Journeys & Destination Response

For the presentation i said -

"I obtained images from each individual and mixed them together to form a collective narrative based on experience. I then composed them on an abstract journey to create a unique metaphorical representation of non-collective experiences creating new ones together".

I have added emphasis on the last word as i will be returning to this point later. Firstly, Frank Abbott's comments stripped down said our presentation lacked cohesiveness and it felt like 3 or 4 presentations instead of one, and although i agree, i'd like to make the case that all of our personalities were evident, and while it may of not been as glossed over and as for the audience as other groups, i maintain that we were able to not only share each of our own insight with each other, we were able to present it with everyone. Where they asked for more of the video i presented at the end, it was actually a suitable metaphor for the way we had interpreted the brief. 

Our group presentation contained a rap/dance, slide shows and a video (in that order). We settled on the theme of difference. The first to show was Rita, who had decided to present a performance based on her initial experience of western/Nottingham culture. By writing her own words to a Fergie song (i'd never heard before) certainly was a loud - but entertaining - start to our presentation. The rest of the group then presented via the traditional presentation format - pictures on a slide show and spoken word. A little dull in my opinion, but being respectful (and not fully grasping what i was trying to achieve with my initial idea that i carried on as a summation aspect) I accepted that this was how they wanted to express themselves - on a creative course i'd expected they'd attempt to be more adventurous. The themes ranged from Art, Design, Architecture and Fashion, and comparing western and chinese versions. Que the video i had made.

The early enthusiasm i had for this metaphorical representation was not passed on to the group. It may of been due to a language barrier, it may of been too abstract (i later found that they get taught lots of technicality but little creativity in their homeland), or it may be that they just didn't like the idea. Realising no differences can be obtained from a place i had spent three years living, i pushed on with the kaleidoscope idea, and i wish to state now that i didn't stick with it through arrogance. I was inspired by Edmund Whites idea of the Flaneur, a book i had read over the summer. Definition here. The concept is to travel on a journey with no end goal, but to explore aimlessly absorbing through the senses everything around. I felt that reflected the situation we were all in. And although we had a goal (in that of a presentation), i did not see it in that regard, i felt it was more of an outcome than a goal. You could argue the last statement supports Frank Abbott's comments - which would explain why the presentation was not cohesive.  

Together. 

We were a pool of our collected non-shared experiences. We shared a journey in which we each had our own previous experience to reference from. In this, our cognitive processes filtered the information through our personalities. We had Rita, very animated and expressive, Edison, Benice and the others were quiet calm and relfective, and myself, searching for a deeper meaning. The poor structured and un-glossed presentation will certainly be remembered a lot more for those reasons than i wish. I will repeat the last three words of my explanation of the work, new ones together. 

Think about that for a second. Let me ask you, what do you think that means in the context of the presentation? (Not the video alone) 

Frank was looking for a new ONE together. To unify to one single goal and singular outcome. 

We had created new ONES together. We unified at a single moment for multiple outcomes.

Which would you say the video represents more? 

It has to be the latter. It's neither static nor definitive. Much like our journeys. This changes the form of the presentation into a subjective manner. On the journeys of our careers the moment will be as significant as any other in the narrative of our lives. We have all been drawn to the specific point in time due to circumstance, we will manifest this outcome and spread back out into new circumstances. Thats all i have to say about it, for now! You never know what might come back of it in the future. In the mean time, i'll leave you with this, i hope you can see why its relevant.

(Narrative) Structural Design

The following narrative structures have been taken from the book Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics by Maureen Furniss. Although they imply storytelling forms, they will play a role by informing the evaluation of other works when establishing the role of sound and sonicity. 

Linear Narrative Structures

1. Beginning, Middle and End - Enjoyable because they conform to the ideology of work ethic: moving forward, achieving goals and making progress.

2. Interactive Narrative - (Such as animated games) - Rather than one linear narrative, the participant is offered many.

Non-Linear Narrative Structures

"An artist can utilise an alternate structure for the purposes of disturbing a viewers sense of equilibrium"

3. Cyclical - ...does not reach a conclusion but rather comes back to it's beginning. Such as myths, natural occurrences, life and death and the changing of the season.

4. Episodic - The most common place...is in weekly television series...[they] involve recurring characters and settings, with out without the addition of an on going narrative. 

5. Thematic - ...Creates an experience that can be quite different than that of a linear or cyclical production. Rather than moving forward, or even in a repeated pattern, thematic works tend towards stasis. In that respect, they can be described as meditative or poetic in nature, exploring an experience, emotion or other abstract concept in depth.

Where will my masters sit within my subject?

With my masters degree set to start next week after this last weeks introductory period, i'm taking the time now to establish with the audience of this blog where my research has previously been and where it is going. 

To start, please watch my final presentation from my BA. Although almost 20 minutes in duration, it is a complete summation of the project, meaning it moves through the experiments and the findings, and the overall narrative arc quite quickly. 

During the initial introductory lecture, Frank Abbot asked us to think about where our MA research will sit in context to our subject. He said it should be on the periphery of our subject as opposed to being central. In other words, having been central to our subjects during our BAs, we should be seeking to enter new, less established ground. The below graph visually represents where i intend my research to sit in relation to my subject.

Sitting between animation and character performance, my research concerns itself with the relationship between Timing & Spacing and sound. 

MA Introductory Project; Self Managed Research into the City of Nottingham

The first project of my MA was to write a report on a cultural experience i had gained whilst out with colleagues from other MA subjects. This is the subsequent report.

Journeys & Destinations:

Self Managed Research into the City of Nottingham

After meeting my group (Group 12) of colleagues for the first time on Wednesday 3^rd October, I was excited to be exploring the city in which I had spent 3 years of my life living in again amongst a group that have only recently arrived here. Having just moved back home to Birmingham following the completion of my bachelors’ degree in Nottingham my own sense of ‘home’ had become distorted again. I had never moved back home over any of the summers, so Nottingham really did, only briefly, become home. As I am now commuting to and from Nottingham the distorted nature familiarity is attacking me on both fronts.

My group consisted of people who have come from the Far East though many are well travelled and have been to various countries within Europe. This presented us with both mutual ground to relate. All of us had been detached from our comfort of our homes, albeit a further distance than I had myself.

We settled on meeting at the Photographer’s Hub. This was pleasing as I had never been before, meaning we would all be sharing a new experience together. Whilst waiting for others to arrive, I noticed that the street directly opposite the entrance was called East Street. I felt it was very fitting and quite a coincidence and added to the narrative of the moment, although my colleagues didn’t quite grasp what I meant, well at least to my face they didn’t. Once all the members of group 12 arrived we went on up to the Photographer’s Hub. No one answered the buzzer so we could get through the security door. Thankfully a lady from another unit within the building let us through. Unfortunately the Photographer’s Hub was shut. Now usually in this situation I would of left, but my colleagues didn’t give up as readily as I did and continued to look around and poke their noses into other studios. Which was interesting as we got to see other creative’s at work.

Following this we walked through Lace Market to the Nottingham Contemporary in the hope that they were not in a change over period between exhibitions. So you can imagine our disappointment when they were. After a quick look around the shop and parts of the show being put up, we moved onto the current shop of Paul Smith.

In my three years living in Nottingham I had never been in there.  Now my colleagues had changed from their inquisitive enthusiasm in the previous locations to delight. It was an intrinsic response. What surprised me was as a native I felt less about the brand that’s thought of so highly here than the people from thousands of miles away. In the store I felt very intimidated by its presentation and price however aesthetically appealing the clothes were. This is not to say I have anymore right to enjoy the brand more than my colleagues or to say that I am an inverted snob. It just didn’t appeal to me in the same way as my international friends; this could easily be explained by the fact they are all taking a fashion or fashion related master degrees. This experience caused me to realise culture is not contained or defined by international boarders or language barriers.

Near the start I drew on the fact we had coincidently started opposite East Street. I drew on that comparison, as I was aware of my colleagues in my presence, in what I felt was my context. I’m sure they, though in my presence, did not see the point of the comparison. They were seeing me in the same context that they were seeing themselves. Frank Abbott said something in his opening lecture that I now understand that context to be. It is something that I never really accepted before, and something that will change - on huge proportions - the way I shape my future.

‘You are now an international student.’

Pre Masters Activities...

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.

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?

5 Minutes to spare...

Been really busy of late. I know it's not much of an excuse for my blog neglection but there you go! 

So just to update you all, I'm starting my MA on the 1st and have a few pre-meeting assignments to do, which i will hopefully get posted up later. I've been watching a quirky little series called After Hours on cracked.com. Usually exaggerated acting styles go right through me, however, this little series is turning  that around. With the speed in which the conversation is presented no doubt has determined the style - its far easier to be read at speed with exaggerated expressions, even the thinking time - which gets more air time in dramas - is fairly fast. I'm not sure how well that would translate into animation. 

This week i will also be producing a new character. Going to get a layout pad tomorrow with some new fine liners, so expect some more updates soon.

Update

You may be wondering what i have been up too lately and i am now about share with you exactly that. As well as working through the objectives in previous posts i decided about two weeks ago too start custom rigging in Maya - i have been a big fan of anzovin (Link) and it has saved me up to two weeks worth of work allowing me to fully focus on animating - however, I want maximum control over what a character can do, so i feel now is the right time to be experimenting with this. 

I thought i would be sensible and follow the learning pattern i did for 3Ds Max, start by rigging a robot (no skinning process) and then move onto a skinned character later. Right now i have almost completed a robot rig using Mayas joint tool, various constraints and different IK solvers. Rather than constraint the geometry itself and skinning them, i simply parented the joints to the bones. Very little thought went into the design of the robot aesthetically. 

Here is the wireframe image of the whole character & Rig.

This is the shaded version, the green circular spline at the left shoulder is actually the back control that has a forward and backward roll assigned to it that was made using the Set Driven Key nodes. The Arms have IK/FK which is a nifty feature built in - it also means there are two sets of controls for both wrists. 

This is the eye shut, I have constrained the eyes functions to the controls to the right. 

The eye expanded.

The eye expanded and extended. 

The next step in the rigging process will be to design a character to be skinned. Although i may also design a robot with certain functions (a claw arm maybe?) and build on the aesthetic and improve the form. I am spending roughly an hour a day due to other work commitments so hopefully this will be done by the end on the month, maybe early September. I will do a small walk cycle for the character over the next week or so. I first need to make a controller which will make each component shake as if he has an engine that is turned on.