Prior to starting my MA i had two tasks and here they are, hope these offer some insight...
Activity
Task one
You have chosen to study the combined topic of puppetry and digital animation, which includes both traditional puppetry / object theatre and digital character animation. To prepare for your course, please begin to investigate the area of the creative practice in which your subject sits. Try to identify work and practitioners which you feel best represent your personal interests in the specialism of puppetry/object theatre and/or digital animation. Record your findings and your thoughts in a personal journal. Describe what you think about the work and what it represents to you in terms of the theory and practice of your subject area.
You have chosen to study the combined topic of puppetry and digital animation, which includes both traditional puppetry / object theatre and digital character animation. To prepare for your course, please begin to investigate the area of the creative practice in which your subject sits. Try to identify work and practitioners which you feel best represent your personal interests in the specialism of puppetry/object theatre and/or digital animation. Record your findings and your thoughts in a personal journal. Describe what you think about the work and what it represents to you in terms of the theory and practice of your subject area.
My specialism is Digital
Animation. I will be investigating how sound can be controlled by the animator
in order to improve their animation. I am going to explore sounds relationship
to Timing, Spacing, gesture, expression and performance.
Superfan Unknown by Simon Eltz
on behalf of the band Goodron offers a good synthesis of the above mentioned,
and a good example of a working relationship between them. The walk cycles
generally all move at the same beat regarding the footsteps contact time with
the ground – some have been offset on the bigger scenes containing more
characters – presumably to keep the illusion of believability. Some also have
slightly longer beats, I’m guessing for the same reason. I’m in the process of
producing interview questions with the artist to then approach him so will
hopefully obtain more conclusive answers soon. Each character then produce
different walk cycles involving the above principles to generate personalities
and express difference, which itself produces a non-linear narrative exploring
difference, and pays tribute to what animators spend their careers perfecting. In
this example, it would be safe to presume the sound was produced first in the
production pipeline – an important aspect that will be an important reference
once I have built up more contextual studies.
Task two
Your first assignment, after the commencement of your course, will be to prepare a presentation of your project proposal. This is a document in which you will explain the purpose of your work; who it is for, what it will achieve and how it will be done. Please begin to work on a draft of this proposal, and bring it with you to your first workshops session (a full schedule of events will be provided at a later date).
The chosen area of research has been initially informed by
my previous research that produced results that shown sound to have a huge
influence on the form, structure and synthesis on the animator and their
resulting work. Further investigation this summer has led me to see that there
is very little literature produced on the relationship between sound and
animation film. Furthermore, even less on the relationship between sound and
the animator. Rebecca Coyle et al, in the book drawn to sound, have highlighted
this issue – at least between sound and animation film. In the book they have
produced a series of small essays to discuss the issue from various different
angles – Stop Motion, Japanese, Disney, Tim Burton, to name a few – in order to
establish a basis for further research and analysis. Other publications tend to
be based on technicality that theory such as the book Designing Sound for
Animation by Robin Beauchamp.
My research will focus on the sound and animator
relationship, making it firstly for animators and hopefully join the wider
discussion of sound in animation. The central issue, or question, will be what type of sound (if any) is most suitable
for character physiological structure (Timing, Spacing, Beats) in animation?
This will be achieved through a qualitative as apposed to
quantitative methodologies. This will be predominantly by producing small
artefacts to test techniques and receive feedback through discussions with
current animators. So far I have identified the following questions as a means
to obtain the background research for techniques and processes I will need to
produce the artefacts.
1)
Establish production pipelines; when does sound
enter production (what pipelines/workflows are companies using)? And when does
the animator come into contact with sound?
2)
What are the central discussions in the sound –
animation film relationship?
3)
What techniques do animators in the relationship
use? (Metronome?)
4)
What type of ‘sound’ is best for character beat
control?
- Breath?
(Influenced by speech breathing cycles if talking)
- Heart Beat?
(Record real life beat rates and apply them to virtual)
- Music?
5) Establish the limitations
of the techniques
- E.G. Can a scene animated at 60
beats per second work against sound of a different bps?
