Originally I was planning on using my sisters bedroom as the location for the bedroom scenes of my animation. The picture on the left shows this bedroom. As part of my animation involves her sat on her bed looking out of her window I thought this would be perfect. The room was quite dark and it was also hard to fit the tripod in. Another problem would be keeping this room the same ready for if any retakes were needed. It was then that I decided to use my bedroom as I could keep everything the way it was on the day of shooting and there was a little bit more space to move with the tripod. The tripod is a highly important piece of equipment and after trialling out making a stop motion without it I know that it is an important element. Therefore the more space and the better lighting provided by my bedroom would make shooting easier and the quality of the pictures better too.
The third image is the one taken from my room and as you can see there is still a window behind the headboard too so this can be used in the narrative still just from a different angle.
I have been researching different animations that have been made on the topic of cyber-bullying but I thought it would also be worthwhile looking at anti-bullying animations too as this is still very close to cyber-bulliyng of course.
I came across Bully (2010) an animation short that is on YouTube. This animation depicts two boys at their schools desks doing some work, the small nerdy looking boy is seen to be working away while the bigger tougher boy is sat picking his nose. A bee flies round each of them with the small boy carrying on his work whereas the bigger boy kills the bee. He then looks over and sees how the small boy is doing loads of work so decides to throw a rubber at him to disturb him. When that doesn't stop the boy from working he progresses to throw a sharpener to knock over all the small boys pens. The small boy does not react, he simply picks all the pens up placing them back into the pot with a smile on his face. This just angers the bully further, he turns his attention to a football he deliberately plays with by the small boys face before dropping it onto the table.
The animation then uses a montage to show all the ways the bully then tries to disturb the boy. I like this idea of being able to reflect everything without having to go into detail for each time he does something. I could use this technique for in my animation, when the people are posting nasty things to my character I can end up with the comments just piling up in a montage of clips. This would show the extent of the problem and the amount then girl has to deal with in a stylistic way.
Eventually the bully manages to get the small boy away from his desk so that he can scribble all over the boys work. The small boy is then seen looking horrified, the bully has finally gone too far, a bell chimes a few times to enhance the doom felt by this boy, his facial expression turns to anger. The animation zooms into the small boys face then shows the bully laughing and mocking him. The next thing we see is a corridor with the sounds of someone being beaten up, the bully then appear flying out of a door. The small boy is then seen with a determined expression picking up a pencil and continuing his work.
I like the way that this animation narrative shows how bullies keep on as they want a better reaction from their victim but eventually the victim will be pushed to the limit and snap. This animation shows the victim snapping and getting his own back, he is therefore a very strong character. A problem with this animation is that not many victims are strong, it has been said that the only way to ditch a bully is to stand up to them but then this narrative is promoting violence. The way in which he succeeds is through beating up the bully, which is not a message we want to teach children really. This has helped with my research into different endings of bullying animations as for my own I originally thought of using suicide but I have decided that just is not an effective ending as it shows no solution to the issue at hand.
People have been giving us loads of advice for making our process books, one of which is to always carry a notebook around with us to jot any ideas down. Thanks to technology I have been able to do this without actually intending to. The notes section on my iPhone has become a life saver in terms of writing down any thoughts I have about my project or reminders of what I need to make sure I have done. Below is an example of how I used my notes section to help plan out my narrative. I was on a train travelling home when in my head I started picturing how my animation would be without meaning to. I then knew if I didn't write any of my ideas down I would forget them.
I have decided the best way to start off my narrative would be with my character setting up her own social network page. I hope that this will help set the scene and will also show where the bullying has started from rather than just randomly occurring.
I have decided to incorporate stop motion images within my animation to reflect reality in its true form but still depicting movement. I plan to then animate the main character within these shots in some of the scenes to symbolise how she has become part of this virtual world. I have attempted to capture the stop motion shots this week but I struggled with setting the interval timer shooting settings and therefore failed. I ended up taking each shot myself which did not have the flow needed and I also had not considered using a tripod, which on reflection I will now for my next shoot.
The images above are all my initial attempts at creating a stop motion reel of photographs and as you can see they do not exactly flow into one another. As I could not manage to set up the interval timer setting I had resorted to taking as many pictures as I could in the shortest space of time. At one point I was asking my model to act in slow motion so that the camera would pick up each change. This was a good trial for the location and also for how the scene would be set up but I knew these could not be used in my actual project.
As I have my own SLR, the Nikon D5000, I have chosen to research into how to set up my camera correctly in order to produce a stop motion project. The website below outlined exactly how I alter the settings specifically for my model. I need to go to the Interval Shooting Mode and set the amount of frames per second. The site also mentioned changing the Shutter Priority Mode of 0.8 seconds and set the image quality to JPEG Medium. Along with this it is also stated that it is preferable to use a tripod in order to maintain continuity.
The images below are my second attempt at stop motion. This time I had researched into it properly and I had a tripod so these images are really successful and will be used for my final project.
Seeing as I have now decided upon how I am going to make my character I thought I should try and animate her using Flash. I have decided that I want to make my character by rotoscoping over a photograph. As my drawings skills are not so great this works well for me and I also believe it looks the most effective too. I found this image quite easy and basic to animate. The thing I have to consider is that this was just one image whereas for my real project I am going to have to draw around each image before animating it like this so it will be time consuming but it will be worth it in the end.
I have recently been engrossing myself in the works uploaded on the website www.shortoftheweek.com. The website is a place where new work in a variety of media fields and from artists all over the world is uploaded every week. This week I stumbled across The Boy Who Wants to be a Lion (2010) by Alois Di Leo. The Boy Who Wants to be a Lion (2010) is an animated short film that is set in the 1960s based on a seven year old deaf boy called Max. He goes on a school trip to the zoo where he sees a lion for the first time. Suddenly his life begins to change forever as his feelings develop.
Alois Di Leo was born in Peru and grew up in Sao Paulo, he came to England to study at the National Film and Television School and this short film was his graduation project.It has gone on to win many prizes including the Lotte Reiniger Promotion Award for Animated Film at Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film.
I find Alois Di Leo's work inspiring, his use of theme and the style which he adopts throughout help to aid the animation in many ways. The Boy Who Wants to be a Lion (2010) is a simple drawn animation, this style is perfect because the film is set in the 1960s and animation would have been basic back then, none of this computer generated content. The colour scheme is kept to orange, yellow and brown hues which also works with the time it is set. Oswald Iten has spoken about how typically "the use of "golden" light is for romantic scenes" (Iten, 2009). Iten's thoughts can be applied to this animation because the narrative is based around a young boys fascination with lions.
The image above is a scene which caught my eye from The Boy Who Wants to be a Lion (2010). This has inspired me to consider the spatial arrangement in the scenes of my own animation. In order to show the mental turmoil my character faces I plan to create a collage of all the nasty comments which will be seen to fill her mind completely. this will be when I would like her to develop into an animated character. It will be as if the comments have literally imprinted on her brain.
I have started considering how I would like my animation to be showcased at the degree show. I wanted to keep the style of the narrative and incorporate the theme in the display. At the exhibition location there is a dungeon room which is what has inspired my presentation. The image on the left depicts how I visualize the rooms appearance. I would like to have one wall as the screen for my animation and then the ceiling and each of the free walls will be covered in posts and comments from the cyber-bullies. The will then follow on with the psychological theme of the project and in turn it will reflect the inner turmoil faced by the main character. The dungeon room will mirror the dungeon of the girls mind. It will show the power such comments have on a persons life and the way they stick in the mind. When watching my animation the viewers will be able to understand how daunting these comments are because they are surrounded by them. It also reflects how even if there have been some good things going on in your life it is in our nature to focus on the negative parts. Therefore a nasty comment can do a lot more damage than a nice comment can good.
The installation of my project is therefore based around enriching the content and effect of the narrative but it also enhances the viewers experience. With this in mind I have also had another idea for the way in which my project will be exhibited, a tree. I recently attended a wedding which inspired me with the idea of placing a fake tree in the room which displays my animation. At the wedding guests were encouraged to leave messages to the couple about anything to do with them or the day. My tree will be for the viewers to leave their comments and posts, helping the viewers to engage with the project. The comments can be on the project, on the subject of cyber bullying or just how that person is feeling at that time.
If my project can ideally be showcased in this way then I believe it will generate an enthusiastic response from the viewers.It will make my project so much more interesting and exciting.
The visual appearance of my character is highly important as it needs to be reflective of everything the character is seen to symbolise but it also sets the style of the animation. I decided to choose how I would portray and depict my main character before making any other decisions on how the rest of my animation will be designed and made.
The imade below shows a 2D hand drawing that I have produced to see if this is a style or technique that I could use throughout my project. I have decided that this drawing is very basic and I do not have the skills to draw my entire animation. Therefore this will not be the style I will use for my project.
This next image was produced using the shape tool and brush tool on Adobe Illustrator. I think this character looks to young for my project as I plan for my main character to be around 15/16 years old. I do feel this technique worked quite well for creating a character however.
The two images below were produced by rotoscoping over an image on Adobe Photoshop. I found this technique worked really well and I think both images are very aesthetically pleasing. As you can see with the second image I attempted to incorporate colour as well though I do not feel that this was very effective. As I have also just decided to do the represent the struggle between the real world and the virtual world I think this technique for my character looks the most lifelike. I also think that if I am going to be using real image photographs with only the character animated then black and white seems the most striking. Therefore I think it would be best to use rotoscoping on PhotoShop to create my character and to also keep it simple with just black and white so that she stands out more in the animation.
Since coming across the cinemagraphs produced by Beck and Burg I have been contemplating this idea of combining to aspects of the media. I find it fascinating how much our lives depend on the internet for information and as a way to communicate with anyone, anywhere, any time. It is because of this dependence that the distinctions between the virtual and the real are not so bold and defined any more.
This image is one I created on Adobe Photoshop as a test of combining the real world with the virtual world to see how effective it would look. I used a photo of the iconic London landscape as I liked how most people would be able to identify with this. The technique I used was called rotoscoping which is where I literally just drew on top of the photo to gain this effect. The reaction to this image is to do a double take because it all looks animated at first glance but when you really look at it just the sky and river have been animated. I love the effect this style has and how it works really well in terms of blurring the virtual world and reality.
This artistic and original approach is perfect for my project, this has helped to confirm this is the style I want to use. I will rotoscope a load of images in order to tell the story in more ways than one, the style and appearance of the animation will reinforce my narrative.
I then chose to animated this image further on Flash to see how it would turn out. The video is shown above. As you can see I did not scale the image down before making this animation before I animated the clouds to move. Looking back at it I now know for next time to scale the image down to the size of the stage first.
Since I have now decided on a logo I decided to try and have a go at creating an animation around it to try out for my main project. I chose to animate it as if you were opening up the website. I made each of the letters in the logo wobble to make it more exciting but I have decided it doesn't look effective enough. I think the colour scheme and style of the logo look really good and I feel these can be used for the real project.
Originally I was planning on using my sisters bedroom as the location for the bedroom scenes of my animation. The picture on the left shows this bedroom. As part of my animation involves her sat on her bed looking out of her window I thought this would be perfect. The room was quite dark and it was also hard to fit the tripod in. Another problem would be keeping this room the same ready for if any retakes were needed. It was then that I decided to use my bedroom as I could keep everything the way it was on the day of shooting and there was a little bit more space to move with the tripod. The tripod is a highly important piece of equipment and after trialling out making a stop motion without it I know that it is an important element. Therefore the more space and the better lighting provided by my bedroom would make shooting easier and the quality of the pictures better too.
