COP Evaluation

COP1 End of Module Evaluation

Although I did not accomplish as much as I had hoped for this module I do feel noticeably more educated and informed about art culture, history and industry as well as have a solid grasp of academic writing. My favorite aspect of the module was the Lecture program. Richard Miles and Fred Bates are fantastic lecturers; after every lecture I attended I felt that not only did I fully understand what was taught but I was comfortable enough with the topics to communicate them to other people and contribute to conversations with professionals within the design industry. 

In terms of my academic writing, it has been about four years since I have done anything of the sort and I have certainly never written a paper longer than 1,000 words. However the word count was not so much of a challenge as the triangulation and referencing. These things are quite foreign to me however I did find the process quite enjoyable once I had gotten the gist of it. Taking on Harriet’s advice, I read through several academic papers as well as articles and interviews and took separate notes for each of them pulling out quotes that I found particularly relevant to my thesis. Once I had absorbed these sources, I jumped back into my essay to incorporate them into my thesis and build my argument to be stronger.

When reading through my paper, I wish I had made more time to refine it. As usual for me I became inspired too little too late and got into the flow of things just before the deadline. In January I wrote out the first draft to my paper that was essentially a disorganized mind dump. I had spent the previous two months absorbing content and spilling it all out on paper. Because I don’t have a lot of previous experience in writing long term papers, I did not know how to go about the process efficiently and ended up testing out a few different methods until I landed on one that worked for me. If I had more time I would continue to triangulate with sources past the ten I had used for reference. I have a few theories of my own in terms of my thesis and it would have been interesting to find sources that supported my thoughts. 

When it came to the animated response I had a clear idea straight away and although I did explore a few others, came back to the original. The plan was to create an animation that compared two different methods of animation; Traditional and Digital. Because of certain circumstances outside of my control, I lost a lot of time and ended up animating much less of what I had hoped initially. Initially my idea was to create an animation that traveled through different methods as it moved. As the deadline approached, I realized I did not have enough time to complete my idea so I modified it; using a sentimental story, I created an animation using traditional techniques and incorporated some hand drawn elements using digital animation. This is meant to highlight the idea that traditional and digital animation methods are simply that; methods of animation and will continue to be used either as a combination or apart from each other based on what communicates the story best.

In conclusion, this was one of my more favorite modules. It is refreshing to experience a more academic side of animation and design and I feel that I have learned a lot through the process and even though I am forced to leave the course due to unavoidable financial difficulties, I intend and hope to continue exploring art on a much deeper historical and cultural level.

Essay Research - History

A Brief History of Animation

Pre-film

c. 1650, Magic Lantern. Christian Huygens, Athanasius Kircher: A simple device that used an oil lamp or candle to project a translucent painting through a lens onto any wall or flat surface.

c. 1824, Thaumatrope. Sir John Herschel: A disc of card with different pictures on each side that make up a whole image when spun rapidly. The illusion demonstrates persistence of vision.

1831, Phenakistoscope. Joseph Plateau and Simon von Stampher (simultaneously): a disc with radial slots at equal distance around the circumference and an image sequence printed in between the slots. The viewer observes the animation in a mirror by looking through the slots as the disc spins.

1834, Zoetrope. William George Horner: The device works in the same way as the phenakistoscope but rather than being a disc it is a cylinder with vertical slots in its side. The animations are printed on cards that can be placed inside the cylinder and viewed through the slots as the zoetrope is rotated.

1868, Flip Books. John Barnes Linnett: a book that has a series of images printed on the same side of sequential pages which, when flipped through provides the illusion of animation. Works on the same principle as the zoetrope and phenakistoscope.

1877, Praxinoscope, Charles-Emile Reynaud: Similar to the zoetrope in that it uses a strip of images placed on the inner surface of a spinning cylinder but instead of viewing the animation through narrow slits an inner ring of mirrors was used to capture the reflection of each passing image.

Silent Era:

1899, Arthur Melbourne-Cooper: "Matches an Appeal" - stop motion animation believed to be the oldest existing animated film.

1906, J. Stuart Blackton: "Humerous Phases of Funny Faces" considered the first example of traditional animation using film.

1907?, Unknown: "Katsudo Shashin". Earliest Japanese anime. Found in 2005 it is 50 frames long and shows a young boy writing "katsudo shashin", Japanese for moving pictures.

1908, Emile Cohl: "Fantasmagorie" considered the first example of what we think of as a cartoon, character based narrative.

1910, Ladislaw Starewicz: "Beautiful Lukanida" pioneer of puppet animation. The PP demonstrates his work using his 1912 animation "The Cameraman's Revenge".

1914, Winsor McCay: "Gertie the Dinosaur". An early example of character animation and the first film to combine live action and animated footage.

1917, Quirino Cristiani: "El Apostol". This was the first animated feature film, made using cutout animation it was 70 minutes long. (no copies survive)

1921, Walter Ruttmann: "Lichtspiel Opus I". Ruttmann was a pioneer of abstract animation and part of a movement known as Absolute Film along with Hans Richter, Oskar Fischinger and Viking Eggeling.

Golden age:

1923 - 1927, Walt Disney: "Alice Comedies". Walt Disneys first project - Originally produced by Laugh-o-Grams, Disneys first animation company, but distributed by Disney asfter Laugh-o-Grams went bankrupt.

1924 - 1927, Max and Dave Fleischer: "Song Car-Tunes". Pioneering in synchronized sound with animation, "Oh Mabel" was produced, alongside 3 other songs, as animations using Phonofilm in 1924 and are the first animations to have synchronized sound.

1928, Disney: "Steamboat Willie". Disneys first animation with synchronized sound, more theatres had projectors and speakers for Phonofilm by this point in time so it had more of an impact than the Fleischer Car-Tunes.

1931, Quirino Cristiani: "Peludopolis".  The first feature length animation to use synchronized sound. No copies survive but a short scene was reconstructed in 1983.

1932, Disney: "Flowers and Trees". The first animation to use three colour Technicolor method. Disney won the first academy award for best animated short film with this film.

1935, Tex Avery: "Gold diggers of '49". Fred "Tex" Avery's first animation for Warner Brothers.

1937, Disney: "Snow White & the Seven Dwarves". Although commonly believed to be the first animated feature film, it is not. El Apostol beat snow white by 20 years and there were at least 7 other animated features in between. Snow White was the first feature animation to be made using three strip Technicolor and the first to become successful within the English speaking world.

1945, Mitsuyo Seo: "Momotaro's Divine Sea Warriors". Japans first feature length anime, made on order from the Japanese Naval Ministry as propaganda to support the war.

COP Animation - Final

COP Animation - Backgrounds

I created simple hand drawn backgrounds using pencil, fine liners and water colors. I made these backgrounds in separate parts to later key frame  in Photoshop. The elements of these backgrounds would move into the screen as the last elements fade away and move off of the screen.

 

   

I scanned these illustrations into Photoshop and eliminated the white space around the subjects:

 

Then I began to overlap the background layers to create a paper cutout effect:

 

These layers had to be carefully arranged to create a certain aesthetic result. The high backgrounds fade from one to the other while the low backgrounds switch out from underneath. 

 

 _________

This is how each scene came together for the animated response:

Lectures 14 and 15 - Semiotics

Semiotics - The science of studying signs

• If we can unravel meaning in language by understanding the written and spoken material, we can also unravel meaning in cultural practices.
• Fashion is a communication system
• Codes: Conventions, expectations, narrative
• Looking at conformity and the destruction of it and how it contributes to comedy.
• Codes are found in all forms of cultural practice
• In order to make sense of cultural artifacts, we need to understand their codes

Ferdinand Sesseur

• Signifier - sound image
• Signified - Mental concept
• Both are SIGNS
• Sign - Anything that conveys meaning in a cultural code

Signifier

• Written 'Dog'
• Spoken 'Dog'
• Barking by a Dog
• Picture of a Dog

 Signified

• The mental concept of a Dog

There is no logical relationship between the signifier and the signified in language, it is whatever has been culturally decided. 

 _____________________

 

 Signifier -

  

  

 

Signified -

 

___________

 

 

 

 

 Laswell's Maxim: Who says what in what channel to whom with what effect?

 

• Noise, cultural jamming - Interruption in communication
• Redundancy - Low predictability, high information
• Entropy - A set of signs from which one is to be chosen
• Syntagm - The mesage into which the chosen signs are combined according to pre existing conditions 

All messages involve selection from a paradigm and combination into a syntagm 

• Units in paradigm must have something in common
• Syntagm - combination of signs (outfits, words etc.. )
• Signs are arranged in a syntagmatic relationships chosen from paradigms

Codes:

• Signifying systems
• Number of units to choose from and paradignamic dimensoin
• All codes convey meaning

 

Lectures 12 and 13 - Color Theory

Physical - Physiological - Psychological

• Spectral color - Evoked by a single wavelength of light within a visible spectrum
• Single wavelength generates monochromatic light
• Color is reflected off of surfaces
• Rods: Convey shades of black, white and gray
• Cones: Perceive color (Type 1 - Red, Type 2 - Green, Type 3 - Blue)
•  

Joseph Albers:

Interaction of color (1888 - 1976)

Johannes Itten:

The art of color (1888 - 1967) 

  

Yellow: Mixture of Red & Green 

RGB - Red, Green, Blue

CMYK - Cyan,Magenta, Yellow, Black (print based)

Subtractive color - All mixed is Black (Print/ink)

Additive color - All mixed is White (Digital, RGB) 

 

Chromal Value = Hue +Tone + Saturation 

 

 

Lecture 10 - Post Modernism

Post Modernism

• Born out of optimism - a reaction to WWI
• Harness technology to improve people's lives
• While Modernism is filled with rules of design, Post modernism questions them.
• Break and rehumanize design.

Modernism

Rational, experimental, lacks humor and humanity. An expression of modern life and technology.

 

Post Modernism

Is anything truly new? Society is moving backwards. Post modernism is a reaction to the seriousness of Modernism. Post modernism is sarcastic. A reaction to modern life and technology

 

• Abstract expressionism
• Useless art/machinery
• Why follow rules?
• Technology is imploding
• 1917 Rudolph Pannwitz - Nihilistic, amoral, post modern men
• 1964 Leslie Fielder - Rejection of the modern 

 

Timeline:

• 1960s - Beginning
• 1970s - Established as a term
• 1980s - Recognized as a style
• 1980s/90s - Dominant theoretical discourse
• 2000s - Tired and simmering   

15th July, 1972, 3:32pm - Modernism Dies!

According to Charles Jencks, the demolition of the Pruitt in St. Louis marks the end of Modernism. Apparently, the building was in shambles anyway.

  

No rules! Celebration of low-culture! Fusion of styles! 

 

Threatens belief systems (a modernistic system centered on a single solution for all.) 

Result:  Crisis in confidence..

 

Roy Lichenstein 

• Found comic book cut outs, blew them up to create something new
• A fusion of high and low culture art

Las Vegas

• Post modern city
• Ecclectic mix of everything
• Somewhat cheap

Andy Warhol

• Rejecting originality completely
• Meaningless publicity images printed even if there are flaws in the production
• Opposite of abstract expressionism but more of a sarcastic piss take on the concept

 

Lecture 9 - Modernism

Modernity
Industrialization, urbanization, the city.

Modernism
The artist's response to Modernity.  

John Ruskin (1819 - 1900) 

Paris 1900 - Most advanced and modern city of the time.

Urbanization - Shift from rural to urban.  

Work time, Leisure time. 

Lives no Longer limited by sun and nature.

Enlightenment of the 18th century

• Emergence of pivotal and important works of science and philosophy
• Pushed society away from God and towards logic and science
• Eiffel tower: 1889, symbol of modernity and unapologetic aesthetic (metal/form follows function)

Modernism = Improvement 

• Late 1880s - paintings shift to the city and become more impressionistic.

 

Haussimanisation

• Paris 1850s onwards - New Paris
• Haussimanisation - Redesigning Paris to make it easier to police (social control)
• Dangerous elements of the city are moved outside of the city centre
• Upper class zone

Psychological Advances

• Fashion becomes an important form of self expression of individuality in a cluttered and busy society.

 Darker Aspects     

• Degas - Absinthe drinker (1876)
• Cropping aesthetic in painting resembling photography

Kaiserpanorama - 1883 

• Circular viewing machine
• look at slides (landscapes, artworks, porn)
• Engage with the world through a machine
• Alienated, technological 

Modernism - A response to the shifting forces of Modernity and Experience of Modernity.

 

Design 

• Anti-Historicism
• Truth to materials
• Form follows function
• Technology
• Internationalism
• Celebrate new materials for what they are
• Beauty in function
• Architecture: buildings grow up to accommodate for rapidly growing population in small locations
• Accidentally haunting buildings (modernist architecture looks great new but wear and tear give it a clinical and depressing appearance.)
• Sleek, modern

Reject style and history to create something neutral and timeless!