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.