COP Practical - Process

In order to make the video for my COP practice, I first established the idea for how I was going to shoot it. Previously I thought I would try and do a short narrative that incorporated multiple techniques from the directors I had looked at. However, when thinking about it, I decided it might be too vague on it's own, so instead I decided to shoot bits of footage and then edit them based on the way the directors I'm looking at worked, so show examples of how I have understood their methods and what unique traits they possess within their work.

I went out and shot different footage of buildings, public places and vignettes so that I could create a compilation type feature. Once I had all of the footage I thought was appropriate I edited it together in after effects, making sure the order was appropriate and that the clips I'd selected were relevant to the techniques I wanted to demonstrate. I needed a symmetrical shot, and I found a bridge that had the one point perspective that Kubrick uses, which I thought would work and demonstrate this technique. Other pieces of footage are of random subject matter such as the shot in the park, but is used to potray something that isn't based on a subject, such as lighting or use of tint.

I then worked in after effects to achieve certain elements such as lighting, and adding the text over the top of the video - labelling the footage with it's intention and what it demonstrated. The sound design for the video was made by my friend, who was experimenting with ambient type sounds. In several of David Fincher's films he uses composers, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross to produce the score. The score they produced is quite an experimental ambient sounding one, and I thought that since a lot of the video features examples of David Fincher's style, it would be appropriate to use this type of sound. I used premiere pro to edit and trim the sound, whilst transitioning it together. Problems did arise when some of the sound clips sampling frequency was 44100Hz, as oppose to others which were 48000Hz. To make them the same, so that the sound could be exported, I took some of the sound clips into audacity and changed them so they were 48000 also.

COP Practical - Auteur Theory

My COP essay is based on the idea of auteur theory and applying that to animation. The concept is not something I have previously looked at but I have found is quite fascinating from doing research around the stop. Throughout my essay I referenced various aspects of film making that can also be applied to animation such as the use of cameras, lighting, themes and overall direction. As examples I used various directors whose work I'm familiar with in order to reference the way they were and are used by established directors. The directors I referenced specifically during my essay and that I have looked at for research purposes are; Stanley Kubrick, David Fincher, Alfred Hitchcock and Wes Anderson.

Each directors I looked at had a certain method or style that I could reference and look at in closer detail. Whether that was the low key lighting that Fincher uses repeatedly throughout his work to depict a level of unease and grime that is representative of the dark themes that run through his films; the use of symmetry that is often seen in scenes throughout Kubrick's work; or the colours and aspect ratios that Wes Anderson uses to make his films have a very particular visual style.

My idea for the practical side of the brief is that I would like to create a series of vignettes or samples of action where I can incorporate the techniques and hopefully to an extent emulate the visual style of several directors to show I have examined and absorbed in a sense, their individual artistic direction. The video will be between two or three minutes long and split into two sections. The first section will show around seven to eight short clips, each lasting around ten to fifteen seconds looking at a particular technique or notable way that one of the chosen directors portrays the visuals in their films. The second half of the video will repeat the same clips, but this time with annotation mentioning the director and the technique that I have attempted to demonstrate.

So far, my ideas for scenes are;

• A character sat at a desk, featuring a symmetrical shot, similar to that of Kubrick's.
• A shot of a city scape, wide angle with the low key lighting often seen in Fincher's work.
• Some imagery depicting self destructive behaviour and overall dark themes, referencing Fincher's themes.
• A vibrantly coloured scene, representative of the colour in Wes Anderson's films.
• A scene that plays with aspect ratios, looking at Anderson's use of them. (1.33:1 / 16:9 / 2.35:1)
• POV shot, used extensively by Kubrick.
• Dutch tilt, used frequently by director of film and animation, Tim Burton.
• Mental disorder themes, used by Fincher.
• Characters you wouldn't find in reality, Tim Burton's work.

Context of Practice - Politics & Propaganda

Politics and propaganda come hand in hand when talking about them together. The purpose of propaganda is to promote political agendas and in a sense act as a link to the public through visuals presented to them in the form of propaganda. However, seeing this relationship on a deeper more analytical level was interesting and it made me realise the amount of propaganda that existed that I had never heard about.

Something we looked at during the seminar was the use of propaganda, incorporated into the animation medium. Of course, like most people, I was aware of various uses and examples of propaganda during war time, and had encountered it multiple times. But when it came to some of the animations we were shown, I was unaware that they had existed prior to the introduction to them during the seminar. The idea of using animation as a form of propaganda during world war II for example makes sense. The medium was relatively new and considered quite innovative, as well as this it reached out to a broad audience, children included. We looked at an piece of animated propaganda produced by Disney in 1943, Der Fuehrer's Face. The piece itself was quite interesting as it had a very extreme themes in it, or what I would consider extreme by today's standards. I imagine based on the fact that it is an animation produced by Disney that the main target audience for it was children, at the time of course, people probably recognised the fact that it was propaganda atleast that it was aimed to tell a story based around Hitler and how 'evil' he was.

After this, we watched several other pieces that were made to act as propaganda and persuade audiences to adapt to a political regime. The topics they cover of course, would have been much more intense and relevant at the time they were shown, whereas now we are watching them many years later, they are quite clearly propaganda and make no effort to disguise this. Overall they would have had a much different effect at the time. This is the same for all propaganda though, during the time of its release it's relevant and seamless, whereas years later when political regimes change, you notice how bias and manipulative it's trying to be.

Context of Practice - Auteurship and the Avante-Garde

I found the context of practice seminar on auteurship very interesting because this was the first time I had been introduced to the concept and I found the idea of it very new and intriguing. Essentially, auteur theory, (‘auteur’ being the French word for ‘author’) is a concept that suggests a director in terms of cinema, has a collection of work where there is similar themes and visual choices throughout. These choices can be chosen for specific reasons or can occur naturally through the unconscious decision of the filmmaker. Auteur theory originated in France in the late 1940s and was a foundation for the French cinema movement that was dubbed, ‘nouvelle vague’ or, ‘new wave’. The idea driving the concept is that it is the director who looks over and approves certain elements of a motion picture and thus deserves the title “author” as oppose to the writer of the screenplay for example. Certain aspects of the direction and camera work such as the length of the scene, positioning of the camera, and choice of lighting are what makes the film what it is visually. People who agree with this concept often remark on the way that films which are successful often have the directors unmistakable taste and personal choice marked on the film.

After we were introduced to the concept, a discussion took place and people put forward their opinions based on what we had learnt about it. Someone asked the question, 'if another director has the same visual style as another, does that make them both auteurs?' A counter argument to this would be that one of the directors could have taken inspiration from another and consequently the original director, or the one that worked in the specific way first would be classed as the auteur, as one of the factors of auteurship is working in a unique and personal style, rather than emulating others.

From here, the concept was linked to animation and we spoke about how auteurship can be applied to animation. We were told that rarely are animators given the title or called an 'auteur' because of the nature of the medium. By this, I mean so much of the film is based on unique visual ideas that it's hard to call the director the single greatest contributor to the film. When it comes to animation, ideas are picked from thin air and developed as a team, rather than film where you are consistently shooting live actors, and other variables can be altered such as the previously mentioned aspects of camera, lights etc. Despite this, animation like film can have recurring themes, genre and consistent visual styles one the style has been developed. Where a team of people creates the work however, it could be dubbed, 'avante-garde' as oppose to auteurship, as it is original and new, but just lacks the individual flair that has to exist to call something a product of auteurship.

The idea of 'avante-gardism' implies that the work is a product of rebellion agains the norm, or going against the expected. It is also associated with innovative work, and moving forward. When looking at a large cooperation such as Disney, who were one of the pioneers in animation, at the start of their work they would have been considered avante-garde, where as now their work is established and lesser known upcoming animation studios developing new styles and practices are more inclined to be referred to as avante-garde.

I found this seminar extremely interesting, and I liked the introduction of a new concept I hadn't had the opportunity to learn about before this. To understand the concept in detail would be quite complicated I feel but given the time we had I feel like I have a firm grasp on the idea and what it means to be an auteur.

Context of Practice - Genre

The word genre has quite an extensive meaning, but simply put it is defining categories of literature or other forms of entertainment for example, music, visual entertainment or written or spoken; that carries some form of stylistic criteria. 'Genres' are formed by conventions and ideas that adapt and change over time as new genres are introduced or invented and other genres are discontinued. Due to this ever changing principle, more often than not, works will fit into multiple genres because of the breadth of criteria and features it possesses.

An example of this kind of multi-genre idea in animation is a piece that is directed at children due to the visuals and appropriateness of the content, however, it will have adult undertones running throughout it whether it is conveyed through subtle on-screen action or dialogue between characters. This action or dialogue won't be picked up by the younger audiences, although the more mature audience will recognise the references due to their wider knowledge of the world. So in a sense, this is an example of a piece that will stretch across multiple genres and can be enjoyed by various different types of audiences. An example of this shown to us during the seminar was a piece featuring the Looney Tunes character, 'Yosemite Sam'. During the piece, there was a reference to Mahatma Gandhi. Even the first time watching it before it was made clear to us, I didn't pick up on the reference because I was too immersed in the visuals to notice. Demonstrating the idea that references contained within an animation mainly aimed at children, can also feature adult content without being destructive to the piece itself.

Following on from this, as a class we had a discussion about the purpose of genre and what it does. The point was raised that certain pieces of entertainment are marketed differently in order to aim the feature at a certain audience. An example of this in industry was the film; The Hunger Games. The example here is that the film was originally planned to be marketed as a science fiction film, but it was changed by the distributor to a fantasy type film because fantasy doesn't have the stigma attached to it that science fiction does in terms of previous films such as Star Wars which is a well known science fiction film and has very mixed opinions across a large audience. So because the fantasy genre is much more well received by audiences of all ages and gender etc, it was put forward this way to be more successful. In a way however, I believe this to have been bad practice. Genre isn't really a subjective thing as the point of genre is to have a set criteria in order to categorise certain products or works.

Giving products and work a genre to go under can be very helpful however. It gives audiences a hint about the content of various products and entertainment, allowing them to make informed decisions about their interests and what kind of activities they wish to pursue. One thing however, is due to the rate at which things like entertainment evolve and change, it is often difficult to keep up and content can be misinterpreted or labelled incorrectly by individuals because of this.

I enjoyed this seminar quite a lot, and the discussion made me think quite a lot into the subject. Furthermore, it was interesting to talk about different classifications of entertainment and how that can affect different peoples perceptions on what to expect and the overall content of a piece.

Comparing The Hand by Jiri Trnka & Surogat by Dusan Vokotic

I will be comparing the two animations; 'The Hand', by Jiri Trnka and 'Surogat' by Dusan Vokotic.

Firstly, after watching the hand I got a feeling of uneasiness because of the lack of colour and sound in the animation, however I think that is the kind of impression it was intended to give. It's also noticeable that there is no dialogue in the animation, so it's a fully visual experience. I believe that the purpose of the animation was to signify the oppression of creative freedom. There is a highly political presence when looking at the themes and message concealed within the visuals. For example, the main character who is a potter, is approached and harassed by a hand. The hand being a metaphor for a political party or government, he is asked to create a sculpture of the hand, but he resists, just wanting to be left alone with is friend which happens to be a potted plant. The hand uses bribery before demanding and threatening the main character and he becomes more desperate to escape it. Eventually the hand locks him up, and forces him to sculpt it whilst caged up. Something I liked about this scene was the use of puppet strings to control the character to represent the idea being controlled by the hand or a more powerful being in terms of political standing. After the character breaks free and escapes the clutches of the hand, he runs back to his home and tries to lock himself in, accidentally knocking his plant pot off a ledge and killing himself. The final scenes are the tragic visuals of the characters funeral.

The sound design is very minimal for this particular animation, but I like that when the sound does come in it's quite a shocking experience since it has been quiet for most of the duration. As well as this the sound comes in at a pivotal moment in the animation and this signifies this. The colours used are dull and washed out, so you know straight away that the themes of the animation are quite serious. The emptiness this adds is also key at making you feel quite depressed throughout the animation, even more so when the story unravels on screen. Finally there is a good use of camera shots throughout the animation and the story is very clearly told in this respect; an appropriate mixture close up and wide shots is also used. Throughout the animation there is a type of high angle shot used that is always looking slightly downward on the character, as if he is of a lesser power to the hand. This could also be some form of representation of the fact that in the context of the narrative and animation, he is quite insignificant despite being the main character whilst making the audience feel inferior to empathise with the character. Whenever the character opens the doors are windows to his house, all we see as the audience is blackness, as if his house is situated in a void or an abyss. This kind of unknowing as to what lies beyond the walls of his house gives way to the idea of voyeurism, or some form of intrusiveness, in collaboration with the visuals on screen where the hand is repeatedly breaking into his home.

The type of political influence that I mentioned earlier that is featured in the film is representative of totalitarianism. Meaning; 'a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life wherever possible.' This backs up the theory that the hand acts as a motif for this political aspect to the narrative, and the character represents an artist, more specifically a potter that is being oppressed by the government due to the regime they have put into effect.

The second film we watched, is Surogat by Dusan Vokotic. Visually, compared with The Hand the aesthetic is considerably more light hearted due to the simple shapes used to represent characters and the environment in combination with the vibrant colours. However, the subject matter remains quite serious or controversial similar to The Hand. The setting of the animation is a beach, and all of the objects featured within the animation are inflatable.

One of the main differences I noticed between this animation and the other whilst watching them, aside from the visuals and medium, was the use of humour and easy going nature of the whole feature. There was an element of slapstick comedy to it. An example of this is when the female character slaps the male character and his face goes bright red in reaction, he immediately runs over to the sea and puts his head in to 'cool off' as if it was a burn. Beneath the humour and light heartedness of some of the scenes in the animation, there is a deeper message for the audience in that despite the material possessions and idealistic views the character obtains throughout the duration, he can't change who he is. Eventually, despite his efforts it all comes crashing down on him and he dissipates from existence when his inflatable car explodes. Aside from this, it comes across like there is a certain element of sexism in the film, as he tries to modify the body of the female character to suit his ideals once again. It's quite tongue in cheek but I think if this film was released in a modern era as oppose to the 1960's it would have received a more critical response from the audience, or at least have been looked into more critically from this angle.

Overall, both animations; The Hand and Surogat, carry important and sensitive messages in their own way. One is about the then current state of the government, touching on it's regime and essentially acted a metaphor for their ideals. Whereas the other looked at the ideas of a man in the 1960's, material objects being of high importance and the objectification of women to an extent. Visually, Surogat is a lot more playful, whereas The Hand has a very eerie and dark aesthetic that makes you take it a lot more seriously as a stand alone piece. The animations themselves were different than anything I had ever seen before and I was glad I got to look into them both in detail. Finally, I engaged well with the subject matter and found the different implications of subtle aspects quite fascinating to deconstruct whilst comparing the two.

Context of Practice - Seminar 1

This context of practice seminar was related to putting things into context, and identifying the context of art and more specifically, animations place as an art form. The general idea of something, whatever it is, having a context is; 'why is it the way it is?'. There are a huge number of variables that could have potentially influenced or had an effect on someone and something that in turn manufactured a certain piece of art. These can be anything from historical, social, political or even economical contexts that have in turn shaped and crafted a piece of art due to the circumstances when a certain piece of art was crafted. There is a great and hidden importance disguised in art and knowing, 'why it is the way it is'. I think it's important for people to think about, discuss and reflect truer meanings that artists have and have had behind their work, in order to not only understand the artist and their artwork but the influences and contexts of the time it was created.



Looking at this further, as a class we were shown two images. The first image, depicted the cover of time magazine, which featured a photograph of the world trade center exploding on the 11th September, 2001. When this image first came on the screen, I instantly identified what it was and a flood of memories and connotations of the image came into my head. We were then asked our opinion on the image, and if we remember what we were doing on the day it occurred since most of us were only around six or seven when it happened. From here, the general discussion shifted to the idea of this event being a conspiracy. I have seen several documentaries that put forward ideas about the attacks being a conspiracy and had some thoughts on this myself, that I was reviewing whilst people were putting their opinions forward verbally during the discussion.



After being introduced to this hard hitting image of one of the most famous 'terrorist' attacks in history, often dubbed, 'the day that changed the world'. We were shown a much more light hearted image of a CD cover, which in composition was actually quite similar to that of the Time Magazine cover, but with an interesting twist. What was interesting is that people's reactions, mine included to this image were not only how ridiculous and laughable it was as a whole, but a little bit concerned as to how offensive it was or could be, not necessarily to us, but to people who have been directly affected by the September the 11th attacks. It was then revealed after a few minutes of discussion about the image and how bad the overall design was, that it was released around a month prior to September 2001. Changing ideas and the general context of the image completely. I almost felt a little bad for the people who had released the CD because it would obviously have to be withdrawn from public view, out of fear of causing offence and consequently causing a bad name for themselves. I think the purpose of this exercise was to demonstrate the important of context and knowing facts before you put forward extreme views and judgments based on a piece of art work or design. I enjoyed this seminar quite a lot due to the way it made us think and overall how thought provoking it was. The revelation about the CD cover in connection to the terrorist attack was quite eye-opening and definitely made me think about how much I knew about it before I judged it.