Oz The Great And Powerful Title Sequence

When watching Oz the Great and Powerful, I noticed the aspect of layered up images that was used in the title credits, I'm not sure who produced the piece itself, but I really like the style that is used and it reminds me of the aspect of Laser cut layers that Rick mentioned we could experiment with in future projects.
I really like the collage sort of element to it, using old images and illustrations together, something alike to my Narrative Story using the collage elements.

'Home' Gallery Visit

During our Manchester Trip, we visited 'Home' Gallery, a more of a modern gallery with digital sorts of media.
There was certain piece that really stood out to me and that was a futuristic piece developed in 3D aspects.

Garry Cook Lecture

Garry Cook is an alternative photographer, who has developed an element he calls 'Performance Photography' where he interprets photography through performances. Using an array of photographs, he uses his performances to use more interaction within the pieces. An interesting piece of his was where he had produced a slideshow of images through Northern History 1910-present day. Within such famous images such as Hiroshima Photography, 9/11, Margaret Thatcher's reign, Nelson Mandala freed etc. were more benign images of friends and family's own photographs showing their place in history, such as their children's birthdays etc.
He spoke of how he feels more supported by the theatre industry in contrast to the photography, as he spoke of financial impacts this decision of taking up performance photography has in fact made to him. Interestingly he spoke of how being a photography requires you to be non biased and open to both sides of the story, however he says it's increasingly hard to not have an opinion within society these days.

New York- Gallery, Studio & Museum Visits

Cooper & Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum Exhibition

Pixar: The Animation Story

When in New York, we ventured out to the Design Museum, where the exhibition of Pixar's production of character design, and setting design was being held. I personally have always had an interest in the aspect of the storyboard and initial sketches produced for such pieces, due to the raw characteristics they present.
The Design story was an exhibition set out between two rooms, the first was the initial designs of recent films such as 'Inside Out' and the sketches alongside, as well as the other films such as 'Up' and 'Brave' with sketches and animations that showed the process of the design, from storyboards, set designs and character sketches to the final product.
The Pixar Designer Peter Sohn who produced Academy Award-Winning films Finding Nemo, The Incredibles and WALL.E, his collection were shown in his home city New York.
Alongside the exhibition, we were given a programme that described the pieces, and also withheld an interview that the Cooper & Hewitt interviewer had conducted with Peter Sohn himself.

Musem of Modern Art New York. (Moma)

On one of the days we had a group visit to the Moma, an art gallery with a wealth of visual pieces for us to view. As well as the public gallery, we enlisted to view Picasso's sculpture collection.

Times Square - The Visual Arts

Through our visit to New York, although the general site seeing did appeal to me, something that definitely stood out both with interest and visual elements was Times Square. There is a vast amount of commercial advertising publicised on the huge screens mounted on the buildings. In general, there is a lot of consumerism in New York like any other city, with vast amounts of sales on stalls, in big companies and profitable organisations gaining commercial recognition from the big screens.

When standing and looking at the screens, I could tell that each advertisement had been carefully designed and planned out to catch the eye of the wondering tourist, or the busy New Yorkers.


Brief History of Times Square
Times Square began in the 1880's, starting as the 'Long Acre' a stretch of buildings with advertisements normally centred around horses.
However in the 1900's the evolution of electricity had impacted the settlement, and produced a nicer, safer environment for the people there, adapting the electricity to displays to bring in and welcome newcomers to what would soon be a large city. With technology constantly evolving, and coloured television and animation coming into the 20th and 21st century, the screens were a big kick off for the advertising and marketing industry.
Since opening of Times Square in a commercial way, there were designers who designed the huge billboards that covered the sides of the buildings, however in the 1990's LED technology had grown in popularity and had become a sustainable way of catching people's eyes. The LED screens are now either rented or bought by large businesses and corporations who can spend over $2.5 million to place their advertisements on the screens.

Technology In Times Square
Although popular technology of LED light screens are used for mostly all of the screens in Times Square, the set up and sustainability of the square relies on the technicians who ensure the screens can run for the demanding 24hours and 7day week running times, and for the 'city that never sleeps' this is of upmost importance.
In 1998 the first testing of affordable LED lights came to play, alongside ABC News, using software to synchronise the screens with the image, making it curve, or flatten dependant on the screen itself.
The resolution of the screens has improved over time, with some screens running in ultra HD whereas the older screens retaining the pixelated resolution in wider spaced plates on the screen.
 Behind each screen is a wealth of wires and a hard-drive that stores all the advertisement files, each checked on daily by a technician.






Design of Times Square
Times Square itself supports over 385,000 jobs, including technicians for the LED screens, but also the designers who carefully design, adapt and synchronise their designs to the screens on display.

Information Sourced from:
http://gizmodo.com/how-times-square-works-1582269710?utm_expid=66866090-67.e9PWeE2DSnKObFD7vNEoqg.0&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fgizmodo.com%2Fhow-times-square-works-1582269710
http://www.timessquarenyc.org/times-square-arts/projects/midnight-moment/servitudes/index.aspx

'Journey' - Rachel Milner

Journey from Rachel J Milner on Vimeo.
When on Vimeo, I came across this interesting concept, of illustrating an aspect that can't visually be seen, in this instance, it's the sending of a text message, following the message on a journey, from one person's device to another.
The animation follows an array of letters, flowing through the sky like a flock of birds, as the camera seems to follow the letters, as if the viewer is part of the journey.
It ventures through a city, across a train track, over mountains, a forest and finally over to the sea.
The minimalistic animation used helps develop the importance of the message and the digital aspect it represents. I really like the idea of visually representing something that can't physically be witnessed in transit.

Richard Feynman- Ode to A Flower

Richard Feynman - Ode To A Flower from Cub Studio on Vimeo.
Here is an existing animation found in relation to the project, here an interview is animated to add more visual emphasis on what the interviewee is saying, and emphasising his points.
I like the style of the 2D colourful animation, as I found it's powerful and emphasises the necessary points needed.
The animator has visually added bright, and powerful illustrations but also his own sounds made, Foley of the flower snapping and bees buzzing, as well as the music in the background that is added on top of the existing dialogue.

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.

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.

Dismaland

Just before we started again at Uni for our second year, a group of us independently decided to travel down to Weston-Super-Mare to visit Banksy's 'Dismaland' Bemusement Park. Focused in Weston-Super-Mare, a place Banksy visited as a young child, he hired out a courtyard where a variety of artist's works were shown, all with a deep political meaning.
There was a mixture of animators, photographers, and artists who contributed to Dismaland and overall I found it an inspirational and effective collaboration. All the pieces had their own political or social agenda, such issues as the Horsemeat Scandal were introduced and shown within the work and add a more sinister edge to the original escapism sense that the real theme park Disneyland possesses.
 The actual setting of the park itself is dismal, with the old concrete and overgrown surroundings, the many signs for queueing etc. All of which contributed to the impact the park had on the visitors.
Alongside such installations and Banksy's own graffiti pieces that as per usual also celebrate political values and sinister morals, there were certain pieces that really appealed to me, the aspect of the 'Riot' piece in particular as this was a small scale set that was so intricate and shocking, trying to mock up the idea of a police riot with tiny figurines.

Boxtrolls 2014.

 Boxtrolls is a 96 minute feature length stop motion film that explores use of customised puppets and intricate sets. I've been looking into some research into how the Boxtrolls was delicately produced with numerous character puppets and their alternate reactions. Alike to many stop motions of its time, it required an abundance of patience and delicate engineering to ensure that the stop motion ran smoothly and efficiently with the money and time given. The sets were produced in large scale designs, ensuring that movement and detail could be captured in more detail. The longest stop motion to hit the screens to date, the Boxtrolls really in my opinion from what I've seen captures an entertaining plot line with simple animation elements.
Laika who's produced other animations in the past (none as successful) speak of how the intricacies take a lot of time and patience which is crucial in the overall success. They even produced an intricate water system to replicate the sewers which looks beautiful when captured on camera.

Tim Burton Stop Motion.

Tim Burton is one of the many people who's animation has shaped the very aspect of motion design. His stop motion puppeteering produced some beautiful and quite dark movements, and how it's made videos like this show the intricate details that are considerate for the production overall. It's interesting when you look into Burton's original drawings and sketches and see how ideas are catalogued and changed from the original ideas to conceptual animations.
Looking back at some of his storyboards also develops the fact that Burton starts with a simple idea and further adapts these drawings into new storyboards. From this sort of research I've decided to begin my own sketchbook involving sketches and drawings separate to my other sketchbook, as this sketchbook will hopefully help to develop inspiration and ideas that could lead to storyboards and future animations.

Even some of the pencil sketches here are beautifully placed together to show his original idea development, starting with sketches and building up to more intricate plans. For each of his beautiful stop motion feature films there are many sketches and drawings leading up to it first. Such films as his recent film 'Frankenweenie' has the sketches that were originally constructed 20 years before the film was produced. It goes to show that simply sketching characters and drawings could develop into future work, even if it is many years afterwards Tim Burton catalogues and collects his drawings together.
 To ensure that the whole team of animators knows what the story entails and the overall aspects of the characters themselves, it's clear that Tim Burton would have to first off ensure that they knew what was involved via diagrams and storyboards, probably presented to the team individually dependant on their roles in the production. The quite sinister qualities of his illustrations can be captured in stop motion animation in a way that couldn't be captured in a live shot ideally with the allowance of being viewed by young audiences due to the dark nature that most of his animations include. (Such as Frankenweenie, Corpse Bride etc.) Development of the ideas could range in media that then produces prototypes for the animation, with sculptured models etc.

 Pencil sketches to start with are a primary element to include and then they'll be beautifully developed into more elaborate animations.
Burton was recently asked to produce a short trailer to advertise the MoMa exhibition. So here's a look into the making of the trailer, he brought in his co-workers from the 2005 film 'Corpse Bride' to help out. The storyboard and overall sketches included on the site are also rather amazing to see the development that actually took place.

 Reading through the article on the 'How it's Made' section of Tim Burton's MoMa trailer, I found it interesting of how certain points were explored and why and how. (Information found on http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2009/11/13/the-making-of-tim-burton-s-moma-animation/)

“Typically a puppet character can take anywhere between twelve to eighteen weeks to produce,” says Pickersgill, “But Tim’s design lent itself to a very economical build and we put the puppet together in just ten days, probably something of a record!”

 The sketches alike to those of 'Corpse Bride' etc. were extremely helpful to Burton and his team for a visual understanding of what needs to be produced and how. Sculptors needed to know how to produce the puppet and what it needed to involve etc. For example, you can see in the photographs included that the  sculptors based their designs on Burton's sketches, showing that visually they relied on the sketches to give them the information and data that they needed to produce the correct idea and bring the inspiration of the idea to life.

The detail of the character and what it involved would have to be carefully considered to ensure that they had the right time and budget to produce the short stop motion animation. The overall trailer took a total of 3 days, but with a simple background setting didn't require the production of intricate sets etc.

"Tim wanted the robot and the balloon against a flat grey background. It was great because it further emulated the look of his original pen-and-ink drawings on a plain sheet of paper. We had three days to shoot the whole piece and my first take had to be right. I’d spent a day the previous week videoing myself performing the robot part. You feel a bit silly but Neil Sutcliffe, who edited the footage into his animatic, was very kind. He didn’t laugh too much!”" - Martin Kelly: Animator.