy for comfort. She is looking out at the window when she sees a vision in her head. The vision is of her taking a load of pills in order to end all her pain and suffering, escaping this nasty world. Suicide is an option that many victims to take, but not Rosie. She then closes the blind banishing those thoughts; she will not let the bullies defeat her. Instead she opens the laptop back up and instead goes through blocking every single person who has cause her pain over Your Book. The cyber-bullies can no longer access her, the platform which they relied on for their abuse has been removed. 

Actual Project: Rotoscoped Images

Here are the rotoscoped images that I have been creating for my project. I am really pleased with how they look and I believe once it is altogether in Flash it will work really well. One problem I have encountered is just how long it takes to rotoscope over each picture. Each image is taking me around an hour to an hour and a half to simply draw over. This is a long a lengthy process but it will be worth it in the end. 

The Snowman and The Snowdog

Tonight I have watched The Snowman and The Snowdog, the new sequel to The Snowman (1982). It followed the same generic simple style so would appeal straight to its original viewer ship. The film is set in the same house as before and uses the same snowman as the main character, there was also an inter-textual reference to the old film with the boy discovering a photo of the young boy from before with the snowman. Like the previous animation there is no speech throughout, just a piece of music and then one song. Yet again even the use of sound is the same as the previous animation which means your attention is fully focused on the narrative unfolding through the illustrations. Apparently there were concerns that the simple hand drawn style would be lost on the young high-tech audiences of today who are used to computer generated content.

The poster which advertised the program is completely in keeping with the original style with the same illustrations used too. I find it interesting how even The Snowman and The Snowdog has its own hashtag to connect it with the social network twitter. Seeing as my animation is based around social networks I find that this poster highlights the fact that social networking is now associated with pretty much anything. The Snowman and The Snowdog is a children's program, granted many adults will connect with it due to its prequel but it is primarily a children's story, is the hashtag targetting its older audience or are children that young involved too?

DailyMail Article: Raymond Briggs talking about The Snowman

Originally Raymond Briggs was completely against the idea of creating a sequel to The Snowman. 'I thought it was just cashing in on the success of the original, and that's why I was always so against it' Raymond Brigges. This shows how he produced his work without the constraints of economic gain, he did it for the love of the story and for the love of the painting. I believe this is reflected in his work, when someone produces something purely because it is something they are passionate about it tends to be reflective in the quality which has in turn led to success.

DailyMail: 'Animation draws one of Channel 4's biggest audiences of the year'

The article above from the next day shows that The Snowman and The Snowdog received a massive reception with 5.8 million sitting down to watch the half hour long animation. This shows that even though technology and animation techniques have been developed greatly since the first film, audiences are still satisfied with a simple, back to basics animation.

The film kept to the traditional ways of creating an animation, drawing it all by hand, which meant it took them a year to complete. The process required 77 artists, using 200,000 pieces of paper and 5,000 pencils. They worked at 12 frames per second, with each second taking 30 hours. These facts help highlight to me just how much time and effort I will be putting into my own animation over the next few months. Once May and the final deadline arrives it will all be worth it.

The Snowman

As it is Christmas time there have been many festive animations around to engross myself in and to reflect on. One famous animation is 'The Snowman' and this Christmas eve the highly anticipated sequel 'The Snowman and the Snow Dog' is to be aired.
The Snowman was created by Raymond Briggs in 1982 and as stated on the official website is has been"..shown every year since 1982, enchanting new generations time and time again...". It is therefore a powerful animation that many people can connect with. It has become part of a Christmas tradition for many families each year.

The Snowman reveals how an animation has the ability to become iconic, the story itself grips the audience but the illustration style also becomes familiar. Raymond Briggs both writes and illustrates his own stories, with The Snowman being originally created as a book before being adapted into an on-screen production. An interesting part of the film is that there are no sounds other than a song called "Walking in the Air" by Howard Blake. I like how the limited use of sound keeps the animation so simple and then creates more focus on the power of the image and how the story is told through the illustrations.

Naming My Project: When the Virtual Becomes Real

I have been trying to come up with a name that best suits my project and what its stands for. I need something that is short but sounds good. It needs to be something I am willing to have it displayed as for the degree show. Therefore considering the style that I have chosen to use for making my animation I believe the best name for it would be When the Virtual Becomes Real.

Social Networking in the News: Child Abuse

Today I found an article which highlights some of the scary dangers surrounding social networks. It has been discovered that gangs of child abusers have been using Facebook and other social networks to target children. The article quotes that the predators "trawl through 'menus' of potential victims and plan sickening sex parties.". The article even starts how it is now rare for any abuse case to not involve technology of some kind such as mobile phones. 

Facebook provides the perfect set up for these predators in that you can be whoever you want to be in the virtual world. When setting up a profile you can choose anything you like, setting up a fake account is simple and easy. This helps child abusers gain access to children, they can pretend to be one themselves in order to get closer to their victim.

This was another aspect of social networking that I had considered covering myself because of the seriousness of the issue. However after I read the story of Amanda I decided to focus on cyber-bullying instead. I do still find it fascinating how something as vast and powerful as the internet can be so dark and dangerous in many different ways.