This is the final post for our media, historie and culture projects. this weeks lesson was on Realism within media .
the definition of realism is: The attitude or practice of accepting a situation as it is and being prepared to deal with it accordingly: "a new mood of realism". this basically means, creating somthing belevable to an audience. there is a common misconcenption that realism is to do with creating somthing as accurate to life as possible, but it can also mean create somthing to be beleivable, as if it could function within the real world. i will cover examples of these later.
realism started during the romantic period of art, at this time realism and drawing correctly was the biggest thing in art, until around 1860 when the camera was invented showing a much easier way to capture life and memories, this is when the artists gave up with realistic drawings as this was already seen as obsolete by the camera, so they started to develop surrealism, expressionism and other techniques showing expression through a less perfect form, this of corse can be seen as a good thing or a bad thing from your point of view. but very recently in 1988 Ralph Goings created the image Still Life With Red Matt, this image looks like a photograph but is actaully a painting! this is because he saw painting as a fun activity and being able to say he painted this image! rather than being put down by new technology.
another point about realism and artists is that an artist is entitled to "artistic license" where they can alter imformation slightly to distort reality but keep realism, a good example shown to us in class is image from the national geographic. the image of the giza pyramids on the cover have be altered, they have been pushed closer together to create a better composotion for there cover. this is obvisouly not real as it has been edited, but the idea is that it looks real and that is what realism is all about.
if we look back in the past at animations you can see a very big change in detail, but back then these images were still seen as realistic, this is because our tastes as humans and the computers we use to create these images has fastly improved, this means we have alot higher standards of what we consider realistic images.
here is a prime example, a remake of the old king kong movie. the original is very dated and you can obviously see it is a puppet used, espically how the women is drastically out of proportion with the city. but this was still seen as realistic and beleivable. since then computers have increased alot more power, creating more advanced images like this.
with alot more detail and alot more realism, create basically a giant ape creature. of corse this is not real but it is realistic, the muscles scructure and hieght compared to the rest of the scene is alot more beievable, but the main detail i would say that sells it is the face and hiar on the body.
we can look as far back as cave paintings to see the diffrents in realism, the imagery back then wasnt at all detailed, it was only stick people and very our of porpotion figures, but at this point in time realism wasnt very important, yes you can still work out what a image is and what it suggests, but at this point in time the only form of communication was drawings, nothing to do with culture or the ability to show off, but to show things that are important, this brings me to the point of diffrent ways information is repersented:
1) the world as i see it
2) The world as i expreince it
3) The world as it can be imagined to be
these three are very basic meanings, the world as i see it, would be the most realistic view and very defined. the world as i expreience it would be a more expressionist apporach still showing details, but it becoming slightly more distorted with less realistic colors, and then finally the world as it can be imaged, this is the very surrealist view, where anything can possibly happen. these range from the most realistic to the least.
as a final topic, there is a interesting concept raised by Plato.
this is a image of "Platos Cave". the concept here is 3 men locked in a cave, where the only light source is the fire behind them which is casting shadows onto a wall infront of them. the idea is that if the men where left there for the whole of there lives, this would be the world as they know it.
but if they were released to the outside world they would not be able to handle it and would run back into the cave to what they find comfortable. this is playing with the conecept of what we find realism is, realism is what we percieve it and what we have grown up with around us.
two weeks ago we learned about narrative within a story.a narrative is a combination of 2 things, story and plot, plotis the things that happen within a novel, movie or any other sort of media, while story is the way the story is told in the piece of media. the main formula for a narrative is Beggining, Middle, End, this is what makes up a narrative, usually this is set up like this:
Beggining - Middle - End
Equalibrium - Disturbance - Equilibrium
the idea of equalibrium and distrubance came from Tordorov.
the first idea of narrative came from Aristotle, a greek philiosopher who wrote "the poetics" a book all about plot and story telling, who basically wrote down these 3 elements that make a story, because every good story needs a beggining, some sort of disturbence, and then a end, although this concept can somtimes change depending on the story, either it can have several forms of disturbance, a false equilbrium, or even start of with the disturbance.
there are key examples of these diffrent types of story telling in movies, used very effectivly.
the usual type of story telling is very widly used. a example is Monsters Inc, and really any pixar or disney story.
it starts with mainly establishing shots so you get the basis of chracters and the world they live in, which is a form of equalibrium, everything is fine and they are happy going about there normal lives. then somthing changes that has nothing happened before, Boo the human child appears in there world, which causes havok for the 2 main characters, which is the disturbance. after this they seek a soulution to send Boo back to her home, along the way possibly learning somthing that can later add to the ending. then finally the ending arrives and there is a form of diffrent Equalibrium, normally creating a better atmosphere, in monsters inc case the final equalibrium is them finding out that laughter is a better source of power than scares, but at the very end they leave on a cliff hanger, where sully remakes Boos door, only hearing her voice the movie then ends. possible leaving it open to a 2nd movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuzNohk5cYw
This is the ending of the movie "requim for a dream" which ends with disturbance (or possibly a dark equilibrium) but still very un traditional, as the main character loses his arm from drug abuse, the friend ends up in jail, the girlfriend turns to prostitution, and the mother turns insane, very diffrent from usual story telling methods where the protangonist and close friends find a deeper equalibrium to there lifes.
and finally there is the type of story that plays in a diffrent order, somtimes showing the disturbance first then filling in all the gaps are the story goes along, this is usually done with flashbacks/forwards and audio triggers (somthing like a swwoosshh sound) so signify the change in type, or this is done using frequency events, these are events in a plot that are used more than once, so they can always jump back to the same scene and youll think its placed in the same time, for example a setting or very significant clothes a character is wearing. afew good examples of these are:
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
first an awesome movie!. the story is about Joel the Protangonist, wanting to erase the memory of Clementine (the images are Clementine) firstly the beggining of the movie is actually the end, and thoughout the mind erasing process, we see his memories as they crumble apart, a good way to connect these pieces in a story is following Clementines changing hair color.
Mullholland Drive
any movie by david lynch is extremly confusing so i will not bother trying to desribe this movie, but the concept is sort of a within a dream and then played in a backwards order, this is the first scene which is very scary and disturbing, being the disturbance in this movie, it has afew more disturbances later on but it starts with one which is the main idea. this then goes into equalibrium in the drema world, then into more disturbance. the ending is quite a mysetery to me, as its very trippy and could be seen as some form of equalibrium. Also because this Café is shown many times in the movie it can be seen as a point to refrence all other events. http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4945022/mulholland_drive_ending/
Examples of media breaking this rule is used alot in series, for example in any episode of Lost, in this one if you skip to about 5 minutes in, it skips alot of story straight to the cliff hanger that happens in the middle of the next series. it mainly shows Jack talking in riddles saying " we have to go back" to other characters that were also on the island. this is a large cliff hanging is lost as they spent the last 3 series trying to get off the island and too hear they have to go back, leaves the viewer on a big high wanting to see more. this is a very clever ploy used by television to keep the audience very interested, i cannot think of a single series that does not use this technique to pull the audience in for more. apart from comedies like "the simpsons" who pull the audience in again and again with its humour and how it uses alot of intertextuality making it very maliable.
a good way to show how movies and series work with this is in a chart, this has already been created on Freytags triangle:
this shows how from the beggining to the middle and end, how the action raises and falls, of course this can be changed slightly but the general rule for most media will be the same, that it gets more intense as it enters the middle of the media, and it slowly falls as it reaches equalibrium again.
for a slightly more intense movie, piece of media or series it would be cut up even more to show how it leaves on cliff hangers to keep the audience interested:
as you can see as the action raises geenerally there is a second triangle, this traingle sharply rises and then peaks smoothing out at the top, this is the general structure of a series building in tension towards the end of every episode.
moving away from how narritive is shown, there is also the side of characters to show narrative, in storys there are generally very loose archtypes that can apply to most shows, this is defined in the book "mophology of the folktale" the main types of characters are:
Villian - The main antagonist, who is causing the disturbance.
Donor - The character who offers some sort of item/wisdom to help the hero.
The (magical?) Helper - The Heros friend, or right hand man, who helps with smaller tasks.
Princess/Farther - the person needing saved/ or needing some sort of help.
Dispatcher - The person who sends the hero on his quest
Hero or Victim/Seeker Hero - the main character, who eventually defeats the villian to save the world.
False Hero - the underdog character, who lives in the heros shadow, helpful in some ways.
this can apply to most games, or shows but cant apply to them
all. a extremly good example is Mario, the characters are:
Villian - Browser.
Donor - mushroom headed dude
The (magical?) Helper - Yoshi.
Princess/Farther - Princess Peach.
Dispatcher - again mushroom headed dude
Hero or Victim/Seeker Hero - Mario
False Hero -Wario, or Lugio depending on the game.
but this concept dosnt always apply. like in games like tekken, or portal. tekken there are alot of characters all can be considered heros, and portal there is only about 3 characters, so these concepts dont always apply but at least afew are usually shown in media.
linking back to games, a game is a very diffrent sort of narrative compared to any sort of visual material because it is all interactive, where as in a book you can turn a page and always see what ever information on any page, in a game you are not open to any of this information so have to wait to reveal it. there are afew words that describe these ideas:
Agency: the satisfying feeling to take action to win a challenge and see the results of the choice, using a controller as apart of interactive media.
Aporia: this links to both books and games as apart of interactive media, this is a gap in a game of logic, it is basically somthing that is unexplained or is never solved, like a hole in a story or not being able to go through a certain door in a game, this can even go down to not knowing a word in a book.
Epiphany: the intense feeling of over coming Aporia, a large feeling of acomplishment over your victory.
Tmesis: the reader skipping pages in a book, or choosing one path over another in a game, so the content is lost, either from skimming words to loss track of story, or just by not following certain paths. this is shown quite alot in games like infamous or elder scrolls, where you have many options. but in both you can always go back to the last bit of content.
a final thought id like to mention, is a very interesting idea of thinking of narrative as a maze. it starts at one point when you enter the story, and from that point the story can take many twist and turns along the way and possible have many alternative storys involved, but at the end there is always one ending to come out the other side.
Our third lesson was on Intertextuality, which is a key aspect in most comedy films or series, which is able to recreate jokes from old programs. in the words of Julia Kristeva "the term interextuality denotes the transportation from one media to another" which is just a fancy way of saying " one piece of media borrowing content from another" be it a line, object or situation.
there are 2 types of intertextuality:
-concious: purposly putting it in
-unconcious: putting somthing in that was meant to be a piece of interextualy intentionally.
the only diffrence is if the author of whatever media knew they were inserting a piece of interextuality, this is possible because levels of interextuality are determined by the viewer, one person may get reminded of somthing they have seen (which is when it becomes intertextual) while the other dosnt thinks it does not intitally relate to anything that have seen before. the author has no control over what the viewer may reminisce about.
example of some intextuality are:
Marcel Durchamps LHOOQ, which is intertexualised from the mona lisa, creating somthing that looks simular to it, this piece would be considered a concious example of intertextuality because i think the marcel durchamp was very aware that he had copyied a famous peice of art.
General models, of objects or characters before the final render stage are also considered as a form of intertextuality because, they are being designed to look like somthing that has been created or will be created.
but of corse the order the viewer sees them in will determine what they see as the refrence, a person totally oblivious to art could see marcel durchamps piece mocking the mona lisa, and then see the mona lisa, beliefing that the mona lisa was based on marcel durchamps piece.
this can also be applied in movies and series. commonly it will be ones taken from the past 50 years, this way to can normally be understood by most the family.
this scene from "planet of the apes" showed the main character punching the ground and shouting "you blew it up damn you all to hell" this is commonly recreated in todays television.
as you can see here both the simpsons and madagasar using the same line from that clip. this is useful in animation because it can add another layer of comedy for an oder audience. a very good example is the simpsons which target age group is the whole family, entertained by homers antics while the parents can laugh at the same joke but on a diffrent level, and again in madagascar, but because the words have been altered slightly it can still be enjoyed as a pun. the simpsons even done it a second time! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba7qTvBJnQY&NR=1
the simpsons is a very fine example for intertextuality because of most of there episodes are based on books, movies or series that are already created, but they recreate them slightly to hit a diffrent audience. the first one that comes to mind for the simpsons is there parody of "The Shinning"
as you can see from both of these videos the simpsons pretty much copy the setting, background music and some of the lines, but they add a element of light heartedness because it is a childrens program. they change it enough so that from a persons point of view that has never seen the shinning would still find it funny, but those who have would find it funny in 2 ways.
all of this is extremly useful in animation! because in animation the main concern is your audience and there vierwing experience, the main way to keep somones attention is either with drama or comedy, and using intertextuality it is very easy to grasp the attention of many generations, which is espically useful in childrens programs since the adult is the one who controls what is on.
when talking about intertextuality, there is a very fine line between simply borrowing from a program and stealing from them, which is really needed to know the legality of it all since you wouldnt want to find yourself in court. the key is really to take the idea or lines but alter them slightly so they give a diffrent effect but can still be reconized as a concious piece of intertextuality. the 3 types of intertextuality to look out for are:
-Pastisque: copying somthing in a crtical way
-Parody: copying somthing in a hyper crtical way.
-Omage: copying somthing in a honorable way.
each showing diffrent levels of copying, a pastique and parody would be more making jokes about the medium, while an omage would use intertextuality as a refrence or as a joke about a situation.
an example of a parody is family guys Blue Harvest. which critcally makes fun of Star Wars, pratically sceen for sceen.
Take the intro for example, where you have the scrolling text explaining the general story and setting so far. family guy took this because it would be familiar and went completly off tangent, althought it does only tell the sort of jokes that a person who has watched star wars would know so it would be a smaller market. but this can be seen as a total rework of the movie, because it is almost taken scene by and scene and parodied.
even at some points they make refrences to other popular movies that the viewwer who enjoy star wars will properally enjoy. and somtimes they make a refrence to there own show.
in this example they parody the nerd classic. Wonder Woman. who is well known for deflecting bullets with her wrists. and is actually what darth vader does in the original series of star wars.
in comparison a example of a omage would be in somthing like, the simpsons where they dont make jokes about the shows, they make jokes based around the concept of the show. like in my earlier "The Shinning" example, they poked fun at the idea of homer going crazy without his 2 favourite things in life, rather than poking fun at the idea of somone going crazy.
as ive already mentioned this is all very useful in animation, to make a scene or overall concept more interesting to a wider public.
ok, so this was our second lesson on "Media, culture and historie" or whatever way around you want to say it. this lesson was all about semiotics, and what things mean.. intense i know.
soo, basically the definition of semiotics is "the study of sign" and how we make, read, or interprut them in our own way. this works with signification. which is the noticing signs and reconizing them as a certain thing, much like my last post the results will differ from person to person. for example if i drew a circle.
in reality this is just a line drawn in a arch connecting up to the first point, a very simplictic shape which our society has given meaning, when you look at it you may interpret as a ball, the sun or anything else you assossiate with this shape, but it is still just a shape. this is what semiotics is. only when more detailed is added it is more likly that everyone would get the same experience from looking at this. now with more detailed added it should be apparent to most people that this is a smiley face, which is still just 4 diffrent shapes combined. for somthing to be considered a symbol it needs a physical form and the viewes mental concept, so here we have the shape and whatever you decide to view it as.
much like the communication model this is being created, viewed and then reconized. also a big part of semiotics is sterotypes, which is used often to convey a character.
for example if i take the smiley face and give it a twirly moustache, a beret, and a glass of wine, most people would instantly think "french" again this are just shapes and objects, in no way does it suggest the french, as i doubt most of of them dress like that, but it is a convention that has stuck and is a way to convey a french character to somone easily.
knowing this is very useful in animation, as some characters need to look from a certain place, so with this i can play on peoples conventions, but off corse too far and it can be considered rasist which is always somthing to avoid.
there are 2 types of symbols:
-Iconic
-Arbitary
which is all based on the amount of information given in the symbol. iconic symbols have alot more detail, and are alot more reconisiable with what they are, and as you go down a scale you get more and more arbitary/symbolic, which is literally like drawing a circle for the sun, because of corse that is not how the sun looks, the more arbitary a image becomes the less constrained by reality it becomes.
a good example of a scale from iconic to arbitary would be this. the most iconic symbol would be an actual picture, because a picture is just pretending to be you and isnt physically you it is the most realistic example. then next would be a rubbish 10 second sketch of yourself which can bear some resemblance but could still be considered another person. then my name would come next, the name still repersents me as a person, but it has less connect to me as my image as it is just a collection of shapes that we are told when children make noises to form words. next in line would be a ID number, say for a libarycard or bank account, somone who worked at the bank or libary could still discipher this by checking there database but it would be less iconic to everyone. and finally is a barcode assossiated with my libary card, which no human can possibly discpher, so it just holds a very loose connection to me.
In the second part of this lesson we started to go into the denotation and connotation of symbols.
denotation: what somthing is
connotation: what it suggests.
myth: the world view of somthing (sterotypes)
With some connotations you can go quite indepth with a image, this is very useful in animation like i said earlier with the french example. if i want a person to see a character and think "royalty" i would color them purple and gold, both connotate royality, or even a very passioniate sceen, i would color the background in a bright red or pinkish color, which is normally consisered lustful or passionate, of corse some connotations can be seen as somthing from the viewer, because red is also a symbol for lust or even rage, so you would need layers of the same connotation, by included roses, and hearts.
a good refrence how conotation effects a composition would be a disney film like beauty and the beast,.
In the start of the Film the imaging starts off very bright, with alot of complimentary colors and natural shapes, creating a sense of warmth and beauty, setting up the compositon.
Then after the prince get cursed to be The Beast, the imagery gets very dark in tone, and all the shapes become alot more sharp, also the clothes the beast are wearing convey a sense of danger, with black and red covering up most of his body as if he is hiding somthing (most people would find somone hiding somthinng as a threat) the glaring teeth and claws add to this image of danger.
Later on in the most well know scene, where Bellés feelings towards The Beast take a dramatic change you can really sense that through the diffrent colors and tones. giving tem both very warm complimentary colors in the yellow and blue, along with the background being very saturated yet warm to fit the mood and also make them two the main attraction. adding to this the beasts expression with raised eyebrows makes him seem more innocent.
another good example would be the clockwork orange. there clothes show alot about there characters. the white suits because blood shows up the best on white.
the crotch protectors because showing defense often promotes attack, or shows that somone is prepared to attack.
and the one side of make up to show non-symetry (as the western world normally sees symatry as beatiful) also because it takes a womens symbol of beauty and destroys it, which is majoritly what the clockwork orange is about.
all these ideas of denotation and connotation will massivly help in animation, because it is the best way to show what a characeter is like before actually having them speak or act a part, so you could already sell there personality to the audience.
which has been done in this animation, without speech you can already tell that micky is a fairly happy go lucky sort of mouse, who is confident in himself and can be a little cheeky, purly through actions and the way he moves.
Hi, My names Oliver and i am starting this blog for as a piece of work from the grand old university of hertfrodshire. every week i will post some information based on my "Media, Histories & culture" class and discuss in ways that at the moment arnt apparent to me. unfortunatly i am a week behind in uploading this, because of difficulty using the site and keeping my infomarion, so there will be a few posts this week based on my notes.
Our first lesson was about Interferance and Interaction. and the process model of communication.
This model basically shows how things are observered or processed and then how they are interpreted and reacted too. if you imagine that point A is you and B is another person, if you say "hello" to them, then your medium is speech, as speech is just a combination of sounds and mouth movments its a encoded language, then it is taken and interperted by the other person, assuming they speak the same language as you it would properally be understood. this model also works for drawing ( your drawing being the language and a pencil as the medium and then the reciver interprets it) finally the "noise" around the model is repersenting any outside force that could disturb the interaction, like background noise in a conversation. Any other interactive task where it is viewed by somone also works in this way. This type of thing happens everyday and i doubt most people have thought of it in this way. it helps thinking about it as a Animator, because the puplic will be my audience and i will have to think of ways to interpret my idea to them through colors and characters.
Adding to this is the information, there are 2 types or information:
redunantancy
entropy
redundant information is predictable, while entropic information is unpredicatable. so an example of this would be seeing a friend in the street... the predictable process would be a greeting, such as a wave sent by them and recieved by you. while a entropic communication would be if they punched you in the face, because it would be unexpected from your friend. for a good animation, i would go by the words of shannon & wheaver who suggest that a healthy balance is equal amounts of both. this would make a animation very familiar to a viewer to draw them in or make them relate to the character, but on its own can seem to boring, if you add in equal amounts of unpredictability it becomes alot more interesting. an example of this would be in Pixars "UP" . The premise is very entropic, it is after all the idea of a old man, travelling with his floating house to a made up location, and thne incountering many strange things, like a batallion of talking dogs led by a man, and also a giant colorful bird, most things tha i doubt anyone has seen in a day to day life.
this is then equaled out with redundant information, this movie is quite inbalanced with unpredictability but there is still some predictability in the movie, the main predictable information i would say i are the characters, how the old man is a typical old man (not liking children, being very cranky and even down to the physical side of the character with the arched back) and the typical boy scout (always wanting to help, and quite hyperactive). the only other predictable points are in the first scene of the movie showing how he and his wife grew up and did the typical couply thing, until her death. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYmGt7RnTlI
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The final bit on this lecture was predictability and unpredictability in a little more detail, if you drew a scale of with "redundant" written on the left and "entropic" on the right, you can chart how predictable a action or animation is. now i will give examples of animations which can fit on this scale in many ways, these are all really based on mainly on the stlye used.
the first animation i looked at is salad fingers.
which has no real narrative or follow through in story, its more just a compilation of events following each other, on a scale this would be quite etropic, because at random moments things you wouldnt expect happen, like salad fingers talking in a diffrent language, the backwards music also adds to this feeling of being on the edge of your seat, wondering what will come next. although there are still elements of predictability from situations, like salad fingers luring the little boy into his oven, the way he says it and the music make it feel like somthing sinister is afoot.
while on the oppersite end of the scale, is somthing like "sleeping beauty" by disney, who is know as being quite hyper realistic animations espically the very traiditional animations they have made. becuase of how real the characters look and the amount of detail into familliar structures it would be seen as quite predictable of them doing the same actions leading to a simular action, while also being very porportionally correct.
A very nice piece of animation to mention would be Jan Svanmajers "darkness light darkness" which was shown to us in class. this is a very surreal piece of animation and quite stylised, which would put it very high on the unpredictable scale. he really personifys parts of the human body very well giving them a life of there own which is not usually seen, and in some areas hyper realistic like with the detail on the tounge and brains.
but again these shapes of hands, eyes and feet are all familliar to us, so its not as unpredictable.
another animtion, this one made by ryan woodward tittled "thoughts of you", a very beatiful piece very simular to darness light darkness with the amount of unpredictability. the characters are very stylised but at points there movments because very unpredictable with stretching limbs and turning into water, but at the end of the day they are still human shaped and this is very predictable to us with what movments are possible and which arnt.
And finally a piece by ryan larkin called street musique. this piece is extremly trippy and unpredictable, as it has alot of unnatural creatures and shapes that are very dynamic and can morph into somthing completly diffrent, the unpredictability of all of this is very effective espically with the amount of diffrent media he has used to portray it. defintly one of the most unpredictable pieces i have menitioned so far.
of corse stating what piece is more predictable is from the viewers point of view but this is my point of view on the pieces.
this can really help my animation, so i know where to draw the line at too unpredictable or too realistic and boring.
realism started during the romantic period of art, at this time realism and drawing correctly was the biggest thing in art, until around 1860 when the camera was invented showing a much easier way to capture life and memories, this is when the artists gave up with realistic drawings as this was already seen as obsolete by the camera, so they started to develop surrealism, expressionism and other techniques showing expression through a less perfect form, this of corse can be seen as a good thing or a bad thing from your point of view. but very recently in 1988 Ralph Goings created the image Still Life With Red Matt, this image looks like a photograph but is actaully a painting! this is because he saw painting as a fun activity and being able to say he painted this image! rather than being put down by new technology.
Arbitary
