Monday, October 29, 2012

Evaluation of Digitopia:


Year 9 Creative Media
Appraising Animation
Focus Questions ~

·      Identify the imagery by listing what you see e.g. the subject matter, objects, shapes etc.
o   Visual symbols
o   Something about god/spiritual
o   Indian Hindu gods
o   Symbology
o   Energy and goodness is flowing out of the god
o   The eye symbols that it can see everything
o   Blue represents heaven
o   Utopia- song
o   It's a desirable place
o   Making hands in the experimental bit
o   Hands have bell me like robots for them
o   Utopias getting scary
o   Hands were such a huge thing and so cool they all needed it as a leg
o   Angels or people who have died going to heaven
o   Or people end up becoming a total hand after all operations
o   Plain back and white
o   Big singular eye
o   Reversed the machines became the hands and the hands dominated utopia.  

·      What is your overall impression of the mood of the work
My overall impression of the mood of Matreyek’s work is that she is very spiritual in her work and really expresses her feelings. She also communicates very detailed messages that really connect to the audience. In Digitopia she is trying to convey the mood of fantasy and spiritual goodness pouring from the gods (hands).

·      Watch and Listen for visual language cues, sound cues and editing cues.
Visual language cues consist of Indian Hindu gods, symbology and blue, black and white coloring and the sound cues was the Utopia song playing in the background, symbolizing that it is utopia. The editing cues where magnificent as so many techniques where used. I observed the editing cues of stop motion, animation-ish and Photoshop, then all combined together by either importing or exporting into each of the programs.

 Analysis ~
·        Notice the visual language used by Matreyek's e.g. colour, line, the quality of the movement, shapes, use of scale etc. - list what you identify
Colour:
                    Black and white very plain to make the blue stand out.
o                   o  The black and white is the mountains and the ground.
o   The blue effect in the background represents heaven and the energy and goodness is flowing out of the god.
Line:
o   The lines in this film were extremely sharp where the movement and life was down the bottom (black and white).
o   Energy and goodness is flowing out of the god
o   At the top where it represented heaven in blue and where all the gods where placed, the lines where very soft and flowed with the music.
The quality of the movement:
o   The quality of the movement was great as the hand movements in Istop motion were very gentle and moderate, visualising hands taking over Utopia’s thoughts, actions and homes.
      Shape & use of scale:
o   I personally thought that Matreyek’s scale and shapes could have been more refined and closely observed for changes, because most of it was untidy and you couldn’t really tell whether that was the look she was going for or not.

·      Notice the sounds - list these identifying their type and quality
     The only sounds included in the Digitopia film is the Utopia music, the quality is high and it makes the effect on the video by reassuring you that it’s a desirable place.

Interpretation ~
·      What is your interpretation of the work?
The meaning of the work of Digitopia is that Utopia is a desirable place for some people. In this Utopia the Hindu gods and energy and goodness flowing out of them are hands. People became obsessed with the whole idea of hands being the main object of their land and everything reversed the machines became the hands and hands dominated utopia.  

·      Survey friends and family ~ what do they think the work is about?
My Family straight away just looked at the film and didn’t understand the meaning and why Matreyek would make such a weird video. I really do think that to really understand and appreciate the film you have to be spiritual and be able to know the techniques used to create such a beautiful piece.

·      Who do you think is the intended audience for Matreyek's work?
The intended audience for Matreyek’s work are very spiritual people and mainly people who work with computer techniques and all the program’s used to create her videos, which really do begin to amaze you when you know what effort has gone into everything.
·     
    How does visual language inform your interpretation?
The communication of visual effects, straight away gives the interpretation of   basically a really weird video, but as you really look into the details and think what it may be all about it all begins to amaze you.

·      How has Matreyek used sound with the animation images to create meaning?
The sounds in Matreyek video creates the whole meaning of the video as when it says utopia in the song repeatedly in a real slow smooth tune it gives you the impression of the pleasant Utopia trying to be conveyed. Without the sound you would get mixed messages of what the film is really about and would change the interpretation immediately.


Notes from class discussion:


Creative Media Notes: Digitopia

   Visual symbols
   Something about god/spiritual
   Indian Hindu gods
   Symbology
   Energy and goodness is flowing out of the god
   The eye symbols that it can see everything
   Blue represents heaven
   Eutopia- song
   It's a desirable place
   Making hands in the experimental bit
   Hands have bell me like robots for them
   Eutopias getting scary
   Hands were such a huge thing and so cool they all needed it as a leg
   Angels or people who have died going to heaven
   Or people end up becoming a total hand after all operations
   Plain back and white
   Big singular eye
   Reversed the machines became the hands and the hands dominated utopia.   

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Questions & Notes

Questions on my vimeo video:

  • How did the film make you feel? (excited, intrigued, happy etc) 
This film makes me feel slightly confused yet happy in a strange way.  
  • In your opinion, what was the most striking element of the film?
The most striking element of the film was when they started to actually reverse the machines to become hands and hands to become the machines, this is when hands really had dominated.
  • List three other things that you found interesting? 
  1. The techniques she uses and how effective they are to the topic.
  2. The way the domination of hands develops through the story.
  3. The hands as gods because they are the desirable thing.
  • What meaning did you think the artist was trying to convey?
The meaning the artist was trying to convey was a spiritual thought of how things can be over developed and how fast.
  • What is your overall impression of the film’s mood?
My overall impression of the film is kind of confused yet i can understand what the purpose of the film is. 
  • Did sound play an important part in your response to the film?
Yes the sound did play an important part in my response to the film as saying it is Utopia changes the whole concept of the film. Utopia's definition is: An imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. This shows that the way the hands were used was perfect for the utopian people and was there one dream place to be run by hands
  • What comments can you make about the animators technique? (i.e. was it simple, complicated, smooth, jerky etc)
The animators technique was incredible yet complicate to really understand fully, every time i watch it again i pick up more information in which she could have meant. 
  • Do you think that this animation would have been well planned? 
This Animation would've been well planed because it has a lot of thought put into the animation and many techniques where used.
 

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Term 4: Videos from Miwa Matreyek

I have chosen Digitropia out of the three videos from the work of Miwa Matreyek, Multimedia Artist. I chose this video because it was the only video i really understood the first time i watched it and i feel like i am able to really analyze it.  

Digitropia link: http://vimeo.com/5906461

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

FINAL COPY


Monique and i both but the animations and stop motion videos together then added the soundtrack to form the final copy..

Scene 15

 I worked on this alone.

Scene 12

I worked on this alone.

Scene 11


I worked on this alone.

Scene 9

I worked on this alone.

Scene 6

I worked on this alone.

Scene 5

I worked on this alone.

Scene 3

I worked on this alone.

Scene 2

Monique and i worked on this together.

Scene 1 Animation:


Monique and i worked on this together.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

evaluation:



Term 3- Creative Media Animation-ish Blog Evaluation

Definitions:
Animation-
A simulation of movement created by displaying a series of pictures, or frames. Cartoons on television is one example of animation. Animation on computers is one of the chief ingredients of multimedia presentations. There are many software applications that enable you to create animations that you can display on a computer monitor.

Note the difference between animation and video. Whereas video takes continuous motion and breaks it up into discrete frames, animation starts with independent pictures and puts them together to form the illusion of continuous motion.

Keyframes-
A key frame in animation and filmmaking is a drawing that defines the starting and ending points of any smooth transition. The drawings are called "frames" because their position in time is measured in frames on a strip of film. A sequence of keyframes defines which movement the viewer will see, whereas the position of the keyframes on the film, video or animation defines the timing of the movement. Because only two or three keyframes over the span of a second do not create the illusion of movement, the remaining frames are filled with inbetweens.

Tweening-
Inbetweening or tweening is the process of generating intermediate frames between two images to give the appearance that the first image evolves smoothly into the second image. Inbetweens are the drawings between the key frames which help to create the illusion of motion. Inbetweening is a key process in all types of animation, including computer animation.

Stop motion definition-
Stop motion (also known as stop frame) is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence. Dolls with movable joints or clay figures are often used in stop motion for their ease of repositioning. Stop motion animation using plasticine is called clay animation or "clay mation". Not all stop motion requires figures or models; many stop motion films can involve using humans, household appliances and other things for comedic effect.

Traditional animation examples:
Examples of traditionally animated feature films include Pinocchio (United States, 1940), Animal Farm (United Kingdom, 1954), and Akira (Japan, 1988). Traditional animated films which were produced with the aid of computer technology include The Lion King (US, 1994) Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away) (Japan, 2001), and Les Triplettes de Belleville (France, 2003).


Limited animation examples:

Examples of stop motion animation styles:
Examples of stop motion animation styles include:
·      Clay Animation
·      Toy-Mation
·      2-D Clay Animation
·      Paper Animation

Reflections on Blog (discuss the choices you have made, difficulties encountered, skills/techniques you have developed):
The choices my colleague and I have made through out this project have varied. We made choices a quarter through the project that we needed to split the scenes and stop working as a team. Difficulties we encountered were time management but this has taught us not to slack off in class time.