I am happy with the final outcome for this project and feel that it answers the brief, however due to time restrictions I was unable to experiment as much as I would have liked. The restriction of not being able to use images was difficult and the lines between what is classed as an image is hard to define. For example the dripping. I was unsure as to wether it out count as an image because it is technically the dot on the letter 'I'.
The parts of this project that I think went well are the effects and style of the animation. Having tried using stop motion this would not have been an appropriate style for this project. This is because it is not as clean cut and I feel it would have confused the narrative. However there are some parts of the project that I don't think worked, for example some of the sound effects. It was hard to show the dog licking the hand which is a key element in this narrative, and maybe adding some text to this sound effect may have helped to further show what was happening. I would like to revisit this project in the future and maybe try to show a different narrative as this allowed me to really focus more on the sound effects and other aspects that are usually secondary in my animations.
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Initially I began making an animation that showed all of the key points in the story with a few extras. However after watching it back, I decided that because of the length and pieces of information that weren't vital to the story it became confusing and unclear what was going in. I then decided to cut it down so only the key information was shown. This then led to a shorter animation that I feel is a better representation of the story. To work out which style of animation I am going to use for this project I needed to try a few techniques / styles of animation to see which is the most fitting.
The techniques that I tries were to use stop motion and to digitally make the animation. I think that the latter is the most appropriate as it it clear and looks cleaner. This method also allows me the most control over the output that I create.
Bob and Roberta Smith approaches his projects in a playful way. Encompassing bright colours into artwork that makes you feel uncomfortable. Working with mostly typography only this playful approach could be a good way to approach this project. I especially like that in the last image it look similar to a ransom note. Since my narrative is about a murderer that has escaped I could easily tie in this approach.
I wanted to explore how type can give a sense of character / story. To do this I went to 'Art Of The Title' - a website that allows you to view the opening title to various films and tv programmes. This was a great website to look at because I was able to find some title sequences that were made up of typography only so I could see how they still gave a feel for the theme of the show without using imagery.
Olly Moss is an English artist best known for his work on reimagineing movie posters. Using screen printing to create his designs, they often feature bright / bold colours. I found it particularly useful to look at his work because the whole concept behind this project is to reimagine the narrative that we are working with. This is something he does with his movie posters. He still tells the same story by from a different perspective / angle. I also like the simplicity in his designs and how it in no way affect the telling of the narrative. This is something that I hope to achieve within my animation.
A film director and artist, Tim burton often makes films that are dark, gothic and take place in a fantasy world. This is the kind of approach that I want to take to create my animation. Although he works mainly with illustration I think that the style that he adopts within his work is something that could be carried over into my animation. I like that his designs seem free and are not confined by the edges of the page. They also include a lot of detail which is something that could be beneficial to this project (looking at how much detail is necessary to convey the story). This loose style of working could be an interesting way to look at this project.
Paula Rego is a Portuguese artist who does a lot of work involving story book characters. Some of her most famous paintings include Snow White, Little Miss Muffet and Jack and Jill. The collection of images that she made regarding this topic focus on nursery rimes as well as fairy tales and can be found here. In these images, Rego takes the basic story and reinvents them in a dark and surreal way. This is similar to what we have to do in terms of reimagining the story. I think that these images work well because there are key features such as the blue and yellow dress in 'Swallows the Poisoned Apple' that help us to identify which story is being portrayed. This is something that I will have to think about when making my animation (which sounds and words can I pick out to help portray the story effectively?). There are many ways that type can be used to tell a story, whether thats the way in which it moves across or on a page, the sequence of the words, the pace, the punctuation used or any sound effects that accompany it. These are the main ways that I will be looking at when making my animation, with a specific focus on sound effects and movement. This is because I feel they are the most important, and when done correctly can help to convey the story in the most effective way. Below are some examples that I found of stories told with only sound.
After researching into kinetic type and storytelling I think the sound effects that I use within my animation will be as important as the typography if not more because they help the viewer to form a better visual idea of what is going on in the story. I wanted to look deeper into some examples of urban legends. By doing this I am hoping that I will be able to identify the common features between the most popular ones. This will then enable me to focus on those features when making my animation. I found a list of the 10 most popular urban legends. In this article it lists the top 10 urban legend and gives a brief description of the storyline. I found this useful because of the amount of legends that are out there. I also found a few other websites that had lists like this and it was interesting to see just how many of the stories overlapped between them. The 3 most common features that appeared are:
Half way through this project we were given the opportunity to peer assess each others work. To help us with this we were given the above sheet to fill out. The questions made us think about how far we had gotten with the project and what we needed to do to complete it on time. They also related back to the learning outcomes and made us think of specific examples within our work that showed we were working towards them. After this we got together and briefly explained the narratives that we were using as well as discussing anything that we were unsure about. I found this really helpful because it enabled me to think about the different ways in which I could approach this project.
This is an urban legend about a murderer that escaped from prison. An unknowing woman goes to bed and hands her hand over the edge so that her dog could lick it. She is woken up in the night by a dripping sound so goes downstairs to check all of the taps. Seeing that nothing is dripping she goes back to bed. A few hours later she is woken up by the dripping again. This time she decides to check the bathroom taps. She gets up and turns on the bathroom light and sees her don hanging in the shower, with blood dripping from its torn up torso. Written on the mirror in blood is the phrase 'Humans Can Lick Too!'
I think this urban legend is a good one to use for this project because it is not that well known and has many key features and elements that I could pull out to create my animation out of. Looking into the origins of this urban legend, I found some other examples that incorporated similar key features such as the writing on the wall and murder. One of the most similar is 'Aren't You Glad You Didn't Turn on the Light?'. Although the exact dates of the first times this story was told is unknown, a printed version was made in 1871. Dr. Joseph M. Stubbersfield (Durham University), who analyses stories such as this one pointed out that these stories become popular and spread easily because they are not that far from the truth (your dog could be a person and that you should never take your safety for granted). Like with any urban legend or story similar to this one, that are spread by word of mouth, there are many variants of it. For example instead of a murderer it's an ex boyfriend, instead of a dog it's a person living with a partner who in the morning is someone completely different or the murderer being found when the womans boyfriend returns and finds him hiding somewhere in the house (under the bed, in the closet or in the basement). With some of the variations only having minor differences, the position of the writing changing from the bathroom wall / mirror / floor to the bedroom, or with different severities of how the dog was killed. After researching further into this urban legend I think that it would be the ideal story to use for this project. The goat man is an urban legend in which a creature (with the head and legs of a goat but body of a human), who wields an axe, feeds on animals and kills teenagers, hitchhikers, and couples who visit the woods where he resides. The goat man was created when a scientist who was experimenting on goats, did an experiment that backfired, mutating him. Since this time there have been multiple reported sightings of the Goat Man. This could be a great story to use for this project because of the amount of information available about it. Between all of the sightings of the Goat Man and the variations of the stories online there are many angles that I could approach this story from. It could be interesting to tell this story from the perspective of someone that is visiting the woods and sees him.
I wanted to explore the concept of type being used as imagery. This is something that could help my to better tell my narrative. The questions I am looking to answer by exploring this are:
Whilst looking for examples of this I came across this website that had a series of images made out of the names of illnesses / disorders that I think illustrate just how effectively type can be used as imagery. The four examples that I have put below are the ones which I think are the best examples of this. This is a concept that could be used to improve / enhance my narrative. The idea of the words acting as images is an interesting concept and the ways in which I could integrate this into my animation are endless.
https://www.boredpanda.com/mental-disorders-in-typography/ When looking for examples of kinetic typography I noticed that a lot of them were similar in style. This sale works effectively to convey the stories of these animations but after a while it feels a bit repetitive. This is why for my animation I will try to stay away from this style.
I also found some examples that felt a lot more engaging because of the effects and styles used as well as the audio. Each video has a different point that makes it stand out from the others. Whether that be the type interacting with its environment or it seeming to be more handwritten and personal in the way that it moves.
I also wanted to look into fables because I like the idea of being able to have a moral or lesson that is portrayed within my work. One of the most told fables that I can remember as a child is the Tortoise and the Hare. In which the Hare was boasting how fast he can go and challenged the other animals to a race. The Tortoise accepted and the Hare laughed at him. When the race began the Hare disappeared into the distance and decided to take a nap. When he awoke the Tortoise was nearing the finish line and the hare could not catch up. The moral of the story was 'slow and steady wins the race.' Each of the fables in Aesop's book has a moral at the end and most of them use animals to convey the message in a way that children understand. These fables are defiantly a possibility for the basis of my animation. I also looked at pervious animations that had been made surrounding fables. Although I had the initial inclination to base my animation on an urban legend I wanted to explore other types of stories to see if any caught my attention or would be a better fit for the brief. When we were going over this project we talked about how to pick out key aspects of a story that makes it recognisable. This is a method that works particularly well with fairytales. To explore this I have taken six well known fairy tales and picked an image that I best thought represented them. I then asked people to guess the story I chose and the majority of people were able to guess correctly. Since I can only use text within my animation I wanted to try to add a description to each of the images above. Below each picture are the words that I have associated with it. By doing this I feel like it will help me to better pick out the key points within the story that choose to portray.
The outcome of this project will be a motion graphics piece that uses only kinetic typography to convey the story. I think this will be difficult to do in a way that isn't the overused style of kinetic typography that you see everywhere. This is also made more difficult by the fact that I can not use images within my piece.
Immediately when reading the brief I was drawn to the idea of basing my outcome on an urban legend. I feel that this could be a fun way to play around with the different ways I can make type move. Overall I think this project will be a fun way to experiment and become more familiar with After Effects. |
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May 2018
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