Week 6: Storyboard for Creative Animation

One of the tasks for my creative project was to create a storyboard. This allows me to plan the narrative of my project carefully, and to ensure that I have a complete, working story when it comes to creating my 90 second animation (I have attempted to follow the narrative of The Fly, but transform it into my own version). This also enabled me to plan the sound elements that will be featured in my animation. Below is said storyboard (Note: this is a brief outline of the narrative, as we were limited to three sides of A4):

Sheet 1

As you can see, the visual style of my animatic has drawn great inspiration from rotoscope artist Don Hertzfeldt. As I have mentioned, I am fascinated by his style of animation and the rotoscope effect in general. Admittedly, I am not the best artist, so the use of stick-figures (instead of highly detailed visuals) is beneficial for me. That said, I believe that a great animation does not need to be the most aesthetically pleasing - as long as it contains meaning and provokes thought it can be very inspirational.

Scene 1

In the first scene the protagonist is sitting in an office, staring blankly ahead of him (as does Hertzfeldt's characters in his popular short Rejected). The only sound heard is a slight breeze and/or muffling noise. This scene lasts for 10 seconds, and along with the sound, creates an 'eerie' to provoke the audience to keep watching.

Scene 2

This scene presents the secondary character - or antagonist - of the short film. He is shown to be a scruffy man, who smokes and is overweight. He is revealed not to care about his looks, but his smile portrays that he is happy. In his hand is a CV, which sets the scene of a job interview. The accompanying sound is the opening of the door followed by a silence, and just as in scene 1 lingers for ten seconds, to create an 'eerie' effect.

Scene 3

The third scene is a close up of the protagonist, who is shown to be dishevelled and at an unease due to his disgust at the man in front of him. The only sound in this scene is the slow and heavy breathing from the protagonist followed by the dialogue: 'He is a mess' (which the protagonist thinks, rather than says aloud). The dialogue will be slow and muffled, to add a psychedelic effect which signifies that the protagonist is losing his mind. Just like the previous two scenes, scene 3 is 10 seconds long.

Also: scene 3 is the first scene of which the narrative of The Fly is presented to the audience: 

In the poem, the protagonist encounters a fly who he dismisses as insignificant, whereas in my animatic, the well-dressed protagonist encounters a poorly-dressed man, who he also dismisses as insignificant.

Sheet 2

Scene 4

The face of the protagonist turns from anger to terror. His eyes and jaw widen, and the 'shaky' effect of  the rotoscope increases. There are two sounds in this scene: a loud muffling accompanied by a horrific scream. This scene lasts for 5 seconds and creates a brief effect of horror.

Scene 5

The camera pans back to the antagonist, who is shown to have the head of a fly. A vignette appears to portray that the transformation of the antagonist is in the mind of the protagonist and not in reality. The antagonist says: "Hello" and as before, this is spoken in a muffled tone to portray that the terror is in the mind of the protagonist. The scene lasts for 10 seconds, but due to the three-sheet limitation, a scene is not shown: the camera pans back to the protagonist and zooms in, to initiate a dream sequence.

Scene 6

Scene 6 is the start of the protagonist's dream sequence. As before, this is shown using a vignette effect. In this scene, the protagonist is surrounded by flies and is carrying a fly swat. He begins to attack the flies in an angry manner. The sounds in this scene are indecipherable to create a sense of fear and anxiety. This scene lasts for 20 seconds and the rotoscope effect increases to reinforce the anger shown by the protagonist.

Sheet 3

Scene 7 (and following scenes)

Due to the limitation of three sides of A4, I wasn't able to show the complete dream sequence. However, the basis of this sequence is to portray the protagonist being attacked by a larger human being. He transforms to the size of the fly and begins being attacked as he just was attacking the flies. However the flies rescue him. The sounds in these scenes are the same as scene 6: indecipherable to create fear and anxiety with the audience. These scenes last for around 20 to 25 seconds in total.

Also: the dream sequence scenes are an attempt to portray the theme of capitalism that I spoke of in my project planning. The protagonist was once bigger than the flies - representing the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. However, he is transformed to the size of a fly, to connote that there is always someone above you in the working world. The flies save him to portray that, despite being smaller and less human than him, there lives are as significant. This is the same transformation of mind that is shown in the The Fly.

Scene 8

This scene shows the end of the dream sequence as the protagonist slowly awakes from his dazed state. The rotoscope effect lessens and there is no sound, just silence. This is to provoke the audience to keep watching to see the outcome of story.

Scene 9

This scene shows the antagonist shaking hands with the protagonist. In a plot twist - the antagonist turns out to be the boss of the company and the protagonist is the interviewee. The reason that the protagonist mistaked the antagonist as someone who is of a lower class than him is due to his shallow mind state, which is a comment on a materialistic contemporary world. The sound in this scene is dialogue from the antagonist: "Congratulations, you have the job. You start next week... oh, and forget about wearing a suit, we're relaxed here".

The final scene is a close up of the protagonist. A fly lands on his shoulder, which the protagonist looks at, and smiles and winks.

Week 5: Sound and Politics

Sound

To study sound we must learn to listen to films and animations.

This week we are learning about sound in animation. In order to study sound we must take into consideration the different types of sounds in an animate: voice, music score, effect and sound mixing. However, it is important to note that dialogue (voice) may not be the most important type of sound in an animate - as they are all as important as each other.

Norman McLaren is a notable individual who was intrigued in the analysis of sound and animation. He was particularly interested in synesthesia - where sound has the ability to stimulate more than one sensory or cognitive pathway. This led to his creation of an animate called Neighbours - a piece with no dialogue, but just music that plays in correlation with movement:

As you can see, the piece is entirely led by sound and we can 'see' this sound via the movement of the characters.

This is something I may want to consider in my assessed project. Before this lecture I wasn't aware of the vast power that sound has in terms of leading a narrative, but I can see now that it has the ability to be more powerful than dialogue (and can make an animate much more interesting!).

Above: an example of synesthesia.

Politics

When creating an animation, we must remember one important rule: they shouldn't just look aesthetically pleasing, but should connote ideas and values too. It's important to note that whilst many famous animations may look good, they contain a lot of political ideas and historical values too.

Disney is well known for this. Several of their shorts, films and animates contain some sort of political message - some more prominent than others. As one animator said:

'I think animation, particularly political animation, it essentially shows what's behind the scenes and people aren't get that either in the newspaper or cable news or the radio. You know you are able to bring people in with cartoons, with the fun but then serve a dose of opinion and news as well'

- Mark Fiore, online animator

The above video is a notable example of this.

I must take political and ethical values into consideration when creating my assessed project. I need to ask myself: 'How will I portray William Blake's poem 'The Fly' with meaning?'. It can't just look good, it has to contain meaning too.

Week 4: Assessed Project Introduction

For my assessed task I have to pick one of the following options: 1 Select a poem written by William Blake and devise an animation with sound in response to it. 2      Personal Experience Mapping – construct an animated ʻmapʼ of experiences you have in a day. Although both of these seem interesting, I have chosen option 1 to complete for my assessed task. The reason for this, is because I believe that poetry is a brilliant form of art, and can be open to so many interpretations. Although a poet constructs a poem with his or her own meanings, the reader is able to construct their own thoughts and ideas from it - what seems so little can mean so much. William Blake wrote a vast range of poetry. From A Cradle Song, to A Little Girl Lost and even Ah Sunflower. However out of all of his work, the poem I am choosing to animate is The Fly. The reason I chose The Fly as the focus of my animation, is because I believe that it an example of Blake at his finest. Here is the poem: 'Little fly, Thy summer’s play My thoughtless hand Has brushed away. Am not I A fly like thee? Or art not thou A man like me? For I dance And drink and sing, Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing. If thought is life And strength and breath, And the want Of thought is death, Then am I A happy fly, If I live, Or if I die.

William Blake (1757-1827) P. 1793'

In the first stanza, Blake has an encounter with a fly and brushes it away with his 'thoughtless hand' - he views the fly as less significant to human life. 

However, in the second stanza he contemplates the life of the fly with that of his own - 'Or art not thou, A man like me?'. They are both living creatures and living in the same world - they share more in common than he once thought. 

The third stanza elaborates on this - we're all mortal and we're all going to die someday, so like the fly he lives his life until 'some blind hand, Shall brush [his] wing (sic)', just as he did to the fly in the first stanza. This also hints at a theme of a capitalist world - that no matter how one lives their life, there will always be someone better, or someone above - relating to the relationship between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

Despite this, the fourth stanza offers a possible reason of why human life may be of more importance than that of the fly's. The protagonist realises that, as humans we are able to contemplate life and death, which separates us from unthinking creatures such as the fly. 

In the fifth stanza, he acknowledges the fact that he will succumb to death one day. Despite this, he is still living a happy life, and shares the same ignorance to death as the fly. 

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I believe that I will be able to incorporate these ideas into my animatic - especially the references to capitalism. This would make an interesting animation, as upon first reading, the poem seems to just be about a fly. However, upon analysis it conveys an ignorant and blissful attitude towards life as a whole, and just like the fly, we should live our lives without too much thought of death or a capitalist world.

Week 3 - So much can mean seem so little

From what I learnt this week, is that there is no 'rulebook' for animation. It can mean so much - there isn't a 'textbook' example of what animation is. An animation can signify various different meanings - from ideological to philosophical and sociological... it can have a very deep connotation yet visually may be very simple.

My lecturer said that 'both narrative & storytelling links story, narrator (author) and audience'. When I go on to create my assessed animation, I need to research who my target audience is. When that is decided, it needs to cater to their requirements. Is it for children? Then it cannot contain explicit words or adult content. Is it for only those who can speak spanish? Then my target audience will not be the majority of the British public. These sort of things may seem foolish and obvious to note, but they must be carefully considered.

Along with the target audience I will need to research the type of plot that my animation will follow. An animation contain several types of plots depending on the types of animations used. Examples of plot types are... 'energetic, polyphonic, ensemble, daisy chain, repeated action...'.

I have yet to decide between the two briefs for my assessed animation - an animation of a William Blake poem or an animated map of my day. Both of these seem intriguing, and in the following post I will write the final decision and the reason behind it, and in the weeks that follow you will see what target audience(s) I have chosen along with the type of plot(s).

During the seminar, my lecturer made reference to an artist called M.C. Escher. I had never heard of him before but upon some research I instantly recognised his style of art - metamorphosis. His work is truly inspirational - his ability to morph one object into another in a piece of still art is amazing. Also, the way he creates impossible objects is something I am in awe of. To the left are examples of his work.

These are the sort of things that I would like to incorporate into my assessed animation. I believe that metamorphosis could carry so many connotations (according to a specific context) when done correctly. For example - the never-ending stairs by Escher could signify that as human beings, we have made little progress in moving forward with regards war, poverty, famine etc. So much so that we have got ourselves into a vicious circle -  we may solve one problem (walking down the stairs) but we then go and create another (walking up the next set of stairs).

Overall this week's seminar has been very helpful. In the first half I was able to further my experience with Adobe After Effects, and in the second I learnt more about the history of animation which gave me further inspiration for my assessed animation.

Week 3 - First Animation: After Effects

In the practical workshop today, we had the task of creating our very first animation. This is what I had being waiting for since the course started; the chance to create. 

Our lecturer Paul sent us a .psd document which contained many different layers: a moon, a dark background, an alien, an eight ball, a wizard and a flame. It was our task to make a short animation using some or all of these layers.

To create the animation, we opened the .psd file in Adobe After Effects - a popular animating tool. In the previous workshop, Paul had shown us the basics of the programme and this was our time to show what we had learnt.

Below is the outcome...

As you can see, it literally connotes nothing and makes little sense. However, I am very happy with it. I thought it would be a very hard task to make images move in conjunction with each other, but After Effects makes the process simple.

This is my very first animation and is something I am proud of. At the end of this course I am going to compare my final assessed task with this, to see how much I have improved.

Week 2 - Stop Motion Inspiriation

In our first seminar we created a short stop motion film. I love the idea of stop motion, I think it is a fantastic form of animation. For inspiration, here are my two favourite sequences...

Blu - 'MUTO'

 Blu is an italian street artist whose real identity is unknown. The above video is his most famous work. I think it is amazing, the time and effort that he put into it is phenomenal - it must have taken if not months, then years. Although the piece isn't technically outstanding, it should be appreciated for the time, the effort and the great artistic level involved.

Skoda - 'Curriculum Vitae'


Skoda - Curriculum Vitae from weareflink on Vimeo.

Made by car company Skoda as part of an advertising campaign, the above sequence is absolutely amazing! A very high standard in artistic and technical level, this is the sort of animation that I want to be able to create one day.

Jordan

Week 1 - Initial Notes

These are just the notes I took from the first seminar of the term...

Animation Seminar 1 Notes from Jordan Burns

Jordan

Week 1 - Welcome!

Hello everyone.

My name is Jordan Burns and I am a second year Media Studies student at the University of Sussex. I have set up this blog to document one of my modules - Animation. Here I will upload everything I find to do with animation - whether it be my work, something I have studied, or bits and bobs that have inspired me. It is a blank canvas at the moment but over the forthcoming weeks you will see constant updates, so please be patient!

Thanks,

Jordan