Representation in animation

Maureen Furnish Issues of Representation in Animation Aesthetics.

Sean griffin the illusion of identity gender and racial representation in Aladdin in Maureen furniss' animation.

There is two sides there's representation in animation theory and animation industry and animation content, the animators themselves have not been recognised and been really represented as much through history compared to male animators. In the early history of animation 20's to 40's there was no one really the represented women animators that was a main contributor to the industry the only exception is lotte reigner and Mary Ellen bite closer to the end of the war. These were rare female presence in the industry. A number of others operated under pseudonyms/initials e.g.  Mj winkler productions by Margaret winkler. More female presence tends to pick up a lot more in the 1990's.

Females operating at big company's such as Disney and Cartoon Network and others but usually in a managerial position ususually in the production of the shows but not the designers/animators.

Many of the core animation theorists are mainly women and they include Jayne pilling and Esther Leslie.

Sarah Lucas: penetralia

two fried eggs and a kebab 1992 - idea of being true to materials your using onald Jude and industrial materials.

Truth to material associated with Henry Moore and the movement in 1930 is in the Yorkshire part of history.

Lucas the pleasure principle: it is a beautiful piece of sculpture and used very economically and you can compare it to Tracy emins my bed which is where it has had nothing done to change the look of it or a weird sculpture wasn't formed it was a literal translation.

Lucas priere de toucher shows she is aware of surrealism and she is indebted to some of these works.

In her penetralia exhibit she looks at the way she takes on British surrealism, she would plaster casts of things on wooden platforms, we argue the arrival of this exhibition should be recognised as a logical development because it engages with a movement in British art. The poster for the exhibition is provocative and takes on notion of object personage and sense of fertility of land, looks like Nash photos. It tries to literalise things and throw insults back at the audience, making it funny to try and give it a new life.

Donald judd

Donald judd

Donald was described as a minimalist and sculpturing but he disagreed with these as he thought his work wasn't these because he was looking at the change of art and design throughout america. I think nowadays we don't think of making a sculpture or whatever we just get on and create it and we have this concept in our head subconsciously. 

Paul cezanne shows depth within a painting called the forest scene and this was to do with the colour and perspective of paint and he used simple marks. 

Constantine Brancusi endless column, this is an object in an open space and there is no illusion this is what judd discussed in his famous essay, and how this type of sculpture isn't good.

Difference between cezannes painting and jasper johns false start painting, this painting shows text and a lack of depth. The words describe different colours and he is literally writing on what couloirs are used. Judd would describe it as just an object just not a sculpture or a painting. These two paintings are very different and that cezanne has a metaphor but Johns isn't, his is refusing to be illusionistic, to tell stories. 

Frank Stella doesn't use a square canvas, as he has focused out the middle of the piece but the stripes do create a type of illusion as they sort of flicker. These are another change to additional paint.

Lee bontecou used steel on canvas and it's between painting and sculpture as its used from materials to create sculpture but it's on a canvas adging out of canvas as a 3D object, so this is a specific object in space. 

Clara Oldenburg is usually associated with pop art and he produced small yellow pie, which is paint and plaster over a wire frame to make an object, what do you make of that, it's weird and different and isn't counted by many people as a painting, even though it uses paint. He also made a huge light switch called soft switches which is a vinyl filled with Dacron on wire frame on canvas. 

Judd created a lacquer on galvenized iron which it looks like metal boxes lined up one above the other against the wall and it's not free standing so you could say it is not fully a sculpture.

After Donald judd the definition of painting and sculptures should of gone out of the window but because the art history is conservative they haven't changed and art did not know how to define these objects so they sorted then into categories but they are just objects. 

Matters of gravity: Scott bukatman

Special effects and supermen in the 20th century, as advanced technologies have proliferated, popular culture has turned the fear of instability into the thrill of topsy-turvydown, often by presenting images and experiences of weightless escape from controlled space. The challenge of writing about comic books, relatively little academic writing to draw upon, inaccessibility of the actual objects, hard on how to address the reality of superheroes and DC comics realworlds where "fictional super heroes influence all too human people to attempt superhuman things". From a pure theory perspective though the vehicle of the superhero we can recover the city as new and shifting ground and urbanism was defined as a way of life by socialist Louis Wirth in 1938 this is the same year that superman first gained an appearance. They are surprisingly proper guides to these cities of change: they are invulnerable yet resilient and metamorphic and post modern category.

The phenomenology of the super heroes cities. With the 20c came new concentrations of information a rapid circulation of information and new modes of perception/social definition. Postmodern conception of uncentered city. The city as site of the familiar/strange, the sunlit/shadowed, the planned/the chaotic, the sublime and the uncanny. The superheroes inherit and embody many of these paradoxical tropes. The experience of the city and the comic books is less one of static order than dynamic negotiation, comics are rarely panelled in a regular fashion. New York is a city of intense circulation as the streets keep moving and you've got to love the movement. If your going to engage with the city you have to love the movement and to be a superhero you've got to be able to keep up with the movement and be ahead of it. Superhero narratives are sagas of propulsion and movement through the city. Every superhero has enhanced powers of motion either natural or technological.

 The city is made with lots of different layers, architectural surfaces are broken down during battles, chases and confrontations. Use of architectural schematic plans to produce orderly, but nevertheless fantastic spaces.

Barefoot gen Animated documentary

Animated documentary barefoot gen

It's about the bombing in Hiroshima but shows the perspective of the people who lived in Hiroshima. It's in the comic manga style throughout animation even though it is a serious topic.

Analysis

It fits into a kind of documentary film and how things are drawn and depicting it on that sort of way, David demear look sat the large form action image, this means a transformation of the scene compared to another. He believes that all Hollywood films are large form because they retail the same narrative, it re tells objective histories. He tries to compare the film with something called lucky dragon 1995, this was when the shipping boat was at sea and saw the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombing and they escaped from the blast. All thought they are detached from their culture so you do not see this patriotism. In contrast the small form action image, it depends on action sequence and it's seen through the eyes of the character. What characters perceive and how they are affected so the event is revealed through characterisation. The genetic sign of the small form action image is the vector, the twinkling in the sky during the carp theft they were being prepared to be punished but they weren't they are rewarded with dumplings, the only war worth fighting is one which saves lives and the twinkling depicts the thought of morality of the boys stealing the carp and that the situation is complicated.

I thought the film was interesting and really showed emotion of each character and when the bomb drops it shows the zombie people and it shows the horror of the event. The scale of the tragedy escalated throughout the film.

Media Types

Ambient (outdoor)
Print
Broadcast
Entertainment- cinema, performance, new media
Social media

Ambient

 commonly regarded as outdoor eg. Billboards, as shells, posters, vehicle wraps, bus/train wraps, biulding wraps, guerilla.
Price:  ambient has lasting of 2 weeks
Lighting: not lit, back lit, front lit, important in seasons considering price.
Static and moving image available
6 weeks deadline and you have to book it, they have to have it within 6 weeks to get it put up in time
Issues: proximity to roads can be good, Buck muck and dirt is often a problem in clarity, especially in winter. May also effect colour choice. Local council permission for sometimes is needed.
Use must be quick/ high impact. Audience is moving, dwell on ad is very short.

Print

Magazines, newspapers, books
Regular published media need around 5 weeks notice before publication date. Exception is newspapers which needs 24 hours but this might cost.
Cost: per insertion per edition per run ie the monthly run of a mag. Fhm used to cost £17000 full page colour per insertion.

Circulation the number of people who buy it
Readership the number of people who read it

Costs will vary depending on circulation/ readership figures as well as where in the magazine it is. Rare card figures are the starting point for negotiations discounts can be between 20% to 80%
Audience can dwell on ad for a long time. Repeat viewing easy. Ad complexity not compromised.

Broadcast

Tv, radio,

Tv - itv, Sky, bt, netflicks, Amazon

Bbc not included can not show ads yet and can not be used for private broadcasting.

On line channels

Adverts in terms of script, all scripts must be put before the British advertising clearance centre they accept/ reject scripts but not image. Advertising standards authority part of ofcom guardians of acceptable ads- ambient, print or broadcast. They can force an ad off air, or off a billboard immediately.

Cost of tv ad depends on time of day, length of ad, the to programmes before or after it, number of viewers and demand for ad space/time.
No tv ad should be longer then 30 seconds, audience not fully captured. Ad must spark attention to keep audience. Channel hopping a problem.

Cinema

Ads before film. Time limit is not restricted. Better for ad story. Audience is captured reality suspended. Entertainment imperative however ads are front of film by the end of the film will they be remembered.
Cost depends on film type, rating, expected impact
Circa £400 000 per run of film (5-4 weeks) for each showing. Ie for digital cinema media the ad will be shown in front of every showing of the film chosen, whilst on standard general release.

Entertainment new media

Online aspects netflicks, Amazon etc
Blu Ray/DVD/cd
Often have trailers and ads in front of what they are showing. Problems with regulation but theoretically under the same rules as broadcast media. Much more difficult to police.

Social media
Facebook, Twitter, Google +, tumblr, YouTube, Pinterest, Vimeo and blogger.
Personal, company use lots of different social media  and group interest group in particular area and they run that sort of thing. Aim to better communicate to the people that are important to you.
However there are issues liability- libel, deformation, bullying, misrepresentation, plagiarism, theft. Need to be careful about what you say.

Richard Billingham

Richard billingham: rays a laugh and zoo

Compton verney warwickshire 1760, the building was transformed into an art gallery, the gallery mainly focuses on video work but allowed one photograph.

Ray's a laugh is a series of photographs and shows the living conditions of the poor, it was seen as a documentation of the modern changes and the effects of these on people's lifestyle. Martha Rosler criticises this work of billingham as she considers it as complete exploitation. 20 years later billingham released new pictures and they are different from the series of Ray's a laugh as they don't contain any human subjects. For example his untitled 13( Black Country Birmingham night time 2003).

Project management

Time, cost and quality triangle, these varely rarely coincide and it's a trade off between these three things, and depending on what client wants this will change. There are 3 distinct elements the design phase, execution phase and implementation phase.

Design phase: this covers all aspects related to design, research, idea generation, design concept, design embodiment, technical completion.

Execution phase: this covers all aspects related to the completion and production of the design. Technical completion, production issues print, 3D aspects, moving image, delivery etc.

Implementation phase: this covers all aspects related to the design and production once it is out in the public domain.

Always work backwards

You have to consider that everything can be done by the deadline, 1 man day Equals 8 hours, 1 man week equals 5 man days which is 40 hours, and 1 man month equals 4 man weeks, 20 man days which is 160 man hours.  You have to consider holidays, sickness and time of year, recognise your staff and yourself need a break.

Design phase this will take an estimate of a few hours on research, idea generation is 1 day, design concept is 2 days, design embodiment is 2-8 days and technical completion is 3 days. So overall you have 9-25 days to complete the design phase. In this process you also must get to client sign-off here not at end of process.

Photographic image

A series of images by Wilkie Doherty and his series should Belfast and the grain of the image: a poetics of future history in some 'new' photographs.

In each photography it is always taken from the middle of a street/ road or avenue. Doherty was influenced by w a mccutcheon who took photographs in Belfast who's asking tends to a ou using people in his photographs so Dohertys work would not look out of place in mccutcheon's archive. Doherty produced sever and isolate photographs which shows sever has been taken and cropped so you can not tell that it is Belfast as it has no surroundings and isolate then shows a bridge seperating the Catholics and non Catholics an showing the recognition of the political and religious events. The words on these photographs are whit over black and white photograph makes it look more contemporary. He wanted to show the ghettoisation of Catholics and then the same happening with gay and lesbian community and the prejudism within Belfast and shows big political changes.

All the images are closed environments, desolate and empty and he has used other photographs to build on the history of photography of his work. There is a lot of historical ghosting in his work which has a big impact on audience.

Crash book jacket design

Book jacket illustration of crash collapsing bulkheads, designing pornotopia: travels in visual culture

What is crash?

James Ballard wrote the book and it starts off he's in a car crash and meets a character called dr Robert Vaughan and he wants to die in a head on collision with Elizabeth Taylor, a small cult/ subculture of crash victims is forming around Vaughan that is focuses upon the re enactment of celebrity car crashes from which they derive erotic pleasure. Crash tests limit of readers tastes and sympathies so it provokes strong reactions as it is a dark imagination and almost psychotic.

In terms of method he attempts to produce book covers and he compares the analysis of existing covers and the ideas of what the author Ballard actual thought about these visuals of text.

Personal dimension material culture allows poyner to start collecting the book and it's covers, he liked the 'toxic beauty' of the prose, the core problem is the image makers have been defeated by crash and visual treatments are marked by incomprehension and evasion, so he doesn't see them as being the truth of the text and he thinks in some cases people don't understand what the novel is about, you get the themes but not really getting to what crash is trying to portray. Crash is openly pornographic and it's a deliberate strategy and it's to complicate somebody's response. Looking at all of these treatments what do they get wrong and right, he talks about first adaptation by Jonathan Kay in 1973 shows a jutting gear stick infront of a 3D dimensional type, Ballard describes it as 'monstrously bad' . It's important to get the context. Ballard wants an element of fantasy to it but some realistic approach as well. Ballard as well as being an author also engaged in design/ illustration and poyner suggests there's always been a technological surrealism which ties in with what Ballard wants for his novel o be realistic but have a fiction in there too.
Ballard produced his own graphic work for ambit magazine, and he shows material surrealist concerns in his own work which he tries to portray through his work to engage interpretation.

Four novels and book covers published by Ballard the terminal beach, the wind from nowhere, the drowned world, all published by penguin and poyner says there the most ballardian images to be found. They are a style of one significant thing to the novel centred and illustrated in a hard clean way quite dark but colourful covers. David Pelham designed these airbrushed illustrations, the terminal beach in poyners position terminal beach is best. The centered type is flawlessly placed and weighted in relation to the image below and the stencil typeface carries a military association that fits the subject matter of the title story. Graphic design is a form of rhetoric and one reason this image works so well is that it has been realised so perfectly, it is grounded like Ballard prose in meticulously precise observation but he has given the scene of becalmed destructive power an intensified, hyper real quality most obviously in the use of colour.

There are lots of different versions of illustrations for crash. All using different styles and methods to try and get the best design to portray the fantasy and the realism in a visual that is acceptable.

Photography Martha Rosler

The Bowery in two inadequate descriptive systems

The Bowery is an area of New York and skid row. This work has images of urban decay around the city with words describing the picture placed next to the image. She refused to objectify those who suffer from poverty or neglect. Martha does documentary photography and the difference means the there are a set of words that describe some sort of concept within the picture, she starts with words and then introduces the photograph and the words are standing in for the people and the photograph shows the environment of where these people would be. The people with no money are invisible and we don't want to see them.

Paris photo platform video on Vimeo

Project considerations

Client- place in economy,

            government attitude- regulations, 

            financial strength of firm, 

            true market standing, 

            intent of project.

Designer- capability firm, 

                 capability of designer(s), 

                 risk understanding, 

                 project management abilities, 

                 financial strength, 

                 ethics and attitude, 

                 other work.

IP intellectual property 

IPR intellectual property rights

People own what they create, how do you protect yourself? 

Patents- they must be new, technically new, how things work, how they are made, what they are made from, technical contribution. Protection can be long as 16 years can be costly to implement and acquire.

Trade mark- a sign that distinguishes your good/ services from your competitors.

Copyright- automatic protection covering anything written or performed, issue is proof of originality.

Design right- the way an object looks, similar to copyright, it is automatic, and similarly, the key issue is proof or originality. 

Www.ipo.gov.uk pre patent registration is £25

                            Design right registration £50

                            Copyright registration £50 

Charge the client if you protect your image and the value of art changes.

Liaise with your client, undertake work, complete work deliver to client, receive receipt, send invoice, payment complete.

Keep the client engaged in your desgns so they are less likely to dislike it.Always get a receipt and record delivery. Be prompt with invoicing p, ensure you put on the invoice order number, client contact, date of commission, date of delivery.only supply the total cost! Do not break it down.

Invoice issues, invoice received, into payments process, monthly cheque run, payment sent. Delays will occur- expect it. 

Research into the contacts jobs/company's/ lives. Make sure your up to date on news. 

Corporeal text-time, Aesthetics and composition

Were always encouraged to have a question to answer in an essay and in an experimental way we would have a hypothesis, instead of a question if we thought about a problem we are interested in then we can discuss the problem in a number of ways and doesn't imply there is a correct answer or a direct solution.

Vs pierce Whois a philosopher of science historically enthusiasm that hypothesis strategy is a largely creative process as to think of the problem and infer from this your own interpretation and to take this a create a solution. If there's in abduction (an anomaly) is also a semiotic sign and then they enable you to construct these hypothesis to counteract this problem.

In cultural studies/ humanities, there are humanities version of design. There is an emphasis upon meaning production for example. Deleuze quoted "explore the intensities of a situation" this means deleuze meant you can get lost in research and to get around this you test your research out. People are often changed through this process.

The process of painting and writing can be similar sometimes and as a reader of a written piece, you are unaware of how the essay has changed while it was being written, you only see the end product.

Random brief generator

This session we got given a generated brief and we had 30 minutes to think of a concept and produce it. The picture below shows what the brief was. I found this brief particularly difficult because I didn't understand what it meant but when I researched into it, it turned out to be quite dark and barbaric. It was about the pamphlet about in Ireland and how there was a lot of poverty and the author wrote about how families should produce babies and sell them off as food as to provide money. Obviously it was make believe but he used this style of writing to turn something awful into something reasonable.

The way in which were suppose to produce this concept was by using cake. so we drew out a babies body and thought we could take quotes from the pamphlet written over the different body parts of a baby.

Firms

Individuals trade goods, most people became sole traders, this is still very largely a from of trading today, this can be a physical product or in services.i have expertise in design area so that is what I'm trading.as trade grew individuals needed more money to develop trade and sometimes they would need to make a partnership.

A partnership is where 2 or more people get together to run a business.

If you have a partnership agreement and if business is dissolved then it will dictate where the money where it'll go and you don't have to tell anyone financially what your earning which can be a benefit but there a problems as a partner you will be reliable to settle each other's debts. Both partnership related and privately, this implies trust in fellow partners.

Circumstances developed the sleeping partner when the finance side had no say in the running of the business.

In Victorian times it became evident that more funding was needed as trade grew, to attract this funding the government developed the limited liability firm which is an incorporated firm or company. The indivual was limited to the investment and this made very quick growth in the trade. However to ensure potential investors were protected against various criminals, fraudsters and other such never do wells, limited liability firms must do these things

1) Publish what firm is about.

2) Publish annual returns about the company performance yearly.

3) Lodge all this data with companies house.

4) Have the accounts of the firm independently audited.

You have to be aware of paper work and if you don't do this then you will be fined a lot.

Stopping a limited firm is more difficult, the company in the eyes of the law is counted as a person, and you have a responsibility to look after the company. What is the firms, is the firms not yours.

Other countries have there own variants of this.

However this form limited liability became to small to enable investment on a big scale.  This developed the plc, public limited company, shares of plc'a are freely traded on the stock market anyone can join in large or small. Only invest what you can afford what to lose.

All firms have a degree of debt, in essence they use other people's money, use other people's money to make more then the cost of borrowing and running the firm.  You must be able to control money flows, know what has been spent on what and have a very good idea of what is going to be spent on what, to manage this debt effectively.

The problem of research in art and design

All the art institutions have there own way of researching and how they communicate about there understanding of the world and visual arts. Christopher frayling, he is rector of a school of art, and he wanted to know what research would be in the visual arts, he conjours up a debate of this subject. He looks at Picasso and his reference materials his practice and  he starts this as artist research. He found artwork is expressive a new work is about personal development.

Fraylings line of arguments: research equals old territory, correlative cliches/stereotypes, research as dead/ process 'pragmatic'.

Fraylings 3 categories of research are research into art and design for example historical or aesthetic research, research through art and design which means into materials, techniques and technologies, and research for art and design for example Frayling like Picasso regards this as the hard one and that includes undisclosed materials and work intended to speak for itself, effectively you want to make something because it is the research.

Guest lecture: Designers Republic

Ian from designers Republic

First project for design company was a band album cover design called age of chance. They produce a lot of work for architecture called 3D-2D, they were interested in the difference between 2D and 3D and how architecture can be influential and inspiring.  Then they did aim low and miss, it's a project to show that failure isn't a bad thing, it could be turned into something great. Au techre was a music company the design Republic have worked with and created these pieces to celebrate that and the way it's done it's to show the future of music and design so it's suppose to infer a techno style of music with the typography and the colours.

The people's bureau, the bands they worked for they did a lot of merchandise for and one of the things that inspires them is consumerism and so they decided to make there own merchandise and set up an online shop and they just did it to see what the response would be like.  And it became successful and then they decided to open up a shop in Tokyo.

Coca cola, they called the design Republic to do a job for them and work on a project which would help coca cola revisit the past of like the 60's and 70's, in 80's it became more about marketing and making as much money as they could and they had no equity with the brand anymore and to build that back they wanted to do this project.

They produced a pice of work called echo city, which was part of a competition. It was information about Sheffield and why the deign Republic love Sheffield city. So it's about how in the war architects echoed the city with light in moorlands so German bombers would get confused.

They produced sissy for a cover of an emigre magazine which used lots of layers and things from the city, sissy was a character which was a little girl with a baseball bat.

They produced a an exhibit in Japan which looks awesome and on every wall there was a piece of work. And it was blown up rearlly big to fill each wall and it looks awesome.

Rob Session: Manifesto

A Design Manifesto

We, graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been taught old methods of art and design to produce work to pay the bills not to change the world of art and design. Commercial work has always paid the bills and this belief is taught by teachers. Graphic designers have now let it become, in large a measure, what graphic designers do. This is turn is how the world perceives design. This must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in par, thought the visual languages and resources of design. This will promote new inventions, new methods, a new world of graphic design. Consumerism is taking over the world, we need to challenge this as designers and then keep a balance.

Robs session: Personal Interpretation

We got into groups of 4 and Rob gave us a task of looking at 2 different set of games one was called the beach and the other was the perfect circle. the perfect circle we had to create a circle we thought that was perfect by taking turns but it didnt say when to stop. The beach game we had to create a crowded space with placing dots on the paper and decide when to stop. Following these instructions to create the pieces below. This linked in with the other book i read about a piece of work being open. with the instructions we all interpreted the instructions in our own way and maybe added some more rules to follow by, and even though we all had the same task our outcomes looked completely different. Therefore this task was open but also closed as a set of instructions was already given the interpretation was the openess aspect of the mini project.

The Beach

A Perfect Circle

Client Communication

Communication issues

Sender
Message
Encode
Transmit
Decode
Receive  don't understand or understand

If they understand you can agree accept and store or you can disagree reject and bin it.This links in with buyer information.

When you transmit it sometimes there's noise and interference,

External environment has to be considered for the sender encode decode and receive platforms.
Sender; consider co./ org ethos reason for comma marketing PR advertising.
Encode; consider message package the style tenor or weighting. There's the channels wether product is more then one thing a magazine cinema ambient etc and vehicle
Decode; mood immediate, attitude specific, cultural general affect culture.
Receive; accept behaviour models, no action and action, retain

Go on to BRAD and DCM for talking to people within the industry and magazines books and journals for advertising world and for cinema/ film world.

You need to make sure that we separate people into age groups as there mental behaviour changes, and take into account of the different types of lighting, because when our approach a client the product your producing will be placed in a certain light so you have to be able to pick the right colours for the audience to be able to see the advert or product properly.

Brand Republic it gives you information of what's happening now in branding, advertising, film and media industry.

Crafts arts visual and geometric are what creative people genuinely have in education and our thinking style is holistic lateral synthesis and solution led. We are innovative, diverse and experimental. In client meeting you need to be defiant and confident about why you've created the things you have.