Animation Research and Practice - Week 3 - Homework and Research and Project Progress

Homework:

Synopsis:

A short documentary animation, which uses abstract ideas to show the audience the perspective of how a woman (my mum), describes her feelings and experiences with having depression. The animation will be a visual response to the audio track of my mum.

Treatment:

A 90 second documentary animation which looks at one woman's experience of having depression. Using narration the audience will understand how my mum's depression feels to her.

A short documentary animation, which uses abstract ideas to show the audience the perspective of how a woman (my mum), describes her feelings and experiences with having depression. The animation will be a visual response to the audio track of my mum.

The story will be told through 2D animation, using abstract ideas to convey how she feels. It will have a dark feel to it and will use different rhythms to get across the feelings.

The animation will be created using TVpaint and then After Effects will be used for any effects I want on it and Audition will be used for the sound. It will be primarily directed toward adults as it is quiet a hard theme and will be quite dark.

Article: 

Javad Khajavi - Decoding the Real: A Multimodal Social Semiotic Analysis of Realityin Animated Documentary.

https://journal.animationstudies.org/javad-khajavi-decoding-the-real-a-multimodal-social-semiotic-analysis-of-reality-in-animated-documentary/

The journal above looks at how Documentary as a genre has not been properly researched. It says that this is because:

1. documentary has such diverse forms and style, that it cannot be analysed 
2. there can be radical forms that represent reality and so cannot be analysed 
3. there is no practical model when it comes to analysing documentaries. - nothing to structure the analysis on  

It then went on to discuss how it will try and use semiotic theory to try and base a model for analysing documentaries. 'Semiotics deals with messages and tries to reveal the processes of meaning making' (from article)

Before they could try and build this model they went on to talk about what the theory of semiotics was. Semiotics believe we live in a world full of signs and that everything can be referred to as signs. Documentaries are filmmakers ways of organising these signs and codes. ' Theory of semiotics will be adopted in order to propose a model for further analysis or animated documentaries' 

Mode - is a different resource for communicating messages. 

Jewitt says that mode is semiotic resource for making meaning that are employed in a culture, such as image, writing, gesture, gaze, speech, posture. (2009, p.1)

Modality and Modality marker - 'is a term in semiotics that concerns with the status of a text, sign or genre in representing reality ' (Chandler, 2007, p.65)

It then went on to give an example of this about looking at modality markers in World War II footage and that the audience believes a footage is from this era when the footage is 'shaky black-and-white shots' (Ward, 2008)

This essay discusses the first steps and outlines methods used to build up the framework for a larger research project, which would study four case studies of documentary film and analyse them.

The data of the study - The essay cannot just use one documentary case study documentaries can be so diverse in representing reality. So they have decided to select a sample from purposeful data sampling techniques. 

They will have four group (stratum's) each stratum will then have one documentary picked from it, this documentary will be the one that fits the stratum the best. Those picked will then form the sample animation they will look at. 

The four stratum's will be: Imitative, Subjective, Fantastic and Postmodern (Wells, 1997)

Imitative - Mimic dominant generic convention of live-action

Subjective - reflect subjective thoughts of an individual, usually uses interview as the soundtrack, which describe his/her experiences or situations

Fantastic - unfamiliar, usually surreal, metaphors to tell the real in a unreal way and to redefine a new reality

Postmodern - challenges ordinary ways of representing reality, questions the existence of the real itself - the documentary imagery is not 'authentic' representation of the real-world. 

Framework for data analysis - 4 modes intend to study: visual, aural, motion and editing

example of modality marker is character movement, when it done differently can be abstract or life-like

Diagrams ? - need to go back over the diagrams in the essay as I think they represent the different modes they looked at and the results they got but I was a little confused with the language used.

Expected results and findings - 

Kress and Van (2006) 'coding orientations are sets of abstract principles which inform the way in which texts are coded by specific social groups, or within specific instructional context' (p.165)

Each documentary uses different representations to communicate reality.

Conclusion - This essay is part of a larger project, which attempts to provide a model which will be able to analyse documentary animation.  

My opinion - I found that this article was very helpful in beginning when it talked about semiotic theory but when it started to become a research project, I got very confused with what was being said and I didn't feel it was very helpful or relevant to what I want to do.

Research into Documentary animation - 

I decided to research documentary animation to help with how I want to create my final film. I wanted to look at everything including:

• Documentary Animation in general
• How animation is used with mental health
• Abstract Animation

I thought if I researched the above it would give me a better understanding of what I could achieve and how I would like to do it. Although I do not have a perfect idea until I get the voice clip recorded I wanted to research before hand so it would help me for when I do get the recording done. 

Documentary Animation

Waltz with Bashir - Ari Folman - trailer

Ari interviewed fellow veterens of the 1982 invasion on Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of the events.

How it was made-
http://www.studiodaily.com/2008/12/how-they-did-it-waltz-with-bashir/
It was interesting to see how they created this animation. The fact the acted out the whole film first to get all the interviews and the sounds and then they animated everything. 

Animation and Mental Health

Animated Minds
http://mosaicfilms.com/animated-minds-postnatal-depression/
I liked that each story had a different style to them, the use of the animation instead of just live action I think connected to the audience more and it wouldn't of been the same if it was live action. But I feel in some parts the animation copied the voice over too much and I want my animation too not copy the voice over too much.

Website - http://www.storypick.com/mental-disorder-short-films/



I like the use of the narrative, there is no talking but you still know what it is about and get the idea behind it.

Abstract Animation

Abstract animation is a sub-genre of experimental animation. It is non-narrative experiences that rely on motion, rhythm, light and compositing.

I am looking at abstract animation as I think it can work well with the Documentary animation I want to create and the voice over I want to use. Since there is not quite a narrative to the voice over, I think experimenting with abstract animation is the best.   

A few Films I have found:

Erick Oh - Heart (2012)

'One day I was watching news about political issues and started asking myself why we are destroying one another. Human history shows that life is full of conflicts and struggle. Heart is an 8 minute animated short containing no dialogue. It tells the story of abstract creatures who battle over a heart which symbolizes various differing values in life such as religion, wealth, love, natural resources and so on. In the end, their mixture of desire and greed over the heart leads to their destruction. However, the end is very open ended because it asks the question, ‘what if we approached things differently’. This film doesn’t contain any answers, instead it’s a huge question directed to everyone' - Eric Oh

I like the that is black and white and doesn't have any voice over. It uses beings that tell the story through abstract meanings.

Music video by Anthony Francisco Sheppard 

I really like the style of it and although it is colourful the parts that are darker I can see would suite my animation theme. I also like the way it flows, the fluidity of the motions and how everything moves a long makes it seem like a dream something I will experiment with in mine.


Essay - 

For the essay I think I want to look into documentary animation and maybe how it is used with mental health, or how animation in general is used with mental health. I will need to continue researching this and gathering information for what might be my question.


Sound - 
I have re-recorded, with the help of Amo, my Mums voice over. It is a higher quality now, all I have to do is edit it down to 90 seconds. After letting Emily listen to it all the advice she gave me was to listen to it over and over again and draw what comes to me, then to add them into sequence and see what it looks like. I will take this on board as a one way of narrowing down the voice over and forming an idea, but i prefer more a structure and creating a storyboard and that is just my way of working.

Below are the new recordings of my mum:


first voice over recorded from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.


second voice over recorded from Summer Davies-Newton on Vimeo.

I like that I have a lot of choice to what to do but also I feel overwhelmed with knowing where to start. For next week I want to try and get a better idea of where I want to start and the story I want to create.

Feedback - 

After talking through what I had done this week, Sam seems happy with the way I am going. I feel I need to actual start to thing about the animation and what will happen and start to story it out however that may be. I hope to start this and have better idea for next week.