Ronnie Leah, BA (Hons) Computer Animation Arts, UCA Rochester.

 As inspiration for my project, I watched the series called Love Death + Robots. Love Death + Robots is a digitally animated anthology series which spans genres and explores ideas represented by the title. The stories are dominated by their striking art styles, which help lead the direction and themes of the animated short. I watched a  few episodes which seemed relevant to my project, focusing on how the story is told, how characters are designed and how the world is presented to offer additional insight for the story.  Zima Blue I wanted to revisit this animation as I really liked its art style. It uses abstract shapes and bright colours to build the world. It does this with a blend of 2D and 3D, using wide shots to display the scale of the environment. I like the use of silhouettes as it puts emphasis on the environment, while still displaying the characters emotions as the focus. The story follows an artist as his work becomes grander and grander as he tries to identi...

With the early implementation of cinema, there was very little control or censorship, over what films contained/showed. This lead to many offensive displays being shown to the public, with no little to no consequences on behalf of the producers of such films. In 1922 something was done in order to prevent offensive material being displayed to the public. A set of rules was implemented within the film industry known as the Hays code. After recognising the state in which the industry was in, Hay's code was developed to tackle many of the issues seen in cinema. The c ode prohibited profanity, suggestive nudity, graphic or realistic violence, sexual persuasions and rape. It had rules around the use of crime, costume, dance, religion, national sentiment and morality. In effect, the world of TV and film became a place of over censorship. Although the code wasn't strictly enforced, it was preeminent between the 1930's all the way up to the 60's. In 1965 Hay's Code was aban...

 Today I was introduced to the idea of story vs plot. This idea explains that story and plot present themself as being very similar, when in actuality they are two different things.  Story is all about who, what and where Who is involved within the narrative What conflict may they be facing Where is the narrative located Plot refers to how, when, why How the main character is presented with the conflict When the narrative takes place within the characters life Why the character is confronted with the conflict and how they react the way they do The plot dictates where the direction of the story goes as it is the reason for the event taking place. The plot is what happens within the story. For this reason it is important to frame the plot Plot frames are a tool which help to identify the focus of the story. By framing your plot it helps to identify what the protagonists goal or objective is and define the main conflicts within the story.  Their are 12 different plot frames ...

 Today I was briefed on Non-Linear Narrative story telling. This is when a film plays with the expectation of the audience, by reshuffling events within a story, in order to engage them with the narrative. This is the opposite of traditional storytelling, which is usually told in a linear format, meaning all events present to the audience is in the correct order (the is no time displacement). Non linear makes use of peoples expectations of the traditional style, using out of order events in order to structure its narrative.  The displacement of time can be introduced in a variety of different way including: Flash back/forward - An interjected scene that takes the narrative backwards or forwards in time, in order to add coherency to the narrative. This flashback can be internal or external. If internal then event seen will be within narrative, with external being outside of the narrative, e.g Childhood. Deux Ex Machina - God out of the machine. The story is resolved by an unexp...

Today I was introduced to different narrative structures in storytelling. Below are my notes taken in the lecture. I first looked at Aristotle's classic 3 act structure. This consists of the following; Act 1 - Introduction Act 2 - Where most of the action takes place Act 3 - Everything comes together, a resolve Act 1 is the setup - who, what, where and the introduction to the conflict. Act 2 spends the time developing the conflict. Act 3 resolves the conflict, tying up any other loose ends in the narrative. If you plan to make a sequel to the film, you are able to leave certain plot points unresolved.  The traditional way to structure a story is by making the beginning 25%, the middle 50% and the end 25%. In modern-day interpretations of the Aristotle structure, the percentages are moved around in order to create a slightly different narrative. This makes the film seem more interesting as it strays away from the traditional, making certain points in the plot unexpected. The Syd Fie...

 Today I learnt about character archetypes and how they are involved in narrative artforms. Archetypes in there simplest for, can be summarized as a set of traits that are specific and identifiable to a character. "Archetype" means original pattern in ancient Greek I leant about the 12 Jungian archetypes. Jung used the concept of archetypes in his theory of the human psyche. He believed that 12 universal characters archetypes reside in out collective unconscious. He believed that the 12 primary types are the motivation which humans use to justify how they act. Each human tends to have one dominant of the twelve archetypes which defines our personality.  These 12 archetypes can then be further divided up into 4 of the motivations: Ego - leave a mark on the world Order - provide structure to the world Social - connects to others Freedom - yearn for paradise A combination of the two above create the main archetypes seen below.     The Hero:  The hero is the pr...

Today I was introduced to Joseph Campbell and his idea of the heroes journey. Joseph Campbell believed there were 3 key stages to the heroes journey and identified them as the departure, the initiation and the return. Each of these segments can then be broken up into smaller steps which follow the theme of each respected segment (see image below). Campbell believed this to be a common template for any story which involves a hero, which can be applied to Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone. After taking notes of the films plot, I then began assigning what I thought were the appropriate scene, to fit Campbell's 17 steps. For some of the steps you could argue that there are multiple points in the narrative which match up as well as some of the steps taking place slightly out of order.  The Call To Adventure Character gets opportunity to venture from normality - In Harry Potter, Harry receives a letter to join Hogwarts, a school for becoming a wizard. This is out of the ordinary fo...

 I decided to refer back to the brief after investigating evolution. On the brief it states that you should " demonstrate your ability to interpret, transcribe and represent complex ideas in engaging and dynamic ways".  In order to understand how I can effectively do this, I wanted to watch the film Fantastic Voyage which the unit is based on. Fantastic Voyage is about a submarine full of a crew, shrunken down to a microscopic size and injected into the bloodstream of a scientist. The goal of the film is to reach the brain in order to prevent the scientist from dying from a blood clot. The film came out in 1966, however did not seem too dated. I think this was mainly due to the use of practice props which helped give an authenticity to the film. The story follows Grant, a hired bodyguard and his experience along with the crew of scientist as they travel through the human body. As the viewers are most likely not scientist, Grant acts as a good tool to educate the audience so t...

 Another film which I thought would help to trick the audience is Fight Club. Fight Club is one of my favourite films as it does this effect so well. I re-watched the film in order to get a fresh idea of what its about and to pay closer attention since I now knew what the twist would be. Fight club is centred around the character Tyler Durden (known as The Narrator as he is never specifically named) and his desire to leave his endlessly boring life. The Narrator has extremely bad insomnia, meaning he spends most of his nights awake and lives his day like a zombie. He describes himself as feeling numb. To counter this he begins going to daily recovery circles for life threatening illnesses he doesn't have as he likes the feeling of being around other lost souls. This is where he meets the character Marla. The two go back and forth with The Narrator saying they cant both go to the support circles at the same time as they are both liar, so they decide to split days.  As part of T...

 After watching Shutter Island, I wanted to further investigate films which trick the audience in order to see how different directors execute the idea. This lead me to investigate the 2019 film Joker, based on the famous DC Comics supervillain. I wanted to investigate this film as it is a full character study. There are only really 3 main actors throughout the film, with the primary character Arthur Fleck (played by Joaquin Phoenix) being in every single scene. This is important to the plot because of what type of film it is.  The film Joker is Todd Philips depiction of the origin story of the comic book character The Joker. This itself was very controversial as one of the key points about The Joker is the fact that he has no origin. He is just the unstoppable force which rises up to counter Batman's force of justice.  The film is set in a 1981 Gotham city. Based on what is seen throughout the film you learn that this city is under major stress from the battle betwe...

 In order to understand how to portray my character in a more believable way, I decided to look at similar stories in which the character is an unreliable narrator. A prime example of this is the film Shutter Island.  Shutter Island Plot Summary The film is centred around detective Teddy Daniels as he investigates the mysterious Shutter Island in order to locate a missing patient, Rachel Solando. Teddy is trying to deal with the murder of his wife and has reason to believe Andrew Ladus is on the island as well, the man who murdered her. As the film progresses so does the mystery of not only the missing patient but also the island itself. As Teddy continues his investigation he becomes more and more suspicious of those around him, to the point in which he turns out of control in an attempt to escape their capture. The film ends with the realization that Teddy and Andrew are one in the same and Teddy was submitted to the institute after murdering his wife. The guilt from his tim...