Brief 3: Disseminate

For our third brief within Personal, Professional Practice, we are expected to conduct a research task in which we choose a topic (animation related) and create a 10 minute presentation on the findings of our research to our peers. The point of this task is improve our confidence when giving presentations and to improve our confidence in our work and ideas. Personally, I feel that this will be an extremely beneficial task for me, as I am quite shy when it comes to explaining my ideas to a group.

For this presentation I am going to research stop motion animation, in particular, stop motion animation using puppets/ models, as this is the area of animation I am most interested in at the moment. I also really like the fact that the models are hand made and that so much time and effort goes into the making of the models, but I also like the effort that goes into making the animation itself overall.

For this brief I will try to look at a range of animations created this way and I will also look at companies that focus on using this technique such as Aardman studios and Laika.

Ryan Woodward: Thought of You

This short animation wasn't something I found myself, in fact I wasn't even researching any animations when I came across this beautiful piece of work. But it IS a beautiful piece of work. In particular I really love the way that movement is dealt with in this animation. I find that it flows very smoothly, which is something that I really want to be able to achieve in my work. I also really like the success of the exaggeration within the movements. 

Not only do I love the flow of this animation I also really like the overall aesthetic, particularly the way he hasn't spent too much time on making his drawings neat by erasing the lines that cross over. Overall, I feel that this is a beautiful little piece of work and it demonstrates good use of the 12 principles of animation well and is a good example of the effectiveness of simple mark making. 

Copyright ©

Copyright is something I have never really paid attention to as it seems like a very confusing, complicated legal system. However, after hearing about what it protects and how it works it doesn't seem all that difficult until you get into the serious stuff, such as claiming copyright infringement and so on.

So on a basic level, in the UK copyright is automatic (you don't actually ave to do anything for your work to be copyrighted), which I didn't know and it's pretty sweet that I don't have to worry about it that much, however, we have been advised to place the little copyright logo in the corner of all our work, just so we can prove it is our work, as this can be tricky due to copyright being an automatic thing.

In terms of who owns the copyright to a piece of work is all dependent on the situation and whether the person creating the work is working on a contract or being paid or not. For example if you create a drawing, a piece of music, literary, etc then the creator automatically owns the copyright to that piece of work. However, if it's a film then the principle director and/ or the producer own the copyright if it's a joint effort. If you work for a company then they own the copyright to any work you create for them. You can also buy and sell the copyrights to a piece of work but for it to be effective it must be transferred legally.

You still with me?

The duration of a copyright is actually quite impressive. For artistic works the copyright duration lasts your entire life plus an additional 70 years once you've passed away. For music and sound recordings it is only 70 years from the recording date.

When wanting to use other people's work for your own (bear with me this is when I begin to get confused too) you have to ask permission to use it, as they own the copyright to that piece of work. In all circumstances it is probably best to ask permission to use the work, which can be done by contacting the owner or organisation of the work. However, if it is being used for educational purposes permission may not be needed but YOU SHOULD ASK ANYWAY.

So far I understand that copyright is a really useful law that helps to protect your work from being used by others. However it is still confusing as there are many different types of copyright now available. The most common alternative is Creative Commons. This is a non-profit organisation that provides a legal framework to share and remix legally. There are many different types of copyright under this organisation that allow you to control how people share and use your work. And again this is a really useful form of copyright, as it allows you to share your work without losing the acknowledgement of creating it in the first place.

Overall, copyright is a confusing business and it still baffles me a little but I am confident that I know where I stand when it comes to copyrighting my work and how to go about protecting my work correctly.

Waking Sleeping Beauty

In last weeks PPP session we watched a documentary on the downfall and the rise of Disney animation called Waking Sleeping Beauty. First thing, if you're an animator or are thinking of pursuing animation at all then WATCH THIS! It's amazing. I really loved the way it went through how difficult animation can be but at the same just how equally amazing it can be. It highlighted just how tough it is too although surprisingly this just wanted me to be an animator even more.

The documentary follows Disney through their first big animation, their not so successful animations to their rise again. Obviously growing up with Disney films as a child it came as a big shock to me that Disney were once a failing company that dragged themselves through the mud to be where they are today but I really enjoyed seeing behind the scenes of their great animations that I grew up. As often with most animations the actual animators get no real deserving credit for their work and the effort they put into creating what they do is very rarely appreciated by an audience, and it was really nice to see the hard work, effort and hours that are put into each animation. This has increased my appreciation for the time an effort even the shortest animation takes to create greatly and it has made me think about the time and effort I need to put into my work if I want it to be to the best of my ability.

Overall, a really bog eye opener to the industry of animation that I feel greatly fortunate to have seen,as I feel that it will help me to appreciate my work more and put more effort into each piece of work I do.

Reflective and Evaluative Tips

Tuesday's PPP presentation was all about how to improve your critical thinking and reflecting skills. So basically we went through tips on how to make our blog writing stronger in terms of how we address the important factors that we took away from a certain task, brief or presentation. These tips were:

Do's:

• Review your work ALL THE TIME, and get others to review your work too.You might like it but they might not.
• Talk about the positive things about your work. What went well? What are you happy with?
• I things didn't go so well, what would you improve next time?
• Explain your judgments and choices. Remember people reading your blog CAN'T read your mind.
• Context. Again people aren't mind readers.
• What knowledge did you gain from the experience? What knowledge or belief changed because of the experience? 
• What was challenging? 
• What lectures, research or practitioners related to your experience?
• What opportunities opened up for you?

Don't's:

• Write your blog like a diary. Think of this as a digital extension of a sketchbook.
• Only focus on the negatives.
• BE AFRAID TO EXPERIMENT! Things might go wrong, SO WHAT! Blog about it and learn from it.
• Waffle. Be concise nobody enjoys reading waffle.

I found this presentation really useful and almost like a presentation guide book. I feel that it will help me to create stronger blogs that are more informative to the reader and that explain my ideas better. 

So I'm a Nurturer...?

In Tuesdays PPP lecture we were analysing ourselves in two different ways. The first was task was to determine which personality type we had. We did this by looking at a list of characteristics and certain factors such as, if we felt we were an introvert or extrovert, sensing and intuition etc. The four letters that were created from your choices were what made up our unique personality types - I was "ISFJ". Although I found that some of the characteristics related to this personality type matched my own personal behavior, I found that the choices were extremely situation-based and I struggled to choose the characteristics most relevant to me, as most of them would apply to me depending on the situation I was in. However it was interesting to hear the kind of behaviors I am prone to do in certain situations. For example, being an introvert means I am more likely to be quiet and keep to myself. This could be a problem when presenting and I should consider ways to try and avoid this when I have to do presentations.

The second task was to to rate certain factors (family and home, relationships, finance, etc) on a scale of one to ten. Despite this task also being inaccurate as the results were affected by the mood I was in that day, I found this task a lot more enlightening, as it gave me an insight into which aspects of my life were balanced and which ones needed improvement. This task made me think about my life as a whole and has made me reflect upon which aspects of my life need more attention and which ones could do with a little less attention.

Who am I? Why am I here? What do I want to learn?

Why did I choose to study on this programme?

Having little knowledge of what to expect from university, as I am the first in the family to go, I was confused about where I wanted to go but knew I would prefer to stay close to home so Leeds was an option that constantly sat at the back of my mind. After attending an open day I was immediately drawn in not just by the course but also by the tutors and the overall atmosphere of the university. Being completely afraid and overwhelmed by the idea of making such an important decision when visiting other universities, I felt little of this anxiety and pressure when considering Leeds, which for me, was a very important factor for a place where I'd be studying for three years. Also, the university wasn't too big with it being a place dedicated to the arts and the area was somewhere I was vaguely familiar with. The course details sounded good and the fact that the group would be small made me favour it more, as it meant that there would be a good teacher:student ratio, meaning there is more room for support and guidance from tutors.

Leeds had won me over by miles. 

What do I want to learn during my time on the programme?

Not really knowing what aspect of animation I want to specialise in presently, I really want to explore new techniques and processes, as well as develop on techniques I have already touched upon. At the moment I am particularly excited about experimenting with digital animation, yet I am also equally interested in learning how stop motion works in more detail. Moving away from the technical side of animation, I am also equally both excited and extremely nervous about learning how to work as and with a group to produce a collaborative piece. With me being quite shy and only recently emerging from my 'shell' I am curious as to how I will respond to these situations. 

I also want to learn the history behind animation and the processes of how a successful animation is created. 

What skills do I think are my strengths?

I'd say that my strongest skill would be drawing, as I have had the most practice with it. In particular I feel that I am strongest when working in pencil and coloured pencil although recently I have explored working with different mediums and found that in most cases I'm okay with them. 

Another skill that I have is that I'm a good listener (cringing at how cliche that is). I feel that this is going to be extremely beneficial to me throughout this course, as it means I will listen to others' comments and take them on board in order to improve my techniques and practices. 

What things do I want to improve?

Although I feel that my drawing skills are good I'd like to improve them even further. Not only that but I'd like to improve on the skills that I have only briefly touched upon such as, stop motion animation, digital animation, and techniques I've yet to explore. I'd also like to improve on my confidence skills particularly in the area of presentation and communication,  as at the moment I feel that I lack the ability to convey my ideas coherently to a group.
Researching is something I'd also like to improve by pushing myself to research across a range of sources rather than just staying with the sources I'm comfortable with.

What ways will I evaluate my progress?
I intend to evaluate my work through a lot of different ways. One of those ways will be through having critiques with my peers and other students, as this will give me an insight into how others perceive my work. I will also conduct written evaluations during my modules in order to see how my ideas and experiments are working. On top of this I will keep a reflective journal, in which I'll record my thoughts on my work, ideas and lectures and seminars for each day. I will also blog in response to lectures and other lessons in order to keep track of my progress and my own personal development. Overall, all of these seperate evaluation techniques will give me a good insight into what is working well for me and which experiments to pursue.