This is a first look at the jungle city we wanted to create. I do think once we have all six up and can look at them from a distance it does look more city scape like. I want to see it mounted onto black card to make all the lines and connections smoother. Then we will be able to see it more finalised.
We had started to plan out and think about how we will display our work within a space. Kris came over and began sketching rough ideas which me and Levi then expanded on to make it fit with the overall message of moving through time and ow the jungle was once a city to its population as it doesn’t have to be the generic idea of a city as all these places are entities of life and movement.
Mock-up of how it will look:
We want to hang out work diagonally going across as it will help the spectator to understand the journey we are trying to portray through time. Also each time period will have a timeline going across the bottom to better explain that visually.
We also thought having a video of all our work with the Foley sounds we will have created and other sounds that are harder to create in sound snap playing at the end will emphasize the overall journey through sound.
I wanted to include all the things that I enjoyed that I and others in my group enjoyed doing within creative play. So we have incorporated the collage, Foley sound and …
We got told this week how we need to become better observers and focus on seeing rather than just looking at something. As we need to be more immersed in the how and why of the object we are observing, to be able to understand and create a high level and realistic animation.
What I need to do by the 16th of December:
Today was actually a really exciting class as it was nice to be able to be moving about and practically doing things. I felt as though within the class there are certain people I can really be myself around and when I was in the group we could do what we want and exaggerate everything we did.
It was good in an animator sense as I could build my confidence but also work on acting skills and the movement of the body as we are all actors we just HATE being in-front of the camera ( well know I do). Acting is important to animators as it lets use be able to use our body and other people as references for our own animations, we can then build our understanding of movement and expression.
The fact that we did mine was good as we really did have to just think about body movement. As you can see from there videos sometimes the mime was not enforced but Luca and James did add some comedy value to the whole thing.
When I searched Pantomime Animation this is the first video hat comes up,
So from this I thought I’d try and make my own definition of what its means. Obviously most people have heard of Pantomime, it’s loud and entertaining and usually performed on-stage letting audiences react with the characters as the play goes along. When thinking about it from an animators perspective I thought mainly about how the characters (actors) in Panto over exaggerate everything they do making it seem forced and false but also helping younger viewers who need bigger hints for when a character is sad or angry. When watching this video we see how the character makes it very clear with no sound how annoyed he is that the bollard wont open. We then see the shock and surprise as he falls down. Letting us as the audience understand every aspect of the animation as it happens just like you do in Pantomime.
I see how the idea of pantomime animation is to tell a silent story only through movement. This is the key to creating a good animation. you must have a good story but also a good understanding of movement to express and convey the correct emotions to the audience.
A projection of cities throughout time, accompanied with their soundscapes. Separate images put together, modernized on the computer. Accompanied with traditional and modern methods.
(Soundsnap)
A4 Landscape
1st Decemeber- need to have photos together to use for our images, search soundsnap for remaining sound we would need to create using foley. Record Foley Sounds this week.
This monday 28th start creating the jungle scenes- Makes sure pinterest board is compete.
Have two images done or nearly done by thursday. – 10cm
8th Decemeber
Use the following monday 4th to finish jungle.
All sound work complete. start uploading digitally.
Upload as much as possible.
Try and get 3 images done by the weekend 10th-11th
Monday 12th- Upload and tweek.
All we need to do is sort out studios and best way to project.
I have just created a quick pinterest board of my ideas and imagery from the brief we were given in Creative Play.
City Project (Play) You are asked to create a representation of ‘the city’. You should investigate the subject of the city in as many visual ways as possible and build a physical response. Create a response that allows us to ‘experience’ the city, in some way?
EXPLORE- Ideation
Consider also the theme ‘old meets new’
Aims
This week was really frustrating, trying to create motion in a mirror is not the easiest thing to do. I tried to create smooth arm movements to work with the thin mirror I have in my room; shown below.
I tried to to over exaggerated movements of the arm but also the wave as Johny and Joe said we may be able to do this motion with the armature if we have time.
I also tried to do some jumps but they did not turn out to well as you can’t keep the camera still long or steady. I also realised no jump looks normal front on so I had to do it from the side like it says in Richard William’s Book. I used slow-mo even though it’s very embarrassing so that later when it comes to drawing out the motion it will be easier to do.
And finally I tried to walk but as you can see my mirror is only small but better than nothing.
I will post in my next blog the sketches of these movements to help me better understand the movement. I will focus mainly on the jump and hand movement as the walk is hard to present using this video.
These videos are what we took to explore the movement of the human body in Making Of.
It’s really fascinating to see how you body actually moves in reality as I thought it would look so different to what it did on camera.
Phil Chalk came in today to talk about how we as first years could actually be involved with a proper animation company. I was so shocked and excited that we as students had been been given a serious opportunity to be included and have our own YouTube channel with Factory.
The main thing that excited me about this opportunity was that it was so open, there was no basis on only being able to do it if you were amazing at Maya or Stop-motion it was for everyone who wanted to do and had ideas for it!
When Phil was talking about what type of things we could put on the YouTube channel to give us some idea of what he wanted it made me think of some of the animations I saw in the Animation Festival as they had some good ideas behind them.
The Animation that first came to mind was ‘Mr Madila’ a very comedic and energetic 2D animation. Although I could not find the whole animation I found the trailer video on the animators Vimeo account, Rory WT.
There was also another animation that I thought was done so well which was again 2D, it was an interview with a man on death row explaining his life and the crime he committed and why he should be on death-row (bit morbid I know) but the animation was used to express the mans words in so much more detail and vibrancy.
So I thought with being in Manchester the amount of odd people here are crazy so doing interesting and funny interviews would be something exciting to do as an animation.
The Animation Festival was really exciting as I got to see new and upcoming student work! I would definitely buy a day pass next year but this year my planning and money were not on side.
For many stop motion animation catches their audience by surprise and takes them into this whole new world, filled with things that at one point in time were so alien to them. It’s always amazed me how animators and puppets makers can create such realism within their work, making what is a hardened and inanimate object become so life like and giving it a personality.
When thinking about this idea of illusion and enjoying the fact that the human mind can be tricked into the illusions of film and animation. Things such as immersion and finding yourself caught up in a whole new world closely relates to the works of Chuck Palahniuk as he uses postmodernism to subvert conventional ideas of narrative.
When researching Palahniuk’s tendency to use postmodernism to distort reality this extract of, ‘Chuck Palahniuk Parodist: Postmodern Irony in Six Transgressive Novels’ by David McKraken was interesting to read
“Palahniuk uses postmodernism parody to establish similarity but more so to emphasize defense through ‘ironic signalling’”
“Palahniuk’s personalities chase illusions of celebrity”
“Provides layers of imitation, blending truth with fiction, to illustrates the different degrees that sometimes differentiate reality and fantasy”
“he plays with his readers prejudices”
An act that goes against a law a rule or code of conduct.
The idea of the conscious mind. We know that what we are watching isn’t real but we consciously believe and immerse ourselves in what we see.
Furthermore the illusion of the human mind interested me as things within many films have different meanings to different people or for example things can go unnoticed by some and be very obvious to others. A clear example of this was played out in the film Fight Club through firstly the break of the fourth wall. Which contradicts everything a movie should be as it now stops the realistic ideals that were there when the fourth wall hadn’t been broken. But also the idea of images of Tyler Durden popping up all the way through the film.
and that fact everything’s ‘a copy of a copy’ whilst the copier is being played in the background is ironic but also creates emotional contagion between the audience and the sound coming for the copier is slow and boring and it makes us feel bored just like the character.
This got me thinking about what our brains are susceptible to.
And Richard Dawkins who is an English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author. Believes ‘The human mind is extremely susceptible to hallucination’ and in my opinion I believe he is right. I mean we are all born scared of two things falling and loud noises but over time we watch and experience things that make us scared of things just like how horror films have made us scared of bathrooms because EVERYONE seems to die there! Or the fact that a late night call while you are home alone is never going to end well. It just shows how easily manipulated the human mind is.
‘human beings are great deceivers’- Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud emphasized the importance of the unconscious mind, and a primary assumption of Freudian theory is that the unconscious mind governs behavior to a greater degree than people suspect. Indeed, the goal of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious.
http://www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html
The Future of an Illusion
In The Future of an Illusion (1927) Freud refers to religion as an illusion which is “perhaps the most important item in the psychical inventory of a civilization”. In his estimation, religion provides for defense against “the crushingly superior force of nature” and “the urge to rectify the shortcomings of civilization which made themselves painfully felt”. He concludes that all religious beliefs are “illusions and insusceptible of proof.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud%27s_views_on_religion
The overall concept of my poster was to be split down the middle to show the contrast of illusion and disillusion and the reality of film.
alicemegangain 