Font 1

El Lissitzky's graphic design work inspired me to design this font style. I am pleased with the overall simple look to the letters, however I feel as though some of the letters could have been neater.


 Font 2

Milton Glaser's work inspired this font style, I like the curves on some of the letters and the colour scheme I used (red and black). The more letters I drew, the harder it was to create new styles on the letters and so I feel like this typeface is too repetitive.


Font 3

Wyndham Lewis' art work inspired my final typography design. He uses a lot of lines in his art work, and I feel these lines could be shown in a font style, I am pleased with the overall idea of the lines in the font, however some of the letter's aren't as successful as others.


Using the timeline in Photoshop, I create this gif. The aim of this was to work with frames and time, you could create an advertisement banner in this style using the same techniques.
I found this process very easy and it took no longer than 5 minutes, if I were to put more time into the gif I could create something much better.

I created a rotoscope of a video from youtube of a man dancing, frame by frame I drew over the figure in a simple stick- man style to show his movements. Half way through the process I realised there was a technique you could use to make the lines neater, and so you can see the difference in the figure. I found this process quite difficult as it was time-consuming and tedious.




This is the tester animation which we used to figure out the speed of each frame movement. 
I created a stop-motion animation using Photoshop. I used the timeline to create frames and drew a different movement on each one. I decided to create an animation of a ladybird flying and being squashed.

                      
Ladybird Animation from Megan Falkingham on Vimeo.
Tim Burton is a film director, producer, artist, writer, and animator. He has created some of my favorite stop-motion animation films; such as Corpse Bride, The Nightmare before Christmas, Frankenweenie, and more. His film style are usually very dark and Gothic, this effect is really interesting to me as it is unique in a children's film.
In my future I hope to have an ability to create successful and creative animations like Tim Burton's. Even his online art gallery is laid out like a strange game,
Tim Burton is my favourite animator by far and he inspires me to become an animator myself.


His drawing style is also very interesting.





Platos cave, also referred to as the Allegory of the Cave, was featured in Plato's book 'The Republic'. In the story, there are some prisoners tied up in a cave with their heads chained so that they can only see the wall in front of them, behind them is a fire and in front of the fire is a walkway, people pass on the walkway with objects. All the prisoners can see are the shadows of the objects, most are distorted, the prisoners only know this life to be true and believe the objects to be the shadows they see. One prisoner is released and see's the reality of life outside the cave, he returns to tell the others but they do not believe him, as their reality is all they know so why would it be any different.

 

This is a good example to use in real life, we only see what we believe to be true, whether it be religion or just everyday life, our own reality could be hidden from us, but if we found out about it, would we carry on as we are?

'The truman show' could also be an example of the hidden reality.
In Peter Weir’s 1998 film The Truman Show, Truman Burbank, (Jim Carey), slowly discovers that his entire life has been fabricated in service of a reality television program. Truman has spent his life in the peaceful idyllic town of Seahaven, until now blissfully unaware that the town exists inside of a giant TV studio, and that he is the main character of a 24-hour reality television show called “The Truman Show”. The entire film is created as though it is a real thing, the opening credits do not feature the real names of the actors, but their names in the film and their character in the tv show (Truman Burbank- as himself).

The uncanny basically means 'the opposite of what is familiar', it is a mixture of the familiar and unfamiliar that we see as being peculiar.
Rick Poynor said that "work showing a strong debt to Surrealism emerges only when a graphic artist or designer appears who is attuned to this way of thinking, dreaming and imagining."
There is a difference between surrealism and the uncanny, for example some images are surreal but not uncanny.


Uncanny= unhomely (German; unheimlich)
Freud says the 'double' is an element in the uncanny, the closer the resemblance, the more we see the difference, and so twins are unsettling to see.


This scene from Woody Allen's film 'Annie Hall' breaks the fourth wall by the main character speaking to the audience. Another character then gets involved and they both argue using the audience as backup, he brings in the Theorist Marshall McLuhan to argue his point and makes the joke "If life were only like this". I find this scene interesting as the man is speaking about film in a  post-modern view, and they bring the post-modern fourth wall into the scene.



Post-modern film is socially constructed, it shows a knowing sense of its own contexuality and a strong awareness of what is in the media at the time, drawing attention to it. In Japanese cinema particularly, the characters transform into something else more often than not. They are almost hybrids and hold a lack of identity. A lot of characters in postmodern film and animation are seen as uncanny. The uncanny refers to the opposite of what is familiar, it is a mixture of the familiar and unfamiliar that is experienced as being peculiar.
The style of playing around with the viewers expectations comes from Brechtian cinema. Brecht was a German poet and playwright who developed a politicized form of theater he called 'epic drama', a style that relies on the audience's reflective detachment rather than emotional involvement.
This clip shows the relationship between the artist and the character, Daffy Duck also speaks directly to the artist but it seems as though he is speaking to the audience. It shows the character's reactions to the different situations he is put in, it also shows how the artist is creating the scenes.

This short film by Mike Jittlov shows hyper-acceleration in the way the main character moves so quickly, it is made up of a number of short clips and images all put together to give the illusion of movement.  The technique goes well with the overall surreal and uncanny look, the music also fits in with his film.


DipDap is a children's TV programme which is a good example of Post-Modernism in animation. The context of the character changes in every scene, however the audience's context does not change. The character is constant and the same in every scene, but you see how it reacts to where it is placed.


Authenticity provides a powerful source of meaning in a secular age, allowing a person a unique personal identity in a world that seems alienating and conformist. This demand for authenticity is one of the most powerful movements in contemporary life.
Andrew Potter however, believes that our fetish for "authentic"lifestyles or experiences is actually a form of exclusionary status seeking. The result, he argues, is modernity's malaise: a competitive, self-absorbed individualism that creates a shallow consumerist society built on stratification that ultimately erodes genuine relationships and society.

Some examples of authentic synonyms and antonyms are; Unique-Common, Original-Copy, True-False, Real-Imitation, Genuine-Counterfeit.

The Copy of and the Original 'Girl with a Pearl Earing' can be used as an example of authenticity.
The copy can be mistaken from the real thing, however you can tell which is the original possibly due to the fact that it was drawn from a real life person, whereas the copy was painted from looking at the Original painting. 



In this episode of The Simpsons, Moe creates a post-modern bar. The reaction of Homer and his friends is similar to how people react to Postmodernism, it is hard to understand and confusing. 'Weird for the sake of weird' id the term Moe uses to explain what Postmodernism is, I find this term very interesting as it is true in a sense, Postmodernism has no real meaning, it is just weird for the sake of being weird.

This style of animation is based on Graphic design, it is repetitive movement of abstract shapes and was created simply for the art. Early abstract 'formalist' animations had emphasis on modernism rather than post-modernism.



The idea of this workshop was for everyone to create a scene from a fairy-tale, we were each given 1 scene out of 30 to create, all starting and ending with a square. My scene is the victim being deceived by the villain. I created the characters using block shapes on illustrator, and animated them using after effects.

Whilst research my first project 'City in flux' I came across this short film based on the city. I think the technique of using stop motion animation of a scene drawn on a wall is interesting, the fact that the wall is within the city itself creates an added effect. Every scene in the animation flows perfectly together and this works very well in sending the message to the person watching. The use of real objects within the film is also inspiring, as it adds the 3D effect to the animation, rather than just looking at the painting on the wall it makes it seem real.

This animation called 'MAN' by Steve Cutts really represents the issue of how humans have used the earth for their own selfish gain, it also expresses the issue of how we destroy everything else with no real purpose. At the end of the animation you see the man sit in his throne, with a crown on his head, thinking he is the king of the world, this is a true representation of humans as a whole, as we believe we are the rulers of earth and can destroy it as we please. I find this animation particularly inspiring when doing my Earth artefact project, as I could take some of the ideas from this and create my own animation representing these issues.


I created this title sequence using after effects and illustrator. I made the type and shapes 3D so that I could rotate them from being side ways on. I could have used a better word and better typography, however for experimenting with the techniques I feel this word worked well. I am pleased with the way my bubbles look, I placed bubble textures inside the bubbles I drew on Illustrator.

This short animation called 'City' by Dmitry Palagin shows how far the idea of the city can be stretched in animation. He creates a scene and brings it to life using digital animation techniques. The twisting and rotation of the camera works well as it gives the impression that you are flying above the city.


Using Adobe Illustrator I created this rocket ship and pear.
I added a wooden texture to the pear to make it odd, as the checkered pattern I added on the rocket ship didn't match either.
My favorite technique was adding the shadows the to objects, it gives it a real 3D look.

Using an image I took in Huddersfield, I showed the decaying process the scene had gone through.
I drew frames of each stage of decay and what I imagined it would look like, I started with the final decay photograph and drew from there.
However when I put the animation together I played it backwards, so that it would show the scene gradually decaying.

Paul Rand-IBM Logo created in 1981
He said that "ideas do not need to be esoteric to be original or exciting" We read the logo as though it says the letters 'IBM' when in fact it has an eye, a bee, and an M.
This can be argued that is it our conscious which has been shaped to see the meanings behind symbols and signs. 



Ferdinand de Saussure came up with the term of 'semiology'. He developed the theory that sounds are signifiers which form words, which are also signifiers. For example; c-a-t/'cat' = signifier
The thing to which it refers is the signified. For example; a cat/ idea of the cat = signified
The two brought together, create the 'sign'.



Using Cinema 4D I created this 3D animation of a spaceship going around the earth. I used a light to show the 3D look of the earth and space ship.


These are some storyboards I created using Illustrator, I screenshot each stage and put them in a sequence.
I looked back at these when creating the final animations and they were very useful as references.




These are some screenshots of my research presented on InDesign.
I found using InDesign for the first time quite difficult to get the hang of, I have been using sketch books up until this brief, once I got used to it I found this process a lot easier to work on.



This is a screenshot of the work in progress of one of my final animations about over-population on Earth. I used Illustrator the create the characters and scenes, and Adobe After Effects to put them together and animate it.
I plan on making a few different animations all related to the negative impact humans have on Earth, and putting them together in a short 'informative', but amusing, animation.

These mind maps were what I used for reference when planning my research and final outcome.
I tried to limit my ideas down so that I would focus more clearly on one aspect of Earth Artifact.



These are some hand drawn storyboards I created when planning my final piece. I gave each one a title and subject to start with so that I could draw my ideas from there.



This is my final animation for the City in Flux project, I was inspired to make a clip about decay using repetitive drawing styles.
Overall I drew out around 70 frames for this animation, I enjoyed the technique however it took a long time to complete.
After scanning the frames onto my computer I put them together using after effects, this was also a lengthy process as I had to re-align them and fit the sound effects in.

I created a short lyric video using after effects.
After choosing two font styles and a quote from a song, I animated each letter so that it all flowed well together.

Using Adobe Illustrator and Adobe after effects, I created this animation of a panda.
This was my first attempt at animating a character on After Effects, I found the process slightly difficult to get the hang of. However, I now feel a lot more comfortable using After Effects and this process taught me a lot.

https://vimeo.com/117503439
Fischinger only worked with non-objective forms in Disney's 'fantasia', he was known as the 'animation wizard who angered Walt Disney and the Nazis'. This animation shows abstract animation at its best in 1945.

 

Powered by Blogger.