Responsive- Character Design & Illustration

Character Design & Illustration

Even with my interests within stop-motion, Illustration and Character Design are still something I have a great interest for. This is why for Responsive, I will be doing mostly digital animations and character designs as this will further my personal skills and I will gain a better understanding of doing Gifs, short animations and detailed characters for competitions. 

I can also learn about how competitions work and run as I didn't enter any within the first year as my work wasn't developed enough to submit. Submitting for a module, will ready us for the industry as well as keeping to deadlines and the workload that is to come when we leave this University.

Responsive Collaboration- Theme of Project & Research

Responsive Collaboration- Theme of the Project

Phobia's or 'Fears'

After discussing with my team, different themes were thrown around and we came up with different ideas for what the cards could be about. This was before phobias were mentioned, we all thought this could be a good topic for kids as it could teach them not to be afraid of their fears and to find out interesting things about them to maybe change their mind. 

We also decided 'phobia' might be too tough of a word for young children so 'fears' will be used instead as it is more relatable for them. Research into this topic, I found the top 25 most common phobias list. This placed; spiders, snakes, heights, crowds and dogs in the top 5 most common. 

One thing we decided, was that we wouldn't have time to do more than 5 cards as we only have a few weeks to complete this project. Looking through the rules, it did not specify an amount, only that they must look like a set, the bear from the logo must play a role and that they must have a collectors element.

Armour

This was suggested by one of my team members, that we could do armour stickers so as the child learns about the fears, they earn armour stickers as to protect them from being afraid of this fear from now on. It would help the children to learn not to fear and be brave about scary subjects like spiders.

Facts

On the back of all of the cards, they hold facts and figures about the subject in question. For this we can research different animals and interesting points about them and how they can be a positive creature, not something scary for the child.

As we just had a week off, It has been difficult to contact our team to keep up with what the ideas are but I have been researching about Snakes and looking into the topic more.

Here I was putting everything we were talking about doing on paper, this was so I didn't get lost in the process. It was also so I could look at everything we were going to do and see which path was best.

 Here I wanted to start sketching different ways of drawing snakes as to show how we could go about drawing them to look friendly and could appeal to children. We will have to mention that they can be dangerous so dont touch them but they wont harm you unless threatened like most animals. This was also to look at colours and different shapes and sizes that also could be an option.

One of the girls has been looking more at spiders and the other about cats, but as cats aren't one of the top 25, I dont know if this will be changed to dogs or another animals children tend to be more scared of. This week when we meet up we will be able to discuss a proper plan and where to go from here.

Applied Animation- Questioning Reality

Questioning Reality 

Ethics & Documentary Filmmaking

Documentaries are about making material that matters and leaves viewers with thoughtful issues to think about. They are about creating visual and abstract thoughts when they are animated as they give image to the matters at hand which brings them to life.

Issues

Morality

This element is about which option would have the best outcome, this is they the 'trolley effect' is a famous phycology method which makes viewers think of where they stand on different outcomes.

Morality has been changing lately, and not for the better. This is things like Trump sending America back in time and allowing racism, prejudice and sexism to be legalised. 

Utilitarianism

This was shown by saying self driving cars have to be programmed with difficult decisions. Like for example if a child was crossing a road, does the car carry on hitting the child and saving the passengers or veer off putting their lives in danger? This is something we all have to think of becuase as animators we have to think of the effect we are having on the viewers.

Religion

Religion guides laws, I had not thought of this as religion is mostly the cause of war from fighting and pushing blame on whole religions for the issues of the few I.E. terrorism. 

Science

Science is something that can be brilliantly explained in animation, as it can let children understand better than when they are being told as they can put an image to the information. I brilliant example of this was an animation shown today that was about over population and honestly explained it better than anything I have even been told or understood myself and actually calmed me about the future somewhat. 

Finally we were told that if we picked a topic we were passionate about, it will show and become so much better as you will believe in what you are trying to teach and tell others about. This was and is very important in a successful documentary.

Applied Animation- Palm Oil Research- Week 2

Palm Oil Research- Week 2

To start researching into Palm Oil i had to figure out what it was, to do this I started by going straight to a good source. http://www.orangutan.org.uk/about-orangutans/what-is-palm-oil This site is called 'The Orangutan Foundation' and as they are the main animals affected by Palm Oil manufacturing, they will know the most about the product in question.

Palm Oil is just another form of vegetable oil, yet this form is taken from the kernels in Oil Palm Trees. Indonesia and Malaysia are the main countries that want the product and it is them that are causing this crisis in Africa, as the plantations placed to gain more Palm Oil are forcing deforestation of the rainforests that house Orangutan. This is the big issue with the product. Sunflower Oil which grows in our country, causes to death, deforestation and would be a lot cheaper to grow so this is why I feel strongly about what is happening as it is causing endangered species to become more threatened as fires used for the replantation are burning down the precious rainforest.

So this is what Palm Oil is and why people like Orangutan Foundation and Green Peace are fighting against and to stop.

Statistics

• 'By the beginning of 2004, there were 6.5 million hectares of oil palm plantations across Sumatra and Borneo. Of this total area, almost 4 million hectares had previously been forested.'
• Soon this amount is going to be more around 22 Million Hectares (in the next 4 years)

• The list below are all of the different deceiving names for Palm Oil so consumers would be confused!                                     INGREDIENTS: Vegetable Oil, Vegetable Fat, Palm Kernel, Palm Kernel Oil, Palm Fruit Oil, Palmate, Palmitate, Palmolein, Glyceryl, Stearate, Stearic Acid, Elaeis Guineensis, Palmitic Acid, Palm Stearine, Palmitoyl Oxostearamide, Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-3, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Kernelate, Sodium Palm Kernelate, Sodium Lauryl Lactylate/Sulphate, Hyrated Palm Glycerides, Etyl Palmitate, Octyl Palmitate, Palmityl Alcohol

• Palm Oil is unsustainable the way it is collected today, but it could become sustainable if controlled
• Said to be worth $88 Bn by 2022

When starting out researching, I collected some information and images of main products, facts and manufacturing methods just to show in basic what was used for what and why. I am going to do mood boards for each element yet this shows just how much we use this product, yet not until about a month ago, did I even know what it was, let alone know it was in nearly all of our junk foods.

Food Products

Junk food seems to be the main culprit and host to this oil, it was called vegetable oil (any many more seen in the list above) so many didn't know what it was or questioned that it could be bad for the environment, becuase why would you. Here shows just the extent of what Palm Oil goes into for food products.

Household Items

After finding out Palm Oil was in most junk foods I wasn't as surprised as it was a vegetable oil, yet finding out it was in most cleaning products, make-up brands and hair treatments, this was more of a surprise. This also adds to the overall understanding of the scale of what Palm Oil has gone to and achieved in such a small amount of time. One of my team members who is a beautician was severely disheartened to find out about the make-up impact as it is an issue that was kept very quiet. Experimenting on animals had been a big issue for decades yet this has gone under the radar.

Animals Affected

In Africa, hunting animals is normally the issue that causes endangered animals to be threatened, yet this crisis is to do with deforestation of their habitat that leaved them homeless, therefore left to die, or they perish in the fires that are caused to plant new Palm Oil Trees. Here are all of the animals affected. The top 5 are the; 

• Sumatran Tiger
• Sumatran and Bornean Orangutan
• Bornean Pygmy Elephant
• Sumatran Rhinoceros
• Malayan Sun Bear

(http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/innocent-animals-suffering-at-the-hands-of-the-palm-oil-industry/)

Effected Area and Environment

Malaysia, Indonesia and areas in Africa are the ones most affected by Palm Oil plantations, these plantations as seen below can stretch for miles on end and cause mass deforestation as a result. These trees grow outward more than up as they are like Palm Trees, this means they cannot be placed tightly together, this causes more room to be needed of the trees and therefore more area needing to be cleared. 

Stages in Manufacture

This diagram shows the stages in which Palm Oil goes through to be released into the public and into our foods and household products. This is much like any other oil as it needs to get down to an oil consistency so this needs different stages in machines and boiling to achieve. As it goes through many stages, this will also effect the cost as the machines will need to be powered to do the tasks for each stage.

After doing this research on this week off. I will meet back up with my team and discuss all of the facts, figures and mood boards and decide upon out animation and the documenting process. This will be interesting to see what they have found as I was shocked and saddened by much of what I found. Hopefully they can feel the same so we can create a documentary filled with passion and care for the subject.

Applied Animation- Sustainability- Palm Oil- Week 1

Sustainability- Palm Oil- Week 1

After teaming up with two girls from my course, we needed to get going on what we wanted our theme to be. Out of the four themes, History and Sustainability were the ones that sparked more of our interests. This was the spider diagram that I did to see what ideas we all had for all of the themes to make sure we had thought of all of the areas of the different themes as well as what our thoughts were drifting towards.

Our first thought was to look into history, as it was hugely broad and one of the girls from our team had studied this. We were thinking of famous powerful women in history, as this would be a topic of interest for viewers as not enough is said about female roles in history, science and technology. I would have loved to either do this about cave men learning to paint on walls or Amelia Earhart as these would both be amazing stop motions but I can keep them as ideas for the future as the girls weren't quite into it.

 This was when Palm Oil was thought of as a current issue going on today. It is in the sustainability category and is an issue that has been covered in the news and massively effect animals in the african forest. I dont know a huge amount about this issue to I will need to research into this topic but it has the potential to be an effective documentary, stop motion and animation piece.

 This took a while to come to this theme as there was so many possibilities to choose from for topics, but I am happy with where we are with this topic and where we stand in our team.

In this first week after joining the team I will be looking more into the crisis and building an understanding on the subject

Applied Animation- What is Documentary?

What is Documentary?

Their are different types of documentary, more than I had realised. For this seminar, the different types were explained to help us to determine different documentary types, as well as which one ours would fit into.

Poetic Documentary

This type of documentary is more about the feeling it can create, their aren't many words present so its all about the influence it can have on the audience.

Expository Documentary

This type is more about talking at the audience, showing information about a certain subject.

Observational Documentary

Showing private moments and first hand information is what this documentary would show. Shows like Big Brother and MTV.

Participatory Documentary

This is where the person doing the documentary is doing what is shown, Louis Theroux goes to people and includes himself is what is happening.

Reflexive Documentary

This goes through a process of understanding, the person filming is just as interested in the process of it being made as well as the outcome.

Performative Documentary

This is another form of getting an emotional response, Michael Moore is someone who does these types of documentaries.

Didactic Filmmaking 

Everything depends on the scenario, whether it is funny or entertaining. Adam Ruins Everything showed this type of filmmaking.

Fiction & Non-Fiction

No matter the audience, some truths will always need to be hidden or changed, this can alter the audiences perception, which is why documentaries are used to inform and force the audience to think. This is also why music plays an important role as this can bring in people and keep their attention.

Creature Comforts shows peoples stories and replaces them with animals to gain more attention to the story they are telling.

Animated Documentary

Animated documentaries are able to show difficult subject matters and material that if filmed, would not gain nearly as much of a response.

Animation can show different visualizations from thoughts and concepts while keeping peoples anonymity which can further the real-ness of the documentary, as the person being filmed cannot diver the audiences eye. It is all about the story they are telling.

Animated Documentaries show people what they cannot imagine, giving a visual to topics and matters others cannot fathom.

Applied Animation- Documentary Briefing

Applied Animation- 

Documentary Briefing

Documentaries, even animated ones, need to serve a purpose. Whether that is to tell a story, inform about what is happening in the environment or in politics, it needs to make viewers leave having taken something from it. 

For this brief; we need to collaborate with up to 3 people, produce a 1-2 minute animation, keep aware of ethical implications, work out an audience and then pitch our ideas along the way.

The themes are:

Sustainability

Science

History

Politics

Phases of Production

Pre-Production

• Comprehensive research
• 20 minute pitch (20 slides)
• Script the documentary/ Record someones story
• Ghantt Chart calendars so everyone can keep on time
• Presentation= 14/03/17- 9.30am

Production

• 1-2 Minute documentary to get our points across
• Create characters & Sets
• Progress Presentation to be done- 28/03/17- 9.30am
• Animatic
• Editing
• Final Critique= 09/05/17- 9.30am
• Complete Animation

Post Production

• Use uni logo (At beginning and end)
• Titles & Editing
• Evaluation (1000 words)
• Progress & What we have taken and learnt from it
• Blog each week
• 1920/1080 H264 Mp4
• DVD Screener & Cover needed with a press pack

These are the different stages so I will work with a team to place all of these into a plan so we can get each stage done together and for it to be as good as possible.

 

Responsive- Collaboration- Bear Mood Board

Collaboration- 'Bear' Mood Board

As the brief we selected is 'Bear'. I decided to do some research into their products as well as the different packaging it uses, as well as the actual cards within them as this is what we will be designing.

To my surprise, their are a huge variation in the cards in style, colours, aesthetic, as well as information types. Yet all this means is that we will have more room to design what we want when it comes to producing the cards. As the company changes their look ofter, it means they are open to change, so this means it is a good chance we will create something they would be interested in.

Here is a mood board of everything they have done and what variations they have. Overall it leaves a lot of room to design and create something new, but something we can show our styles with. This project should be very fun and inventive, especially working with new people.

Study Task- For Arguments Sake- Privatising the NHS

Privatising the NHS

For this presentation and task, I have been asked to produce a 5 minute presentation with 5 slides, showing why privatization would be a positive and good thing for this country. This was a very difficult task at first as I didn't know anything about the NHS as tis always been a confusing topic, so I didn't even know privatization was a thing to worry about. 

After researching, I found these quotes and sites below that showed me and educated me on the subject, as well as the pros and cons of the NHS privatization. This was when I started to create the presentation after a few days of getting information together.

Pros and cons of privatising the NHS: could it ever work?

http://www.theweek.co.uk/nhs/63360/pros-and-cons-of-privatising-the-nhs-could-it-ever-work
The NHS in England has a "substantial financial problem", particularly in the hospital sector, according to its former chief executive Sir David Nicholson.
heading that way anyway

PROS

• Protecting free services
• Quality not dependent on profit
• NHS needs help
• NHS already fragmented

NHS privatisation: Why the fuss?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31435842
"It is really quite a difficult one to define - and the arguments don't always run along a consistent line," says Richard Murray, director of policy at the King's Fund. "For some it is about profit, for others it's about what control the state has. You can go on and on."

Why not... privatise the NHS

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22528719
In Germany for example a third of hospitals are run by charities, a third by for-profit companies and a third by government.

Financial crisis is one of the main reasons for privatisation going ahead and being an idea for the future, this is because, as show in the slide, More people are living longer and more babies are being born which puts more strain on the NHS as a whole. The last few years they have lost millions in their finances.

 When everyone is paying into the same pot, equality for patients will be more proponent. Having good care is needed for all patients but at the moment it isn't happening, so if it privatized then patient care will be more equal as a whole.

 With better money from going private, this will mean more money and equipment. Here I found lots of statistics, showing how their aren't enough nurses to go around and it is endangering the patients in their care.

 Gaining more staff from more money going into the fund, specialist staff can be taken on and more people can benefit from their training and learn how to look after different patients will different issues.

 One of the main concerns, is that giving the NHS over to contractors would mean the end to the NHS as we knows it, but by gaining help from people who have more money and are better at delegating it than the government, it will be a very positive overall outcome for the NHS. Contractors could only get a 1/3 share like in Germany and the other 1/3 to charities to make it a partial privatization which would work in everyones favour, and result in more money to go around.

Overall this was a good exercise in researching as I didn't know anything about the NHS when I started and no one thought I could find good points to this notion, yet there were many good points out there and a partial privatization could be a good overall plan for the future so the money can be spread around and their wouldn't be a loss each year.

Responsive: Collaboration Briefing (Pitcha Pitcha) & Team Selection- Studio Brief 2

Collaboration Briefing & Team Selection

3 weeks ago we were emailed to send in 3 slides to show to everyone across Illustration and Graphic Design  what our work looks like, our interests and which briefs we are interested in. One one my chosen briefs was 'Bear' which in the showing of the slides, seemed very popular.

This briefing was to show how collaboration is needed in all aspects of animation. Anyone who works alone is lying. This was why this was set in place, so we can work with people we dont know and see how it works out and produce work by the deadline. Slides were sent in to try and work out who we were wanting to work with, yet this had problems as names were not present. This meant when we went up to find our brief, no one knew who was who. We took control ourselves to work out who we wanted to work with.

This image is everyone who was stood at the 'Bear' brief. It is their student emails, course and name so we can set up a google docs presentation, that we can all see, then choose from peoples slides to see who we can work with and who's work we liked.

 This is how the email was set out. Each slide now has names and course on so we can decipher who we can work will who has a similar style. After seeing peoples slides come up, I placed mine on too to see if anyone would like to work with me.

Here is the slide I submitted as it shows different aesthetics so it can show I am open to working on something different, this is also why I chose the Bear brief as it is about designing cards for Bear, a children's snack that holds cards within the packet with characters, backgrounds and useful facts on each one.

After sending this to the group and talking to a few people, I am working with two new people who I met today. Beth and Lizzie who are both illustration, both have different styles but overall like cute animals so we should work together well and produce some good designs. We have also set up a group chat on Facebook to we can schedule when we are free and what days we can work together. Overall this process made me very anxious at the time but now I am working with new people, I hope it to be very exiting and eye opening as to what its like collaborating.