Category: Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language

After receiving feedback from the lecturer for my audio-visual presentation, here is my final version for submission with added moving images inside. I hope you enjoy watching it:

This week I have focused on shortening my presentation by improving its draft version, I will be bring this work to the class and asking for the final feedback:

Here are a few of my hand-written scripts showing how I deal with the rehearsal:

Here are my files and recording software through making this presentation:

Here is the editing interface:

After the feedback session I added more moving images to my presentation, and here are the main footages I used:

Here is the example of the change I made during editing process:

This week, the class has been cancelled therefore I am concentrating on preparing the audio-visual presentation for the submission:

Here is a draft version of my audio-visual presentation, I will be more dedicated to shorten the presentation and maybe adding more video clips inside:

In this week’s essay class, we have mainly looked at ways of quoting resources reliably, comparing direct quotations with paraphrasing and summarizing in a writing piece.

Here are my notes taken in the class:

As my writing is mostly complete, I will be focusing more on the audio & visual presentation for this unit before the submission date in next month.

This week, I have concentrated on receiving feedback from the lecturer about my draft essay and working on the reference list of YouTube videos.

Here is the feedback given by the lecturer:

1. Change the subtitle of my essay.
2. Put all my illustrative images into an image list.
3. Changing the space to 1.5.

My initial subtitle, ‘From last century’s work to the present day,’ is too long for this 1500-word essay. Although I have used examples from different centuries, I am concentrating more on the film language side of the differences between orthodox and experimental animation.

Therefore instead of saying the time of the work I will be researching, I changed to say the expression ways of film languages applied into 2 kinds of animations.

About the illustrative images by putting them into an image list to make my essay looking more organizing:

Also, I have checked the way of referring YouTube videos in my essay:

Here is my result:

And this list includes all the examples I have added to the essay:

In this session’s session we have concentrated on the editing and narrative structure of creating a story, here are the notes I have taken:

Talking about the transition of films animation, the editing software such as Premiere pro normally has some default ones in it:

Here is the way of creating narrative structure in my animation project:

After the class I have filled the template for my research essay, in my writing piece there will be more detailed examples with images been pointed out:

In this week’s session, we have touched on some basic domains of mise-en-scene. Generally, mise-en-scene means things that are included on the screen but also related to sound, camera, and editing skills.

Here is my notes from the class:

From my opinion of views, we not only see mise-en-scene from the animation and films but also other media such as posters and music videos, they help audiences to received the meanings behind characters through several elements:

1. Setting
2. Props
3. Costumes, hair, make-up
4. Facial expressions, body language
5. Lighting, colours
6. Positions of characters/objects within the screen.

The poster below is from the film Brave (2012) by Pixar Animation Studio, it follows the general trend of showing the main characters with their featured mise-en-scene in the film: costumes, facial expressions, positions and props made from computer graphics.

Here I have done a small analysis based on its main elements:

The castles and trees in the background of this poster point out that the main set is remote from the centre of the country, which makes the audience feel expectant about the construction inside the building. However, the glaucous green mist builds an odd atmosphere, which connotes the unknown danger and the mystery in the story. The regional identity which corresponds to the medieval costume and weapons these characters are wearing conveys their masculine characteristics are used to resist danger and guard the family in the place,

Two feminine characters in this poster are wearing blue and green skirts respectively, the girl in the front shows a head of messy orange hair which represents her energy and passion but the woman behind her looks more gentle and mature with her tied black hair at the back, the binary opposite of them connotes a contradiction might be presented between them in the story. The leather coats worn by masculine characters are much stronger and more supportive in their life. Three young characters who wear identical clothes connote that they are of the same age and gender. Their make-up is not obviously shown because of the distance and the lack of straight light.

Within the frame, two separated parts of characters they have connote a break between them. The character in the front is more likely to show her weapon and facial expression to the audience, by contrast, the people behind her are showing a less powerful status with their smaller figures, which makes the audience more likely to trust the story is mainly about the girl in front of the camera. Although the construction of this poster shows these six characters are positioned in the same environment the distance between the main character Merida and 5 characters behind her connotes that Merida needs to face her own destiny and the test of her life.

In the progression of my essay this week, it’s also easy to find that orthodox animation concentrates more on the mise-en-scene and how the camera or sound applied to display them:

The above is a short textual analysis of the camera and characters’ poses from a performance scene in Snow White (1983):

Also, the hyper-realistic poses have been applied to creatures in the Disney film Bambi (1942), in the snowy set their characteristics have been amplified with their movements and soundtrack:

Here is a short textual analysis based on the scene which I added onto my essay this week:

There are different camera angles, movements or compositions related to things in the frame. It’s important to understand them either for structuring my film or writing my essay:

The photo below shows the main camera angles we can see from animation or films, a few of them can structure the opposite binary of characters such as low angle and high angle shots.

The photo below visually explains different camera movements, from my opinion, I think panning and tilting are mostly been used in structuring the narrative of a film or animation.

The photo below shows some compositions that can be applied to a shot, they have mainly been structured or drafted through shapes and lines.

When we build up camera movements in a scene, it’s also important to know there should be an invisible line to prevent the camera from crossing 180 degrees, otherwise, audiences won’t be able to identify two exactly the same objects/characters in the shot.

In this week’s session, I looked at some films and animations related to political messages from the real world. Such as the concept of the an-ti colonialism displayed by the film Avatar and the animal rights considered by both the audiences and the producer of the film Planet of the Ape (1968).

As I am ill this week, here is my note being taken by following the online recording and files:

After the class, I did some research on animation which tries to tackle problems related to social issues of equality, diversity or social injustice:

The creator of this independent animation has talked about her bumpy experience of getting surgery to remove lumps in her uterus in California. As more and more states are banning abortion in America, it triggered her panic about taking a prescription from the doctor to treat the disease in her uterus. She has talked about abortion as not only relating to a baby, it can relate to removing any tissue from the uterus, but no matter what type of DNC that a patient is taking, the lawmakers are ignoring the reason for it which could send the doctor to trouble or the receiver.

This animation has greatly shown the importance of a necessary DNC for an ill woman can rescue them from suffering from the perspective of a patient, and it has also reached 3.8 views on YouTube and over 30k comments.

In addition, I have also looked at some animated documentaries and did some analysis:

This animation Waltz with Bashir 2008 below, brought me to think about the implications of using animation can visualize the more abstract scene discussed by a person. The contrast lighting and colours can deliver strong emotion with the voiceover played in the film. It expanded how the audiences imagine and review the history, remembering it and seeing it from a more detailed side.

The film Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) below shows the tragedy happening to the boat Lusitania through frame-by-frame pictures, it visualises the moment the ship torpedoed and sank by the German submarine. The animation of this documentary, I think it cleverly reconstructs the scene with low-budget material which the live-action and the other media cannot really approach.

Within the film, A Is For Autism (1992), I found the camera movement applied to the hand-drawing animation beneficial in representing the narrative of autism. As the narrative is more like a mumbling, the cut between animated scenes seems easier to apply compared to the other media.

In this week’s session, we have been introduced the concept of the animation auteur in the class:

Looking at films or animations directed by a specific director makes it easier to understand what could make an Auteur. They can be built up by the director’s vision through the mise-en-scene mixed up with the genre, which audiences can then identify.

In the after-session reading, I concentrated on how fine art inspires animation techniques and exploration in material ways, and how animation could modernise the former. for example, the film The Tale of Tales (1979) used a lot of Rembrandt lighting to indicate the character’s journey in its set:

In week three’s lesson, we looked at some main examples of experimental animation from the past to the contemporary centuries.

The scanned pictures below include the notes I have taken in the class, at the weekend I will be reviewing those short films and taking contextual analysis from them by relating back the structure of my draft essay:

Over the weekend, I concentrated on the fourth paragraph of the book Experiment Animation — from Analogue to Digital to look at different forms of animation that appeared within experimental animation, and took some notes. Also, I have analysed two short pieces created by Balazs Simon, reviewing the journey written by Len Lye and Oskar Fischinger from Experimental Animation — an illustrated anthology: