PPP 2 - Studio Brief 1 ' a creative strategy' - 5 x 5

5 things learned so far -

On the Animation course I have learned that there are many areas of animation that you could pursue a career in be it pre production - writing stories, scripts, concept design, character design etc or post production - putting the finishing touches to films and animation.

One thing that i have learned about myself whilst being on the course is that I am very much an individual practitioner, more wanting to pursue my own interests with animation as more of a contemporary artist rather than a 'cog in the wheel', I want to use animation to describe to others how I might see the world or a certain situation.

I have realised that animation is very time consuming, i have really learned the limitations of this medium - you are very limited in the way that wanting to produce something that is very realistic in CGI would be very expensive and if you wanted to have that same amount of realism using traditional methods, it would be very time consuming.

I have also learned that if I were to lend my hand to a collaborative project, I would much prefer working on the pre-production side of things, storyboarding, writing etc. as I have less interest in the post-production side of a project.

Another thing that I have learnt is that to be an animator/to be involved in the animation industry you must have some degree of creative vision.

5 things you want to know more about -

I want to know more about animation in a gallery/performance setting.

I want to know more about using animation as a tool/social critique - does it work? if so how well?

I want to know more about interactive forms of animation.

I want to know more about how I can make my ambitions and ideas a reality - what channels can I go through? who can I speak to? how could I make a living from this?

I want to know more about animation's affinity with sound

5 skills that are your strengths -

I am a versatile creative practitioner

I am a good illustrator

I have graphic design experience

I have an ability to tell interesting stories and creative narratives where applicable

I have a vision

5 things you want to improve -

I want to be more competent with software

I want to improve my work ethic/ have more motivation

I want to improve my ability to collaborate effectively

I want to improve my editing skills

I want to improve my work rate

5 practitioners that inspire -

CYRIAK

Theodore Ushev

Adam Curtis

Ryan Larkin

Norman Mclaren


5 websites that have helped

http://onf-nfb.gc.ca/en/home/

https://vimeo.com/

pinterest

Youtube

Skwiggly

Copyright Seminar

 In this seminar it was made clear what copyright is and how it might be used.

I took notes in the seminar jotting down the most important bits of information about copyright. For Example a piece of information i felt was interesting is that any work that i produce at the college, using the college's resources - all rights to that work are reserved to the college, this is due to an agreement we sign when we enrol at the college.

Copyright laws also differ from country to country, for example the laws in the UK differ slightly to the laws in the US.

A way to prove a piece of work is your own, if for any reason you believe that somebody might start plagurising your work, you can post yourself the original piece of work in registered post and leave it unopened as proof of when you made it.

In the lecture there were made clear copyright 'no no's' that include - of other people's work - :
copying, adapting, distributing, public transmission of, renting/lending out - all without permission of the author is a breach of copyright law.

Ross Hogg - Scribble Dub - direct animation

                                                         https://vimeo.com/108118089

I have chosen to blog about this piece of animation as it is more on the art side of the animation spectrum as opposed to animation being solely about entertainment and narrative.
This piece of animation was an experimental piece by Ross Hogg and has received critical acclaim from many film festivals. Along with the animation comes a soundtrack that is in synchronous with the footage, I find that the fact this animation that is abstract and not something that all fans of animation would enjoy- but still admired by film and art lovers exciting, as it gives me hope in the fact that if you pursue a certain process or style and produce something that is of value - it will receive the praise that it deserves, as long as audiences have access to it.

John Goto - Research

John Goto is an artist who uses photo collage as his chosen media. I have chosen to write about his work due to the cutout nature of his work - linking this in with the rest of the research that I have been looking at, as well as the cut and stick nature of his work in this particular project 'high summer' there is also a satirical/dark atmosphere that features in his work which appeals to me. In this particular image there appears to be an imminent unveiling of a statue, which appears to be in the shape of a phalic symbol, I think this could be a reference to the inherently patriarchal society that is apparent in the UK, especially with what appear to be important men being interviewed around the statue.

Kyle Mowat - Resarch

As I have an interest in graphic design and illustration I found this persons, work to be of interest to me.
Although it does not follow the same vein of the rest of the work and processes I have been looking into, it sparks ideas for me to jot down and carry elements of work I have seen into my own practise. for example Mowat makes use of contrasting flat, almost complementary colours to show depth and form in this animated GIF. In future animations I aim to make better use of colour so that my animations are more eye catching/ 'pop' up out of the screen.

David Firth - Interview

I really like how David Firth creates his animations 'play by play', kind of just observing his own creative thoughts and letting them come into fruition naturally to form a piece of animation. He allows the most dark aspects of his psyche come through in his work and does not really question why he has chosen to write a certain narrative or why the animation looks the way that it does, he mentions in this interview that he gains a lot of inspiration from his dreams and has many notebooks that he jots down ideas in after he has woken up or when he has any spare time.
This constant jotting down of ideas really opens the doors to creativity as  the 'valve' of creativity is in full flow almost all of the time.
What looking at the process of David Firth tells me about animation is that it is a much more productive use of time for an animator to get down as many ideas as possible so that when it comes to producing something for a client - the ideas are already present even when you may only have a suggestion of what they would like to see, I think this comes from the way the brain can make a connection between something that is seemingly irrelevant.

Cyriak Interview

Cyriak, is an animator that uses a cut out animation style with use of photographs of and video. He keeps his process relatively simple by using only after affects to produce his animations. He started out by making short GIF animations using images mainly of animals. I have found this interview to very informative and insightful in that this is somebody else's work that uses processes that a relevant to my own personal practice.
This cut out style is something that I am willing to pursue in future projects.

Bendito Machine 'Everything You Need' - Animated Short

In this animation there is a strong environmental message relative to over consumption and the pollution  that follows as a result. You could also say that there is a political message to pick up on in this short, with two opposing groups with one exploiting and attacking the other which inevitably ends with the offensive group being destroyed due to violence being self-perpetuted. There is also a strong hint at karma in this animation with the opposing group being destroyed a result of their own actions.

I am wanting to seek out more animations that have a deep underlying message to them, to see how they have put that message across through storytelling and visual references. There is a certain amount of subtlety that you have to account for when producing a story with a message, I feel the audience has to realise what the message is for themselves for the most part for it to really have any affect on their feelings/opinions of a certain topic.

atomic hubbub - satirical animation

I chose this animation to research as not only do I like the process that the animator has chosen to use but also the tone of the animation is satirical, and satire is something that I am interested in pushing through my work - or rather I would like to aim for a political/social message to come through in my work. 

The animation appears to make use of some kind of print method over the top of certain frames, if I take this process and simplify it by using mono-printing on frames it would make the process faster as opposed to screen printing things over the top of frames, it would also provide the animation with a very 'make do' look to it, which seems to be common in satirical material such as zines - which also have a very personal feel about them which is something I want to put into my work, I would like it to be unique to me.

Response - Video and Animation Combination

Here is a combination of animation and video footage taken using my handheld digital tape recorder.
To achieve the effects featured in the clip I imported both files into after affects and key framed in effects related to blending modes. This gave me some control over how the animation would mix into the footage but did not however enable me to pin point where the animation would bleed into the footage.
This is a response to earlier research that I have been looking into.

Artist/Animator - Suture Blue

I have stumbled upon the work of an artist/animator online named Suture Blue that has produced a number of animated GIF's that incorporate video footage/interference as a kind of colour fill for the animation created, I find this tchnique really interesting and I would like to experiment with this in my own animations using after effects.

Animation & Film Making - Ross Hogg - 'Scribble Dub' & 'Isabella'

https://vimeo.com/136430442

I have come across an animator by the name of Ross Hogg, I find his work interesting as it is thought provoking and wish to investigate a lot of the processes he uses, some being analogue in that he has created an animation named 'scribble dub' whereby he has hand painted and scratched into film, projected it and filmed the results to produce a very unique looking animation with warm colours and plenty of grain.
A reason why I have chosen to talk about Hogg's work is that through looking at his work and the work of others I have realised that animation doesn't have to be telling a story through made up characters on a screen, or even telling a story, it could be adding atmosphere to a film, taking the audience on an emotional journey via an audiovisual combination without the aid of physical reference points such as characters/environments.
Looking at work like this interests me due to that fact that it opens up new avenues of exploration in terms of processes and subject matter, I'm also gaining more of a confidence in where i would like to take animation as a profession.

'G-Mod Idiot Box' - Unconventional Ways of Producing Animation

I found this approach to animation very curious and unique as the creator was using an existing 3D game environment complete with character presets SFX and VFX to his advantage by using a game hack/modification program to produce an animation by moving the characters and editing the environments they are put in.
What the mod also enables the creator to do is change the facial/bodily expressions of the characters to any degree they see fit, which makes for some very surreal looking expressions.
I am not sure of the legality of this method of animation, using and modifying somebody else's creation in order to create your own piece of creative expression, but i do feel that this method could be used to produce some interesting results, not just for entertainment/narrative purposes but for more artistic purposes.

Online Culture - 'a e s t h e t i c' & Re-appropriation of Animation

A couple of days ago I encountered a music genre called 'vaporwave' which first originated around 2010 and was released on the internet, at first the the music genre was meant to be satirical, a jibe at consumerist society and so-called pretentious musical genre's. It consists of  audio samples from retro instructional videos and 808 drum machine production styles.
Album covers and artist names featured retro reference imagery and names such as 'Macintosh Plus' an artist who you could say became a meme for the genre of vaporwave.
Through investigating this online phenomena and musical genre I discovered this video whereby The Simpsons have been reappropriated into a kind of 80/90's montage akin to cinematography of miami vice. I think this works because The Simpsons began in the late 80's and kept the fashions of that time attributed to the characters we see in the series.
I find it interesting how an online movement revolving around the retro, and fashions of the 80's/90's has been able to re-appropriate imagery and audio into something that embodies what the consumerist society has become in its; old, grainy, washed out, tired look.

Animated GIF's

Animated GIF's I feel can act in a number of ways and be split into different categories such as; comedy, art, advertisement, political commentary etc. I also think that as with any form of animation, GIF's have the ability to be used in whatever context you would like them to be used in.
However it is important to recognise that GIF's may not be suitable in every context, a example would be that you would shy away from using GIF's in a presentation to corporate clients.

Tools For Documentation and Experimentation - Research

I have acquired a point and shoot film camera for extra documentation and experimentation purposes such as, using film photographs to produce an animation, developing ideas for stylisation of different environments e.g capturing certain qualities/values of light and tone.


I have also decided to further my documentation and experimation by making use of an old camcorder for the nice grainy visual quality that I like and that I am exploring currently.

External Project - Stage Visuals 2 - Research

Through my research into VHS mixing and editing styles I have altered the footage of my animation to mimic that of an old altered VHS tape by altering the colour channels in the channel mixer fx option in premiere. I have also added more sharpness to the image to receive that grainy effect that video cassettes give off.
Through this experimentation I feel i am now able to apply this combination of different effects into more aspects of personal professional practice and other modules aswell.

External Project - Stage Visuals - Research

Here is another piece of work that is for an external project that will be used by an artist to use as background projection. This short animation will feature as part of a series of different loops made by using frame by frame animation. The artist has requested that the work be not too considered and leaning more towards the rough aesthetic.
I have taken on this work to deepen my understanding of what frame by frame animation can be and the different effects that can arise through experimentation in this process.
There will be a vague narrative to these animations, of a homeless man's struggle.

Copyright Seminar - Research (OUAN402)

I felt it necessary to document on this blog the seminar on copyright due to the nature of future work i may produce, using various clips from different sources and how i might steer clear of any legal issues regarding copyright laws.

External Collective Project - Posibility of Motion Graphics - Research (OUAN402)

 These images have been developed from sketches in my sketchbook. Partly inspired by Michael Craig-Martin and the work of Nazusk, a sheffield based artist.
These pieces are part of a body of personal work that i am developing alongside my studies as part of a collective that is in the early stages of formation.
An idea I had whilst creating these pieces started by asking myself if i could make these pieces move some how, turning them into motion graphics. I shall start by first making some GIF's out of these images for simplicity and reflect on how effective that was as a motion graphic promoting the collective.

Arthur Lipsett - Research - (OUAN402)

Arthur Lipsett was a film maker who enjoyed collecting various clips footage and audio, he translated these found pieces of footage and audio into audiovisual collages, though they are abstract you can certainly detract from them the atmosphere that Lipsett was trying to bring across to the audience.
I chose to research in to Lipsett for his video & audio collage work as I am curious as to how i might go about bringing the collage element of my own work into my animation practice.
By researching into other practitioners who have 'cut and stitched' moving image and audio together it will help me to form practical and technical ideas about how I might go about bringing in this element into my own work.

CDT Crew - Youtube - VHS mash ups and editing style (OUAN402)

CDT (Crazy Dave Tapes) is an online entity that creates video mixtapes featuring found VHS footage and other audiovisual ephemera. The types of clips that usually feature in the mixtapes are of old novelty TV ads, cheap movie remakes/rip-offs, 'cheesy' kung-fu and action movies, budget horror movies, public access TV segments and more.
What interests me about this work is the raw, rough stitched together aesthetic that is incorporated into the work. It tries to make something that is a bridge between entertainment and art, something which I myself would like to experiment with and a direction that i see my own practice moving towards.
Because most of the footage is of old VHS movies and ephemera, there seems to be a comment on how far we have come with technology and special effects and these mixtapes seem to make a spectacle of that. Looking at these mixtapes and analyzing them I have noticed that there is a method to the madness in terms of editing and layering up footage and audio, the creators have made sure that there is a fluidity to the sequence of different clips and by doing that the viewer isn't waiting for something to happen but rather, bombarded with a stream of moving imagery and audio.
I shall experiment with video collage and try and think of ways that i can bring  this element together within my own practice of animation, responses will be documented as part of the process of reflection and my own primary research.

The Big Lez Show - Reserch - (OUAN402) - PPP1

'The Big Lez Show' is a crudely animated Australian cartoon independently produced by Izak Whear, Jarrad Wright & Tom Hollis.
Even though the overall look of this animation is rather crude I feel it works well as a whole, because the cartoon is humorous the simplicity of the animation really gives the dialogue room to tie in the humor and makes the mythology of the show.
The reason the animation perhaps looks very low budget/rough is because all frames for the animation are produced in Microsoft Paint and then compiled into a video editing software, it's this simplicity of production - I think -  that allows the creators of the animation to add originality and imagination to their storylines consisting of people from another planet, enlightened Sasquatches and alien invasions.
Overall I would say I like this animation as it shows that keeping production very simple and low budget means that you can have more fun developing dialogue, narrative, character design, things that I myself enjoy much more than spending a lot more time developing the finished product.
I plan to investigate more into 'amateurish' looking, low budget cartoons to build up more of an idea of what makes them work and what the drawbacks are to this qualty (or lack thereof) of production. I also would like to experiment with these rough production techniques myself to try and build up an 'armory' of different techniques to choose from for a given project.