Authorship and the avant-grade

I was not interested and confused during the lesson but really tried my best to understand those complicated terms. The very one part I was aware of was the part where we discussed about animation auteur. It is said that persistent view that animation is largely for a children's audience which is not interested in issue of authorship and I think this is totally wrong. Also, it is also said that the conception idea of animation compare to other area of art, for example fine art, is absolutely unfair to us as animators. General public always put a stereotype on fine art or any other subjects that they are not familiar with and think they are high class or they are the true art. However, they have neglected the efforts, the ideas and the messages behind an animation which should have treated as equal as the 'noble fine art'. 

This thought reminds my of a video about two people served McDonald's food at one of the most popular cusine exhibitions in Europe, as organic snacks. Most people think the food taste amazing and rich in flavour, they were blind by the surrounding and probably has set a stereotype on organic food that they are really good for health. I think the respond would be the same if they turned it round and put real organic food into a McDonald's box, they would reject eating them and talked about how unhealthy the food tasted?

After this seminar, I was more sure about choosing animation as my future career and I hope my work could change the misunderstanding of the public in the future. There were also other issues we talked about at the seminar but I am only interested in this one. I might need to do some further research on the rest and rethink about what I have learnt from it.

Illustration

How do we define good illustration? It should have a message or cause emotional impact to the audience. 

I really enjoy this lecture because it is about illustration which is closely link to animation and my own interest. I have learnt to differ an illustration and a drawing, an illustration is foundational and it is used with the context of visual communication to convey meaning or concept.

Different illustrations are different in their concept, aesthetic, function and purpose, most obvious illustrations are embracing the artists' tone of voice. Tone of voices are for example the crafting, consistency of art and individuality that will inform the artist success as an applied artist. Therefore an illustration is a combination of individual visual aesthetic and the use of functional symbols. There are a great demand of illustrators in the art industry, they are nearly capable to do every job using their unique aesthetic and ability to communicate through pictures. They have potential to overlap with other communities of creative practice and are able to develop stronger relationship with the audience.

I feel like illustration is essential for life. Animation is illustration, graphic is illustration vice versa. It spreads through the whole art industry and artists are illustrators. I appreciate the fact that I can illustrate characters and other things while studying animation and this takes illustration to another level, not only showing the message behind silently but dynamically with movement and sound. 

Print

The lecture was not particularly enjoyable because I did not connect with the topic and I was a bit mess up the concept of this lecture. The lecture is about the power of print and how it is important for communication, reproduction of information and distribution. It is believe that print has already being used since ancient time and was already used in communication. It got to a point that the lecturer talked about types and graphics and this is where I was confused about the lecture. I did not think she has explained much about the true meaning of printing and the lecture was a bit off topic.

Nevertheless, after this lecture, I am aware of different kinds of types and how the colours could make a big impact visually and logically on prints. Personally, what is special about print is the organic touch and the humanity that shown on paper through the ink and paint. This is why we do not create mental connection with digital print as strong as traditional print and this is why traditional printing was so popular at the past and now. However, the obsession of efficiency in today's world has rejected the traditional print as it is time consuming and requires effort. This is definitely a lost to the human beings culture and the true meanings of print is fading away with time.

Genre

The lecture we had about genre was informative and made me think outside the box. I have never heard of the term 'genre' before this lesson, it was a bit difficult to understand at the start but I could slowly get the idea as the lecture went on. Genre is used to categorise the types of films and is suppose to differ them from each other. However, it is believe that it sets a stereotype that could limit the types of audience or mislead them and genre is gradually becoming contradiction and deficient.

Here are some genetic plots:

• Maturation (coming to age)
• Redemption (Character transforms from  bad to good)
• Punitive (character behaves badly and get punished)
• Testing (willpower versus temptation)
• Education (move from negative to positive perception of the world)
• Disillusionment (reverse to educate)

These plots always appear in films and audience could easily guess the flow of the story and normally allows a film to be more understandable. 

I am not good at judging and critical thinking so I will just type what appeared in my head during that lesson. Basically, I think genre is a good classification for people like me who is not a 'film watcher' and giving a film a genre could help preventing discomfort and time wasting. It aids audience to choose a type of experience they want to go through at that time for example I would not want to watch a horror movie when I was happy (very personal). It is definitely helpful but at some point, it limits me from exploring different kinds of movies that might also interests me. At the end, is it that vital to have a genre? I would say yes because it makes our life easier and reduce confusion.

I really have no idea how to catagorise a film as it could share various genres, would people decide on what it mainly contains? or they classify whatever they want? I think genre has been facing a change since the technology has become popular. At the past, only the rich could enjoy films, but now, everyone could watch films online, on DVD or go to cinema therefore the accessibility is no longer limited so that the filming market expands and equally as the genres. 

Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids Season 2 Episode 4

For example, this cartoon is classified for children but it is sort of horror at the same time. Might this have a bad influence on children or scared them when they are watching 'kid's' cartoon? This is something we have to think about when making an animation. I enjoyed this lecture as I was able to learn some minor problems we face in every day life and could really have a good reflection on the society and cultural factors that may cause the confusion of genre. The discussion the class had was useful and full of power views which is mind provoking.