Seminar 6: Animation in the Commercial Realm

In this seminar we discussed how animation is becoming more common as a tool to advertise and educate, rather than to simply entertain an audience. As advertising is such a big thing now-a-days it only made sense that people were going to start to apply animation to this area, as animation is a growing trade. Not only this, but it is a more interesting way to get your point across, and can be aimed at a number of different audience.

For me, a good example of where animation has been used in an advertisement is the Lloyd's TSB advert. Although this is aimed at an older audience because it is advertising the bank, it can still reach out to children and younger people because of the style of the animation. For me, it's very successful because of this as the characters and the setting of the story gains your attention, and therefore their message gets across to the viewer. Not just this, but the song is incredibly catchy. Whenever I hear it I am always reminded of Lloyd's TSB.

Seminar 4: Politics and Propaganda

Before this seminar on Politics and Propaganda I had next to no knowledge on either of these topics. I knew that they existed and that's about the extent of it. My understanding of the two is still pretty cloudy so bare with me, but I think I have managed to grasp the general idea.

My understanding of Propaganda is that it is the deliberate attempt to get another person or group of people by appeals to reason to freely accept beliefs, attitudes, intentions or actions. During the war propaganda was used widely to recruit troops to fight for their countries, and is still widely used today. What I didn't know - well, was unaware of - is that propaganda has also been used in animation. In the seminar we were shown a number of examples of this, but the one that stood out to be the most was Disney's "Der Fuehrer's Face".

Der Fuehrer's Face

The animation was released in 1943, and it was produced in an effort to try and sell war bonds during the Second World War, and I think the reason the film was so successful was for a number of reasons. The first being that it features one of Disney's most loved characters, Donald Duck. Many may have initially watched it not realising it was going to be a war propaganda film because Disney's animations are usually aimed at children, especially the ones with Donald in them. This would expose children and adults to the themes it portrays, and ultimately get them hooked on the catchy song and the extreme values that were put across; another reason why I think the animation was so successful. I know I found the song incredibly catchy when I heard it as a child, and I still do. This was obviously done deliberately to try and make the animation memorable to try and force their points. 

Seminar 5: Gender in Animation

Today's seminar was all about gender in animation. Now, when it comes to debates on "sexism" I'm usually on the fence. I think it's wrong that women throughout history were considered inferior to men, resulting in many not being as successful as men in their artist careers and other situations along these lines, but when it comes to how women are portrayed in animations I couldn't really care less.

Let me explain what I mean.

I think people at the moment are going overboard when it comes to criticizing how women are being portrayed. Take Barbie for example. There's an uproar about how skinny she is and how there isn't a range of sizes for the doll, depicting all body shapes. Granted, there isn't a range, but should there have to be? The way I see it is that it's just the design of one female character. This doesn't mean that this is the "perfect" body form for a woman which we have to adapt. It's just a toy. It doesn't mean this is how we as women should look. It maybe hard to believe this because of how much thin people are idolized in the media, but we don't have to look like that, but really that should be a given.
I think it's crazy that people are saying that Barbie should be a "normal" weight or even plus size. Isn't that just "Skinny-bashing"? What about the people who ARE that thin, (maybe not to that extent, because the proportions of barbie means that if she was a real human being, she would cave in due to the weight of her head and she would have other problems along these lines)? Aren't we just "bashing" skinny people for saying that Barbie should be a "normal" weight? What annoys me about this is that if a plus sided Barbie was produced people would probably still moan about it because the doll would give others the impression that it's okay to be unhealthily over-weight. We would request smaller dolls to eliminate this, but if they'd just made a "normal" doll to begin with, it's likely we would have complained about there not being dolls to accommodate those who are skinner/larger. The company can't win really.

I don't see why we can't just accept Barbie for what she is, and move on. Some people are as skinny as this, others aren't and we should just leave it at that. Maybe I stand alone with this opinion; I know I'm definitely in the minority if not.

So to conclude I think people just need to calm down and take things with a pinch of salt. Yes it's bad that women are seen as inferior to men in most departments, but I don't think we need to get critical about how women characters are depicted in animations. Obviously not all women act or look like they do, and the artists aren't generalizing this image to ALL women.

Seminar 3: Auteurship and the Avant-Garde

Maybe one day I will understand what is being discussed in these seminars.

In today's seminar we were discussing Auteurship and the Avant-Garde, which are two concepts/terms that I have never heard of before, and I'm still not fully sure I understand what they mean. To my understanding Auteurship and Avant-garde is basically an individual's unique style, that is standard across their entire body of work, but then again I maybe wrong. I thought I understood the concept but then we would have a discussion that to me seemed completely irrelevant. Don't get me wrong, I found them interesting and even shared some views that were expressed in the discussion, but to me it seemed unnecessary and made me question my understanding because of it.

But is anyone really "Avant-Garde"? Artists and Directors are always taking inspiration from others, which is fine, it happens all around us all the time and we will take inspiration from real life, just like everybody else. Where else would we get ideas from? It doesn't mean we are copying other people's ideas, simply taking what we like from the work and making it our own by putting our own stamp on it. But does this make us original? I think this all depends on who took the first initial risk of stepping out, and being bold and different to anything that was around and the time.

There isn't really much more I can say because I really don't understand the majority of what was said in the seminar, that, and I've pretty much covered my view on Auteurship anyway. I think for something to truly be original it has to be the first of it's time, and to have no crossovers and inspirations taken from work before it. Yes, it may look completely different, and have a completely different meaning, but if it was inspired by something else then is it really an original idea or style?

My point of view might be completely an utterly wrong, but I'm going to stand by it. At the end of the day I think it is completely subjective whether something is Avant-garde, because you may see similarities and crossovers that other's don't pick up on, and it relies entirely on what your definition of the term is.

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. 

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.