Category: Design for Animation

Research Presentation

Critical Report

In this lesson, we review the format of the 1500-word report.

I made a mind-map to figure out my critical report structure.

In the process of exploring the metaphor of plants, I tried to understand another concept: Anthropomorphis.Principle anthropomorphism is the viewing of an inanimate object or an animal with human characteristics. Anthropomorphism makes metaphors more vivid. Anthropomorphism is used extensively in Disney’s animation. To be precise, the method that should be mentioned in my report is Personification, The difference between Anthropomorphism and Personification is that：

Anthropomorphism is literal. Speaking animals or objects who talk, think, or behave like humans are all anthropomorphic. Think of Thomas the Tank Engine, Winnie the Pooh, or Peter Rabbit. They literally act as if human.

Personification is figurative. Do you sometimes feel like your computer hates you, especially when it’s not working right? Well, it can’t literally hate you because it’s not human.

Personification has always been widely used as a literary device, especially in lyric poetry. Wordsworth’s personified daffodils below demonstrate what is probably one of the best-known, to the point of cliché, examples of this type of metaphor:

‘Ten thousand saw I at a glance

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance’

The same approach was used in another animation I researched which is  Pan’s Labyrinth.

In the process of my research, I also found a book called Plants as persons which deal with very philosophical aspects which I couldn’t fully understand but I would like to share some interesting points from page 14 of the book:‘The risk we run by ignoring the personhood of plants is losing sight of the knowledge that we humans are dependent ecological beings. We risk the complete severance of our connections with the other beings in the natural world—a process which only serves to strengthen and deepen our capacity for destructive ecological behaviour. This is humanity’s worst type of violence.’

Perhaps the underlying reason for man’s destructive behaviour towards nature is the neglect of the fact that we humans are ecologically dependent beings.

I really enjoy the process of research and even though not all the information I find may be directly helpful to my articles, it is interesting to understand things from a different perspective and discover more possibilities of things.

In the end, I clarified the scope of my research, making it specific to the plant metaphor and the animation Coco.

The title of my critical report is Analysis metaphors in animation:Plant

Through the discussion in this session I have a clearer direction of about my research

I would like to document the development of my report.

From a broad concept at the beginning to a figurative one, I was interested in ecological laws of nature and digital plants and I wanted to investigate how digital plants could have a perceptual or emotional impact on people. My topic was how to represent digital plants in film and how plants appear in the VFX visual space.

In the process of investigating abstract concepts such as digital plants and the laws of nature

I have read some materials：
THE EFFECT OF SEASONAL CHANGE OF PLANTS COMPOSITIONS ON VISUAL PERCEPTIO

Site by:Eroğlu, E., Müderrisoğlu, H. and Kesim, G. A. (2012) “The effect of seasonal change of plants compositions on visual perception”, Journal of Environmental Engineering and Landscape Management, 20(3), pp. 196-205. doi: 10.3846/16486897.2011.646007.

I am confused because I didn’t know how to progress and I don’t have a rigorous structure. In discussions with my classmates and my teacher, I realised that what I wanted to study was actually the symbolism of plants in animation or film, a subject that goes back to a more interesting topic for me, namely metaphor and symbolism.

Nigel recommended a book to me which is Understanding animation by Paul wells and a chapter dedicated to metaphor and symbolism, the chapter provides two case studies and here are my extracts from the book which I found very useful.

‘Metaphor essentially grows out of symbolism and serves to embody a system or ideas in a more appealing or conducive image system.’

‘Symbol and metaphor still render narrative as open-ended, though, because their deployment enables multiple discourses which may, at any point, contradict or support dominant readings.’

The authenticity of a documentary is ‘deeply linked to notions of realism and the idea that documentary images are linked to notions of realism and the idea that documentary images bear evidence of events that actually happened, by virtue of the indexical relationship between image and reality’

Horness Roe. A. (2013) Animated Documentary. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

The authenticity of the documentary is demonstrated by

A documentary film is a non-fictional motion picture intended to ‘document reality’.

And the concept of realism is ‘Realism in the arts is generally the attempt to represent subject matter truthfully, without artificiality and avoiding speculative fiction and supernatural elements’. 

Both are based on real events, without adding fictional elements and avoiding modifications that contradict the truth.

Also, Documentaries convey information by restoring images of realistic scenes and providing evidence of the actual events that took place.

Animated documentaries are a form of moving image that combines animation and documentary, and I think that even through animation as a form of artistic expression the nature of documentary still exists, and the answer is Definitely.

Walking by the Canadian animator and artist Ryan Larkin made an indelible mark in the history of animation with its innovative combination of drawing and colour wash techniques. But as far as Walking is concerned, I don’t think of it as an animated documentary, walking is the subject and animation is the form of its presentation. He doesn’t refer to specific times and certain real-life cases, nor does he tell a story, he just animates the moments of different people walking from different angles, but of course, there is no denying that walking is the most common thing for most people, and the author adds his personal touch to it, making it interesting and advanced.

I agree with Honess Roe’s idea:

‘animated documentaries do not easily into the received wisdom of what a documentary is’

Animated documentaries have overturned the public perception of traditional documentaries. Compared to traditional documentaries, animated documentaries give people more scope for imagination. In terms of character design, animated documentaries highlight the characters’ characteristics through elements such as their appearance and expressions, which visually help viewers to distinguish and understand them.

The form of Severance Intro Title Sequence is 3D Animation 

Severance focuses on the balance between life and work and is set in a company with memory-cutting technology.

The animation illustrates the protagonist’s life struggle between professional and personal predicaments. Work personality and life personality constantly shuttle and pull in the grid.

The work represents the mystical journey of these different identities memories of experiences, grief, loss, and control in one body through the use of surrealism and subtle ironic humour. The protagonist switches from one scene to another and the different scenes are linked by objects that working people use throughout the day, lifts, hoovers, beds, etc.

In terms of visual expression, the strong minimalist modernist aesthetic, the warmthless cold light, the repetitive approach and the symmetrical composition show the rules and limitations of the workplace, depicting a working man like an emotionless machine working non-stop on an assembly line.

The scene in which people are being poured out of the coffee cup is my favourite. I think he depicts the state of people in the workplace going with the flow through the ‘labour and capital perspective’, implying some kind of control. People looking and running, trying to escape but unable to do.

In the use of technology, Firstly the main characters were created by 3d scanning, and based on 3d meshes texturing the skin and combing the hair in Houdini software. Secondly, Cloth creation and rigging were also done in Houdini and Marvelous Designer, with the rest being a combination of motion capture suites from Xsens. finishing touches in Houdini and Cinema 4D, and finally rendering in Octane.

The molten and sticky effect made through model deconstruction enhances the expression of the chaotic and muddy state of being caught up in work and life. This state, coupled with the slow and urgent music, makes people naturally immersed in the bizarre atmosphere.

There is a lot of symbolic expression in this animation, and the use of symbolic elements to make the images and expressions more interesting is what I most wanted to learn from this animation.

I picked the movie Moonrise Kingdom. I am a fan of most Wes Anderson films. I am always attracted to the colors and symmetrical compositions and the stylist of the characters in films.

The film is about the innocent feelings of children, Suzy and Sam, who communicate as pen pals by writing letters. They have different character traits.

Sam’s personality represents all the qualities of the logical, he’s a member of the local boy scouts, which in many ways tries to mimic the discipline of the military, he knows how to read and make maps and he shows an interest in the painting of the landscape.

Suzy love to touch with the fantastical and artistically creative aspects of life as shown through her interest in numerous fantastical children’s books and her attachment to her magical binoculars.

What they have in common is that they have difficulty getting along with the people around them. Suzy and Sam are also trying to understand each other’s world, they are both Ignorance children trying to find another person and place where they are happy, but all the adults are trying to tear them apart.

Archetypes：

• Hero: Sam Shakusky
• Mentor: Suzy Bishop
• Threshold Guardian: Scout Master
• Herald: Rainstorm
• Shapeshifter: Scout Member
• Shadow: Narrator
• Trickster: The storm rescue operation
• Allies: Captain Sharp

Story Arcs:

Prologue

From the lining of the tent to the color of the paper on the bulletin board, the screenplay is full of detailed descriptions of the world, each character is doing something else when we meet them, going about their normal routines before getting roped-in to the story. Until it was discovered that sam had left the scout group.

Conflict

The narrator gives us a tour of the island and foreshadows the coming storm,

Narrator: “We are on the far edge of black beacon sound famous for the ferocious and well-documented storm   which was driven on the east on the fifth of September —in three days.”

Discovery of sam’s disappearance and then the search for him begins.

Rising action 

We meet the khaki scouts and see their potential for violence as they search for sam while carrying Very large very dangerous weapons. When Suzy and Sam encounter the Khaki Scouts,  We already know the cast of characters, the scope of the world, and the looming threat.

And This film moves the plot along by further elaborating on the threat：

One of the scouts is stabbed by Suzy and the dog is killed. I felt bad for the dog being killed, but these two scenes further the plot and compound the way the threat and lack of security. They go through a series of escapes and adventures to find a suitable place to land but are eventually discovered. 

Climax

They run away again, this time in a rainstorm, Suzy and Sam climb to the roof to try to escape, there is a real sense of danger. their willingness to die for their love is impactful. Throughout the storm rescue operation, we can see from the expressions and dialogue of the characters that everyone is in a state of high tension. Falling action.

falling action

After the storm, Narrator, Gives some background information.

Denouement

Eventually, they found a suitable way to see each other.

The film had a very distinctly interactive cinematic language, it makes you very sure you are watching a film, the narrator speaks to the audience, interacts with the camera to explain the film’s message,  the audience can feel the abundance of emotions but still retains a sense of distance and needs to actively participate to identify the emotional life of the characters.

Topic：

How ecology is used in VFX

Keyword：Simulation of growth patterns, Virtual ecology, ecology, VFX, Plants.

Introduction:This topic will look at how visual effects can be created to make 3d models visually alive by simulating the laws of growth. The representation of ecological forms requires a reasonable amount of research and development, and how virtual ecology can be created in special effects through the knowledge of ecology, perhaps based on the analysis of scientific data and the adjustment of model movement parameters to achieve this effect. I would like to start by analysing some of the plant effects shots in films or commercials.

Reference:

https://blog.animationstudies.org/?p=876. (1014). Intersections: Dance, Animation, Ecology, and tranSTURM | animationstudies 2.0. [online] Available at: https://blog.animationstudies.org/?p=876 [Accessed 19 Oct. 2022].

Lin, C.-H., Ling, D.-L. and Chang, Y.-S. (2007). Visual ecology: Outdoor light environment for plant design by computer simulation. Building and Environment, 42(8), pp.2920–2928. doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2005.02.025.

Some of the topics that came up in my group were the following:

· How the AR & VR help disable

· Feminism in Pixel animation

· The connection between pop culture and animation.