Introduction
Back from a 6 weeks of the Christmas Holiday and with two new classes and a new timetable to boot. All remaining classes will be held on Blackboard and Discord due of Covid and the lock down in response for it. This blog will focus on one of these new classes, Animated Narratives.
Overview of the Course
At the start of class, our tutors when over what we would be covering and learning over the next half year and the basics of the major course work that would make up my overall mark.
Acts and Stages
The first narrative tool we when over was the Hero’s Journey’ a 3-act structure, coin by Joseph Campbell, an American professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion who lived between 1904 and 1987. This 3-act structure covers one of the most famous (and overused) plot structure in storytelling as a whole. The quick basis is spilt into these simple points:
- What is the problem our hero has?
- What starts off his Journey?
- What challenges happens on the way?
- What really test the hero’s flaws/problems?
- What dose he learn and how he changes because of this?
for an easier time understanding this I will go thought these points with Spider Man’s general origin story:
- Peter Parker is a smart kid in high school, but has always felt week, unable to fend off bullies or help pays his Aunt May and Uncle Ben’s bills.
- On a school trip to a laboratory, Peter gets bitten by a radioactive spider and gains super human powers.
- Keeping these power a secrets, Peter uses this ability to earn money to help his Aunt and Uncle, as well a become a celerity.
- Sadly, Peter used his powers only for the benefit of his family and himself instead of helping others. This lead to him letting a robbery past him, not stopping him since it was not his problem. later that night, his action came back to bite him as his Uncle Ben was killed by the very same man.
- After catching and surrendering the killer to the Police, Peter fully embraces his Uncle wisdom, “with great powers, comes greater responsibility” and forsake a life of wealth and stardom to save lives and fight crime as the Amazing Spider Man.
Here a link to the 2 minute summary, done by his publisher, Marvel themselves on their YouTube Channel.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwZBZDtz8LU
Theme and Armature
We went over our second narrative tools, Themes and Armature. Here is my brief run down of them:
Theme – The favor of the movie or the aesthetic in both point and plot. For example, Rango (2011) is a western theme film, with sheriff, outlaws, warn wooden towns, shoot out and long, open desert.
Armature – The main point of the story or what is the message it’s trying to convey. For example Spider-Man (most his stories but looking at the 2000 film) the armature would be always do the right thing, even if it cost you the future you wanted, as if you don’t worse thing can happen).
It is important to note that the nature of Armature is subjected. Some like my tutor state that films and animations can only have one and it only applies to the main plot. Other professionals states that their can be more that one Armature and a secondly plot can have one as well.
My Example of Spider man and Batman
Throughout the day I gave two example that I feel are noteworthy to be recorded down.
The first was how stories could have two beginning like how Spider-Man both has the moment he gained his powers and when he decided to use them for good after his selfish actions to not stop a thief led to his Uncle Ben’s death. This plot, like in the Spider Man Movies sometime took only 1/3rd of the film. The Tutor stated that my example was correct.
My second example was how a Characters/media brand can have a different set of in- universe rules base off the writer or media format. With Batman, his comics handle the stander comic book superhero rules, while the tv show for kids (like Brave and the Bold or The Animated Series) have to avoid marital the would be to strong (like gore and sex) and the Nolan’s films (The Dark Knight Trilogy) has no super power, focusing on a more realistic world view, leading to change like Bane unable to use the super power drug venom or his wrestling themed costume, opting for pain killers and a custom drug injection mask that resemble mere elements of his comic book look.
Presentation
We were spilt into different groups for our first big task in Animated Narrative. My team was Team 3 with the following team members:
Rory E. Martin (me)
Gilpin Thomas
Henderson William
Swann Jessica
In our teams we were given an animated short to watch together and we would record notes based on story telling elements such as how scene are layed out, how the music reflect the characters’ moods and how the story is spilt up into acts. With this information, our team will have to create a PowerPoint presentation that must be completed on the 11th of February and will be presented the very next day.
The animated short we are studying is ‘One Small Step’ by TAIKO Studio.
Until the Next Class
I will be going though the course hand book and recording the important dates into my calendar so I can keep track of my dead lines. I will also be working with my team on the presentation and if I can’t communicate with the rest of the crew for some reason, I will write short note for all planned sides so I already one step ahead.