Jack Witherden

Background Clip

2010-05-10T15:53:00.000-07:00

As stated before i used my time-log to help me get all the timing right on this animation. The different raw sections of this animation have been put together in Final Cut Pro to create MOVs which are perfectly timed to work with each other at later stages in effects production. There have been a large amount of issues i have had to overcome to get the two parts (bluescreen/nonbluesreen) to be prepared for time syncing and positioning. For the positioning side i came up with using little markers within my scenes to act as a reference as to where the figure will be placed. This has been done by marks on the table or just a tiny piece to blutack where the figure will be placed.

Running Reference when Shooting

2010-05-09T16:20:00.000-07:00

To get a realistic motion when my figure is running i have been following an old image i found of a man running, divided up into seperate frames to describe each step of his movements in this motion. It has been of great help to me when shooting my Figure animations when i didnt quite know how it would move in a next step without acting it out upon myself. (which i also ended up doing alot of the time)

Figure - Bluescreen Pictures

2010-05-03T09:21:00.000-07:00

Here are a few images from the blue-screened animations that i will use in my animation. The figure will be edited out of its blue background using a Keylight plugin in After Effects and then placed into the background movie clips which have been be shot separately. I made the stop motion backgrounds of this first part of the animation and then noted them in my time-log to ensure that these animations have the right timing and how long they had to be to match in with the backgrounds.

I used an A3 piece of bright blue paper as a background, placed in an even light source so that when coming to production stages i will be able to key out the blue evenly. Most of the animation will use this technique and i have hidden the base of the figure's stand by cutting a small hole in the paper so that the support of the figure sticks through and i can animate it in the same place which helps in later stages.

Taken from 'Figure_Waving', Post Key light Effect in After Effects.

Taken from 'Figure_Landing'

Taken from 'Figure_Jumping'

Taken from 'Figure_Running'

Work Set-up

2010-04-26T05:09:00.000-07:00

This is my work area for the animation. I have a DV Camera set up on a tripod which captures the figure against a bluescreen background and streams it via Firewire to the Macbook. I used the Mac book because while my MOVs are rendering out from After Effects on my imac, it will not prehibit me from carrying on with capturing the next scene. The area where the figure is actually shot benefits from natural light which, from some research on tips for stop motion, is best to get an even source.

Here is my first set up when creating my test animation with bluetack. A high quality webcam is used here to stream the live feed into my imac in which i can then shoot the scene frame by frame.

Lastly below are two images of my shoot for the backgrounds scenes in which the figure will be jumping two dimensionally across each media. The stone i got from a garden centre is very heavy and it may be a challenge to photograph each shot with the precision of something lighter. The parchment i made myself from an old trick i learned to stain paper with tea bags and blot coffee granules to give the effect as shown. The non featured medium here is the notepad which i am yet still to purchase however that should be relatively easy to shoot apart from the animation of the cover lifting. I will be using a lot of blue-tack to hold it in position whilst i shoot the frames.

Third Storyboard - Developed Idea

2010-04-24T23:54:00.000-07:00

Here is the storyboard for my revised version from the previous narrative. It encompasses the advertisement as well as the narrative. I think this version will be allot more efficient to accomplish and have a more interesting feel to it rather than the figure just exploring its surroundings. It also gives the animation purpose and helps explain that this animation is about evolution of technology which is really fitting to the subject matter the animation is advertising.

Slight change of plan - Purpose?

2010-04-24T15:32:00.000-07:00

To give a possible purpose to this animation, i have come up with the idea of making it into a promotion/advertisement. I realized during drawing up my second storyboard idea (see previous post) that it was quite dull and had no real purpose to it. I had an idea whilst thinking of the evolutionary path this figure takes in the first part of my storyboard and wondered how i could get this to the next step. This made me think that obviously after hand drawn animation on paper would become computer animation. The advertising idea will be to have the figure still leaping out into 3D space but not doing much other than sliding down the desk, (see previous post), to it leaping into 3D space and exploring the next evolutionary step in animation. The figure will then see the computer and the advertisement will be put in place for Mac. I will need to storyboard this and work out how it will all link together etc.

Second Idea + Storyboard

2010-04-23T10:45:00.000-07:00

After looking back on my first storyboard idea, i felt that the task to build an entire model city just to shoot the last to scenes in was quite inefficient taking into consideration the length of time it wold take to achieve a stop motion video in the timescale i have. Therefor my new idea for the narrative of this peice is to still have the figure evolve through the different mediums of stone, parchments, and notepad paper. However instead of it turning into a cyber robot and walking through a city in 3 dimensional space (which, looking back seems very out of place and strange), but for the figure to meerly explore its surroundings which in this case are the actual place where the previous scenes are shot. The figure will do this in 3 dimensional space still, however it is much more connected and relevant than the previous ending. Here is my storyboard for the second idea.

Stop Motion Testing

2010-04-22T07:23:00.000-07:00

This is my first test piece of stop motion. From watching it back i can tell that i will need to think about my movements more and pre determine which should be slower and which should be quicker. Its all very rhythmic from looking at this test.

I have also been experimenting with different techniques and finding out which gets the process done in the most efficient time. I have spent most of the day taking single pictures with an SLR and then uploading all of them to my computer and finally animate them in Final Cut. I have also tried to film a motion then chop it up digitally and animate that way. For this test however, I used a program especially designed for stop motion animation in which a stream from my digital camera to my computer allows me to simple click my mouse when i take a picture and then automatically saves it out.

For this process i needed a DV cable which i don't have yet, however i experimented with a few webcams and thus got the test below. I will be purchasing a DV cable so that i will have much better quality images and will not have the camera automatically alter focus/light all the time.

Stop Motion Tips Videos

2010-04-22T04:17:00.000-07:00

Im currently getting ready to shoot some test scene of stop motion just to get a feel for whats possible and what possible pit falls i should try to avoid. I found these two videos about the infamous stop motion animator, Javen Ivey who created 'My Paper Mind' (a direct influence for my aquapax viral). The videos show tips on lighting, techniques, animation flaws and general advice on how to shoot a stop motion film successfully.

History of Stop Motion Animation

2010-04-21T15:32:00.000-07:00

Stop motion animation has been around for a long time, almost as long as traditional film-making. Originally stop motion involved animating objects which included the animated movement of any "non-drawn" objects such as toys, blocks or any rigid inanimate object you care to mention. This was quickly followed by cel animaiton. And then animators experimented with clay animation and puppet animation used in films such as 'Nightmare Before Christmas' and 'Wallace and Gromit'. Tim Burton's association with stop motion animation originated with this short film, 'Vincent' (1982).

Some early examples of stop motion films and techniques can be seen in the "The Humpty Dumpty Circus" (1898) and in "Fun in a Bakery Shop" (1902). In 1907 "The Haunted Hotel" was a very successful movie with the cinema audience of the time. In 1912 one of the first clay animation movies using stop motion was released to great critical acclaim. It was called "Modeling Extraordinary" In 1916, the first woman animator, Helena Smith Dayton, began experimenting with clay stop motion. She released her first film in 1917, Romeo and Juliet. December of 1916, brought the first of Willie Hopkin's 54 episodes of "Miracles in Mud" to the big screen.

"Suzy Snowflake" is a popular Christmas song written by Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett, made famous by Rosemary Clooney in 1951 and released as a 78 RPM record by Columbia Records, MJV-123.

It was during the 1950s which was the transformation period of stop motion animation. Stop motion not only gained a wide audience appeal and was accepted in pop culture, but for the animators involved in the studios, the stop motion process was a convenient alternative to the traditional hand-drawn process.

This was also a time of commercialism for stop motion animation. Not only was it used more often in films, but stop motion could be seen in television and commercials. All this is credited to the well-known television show "Gumby", which sparked the interest of stop motion to pop culture.

Art Clokey is best known for his creation of the clay animation “Gumby”. The character, Gumby, was created in his 1955 student film project while attending USC (University of Southern California). He pitched his film to Sam Engel of 20th Century Fox, and the rest is history. Clokey is also distinguished for creating clay animation commercials for Budweiser and Coca Cola

An extremely strange (and amazing) feature film was made in 1993 by the Bolex Brothers using the pixelation technique in which live action is fused with stop motion by using actual people in frame by frame animation, 'The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb' (1993).

Last year saw the first feature length stop motion film shot in 3D, 'Coraline' from director Henry Selick. The film breaks a lot of milestones: at 100 minutes it’s the longest stop-motion feature ever, and the first to be shot entirely in 3D.

Initial Storyboard

2010-04-19T08:53:00.000-07:00

This is my initial storyboard for the Idea previously mentioned.

Idea

2010-04-19T02:59:00.000-07:00

I have thought of an idea through looking into stop motion animations and the wide variety of forms of it and how stop motion can be achieved. The range of stop motion videos i have seen has been very large and this gave me the idea of evolution. From simple drawings on paper that alter with each frame to full puppet/figurine stop motion which has been shot in a three dimensional space through separately filming backgrounds then overlaying stop motioned subject on to it. The idea that cities have evolved also influenced me to this idea and i think that if done right, this animation could really be successful.

The idea is to start with a simple two dimensional figure walking on the spot, the background to this will be something primitive such as a rock to symbolize perhaps cave drawings in which i will digitally alter the figure to look as such. The walking figure will then literally jump from the rock background to another more modern medium such as parchment paper (for this i will overlay an effect digitally to give the right effects as with all sections. Again it will jump to more and more modern mediums that have been used for drawing (notepads, maybe a screen). These sections will be a static shot with the figure walking on the spot and backgrounds being moved.

The final section of my animation will consist of a technique i saw from animator, Patrick Boivin, where my figure will make a last jump and the camera will moved from its two dimensional static shot to a three dimensional space. To give this effect i will pre shoot a three dimensional space without any subjects involved, and also create a separate stop motion animation against a green screen background. The subject involved in this green screen animation will then be keyed out and put into the pre shot three dimension camera movements to symbolize the finishing section of this evolutionary animation. The background for the final section will be a city in which i shall build out of card for the purposes of the shot. This city will be establishing the modern and synchronic ideas that were stated in Jean Baudrillard's quote.

Although this is a very time consuming idea, i have full confidence that the end product will be well worth the effort and am very excited to work on it.

Stop Motion Inspiration - PES

2010-04-18T18:56:00.000-07:00

The artist PES has created a series of stop motion animations which use physical objects photographed then placed in succession of one another to create the movement of inanimate objects. Recently PES as created an advertisement for the Washington State Lottery in which two sets of red and yellow lottery balls travel to meet each other and mix up. PES's animations mostly feature comedy concepts and are delivered to a very high standard which i think is needed to make something of this nature look professional and presentable.

Probably the most famous of his work is the stop motion animation, 'Western Spaghetti' in which a range of old fashioned toys are treated as ingredients to make a meal. The ways in which PES has implemented little details such as chopping a section of a rubix cube into smaller pieces really makes this animation stand out. The animation has had numerous awards such as the 2009 Sundance Film Festival Winner, 2009 Audience Award, and TIME Magazine voted No.2 Viral Video of the Year, proving that although an old fashioned form of animation can still be successful in modern times if done correctly.

Artist Website

http://www.eatpes.com/game_over.html

Stop Motion Inspiration - Patrick Boivin

2010-04-18T03:46:00.000-07:00

Whilst looking through videos of stop motion i came across an animator who excels at the technique and has devised a unique twist on the classic stop motion animation. Patrick Boivin creates a series of stop motion animation which utilizes modern technology to create a three dimensional space in which the subject (i.e. a transformer) can be brought to life. His animations use camera movements that pan, rotate and move around the character whilst the film is playing which gives a very unique and real sense to the characters being animated. Boivin was a massive influence on my direction into stop motion for this project and his techniques bring something totally new to this 'old fashion' form of animation.

Artist Website

http://www.wired.com/underwire/tag/patrick-boivin/

Here is one of his stop motion animations which uses the three dimensional technique.

Stop Motion

2010-04-18T03:23:00.000-07:00

Through looking at a large amount of stop motion videos on the internet i have seen many that cover a large scale of what can be called stop motion. The most common example is that of drawings which have been shot in succession of one another to give the illusion of movement. This technique of hand drawing numerous illustrations for a short period of time when in their final moving image form is a massive effort and says to me that this form of animation could be viewed as out dated and almost primitive in consideration to digital animation.

Another form of stop motion animation which has interested me is puppetry. Either undertaken with figures made out of clay (most infamous being 'Morph'), or pre existing subjects such as children's action figures and toys. This idea that bringing a character alive which is not just drawn out, and knowing that the physical subject actually exists has really interested me for a long time. It may seem out of touch, but in my opinion the preferences of even a modern day film between CGI and animatronics is definitely the latter. I want to know the character although not alive, actually exists in physical form which makes them more believable to me as an audience member.

I really want to get this relationship between a non physical character coming to life and an existing object also coming to life within my animation somehow.

Animation Styles

2010-04-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

I definately want to create an animation piece for this project however there are a few techniques and obstacles i need to overcome such as what style of animation i wish to pursue. There are many forms of animation which can be used to create a film on their own or used in conjunction with one another.

The three main forms of animation are:

Traditional Animation

- Cell Animation

- Hand Drawn

Individual frames of films are photographed of drawings on paper.

Each frame differs slightly from the previous frame to give movement

much like a flick-book does. This form of animation is very time

consuming and i think the ending affect is not worth it considering the

next style, Computer Animation has a similar look if done right.

Computer Animation

- 2D

- 3D

- CGI

- Flash

- After Effects

Computer Animation encompasses a variety of techniques, the unifying

factor being that the animation is created digitally on a computer.

There are many forms of software that can be used for this technique

of animation and it has the capabilities to cover other forms also.

Although this may not be my main focus for actually creating the raw

animations for a film, it will almost definitely be used in some way to

generate my outcome.

Stop Motion Animation

- Puppet

- Clay

- Cutout

- Graphic

- Pixelation (real life photography)

Physical real world objects or subjects are manipulated and photographed

to create a single frame. The process is then repeated to create

the illusion of movement. Stop Motion Animation is extremely time

consuming however the resulting film that is produced from this technique

looks very nice and is worthy of the time invested. Im very interested in

this form of animation and may either use it on its own, or incorporate it

into the final outcome somehow.

Artist Inspiration - Dion Archibald

2010-04-16T07:57:00.000-07:00

Dion Archibald is an artist from australia who paints a mixture of city landscapes and concentrates on evolving his work from everyday glances he has in and arond city space. A recent exhibition of his showcased a series of paintings from his time in Newcastle (in Australia) and his style is very much from the same colour pallette using similar colours in each painting. This extends to a particular peice i picked up on in which Archibald has used unified colour, restricting the cityscape to a monochrome and dreary view of perhaps a "synchronic" city.

Artist Website

http://www.dionarchibald.com/

'Newcastle - City & Surf'

Artist Inspiration - Anne Garney

2010-04-15T07:32:00.000-07:00

Anne Garney is an artist that i came across whilst looking through some city research and she paints city scenes on site with a high colour saturation and in a very blocky style. I would consider this blocky style as a comment on the rigidness of cities and it really relates to the point Baudrillard made in the quote i chose as a starting point, as cities being the same.

On Anne Garney's website it states that her preferences to subject matters are,

"...buildings, something man-made, set amidst the beauty of nature. I’m looking at color, light, composition, and the movement within the picture. I like a composition that draws you into the scene and that may have one or two secondary focal points which add depth and interest."

She paints natural subjects within the midst of a cities landscape to make nature more accessible and relative to her targeted audience of whom are city based. This relationship between man made buildings and nature is really understood by the audience as their supposed day-to-day views of natural beauty is that of which is included within Garney's paintings.

Artist Website

http://annegarneypaintings.com/index.html

'Beausoleil Stairs'

'Kansas City Skyline, Autumn'

'Garden View Cruz Bay'

Chosen Quote

2010-04-10T05:13:00.000-07:00

For a starting point to my project development i have decided to choose the Jean Baudrillard quote,

"The cities of the world are concentric, isomorphic, synchronic. Only one exists and you are always in the same one. Its the effect of their permanent revolution, their intense circulation, their instantaneous magnetism."

Although i have chosen this quote as a preliminary starting point, my initial ideas which sparked off from a brainstorm around some animation ideas could fit in really well. The idea that cities are permanently moving made me think of movement, action and something happening all the time. The last two words of this quote also really stood out for me 'instantaneous magnetism'. It made me think of attracting people to cities and their impact on areas around them, drawing people in.

Exam Project Brief

2010-04-10T05:05:00.000-07:00

The project brief explains that for this project students are allowed a four week time period to work on their projects without supervision by staff. Students can choose a starting point for some idea generation from a list of quotes provided within the set brief, or independently set up a brief in which they can work to.

The list of quotes is as follows:

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.
Jean Arp

Cyberspace consists of transactions, relationships, and thought itself, arrayed like a standing wave in the web of our communications. Ours is a world that is both everywhere and nowhere.
John Perry Barlow

The cities of the world are concentric, isomorphic, synchronic. Only one exists and you are always in the same one. It's the effect of their permanent revolution, their intense circulation, their instantaneous magnetism.
Jean Baudrillard

The new electronic independence re-creates the world in the image of a global village.
Marshall McLuhan

Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.
Joseph Addison

Evaluation of D&AD Project (E4 Promo)

2010-03-10T12:20:00.001-08:00

During this project i have come up against some tough challenges. The initial idea stage was spent experimenting with the actual E4 logo and seeing what ideas came out of it. I printed out many copies of the logo and started to draw around them till i cam up with a few ideas i could develop a bit further.

As mentioned in this blog i came up with two solid initial ideas to start developing and i really found myself swaying more to my final outcome's version allot more as i thought it would be a more fun and apt response to the D&AD brief.

With continuous guidance throughout the development of my project i took onboard a large number of opinions, ideas, alterations and suggestions from my tutors and tried them all out even if they didn't end up being included. My final outcome is much better than i thought it would turn out this time a couple of weeks ago due to those final tweaks and polishing finishes as well as the disposal of an out of place concept within the beginning as suggested by a tutor.

With all these alterations throughout my production process the project has come on a large amount and judging by my latest showing of the promo, i think it is much more successful than it was previously seen to be.

Lighting - Patrick Caulfield

2010-03-03T18:58:00.000-08:00

Earlier today i had a discussion with andrew about my progress with this project and one of the things he brought up was the fact that my white background conflicts with Monday NIGHT movies. To compensate for this i shall add a darkened purple solid to the background and place in a spotlight which will solve the problem of losing the current animations over this shade of colour. Some inspiration for this idea to solve the problem came from he English artist, Patrick Caulfield, which produces very flat images experimenting with light and how it affects the visuality of things that it covers. I looked through his work and found it to be a very influential process due to the simple yet interesting ways Caulfield experiments with using light in his paintings. Below is some of his work and hopefully i will be able to reflect this inspiration in my own work.

Feedback

2010-03-03T02:06:00.000-08:00

Last week i spoke to giles and sue about my monday night movies promo and how it was coming along. They both raised some issues that i had to change, namely to get the feeling of guilty pleasures included and to have more movement in the background to give some depth to the piece. I have included a final 'reveal' scene which will have the characters moving around a city scene, and characters in the background to give the notion that the process has a larger scale than what is focused on in my animation. I have also 'racked' my brains about how i can get this guilty pleasures into it as well. I came up with the idea of junk food (sweets etc), the initial idea of this developed into the characters being branded on the packaging on these products which will then come to life and start their processes in another world. I still need to animate the transition between the drain pipes and the final machine. For this i will extend the complexity of the pipe-works to incorporate a 'Rube Goldberg' style and improve on the complexity of this transition. This will also sort the problem out of how the fuel gets into the actual machine, by way of having different stages i will able to animate the pipe ultmatley to more be more believable to get to the machine. For now, here is my animation mid-development.

Here is an example of a 'Rube Goldberg' machine.

E4 Promo Development

2010-02-24T11:05:00.000-08:00

This past week i have been working on changing my piece in accordance to my feedback on the thursday before last. The main changes i have made are purely animation and narrative wise. The garbage bin has been changed to a flammable container which focuses more on a fuel narrative rather than giving the image of the films being trash. The transition which needed some work from my animatic has been changed to a pipe which releases the fuel and transitions towards the machine in a more stylish and fluid way rather than a straight dissolve. Regarding the soundtrack, i still haven't received an email back from D&AD so i will probably produce my own royalty free soundtrack depending on the next weeks responses. For now the soundtrack is from a song called Side Dish by the band PSAPP, the edits i have made to this fits perfectly to the animation. For now here is the working development of my E4 Monday Night Movies Promo.

E4 Changes

2010-02-24T04:13:00.000-08:00

After a chat with Sue there are some changes that have to be sorted out. These include the inclusion of guilty pleasures, something that i really need to get into this promo. The guilty pleasures factor is probably the main aspect that i really need to get into my indent. Another change that needs to happen is still the transition between the fuel drum and machine.

E4 Promo Development

2010-02-24T03:07:00.000-08:00

Animatic

2010-02-13T11:41:00.000-08:00

Here is my animatic for the E4 Monday Night Movie Promo. Regarding the feedback i received yesterday from Giles. I will need to change a couple of things such as the dustbin, the transition between drain and machine, and finding sounds/music for the piece. This is a bit of a grey area as the rules on the D&AD Student brief do not cover anything about terms of use/copyright. I have emailed the organisation about this and a reply is pending. For now i need to focus on the actual animation over this half term and will sort out the music when i get a reply or produce my own royalty free soundtrack if one does not come soon enough.

Unchosen Concept

2010-02-09T04:03:00.000-08:00

Here is my concept rough for the idea i didn't decide to continue with, namely the green traffic light figure how of which makes his way from a traffic light box to someones home and watches E4.

Chosen Path for E4 Promo

2010-02-08T08:40:00.000-08:00

Regarding the feedback i recieved i have decided to continue on with the secind solid idea i had about the machine being the E4 logo and a large amount of robot creatures maintaining it. The animation shouldnt be too hard to accomplish as i have designed the characters to have very sinplistic moving limbs/tools. For the style of my peice i want to go along the lines of a bupa advert (see video) i saw which had animation that was a non oultined simplistic shape infused peice. Im really looking forward to developing my charactors and making them look out of this world. If all goes to plan and i iron out the narrative issues raised by my recieved feedback i think this could be a strong piece.

E4's Gun Ho Views

2010-02-07T07:16:00.000-08:00

Although never aired or to my knowledge known to E4, I found this video to be the kind of attitude that E4 portrays within its channel advertisements and persona. This entry for the E4 stings competitions is bound to breach copyright issues and would probably never be aloud to be aired, but i think its important for me to bring this up due to E4s wacky and gun ho point of view to television broadcasting.

Another example of this attitude was due to a technical hitch that resulted in the same show being broadcast twice over, as the announcement was broadcast it stated, "I know we repeat ourselves a lot on E4 but that was of course a technical fault. Hopefully we'll have fixed it by the time it's repeated on Sunday".

E4 Tv Promo Example

2010-01-29T20:43:00.000-08:00

Here is an example of the typical promo that E4 puts out, its very wacky and humurous. The voice over one could say is mocking the programme that is being promoted. E4's promos seem to be very out there and non convenvtional, the stings are even more 'eccentric' and fantasial. These have given me some ideas of where to start with creating my E4 Monday Night Movies Promotion and Sting.

Promo Ideas

2010-01-25T12:18:00.000-08:00

During my research i have been noting down just a few ideas that could work with this project. I have wittled these ideas down to two solid narratives for E4's Monday Night Movies Promo:

The first idea iv had about my E4 Promo is to have a traffic light symbol man get out of his flashing box and try to escape to watch the Monday Night Movies on somebody's television set after breaking into their house. The piece will be shot on film and i will carry out the charactor animation in after effects by using the puppet tool on top on the preiously film sequences. This may be an issue however due to my lack of experiance with character animation and getting the framing right with the filmed sequences.

The second promo idea iv had is to create a full world filled with odd little creatures that each have independant jobs to bring the MONDAY MOVIE NIGHTS to the end o the advert. They will each have a part in getting fuel from either film iconography or dvds etc. The premise is that the final shot will be the E4 logo producing the movie night texts by it being a huge machine that all these little creatures will work around and maintain. This completely fantasial concept, i think is very well suited to E4s trademarks and targeted advertising ways. The narrative will need a little work in this however.

I will be drawing up both storyboards for feedback in our next session and i will go from there.

E4 Channel Research

2010-01-23T18:10:00.000-08:00

E4 has become somewhat notorious for its strange promotion campaigns, initially narrated by the infamous 'voice of E4', the late Patrick Allen. Since Allen's death in 2006, the similar voice of Peter Dickson has been used. Trailers often make use of dry humour which, at first, do not appear to make any sense. Past examples include "Big shiny films in your dinky litle home!", "Coming to you, Straight into your telly box", and "Second chance sunday - not just a bunch of repeats, honest".
Programme trailers sometimes have the narrator repeating things thatthe characters have said, such as in the trailer for Ugly Betty tht includes onecharacter asking Betty "Why are you crying in the bathroom?", the narrator immediatly asks "Why IS Betty crying in the bathroom?!". Sometimes the narrator appears to interact with the charactors of the programme. This is especially notable in more recent trailers on the channel.
Source: Wikipedia

D&AD Chosen Brief

2010-01-18T06:29:00.000-08:00

After much thought about this project I have decided to choose the E4 Monday Movie Nights Promo. I have chosen this brief due to the motion graphical aspect which really stood out to me when looking at all the briefs. I will need to brainstorm in my paperwork about E4 as a channel, and what kind of ideas i may come up with baring in mind the past styles they have used for promotions/stings/adverts.

Concept Artwork for Interactive Project

2009-12-19T14:33:00.000-08:00

Here is some hand-drawn artwork which I produced when coming up with my ideas for the Flash based maze game. I decided not to include this artwork in my game in the end due to the whole concept that i eventually thought of, being not just to make a zombie game of survival, but an interactive narrative based on a game. Although not featured in the actual game itself, these drawings helped me to come up with my finalized idea and they initially helped with producing a concept at the beginning of my thought process for this project.

Statement of Interactivity Project

2009-12-06T15:07:00.000-08:00

The term 'Interactivity' can mean so many things to different people and has a common association with engaging the user to wield the rewards of the users attention and enjoyment. The premise of an interactive narrative is so that the users can get more out of a story by way of interactivity.

The aim of my flash based game is to force the users to engage with the narrative by way of not being accessible to it if they don't. The users will have to search for their clues as to what the narrative is, by looking for clues around a darkly lit maze. The idea of this is, if the user does not decide to look for clues they will not uncover any of the points I will put in for their interpretation.

Interpretation is another key factor to my project as all the clues I will put into the maze will result in short pieces that give a hint to what the narrative actually is. In truth, there is no exact narrative that the user can find out, the narrative will be available for different interpretations and will make the maze game a multiple portrayal of the term 'Interactive' in both physical and physiological senses.

ZOMBIES COMING SOON!!

2009-11-26T08:36:00.000-08:00

2009-11-22T05:32:00.000-08:00

Interactive Project

During my research for the essay outlining the theory behind our interactive projects, I came across an online program called DINAH. DINAH (Dynamic Interactive Narrative Authoring Heuristic) constructs textual stories from a vast database of short story components, similar to video game techniques that blend short motion capture segments to construct interactive graphical characters. It builds dynamically adjust to a user's interaction while run-time algorithms ensure the essential ingredients of a compelling and understandable narrative are preserved.

A quote from one of the creators of this program explains, "We use DINAH to further explore the potential and utility of interactive, computer generated narrative, both as a learning tool and an entertainment technology"

DINAH is an online (semi) interactive technology in my view as it pulls short stories from its database and interacts with what the users input into it, however not at a level which would define interactivity for myself. This being said however the uses of interactivity in this case have welded a strong and important argument for the usefulness of interactivity to create something (ie a narrative) that may never of took place if it not existing.

2009-11-20T13:57:00.000-08:00

Interactive Project

Human–computer interaction or HCI is the study of interaction between people (users) and computers. It is often regarded as the intersection of computer science, behavioral sciences, design and several other fields of study. Interaction between users and computers occurs at the user interface (or simply interface), which includes both software and hardware, for example, general-purpose computer peripherals and large-scale mechanical systems, such as aircraft and power plants. The following definition is given by the Association for Computing Machinery.

Because human-computer interaction studies a human and a machine in conjunction, it draws from supporting knowledge on both the machine and the human side. On the machine side, techniques in computer graphics, operating systems, programming languages, and development environments are relevant. On the human side, communication theory, graphic and industrial design disciplines, linguistics, social sciences, cognitive psychology, and human performance are relevant. Engineering and design methods are also relevant. Due to the multidisciplinary nature of HCI, people with different backgrounds contribute to its success. However, due to the different value systems of its diverse members, the collaboration can be challenging.
HCI is also sometimes referred to as man–machine interaction (MMI) or computer–human interaction (CHI).

"Human-computer interaction is a discipline concerned with the design, evaluation and implementation of interactive computing systems for human use and with the study of major phenomena surrounding them."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-computer_interaction

2009-11-15T13:11:00.000-08:00

Interactive Project

As we received our 'Interactive' brief last friday, I felt that the first research I should look into is interactivity itself and what is defined by the term. This should help me to ground any initial ideas I will have so that they are related and fall into what the brief has asked for. I started research online and found numerous results, obviously as the search term interactive revealed a large number of results, i refined my searches to include the most relevance suited to what I want to create.

SearchSOA.com

In computers, interactivity is the dialog that occurs between a human being (or possibly another live creature) and a computer program. (Programs that run without immediate user involvement are not interactive; they're usually called batch or background programs.) Games are usually thought of as fostering a great amount of interactivity. However, order entry applications and many other business applications are also interactive, but in a more constrained way (offering fewer options for user interaction).

On the World Wide Web, you not only interact with the browser (the Web application program) but also with the pages that the browser brings to you. The implicit invitations called hypertext that link you to other pages provide the most common form of interactivity when using the Web (which can be thought of as a giant, interconnected application progam).

In addition to hypertext, the Web (and many non-Web applications in any computer system) offer other possibilities for interactivity. Any kind of user input, including typing commands or clicking the mouse, is a form of input. Displayed images and text, printouts, motion video sequences, and sounds are output forms of interactivity.

The earliest form of interaction with computers was indirect and consisted of submitting commands on punched cards and letting the computer read them and perform the commands. Later computer systems were designed so that average people (not just programmers) could interact immediately with computers, telling them what programs to run and then interacting with those programs, such as word processors (then called "editors"), drawing programs, and other interactive programs. The first interactive human-computer interfaces tended to be input text sequences called "commands" (as in "DOS commands") and terse one-line responses from the system.

In the late 1970's, the first graphical user interfaces (GUIs) emerged from the Xerox PARC Lab, found their way into the Apple Macintosh personal computer, and then into Microsoft's Windows operating systems and thus into almost all personal computers available today.

2009-10-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

Aquapax Viral

I have designed a test version of the main part of my animation just to see how it looks and will it be workable to the entire piece including the beginning shot with the water close up and the end anchor shot. I have used an audio visualizer just to get some movement into the test, however the finished version wont have the same border as this. What this test has really made me think about however, apart from getting it working, is the sound i want to feature in it. I would prefer an instrumental piece rather than an actual lyrical song because the feeling i want to get across is very specified, and with copyright issues the task of getting a song which fits is going to be big.

Here is my test of the animation effect.

2009-10-19T06:51:00.000-07:00

Aquapax Viral

My idea for a storyboard will be, as a concept, a zooming out of the product from the extreme close up of inside the carton to an outside shot of the product. Within this animation i will incorporate the 'paper mind' effect that was featured in the last post. This layered animation will be representing the multiple layers of the carton whilst playing an animation showing a mis-en-scene of water and freshness. I intend to finish the viral with a product shot which was asked for by Neil, and which fits in perfectly to my animation. The whole video should last between 30 to 40 seconds which is, from my experience and research, the average timescale of the most popular eye catching viral videos.

2009-10-16T22:11:00.000-07:00

Aquapax Viral

From Neil's presentation of the product I firstly got my ideas from looking at the packaging when passed around, the main focus for me was to concentrate on the carton itself and home in on the way it is constructed with all the different layers to securely hold the water within. As I found when I examined the packaging myself, and with Neil's information. The package is made up of multiple layers of paper as a majority.

For my viral I instantly thought of a stop motion animation I saw over the summer break. 'My paper mind' by Javen Ivey uses a large number of cutouts including all the frames of an animation, he then painstakingly takes pictures of each one and runs the film as a series of images played in succession. The result is an incredible effect that stylizes the stop motion media in a new and exciting way.

I aim to achieve this effect within my animation digitally due to time restrictions and will be drawing direct inspiration from it.

2009-10-14T14:26:00.000-07:00

Aquapax Viral

Aquapax is an environmentally friendly alternative to the standard bottle of water which uses a majority paper formed carton as an alternative. The paper carton hold numerous layers of recyclable paper with a thin layer of aluminum and plastic to contain its water. An Aquapax carton is the lowest carbon impact container for portable water intended for resealing and re-use. The package is majority paper (72%) sourced from sustainable forests with the remainder aluminum (5.5%) and LDPE (22.5%) guaranteeing a non leaching container of absolute integrity.

The water itself is one of the purest natural mineral waters in the world and is 12 times purer than 'evian' and 21 times as 'volvic'. It contains no pesticides or contaminates from where the water is from, a protected reserve in germany. The water has a near perfect 7.1pH level, a naturally low mineral balance and ultra low nitrate levels (which are chemical fertilizers which migrate from farmed soil into water courses

2009-10-08T07:20:00.000-07:00

FUTURE MACHINE

I have done quite a lot of research on the copyright issues in relation to "Little Boxes" by Malvina Reynolds, and have come across its information in this web page following a link from the song. According to this I am able to transmit, copy, and distribute the song however this must not be for a commercial use (i.e. to gain money from it). Following this I should be able to use this piece of music in my animation which is a great find for me.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

2009-10-07T14:22:00.001-07:00

FUTURE MACHINE

I have recently come across a piece of music that I think would really suit my animation. Its up beat 'nursery rhyme' like melody coupled with a light hearted version of a global disaster is the perfect match for my animation. The only thing holding me back from actually using it at the moment is that I am not sure on its copyright status. I will need to do some research into its publishing details, however the song was produced in 1961 so I am holding high hopes.

2009-10-02T04:51:00.000-07:00

FUTURE MACHINE

This music video by the band, 'Super furry Animals' was referred to me from my talk with sarah about my storyboard. I think that the video has very similar concepts to my own idea with the machinable aspects of a stage production included within the video. This video has also inspired me to perhaps show a little more structural and mechanical aspects to my own animation such as pulleys to show how all the panels and items in my animation work.

Genre Case Study - Horror

2008-11-05T05:59:00.000-08:00

Jack Witherden
Case Study for Genres : Horror
"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." ~ H. P. Lovecraft
The genre of horror brings mixed images to different people. Some see a traditional scary story, some see an elaborate paranormal thriller, and others may see the simple phobic elements. No matter what your opinion is of this fiction area, it has remained a highly popular among readers for centuries in english literature. Its long established history has evolved from literary/vocally tales of terror, to full blown multi-million dollar movies within a single century spawning its own cliches and conventions. the genre has also branched to other forms of media such as television programs, comics, graphic novels and even video games both adapted or taken influenced from films of this genre.
"Horror films have been analyzed within a range of theoretical paradigms and discourses. The genre has been addressed in the light of its theological and moral perspectives, its sociological and cultural dimensions, its politics of representation, and its configuration as a set of texts particularly conductive to psychoanalytic approaches."
the horror genre p7
History
There is no known beginning to fictional horror material. Perhaps the most well-known "first" horror novel was that of Dante Allegri, The Divine Comedy. This book came to be known as, Inferno, among other aliases. The Fifteenth-Century satire chronicles a journey through both heaven and hell, it contains all basic elements of a horror novel.

Allegri holding the divine comedy next to the entrance of hell

There were many early books that told tales of terror as a fictional genre, and it was evolved into some very early films such as Nosferatu. The film, shot in 1921 and released in 1922, was in essence an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula, with names and other details changed because the studio could not obtain the rights to the novel (for instance, "vampire" became "Nosferatu," and Count Dracula became Count Orlok).

A scene from the 1922 silent film, Nosferatu

Horror movies were reborn in the 1930s. The dreamlike imagery of the 1920s, the films peopled by ghostly wraiths floating silently through the terror of mortals, their grotesque death masks a visual representation of 'horror', were replaced by monsters that grunted and groaned and howled. Horror, with its strong elements of the fantastic and the supernatural, provided an effective escape to audiences tiring of their Great Depression reality. This was also despite the struggle that many of the major players - such as director Tod Browning - had to adapt to the new medium.

A scene taken from dracula (1931)

Movie poster for I was a Teenage Wolf (1957)

Horror movies in the 1950s were dominated by the 'B' picture. In 1956 James Nicholson & Samuel Arkoff decided that there was money to be made in supplying the bottom end of the cinema market with two-for-the-price-of-one movies. The B-picture was thought to be dead, the two-picture moviegoing experience taken over by television. However, Arkoff and Nicholson had a very specific audience in mind - one that didn't enjoy sitting in the living room surrounded by close family members. And they knew what teenagers wanted.
Horror movies of the 1980s (which probably begin in 1979 with Alien) exist at the glorious watershed when special visual effects finally caught up with the gory imaginings of horror fans and movie makers. Technical advances in the field of animatronics, and liquid and foam latex meant that the human frame could be distorted to an entirely new dimension, onscreen, in realistic close up. Horror films during this decade delivered the full colour close-up, look-no-strings-attached, special effect in a way that previous practitioners of the art could only dream about. Everything that had been suggested of horror films in the 1950s could now be brought into reality.

Evil Dead (1981)

The Horror genre now seems to take its impressionism from other cultures and fears. Long gone are the days of the 90s psychopaths, chasing the blonde girls away from houses in a whodunnit sort of hybridization. With remakes of Japanese movies including 'The Grudge', and 'The Ring' taking the western stage now, the horror subjects are more that of mind and suggestiveness. This should continue towards the next big thing that our minds adapt to being fear of next.

Hybridization and Sub-Genres

the horror genre includes many sub-genres (or sub-divisions) such as slasher films, physiological horrors and gothic horror cinema. Sub - genres and hybrid forms, which are films that use a mix of two or more different genres, take conventions and utilize them in a way that may be amended, subverted or self-consciously commented upon.

The 2004 movie Shaun of the Dead, in which a man decides to turn his declining life around by winning back his ex-girlfriend, bettering his relationship with his mother whilst dealing with an entire community that has returned from the dead to eat the living, there are many sub-genres that exist within the narrative of the film. The hybridization of both comedy and horror in this case is also coincided with a touch of romance and family values. The films two main genres however, are horror and comedy which doesn't seem like an obvious pairing of themes, however most hybrids no matter what combination of genres aren't in theory. The use of graphical gore and inappropriate soundtrack is used in a section of this film, which can in some movies make the terror even more sinister, plays a comedic role in this film and defines the form for the mixture of feelings that this film portrays.

Movie poster for Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Hybrids of the horror genre however, can also be a more expected mixture of sub-genres. Wes Craven's Scream provides an example of the slasher format but also offers a commentary on the construction and consumption of the horror film, a kind of "self mock" categorization of itself. The classic conventions of the horror films include such aspects as the final girl, a frightening place, and narratives that move from an equilibrium to a disturbance and back to a new, resolved equilibrium (Todorov's theory). Scream has included all of these typical codes and conventions of the genre in its narrative and has played them to there full extent (e.g. the kitchen knife and the ghoulish mask). The film acknowledges that its audience will have seen previous horror films. It invites the audience to comment on the predictability of the genre and at the same time offers them a new, self-contious, but frightening example of a horror film.

A scene from the 1996 slasher, Scream

Horror genre in video games

The horror genre as discussed previously in its beginnings as literature, takes many forms in the modern world, with new technology founded it is possible to create video games in the horror genre. The horror video game has the ability to include the audience in its story-line thus enhancing the fear factor, its interactivity sucks the player into the game and takes them through some of the emotions portrayed to us through the actors of horror films if successful. They too can portray many forms of fear to the player as the film can to its audience, such as the straight forward gore infested shoot em ups to the intense suggestion and suspense influenced story based games.

The House of the Dead game series uses copious amounts of gore and action in its gameplay to shock the player into shooting as much as he/she can in a desperate fight for survival at every turn. It relies strongly on the stereotypical zombie character in its gameplay as an all known figure of the horror genre.

The Silent Hill game series however relies on building its suspense and uses suggestion to strike fear into its players putting them in a state of anticipation, fear, and nervousness round every corner or room that the player enters. This style of gameplay, much like the film history, has evolved as the games audience's tastes have changed. What would have struck fear into most at one point in time, would be seen as cliched and predictable by the next.

Screen shot of 'The House of the Dead' video game

Conclusion

The horror genre has come a long way since its beginnings as tales of terror told both literately and vocally through different generations. It has stood its test of time and had seen many new aspects through the advancement of technology and its audience's perceptions of fear itself. Horror can be defined in all sorts of media and has become an established genre over the years it has existed in media form. People like to be scared as one of the emotions that is aimed to them by the horror genre. With a mix of the time of releases and common conventions that people believe will put their fear factor to a maximum, horror media can and will always be a main contender in the themes and styles of any form of media produced in the world for some time to come.

Bibliography

Books
General genre analysis and research: A-level Film Studies for WJEC
Tanya Jones
2005
pg. 306

Arkoff and Nickolson information: The Lost One
Stephen D. Youngkin
2005
pg. 406

Bam Stroker's Dracula historty: Hollywood Gothic
David J. Skal
1990
pg. 10 - 11

Various other historical research: Hammer and Beyond - The British Horror Film
Peter Hutchings
1993

Websites

http://horrorgenre.com/home.php

http://web.utk.edu/~wrobinso/590_lec_horror.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horror_film

Deviant Art Profile

2008-11-04T12:43:00.000-08:00

My artwork can be seen at

xixjackxix.deviantart.com

feedback will be appreciated.