Thursday, 26 June 2014

Copyright Research

Copyright is what protects things that people create such as music, art or anything in that matter. This is an automatic Law so no one has to apply for it.

How does copyright work?

Copyright protects the creators of any original text, artwork, recordings, films, computer programs and some databases. It gives you automatic control over the rights to copy, perform, broadcast or adapt your material, though limited use is allowed without your permission for private things, teaching in schools and reviews. Copyright for literary, dramatic, musical and artistic material and for computer software lasts for a lifetime of the creator and an additional 70 years from the end of the year in which the creator died. Copyright for other material lasts for 25, 50 or 70 years. Although copyright is automatic, its up to you if you which to enforce the right, if you add the copyright symbol © or the words 'copyright - all rights reserved' with your of creation and your name, this counts as enforcing the right. keeping copies of the original work and dated records of when it was disclosed to other people will help if anyone is adapting your work illegally. This is very important as it helps back up cases in which work has been stolen and etc.

COPYRIGHT CASE

Cariou vs. Prince

Patrick Cariou’s Yes, Rasta (2000), and Richard Prince’s Canal Zone (2008)

The Case

Richard Prince is an artist — one who transforms other peoples work to create new meaning in his work. For an exhibition in the Gagosian Gallery, Prince took 41 images from a photography book by a French photographer Patrick Cariou, claiming that he created new meaning out of the photographs. Cariou said that it wasn’t fair, but a case of copyright infringement.

The Outcome was a judge ruled in favor for Cariou in 2011, claiming the changes made to Cariou’s photographs weren’t significant enough to back up a change in meaning . However, the case is still currently in appeal and the final decision has not yet been made.

'Imitation vs. inspiration: don’t be a designer who creates work too close to that of another. You have to make sure you are creating something original and not derivative.'

- 99 DESIGNS

Wednesday, 25 June 2014

Evaluation Presentation

Within our group we created a presentation pitch for our charity advert. We decided to pick WWF and make an animation sequence for our chosen charity.

Our idea -
We explained the animation in detail and what we were going to do and what type of stop motion we were going to use which was whiteboard marker and the actual idea was to link humans with animals and try and get through to the viewer that we are all equal and have the same emotions animals and humans.

Planning -
We planned to make our animation using 'stop motion' with an SLR camera. We are going to take a variety of shots and the add them into final cut. This was made very clear on our slide about how we planned to make our advert. This slide was created in bullet points so that the audience could understand our planning and the process.

Effects -
The effect slide of our pitch explained how it would effect the audience and how our intention of the advert, this is to promote awareness the WWF. We kept it very short and added live stop motion text.

The outcome -
We wrote the outcome slide in four clear points to explain in a simple and short way for the same reasons. When pitching we read out the points and then added extra information which we had prepared on cue cards so we can engage with the audience.

Storyboard -
The storyboard we created allows the audience to see step by step the early stages of our idea. The storyboard has a sentence underneath to explain what will happen which is displayed in just six steps.

To conclude the whole presentation and highlight the key parts that was discussed in the pitch. It also emphasis important information and leaves the audience with these points to think about. We gave our presentation a professional look and used the charities logo and colour schemes to show the WWF's corporate identity.

Audience feedback:
Pros -

Good music choice
Good voice over
Nice length
Excellent idea
Simple & Innocent

Cons-

Images could of been better quality
The animation could of been more created
It was boring at times
The lighting could have been worked on better

Feedback Questionnaire

I created a questionnaire to hand out to people from all range of ages for them to answer and for me to gather information from in order to make improvements to my animation.

The questions are here below with the answers beneath in order on how many people answered to what question, we asked a total of 50 people;

What stop motion is your favourite that you would like to see in a advert?

Whiteboard (22)

Clay (13)

Lego (8)

Card (7)

What kind of genre would you like to see in a animal charity advert that would get across to you?

Graphical (25)

Artistic (22)

Emotional (10)

Information (3)

What is your favorite animal?

Lion (17)

Elephant (15)

Panda (14)

Rhino (4)

What is the worse form of animal abuse?

Hunting (22)

Capturing (11)

Poaching (7)

Fighting (6)

Would you rather see a charity advert about animals or humans?

Animals (40)

Humans (10)

From this research i have gathered information that my target audience would like to see a whiteboard animation animation presenting the in depth detail on animal abuse to the wild for instance elephants, lions etc. They think the worst form of animal abuse is hunting so judging by the information we have received we are going to develop on this and keep it in mind what our target audience wants to see in a charity advert.

Camera Test Shot Analysis

These photos show the set up of our animation and as you can see its a close up and we take a lot of pictures in order to make it a stop motion animation.

Every Time we took a photo we had to stay well away from the shot because of shadows getting in the way it would of made the lighting uneven. We also had to watch knocking the camera as we were moving around alot we didnt want to knock it and for it all to be in a different position. Also you can faintly see a outline of the area we worked in and around.

EWS (Extreme Wide Shot)
The view is so far from the subject that he isn't even visible. Often used as an establishing shot.

VWS (Very Wide Shot)
The subject is visible (barely), but the emphasis is still on placing him in his environment.

WS (Wide Shot)
The subject takes up the full frame, or at least as much as comfortably possible.
AKA: long shot, full shot.

MS (Mid Shot)
Shows some part of the subject in more detail while still giving an impression of the whole subject.

MCU (Medium Close Up)
Half way between a MS and a CU.

CU (Close Up)
A certain feature or part of the subject takes up the whole frame.

ECU (Extreme Close Up)
The ECU gets right in and shows extreme detail.
Variation: Choker

Cut-In
Shows some (other) part of the subject in detail.

CA (Cutaway)
A shot of something other than the subject.

Two-Shot
A shot of two people, framed similarly to a mid shot.

(OSS) Over-the-Shoulder Shot
Looking from behind a person at the subject.

Noddy Shot
Usually refers to a shot of the interviewer listening and reacting to the subject.

Point-of-View Shot (POV)
Shows a view from the subject's perspective.

Weather Shot

The subject is the weather. Can be used for other purposes, e.g. background for graphics.

Budget

Development In Animation

WILLIAM HORNER (ZOETROPE)

The zoetrope works with images inside of a spinning cylinder that has vertical slits on the sides. The viewer looks through the slits and as it spins it gives the illusion of animation. the first modern Zoetrope was invented in 1833 by William Horner who named it as The Daedalum, but apparently it was made back in China around 100BC. It was publicly called The Wheel of the Devil and didn’t become popular till the 1860s.

JOHNS BARNES (FLIP BOOK)

The first flipbook was made by John Barnes Linnett and he named it the Kineogragh. It was the first sort of 2D animation that used a linear sequence of images unlike the zoetrope. Its a book with images on each page that changes slightly from one page to page. If it is rapidly turning or being flicked the pages it seems to be animated. This is still greatly used in modern time.

EMILE REYNAUD (PRAXINOSCOPE)

This Praxinoscope was the child to the Zoetrope invented by Emile Reynaud in 1877. It used the same concept as a zoetrope but the slits were removed and there was an inner circle of mirrors were placed making it easier for viewer to look at. This gave a clearer image and also allowed the animation to be more or less stationary when it was spinning.

CINEMA

Most films to present now have some animation or animated sections. Cartoons have a much better quality on Big Screens (Cinema screens) and many skilled professionals work long into producing these insane projects and feature films to produce the content in which we see in everyday animations today.

EDISON (KINETOSCOPE)

This was a motion picture device it was made for films and was to be viewed by one person at a time through a tiny hole at the top. It wasn't a projector but was the concept of the projection of video with the idea of illusional animation using a film strip. the idea was presented by Thomas Edison in 1888 and revealed on April 14, 1894. This lead to the creation of video, creating an illusion of movement by conveying a strip of film of continuous images over a light source with a high speed shutter. It was largely developed by his employee William Kennedy Laurie Dickson from 1889 to 1892. On April 14th, 1894, the first commercial exhibition of motion pictures in history was shown in New York City, using ten Kinetoscopes. This was the birth of American movie culture, and also the Kinetoscope had a major impact on Europe area.

CEL ANIMATION (CEL ANIMATION)

Cel is abbreviated and means celluloid, celluloid is a transparent sheet of material where images are drawn on to. First used in 1914 by Earl Hurd where a background image would be drawn onto a sheet for a particular scene and then used on other cells to take less time when producing each scene. The outline of an image on a cell would be on the front and the colour would be on the back. This would hide the brush marks and any bad edges of the colour. The cells can then be put into strips so that a projector can use them.

ROTORSCOPING

This is when animators trace over each frame of footage. This is used in live-action and animated films, it was originally projected on frosted glass and then re-drawn. However this technique has now been replaced digitally. It was made by max Fleischer in 1915 and he used in his series ‘Out of the Inkwell’. Rotorscoping creates a stylised “cartoon” look and creating large areas of colour.

Tuesday, 24 June 2014

Team Meeting Minutes

Group Members - James Leader and Jonathon Adebanjo

Items Discussed:

Meeting 1:
In our first meeting we done a brainstorm of what we want to do for our advert. It was surprisingly hard for us to come up with an idea baring in mind we are graphics and art students. We had a lot in mind so we wrote them down on a mood board and left the meeting for the day so we could go away and think about what would be best in our own time.

Meeting 2:
In our second meeting we thought of a idea that we were going to proceed with which was using a pokemon scene but one of the characters being a wild animal and the other character being a hunter. We planned to change the image four times so when it gets repeated in a motion it will look like its a normal video clip using stop motion.

Meeting 3:
By the time Jon came in and we could actually talk about and proceed with creating the animation it was getting abit close to the deadline and to do the idea we originally thought of was going to be much to long to fit in around our work we have to do. So we decided to come up with a much simpler idea that wouldnt take as long. This idea is to use whiteboard and whiteboard markers. We thought that we should create a human face out of animal body parts in order to get the message across that we are all the same humans and animals so why would a humane person want these wild animals to be slaughtered and stolen of their body parts in order to fulfill somebody's rich corrupt lifestyle.

Risk assessment WWF

Analysis Of Movement

Near enough all animated adverts will contain a variety of shots. These shots are used to create final animated advert. The different type of shot can determine the mood of your advert for example if an advert consist of a close up shot on someone's face which appears to be unhappy then this would show that the advert is going to fairly sad or emotional rather then if the person was smiling or laughing which would then show the mood of the advert is happy. This shows that you have to make sure you use the correct shot for your advert so that you have the correct mood.

In our case we decided to incorporate stop motion text in order to make the viewer think with a carefully complex question to get you thinking and obviously incorporate whiteboard stop motion as well.

This is a screenshot of the first part of the animation. The quality isn't that good on here but what it is, is that it has been drawn by pencil many times and put into a really fast clip the the font looks like it is alive. The movement worked really well and i am very happy with the outcome of the effect.

This is a screenshot of the Whiteboard animation clip. Now it isn't the best drawing but because there was animal parts from different animals it was hard to put them all together and look normal. Basically how we made it look like it was moving was by drawing a line and following on the whiteboard marker many of times and taking a photo before we moved on which in the final edit it looks really good because the lines are drawing themselves.

Annotated Screen Grabs

Annotated Screen Grabs Of Edit

This is the photos of the whiteboard procedure all put next together. This was quite a long process as when the pictures were put onto Final cut express they were 10 seconds long and that was much too long for it to flow. So every picture had to be cut down to half a second in order for the whiteboard clip to flow and make it look like its moving.

This is a screenshot of the live type put into final cut express with the music playing in the background. Very easy procedure as all you have to do is drag it down into the place you want it to be.

This is a screen shot of all the photos that were upload onto final cut express. As you can see there are quite a few of them and you can see the 10 second length of it which was bait of a pain.

This is how i edited the text which is on a program called Live type. The reason you can't see it in the photo is because the colour of the font had to be changed to white in order for it to appear on a black ground. Its a very simple procedure, all you have to do is type in what you want to appear and once that is done, all you have to do is change size, colour and where you want it to be placed. Once that is done you save it and on final cut express you import the file and simply drag it onto the bottom section and it will be ready to play.

This is the Live font effect i used on the text. although you can't see from the picture the text actually moves in a motion that is actually stop motion for the affect of it to look like pencil writing. All you do is add it to the sequence and the text will appear like it.

Visual Effects Editing Guide

Visual effects editing guide

There are many different visual effects that are used in animation films such as Wallace and Gromit. One example could be if one character falls off of something, they would attach the character to a piece of string and slowly move them closer towards the ground. Then the string would be edited or 'Rubbed' out in a program such as Photoshop. Within our animation we didn't use any Visual Effects, due to them not actually being needed as we didn't have any complicated motions with our characters or sets.

Visual effects can be found in a number of different formats such as miniature sets and models, matte paintings, live action effects: actors being placed in front of a green screen or blue screen. In this intro of this work I explained one such animation film that used visual effects, this was Wallace an Gromit. There can be downsides to visual effects due to it sometimes being extremely costly depending on how large the visual effect is. For example using a green screen to shoot an entire scene can be extremely costly in terms of editing programs, computers etc. As aforementioned, in our animation we didn't use any visual effects as they weren't necessary, but this next section is a guide to creating a visual effect could be for one making a character fall from the sky.

Step one (Materials, props and equipment)
Find your characters that you want to use for example lego, collect your materials for your background props etc. Find a clamp like structure that could hover above your animation, the last piece that you would need to create this effect would be string (preferably a ball of string) as this will help you understand the required length much easier. You will also need a camera and a tripod, a camera such as an SLR that takes photos only would be the best. The tripod is essential in order to keep a still shot throughout the animation.

Step two (setting up)
You place the clamp so that it cannot be seen in the shot of your animation, then you shall need to cut your string to the acquired length so that you can lower it each time a photo is taken of the character, you will lower it closer and closer to the ground of the set. Next you shall tie a knot around the lego character securely to hold it in place. The final stage should be to set up your background props however you desire and then move onto the next stage.

Stage three (footage)
The most important part of this stage is deciding where you would like to place you tripod ad camera for your angles. After you have decided your positions then you may start taking photos of the gradual change of the character moving closer and closer to the ground. I would suggest that each time you change the characters movements you take at least 3 photos as this will make the movement look smooth and not too sudden. After you have completed your movement that you wished to create (Once the character has reached the ground)

Stage four (editing)
The first part of this stage will be to located a computer that has an editing program 'Final Cut' found within it. After this you will need to start uploading your images that you have taken by attaching your camera to the usb lead it comes with and plugging it into the computer. Once the images have then been uploaded to the desktop of your computer, then you highlight the images and drag them into a program called i stop motion, then export the file as a .mov and then import it into final cut. The images will already be in order so that you don't need to sift through them in order to place them into the correct order. You can then save this piece as something recognizable such as (Animation FINAL) as you will need to come back to it.

Stage five (photoshop)
As you have used string to hold the character in place you will need to rub the string out in order to make it seem the character has actually floated into the shot from the sky. Going back to why its important to use this slr camera, it makes this stage much easier to rub out the string as it is a photo, when it is filmed footage it is much harder to edit in within photoshop. You will need to place each image into photoshop and click n the rubber image to then start rubbing out the string which will make the character eventually look as if it is floating. You will need to save these images a JPEG, and as before you will need to place it into Istop motion and then import it into your final cut piece. Next you will need to locate the image within this edit and replace them with you new and improved images with no string showing. Once you have watched the animation through you will then see you have created a Visual effect that shows the lego character floating down from the top of the shot all the way down to the floor of the set.

Lighting Task

Lighting task

When creating Wallace and Gromit animations they use artificial lighting called red head to light up the sets. Black screens are also used which allows the light to reflect off creating the shadows in that specific scene. The term red head camera means that there is a red light attached to the top of the camera, when the camera moves across the scene it continues with the same lighting otherwise the scene will be darker in some places and would make the animation look very unprofessional and the lighting wouldn't be continuous throughout the animation and it would also take away the affect.

Ardman use a variety of effect lighting within there scenes, such as a street lamp, they light these scenes with L.E.D's which stands for light emitting diode's, or they use tiny bulbs linked to a transformer. in some scene they use fibre optics or small torch bulbs. These techniques that ardman use are very effective and are very good at lighting small individual places in an animation for example a house or car head lamp.

When creating our advert animation we used a interfit tungsten 3200 power lamp.
The reason we chose to use this light was it was an easy and light object to move, the head of the light can be adjusted allowing us to be able to tilt and direct the light in the correct position allowing us to be able to light our set to exactly how we wanted it, the light is very bright meaning it will easily light up our whole set and there would be no need for any other lighting.
Some possible issues that could arise during a lighting set up could be the light over heating, this can be very dangerous as if someone was to touch the light they could burn themselves. We also need to be careful with leads and cables in case anyone was to trip over and cause any injuries.

Consideration Of Camera

Because we are doing our stop motion animation using a whiteboard and marker there isn't a wide range of camera angles we can consider. We can only use one which will be a close up of the whole whiteboard. We will have to keep the camera in a steady angle though without any form of movement as it could effectively ruin the whole thing as it will be out of place and quite possibly the light may change. We have considered that the light will change as the filming will take longer than a day so the sun shining through the windows changes all the time so the way we have overcome this is to use a lamp shining straight on the whiteboard whilst the camera is on a tripod taking photos of each stage. What we will have to do is change the size of the drawings we are putting onto the screen in order to make it look like the camera angle is changing etc.

Although we aren't using a range of camera angles we have still taken it into consideration what type of camera shots are available like the ones below;