To me Media means being able to shape the real world how I want to. It means being able to change any scene into something extraordinary. The reason that I want to study Media is because it allows me to have a creative outlet. It helps all of these thoughts that I have in my head be shown on screen in a creative way. Media is the art of story telling. Doing Media in higher education would enhance my skills by so much making my work so much better.
The thing that interests me most in Media is editing. Whether it be SFX or just video editing. It's amazing how much you can change someone's view on something just by manipulating the video through even the simplest of edits. You can change a certain shot so much that it doesn't even look like the original anymore. The SFX side of it really interests me because you can create things that aren't even there to begin with. You can lose all sense of reality and go crazy with your imagination.
Tuesday 23 September 2014
Wednesday 17 September 2014
Unit 33 Assignment 2 - Planning
Our stop motion is going to be a live action music video. It's going to be based in a doll house. We're going to use props. The music video we're going to do is 'Pretty hurts by Beyoncé'
First half:
Lyrics: Mama said, "You're a pretty girl.What's in your head, it doesn't matter
Brush your hair, fix your teeth.
What you wear is all that matters."
Action: The doors open to the doll house as a symbol of introduction. We see Beyoncé waking up in her bed as the songs lyrics start. She gets up and looks in the mirror. There is flashes of her brushing her hair and then brushing her teeth. And then looking in a wardrobe. She looks down sad then walks off screen.
Second Half:
Lyrics: Just another stage, pageant the pain away
This time I'm gonna take the crown
Without falling down, down, down
Action: The scene cuts to her walking down a hand made stage, stopping at the end then cutting to an extreme closeup of her face with a crown being put on her head.
Lyrics: Pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever's worst
Perfection is a disease of a nation, pretty hurts, pretty hurts
Third half:
Lyrics: Pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever's worst
We try to fix something but you can't fix what you can't see
It's the soul that needs the surgery
Action: Live action of someones hands with the lyrics appearing letter by letter
Lyrics: Blonder hair, flat chest
TV says, "Bigger is better."
South beach, sugar free
Vogue says, "Thinner is better."
Action: Shutting the wardrobe. It then cuts to the barbie doll sat on the sofa watching parts of the real beyonce video picks up magazine, opens it and reads the words 'thinner is better' then closes the magazine and on the back it says the end.
Edit in the starting background vocal 'uh uh uh'
Target audience:
Young teens to young adults, mainly female because the song features a female vocalist singing about the issue on girls' appearance and the main character in the video is a girl. Real life fans of Beyonce are around this age and the majority are girls so the topic will suit the target audience. Teenagers will be able to feel like they can relate more to the issue if the lyrics are on the screen it makes the message clearer.
The genre of this stop motion is reality this is because it's tackling the real issue of girls and how they can be portrayed/affected by the media.
Design: Because of the target audience we're focusing on more female related colours - pinks and pastels, the set will be in a girls' doll house which is pink and white on the outside. Using colours like this is more likely to catch attention
Similar product:
We took inspiration from the actual Pretty Hurts music video by Beyoncé, we're following the same storyline but also putting our own twist on it. Both ours and the real video focus on the topic of self image and the action on screen is going to follow the lyrics.
We also took inspiration from a Train - Drive by fan made stop motion music video. We used the idea of writing the lyrics on paper and making the words appear one by one as if they were writing themselves. We thought we would use this only for the chorus of the song because they have the most important lyrics in the song.
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First half:
Lyrics: Mama said, "You're a pretty girl.What's in your head, it doesn't matter
Brush your hair, fix your teeth.
What you wear is all that matters."
Action: The doors open to the doll house as a symbol of introduction. We see Beyoncé waking up in her bed as the songs lyrics start. She gets up and looks in the mirror. There is flashes of her brushing her hair and then brushing her teeth. And then looking in a wardrobe. She looks down sad then walks off screen.
Second Half:
Lyrics: Just another stage, pageant the pain away
This time I'm gonna take the crown
Without falling down, down, down
Action: The scene cuts to her walking down a hand made stage, stopping at the end then cutting to an extreme closeup of her face with a crown being put on her head.
Lyrics: Pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever's worst
Perfection is a disease of a nation, pretty hurts, pretty hurts
Third half:
Lyrics: Pretty hurts, we shine the light on whatever's worst
We try to fix something but you can't fix what you can't see
It's the soul that needs the surgery
Action: Live action of someones hands with the lyrics appearing letter by letter
Lyrics: Blonder hair, flat chest
TV says, "Bigger is better."
South beach, sugar free
Vogue says, "Thinner is better."
Action: Shutting the wardrobe. It then cuts to the barbie doll sat on the sofa watching parts of the real beyonce video picks up magazine, opens it and reads the words 'thinner is better' then closes the magazine and on the back it says the end.
Edit in the starting background vocal 'uh uh uh'
Target audience:
Young teens to young adults, mainly female because the song features a female vocalist singing about the issue on girls' appearance and the main character in the video is a girl. Real life fans of Beyonce are around this age and the majority are girls so the topic will suit the target audience. Teenagers will be able to feel like they can relate more to the issue if the lyrics are on the screen it makes the message clearer.
The genre of this stop motion is reality this is because it's tackling the real issue of girls and how they can be portrayed/affected by the media.
Design: Because of the target audience we're focusing on more female related colours - pinks and pastels, the set will be in a girls' doll house which is pink and white on the outside. Using colours like this is more likely to catch attention
and attract a female audience which is who we're targeting.
Young teens and older are inspired by Beyonce and because she is such a public figure and in the public eye she's someone they can confide in and it helps when she is one of the celebrities that make girls feel better about themselves.
This article proves that she's the right person to use for this target audience because she's labelled as a role model for young girls .
Young teens and older are inspired by Beyonce and because she is such a public figure and in the public eye she's someone they can confide in and it helps when she is one of the celebrities that make girls feel better about themselves.
This article proves that she's the right person to use for this target audience because she's labelled as a role model for young girls .
Similar product:
We took inspiration from the actual Pretty Hurts music video by Beyoncé, we're following the same storyline but also putting our own twist on it. Both ours and the real video focus on the topic of self image and the action on screen is going to follow the lyrics.
We also took inspiration from a Train - Drive by fan made stop motion music video. We used the idea of writing the lyrics on paper and making the words appear one by one as if they were writing themselves. We thought we would use this only for the chorus of the song because they have the most important lyrics in the song.
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UPDATED STORY BOARD:
Audio link:
Beyonce pretty hurts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXXQLa-5n5w (Plays throughout)
Hair brushing sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDm7soMhT4Y
Covers rustling sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUrdIk5Rjo0
Door opening sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dghr1qclOS0
Thursday 11 September 2014
Stop motion animation assignment 1 more lesson notes
Arcs and Gravity principles.
Minimum of 3 examples.
Principle of animation:
Time.
Timing will apply to any animation that you think is smooth or if it's jerky they haven't followed the principle of time.b
Presistence of vision is a flip book
Overlapping and follow through. Parts of an object don't all move at the same time.
Follow-through : The arm will continue moving following through even after the elbow has stopped
Overlapping action : Arms and feet moving at different speeds.
Acs and poses: Movement does not tend to be in straight lines but follow
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Time: (00:40-00:45) King kong not following the principle of time, very jerky movement. Doesn't look realistic.
Overlapping action: (1:00-1:05) King kong good example of overlapping action where the tail moves
Minimum of 3 examples.
Principle of animation:
Time.
Timing will apply to any animation that you think is smooth or if it's jerky they haven't followed the principle of time.b
Presistence of vision is a flip book
Overlapping and follow through. Parts of an object don't all move at the same time.
Follow-through : The arm will continue moving following through even after the elbow has stopped
Overlapping action : Arms and feet moving at different speeds.
Acs and poses: Movement does not tend to be in straight lines but follow
-----------
Time: (00:40-00:45) King kong not following the principle of time, very jerky movement. Doesn't look realistic.
Overlapping action: (1:00-1:05) King kong good example of overlapping action where the tail moves
Wednesday 10 September 2014
Unit 33 Assignment 1 - Written
There are many different principles of animation. For example, time, time in an animation is very important. If the animation is jerky they haven't followed the principle of time. The more frames per second you use the smoother animation you get, making it more believable.
The principle of gravity, you have to think that about the things that fall. When someone gets hit by something you have to show them falling at the rate that that person/thing gets hit by that thing. Sometimes people don't follow the principle of animation for humour purposes.
Overlapping and follow through. Followthrough means that when a part of your body moves, the other part of it continues. For example when you move your arm the hand continues to move even after the elbow stops moving. This makes it look more realistic. The movements look less ridged. Overlapping means that the different body parts will move at a different rate to eachother. So for example if you're walking at a slow rate the arms could be moving at a quicker rate.
Arcs and poses. The animation needs to follow the principle of arcs. The arcs show that movements don't usually go in a straight line. They go in curves or arcs and this helps people see it as more realistic. Poses are what the models look like when they're not moving. Poses are very important in animations. They help show what the character is feeling so you can better understand the story.
The principle of Anticipation. This is another principle that helps the animation look more realistic. For example when a character wants to jump they have to bend their knees first. This to help the audience know that something is going follow that action.
Phenakisttoscope (Made in 1832)
Zoetrope (Made in 1833)
Praxinoscope (Made in 1876)
Willis H. O’Brien (Born in 1886)
Kinetoscope (Developed in 1889)
Ray Harryhousen (Born in 1920)
Lee Hardcastle (Born in 1985)
Made in: 1933
Made by: David O. Selznick
Target Audience: Aimed at Men who like Horror/Action/Adventure films. Probably aged 20+
King Kong
Made in: 1951
Made in: 2010
Made by: Joe Penna
Target Audience: Any gender, probably young. Young because it's uploaded to Youtube and any gender because there's not really anything to specify that it could be for a certain gender. Both Female and Male could like this.
T-shirt War
The principle of gravity, you have to think that about the things that fall. When someone gets hit by something you have to show them falling at the rate that that person/thing gets hit by that thing. Sometimes people don't follow the principle of animation for humour purposes.
Overlapping and follow through. Followthrough means that when a part of your body moves, the other part of it continues. For example when you move your arm the hand continues to move even after the elbow stops moving. This makes it look more realistic. The movements look less ridged. Overlapping means that the different body parts will move at a different rate to eachother. So for example if you're walking at a slow rate the arms could be moving at a quicker rate.
Arcs and poses. The animation needs to follow the principle of arcs. The arcs show that movements don't usually go in a straight line. They go in curves or arcs and this helps people see it as more realistic. Poses are what the models look like when they're not moving. Poses are very important in animations. They help show what the character is feeling so you can better understand the story.
The principle of Anticipation. This is another principle that helps the animation look more realistic. For example when a character wants to jump they have to bend their knees first. This to help the audience know that something is going follow that action.
Phenakisttoscope (Made in 1832)
Zoetrope (Made in 1833)
Praxinoscope (Made in 1876)
Willis H. O’Brien (Born in 1886)
Kinetoscope (Developed in 1889)
Ray Harryhousen (Born in 1920)
Lee Hardcastle (Born in 1985)
Made by: David O. Selznick
Target Audience: Aimed at Men who like Horror/Action/Adventure films. Probably aged 20+
King Kong
Made in: 1951
Made by: Wah Chang
Target Audience: Aimed at young females who enjoy fantasy. I can tell this because of the fact that it's got a fairy in it.
Suzy Snowflake
Suzy Snowflake
Made in: 1980
Made by: David Allen
Target Audience: Young children/Teenagers
Aardman Animations (Founded in 1972)
Made in: 1990
Made by: Fsomsen
Target Audience: Young children (Typically boys but could also be girls) who enjoy action. (Aged 10+ probably)
Made in: 1986
Made by: Will Vinton
Target Audience: This is targeted for Children because it's very cartoon style type and it has colourful type objects in it. Though the second half of it turns quite weird and like horror type.
Animator 3D (Developed in early 2000's)
Zu3d (Developed in early 2000's)
Dragonframe (Developed in 2010)
Made by: Joe Penna
Target Audience: Any gender, probably young. Young because it's uploaded to Youtube and any gender because there's not really anything to specify that it could be for a certain gender. Both Female and Male could like this.
T-shirt War
Made in: 2011
Made by: Steven Briand
Target Audience: The target audience for this I imagine would be Males due to the fighting like style shown throughout the animation. I'd say that it's aimed at young/middle aged mainly because of the content. I's about a fictional entity that he's fighting. Young men are usually interested in fictional 'monsters'
Frictions
Made in: 2012
Made by: Alona Korakin
Made by: Alona Korakin
Target Audience: The target audience of this video are people who are fans of train, I think this video is aimed mostly at girls because of the general lovey dovey type nature of the video. It's stereotypically known that women are more into romantic type films.
Drive by - Train
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Example 1 :
Principles of animation examples:
At (00:20-00:23) the principle of follow through is used. You can see quite clearly that his arm moves up to his face and when his elbow/arm stops moving his hand continues to move. This makes the animation seem more realistic. Movement is always happening on screen.
Drive by - Train
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Example 1 :
Principles of animation examples:
At (00:20-00:23) the principle of follow through is used. You can see quite clearly that his arm moves up to his face and when his elbow/arm stops moving his hand continues to move. This makes the animation seem more realistic. Movement is always happening on screen.
At (00:25-0:33) the principle of poses is used. When the fan knocks off the Jenga block even though their bodies are quite still their faces still move into different expressions. This helps give more to the audience. They can see the emotions of the characters.
Also at (00:25-00:33) you can see the principle of gravity not being followed. When the t-shirt spins the Jenga block on the other guys shirt falls down. Normally this wouldn't happened (because it's just a shirt) but for comedic effect they acted as though the shirt had wind power, even though it's physically impossible.
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Example 2:
Principles of animation examples:
The principle of time throughout this whole animation isn't used very well. For example the animation throughout is quite jerky it doesn't run smoothly. This makes the animation less realistic.
At (1:14 - 1:24) is where this shows best. It's just not really that great of an animation, it's movements are very sudden and skippy.
Overlapping has been used very well in this animation. (1:18 - 1:24) The arms and legs on the dinosaur move quickly when it's been shot whilst the body side to side slowly and the head moves slowly as well. This makes the animation look more realistic and the clay models show human characteristics.
Example 3:
Principles of animation examples:
The Principle of anticipation is used a lot in this animation. At (1:34 - 1:51) there's a bit where he bends forward and then pauses for a bit. If he didn't bend forward we would't of know that something big was about to happen. This creates tension when he holds the bent forward pose for a while.
The principle of arcs is used all throughout this animation. The man in this animation doesn't move rigidly. We can see this mainly at (00:39:00:43) This makes the animation look more realistic and it runs smooth and keeps the man looking/acting human like.
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Stop motion animation has developed a lot through time. This is to be expected as technology has developed a lot through time as well. We can now do things in colour and higher quality. In the live action stop motion animation "Equinox - Stop Motion effects" and then comparing it to the other live action stop motion animation "T-shirt war" The Equinox was made in 1980 whilst the T-Shirt war was made in 2010. You can clearly see a massive production improvement in the two. For example in the first one the animation is very grainy and low quality. The realism of the whole animation isn't great, it doesn't follow a lot of the principles of animation. Their arms don't move in arcs, the clay models are stiff. When the models aren't moving their poses don't change. Looking at the T-Shirt war they follow the principle of arcs and poses really well. Their poses change a lot when they're not moving. People understand more that we need to see the characters facial expressions as well as their movements so we can see how they're feeling.
Different types of stop motion animation may be suited to different types of genre and audiences than others. For example we can see that most claymation stop motion animations are aimed at Children. This is because claymation looks friendly and the whole animation style looks childlike. There are many different types of claymation animations that are aimed at kids. Bill and Ben the flowerpot men is aimed at kids:
We can see this by the bright colours and the squeaky voices they have. Also the overall style of it is very childlike, it works very well. If they had used actors in costumes stop motion style it wouldn't of had the same effect.
Claymation is usually used for comedic effect, this brings us onto why I know that live-action type stop motion animation would be better used for a more serious type of action sequence. That's not intending to be funny. For example in 'equinox' it's quite an artistic, serious animation. Using bits of stop motion, if this animation was claymation it wouldn't of been able to portray the serious, artistic story that it's trying to portray. It would seem quite childish and wouldn't appeal to people older than 13 probably not at all.
Friday 5 September 2014
Lesson notes assignment 1 Unit 33
What genre is the animation and what generic conventions (things you expect to see) can you pull out?
The genre of the animation is action because they used the prop of a gun. They used explosions which are created using SFX. The movement of the characters were that they were all fighting.
What do you notice about the movement of the figures body?
Some of them are very static even when they're moving. The movements were done well and they usually all move at the same time (Like in rhythm) They had stiff shuffley movement. They had a lack of legs. Their arms moved quiet humanly. It's broken the principle of animation using arcs. Deliberately done it for the effect of enjoyment or humour. + The arms followed the principle of animation to create the effect of realism. The cats get shot in the animation. Followed the principle of gravity.
What do you notice about the movement of the figures face and facial expression?
Sweat from the cats followed the principle of gravity. Effect of the sweat helps to show realism and helps create tension. The facial animation seemed smoother than the body. The cat raised it's eyebrows. Attention to detail, effect is so we can get some sense of their character.
What comments can you make about the use of sound?
The sound was well synched. The gunfire added to the realism. The SFX was blood splatter. SFX of a siren. The non-diagetic sound paints a picture of the narrative.
Lee Hardcastle The Raid Claymation. Target audience, young adults 18+
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What differences can you see in the two animations?
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King kong (1933)
Creature Comforts (2003)
What differences can you see in the two animations?
In the first Animation it's very jumpy, the frame rate in King Kong is lower than the frame rate in the creature comforts one.
The sound wasn't synchronised in the first one as it was in-sync in the second one
The first one is black and white the second one is in colour.
The first one has live action in it, the second one is completely clay made.
The first one was made in 1993 the second one was made in 2003
The first model designs aren't very detailed, they're not very expressive as the models in the second animation.
What similarities are there in the two animations?
They are both claymation animation
They both have secondary action in them. (Meaning there's stuff going on in the background. It makes the scene look more alive. Helps keep you more engaged)
They both have a similar camera shot from a point of view.
Both Animals in these animations have human qualities. Both of them are very surreal
Can you tell if over time there has been a development in the skills and techniques of animation?
The first animation isn't as smooth as the second animation. It's very jerky, you can tell they didn't really have great knowledge or good equipment to do the stop-motion animation. Whereas in the second one there's a clear difference, the animation is very smooth, the clay models have definitely been upgraded. It gives a better viewing experience overall.
Also the backgrounds have been massively improved. Instead of just being static and not very well detailed (like the first one) the second one has moving images in the background, the seagulls moving in the background even though they're not saying anything and don't add anything to the story. (00:13-00:21), they've really payed attention to detail. Which improves the quality of the animation overall.
They have definitely developed their sound skills. For example in the first animation at like (1:20 - 1:25) you can't really hear the sound properly. It's quite muffled. The sounds in the first one were barely audible. Whereas in the second one the sound has improved a lot
Thursday 4 September 2014
Wednesday 3 September 2014
THE DEVELOPMENT OF STOP MOTION ANIMATION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2PjgxnyyQo - Claymation, Producer: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack. (1933)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI0t_tadZJU - Old animation, Producer: Rosemary Clooney. (1951)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNox9B3aZy8 - One for Children, Producer: fsomsen. (1990)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKWdSCt4jGE - Using real props/people, Producer: Rhett and Link. (2010)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI0t_tadZJU - Old animation, Producer: Rosemary Clooney. (1951)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNox9B3aZy8 - One for Children, Producer: fsomsen. (1990)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKWdSCt4jGE - Using real props/people, Producer: Rhett and Link. (2010)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nteOUkHn4tE - Live action stop motion (2010-2011)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7YPPw4etfs - Music video stop motion (2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnjn3S2PXWE - Short stop motion film (2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTo-c7bR7wI - Red bull stop motion animation advert (2013)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7YPPw4etfs - Music video stop motion (2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnjn3S2PXWE - Short stop motion film (2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTo-c7bR7wI - Red bull stop motion animation advert (2013)
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