THIRD POST!: Intertextuality

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kW3LtmH5M_c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32lwKxakec8&feature=related

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.

SECOND POST!: Semiotics

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.

Iconic Arbitary

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.

FIRST POST! : Interferance

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
.
 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.