Lecture 4: Chronologies and Print

With like the majority of the information I receive in lectures, I'm not sure what to do with the very little I learnt in today's lecture. Not saying that it was bad or wasn't interesting, I'm just very confused with what I have been told. The gist of what I got was that Print was a more effective way of communicating over speech, and this was demonstrated by a large scale game of "Chinese Whispers". A message was passed around throughout so many people that it eventually got distorted and we ended up with information that was different to what was originally passed out. Whereas printed messages don't have the ability to distort, so everyone is going to get the same message without confusion. Because of this we can assume that Print and documentation & communication is correct and factual. There is no tone of voice and there is "no way" for the message to change.

I also got from the lecture that the invention of the Linotype Machine was a huge thing. Before Lino printing newspapers would be less than 8 pages long because of the length of time it took to create them. The Linotype allowed for people to document instantly, allowing for information to be accurate. There wasn't time for the information to be passed around and become distorted.

This is the part of the lecture that I got really confused at, simply because I know nothing about Politics, and things like democracy, consumerism and propagandas. But basically I think print became a method of manipulating people, especially around the time of the war. People great in wealth and authority would have access to equipment and so they could have a massive impact, and they did. They were able to produce posters that attempted to recruit individuals, in a light that made it seem that the war was going to be a great thing. They were able to manipulate people as people were still under the impression  that printed information must be true, whereas now-a-days we are more skeptical, especially with people being able to post what they like on social media sites, etc.

To summarise, I realise that Print was/is a very powerful invention and that we can take print to be more factual and correct than information that is just passed around.

Seminar 2: Genre

Today's CoP seminar was about Genre, and it's role within animation and cinema. We discussed briefly about the definitions of Genre (It is a categorisation of film, that can often become deficient and contradictory but can be useful to think how particular narrative structures work within different genres) and whether we thought it was useful or not…

My answer to this is yes and no. I think it's great that it can give you an insight to what the film or animation is going to be about, and can give you an idea about the narrative, but by putting a label on it - for example 'Sci-Fi' or 'Romance' - you will judge it before you even know what it's about. You immediately link it to other films of that genre, and make a snap judgement. You could also associate the genre with the 'fan bases' of a certain film or show within it and the stereotypes that are associated with them. For instance, "Trekkies" or "Whovians". You could think of them as stereotypical 'geeks' and be put off by the whole genre just for that reason, when you could actually really enjoy the content of the films. Just because movies have been put into the same categories, doesn't mean they are all going to follow certain stereotypes.

I also think that it's not that helpful in the sense that people will have different options on what certain films should be categorised as, and that genres can over-lap and be hard to differentiate between. For instance Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Now this maybe just me again being ignorant, but I think genre can be quite an subjective concept, and individuals may have different options on what features fall under what genre. I know I do. I think we should take genre less seriously, and use it quite loosely to describe animations and films, especially as the film industry is forever changing and how we perceive genre is changing alongside it. Something that once could have been considered a horror could now be viewed as a comedy, due to society and 'norms' evolving.

I think Paul Wells makes a very good point when he says "It is more useful to think of the ways in which particular narrative structures or values work within genres, or in the case we are addressing, within animations as a form." From this he proposed that there are seven generic plots/genres which I thought were very accurate; Formal (that the animated form is more important, and that the narrative or thematic concerns test and extend the aesthetic and technical parameters of said animated form), Deconstructive (Premises of own construction for comic or critical effect), Political (using the medium to make moral, ethical or political statements), Abstract (exploring new techniques to facilitate non-objective works, and resisting traditional conventions), Paradigmatic (pre-determined conditions of it's own making as the foregrounded terms of it's construction), Primal (defines and explores a specific emotion, feeling or state of consciousness) and finally Re-narration (The re-interpretation of established myths, fairy tales and stories)

I think I have rambled long enough now, so to summarise I think genre is a great thing as we can easily categorise animations and films, but I think we should take the label less seriously. Just because the film may seem to be aimed at children doesn't mean that it can't be enjoyed by adults. Heck, a lot of kids shows are actually quite dark and have adult themes, Tom and Jerry being a good example. In particular this episode:

So yeah. I'm done. 

Ruka by Jiri Trnka (1965) and Surogat by Dusan Vukotic/Zagreb Film (1961)

Right, I don't really know where to start with this BAD BOY, so apologies if I waffle.

Following on from our CoP Seminar featuring that utter train wreck of an album cover, we were shown two animations, as mentioned in the title.
The first was Ruka (or 'The Hand' in English) by Jiri Trnka. We weren't told anything about the animation before hand, other than the year it was released, and we just had to see what we made of it.

 

Ruka - Jiri Trnka (1965)

Oh my days did this make me feel uncomfortable. It was just so dark, and really frustraiting that the hand couldn't just leave the poor guy alone. To begin with I thought this could have been a metaphor (is that the right word to use here?) for depression, as the hand seemed to be getting on top of him, and stopping him from caring for his plant, something he deeply cared about. The hand was there at every turn and was beginning to control his life. The man kept trying to get away from it and hide, but he could never seem to do so, and it made me feel that he was losing a battle with a mental illness. It seemed quite likely as well, as there was nothing beyond the room he was in, so it could have symbolised how he felt trapped or isolated. The only thing that changed my mind was how he was then made to do work for the hand, and the coffin at the end. It seemed too ceremonial for me, and made me think that maybe this animation could actually be representing how people were forced to battle in the war, in particular World War II. Whereas I thought this could have been a possiblity, the dates were a little out. 

Having done a little research I found that the animation was supposedly based on how Czechoslovakian artists were treated at the time by the government, and how they weren't given the freedom to do things they loved. It was also suggested to be based on the Prague Spring and other things that I don't understand because I know nothing about communism and politics and what not.

With that being said, lets move onto the next animation...

 

Surogat - Dusan Vukotic/Zagreb Film (1961)

I found this to be generally more cheery, and I didn't feel ridiculously uneasy whilst watching it, but having said this I still prefer the first. It was more emotional and powerful, and I think it conveyed it's message very well (even if I didn't grasp it right away). I also think the overall style of the animation was greater. With that being said, I think the simplisty and quirkiness of this animation suits it well, and helps to entertain the audience, which is what I'm guessing it set out to do. Yes, it had some strong themes of jealousy and supposedly "love" (which to me seems unlikely, as he'd only just met the lass, and only favoured her because of her figure), but it doesn't seem to have an underlying message, which is fine, It definitely entertained me. I didn't think it was anything spectacular but I wasn't tearing my hair out over watching it. I even really liked the idea behind the inflating and deflating, and how easily things could be brought to life, and how it was demonstrated with just the use of geometric shapes.

I dont think it was fair to compare it to Ruka. I massively favour that by Jiri Trnka, but the two are very dissimilar and have separate qualities that can be appreciated in different ways. I find it hard to do so with Surogat because I'm having to compare it to something that is incrediblly powerful and meaningful, but as it stands on it's own, it's quite a nice little animation short.

Lecture 3: A History of Type

Today's CoP Lecture was all about Typography. I was told about the history of Typography and how it evolved, and I also learnt that there are different "type families". These include Old Style, Tradtional, Modern, Humanist, Swiss Modern/Bauhaus and Contemporary.

I'm not quite sure what to think of today's lecture. I was bored to death by a good percentage of the talk (sorry), but then again there were parts of it that I found really interesting. For instance, Helvetica is a font that was developed in 1957 by a man called Max Meidinger and that the aim of the design was to create a neutral typeface with great clarity and no meaning its form, and because of this is could be used on a wider variety of signage. Microsoft released "Arial" 25 years later (the maximum time that a design is protected by intellectual property before it lapses), "ripping off" Meidinger's design.
I also never realised that different fonts have different meanings and history behind them (trying not to sound too ignorant). I knew that different typefaces could be used for different purposes, and some were more appropriate for some jobs than others, but didn't realise they had meaning.

I think it might be nice to read a bit more into typography, because I think it has the potential to be quite interesting to me, especially now I have learnt it's more that just letters presented differently. I still don't know a great deal, but I do know to stay clear of Comic Sans.

Seminar 1: Context with 9/11

In yesterday's CoP seminar we were discussing how the context of an animaion is really important, and how we have to consider many different things when we are looking at a piece of work. For instance, the target audience, what it was used for and whether it was fit for this purpose, where and when it was produced, and what was happening at the time.

For an example to get us thinking about how important context is we were shown two images:

We started with the image on the left. It is the special edition copy of Time Magazine that featured the 9/11 terrorist attack on the world trade centre in 2001. We weren't given any context, but we decided as a class that the magazine was just broadcasting information on the attacks, or paying respect to those who had lost their lives, considering the way the photograph was presented, and that we knew it was a magazine.
We were then shown the second image, and there was a bit of an uproar, both at how offensive we found the photo, as well as how poorly the album cover was put together. After we had pointed out everything that was wrong with the cover, we then discovered that it was designed in July before the 9/11 attacks had even occured, and that they later retracted it and released the album with an alternate cover.

This example really made me realise that context is very important, and even the way you are presented with information can make you think differently about a piece of work. Had we had been shown the album cover first, we might not have found it as offensive as we wouldn't have been discussing our experiences of the 9/11 attacks and how we thought the attacks impacted the world. Back in July of 2001, if we would have looked at this album cover we would have thought nothing of it, why would we? Yes, we might have been appauled by the poorly edited cover, but we wouldn't have found it offensive as there was no reason at the time to get offended.

So in future, before I judge a book by it's cover, or more accurately in this case an album (I'll let myself out), I should try to think about the intended purpose or context of the work, at the time it was released or produced.

Lecture 2: Visual Literacy

I'm not going to lie, I had next to zero knowledge when it came to Visual Literacy, I'd never even heard the two words used together in a sentence before. The more I listened though, the more I noticed that I DID know about it but just didn't realise it. It was nice to learn about the different types (i.e. visual synecdoche, metonym and metaphor) but I'm not fully sure what to do with this newly acquired information. Then again, the lecture did make me think about the importance of my target audience, and that different signs, symbols and images can be interpreted differently depending on how they are presented and the cultural understanding of said things, so I can bare this in mind when I am planning out animations.