Response to set academic text

I am interested in the presentations of gender in animation and the text- Law, S. 'Putting themselves in the pictures: images of women in the work of Joanna Quinn, Candy Guard and Alison de Vere' in Pilling, J. (ed.) (1997) A Reader in Animation Studies, Sydney, John Libbey, pages 48-70 is very inspiring and helpful in understanding the topic from other professionals’ perspectives. The text introduces the animations and concepts of three stylistically different artists who produce visualise their thoughts and feelings about representation of gender. In Joanna Quinn’s Girls Night Out, she has introduced the topic about body beauty and representation of female characters. There is a scene where the girl group when to a night pub and there was a sexual appearing male stripper performing. ‘The depictions of male/female characters of the Avery films seems to be inverted in the Quinn films discussed here: the undesirable female in Avery’s films is depicted here as desiring but undesired by the male character who purses the voluptuous you women.’ I think the removal of the G-string from the stripper indicates the removal of male power and in here the main female character does not look away as she is underscoring her empowerment.

In Candy Guard’s animation, she included a lot of interesting conversation between females and how feminine could be shown verbally. In What about Me? (1990), two female characters’ talk shows typical conversation of females and the obsession with physical appearances. It is true that females are being judged with a lot stereotype and definitions for example the body shapes and appearance but there is no standard of beauty in this world so what is the meaning of beautiful? Guard’s characters are able to raise resonance from a lot of female audience because they are like women in real life, wondering their position in family, friends and lovers and physical appearance. They have contradictive thought of achieving the standard of beauty set by the social but rejecting the stereotype of female. It is a interesting method to represent feminine by a conversation based story which is so different from Quinn’s films.

Alison de Vere’s The Black Dog is unlike others’ animation. It is a fantasy story and it is less straightforward and included a lot of minor concepts. The female character is transformed by the female fate into a culturally defined object of beauty and de Vere seems to have an issue on women’s complicity in their representation as objects to be displayed for the pleasure of other people. Instead of loving their own bodies, females are easily loss confidence about themselves when judged by others about their appearance. The lack of confidence of females can be due to genes but social problems more likely and it is important for them to have an equal life within the society in the future. Three feminist artists have their unique thought about the representation of females in animation and challenge their stereotype. It is interesting to see the difference of female characters designed by male and females animators who have various experience and concerns about feminism in this stereotyped world.

Modernity and Modernism

Gender

Animation

Final COP Animation

The two parts are combined together and I decided to add sound effects and background music to it so as to make it more fun. I used youtube sound library to get license free sources where it has large quantity and variety of sound that is useful to my animation.

I could not render the animation in After Effect which was extremely frustrating therefore I use Premiere instead. I have not used it for a long time and very glad I still remember how to edit videos and sound in Premiere.

And finally this is the final animation! Although it is only half the original story, I think it presents my thought very well and I have learnt so much! It is an interesting brief that to respond to our essay. As a foreigner,  writing in English is hard, visualising my thoughts and ideas are also the easier pathways to show my ideas. I have selected essence of the essay and turn it into this story which is amazingly interesting as if I am writing another essay through animation. There are a lot of things I need to improve.1)time management; If I manage my time better, the animation could be finished on time. 2)after effects; I need to learnt to use after effect as it is a useful tool when animating and editing.

Cop animation

-Backgrounds-

I like the castle because of the shadings and texture also the starry sky, but I am not very good at painting road or details...

I use layering to create the brick texture on the bridge and the close up of the castle. Instead of the size of the brick cannot be adjusted according to the perspective, I am very please with this attempt. I can improve it by layering more carefully and greater details.

-Sequence-

I really enjoy drawing the riding scenes where the princess is riding on her pig. It is a challenging part because it is difficult to present a smooth and realistic action in my point of view especially in frame by frame animation. I think I have solved the problem quite well and really pleased with the outcome.

Here is part 2. After all, instead of refining edges and the quality of the drawings, the story is setting up a good background for audience to understand my concept. I stopped animating at this point because of other work and the time management issue, it will not be finished before deadline...I have to follow my schedule more tightly next time. 

Character design

The character design of my animation is very simple, their characteristic could clearly show what are they in a traditional perspective. What is more, the princess is in the act of a normal prince in spite of her not so attractive look. Her clothes are in blue and yellow which is the symbol of royalty. Her skin is yellow and flat nose which is designed deliberately to challenge the stereotype of asia characters.

The pig's outfit indicates its job and add more fun to the animation. Although it is not shown in the story often, it is also an important character that audience probably will like. I decided to use pinky colour so as to match the princess's outfit.

For the witch/fairy, I was struggling with her outfit and characteristics. A lot of google's pictures of beautiful witch and evil fairy are very predictable. I do not want the witch to look like a villain but a blank looking fairy that audience would not notice from the first look.

I decided to use funky colours on the fairy e.g. metallic green and purple hair because I hope it helps indicating her inner evil a bit (since purple and green together is usually the colours for witches) and

it could differ her from natural appearance but still quite friendly looking.

She also has scary big eyes with barely any facial expression. I am quite happy with the character design because they are suitable for my story and different from my usual art style. It is a good opportunity to experiment with different drawing style and I think they are appropriated in this animation. 

Context of practice process

To start the process, I have made the anamatic for a better overview of the animation. It informs me about the timing and the amount of context I need to put within the animation.

Since the last animation I produced, which is the OUAN405 classical element, this time I want to separate the production into parts so that 1) each program(photoshop) can run faster and more efficient as the file size is smaller 2) reduce the chance of producing crash files. Therefore I divided the project in 4,5 second parts.

I have been looking up to reference a girly bedroom and found this quite suitable.

Backgrounds:

Title sequence of the film: dark style, rosy background, bright types, growing roses in the corners.

The first 5 seconds animation: I think I have a good time management and more organised then before. The character move quite natural and the backgrounds aid the storytelling a lot. 

Context of practice animation concept

Based on the essay, I am investing the representation of gender and otherness in animation. In the essay, I talk about the history of representation of gender for instance what is gender, who set the standard stereotype, and how characters are represented throughout the time. Since I am not only focusing on gender but a broad representation of characters, I am planning to create a mix elements animation in order to bring up the issue of the topic.

My concept is to reverse the representation of the characters in The Sleeping Beauty. I do not think any particular film matters but the ones with classy plots and characters that based on the stereotype of princess, prince, witches, fairy tales such traditional stories. In my story, it would be the princess who is rescuing the sleeping prince while battling with a beautiful young witch who curse the castle. Simple but straight forward.

I set the timeline in the future world. This would be happening because the change of stereotype people would have on characters and eventually how children's habits and interests would change according to this event. 

My story: A little boy is playing with his dolls in his pinky room and spot that The Sleeping Beauty film is playing on TV and start watching it. (Introduce the converted stereotype of boys and what boys like to watch) The film begins where the princess is riding to the castle and stopped by the witch. The witch curse the castle and plants grow to prevent the princess from going in. 

I am not including too much context as I think the most important thing in this story is the representation of characters. I am designing the princess to be not beautiful as 'usual' and the witch to be pretty and young without any sign of a villain.

The little boy who watch TV is a quite boy. I want him to be shy and delicate. His doll is a regular stuffed toy. He likes brushing her hair

The initial idea of the witch. From the original story, the villain is also a fairy so I made her a usual fairy outfit with the signature wings and wand. the prettiness prevent audience from noticing her character.