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.

The Smurf Movie

The Smurf Movie which was released in August 2011 is another media text that incorporates both real image and animated content. I thought this would be good to research as it is following a similar style to my project. The fact that the cartoon characters were going to be shown in the 'real' world made the film a lot more exciting and a lot more interesting than the typical animated film. The animated characters are portrayed to be completely normal within this real world which has worked really well.



The difference with this movie however is that it is all computer generated content. This has made the characters 3D and look more life like. For my animation I will have just 2D animation and I will combine it with stop motion photography instead of video footage.

Social Networking in the News: Does not joing Facebook make you a psychopath?

DailyMail Article: Is not joining Facebook a sign you're a psychopath?

When researching into social networks I came across an article which talks about how by not being on social networks such as Facebook may reflect that you are a psychopath. When applying for jobs nowadays many companies will research your social networks as things such as your profile picture, and things you have liked or groups you are part of can indicate what your character is really like. This means what you put on-line can now impact your future in terms of careers.This article also adds to our cultures obsession with social networks in the fact that if you are not part of this virtual world you are also penalised. It is seen as 'suspicious' if you do not have Facebook, you connote the signs of being a social recluse.
The article uses examples of psychopaths who have been absent from social networks.

'The German magazine Der Taggspiegel went so far as to point out that accused theatre shooter James Holmes and Norwegian mass murder Anders Behring Breivik have common ground in their lack of Facebook profiles.'

A main concern for employers is also that a persons profile contained so many 'red flags' that they had to remove the profile. It could also highlight the chance the person may be concealing their real identity by using a different name.

I think it is amazing the power social networking has and articles such as this one show how embedded this form of technology is in our society now. It is a way of gaining extended information on someone, on viewing their personal and private lives. Interviews are no longer the singular basis on you securing a job. Yet considering all of this people still seem to underestimate the power of the content they post on-line. Something that may seem like a joke could be there for everyone to see and could be used to judge your personality and nature.

When making my animation on cyber-bullying people talk about how children do not realise the impact of the things they post on-line when really none of our society seems to. People may say the safest bet is to stay clear of these social networks but then as this article confirms that also reflects badly.

Storyboard Changes

 After producing the first few shots from the storyboard I previously uploaded I have decided this is not strong enough to start the animation on. I have now drawn out some new scenes to come before in order to help set the scene better. The animation will then progress into what I have done after this new extended beginning.  The animation will now start with the girl walking home from school to show how she is in fact a school girl. She will be looking at her mobile phone reading a news article that is about how teenagers who do not use Your Book become social outcasts from their peers. She will then reach home then cut to the scenes I was originally going to start with to show her setting up her profile page.

Lizzie McGuire

After watching Lizzie McGuire when I was a child I suddenly realised that this would be a good text to look at because of its use of moving image with animation. The Disney Channel television series is about a teenage girl, following the struggles in her family life and  her school life. An animated character is used to depict her internal thoughts and ideas as they occur. The animated character also then acts as a narrator for the show helping create understanding of different choices Lizzie makes, it is also used to provide background knowledge to her reasoning too.

It is useful to look at texts such as this because my animation will be a combination of photography and animation. I thought it would be worthwhile for me to research into other people who have used this idea too. In Lizzie McGuire the animated character speaks directly to the audience which does work really well but I have decided I would like my character to suffer in silence with us as the audience acting as a fly on the wall. I do like that aesthetically the use of animation with real life image looks good as I had been worried that maybe the combination will clash and not work.

The CyberBullying Virus

"a new virus unlike any other, has infiltrated schools and social media, a pandemic quickly spreading around the world"

This is a video off of YouTube called The Cyber-Bullying Virus which takes a completely different approach to cyber-bullying. It focuses on the cyber-bully themselves, saying how they have become infected and risk infecting others. It says how the those from broken homes are more likely to 'contract this disease'. I like the way that it looks on cyber-bullying as an illness as that is almost what it is, the bullies become almost addicted to this sense of power that they have and how they can almost hide behind the social media to do it. This video shows how other people tend to jump on the band wagon, joining in. This helps them to feel part of the majority group but helps make someone more of the minority. It says how even the girls parents and teacher have no clue this girl is a victim to the virus and how it can infect the most unsuspecting of people.

The video also highlights the fact that it can reach you anywhere, at home or at school and through a variety of different mediums. I am also incorporating this aspect within my animation too as the girl will receive the abuse on both her phone and her computer.

It also refers to how it can take hours, days or weeks, before it eventually gets out of hand and causes serious damage to its victims. Those more prone to hate, anger and negative emotions are more likely to become a cyber-bully. The effects can be long term depression and in some cases suicide.

I was originally going to have  my main character end up committing suicide as a way to escape all her pain and suffering, and this is a option many teenager do resort to. I have decided then to have my character find a solution instead but I will still depict her considering suicide as this is always the other option too. I will have my character think of her family and the fact that she should not let the bullies win. This animation also takes this approach but from a different angle to mine, people start to stand up for Jane, the girl at the mercy of the bullies. The end of my own narrative is to have my character go through and block all the nasty people and report them for what they have done. This will then mean that they no longer have access to her profile which then removes the platform they relied on in order to carry out the bullying.

My Use of Sound

After taking all my research into other animations I have decided to keep my use of sound down to a minimum. The Snowman (1982), The Snowman and The Snowdog (2012), The Boy Who Wants to be a Lion (2010) and the Simon's Cat collection all refrain from using speech. I believe that because my animation is based on the virtual world this would be perfect for enhancing my narrative. Nowadays the use of physical communication is becoming a thing of the past. More than ever people are choosing text or instant messaging as their preferred form, therefore our world is slowly becoming one where speech is used less and less. Therefore an absence of speech within my animation will highlight our silent world. Also because it is cyber-bullying I am focusing on the power these written words have on a person, bullying that occurs in person is completely different.

I do however plan to use the compatible sounds such as keys being pressed and a mouse being clicked, also general computer noises. I will also reflect the main characters emotions through the sound too, when she cries this will be audible to the audience.I understand that a silent animation may become boring and awkward in effect so background music will be used though I will need to research into what would be acceptable and to have it change when different events occur. For example when the girl changes into an animated character I would like the music to reflect how this is a bad thing but also something fairly extraordinary as well.

Narrative Improvements

I have decided that the animation will start off with all of the animation as stop motion photography but the laptop and phone screens will be animated as these are the virtual technologies. Then when the cyber-bullying gets more and more upsetting, the main character, Rosie Shepherd will turn into an animated character. This is to represent how she has become immersed in this virtual world. The bullying may not be to her face but it is just as damaging. I think this will give my animation a more exciting edge but it will also enhance the themes and the issue the animation is addressing.

Here is the storyboard for the scene where she will become animated. It will happen as she is walking home, so she will be surrounded by nature and the outside world but she still cannot escape the pain the virtual world is causing her.

Storyboard

I have been creating my storyboards this week in order to make production easier and smoother. When drawing out my idea I have been able to grow in confidence with my project which has then led to more creative thoughts flowing.

Here is the beginning of my narrative.  This is where my main character sets up her social network profile page and adding all her school friends. These will be stop motion images of her typing but then the shots of the laptop scenes where she sets up the social network page will have the screen of the laptop animated and the process created on Adobe Flash.

Next Scene 

This is the next morning as the girl is being woken up by her phone alarm, as she turns it off she sees that a few people have accepted her friend request which makes her happy. She then gets ready and leaves for school. These scenes are all going to be stop motion photography, the iPhone screen will be animated to show the alarm and the friend requests. 

Rotoscoping

The first attempt I had at gaining the images for my stop motion went wrong as I did not have a tripod and I could not figure out how to set up the camera properly. The images I gained cannot be used for my project but I have decided to use them to practice rotoscoping on. I am really pleased with the outcome and this gives me even more confidence in my project when I see how this style is perfect for what I am doing. I love the way the images look, and I am pleased I chose to keep the animated sections to black and white because the girl stands out and it is obvious that she has been animated.

Planning: Location

 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.

Anti-Bullying: Bully (animation short)

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.

Planning Out My Narrative

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.

Technique Research: Nikon SLR Stop Motion

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.

Nikon D5000 Interval Shooting Mode Explanation

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.