Researching Techniques: James Beck and Kevin Burg

I came across the works of James Beck and Kevin Burg when I was researching work that had been done with animating photographs as this is a style I am considering using. Beck and Burg combined their creative skills together in order to produce their works, one of them was a photographer and the other a graphics designer. Together they created the first ever 'cinemagraphs', they merged living moments onto a photograph. These are extremely interesting and artistic productions. When you first look at them they seem like a stop motion video in that only a certain aspect of the photograph moves whereas the rest it still and unchanging.

As you can see from this image above the ladies scarf is the only thing moving, the rest is a still image. Beck and Burg use this technique to “evoke the right kind of emotions”(Deangdeelert, 2012). I find their work fascinating. Their work has an air of simplicity to it but at the same time amazes you with the technique used to carry it out. I like the idea of having parts of an image stationary while the rest moves, I would like to incorporate this notion within my project but with some aspects of the photograph rotoscoped and animated from there.

How to Develop a Character

Planning out your characters is extremely important to complete and enhance the narrative of a piece of work. By creating your main character, developing their visual style and their characteristics, you can then start to plan out the plot. I read the chapter 'Character Development Over Time' in Animated Performance by Nancy Beiman.

'An animated character develops a character arc through learning a life lesson', realising an error, overcoming and obstacle or discovering its own strength' (Beinman, 2010:218)
I am taking this fully into account when creating my own main character, Rosie Shepherd. My character will be a victim of cyber bullying which means there are a lot of obstacles that she will be faced with. Theses will help to shape her character and to pull the narrative along. I have been trying to determine how my story will end, what will be the final solution. After reading the news stories on Amanda and other teenagers who have suffered in the same way I thought I would end the story with the girl committing suicide to highlight how drastic the consequences are. However after some thought I decided this was too much of an easy end, it was not exciting in anyway and offers no solution or hope. Therefore taking into account Beiman's thoughts I have decided that Rosie will suddenly snap, having had enough of her treatment and then grow in strength. She will overcome the cyber-bullying by going through blocking them, changing privacy settings, removing the platform that the internet had created for the bullies.

Beinman refers to Superman as a character example within this chapter, describing how he was born invisible and fought criminals. The audience then find themselves able to relate more with a character if they are seen to be nothing out of the ordinary. Superman makes them believe that anybody can make a stand against criminals. In terms of my animation it will prove that anyone can become a victim but also that you can have the power to stop it too.

Research: The Social Network Movie

I decided that seeing as I am doing an animation on social networks it would be worthwhile having a look at the film The Social Network (2010). The Social Network is based around how Facebook was created and that battles it had as people got to grips with the site, including the reactions they had with the features. The image to the right is one of the promotional posters for the film. This statement conveys how even creating a ‘social community’ leads to negative effects on the social lives of many involved. "In a fury of blogging and programming, what begins in his [Mark Zuckerbergs] dorm room soon becomes a global social network and a revolution in communication."

I found a blog written by someone called Aaron who commented on the fact that the only parts of this poster which convey it is about Facebook is the blue bar down the side and then that fact it says "500 million friends". Just by seeing that statement everybody knows it is referring to Facebook and to on-line, virtual friends.

Link to Aaron's Blog on The Social Network

One of the main characters in the film is Mark, the actual inventor and programmer of the page. He's girlfriend makes an enlightening claim by pointing out that "the Internet's not written in pencil, Mark, it's written in ink"(The Social Network, 2010). The film therefore reveals how once something is posted or uploaded on-line there is no going back, you may be able to delete it but it will remain in archives stored forever. Anything placed on-line cannot just be erased. This raises concerns over privacy and security issues that we face when using the internet, many do not think about the harm they could be doing with what they post.

Laptop Design Trials

Below is an image of a laptop I drew using Adobe Illustrator. As I have not decided on how I will make my animation yet I thought it would be a good idea to have a go at making a laptop at least to see how effective it would look once animated. The laptop keyboard looks very wonky on reflection but this is something that I can change easily should I choose to use it. 

Underneath is an image of a laptop that I am considering using but just animating the screen of it with the webpages. I have yet to decide which style to use but I do like the look of the animated laptop I am just worried about how to completing animate the main character properly.

Software Options

An important part of making my animation is choosing the software to produce it on. Last year I created an animation using Adobe Flash along with Adobe Photoshop. I have also previously made a stop motion animation using iStop Motion. Previous experience with software will help to make my project much stronger on a technical level. I gained the opportunity this year to trial out using AfterEffects too, which I was interested in as the projects produced on this program have cool editing touches. I have struggled to grasp how to use AfterEffects and really cannot get on with the software tools. This would extend the production time of my project and could mean more problems would be created than necessary. Therefore the software that I have chosen to use is Adobe Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator. The main animation will be pieced together through Flash with the different elements created on Photoshop and Illustrator.

My Logo Design

As I am creating my own social network I now need to design the logo for it and chose what colour scheme I will use as the basis of the page. I cannot use blue as I feel this is too similar to Facebook and I do want my social network to stand as its own, especially because of copyright reasons too.
I originally liked the idea of using red and black for my colour scheme but after playing around and creating some logo ideas I decided it seemed to harsh and did not reflect a friendly site.

I felt I needed a more neutral colour scheme which is how I got on to working with green for my colour scheme. Green has neutral connotation and it is not gender specific so would be perfect for a social network page. Below you can also see how I have started trying to see how I would set out the site as well. 

Tutorial Notes: Using After Effects

A Change of Idea - Cyber-Bullying: Amanda Todd

I am always up-to-date on the news and current affairs going on in the world through my regular use of sites such as the Daily Mail, The Independent and Sky News. It was when I was reading through the news feed on the Independent that I came across a chilling story about cyber-bullying. Amanda Todd was a fifteen year old girl from Canada who had fallen victim to cyber-bullies. In an attempt to drive the bullies away Amanda created a YouTube video explaining how all this victimization made her feel and asking for it to stop. The video had the opposite affect as it just supplied more fuel for the bullies. A week after Amanda uploaded this video she decided life was not worth living and committed suicide. The video has now been watched by hundreds of thousands and this story has shocked so many people but the problem is this is becoming an increasing problem. More and more children are choosing to die in order to escape the bullies.

One of the reasons for this increase is the use of social networks for communication. By using social networks people feel like they can hide behind them, it gives them the opportunity to say what they would not have the courage to say in person. For Amanda YouTube gave her a platform to cry for help but devastatingly it was social networks that had caused the problem by providing a way for the bullies to target her in the first place. This ties in with a point mentioned in one of my previous posts on the film The Social Network, the fact that what is written on-line cannot be erased as such, even when you delete something it becomes archived. More than that though the effects of what has been said are what can never go away, can never be taken back. For Amanda the nasty words of these individuals haunted her until the day she died, because a great deal of bullying takes place on-line the comments are there for all to see, for anyone to add to. It is a tool used by cowards, without the provision of social networks many would never begin to say the things they have in person.

After reading about Amanda I have decided to change the narrative and theme of my animation. I will now focus my animation on the psychological effects these on-line networks have on the individual, both emotionally and socially. Just like Amanda my main character will be a young girl which seems to enhance her vulnerability. I will show how she becomes a target for the cyber-bullies and then I will show the effects this has on her and the turmoil she suffers.I want to show her inner most thoughts and struggles so I plan to create a few almost fantasy scenes which represent her mind.

Designing My Social Network

Due to copyright reasons I cannot use Facebook or Twitter within my own animation, so instead I will be creating my own. I like this idea as it also makes my project universal, and not just specific to Facebook users as there are so many different social networks out there it would be great to create my own page. Below is few different choices of names that I have considered for my own social network. I have decided to opt for YourBook as the title I will stick with.

Tutorial Notes: Using Flash

Facebook in the News: Tracking Your Life Offline

'How Facebook will track your offline life with Datalogix'
Grace Nasari
Digital Trends
October, 2012
http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/fb-datalogix/


Seeing that my potential project idea is based around the idea of showing someone's life through social networking I felt that this article was useful. Facebook as a company are now able to follow your life even when you are no longer on-line. I find it fascinating how you can learn so much about a persons life through their on-line profile but it is all information that the individual has chosen to display. The fact Facebook now have access to information about us that is out of our control is quite a daunting prospect and shows the power of technology. The article states that;

'the social network has time and time again been criticized for violating privacy in its quest to be an ad platform.'

Facebook manipulates your information for its own personal gain, exploiting our 'private profiles'. However it is us that chooses to place ourselves and this information on-line. We have then set the foundations for them as a company to be able to cross the line. The new partnership with Datalogix means that all our offline shopping and purchases will be able to be monitored. We are opted into this program by default when signing up and agreeing to Facebook terms and conditions, therefore there is no way to get away from it.

Research: Animations using Facebook

I have begun searching into other animations that use social networks as their focus or within them to get an idea of what others have done. It is interesting to see how others have decided to set up a narrative around a site such as Facebook but I am also interested in what techniques and styles they used.

The video below I found on YouTube, it was created by a user named as HolidayCarrot. I really enjoyed this animation as I found it so simple yet it seemed such a good idea. The technique used is stop motion but the story is told through a profile picture on Facebook. There is not much of a storyline to it as such but I still really like this animation, I have tried to see if this guy has created any other animations but there is only one which is of drawn out stick men. I want to try this idea out myself though I do not plan on using it to tell my story it could always be an element within my animation.

Facebook in the News: Facebook Makes Us Depressed

Seeing Other People’s Happy Lives On Facebook Makes Us Depressed

Jacob Sloan

January 2011

http://www.disinfo.com/2011/01/seeing-other-peoples-happy-lives-on-facebook-makes-us-depressed/

This news article believes that Facebook can cause us to feel down and depressed about our lives when others look so good and happy. Many of us try to portray we have such amazing and fun filled lives even if we do not yet still when we see others supposedly having the 'time of their lives' by the look of their profile we automatically become dissatisfied with our own lives.

There is even a group on Facebook that people can 'Like' to show agreement on this matter. This group is named 'Watching peoples lives fall apart via status updates and news feeds'. In the section that displays what the group is about it states "For those of us who laugh in the face of other people's online misery"
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Watching-peoples-lives-fall-apart-via-status-updates-and-news-feeds/202063340259

Brainstorm of Ideas Surrounding Social Networks

Above is a spider diagram showing my thoughts on using social networks as the basis for my animation narrative. I have decided I like the idea of showing a persons life through the on-line world, a virtual life. The way in which Facebook has morphed into a timeline of your life means we have the chance to learn a great deal about each other through profile pages. Once you are a 'friend' on Facebook you can find out an enormous amount of information about a person such as where they live, what school they went to, where they have worked. A full employment history can be displayed along with all the locations a person has previously lived.I find this concept fascinating, the idea of not even knowing someone yet knowing some of their most personal details.

As you can see from the diagram I like the idea of combining a wide range of on-line technology to tell the narrative and do show how easy it is to depict someone's life just through websites.I am going to show a person checked in on Facebook at Brighton Pier for example and then use Google maps to zoom in and find the location. It would then switch to street view to show the location in real life, I would then switch to an uploaded photo of the person and a friend published via instagram. These are just initial thoughts into how my narrative could take form with this idea as the theme.

The left hand top corner of the diagram shows how I have considered creating a stop motion animation which is satirical towards the virtual world, it would make a mockery of our reliance on technology for communication and information.I liked the idea of having two characters discussing a couple they know, with one being convinced they are in a relationship but the other one states no they are not 'Facebook official'. This is based around the idea many young adults and teenagers believe that once you are 'Facebook official' you are then classed as a proper item, it has been announced to the world so to speak. In order to convey this I wanted to follow a similar style to that of creature comforts, with plasticine characters filmed into a stop motion creation. Just focusing on peoples conversations about the different networks and showing the ridiculous nature of our society.

Stop Motion Research

Since researching into Allison Schulnik I have decided to look into stop motion further. I had not really considered using this as a technique for my project this year but now I am interested to see if it would be an affective form for my narrative. I have become interested in the use of plasticine or play doh in creating characters, I have ordered myself some plasticine so that I can fully experiment with this style for myself. I am interested to see if I am able to make good characters and I am also interested in just making a stop motion production with models.

I have made a short stop motion animation in the past with can be seen below. I made this as something to showcase for my secondary schools open evening in the media labs. This was quick and easy to make but it still looks affective. There are issues with the lighting changing slightly but for something that was made in about half hour I think it turned out well. For this I used cut out shapes of fish and seaweed for my characters and setting. I enjoyed making this so it will be good to trial it out again for consideration when making my final project.

I decided to find out about other stop motion animations out there to look at different styles and how they worked in a narrative to. The video below is called 'Animal Love: Stop Motion Animation Video'. The animation features a range of different animals, all modelled out of plasticine, chatting away to the 'camera' about finding love.

Allison Schulnik's Work

After being told about Allison Schulnik in class I was drawn 
to her work so decided to research her further. Allison was born in 1978, she lives and works in LA, California. She is an artist, sculptor and animator, who has a very unique style! The idea of using stop motion as an animation technique really appeals to me.

 Her film called Mound shows how detailed her pieces of art are which gives the animation a very stylistic touch. I love the opening title sequence to Mound, it is such a simple idea with a simple sketch of flowers and petals which all fly off in different directions. Sometimes the simplest of designs can be the most affective, this opening sequence proves that. I would love to be able to create a piece using this as an inspiration if I had adequate drawing skills. As I cannot draw I am now attracted to the models/figures Allison uses for her actual animation narratives. 

Each of the sculptures are bought to life through using stop motion as the animation technique. By using stop motion Allison was able to slowly change the features of her models so that when played in a sequence and sped up they not only move but convey emotions too. Some of the clowns are shown with their facial expressions changing from a smile to a frown to their whole face melting down then reassembling as a new face.

Animation: Genre and Authorship (2002) by Paul Wells

This year I will be developing and creating an animation project as part of my degree. I have decided to start off my research by reading in to what an animation really is and finding out what different scholars have to say. This can then help to shape my ideas and themes for my own animation.

One book I have read is Animation: Genre and Authorship (2002) by Paul Wells. Paul believes that animation "is the most important creative form of the twenty-first century". Animation shifts and adapts with new technologies, its a modern form of art which places it very much in the now in my point of view. Wells recognises how integrated animation is within our lives, "animation is everywhere". He also discusses how it is usually referred to as the 'cartoon medium'. Animation takes part in almost every media form, many television shows take this form although it is primarily considered to be children's programs but this is not the case. Animation is sometimes used within a text to explain or show something which you would struggle to convey otherwise. Many films nowadays have animatic special effects in their editing. Wells mentions how an Oscar category has been created to recognise animation pieces.This book also refers to Preston Blair and how he perceives 'animation as a craft-oriented process'.

Different types of animation

• clay animation

• puppet or model animation
• the manipulation of objects and materials
• sand on glass
• cut out and silhouette animation

• computer generated animation 

Simon's Cat

Simon's Cat is a series of short animations that began on YouTube. The style of the animations is very simple with its characters just drawn out in black on a plain white background. The videos play around a comic narrative surrounding the cat and what it does to its owner which has proved extremely popular. The animator behind these 'masterpieces' is Simon Tofield, he began animating at a young age and as you can see by his projects he was inspired by cartoons. He does own cats himself so can be seen to base elements of his narrative on how cats behave. He does spend time drawing out each bit of detail at a time which does mean each clip takes him a while to produce but he does use Adobe Flash to piece it altogether in a smooth format.

The success can be seen in an article in the Daily Mail which can be accessed on this link. 'Feline phenomenon Simon's Cat stars in his debut full-length COLOUR book and new online animation' There is now a new children's book that has been released by Simon based around his on-line animations. The audience of this book would be targeting children but his on-line animations show that adults love them too. He is considering releasing a DVD holding all of his videos but they are all on his YouTube channel for all to see. As you can see from the image below the progression to books has meant Simon can be more detailed within his sketches adding lots of background images. He has also transgressed into combining colour within the book as well, this would have been more time consuming to do when it comes to an animation video.

Lecture - Daisy Asquith

I attended a lecture held by Daisy Asquith discussing her work and career but also focusing on her latest project, Our Holocaust. Our Holocaust is a historical documentary that will be shown on Channel 4. Channel 4's own website describes the documentary as 'an important historical and visual document' showing 'the strength, determination and character of Holocaust survivors'. Apparently Steven Spielberg is also doing a similar project to this one.

Daisy wanted to show how the survivors were now in the present day, to see if the Holocaust still continued to impact their lives and to hear their own accounts of that dreadful time. Daisy even interviewed their family members to find out their opinion on the impact the Holocaust has had on them by living and growing up with the survivor. 

When filming the documentary Daisy was focused on re-humanising the victims by showing their lives now rather than back then as all other documentaries do. She wanted to avoid showing old photos and footage from the Holocaust itself and focus instead on the present. She set about just filming the everyday and seemingly ordinary behaviour. This approach meant it did become clear where the Holocaust still haunted its victims, for example one victim got annoyed and panicky when his food was not ready at the agreed time. This would then link back to his days in the concentration camps when he would be starving for food and whatever he did get came at the same time everyday, it shows that when it is not on time his brain worries about not getting it.

When a project is based on such a sensitive matter like this Daisy had to be careful not to re-traumatise the victims again by having them retell their stories. Therefore she had to be careful and sensitive about what she was discussing and probing the subjects for. The participants in her documentary are ones who are part of a charity of survivors and were used to talking about their experiences. There are some survivors however who have never told their stories and will be taking them to the grave, there would be no point in Daisy using these silent survivors for her documentary.

You have to remember that the subject is performing for you no matter how you try to remove your influence it will always be there. Like the example I mentioned earlier, the victims wife was only late preparing dinner because of the camera crew being there, if they had not been we may have never known how this affected him. The situation provided good footage and revealed the impact of the Holocaust well but was then again impacted by Daisy's presence. Also when interviewing family members such as their partners and children Daisy would ask questions they had never really faced before, and as the interviews were still with the whole family present it meant some issues were brought up that had never been discussed with the interviewer before.