Research 8/4

When submitting the essay for the assessment, it must go through blackboard, and safe assign. Need to allow a decent amount of time(30m+) to submit due to the process. I got some good feedback from the tutor in regards to being on the right track so thats good to hear. I will admit I was a little surprised at the path that it took down the psychopathy track, but its definitely a topic that holds interest for me.

Where to find the setup for citations and references inside Word. Use the drop down box to change it to references, and the manage sources button to add/edit any references used in the essay. Place the cursor at the end of any in-text quotes and hit the insert citation down arrow to select the correct on from the list. This means it makes sense to add the full reference first, to make citations quicker when writing.

A cover page is required, with the assignment name, summary and author. A footnote is also needed for the essay with the author and page number included.

Wednesday 5pm is a second chance at feedback before the final submission on friday.

Research 1/4

Picking and refining 6 arguments for the essay. Definitely a big learning curve for me. The next few days is going to involve a lot of rewrites as I get my head around tertiary writing.

http://owll.massey.ac.nz/academic-writing/academic-writing-e-book.php

Principles 4/4

Working on a pendulum timing today using a time chart. Used copy/paste reverse to complete the second half of the animation without having to manually do them.
















Final pendulum animation with colour and timing done,

Digital 4/4

Indesign and clocks today. If I can finish this today, thats one part of the assessment done right out the gate.

4 concept designs for for my clock. The fox definitely is the one jumping out at me, even after trying some colour on the others. However, I want to curl the fox around the clock centre more to try and accentuate the clock shape.

Storyboard 3/4

Tweaking audio files for the example project. It was nice to actually get on storyboard this week. I edited the sound files to fit a lot of the visuals, but I think that might've been the wrong way around to do it. I guess if the timing of the animation still looks good then it shouldn't really matter? Its a little frustrating having people near me that aren't really focusing on classwork but that's the joys of a big class I suppose.

Make sure the little yellow man is highlighted when animating an object. Each object that will be animated needs to have its own layer.

Screen Arts 2/4

Surrealist Film

Surrealism is a cultural movement that started in the 20's. It evolved from the Dada movement (1916-1922). Dada is a madeup word to protest against everything. Commenting on the stupidity of WW1 and was anti-rational, humorous, deliberately shocking and anti art.

Surrealism was founded as a movement in 1924 by Andre Breton who was a major Dada member. He drafted the Surrealist Manifesto declaring surrealism as pure physic automatism. "The dictation of thought, in the absence of all control by the reason, excluding any aesthetic or moral preoccupation.
The movement used shocking, irrational or absurd imagery to challenge traditional art functions."

Surrealist filmmakers rejected conventional narrative forms, attempted to disrupt narrative conventions of time and space, plot, character and causality then rearrange them until they made no sense. They aimed to derange, meaning upset disorientate and shock. Emphasis image rather than word. They wanted to liberate Western culture from reason and reveal the true reality.

Un Chien Andalou(An Andalusian Dog) was produced by Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. The film is made up from a succession of non conventional dreamlike sequences. Bunuel states the script was inspired by the brainstorms of their own dreams combined.

Jean Cocteau
Director, poet, novelist, painter, playwright, set designer and actor. "When I make a film, it is a sleep in which I am dreaming"

Man Ray
The only american to play a major role in surrealism and the dada movement. The Starfish (L'Etoile de mer)(1928) and Leave Me Alone (Emak Bakia)(1926).

Maya Deren
Meshes of the Afternoon(1943) was made by Maya Deren and shot by her cinematographer husband Alexander Hammid.

Hitchcock
Salvador Dali designed the dream sequences in Alfred's film Spellbound.

David Lynch
Current "weirdest" filmmaker. Responsible for the original film adaptation of Dune in 1965.

The surrealist film movement is just too weird for my tastes. I prefer films that dont require any brainpower to understand the plot.


BlueVelvet (1986). This film concerns a young college student who, returning home to visit his ill father, discovers a severed human ear in a field that leads to his uncovering a vast criminal conspiracy and entering a romantic relationship with a troubled lounge singer.

What elements of this film suggest that it is surrealist? The macro photography used at the beginning in the grass scene. The story jumps around quite a bit too, leaving scenes feeling unfinished almost. The use of the dream sequence type shooting when the film zoomed in on the ear.

What themes do you feel are explored? Manipulation, questionable decision making.

Principles 1/4

Moving onto the next phase, creating the animation cycles. Time management will be very important, target is one animation per week.

12 Principles of Animation taken from my earlier blog post.

1. Squash and Stretch. Provides realism to movements. Must retain the original volume when transforming the shapes.
2. Anticipation. Gives the audience clues as to what will happen next, lengthens movements. ie a backswing on a punch. Multiple levels of anticipation creates more complex looking movements.
3. Staging. Presentation of a clear, unmistakable idea. Planning the scene to control where the audience focus will be throughout. Exaggeration of features to ensure the feel of the sequence is obvious.
4. Straight Ahead and Pose to Pose. Two methods to animate images. Straight ahead is animating in sequence as you go. Pose to Pose is creating the beginning image, end image, and then going back through and filling in the gaps. P2P gives more control over the finished sequence. Straight ahead is good for unpredictable animations, eg fire, water. P2P has Keys - beginning and end images, Extremes - the furtherest out the movements will go, Breakdowns - the inbetweens.
5. Follow Through and Overlapping Action(drag). Follow through is the ending of a movement, overlapping action is the "repeat" at the end of a movement. Drag helps distinguish between flexible and rigid objects.
6. Slow In and Slow Out. Extending the beginning and ending of a movement to achieve realism. 
7. Arcs. Adjusting movements on the y axis to remove the mechanical feel of a movement. A smear can emphasise movement with less frames.
8. Secondary Action. Gestures that support the main action. They compliment the main action without drawing the focus away from it. Conveys personality.
9. Timing. The number of frames changes the feel of a sequence. Drawing on twos(two frames per image) gives a smoother movement, drawing on ones is better for fast movements.
10. Exaggeration. Every action and pose needs to be over exaggerated to give the best finished feel. Faster sequences need more extreme exaggeration.
11. Solid Drawing. Using volume, weight and balance to make the image feel like its in the 3d space. Use 3d shapes to block out character shapes. Use overlap to add to the 3D feel. Avoid twinning.
12. Appeal. Make the characters charismatic and interesting. Use a variety of shapes, play with proportions, keep it simple.

21 Foundations of Animation: http://www.angryanimator.com/word/2018/04/23/21-foundations-of-animation/

Drawing subsitution is linked to libraries. Can delete frames then use the drawing substitution slider to replace the image in the timeline, to adjust timing.