Preparing for Collaboration Presentation.

Process & Roles.

• Given the brief, and taken around Allied Bakeries. - Becci was drawing signs and instructions that were seen in the bakery, Hazel and Hannah to draw illustrations of some machines. Becci also did some machines later on as well. Board meeting with the client- who discussed his requirements further.
• As a group, we discussed the client requirements, and straight away decided to do some market research on 'Dumb Ways To Die' which is a type of animation the client favoured- we looked into why this was such a success and what we liked out of the clip. In addition to this we produced a mood board of images and researched into Allied Bakeries so we had some information about the client.
• We then as a group decided after making an initial mind map of first ideas to independently produce an idea each that we would then present to each other. (3 separate ideas) which we would then together decide on.
• After pitching our ideas to each other, we blended together two of our ideas after a thorough decision process. We favoured the message that went with the game idea and the game style, but we liked the idea of Hazel's egg character design, we used the character design to build more character sketches that Hazel was in charge of, using digital softwares such as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to produce pixelated designs of the characters.
• Initially Hannah began drawing out storyboards which were then developed by us all, producing a range of storyboards and digital scenes of Photoshop.
• After having looked at the storyboards we'd all designed and the style that we were all going to adopt, we decided to split up and produce all the scenes, dedicating alternate scenes between us. 

Scene 1- 

Doughball Scene- Hazel

Doughball Close up- Hazel

Scene 2- 

Slipping Scene- Becky

Slipping Close up- Becky

Scene 3-
Razor Machines- Hannah

Razor Machines Close Up- Hannah

Scene 4- 
Trip & Fall- Hannah

Trip & Fall Close Up-Hannah

Scene 5- Bread Tray

Bread Tray Close Up

Scene 6- Back Break

Back Break Close Up

Scene 7- Truck Door

Truck Door Close Up

Scene 8- Hit By Truck

Hit by Truck Close Up

• After having completed most scenes, we decided Becci and Hazel would carry on completing their 3rd scene each, whilst Hannah did 2 scenes but then began animating all of them.
• After Becci had looked into the video games via her book and our individual research, we decided there were certain things that we'd need to include so people know it's a video game these include: bright or primary colours, platforms, pixelated characters and settings, aspect of lives etc.
• During the production of the storyboards we decided the character should adopt the characteristics and behaviours of a walking dough ball that would roll, squash and stretch etc. In addition to this we decided on a colour scheme of a pastel green for inside the bakery and a pastel blue to represent the outside elements.

Roles:

Becci- Drew out signs when visiting bakery, researched 80's games, with book "Classic Video Games, The Golden Age 1971-1984" Brian R Eddy, 

Hazel- Illustrated machines from the bakery, produced initial character designs

Hannah- Illustrated some machines, drew out storyboards, produced background scenes

Creative Advertising

Throughout the course of college as well as University, the aspect of creative advertising has always appealed to me, in accordance to this, I have been looking into what fields of work I could get into after my degree finishes, and due to the competitive nature of the Creative Advertising industry, a Masters degree is something that I will be looking into.
MMU is a favourable choice for me as I've found this course in particular very fitting for my needs and I am overall impressed by the University itself, therefore this has inspired me into looking into other Master Degree courses that the University presents. When looking into this I found a Creative Advertising MSc/PgDip/Pgcertificate course which has appealed to me. Regardless of the fact that financial troubles will be the only thing holding me back from such a course, I decided to look further into such courses and how they could help me put a foot in the door in terms of the creative industry.

In contrast with this I've also looked into different internships available in the Creative Advertising Industry. I have found a website of a company set in London who describe what they look for in interns and their advice for people aspiring to be part of such and industry:

Top ten tips for a career in advertising:

• Network.
• Stand out.
• Research the different roles within advertising agencies and the industry.
• Don't be afraid of rejection or failure.
• Strong communication skills.
• Understand IT, online and offline digital marketing and communications.
• Solve problems.
• Creative and innovative.
• Numerical and analytical.
• Possess commercial awareness.

Inspiringinterns.com -

Perfect way of getting your foot in the door is to look at such sites like I've found 'Inspiring Interns' a website that develops the enthusiasm and points you in the right direction to become an intern in the creative industry.

Using Coding For Nostalgia.

After having had the group meeting with the tutors to discuss the aspects of how to link what we've been doing in context to our collaborative work, Jane highlighted the aspect of Nostalgia that our technique had produced- and after having looked further into this, I've decided that it has a lot of good concepts to explore on in order to present in connection to our work.

Nostalgia- 

'A sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past' 

For our collaborative task we have been evolving our idea of pixelated characters in a game type of setting to represent the importance of the baker's lives. In each of our 'levels' an incident will happen, costing the character (who is simply a pixelated dough ball and therefore anyone can relate to him) to lose a life. At the end of our animation we'd like a final thought provoking message that will highlight the whole theme of the game idea, and what it was supposed to present, the chosen message being: 

"You only have one life. Stop, Think, Go."

We feel as a team that this phrase perfectly sums up the purpose of us doing the game style and the fact that the lives of the bakers are in fact short and precious. In addition to this, we looked into and researched existing game styles and behaviours in order to ensure that the theme of retro 80's games was conveyed successfully.

In the production stages we have become more and more confident about the idea of the 80's pixelated arcade game style, as not only is it something every age range can generally relate to (due to the fact that the age range of the bakers when questioning the client is very wide) but it also brings in that theme of nostalgia.

Nostalgia is a key theme behind our design, and it very much links to the context that we've been learning in terms of Semiotics. We as 21st century students in 2015 are using our modern technology and softwares to try to replicate a past style of the 1980's. This therefore implicates the idea of coding and signs in the fact that we are purposely replicating such a style in order to take the audience on an emotional journey and to interact with the game aspect of the clip.

In further research of other methods of modern technology being used to create an emphasis of nostalgia, I have noted down some important matters that I feel could be explored further for the final presentation.

1. AkzoNobel using their technology to recreate and reconstruct a damaged Van Gogh painting "Field with Irises near Aries" the company also collaborate with the Van Gogh Art Museum to preserve and digitally restore his pieces by replicating his paint pigments and style using their modern technology. Sources: https://www.akzonobel.com/news_center/news/news_and_press_releases/2015/akzonobel_using_new_technology_to_recreate_old_masterpiece.aspx 
2. 3D printed 18th century Native Indian tools help develop further understanding on how they were used without damaging the instruments themselves.

Nostalgia in Music

Contemporary artist and DJ Calvin Harris produced a song 'Acceptable in the 80's' which was a song about the era of his birth, and it was cleverly produced to mimic the style of generic 1980's videos. In the video, there are various block colour bright screens with 1980's inspired outfits and big hair, the stuffed otter in the video is recurring throughout as well as separate job roles, a chef, a hairdresser and a Doctor. These roles all link back to the title 'Acceptable in the 80's' as the song itself is referring to the fact that using animal parts in the functionality of all those careers were accepted at that time.The video uses the elements of actual 80's era's music videos which includes:

• Bright block coloured backgrounds
• Big styled hair
• 1980's style clothes

References to the era's laws- the example being in Calvin Harris' music video, a stuffed toy otter is used as a prop to be tested on- linking back to the aspect that Animal Testing for cosmetics was still legal in the UK.I intend to play a short clip of this music video during the presentation we make to the rest of the courses and tutors, however to ensure that the video properly loads I shall have a downloaded version of the video on a USB stick as back up and some screenshots to help the viewers visualise what is happening. I think the screenshots will also show the colour palettes that are being explored throughout the video. Reading through dialogue of Calvin Harris being interviewed, he describes the video as 'bright and garish' (http://www.caughtinthecrossfire.com/music/interviews-2/calvin-harris-interview/) 

When looking at 1980's videos to compare the style components from genuine 80's style tracks the Harris' I found this quite similar coloured and brightened music video: 'Information Society- What's On Your Mind' As well as being colourful, the video also inherits the aspect of using negative space around the person in shot, sending the eye to the character as well as having the brightness of the colour behind them. 

Alike to Calvin Harris' video, the video uses a lot of props and the people featured within the video then use such props to dance with and join them in the shots. The overall colour scheme of such shots are oranges, yellows, blues and greens.

Steve Cutts Illustrations

I've found that after studying the aspect of Semiotics and signs (coding) in our context sessions, I have been more alert and aware of such circumstances that represent their own semiotics and mental concepts in everyday life - such pieces are especially found on social media sites, as in this generation people tend to be more impatient, and want an image that will be eye-catching and get a point across, therefore I feel like artists such as Steve Cutts who produces opinionated illustrations, needs to get their signs leading to a similar
point of view.
In order for his pieces to be effective, Cutts must know how to represent each of the symbollisations through representing them in hidden messages that with knowledge of the viewer, will become signified effectively. In addition to this, mental concepts such as the political and archaic points of view that the artist produces, must equal to a similar outcome for his images to be effective. It's obvious that the images themselves retain a purpose, and I think that there is a nice contrast between the childlike cartoon style and colour palette against the adult themes within the images.
Moreover, I feel that Cutts could represent such illustrations in Newspapers etc. without the content being signified by the wrong audience (such as young children) therefore using visual imagery it gets points across to a wide range of viewers that he may not be able to
sum up in words or it not be deemed appropriate to do so.

Pixelated Animation Tests

We have all in our groups been allocated different scenes, luckily due to our similar pixelated style, the animation storyboards could easily get split between us rather than just being allocated to one person. This has allowed us to produce more of the scenes for when we finally get to animate them.

Each scene has been allocated to each person and a close up shot:

1. Scene 1- Doughball machine scene. - Hazel - close up Hazel
2. Scene 2- Slip. Becky- close up Becky
3. Scene 3- Razor machines - Hannah- close up Hannah
4. Scene 4- Trip & Fall - Hazel- close up Hazel 
5. Scene 5- Bread Tray. Hannah- close up Hannah. 
6. Scene 6- Back Break- Becky - close up Becky.
7. Scene 7- Truck door - Hazel - close up Hazel.
8. Scene 8 - Hit by truck- Becky - close up Becky.

Producing the scenes beforehand in alternate layers had helped us to develop a better idea of what will happen in each scene as well as helping us develop the animation in collaboration.

First Exploratory Animation- Scene 6- Bread tray.

This is the first experimentation of the movement of the pixelated character, the character would be jerky in movement, so we decided the best settings would be 10fps. In addition to this, they have a 200x113 pixels in resolution.
The first test helped us develop what is the most effective speed for the character to move at etc. Whilst I have been experimenting with the scene where the character gets struck by bread (Scene 6) My fellow members of the group have been completing additional scenes that they will also animate. Despite working independently we are constantly updating each other of our progress and infiltrating the whole group's opinions. This I feel is important in the collaboration process so that everyone is confident with the outcome as well as it fulfilling the client requirements that we have been given by Allied Bakeries.

Producing a wide shot and close up animation separately allowed us to make alterations as we went, such as the appropriate speed and behaviour that we wanted the characters to reflect. One thing we did notice when producing the animations is the fact that there were some continuity errors such as the fact that the tray that squashed the character in the wide shot had then disappeared on the close up.

Andrea Minini

Andrea Minini is a designer who applies simplistic line elements to her work, with the animal collection, black bold lines and coloured backgrounds. I think this also applies to the Semiotics we're learning in Context, how denoting the image would simply equal to just thinking it's lines, but then learnt mental concepts make such things signified into knowing that they represent the outline of animals.
It also challenges the very aspect of representing animals, how far could you strip back the image but still know that it is in fact an animal?
These pieces are a good example for different concepts, with the animals only being symbolised basically in the pieces.

Semiotics, Mythologies & Disparate Truths

For this year's context, we have been introduced to the concept of Semiotics, and how to apply this in context to work and instances in the everyday. Semiotics, ultimately is the study of signs. Semiotics for which can be sectioned out into alternate things:

• Denotation- A term that refers to the common sense- the basic reading of an image, not applying learnt information into the analysis of an image.
• Connotation- A term that refers to making associations about words etc. it links to different things.
• Signs- (Can also be referred to as 'code') Is made of two parts- signifier- the form the sign takes- and the signified- the mental concept of the sign.
• Myths- Refers to the way in which culture thinks about something, a way of conceptualising and understanding it.

An effective example that Jane gave us was : 'Imagine showing something to an elderly person, and then to a young person, despite it being the same object, each person would have alternate mental concepts'

I found an effective example in the fact that in Pixar & Disney films, they have chosen to apply hidden jokes aimed towards the adults and older viewers in the audience, as they're aware that their films are for family entertainment, so want each film to appeal to any age range. The SIGNIFIER in these films are the jokes, and the knowledge that the adults have about the joke is understood and therefore becomes SIGNIFIED. However, in terms of the children watching the SIGNIFIER which is the joke, is something they may not have knowledge about therefore is not SIGNIFIED. In effect, this means that the adult is entertained at different points to the child due to the variation in mental concepts.

Jane showed us a variety of photos and asked us to denote them as effectively as possible, it allowed us to interpret the true meanings behind Semiotics and the fact that Denoting is literally saying what you see, but stripping back the use of learnt information.

Some important figures in the ideology of Semiotics are Charles Saunders Pierce (1839-1914) (USA), Ferdinand Du Saussre (1857-1913) (Switzerland) and Roland Barthes (1915-1980) (France) each shared their viewpoints on what Semiotics was and the effect it has on the viewers, this is something I'd like to look further into.

Alexandre Dubosc

I came across some amazing artists and animators from the website: thisiscolossal.com where artists blog about their work. Alexandre Dubosc for me certainly stood out with his 'Cakescopes' which are rotascopes he intricately produces with cake and sweet foods. I find is mesmerisingly intricate and beautiful the animations that come out of these Cakescopes. I also find that the artist has beautifully chosen out the Foley to accompany the animation, the music and sound effects are so bold and effective especially the crunching noises that you'd hear with food- overall many onomatopoeic sound effects used.

'Melting Pop'
Melting Pop is the first animation I watched from this artist, and I was blown away and instantly wanting to watch more. The amount of time and effort that it must've taken is mind blowing and I can

only appreciate and admire the techniques of stop motion and rotascoping used throughout. There's something really satisfying about the sound of the popcorn and the crackling of the fire, with quirky extras added in like the Pacman zooming round the Cakescope.

'The Cakescope of Burton's Team'

Similarly to the last animation's technique, this piece was a tribute to Tim Burton that the animator had produced, the animation involved quirky resemblances to Burton's style and collaborations such as the symbols of batman appearing to symbolise Burton's involvement in the batman series of films.

Matthias Brown - Animation & Rotascoping

Matthias Brown is an artist I came across on the internet, famous for his GIFs on Tumblr, Brown produces hand drawn and sculpted rotascopes and short animations. I've found his work beautifully intricate and illustrative but with a nice original style and intuitive designs.
In some of his work, the illustrations are quite simple, but the effective ways of animating them to almost morph together is pretty inspiring to me, and also appeals to the current era of the internet where people like videos, gifs etc. to be short and eye-catching, something Brown achieves within his work.

Fluxos- Diego Akel

This beautiful claymation by Brazilian Animator Diego Akel, shows a beautiful soundscape of the music with the aspect of clay. The abstract movement of the clay I find is as if the clay were dancing around and mesmerising the audience.

'Filming in Supermarionation' Documentary (2014)

When watching TV I came across a documentary that went into the intricate filming of the 'Thunderbirds' series puppets and those before it. The documentary started off with the description of the filming of the 1960's hit kids programme 'Supercar' - the protagonist being an 'all American' character who challenged the techniques of their filming. Obviously with it being puppets, everything was scaled down to a smaller size, leading to problems with elements such as fire and water that they had to manipulate to look in scale with the puppets themselves.

 I found it interesting about the alternate problems that they had whilst filming, such as the actual Supercar was supposed to nose dive into the water and go under the sea, however the actual car wasn't heavy enough to go under the water so they had to overlay a separate clip of a rock being plunged into the water, and add the splashes on top. Although thorough with aspects such  as dusting off the strings and painting them so they couldn't be seen as obviously, this technique still had huge obstacles- such as the fact that the puppets couldn't walk due to strings complications, and their lips couldn't be synchronised to the voice actors unlike most animations. However, the lips being out of sync was actually a good thing in some cases, as the vocalists felt that they could be more explorative with their voices as the lip sync didn't restrict them.

In 1963 they moved studios with more space, money and equipment, and through this filmed alternate programmes for kids such as 'Stingray' which was puppets filmed underwater, which was really intricate sets with the puppets placed on it and a fish tank in front of it, to give the illusion that the characters were underwater.
 Gerry and Sylvia Anderson were the main couple behind all these creations, and due to success, were approached to produce a bigger and better programme, funded by APF Television Productions. They did so by producing the programme we all know, which is 'Thunderbirds' 'Thunderbirds are go'.

Success of Thunderbirds

The idea behind Thunderbirds was the idea that it was a rescue service that was supposed to go where no other service could go, with it being dramatic and full of action and heroes, Thunderbirds became a very popular programme amongst kids and also adults, and with their previous programmes the studios had gained more valuable experience of the best techniques to use. A popular technique was the 'Rolling Sky' technique which allowed the vehicles to look as if they were landing and taking off.
 The actual vehicles themselves were actually made of random objects that resembled parts, and then constructed together and painted and 'dirtied up' to look like worn pieces of metal.
Lady Penelope and her Butler Parker became the only two English characters because of the fact that the larger population of the Thunderbirds viewers were American. The actual inspiration behind Parker the cockney butler was when Gerry and Sylvia went for a meal out together, and there was a funny waiter who inspired them to produce a character that would show a quirky nature, with normal separation of classes being shown through their accents.

Overall despite not watching Thunderbirds myself, I came to appreciate the overall techniques, lighting etc. that went into this production.