UNIT 38 REVIEW 2 SOUNDTRACKS FROM 2 FILMS (Joe)

Film – Bruce Almighty

Scene – Bruce Meets God

The sounds that can be heard in this scene:

Music/Diagetic sound:

Heavenly/ Inspiration provoking music

Shouting

Footsteps

Rubbing (paper like sound)

Cabinet moving

Clapping

Dialogue:

Morgan Freeman (God)

Bruce Almighty (Main Character)

FX:

Echos

Foley:

Flapping (Paper like)

Wind gusts

A roller coaster type sound

Twinkles/chimes

Thuds

The scene uses it’s sound to help deepen the realism in the mise en scene. This is done to make the audience feel as though they are a part of the scene. In this scene this technique was evidently done partly through the use of sound for example when Bruce had opened the cabinet door and went flying on what felt like an endless ride to the other side of the car park, this was pulled off through the use of the gusting wind and maniacal screaming. The use of gusting wind and flapping paper were used to heighten how fast the character appeared to be moving. The gust giving the speedy effect whilst the paper gave the effect of moving through the air as though the paper was being shaken due to the movement. 

In the same scene Bruce delivers a very sudden clap which in my own personal theory I feel was done to keep the audience’s attention to the scene through the slower paced dialogue of Morgan Freeman also it helped express Bruce’s trait of being a lot less humble and calm compared to the God character of Morgan Freeman.

Thirdly, a footstep sound effect was used on Morgan’s shoes, I feel this was done to convey his father like manner and help convey a god like strong, serious yet calming walk to help add to his characteristic. However, Bruce didn’t appear to have those types of effects. His effects consisted more of rushing, loud claps, shouting etc. whilst Morgan on the other hand consisted of low level sounds like rubbing, footsteps and cabinet wheels moving.

Brief evaluation of drawn animations (Sue)

Evaluation of drawn animation:

A strength of a drawn animation is the artist can control the levels of details in what they are drawing, ranging from the detail in a face when a character cries or the lack of detail in a background which can help tell a story in a more in-depth way.

The weakness of drawn animation is the time consumption in the process of drawing the animation(s), having to draw it frame by frame can be tiring and hard-work to many. A minor mistake can also ruin the whole appearance and presentation of the animation and can be the difference between animation gold and a very strange looking animation. 

Morph Gym (Claymation animation) (Sue)

Claymation animation evaluation (Sue)

Description of how you create a claymation:

Claymation animation is a form of stop motion animation in which the characters, background or prop is able to be manipulated to make adjustments to it’s shape, size or position and is more commonly made from a malleable substance like clay or other dough-like substances.

Claymation, a lot like cutout animation uses slight changes between frames to give the illusion of a moving image. However, instead of using paper as the main resource, clay is used and shaped to be used as characters, backgrounds etc. to help tell a story. Different types of clay animation can range from Freeform, Strata-cut animation or Clay painting

Examples of different animated films and tv shows with the technique:

·          Pingu

·          Kli-Kla-Klawitter

·          Wallace & Gromit

·          Flushed Away (Feature film)

Strengths and weaknesses of this technique

Claymation has many advantages for example, it’s very fun to do and if you have planned it properly then it can be done very quickly and efficiently. It can be done at your at your own pace and in groups is easily formed through simple ideas and knowledge from each other.

It can be related to a concept in any topic and can be expanded and deepened to provide higher insights to story lines and plots

However, It’s easy to encounter audio problems due to how hard it is to time the movements and be hard to edit the animation.

The claymation overall is a very fun and incorporated a lot of teamwork in the group, bringing the best out of us as we enjoyed making and experimenting with the different shapes, styles and techniques used to help tell our story.

If there were anything I could change it would be the audio levels. All together I’ve been highly satisfied with how my group’s Claymation end product looked

5 Examples of Disney style, drawn animation characters (Sue)

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4

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300 Word cut out animation Evaluation (Sue)

How to create a cut out animation:

Cut out animations are technique of animation using flat images, shapes, props and backgrounds to create the illusion of a moving picture which can be used to tell stories, has been used to make films and even television programs which are usually cut from materials like paper, fabrics, card and photographs to represent the scenes, characters and scenery which may or may not be of access or realistic scenarios.

3 examples of different animated films and television shows which use this technique:

·      South Park

·      Blue’s Clues

·      B.O.B – Nothing On You (Featuring Bruno Mars) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PTDv_szmL0)

·      Pigeon Street

·      Strange Frame (Feature film)

·      Nintendo’s Paper Mario

Strengths and weaknesses (What you can and can’t do):

Cut out animation has many advantages for example there are more capabilities and less boundaries as to where and what level you can take your animation.  This can mean your characters can be journeying through space or adventuring in a jungle, the possibilities are nearly if not fully endless in terms of what you can do with a cut out animation

Secondly, with a cut out animation you’ll need little to no budget at all as it’s very easily pulled off with junk materials like newspapers, cards and old fabric.

Thirdly, using cut out animation means you don’t necessarily have to draw characters again for every frame making it much lighter work.

Lastly, Cut out animation is less time consuming and easy to work with and around regardless of drawing skills or other abilities. It’s usable to anybody from children to adults.

However, It’s easy to ruin a scene if there are any sudden movements or nudges so a steady hand and stiff resting object is needed and the cut outs are static so if there is a lot of action from a character then more cut outs of this character/object will possibly be needed.

Evaluation:

I found cut out animations to be highly enjoyable and brought the imaginative spirits out of the group I worked with to produce my animation, it was easily made with newspapers and a white surface. However editing it was tricky and boring.

I’m most proud of the way my animation had a highly unrealistic story line and it’s subject content were things of near impossibility. It was fun and I was satisfied by how the end product looked and had a humorous trait to it’s story.

If I could improve anything in my animation I would improve the quality, add more sound affects to help detail the story and make it clearer for the audience as well as correct some of the minor movements which did make the animation appear to have an unsmooth jump at times.

Give feedback to 5 peers on their idents

Catie Amorelli: http://catie-amorelli.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/chanel-ident.html?showComment=1370343493046

Five different animation applications

-Television
-Internet
-Music
-T.V Series
-Flip-books

Identifying and explaining three commonalities of channel Idents (Sue)

Three commonalities of channel idents:
- memorability
- no offensive nature
- Convey channel's values, specialities and appear almost stereotypical to the viewer

Memorability:

A channel's memorability is the decider to if it's audience will pass the ident as unimportant and forget it   within a short time period or just not care. To do so channels try to make their idents as unique and eye catching through the use of visuals, abstract nature and use of colour.

No offensive nature:

This is the use of offensive language, implications or other forms of conveying offensive type of things. This can range from racism, sexism, agism etc. It just in general is something passed off as wrong by society and may gains negative attention which can make an audience complain and be unhappy when viewing and can get the company even sued or taken off-air.

Convey channel's values, specialities and appear almost stereotypical to the viewer:

Conveying the channel's values, specialities is what a company does to show what they channel is based on and often is an implication to the kind of shows, genres and subject matter that can be found on the show. For example, if you have a channel that specializes in nature based documentaries then it would be better to have an ident based on animals or plants rather than an ident based on actions films.

Appearing stereotypical to the viewer is what companies do to help increase how memorable they are to the audience. This can be done through the use of colours, action on screen and text/audio fonts etc.
A good example of this could be E4's use of the colour purple and the use of digital and pixilation animations in majority of their idents.

http://b.vimeocdn.com/ts/184/714/184714816_640.jpg < (e4 ident example)

The Historic Importance of Eadweard Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge, is a human landmark in the field of photography and is a photographic pioneer who brought the revolutionary idea of animation to the foreground of photography and is the reason for the world's main and arguably most important form of interactive media, the moving image.

His legacy is important to how video and imagery works as well as the other industrial fields he specialized and was successfully in. His technique very basically used still imagery containing steps of an action which using the Phi Phenomenon made them understandable and appear to be moving as a sequence. This was never seen before and has changed how media has been used on the face of the earth. 

He is historically important due to the fact he brought such an idea to the table and because of this simple but unique idea moving imagery has now evolved into the blockbuster films of today as well as the still imagery he had taken to inspire some of the still imagery of today and how they may be interpreted.

My Gif Animation

my gif animation (click link)

Claymation Animation

Elevator pitch (Sue)

Pixilation film evaluation (Sue)

I was assigned a task to plan, shoot and present a 60-90 second (roughly) pixilated (stop-motion animated) film for my course's current unit. This short film had to be done to a certain standard and planned thoughtfully and with regard to how it could affect myself, my audience and the people around/helping on a two week deadline.
planning:
We had to include many different forms of pre-preparation in the buildup of our film. These were to ensure that we could get right to work with a hands-on attitude with less chance of error and a clear idea of what we're doing amoungst the cast and crew.
These included:
-Creating and agreeing on ideas amongst the crew
-Story boards
And more.
flaws:
The flaws in this method of film/photography is that it's MUCH more time consuming. Because of the shot forms, styles and types we didn't use a tripod or any other form of support. This meant I had to hold the camera still whilst maneuvering my leg into the position to capture the next shot leaving me unsure of objects or other hazards around me and unable to look to avoid harsh movement of the camera; thus ruining our film. The planning was slightly longer due to the frame rate.  Post production was long, energy draining and difficult because of the need to individually place and resize each frame. Having to insure that each frame ran smoothly and had the same duration made things also more time consuming as there was a lot more playback watching than in the standard film editing techniques.
advantages:
Its advantages were that the memory seemed to stretch for longer as well as the time of our end product also being exaggerated due to it's frame by frame nature
The production had an advantage because of the need to keep each frame still made giving directions easier without limitation to how loud or how clearly people could understand me. This meant I could position and guide my actor(s) through the shoot between shots.
Post production meant I could
Expand on my level of detail in each frame and work on what is within the mise en scene. Meaning my ideas were concentrated to a level  when in post.
what i learnt/ conclusion
I learnt that jibs, cranes, dollys and other forms of camera movement and stability support all make for an easier, smoother and less energy consuming project and that the pixilation /stop motion form of shooting uses the Pi phenomenon. Due to it's mainly static necessity during production, made it easier to keep control and direct my actors and crew.
To conclude, pixilation or stop-motion animation isn't of my preference compared to other forms of film. It was enjoyable as well as stressful to my physical as well as mental wellbeing in regards to everybody's concentration levels and extra need for breaks.