Ryan had returned this week for another presentation on Animated Documentary with the conflict of combining art and actuality. He showed us the Zara’s story with Zara in live action with her animated dog. We then moved onto the styles of documentary:
Bill Nichols’ theorised 6 modes… but their differences are nuanced:
–Observational: undisturbed actuality; no influence from the filmmaker
–Expository: objective “voice of God” narration – the “ David Attenborough” style
–Participatory: the filmmaker interacts with the subject – the “Louis Theroux” style
–Reflexive: relies on audience engaging with the filmmaker’s perspective
–Poetic: almost exclusively about creating mood and emotion
Performance: filmmaker becomes the subject
In recent decades, “presenting information” has become a flexible definition, meaning most productions inherently take on a persuasive form, whether it’s to make you side with a perspective, question the information provided or simply feel a certain way.
The question is… does the influence of the filmmaker hurt or benefit what information we learn from a documentary?
We watched a short film koyaanisqatsi which shows us life and the speed of time.
The spark brothers montage of past music videos and concerts they’ve done showing their weirdness is the cool.
A short film of Drawing from memory where a man draws from memory events which happened and didn’t happen.
Why do we Use Animation in facts
Emerged in the 20th century, but was largely denoted to PSAs and information films.
-Alternative way to present supplementary information without directly addressing it.
-Visualising unseen knowledge e.g. the feelings of participants.
-Basically… it tried to grow acceptance towards using art to portray “fact”.
-However… this has caused much debate and controversy as we’ll later see…
Visualising autism
A Is For Autism (1992) – Tim Webb used creative contributions from autistic participants to visualise autism in a way never seen before.
Snack And Drink (1999) – Bob Sabiston et al used a Rotoshop program to similarly experiment with raw audio footage of an autistic teenage.
BBC Four – Autism for kids on visualising kids with autism.
The Conflict
The notion of absolute authenticity is being challenged with the rise of subjective experiences… but this can lead to bias and misrepresentation in the wrong hands.
-Opposition believe it downplays fact in favour of individual experiences.
-Supporters argue intimate stories reveal “ignored realities” and encourage empathy.
-Opposition suggest audiences might struggle to tell what’s real and what’s not.
-Supporters give audiences more credit for separating the real from the abstract ie. Animation is evidentially not authentic, it’s about verisimilitude.
WALTZ WITH BASIR (2008)
by ari folman
Folman’s reflexive documentary aimed to showcase his efforts to recall his memories of the 1982 Lebanon War using talking head interviews and dramatic re-enactments. The animation helps remind the audience that memories are prone to distortion so cannot be explicitly “true”.
How is animation used to make us empathise with the participant’s personal experience of the massacre?
-Does using animation (instead of live-action) make the “recollection” or “re-enactment” feel honest?
CREATURE COMFORTS (1989)
BY NICK PARK
Just for fun… Experimenting with real footage and audio allows you to tell unique stories and highlight the crucial fact that context matters and the style of presentation has is powerful stimuli on the audience.
Creature Comforts used non-actors from council estates and retirement homes to recreate Vox Pop style interviews and recontextualised the audio for comedic effect.
NEVER LIKE THE FIRST TIME (2006)
BY Jonas odell
A mix of short films on the subject of sex, virginity and consent.
Consider how it elevates each story using animation to portray the emotional perspective of each participant.
-Does it enhance you understanding of their experience?
-Does it feel “manipulative” or “persuasive”?
-Does subjectivity truly hurt the truth?
Ryan (2004)
by Chris Landreth
A short film we watched back in first year in semester 1 or 2 about the animator Ryan.
Landreth meticulously implemented animated psychological realism to show not only the feelings of both Landreth and his subject matter Ryan Larkin, but also encouraged the audience to interpret information and drawn their own conclusions.
Notice how it combines several modes of documentary and relies on animation to accentuate complex information.
This gives me quite a few ideas on my assignment 2 essay on documenting a specific music band, or animation film that is both live action and animated. However I still have other options when it comes to gender, sexuality, disabilities e.g. autism, horror for young audiences or a documentary of a music band.
Our class went back to the basics of rigging while Henry our lecturer had covid, we were covered by Michael for the morning session. He went back to the rigging we learnt from 1st year second semester when animating with 3D. Michael had uploaded the videos from last year and onto blackboard and shown how to add the rigs onto the bird model to make it wave. Since my main role in the group project is modelling and texturing this won’t be my responsibility within the game but I do like to try.
Meanwhile I finished my other models and make some fixes to the previous props along with their UV’s.
These videos helped me out his week and the previous weeks.
4- 3D PLASTIC CHAIR _MAYA MODELLING – YouTube
Modeling a Coffee Mug in Maya – YouTube
Autodesk Maya 2018 – Headphones Speed Modeling – YouTube
Autodesk Maya Simple Key Modeling – YouTube
Model a hat in Maya part 1 (modeling) – YouTube
For the rest of the week I had went through the assignment 2 criteria and went into the other websites that Alec had put onto blackboard. I also went through different audio takes on the 11 second club that gives me plenty of choices of choosing a specific recording and animating it either 2D or 3D. I have a few options for the company and what audio I will choose for it.
For this lesson a man called Ryan Hollinger had came into our class with his presentation on Animated Horror
He talked about horror beyond the scare
Our relationship with Fear and invoking Negative Stimuli:
– Disgust, anxiety, anger, distress, sadness, etc.
– Sometimes challenges Moral Sensibilities.
– Most animated horror focuses on the Psychological, the Grotesque and Dreams.
– Heavier emphasis on imagery, either symbolic or personified.
– Scares can be equally “gratifying” as they are “nihilistic”.
– Facing your fears in safe/entertaining way can be cathartic
The styes of animated horror
REALISM/“UNCANNY”
– Emphasis on verisimilitude.
– Typically “gritty and ugly”.
– Subtle presentation.
– Naturally off-putting feel.
EXPRESSIONISM
– Exaggerating real life.
– Stronger colours/shadow.
– Stylised character designs.
– Can be used comedically.
SURREALISM
– Distorts reality.
– Rejects accessibility.
– Typically cerebral.
– Sometimes mixes styles.
ALL STYLES WORK TOGEHER TO ELICIT REACTION
Horror is always fighting for two methods of thought:
THE VISCERAL & THE CEREBRAL
ALL STYLES WORK TOGEHER TO ELICIT REACTION
(Emotional/Feel) (Mental/Think)
He then showed us examples of movies we’ve or haven’t seen over the years like Fears of the Dark, Krampus with the animated flashback, Paprika, monster family and the game little nightmares.
Games included like silent hill that we analysed in class like the other short films had much horror in the early days. Even talking about fear to the young audiences like kids or teenagers or young adults. Like movies the black cauldron with the skeleton army rising, Coraline going to face the other mother and escaping, monster house eating the two cops and eating the cop car and finally the nightmare before Christmas opening scene/song which everyone enjoys playing for Halloween.
It gives me some ideas on the assignment 2 but in the mean time I will wait for the next couple of weeks to plan and write out my essay for one of the topics.
This morning we had a presentation held by Jackie Smyth who visited our university to help us understand about placements, being a freelancer or running a business by being an entrepreneur. It gave me ideas that I want to do in my placement year and when I leave and graduate my animation course at university. Afterwards our lecturers took each vertical slice group to see our progress and if there were any worries that we need of help for.
We then moved onto the explanation on our assignment 2 and picking that art style for an specific organisation that would meet the requirements if we were applying for them. We would have to choose one audio and pick either 2D or 3D animation for the assignment.
We later went into our groups and made more progress on where everyone was at and to fix any problems that we had. I was able to finish my models that day and send them as FBX files to the rest of the group so they may be able to block out the environment. I then moved onto the texturing stage so I may present what I have done for the presentation fulfilling my part and role as modeller and texture artist.
This week I have just finished modelling and texturing the hero props for the game. As well as choosing the colour palettes for the props using photoshop for everyone to use for texturing.
We had presented our presentations in class in random order throughout the last 3hrs. Our Group 7, the article of gestures with puppets were shown to the class. 3 members including me were present and bestowed our notes and slides to the audience and our honest opinions on the article if we agreed or disagreed with the author of the article. It met the 10 mins of how long the presentation should be and included our links into the very end, on where we got the images, the article and clips from to add into our bibliography. It was an excellent presentation I must admit since it rather smoothly as well as the other groups whose presentations were inspiring.
We continued with Zbrush for week 4. Henry showed us the shortcuts and ways to sculpt a character with maya. He did it with an elk where as us can do the same or choose an animal of our liking. It was very informative and much handy then blender in it’s way where we can sculpt the character from one shape or fill it up with shapes then bring into maya for the time being. My chose was a fox and here is what I’ve done from last week.
For our team project, modelling and texturing is happening.
Week 3 was our tutorial week for our group presentations before the assignment due next week. I met up with both Charley and Charlie and discussed plans for the presentation and who was doing what for article. Our Article is about Puppet Animation Films and Gestures Aesthetics. We had selected our own parts, opinions and to cover someone else’s slide if one of us did not appear for the presentation.
Till then we have been working on our own slides before the Wednesday and to finish our own peer assessment for our group 7. We also held voice chats to prepare for our presentations this wednesday.
The real class began and we were show to out assignments and groups we would be part of for our assignment 1 which involves an presentation on our chosen article and summarise it down into parts and end it with references.
I’m in Group 7 with Charlie Blair, Charley Flint and Alex savage Miller and have started planning our presentation together.
For our morning session, Henry had went back to the character design principles and talked about the structures of characters/creatures and how to meet the requirements of the design. There was also the 9 tips on how to make a successful character; which are
• Characters are composed of familiar elements
• The character must meet the requirements of the script
• The character must visually reflects a backstory
• The character must be coherent with the presented world
• The characters features an emblematic silhouette
• The character must be developed according to the initial approved design.
• If the character is translated to a new medium then it must be updated but not changed
• A character must be produced in the appropriate quality for its role
• A character must have a convincing overall shape
• It must be impactful!
The anatomy of the skull was explained with the topography along with the head including eyes, the margins and the gender difference between them. Then moved onto the last which involved the facial expressions or simply the FACS (Facial Action Coding System) which displays the eyes, eyebrows and mouth.
We later went onto our zbrush’s and practiced with the structure of our models that we have downloaded from our blackboards. We had each chosen a face to mimic from it’s portrait
In the afternoon for our presentations we had shown our updated versions of planning, gameplay, props, inspirations, mood boards and art styles, There had been some pros and cons for our presentation. For game designers have to agree on their narrative and animation people to finalize their art style and have a few animations done.
Here is my following models and animation bit I did for an warm up.
For week 2 from creative industries we were introduced to Zbrush a digital sculpting tool that combines 3D and 2D modelling with texturing and painting. Henry had navigated his way through Zbrush show us the robes on the tools, shortcuts, demonstrations on models and setting controls.
In some ways it is simply like Blender, but has more functions and tools for our projects which would benefit us for our final assignments at the end of semester 2. We had fun with it even though it’s new to my experience I would have to watch a lot of videos to get the gest of it for the upcoming weeks even during other assignments coming up soon, including working on animations for April.
Afterwards we had introduced our pitch presentations to the other two groups which involves an investigator under cover to solve a mystery within a telephone office and collect clues and listen over phone calls to connect the dots to find the murderer. We had shown off our work with game designers showing the levels and mechanics and the animation students displaying concept art of the characters and concept models of props with the theme of 1970’s with a chosen colour scheme and art style. However, we had to fix some stuff within the PowerPoint and do it again for the pre-production week. It’s simple enough to make amendments to the PowerPoint with everyone on board and with me making more models but didn’t have to texture them immediately but only show concept art for it.
Also Ciara in our Group G set up the art style guidelines on her documents to show what’s there on what the environment will look like, the lighting, colours and characters.
Our group name is Knives out (yes from the movie knives out since it’s a murder mystery trope were following for this project).
