Research boards

[COP3] Practical research:asking my friend

So I immediately think of my friend who has a degree on pharmacy. After looking at the illustrations online of oxygen and CO2, I wonder if the bond angle has an effect on the molecules and should I draw them according to that so I asked an expert on this topic. 

drew me picture explaining!

So Chloe asked her friends as well and know that the bond angle does not have an effect on the molecule itself unless it synthesis with other atoms or molecule. In this case, oxygen and CO2 do not react or interact, simply diffusion through the alveoli so they  should remain their natural stage: O2 has bond angle in 107 degrees and carbon dioxide in 180 degrees. This definitely allows me to create a more reliable character and I should reconsider how to draw them as well. Also thinking about how Mike said yesterday about how we perceive the impression of these molecules,  like Carbon dioxide is the bad guy and oxygen is the good guy, it might be better to use the shapes to respond to this idea. I made the Carbon dioxide round at first which make it more like a nice character whereas triangle shapes for oxygen, scientifically it is impossible to have a triangular oxygen but still I am not planning to stick to the traditional way of drawing these substances so it needs more experiments on that.

[COP3] Practical Research on BIOLOGY!

One of the main reason why I am doing respiratory system is that I love biology. I hope I could do something I really like! 

All the memories flush back to my brain when doing research on this topic, I simply could not stop researching, it is so fascinating!

So first of all I decide to look at how public picture these molecules and most of them are just orb shapes, suppose that represents the full-filled atom ring and it is a strong bond in bond CO2 and O2 but O2 is even stronger.

Atoms showing how carbon and oxygen is bonded together. There are different ways to draw them out...what are the difference?

circles, dots and empty space

molecule model

bond using rings, carbon and oxygen in the same size

moving constantly?

Star war princess looking CO2?

Also I did my oxygen wrong in the first concept art, oxygen does not exist as individual atoms. So I should draw a compound!

There are many more different molecules in air, considering the ratio, I need to create a look for nitrogen and mixing different bits and pieces for other substances. 

 The research tell me that the alveoli is wrapped by many capillaries and remain me of the names of different parts involving in the respiratory system. However I am not planning to include all those difficult names in the animation. I may go for the GCSE levels and might just label a few important organs during the animation but still not sure if it will work? making an documentary animation? or go for the more narrative way to tell the story?

main organs

Also remains me of the gas exchanges between alveoli and capillaries. It is the red blood cells that carry the CO2 and oxygen so it takes a great part in the animation as well. I need to think of a creative way to tell all these information, not to make it too academic and scientific. Annabeth suggested me to make every organ a character, it would be really challenging since there are so many main component of the system. It needs to be selected carefully and designed as well.  

[COP3]Interviewing Paul Wells in MAF2016

I was so thrilled that I got chance to speak to Paul Wells in MAF about my essay. I have been reading his book 'Understanding Animation' for my essay which has so many useful information with his personal thoughts and opinions so it should be very critical and useful to ask him about anthropomorphism in Objects since he did not mention this topic in his book with great details. I did not manage to record our conversation for my first question because it was all in a sudden and I hope my memory of what he said is correct.

I asked: What are the main consideration when creating anthropomorphic characters in animation?

Wells replied:(I will use pullet points)

• The characters should be inviting audience to look at them and to understand them
• There are no restriction in genre or sex or race within an object character, unless you give it one, it could be anything
• The 'face' we see on the object allows us relate to human/animal/creature
• We see ourself in the object with facial expression, the 'face' of the object does not mean anything unless we anthropomorphise with them
• No facial expression is more difficult
• The sequence of movement is very important in anthropomorphism. We relate to the object  character when there are familiar actions like we suggest a bouncing ball is excited and lively because kids tend to do this when energetic.
• Movement is important is see objects in human

For the first questions, we gave me some new ideas on the fact that objects have no restrictions. Instead of thinking about examples in animation like household objects in Beauty and the Beast which almost everything are given a gender (at least it is how everyone perceived them especially with the voice actor and because they are cursed), gender/ race or other humanly problem should not have an effect on the object, it is purely imagination. However, I think it really depends on the story. For instance, the Pixar lamp would not work if they do not status the little kid lamp and the adult lamp; the blue umbrella would not set up the foundation of the story of a male and female love story. In other story like the red ballon or wilson in cast away, gender and race and age do not have an effect on the story because they do not need to stress these trait which would not effect their 'performance'. 

The face of a character is powerful as he said. I agree, it should be the most straight forward media to create anthropomorphism with the character. Objects characters that are given facial expression would have no big issue to communicate with the audience, showing thoughts and feelings through smiling, frowning, crying etc. Wells said no facial expression is more challenging. So instead of showing everything on face, they use body language and movement. Again like the pixar lamp, magical carpet in Aladdin, TARS in Interstellar. These characters use a lot of movements so suggest their thoughts and allow us to relate them through the sequence. So I think Wells is right about this point. 

I did manage to record conversation for the next question after he talked to Katy and I accidentally record some of their conversation as well! 

I ask Paul Wells if he think about inanimate object in story as a puppet? I asked this based on Barry Purves theory on that puppet is a mask and they reveal a organic characters' feeling or act as a mirror of them. 

• animators transfer/translate to the work
• He thinks it is a difficult question
• In some way, we know that someone is behind the puppet and manipulating them but more persuasive is the acting of the puppet.
• you aware there are performance within, enabled by someone, but there's a moment when it stops, and then you see these characters for what they are
• The actors are always an actor, for example in Cast away, you would not forget Tom Hanks, because of the star and he is a living figure in real life, but in animation, you do forget who is behind the animation like the voice actors and the creators, we watch the characters instead
• He does not know when that moment comes and worth researching

I am annoyed by my own voice but anyway, in the interview, he said quite a lot about how we perceived the information given from the puppet but not the artist behind it. Like how Purves suggested in the meeting the puppet master talk, giving example about Mary Poppins and her parrot umbrella. At the ending of the movie, Mary Poppins did not receive any appreciation from the family and the parrot spook her mind say that they should be more thankful but stopped by Mary herself. Audience agree with the parrot and suppose so does Mary Poppins deep in her heart. The parrot is a media to reveal the real feeling of Mary and it would not work as such if Mary said this by herself. Puppets/ objects have their own life in story but we still aware of the manipulation behind them just we will forget it because we are distracted by the story. Although he did not answer my exact question, he suggests that feeling with the actor (include objects as well) is a personal thing. Wells said he and his friends look at the same actor in different ways. 

Instead of not getting exact answer, I got other useful information as well! I will mention his thought in the essay and it will be supporting statement and quotes in the essay but I need to structure my essay before putting this information.

[COP3] Week Plan 21/11/2016

My things to do and time plan for this week. Quite a lot to catch up after MAF especially blogging. I will use 2-3 days to finish all the blogs and desperately need to start COP practical this week. Essay is progressing well so I am not too concern about it but I need to make sure I do not babble in the essay! I will definitely follow the schedule and must be a tense week!

[COP3]Practical again

I come to a point that I just want to start the practical and do not want to change it any more...tired of changing idea every week, so I am going to stick with this final idea and develop from it.

My finalised story is about oxygen cycle and respiratory system. The reason why I think it is a suitable practical is that it involves non-living characters (oxygen, carbon and body organs) as the leading roles so the story is nature driven. It should be a nice demonstration on how audience irresistibly anthropomorphise with the character that have no free will and this is what I really want to present through the practical.  I will also investigate how the camera angle and environment help tell the story and make audiences feel the characters, which have no expressions or body language. It should be a better idea compare to the previous tests because it does not involve interaction with human and it is not human leading.

Since the molecules are just shapes, so I think hand-drawn would be difficult to keep the consistency therefore working digitally would be a better choice. Also plain shapes are dull on their own, so I decide to use mix media, like collage. Partly because it adds more colours, more visually appealing, partly become an experimental animation for my extended practise.

Storyboard:

Character design:

Carbon

Oxygen

CO2 meets Oxygen

cause of the event:breathing

Inside the body

 I talked to Annabeth about this idea. She advised me to carry out more research on the use of shapes. Looking at how the real molecules look like and test more on the character design. Also try to make every component of the body a character, for instance, the movement of the lung makes it a character and the blood vessels etc, this would be more challenging and more interesting. What's more, instead of focusing on just one type of anthropomorphism, she suggested me to make a comparison on making the molecules caricatured as well. Comparing the result, how the caricatured one would need less narrative compare to the still one, and the effect the character have on the story-telling and how it affect the way the audience perceive the story. I agree with her idea, it would be more relevant to my essay and making comparison would require more techniques I learnt from the research as well. At the moment, I am very satisfying. I will stick to this idea and try not to make big changes considering the time and workload, it will be alright to be finished before Christmas!

[COP3]Weekly update

This week has been super busy. I gave out 2.5 days to work on the lifting tower brief and have been ill for 2 days as well... Although I achieve this week's target, my practical work of COP still not going well as plan. I really struggle finding the most suitable practical. Considering the time and workload, I do not want to make it too complicated but at the same time hoping the practical could include as much information as it can.
Here are the concept:

Considering that audience needs to have a story behind in order to understand the relationship between the object and the human, I created a story based on a boy who is lonely, only have a football as a company. The football is with him everyday but one day the boy is invited by other people so he put down the football and never look back. I found give the story some sad element is the easiest way to gain empathy and people would feel sorry for the football. However Mike suggested not to use the ball and using something that is easier to raise attention from audience like hoover which has more similarity to human than a football.

 At first, I was not sure about what Mike said. I do not personality think the object would matter since the focus is not on the object's physical property but what it is representing. So I did not think much about what else I could do, I went with the hoover idea.

I decided to use three situation to describe how the hoover could represent the human character. Henry the hoover for normal family, high-tech hoover for the rich people and very old type of hoover for elderly.

Here are some tests

However I stopped. I found out that it is not I want to do. The practical did not demonstrate well enough how an object could generate empathy and make audience feel for it. It focus too much on how the supporting character (in this case the human) could help to express but neglect that the object is the main character of the story. The simple 5 seconds action would not do the job to create anthropomorphism and I should have thought about it in greater details of  what I really want to show to people what I have learnt from the research.

So I looked at Chris Luk who is an ex-student in Leeds College of Art, he did similar practical as my topic where he did three anthropomorphic character test that demonstrate the difference between different techniques. Then I thought, OK I could do something similar. However, thinking about how I am also including inanimate object that is not animated... I started being confused how I could do a test comparing the rest since it should be a fair test and audience have to see clear differences between all three topics. I was planning to make a short story for the still object but that goes back to where I started...which is a dead end

After a week of frustration. I talked to Tony again. He is always good in advise. I told him my situation and he said I should not worry too much about what Mike said about using human-like objects, I should create whatever I feel suitable for the topic. Not because his idea is not relevant, but I should be clearer than him where my practical is going. Tony also suggest me to think outside the box. Do not trapped with the physical property of the object as it could be anything that without life. So I thought about household objects, rubbish in the sea, air particles, something that could become a story due to the cycle of nature, something that is not human- determined. How could I still use objects to tell stories even without the human character? what create the movement? and what happened? I think there is a lot more to consider. Although tomorrow we have to hand in the research board, I do not want to rush my idea because of that. So I will use Sunday to think about it once again and start pitching storyboards. Considering with the time, being optimistic, still 4.5 weeks I could do my practical before I go back so I need to be more confident about the practical!

[COP3]Analysing traditional dance-kabuki

no jumping or extreme large movement, stay on ground. hand gesture, twisting body and lending show sadness, chins up and realatively fast pace movement show excitement. hiding face show embarrssed. I particualy like the way he act as the heron to blast away the snow on hisbody, the movement is decalitely designed and could both show the quality of the animal but at the same time the beauty of a female character. this must be achieved by close look at the nature and obversving it.

using not just body language, but costumes and props. selves can be pillow can be sake bottle. 

An Onnagata's apprenticeship typically begins with instruction in walking. He practices with a sheet of paper between his knees, feet slightly pigeon-toed, elbows at the hips, fingers close together, body swaying slightly from side to side; if the sheet of paper slips to the floor, he knows he has not yet learned how to walk like an Onnagata.

[COP3]Echo Objects: The Cognitive Work of Images & Online resources

Skeptic=person who is leery, unbelieving, disbeliever
ridicule=ridiculous verb
notwithstanding=overall, despite
perceptual= emotional, emotive, concerning feelings
salient=noticeable, important, arresting

'Sterne's objections notwithstanding, these early face-interpretation systems, based on our empathetic responses, importantly recognised that the "body over there reminds me of my own body and my experience also contains the bodies of others."'(Stafford, 2007:82)

Stafford introduced an important research on cognitive response from imagery, seeing the world in the same way she described, by using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Scientists want to discover if audience viewing the same section of a film would invoke synchronised respond from all audience by a common stimulus. The result is, individual brains , he described as 'tick together' synchronically. It is said to be triggered by the key emotional moments like those often captured in photographs and in movie.(Stafford, 2007:84)

Emotions for things that do not even exist

According to Newen and Barlassina, the new theory is also superior to Jesse Prinz's most sophisticated theory of emotions so far, because this does not take into account that an emotion can also be directed at an object that is not present or does not even exist. A case study: Karl goes with his girlfriend Antje to a new bar. Because Karl has already been served by the barkeeper Fritz, Antje waits alone at the bar. Karl hears that she is insulted, but does not see by whom. He assumes it is Fritz. In the meantime, however, Fritz has left the room and John, an employee, is at the bar. He passes the insult and then leaves immediately. When Karl comes to the bar to vent his anger at the insult, Fritz is back. Karl is angry with Fritz although the cause of his bodily states associated with the feeling of anger was the utterance by John. The cause, John, and the object of the anger, namely Fritz, do not coincide. The object of anger is also known as the intentional object of anger, because it does not have to exist. People can even experience emotions about things that aren't real, for example, fear of vampires. While all feeling theories of emotion overlook the intentional object as an essential part of the emotion, the cognitive theories do tend to forget the feeling dimension of the emotion. Only the integrative embodiment theory takes all these components into account as constitutive of the emotion.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/search/?keyword=anthropomorphic#gsc.tab=0&gsc.q=anthropomorphic&gsc.page=1

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080708200658.htm

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100225140927.htm

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160922085352.htm

comment:
I find look at information in different area extremely helpful. I can see anthropomorphism exists not just in animation but we are associating with it daily. The scientific approach to this topic definitely help building up more depth in my essay and allow more diverse opinions. What I know it that there are still lack of solid definition of why and how we think with object since it is a cognitive experience that differ from everyone therefore I need to make it clear in the essay that I am not forgetting this important statement. 

[COP3] Lecture 1/11/2016

Resolving Your Research Project Design

The lecture on Tuesday was extremely useful. Richard mentioned key points that we have to key in mind when writing. For example do not just research a little or touching the surface of the topic (which I always do), it must be deep learning, touching the bottom of the topic.

Deep Approach:
Independent engagement with material
Critical and thoughtful about idea and information
Relates ideas to own previous experience and knowledge
See the big picture
Relates evidence to conclusions
Examines logic of arguments
Interested in wider reading and thinking
Ongoing preparation and reflection


To be frank, I think I am sort of in the middle between shallow and deep learning that is important to remember while writing... I need to include my own thoughts!!

There are a lot of technical advises as well like avoid repeating words, abbreviations, contractions, slangs, conversational terms and vague terms etc.

Replacing I:
Consideration has been given to...
The suggestion here is that....
It has been observed...

The most useful part is Harvard Referencing template. I have been confused about how I could include quotes within sentence and it should be :( Last name, year:page)

It does not matter if I use P. instead of : as long as they are consistent throughout the essay.

After the lecture, it definitely make me more comfortable writing and kind of motivate me as well. I really want to proof that I can do it and going to do my best in the following 10 weeks! Fighting!!

[COP3] Progress

From 31st Oct, after the group tutorial, I think I have consolidate my idea once more. I am now mainly focusing on anthropomorphism in objects, talking about how these objects characters are created to generate empathy and how do they do it. Since it is quite a change from what I originally planned, I still have not thought about the practical yet. It is definitely needed to be sorted out this week. At least have a brief idea what I want to do to link with my essay. Today is 4th Nov, by this time I already have about 2500 words since I aim 1000 words a week, still 500 more to go. I am happy that the schedule is kept and progressing steadily on the writing. What I want to improve is probably multi-tasking. PPP and extended practice need a lot of thoughts and pre-production work as well... I think COP is just too scary sometime I put all my focus on it. Therefore I will make sure I have 1-2 days in a week just do PPP or extended practice and should be ready to hand in rationale of extended on next Thursday. I am looking forward to the individual tutorial on Monday as well.

I also started using google scholar which is extremely useful and of course the library as well. I think most of the useful quotes come from  non-animation book which is quite interesting. May be it is because my topic is lean to psychology.( which also means a lot of difficult words)

[COP3] Understanding Animation by Paul Well

Anthropomorphising inanimate object

Paul Well tried to address the complex issue of realism in animated film. He found two British based animators, John Halas and Joy Batchelor, posit the view that,'If it is the live-action film's job to present physical reality, animated film is concerned with metaphysical reality-not how things look, but what they mean'(Hoffer, 1981:3) The use of objects sit in between this saying. Even in live-action film, anthropomorphic objects exists as a symbol that actors interact to recall memories or treat it as the important ones. For example Elle's House in Up and Wilson in Cast away. In animation, anthropomorphic inanimate object is less popular than animals or original designed character that are given human quality.


Different media in anthropomorphic character 
The Haunted Hotel (1907) half live-action and stop motion
visualising the hotel with a real actor, manipulating the house.

The little house disney

Monster house



Why do we like anthropomorphism?

'In a country and social order with such a mercilessly standardized and mechanically measured existence, which is difficult to call life,  the sight of such 'omnipotence' (that is, the ability to become, 'whatever you wish')', cannot but hold a sharp degree of attractiveness. This is as true for the United States as it is for the petrified canons of world-outlook, art and philosophy of eighteenth century Japan.' (Leyda, 1988:21)

'As Kuenz notes, a little boy watching Beauty and the Beast (1989), didn't like the supposedly happy ending, because he said 'everybody turns back into real people' (The Project on Disney, 1995:72). In his eyes, the realist agenda was evidently an abnegation of animation's capacity to authenticate fantasy.' (Well.P 1998:26)


Anthropomorphism in interpretive form

It is said that interpretive form animation resist the depiction of conventional forms and the assumed objectivity of the exterior world, experimental animation priorities abstract forms in motion, liberating the artist to concentrate on the vocabulary he/she is using in itself without the imperative of giving it a specific function or meaning. The kind of subjective work has therefore necessitated that audiences respond differently. In stead of being located within the familiarity of formal narrative strategies, the audience are required to interpret the work on their own terms, or terms predetermined by the artist. As william Moritz insists, though, these acts of interpretation should not be inhibited by truing to force the abstraction to directly equate with some know quantity or meaning. He says:

The true abstraction and the true symbol must have an intriguing spirit and integrity of its own, and it must suggest more meanings, various, almost contradictory depths and speculations beyond the surface value; otherwise, why bother to obfuscate? If the viewer comes to the point of saying, 'Oh. that represents the police and that represents freedom,' then that revelation is about as interesting as, 'Gee, Donald Duck drives a car and mows his lawn just like an average American; he must represent the average irascible American!' (Moritz, 1988:29)