COP3 Proposal - ISSUU

Adorno & The Culture Industry - Study Task 3

QUOTES:

• 'This process has not been confined to quantity, but has resulted in new qualities'
• 'seized all media of artistic expression'
• 'amazing parallelism ... even when they have little in common on the surface'
• 'tension is but superficially maintained and is unlikely to have a serious effect anymore'
• 'Everything somehow appears "predestined"'
• 'congealed and standardised'
• '[it has been] reduced to a kind of multiple choice between very few alternatives'

Adorno explains the complete lack of individuality and creative freedom on Television and explains how it's all the same, with the same plot and basic ending, whatever the genre. He also goes on to state that TV effects the audience in a way that people as readers before TV, could 'expect anything to happen' however 'this no longer holds true', suggesting that there is not shock-factor within the audience anymore and it is never achieved.

These concepts might relate to animation in the way that a lot of children's animation is pumped out constantly on TV channels such as CBBC, CITV or Cartoon Network, where the overall narrative never changes. This might involve the story following a young boy/girl unhappy with their home life and then goes out in the world and discovers new magical things, or again young protagonist finds themselves a superpower ect. 

EXAMPLE:

Powerpuff Girls - Three young girls, with superpowers saving their city from evil.

Scooby-Doo - Four teenagers, saving people from paranormal mysteries (evil). 

Here we always know how these animation episodes will end, always with the main characters finding the evil villain and saving the day.

Analysis

The Simpsons is a tv show that has been on everyone's TV at least once and some people quote it as the best TV animated show of all time. The narrative of the Simpsons is usually the same structure, where one of the characters come into a disequilibrium and by the end of episode it is usually resolved, Adorno might add that usually 'everything [is] somehow predestined' (Adorno, 1954:213-35). This may be seen as a way of teaching values to the Simpson's audiences clearly outlining 'what to do and what not to do', however Adorno suggests that having things plainly set out this way repeatedly leaves no room for individuality and instead people are seen to be just following the 'status quo' (Adorno, 1954:213-35). On the contrary, it could be argued that it's not the fault of the producers and writers of the Simpsons, and instead could be down the way that society has developed. Adorno states that TV shows simply 'adapt to the system's own requirements', outlining the need to fit into the social norms that have been created within TV on what people's likes and dislikes are (Adorno, 1954:213-35).

T. Adorno (1954) 'How to look at television', The quarterly of film radio and television, Vol. 8. No.3, pp. 213-35

COP3 - Thinking About a Question!

After reading through the brief I found it quite easy to pick a topic that I liked and I decided to go for society, mainly because I find people fascinating in the way that people's brains work and for what reasons.

I looked at the question: What is Good? - To what extent does Social Responsibility impact on the role and function of Animation?

I like this question a lot as it's quite broad and doesn't really focus on one aspect of what really is social responsibility, although I would possibly like to look into way that animation is usually shown to a lot of children. This led me on to think about why animation is the main medium choice for children's films and media and is becoming more and more increasingly common/popular. I feel it would be really interesting to look into the psychology of children's mind while they are developing at such a young age and how different things can effect the way they think and their perception of things. In COP1 I looked in gender roles in animation and how this effects the minds of children, which I really enjoyed researching and learning about. So, to look even further into this would be really interesting, especially since being an animator so heavily involves working for children audiences.

I also thought about these questions:

• Why is animation the main choice of medium for children's films and media?
• To what extent does animation act as a platform for teaching roles, values and ideals?

I feel that this topic is broad enough for dissertation as it is quite a controversial and researched topic and animation is something that parents may subject their children too without any prior thoughts. Not to say that animation is teaching good or bad to children, however the fact that it is so normalised is quite a bizarre concept.

Animation Artefact - The Final Result - TOUCH

I decided to call my animation 'Touch', I wanted something simple and memorable and this targeted to message between touch screen and real touch. I did multiple takes of some of the scenes so that I could pick the best version in the editing stage, which now I am really happy about as some of the scenes weren't as good as the later versions I shot.

After putting all of the footage I had together all I needed was my final sounds and some of them I recorded myself as this way I could get the exact sounds I wanted and they are mine without copyright. I voice acted the gasp and little 'hmm' at the end of the animation and them sped them up to sound more high pitched. I found that this made them sound really cute and in keeping with the animation. I also put titles on my animation so that it made it more professional and the audience would get the word 'TOUCH' before watching and hopefully this would be thought provoking. 

Below is my final animation!

TOUCH from Stacy Straub on Vimeo.

Overall, I am really happy with the outcome of this animation. I think it went really well and I feel like there is a clear message within the animation like I planned. I now want to get a bit of feedback on it so my next steps are to get some written feedback from my peers and see what message they got from it.

Animation Artefact - Animating!

Animation begins! As I had an animatic ready and a solid storyboard it was really easy for me to just go in and animate straight away without any problems. Below is my little baby on set, I put a diaper made out of tissue on him so that we wasn't naked anymore. Also, I taped down the tea towel the best I could before started to animate to try and prevent movement.




Above is little Jack with his pile of electronics in the process of being animated. The main thing I struggled with, within this animation is the movement of the tea towel, because I wanted a completely tactile set I didn't realise the drawbacks this could have. I had only used a solid set before and not a material based one and there was lots of movement with it even though I wasn't actually touching it that much. I feel that this is one of the negatives you get with using this kind of background and the only thing I could really do would just to be really careful every time I leant on it. Even though there was movement, this is one of the main charms/flaws that happen within stop-motion, and one of the things I explored within my essay. So, when looking back at the footage and seeing these flaws it makes me think now that it could even contribute further to the ideas I explored in my essay and the message I am trying to convey within this animation. I am really happy with the way that the scenes have turned out and below is a little preview of one of the scenes. I can't show any moving footage yet as I have to export everything as an image sequence to then put together in Premiere to ensure I get high quality frames.

Animation Artefact - Finalising Props & Background

I started out by creating the little teddy bear for this animation which was so tiny! Luckily I have small hands so I managed it, but it wasn't easy to make. I made him out of wool as I wanted him to be a completely different texture to my main character. I began by cutting two balls of foam and a tiny piece of wire and I wanted him to be quite sturdy, so this was his base.










Next I glued an put together his body before I began with the needlefelting and as you can see compared to my hand he was very, very small. The main thing I struggle with was his arms and legs as there was so little foam to poke the wool into it was hard to get the arm to go together without the foam falling apart.


















Eventually, after lots of struggling with tiny arms and a leg, he came out really well! I made a plasticine version before this as you can see in my animation tests, however he looks so much nicer in felt.











Next, I began making the tiny iPads and laptops. These again were very small, however they weren't as hard to craft. Below is a tiny iPad, I made quite a few of these.

Then I made some tiny laptops.

Here is some of the electronics with the bear, I did make a few more so that the pile would completely cover him for the animation.

Next, I had to get a background! Originally, I was going to get a baby blanket, but I felt this would be a waste as I would never use it again! So, I instead bought some microfibre tea towels, that are really soft looking and I found pink ones! So, I could use this in the future as well as for my animation. I tested the colours mainly pink with white stripes and white with pink stripes as these were the different patterns I had.

I decided on pink with white stripes was better as the white background seemed a bit off with the skin colour of the baby and the pink made him stand out more.

So, now with all my props made and background sourced, I am ready to animate!

Animation Artefact - Storyboarding and Animatic

Before going on to creating my animation I needed a storyboard and animatic to follow, even though the animation is quite short. I still felt it was necessary as I needed to know the timings for shots before working out how many frames were needed. I found creating the storyboard to be quite easy as I had a solid idea of what I wanted to do and the narrative was really simple.


I tried to make the shots as simple as possible as it is a stop-motion animation and with the facilities available there can't be too much camera movement. With the zooms I am going to fix these in post-production and shoot them all in wide shot. I really want to play on the textures in this animation, and after the peer review I am now on the lookout for a fuzzy cute backdrop to contrast with the plasticine I am using for the baby and the electronics.

Above is the animatic I came up with before going into animate. I thought a lot about the sound for this animation and I decided that it would be most effective if there wasn't any music and instead was just a room ambience and this works better. I want to use a textural soundscape within this animation so that it accentuates the message of the tactile nature of stop-motion. For example, I am planning on making him stroke the bear once he pulls it out and I want a foley sound of material rubbing on itself to make the bear seem even more realistic. I feel that by using sound in this way it will really help to bring the animation more to life instead of sticking some music over the top. Even though the animatic is 15 seconds, I don't feel like my final animation will be this long as I have left some long pauses in the zooms, which may come out a little shorter in post. I'm really happy with the way that it has turned out and now my next steps are to begin animating!