CoP3-Proposal

What benefit does animation have over live action in regards to visual storytelling?

As a primarily visual storyteller, aesthetics are important to me. The way an animation looks, the art style, the atmosphere, the direction, the cinematography, what the filmmaker trying to communicate visually; all of these things are at the forefront of my mind when consuming animation. Deconstructing the codified semiotics of a piece of visual media can help one better understand the fundamentals needed to create engaging and effective art.

For my CoP3 dissertation I intend to explore how the signs and semiotics unique

to animation bene t creators in communicating their art over other mediums, specifically Live Action, in a narrative context. To investigate this I will make analytical and critical comparisons between the ways in which filmmakers working in the different mediums communicate similar narrative themes and concepts using the techniques of visual communication in their respected repertoire.

As well as secondary research, I also intend on contacting existing artists and practitioners I feel specialise in unique styles of visual storytelling in order to garner a greater insight into their creative process and hopefully gain some pointers in which to take my practice moving into my final major project.

Visual storytelling in animation is and has always been something which greatly interests me and is an area in which I would like to explore further in my final year on Animation at Leeds College of Art. My intentions with CoP 3 are to provide a framework to work from when it comes to my Extended Practice; a design philosophy from which I will hopefully create a short animation which retweets the core tenants of what makes a strong visual narrative.

CoP2 Module Evaluation

Overall I have found almost every aspect of this years Context of Practice module, from the seminars and lectures, to the essay and various visual investigations, deeply rewarding on a practical level in a way which will definitely inform my work moving forward. Much of what I’ve enjoyed this year is analyzing works of animation from a critical perspective and then applying that analytical eye to my own practice; trying to tie what I’ve been doing in CoP2 to what I want to do moving forward, particularly in CoP3 for my dissertation and my Extended Practice next year.

I particularly enjoyed researching and writing for my CoP2 essay, as I found the subject incredibly interesting. This year, partially due to the lectures, has definitely opened me up to the broader context of art history and the ways in which Marxism has influenced practice, which is of great interest to me. With my essay I delved deeper into the ways in which creative practice is structured in terms of workflow, which I feel will be useful in terms of PPP moving forward, as well as being a general area of interest for me.

While I did enjoy writing my essay for the most part I feel I struggled to keep it on topic and relevant to the question, as I often found myself going off on almost conspiratorial tangents about the industry with little relevance to animation, which I had to either cut down or cut out completely. It took me a while to get my essay below 3300 words, as at one point it was around 4000, however I feel with my final essay I cut out the majority of the excess and am generally happy with the finished product. I do feel that I could have referenced a few more theorists to backup my essay, and I also feel I may have focused a little too much on the New Wave in the beginning for the contextual research and could have found more examples/ gone into more detail about movements such as Italian Neorealism and New Hollywood in reference to Auteur Theory.

As for my Visual Journal, I did express interest in the beginning of the module in treating it as an illustration project, with my journal/sketchbook being structured sort of like a tapestry where each page flows into the other in a coherent way. However, due to poor time management on my part this didn’t happen. I am confident in the way my visual journal turned out, but I do feel it is still a missed opportunity. I did incorporate a few illustrations into my final journal, however they were mostly front-loaded, as the deadline I opted for a more collage-y scrapbook style. I feel I made some interesting visual connections with the pages, juxtaposing images I’d printed off with one another to make subtle visual connections in regards to representation.

I am fairly satisfied with my Creative Critical Response as well. This was one thing in which I do feel I managed my time properly and produced a fairly high quality final product. This was also my first time doing Lip-Synch in a 2D animation, having done it in 3D in the past, so there was a slight learning curve which I do feel shows. The animation is so short and tight however I don’t think this is too detrimental to be honest. The animation could have maybe used some more poses for the characters and more inbetweens to make for a smoother, more volumetric sense of weight and movement, however, for the purposes of what I was trying to communicate from my essay I do feel my animation was successful.

Overall I very much look forward to CoP3 and working on my dissertation as I hope my Proposal demonstrates. My aim for next year is to take on board the experiences from this year, the aspects I enjoyed and to better tie them to my studio and professional practice modules. For CoP3 I am definitely interested in tying what I produce for the practical side of my project to my other modules. This year, while successful I do feel the animated response was an afterthought and the essay came first. If I can start thinking about how I can apply what I plan on writing about for CoP3 to my practical now, I feel next year will be more successful in both areas.

Visual Investigation- Creative Critical Response

For my Creative Critical Response I wanted to communicate my own personal attitude towards the subject matter discussed in my essay. In my essay I discuss how flat organisational structures have been adopted by many major animation studios in the past few years as a way of democratising the workplace, placing more power in the collective, and argue, to an an extent stifling the power an auteur may wield in a given situation. I'd go so far as to compare the way an auteur wields power over a production to the way a captain steers a ship, so I thought it would be a funny allegory to apply a flat organisational structure to a crisis situation where the captain of a doomed ship has to consult the members of a board in order to take action as the ship heads towards an iceberg. The message I'm trying to communicate with this animation is that overly bureaucratic processes stifle the creative process and sometimes it helps to have a lone creative voice who is in charge.

Initially I was planning on creating an animation similar in style and technique to The Sinking of the Lusitania animation; an old silent film from 1918 by Windsor McCay, however I opted to go with a more conventional style similar to the one I've been developing recently in my Responsive and Applied briefs. This was partially done due to time restrictions, creating a frame-by-frame line animation on a lightbox in the same vein as The Sinking of the Lusitania animation would require a lot of time and honing to emulate the style, while it would be good practice for me to further develop the style I've already been using recently.

I created some rough character concepts in Photoshop, but opted for a more Vector-like style focused on primitive shapes and exaggerated proportions. I made the Captain very sharp edged and angular, modelling his beard off the ship captain from the film Titanic.  Assets were created in Photoshop as per usual, using various textured brushes to lend a more painterly aesthetic. Character animation and lip-synching was done in Photoshop similar to my Responsive project and composited in After Effects. During composition I focused on lateral movement to make for a more dynamic movement in the background, making it look the ship was swaying from the inside. Small details like this I feel lend to the urgency of the animation.

Proposing a Research Project (CoP3)