Kinetic Verb Sounds

15/12/14

Kinetic verb sounds

After i had created my animations for each of my kinetic verb projects i added foley sound using premier to emphasise the movements i have created for them:

The sound effects i created for this animation where fairly difficult to create as the noises involved in the jump are not prominent other that when the word jumps and hits the floor when it lands. I included a slight creaking noise at the beginning of the animation to emphasises the backwards movement the letters make before the first small jump, to gain momentum. I also add some noises that represent the stretch as the letters when they jump up and on their way down from the jump as they reach for the floor to exaggerate and highlight these movements too. I also added some swooshing noises as the word jumps to represent movement of air and through the air. creating a 3d atmosphere about my piece. 

In this animation iv used creaking noises and sounds of fractionate emphasise the tension in the material of the word as it is being stretched. I used a 'wobble' springy noise created using a ruler at the point in which the word quivers and suggests it is so far stretched that it will not stretch any further. This noise again amplifies this perhaps easily miss action and draws attention to it. I used soft thudding noises ad the H hits the floor to show the soft nature of the material.

Kinetic Verb 2

08/12/14

Kinetic Verb 2

After creating the word leap and touching on the idea of stretch in parts of my jump, i decided to look more deeply into it and create an animation for stretch. I will most likely be using the elasticity of rubber bands as my subject matter and research for the motion of stretch as they are the most exaggerated and clear examples of how things stretch. My original idea before this was to create the word dive and make it move however after some storyboarding i decided against this as i felt it was far too similar in movement as leap motion reversed and i wanted to try something completely new. 
Bill Viola uses this idea of reversed movement however to create and illusion. 

He takes his videos under water and reverses them so that it appears as though the subject is leaping out of the water, in slow motion the water appears in the shape of wings almost creating a surreal and angelic appearance and giving quite a serene feel to it. This idea of reversing a dive to look like a jump is fairly similar to how i felt i would be working when creating the word dive after have created the word leap. 

Stretch:

Verb:

1. 1. 

   (of something soft or elastic) be made or be capable of being made longer or wider without tearing or breaking.

   "my jumper stretched in the wash"

   synonyms:

   be elastic, be stretchy, be stretchable, be tensile "the material stretches"

   • 
     

     
     
2. 2. 

   straighten or extend one's body or a part of one's body to its full length, typically so as to tighten one's muscles or in order to reach something.

   "the cat yawned and stretched"

   synonyms:

   extend, straighten, straighten out, unbend

   
   

   Elasticity is the property of solid materials to return to their original shape and size after the forces deforming them have been removed. Recall Hooke's law first stated in 'The True Theory Of Elasticity Or Springiness' (1676) by Robert Hooke.

   
   

   

   
   

   This is a diagram of Hooke's Law. Showing the effect of forces on how an object will stretch. 

   
   

   

   
   

   
   

   This image abouve shows how the shape of elastic is morphed when stretched. The central points of the object become ever so slightly thinner and bend inwards making the outer sides appear longer. The way the shape morphed is in an arched shape. This shows how the change in shape is a natural movement and how the object has potential momentum. The further an object is stretched and the more it is morphed the more kinetic energy the object will have and the more force behind the movement when let go, there will be. The object will move towards the centre of itself as it tried to obtain its normal shape again (which was changed from the middle) so it moves back towards the middle (opposite movement to how it moved to be stretched). 

   
   

                                    

This video shows in slow motion what happens to a rubber band in slow motion as it snaps back to its original shape. The band folds into itself as each fold hits the next. Obviously this video show the elastic band recoiling back to one point as it has been stretched from one point rather than two, and only let go at one point. The movement would be different it the band hand been let go from either end at the same time, however the video does show how there would be ripples in the band. I will try and include this idea in my own animation when i come to it, however it is harder to involve when not in slow motion.

I chose the thick, rounded and compact font of PT Sans to represent and symbolise rubber material. 

I videoed myself pulling a piece of blue tack apart to show the stretch involved in this motion and the way this material stretches. The way this material morphed, shows how the ends where i am holding the blue tack are wide and the centre of the blue tack get very slender and stretches quite far considering its size. The nature of the blue tack after it is stretched out like this means that it does not snap back like the elastic material does, it stays in this outstretched shape and simply droops and becomes more floppy due to its elongated shape.

This is another recording of the movement of blutac. Again the results are the same the centre gets thinner and the strain of the material can be seen by the colour becoming paler this emphasises the fact that a strain is happening and a thinning of the material when it is pulled apart.

I also did my own research on how an elastic band stretches and what would happen to my word if i were to re create its movements. I wrote down the word stretch physically onto the elastic band and then pulled it apart to see the effects. Over all the elastic band did not get thinner in the middle, the whole strip became slightly thinner but maintained a similar size across the band. The words however got shorter and wider as they stretched and i will use this in my work when i come to stretching the letters. 

This is the animation i created for my word based on my primary research on how blutac stretches and is manipulated in shape when pulled apart. I decided to have the ending of the animation make the word react to the removal of the rectangle and have the follow through action of snapping back to its original form like the elastic, combining my two research observations of the blutac stretch and the elastic stretch in order to give a more appealing visual effect whilst still having that exaggerated stretched morphing shape like the blutac where the middle becomes thinner with the stretch. Both these elements of the different materials stretching characteristics that i have used (the blutacs thinning characteristic and the elastics quick reaction at regaining its original shape) where the two most "stretchy" appearing aspects of each material with blutacs ending not looking as stretchy as elastic and elastics stretch morph not looking as stretchy as blutac. As i spoke about in my previous kinetic verb project, animation often uses exaggeration to create better visual effects however good animation is usually based on real motions that have been observed and studied. I have still based my animation on real principles of movement however exaggerated it in order to be more visual pleasing (as elastic would not morph in such a way). I Decided to start the word off as being unreadable and then pulled and morphed into readable text as this creates a slightly more interesting alternative approach to the obvious 'have a word and make it move' it also creates a thought process and then  realisation from the audience and therefore allows the audience to connect and interact. The shape i used is a simple rectangular shape that is representing a pulling force on the word and in this case giving it a kinetic energy. 

I made my word 'quiver' slightly just before the rectangle releases it and it snap back to suggest strain and tension on the word due to the action and to suggest it could be stretched no more (which is why the rectangle then lets go) and also to build anticipation and add more depth to the narrative of the clip.

In this video i have added colour to make the video more aesthetically pleasing and i used neutral colours to create a fair subtle appearance so that the colours did not over take or distract the animation. 

In this video i made the word move as though made out of the blutac material. When the rectangle lets go of the word instead of snapping back like my previous animation it flops down and swings a little before the H sticks and falls on the floor and the rest of the word slumps down with it and then slowly morphs down like chewing gum towards the floor to show its soft. I decided to make this version of my animation as my previous animation was a fairly obvious conclusion to the movement of stretch and of first thoughts of stretchy characteristics and nature (to snap back) however this is not the case with all 'stretchy' materials and it was interesting to create a second animation that studies and displays this and to see the difference and to see if it actually looked even realistic for a stretchy material, which i think in the end it did. This animation emphasises how the word has been stretched beyond its limits and is now limp and weak. it shows a less strong looking material and exaggerates the effects of the stretch. 

I made the finishing touches to my animation which i think really add to the visual qualities and help suggest the material of my word in depth. I added a slump at the end and then a slow squash down to suggest an almost gooey texture to the material and one that acts similar to balletic and chewing gum, slowly melting into its final resting point. This shows how the material is soft and moulds into a shape and is easily manipulated and not going to return to its original form, all of which are characteristics of the blutac i studied.  I cropped the frame of this video down to create a more pleasing and easy to view composition with the word being the main focus and dominating the screen rather than being over dominated by blank space. 

Picasso Lecture

Picasso

Born in october 25th 1881 and died on 8th april 1973 around these dates the art movements where changing with modernism rising in from 1881 and drawing to a close in 1973. 

From a very young age Picasso had exceptional talent and skills in waiting and working with proportions that most people would strive all their life to achieve. It was said he was child prodigy and could already render paintings majestically. This early development of his talent is probably what pushed him to explore other methods of creating his paintings that differed from 'realistic' and simply copying what was infant of him, and what encouraged him to delve into a more creative expressive exploitation.

Picasso understood that there was something very powerful about a childs painting and that the reduced nature towards the thought process and creation of the painting made it self expressive without any shackles of pressure or embarrassment or stress of time and organisation of daily duties that adults tend to face, meaning their paintings resemble qualities of a free spirit and care free nature expressing what they will. 

Picasso understood that there are more ways of perceiving things rather than just what we see directly around us and how we relate to the world and what we feel and even what we simply know to be, is not always easily involved in painting direct subject matter. Picasso play instinct also meant that he didn't have set out comes and toyed with breaking boundaries and finding new ways to display his perspective of the world. This is what lead him to his cubism stage. Picasso recognised that with our eyes we see things in one fixed place at one given moment. However the world is 3d Yet even at this point in time what we cannot see things we still know about them and our memory and imagination fills in the gaps for us. For example from a certain angle looking at a person we can only see one side of their face and one eye, yet we are still aware of the other eye, he tried to unravel the 3D world onto a 2D page by playing with profile angles and including what we know and what we can see and what we can sense all on one page an to display a certain subject matter. the essence of what we know. this is why some of his paintings of portraits look distorted like in this painting for example:

Marie Therese Walyer 1937:

This painting is profile yet also from the side. It shows the eyes expressing different emotions and overall does not look like how Marie will have looked. However it does perhaps show a deeper story about her displaying her as how she is sense/ felt or interpreted by Picasso. His sense of awareness of angles of her face and body and awareness of mood and emotions. as her skin is blue and there is a sad eye that should be hidden or the unseen eye with regards to where it is placed and the angle we are looking at her from (we should not be able to see that eye from this angle) suggest a hidden sadness about her perhaps and the lines of her face could even suggest entrapment.

This painting points back again to Picasso's interest in children paintings and the idea of trying to "draw like as a child". As adults people are bound by rules and laws as we know of the world we live in. A child has imagination that has no limits, regardless of the physics and nature of the world. And so they are painting with a much more direct conduct between what the child thinks, and what they draw and how they draw it. for example if the child is sad, they will show a sad essence of style.

This idea of creating a painting with the essence of an emotion brings us onto the topic of pica's blue period. Picasso's blue period is where for a length of time he painted all of his paintings in blue. This was because we was very sad after the death of his good friend Casagemous. He painted his paintings with sad emotion and found that blue was the colour he was drawn to in his sadness. Before this blue was not necessarily associated with sadness. 

"I started painting in blue when i heard of casagemous's death" - Pablo Picasso

before this the colour blue was more associated with a royal nature, due to the Lapiz Lazuli, an expensive stone that was ground and used for its blue colour (the only way to get the colour blue at one time). After his work the colour blue became more associated with reflection and sombreness. And the genre of blues music came around with songs like the blue train in 1963. 

Picasso also used lots of symbolism in many of his pieces one painting in particular that shows lots of symbolism is Guernicia

This painting is riddled with symbolism. The painting is in response to the bombing of Guernica, a Basque country village in northern Spain by german and Italian warplanes at the hand of Spanish nationalist forces on 26th april 1937, during the Spanish civil war. The painting shows an arm holding a broken sword showing the lack of appropriate weaponry and how the weapons were no match for the bombs that hit the area. The bull in the image suggests the potential death of Spanish culture and destruction of Spanish lives. The suffering horse shows the suffering of innocents, horses in battle do not choose to go but this is used as a symbol and so refers to innocent people swell. The expression on the horse also symbolises agony and pain in suffering. The woman holding a baby also shows this idea of suffering as she holds a limp lifeless corpse. This also represents loss of care and nurture. 

A Chance To Notice

12/11/14

A Chance To Notice

I will be observing my surroundings again for this project similar to the observation project i did however i will be looking at movement and deciding on how i will capture the movement of things i notice other than by videoing them. The area in which i will be working can be any where (last time i was just observing in the small confined area of the courtyard) however this leaves more room for too many distractions while i observe rather than slowing down in one confined area and becoming almost foreseeing with my observations and recordings. As i will be in paris and moving around for most of this project my observations are likely to be much more rushes and less in a sense 'zoomed into the area however it will be interesting to see the comparisons between my work from this project and the observation project.

I will be focusing on movements in this project and recording movement from my observation. I will try and stay away from recording videos of movements as this is an obvious way of recording movement and in a way stunts the challenge slightly. I will think about various drawing techniques as well as photographic techniques to capture motion and the stages of movement.



Giacomo Balla "Dynamism Of A Dog On A Leash" (1912):

This image shows movement captured with simply painting the image. The  blurring qualities where the stages of movement in the legs are shown suggests quick movements and the lines along the background of the painting suggest a moving ground showing that the two subjects in the painting are  moving along the ground. Between the blurring effects where the moving elements are (such as the legs of both subjects, the lead, the dogs ears and tail) you can also see slightly the actual part of the subject drawn again, for example the dogs tail shows multiple drawings of the tail. This shows the stages of movement and the past positions the tail has been in when moving. 

Henri Cartier Bresson "Gare Saint Lazare"(1932):

This is a photograph image and is completely still and frozen in time however still manages to display movement excellently. The photographer has captured the image at just the right time, showing the pose of the man with both feet off the ground and in a running position (his legs open) also his tail coat is moving which shows the movement of the man and the speed in which he's traveling. The ripples in the water show movement and the movement of the man is emphasised by the ballerina in the background on the poster. The man in the image is also slightly blurred and out of focus and just his shapes is displayed, suggesting the speed of his movement again. The fact that he is but centimetres from touching the puddles shows anticipation of movement and creates tension as he is so close to finishing the movement and touching the floor to carry on walking yet he is frozen in this 'almost' pose. 

My resources unfortunately were fairly limited for this project due to being on the paris trip and i could not take a large variety of materials however this is the work i did produce:

This is an image i took when i was in paris of a Carrousel spinning round. It was at night time that i observed this subject and so the lights on the carrousel were on making the movement of the carousel more prominent, as you can see the light moving through the dark space around it creating a clear contrast between the two. I tried many ways to capture this image showing movement however i only had my phone camera and some pencils to do so. I decided that i would take a series of photograph of the carrosell and when i got back home i would over lap them on photoshop making each new photograph i placed on top of the previous one, more opaque. By doing this, as you can see in the image it creates a blurred effect showing where the carrousel had been previously and showing the stages of motion. 

I then decided that seeing as i was working based on this idea of more like the memory of movement (as i re created the movement when i got back home rather than capturing the movement in the pressent) that i would represent the emotional aspect i felt at the time in the image as well. The first image shows the memory of the movement well however the colours are quite washed out and faded, with little difference between the tones of the colours. I remember the carousel being bright and bold against the dark night and i have tried to represent this in a way by editing the colours in the image. Also the people that can be seen slightly in the image above are almost unrecognisable in this edited version, this also represents the idea of faded memories and how a memory of a thing can be changed and adapted due to forgetting the original event slightly. The motion blurs in the images also symbolise this in a way as in a "blurred memory".

This is a close up image of the carousel that i used the same technique of overlaying images to show movement. These works of the carousel i have done are similar to Giacomo Balla's painting of the moving woman and dog as his painting is based on the memory of movement as he shows where the subjects are previously been to display his movement in the painting. 

I used this technique of overlaying to show the motion blur and previous stages of movement in my image. This image shows what looks like a car splashing a puddle as it drives past, the movement of the water is obvious in this image an is emphasised by the still qualities of the leaves on the pavement. What is actually happening in this image is the grid itself was over flowing and water was pouring out of it and spraying in the air. I simply waited for a car to drive past before i took my shot to give the illusion that it was the car spraying the puddle, as this emphasises the movement of the car and suggests movement of the car (as opposed to simply capturing a moving car on its own, it would look still) again the motion blur i added emphasises it movement further, but the spraying water is the biggest contribution to this. This idea i have shown in my work of capturing something at just the right moment to show suggestive movement is similar Henri Cartier Bresson's image of the man about to run into a puddle. He Captured his image at just the right moment and the movement of the mans legs and coat tail show the suggestive movement just as the spraying water in my image shows the suggestive movement of the car. 

 After i had come home from paris i took some slow shutter speed photographs of moving cars out side of my house. This photograph shows the trail of lights made by a traveling car as the vehicle was moving too quickly for the slow shutter speed to capture however it can capture light and the movement of light. This image creates quite a dreamlike abstract effect due to the fact that the car cannot be seen and only the artistic sweeps of light are visible in the image. They stand out in the everyday scenery.

This image shows the capture of the movement of a car more clearly as the van itself can actually be seen in the image. This is because the van slowed right down almost to a halt at one point in the image. The trail of light and blur trailing from the van then shows its movement and where it traveled too. This image shows a real life technique that looks similar to Giacomo Balla's work. 

 This is one of the sketches i drew when i was in paris (my equipment was limited) using pencil. I observed a leaf on the floor swaying in the wind and decided to try and represent its movements and stages of position by drawing it in its different positions as it moved back and forth. Again this is a similar idea to that of Giacomo Balla and the luring effect made by drawing the stages of posits created a similar look and is based on a similar idea to his painting.

This was another quick sketch i drew while in paris of a bike when moving. Again i used the same idea as with my previous drawing showing the blur of the movement and stages of position, however my equipment was not great and the pencil i was using didn't showery well a progression of the movement for example if i had used a material with i could rub away such as charcoal i could have displays the most faded stage as being the starting point of the movement.

When i got home i tried this drawing again but with dark chalk. I was able to rub away the first marks i made in order to create a progressive effect and to display the stages of the movement and show how it moved from left to right (as the marks on the left are more faded).

Physics In Motion

5/11/14

Physics in motion

The focus of this project is to observe how objects move in relation to the laws of physics. Using some of the principles of animation, replicate real life physics and exaggerate motion to enhance expression.
I will be using stop motion to create the various movements in this projects. I will use cut out black card to make the shapes that i will animate and use white card as the background so my animation is clear and there is a contrast between the two so the audience can clearly see the movements i am making.
i will consider each caption beneath the exercise to estimate an appropriate motion (e.g. if it says the object is heavy or big).

Newtons Laws Of Motion:

I. Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.

II. The relationship between an object's mass m, its acceleration a, and the applied force F is F = ma. Acceleration and force are vectors (as indicated by their symbols being displayed in slant bold font); in this law the direction of the force vector is the same as the direction of the acceleration vector.

III. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

when animation you need to consider what the material and nature of the subject matter is like:

. is it heavy?

. is it big?

. how springy is it?

. how smooth is its surface?

How Heavy Is It?:

Gravity affects speed. (increases when falling decreases when rising). 

Galileo (an Italian scientist and scholar that made pioneering observations in the 15 and 1600's, that laid out the foundation for modern physics and astronomy) proved that an objects weight does not affect its falling speed. But lighter, bigger objects are effect more by wind resistance.

This video of a man on the moon proves his theory correct:

                              

Weight (or mass) also effect inertia. Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change in its motion (including change in direction). In other words it is the tendency of objects to keep moving in a straight line at constant linear velocity. (e.g. a fast car turning a bend)

How Big Is It? 

if for example bounding balls (animated) move fast, it gives the appearance of them being small. If it bounces slowly it suggests it is large. This effect how close up the camera appears to be to the animated objects as the slow bouncing balls will look large but from a far away distance. 

Air resistance may come into play also e.g. a beachball or balloon with floating movements between bounces. 

How Springy Is It? 

Materials like rubber retain energy and bounce more. but so do hard objects like a ping pong ball on wooden flooring. the nature of the material should be decided before animating as there are also crumpling and soft materials to consider such as cars, plastercine and more that don't spring back into shape and therefore bounce less. 

How Smooth Is It?

Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers and material elements sliding against each other. An example of the is a bicycle slowing down when it moves from road to grass and even more so when it moves from grass to sticky mud. The grooves in the tire are making more contact with the mud etc and stick between the wheels. 

Animators look and work from these real world physics however they exaggerate them to amplify the effects. 

With out understanding the laws of physics, exaggeration in the wrong place can quickly dispel the illusion and can make uncomfortable viewing. Although it can be used as a comical effect and is seen in some cartoons:

                                

An Animated bouncing ball:

This diagram shows that animated bouncing balls will have vertical acceleration and deceleration, squash and stretch in parts of the bounce before and after it hits the ground. Its will also have successive lower and shorter bounces. The animation will also show the use of arc movements.

Diagrams showing the difference between real motion and an animated possibly cartoon motion:

The horizontal spacing is even between the real motion and varies in the animated motion. 

Here are some videos i made using stop motion to start to understand the laws of physics and how things move:

I then recreated some of the animations i made using after effects. The difference between the two methods are that i could go back and edit and alter the after effects animations where as the stop motion ones i would have to re do the whole thing. Also the after effects creation moved more smoothly and clear.

Context Lecture Review

10/10/14

Lecture Review

In todays lecture we looked at abstract expressionism. Abstract expressionism emerged in the early 1940's and created stylistically diverse work that introduced new radicals and broke away from accepted conventions in art. There was a directional shift in focus from paris to NYC in america.
Abstract expressionism was first used in germany in connection with the artist Kandinsky.

Wassily Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely abstract works.Kandinsky's creation of abstract work followed a long period of development and maturation of intense thought based on his artistic experiences. He called this devotion to inner beauty, fervour of spirit, and spiritual desire inner necessity; it was a central aspect of his art.

Born in Moscow, Russia in 1866, Kandinsky grew up a boy fascinated by color. Eventually, he would liken the painting process to that of orchestrating a musical composition. He wrote:

Colour is the keyboard, the eyes are the harmonies, the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.

Kandinsky was said to have Synesthesia and this ws thought to have been the inspirational factor of his abstract art work.

In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme → color synesthesia or color-graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently coloured. In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, and/or days of the week elicit precise locations in space (for example, 1980 may be "farther away" than 1990), or may appear as a three-dimensional map (clockwise or counterclockwise).

Only a fraction of types of synesthesia have been evaluated by scientific research. Awareness of synesthetic perceptions varies from person to person.is a neurological phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who report such experiences are known as synesthetes.

While skeptics have long debated the legitimacy of Kandinsky’s synesthesia it seems to have played an undeniable, integral role in his life and artwork. He once described his discovery of the phenomenon – something that occurred during an opera performance in Moscow:

"I saw all my colours in spirit, before my eyes. Wild, almost crazy lines were sketched in front of me." -Kandinsky

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky

This image shows an example of Kandinsky's work. The piece is very abstract and reflects this idea of Kandinsky having synthesesia.

We looked at other artists who experimented with abstract expressionism such as Jackson Pollock a European artist who moved to america and began creating paintings using dripping paint to display emotion and feeling in a less figurative way.

Mark Rothoko was another artist who made abstract creations that portrayed a mood and feel ing again with any figurative images.

This is an example of one of Rothkos painting in which he is portraying a feeling to the audience. He used space and colour to create a mood that the audience will then look at and interoperate in their own individual ways. This is the beauty of abstract art. The meaning of the painting is never ending as how each person will perceive that painting, gives new meaning to it individually and is still relevant even if that meaning is different to what the artist had in mind when creating the piece. 

To me i think this painting is creating a very uplifting mood and has a rather tranquil warm feeling about it due to the warm bright colours and the elevated shape within the frame of the painting. However it also has a small element of sadness to it as it represents a somewhat temporary state of beauty which to me is symbolised by the sunset looking appearance of the painting. And like a sun set is temporary this painting gives a feeling of present beauty which is made more precious by the feeling of being temporay (like with a sun set, eventually the sun will set and the view will no longer be there to look at). 

Context Abstract Art - Myth, Memory And Ritual

17/10/14

Abstract Expressionism

In this lecture we looked at how ritual, myth and memories are present in abstract expressionist art. 

As i mentioned in my previous lecture essay, the abstract movement was moved from paris to america. America was becoming seen as the original place for this art and was becoming interesting and 'cool' in the way that people were starting to see it with regards to art and advertisements etc. This created some myth about abstract art as america was seen as the place where american artists were creating these unique and interesting works of art however in some cases this was not entirely true as many jewish artists actually fled europe during ww11 to america and starting creating their art works. Jackson Pollock was one of these artist and his work shows lots of american iconography and symbolisms such as his painting of wagons being pulled by horses showing the journey people made to california to live 'The America Dream'.

His later more abstract paintings he made using paint drips were inspired by native indian sand drawing and dances. The way he made these painting was even inspired by this as he had the canvas on the ground so he could move around and inside the painting like how the indians would with the sand drawings. This is creating a myth of his origins and where he came from etc. 

Memory was shown in abstract expressionism by artists such as Arshille Groky who was trying to remember the place he used to live as a child 'Armenia' and was creating abstract pieces to represent the place and the feeling of the place. Lots of works like this have been made. Memories can become foggy and disjointed and so when an artist embraces these factors an abstract painting would be more representative of this memory and even loss of memory in order to portray what they are feeling and trying to recall. Sigmund Freud had a theory that the subconscious mind is shown in dreams. Many artists also embraced this idea of painting dreams swell and the memory of dreams all creating ver abstract pieces. 

12 Principles Of Animation

19/11/14

The 12 fundamental principles of animation

(As listed in "Disney Animation - The Illusion of Life" by Frank Thomas & Ollie Johnston)
Jeremy Cantor – Animation Supervisor – Sony Pictures Imageworks - May 4th, 2002

1. Squash & Stretch: Organic objects tend to have some degree of malleability. When forces act upon them they will deform appropriately depending on the nature, direction and degree of the forces. One important thing to remember when applying this concept to your animations is: if volume is not maintained, your object will appear to be expanding or contracting. For instance, if you squash a tennis ball vertically, it should simultaneously widen horizontally.

2. Anticipation: The setup before the main action. It lets the audience know that something is about to happen. For instance: reaching behind you with your fist before delivering a punch.

3. Staging : The clear presentation of an idea. What is the story being told? What is the best way to tell it? What is an appropriate camera angle? Screen direction. Posing. Composition.

4. Straight Ahead Action vs Pose to Pose: Two methods of animating. Straight ahead involves stepping through the individual frames of your scene & manipulating them sequentially. Pose to pose involvesdefiningtheextremesandthenfillinginthespaces inbetween.Stopmotioncanonlybedonevia Straight Ahead. Cel animation can be done either way.

5. Follow Through & Overlapping Action: Follow through is an extension of a main action. For instance, the continuation of a tennis stroke after the ball contact (the main action). Follow-through is also evident when a secondary appendage (tail, antenna) at some distance from the source of the main force is indirectly driven by it. Follow-through will occur later than the main action because the force takes longer to get there. When an object in motion changes direction, stops accelerating or stops completely, secondary parts of that object will continue in the original direction after the change in the main force. A woman's dress fluffing forward after she stops walking. A ponytail bouncing in an "S" motion when someone jumps up and down. Follow-through is often reduced if an appendage has (and uses) its own muscles. When a cat runs, the muscles of its tail often tighten to reduce follow-through & maintain balance. Overlap is the concept that not all moving parts of your body will start and end on the same frame. If you turn your head and point, your arm movement might begin before your head finishes turning. Overlap is nonexistent if the head and arm start & stop on the same frame or if the arm waits to move until the head has completed its motion. Such non-overlapped motions tend to look robotic.

6. Slow In & Slow Out: Organic motion tends to accelerate and decelerate into and out of action. (Except when met with a force that causes an abrupt stop or direction change.) This type of motion often does not apply to mechanical objects.

7. Arcs: The parts of an articulated skeleton move as a result of joint rotations. When a wrist travels from point A to point B, it gets there as a result of elbow and shoulder (etc) rotation. The motion will tend to arc because of this. It is possible to move one's wrist in a straight line but a lot of continuous compensatory adjustments in the rest of the arm are required in order to achieve this particular motion and such movements tend to look less organic (or at least more deliberate - like a straight punch). If you want a character to animate like a robot, simply ignore the concepts of arcs, overlap and slow in/slow out.

8. Secondary Action: Any motion that is 2ndary to the main action. Drumming your fingers on your knee while talking, ie. 2ndary actions often reveal emotional subtleties or hidden thoughts. If the 2ndary action pulls the viewer's attention away from the main action, though, it becomes the main action.

9. Timing: Varying speed of motion can indicate different types & strengths of forces. Timing can demonstrate different attitudes. Turning one's head very quickly implies a different motivation from doing so slowly. Fast walks can imply determination. Slow walks can imply depression. Metronomic timing is usually undesirable.

10. Exaggeration: Exaggeration is used to increase the readability of emotions and actions. Animation mediums don't deliver all of the same information as in real life. A video screen is not truly 3-D. Sound comes from a single source. Depth perception is not interactive. Because of the limited information being presented, it's often necessary to exaggerate what is being presented in order to effectively tell the story of a particularperformance.Effectiveexaggeration isn’talwaysaccentuatingamotionthough.Significantly decreasing an action is also a type of exaggeration. Accentuating the subtleties that is. Completely stopping a character's motion for an unnaturally long period of time can demonstrate a particular emotion: Impatience or disgust, ie. Exaggeration is, of course, especially apparent in cartoon-style animation.

11. Solid Drawing: In cel animation, each individual drawing should be a successful work of art on its own. This adds to the appeal & readability of a performance. It is also important to stay "on model". Each drawing should look like the character being presented. It is distracting when the size of a character's head is inconsistent during the course of an animation.

12. Appeal: Is the presentation of your idea pleasant to look at? (Or unpleasant if that is the intention). Are general aesthetics being effectively applied (composition, character design, color, camera angles, etc)?
And 12 more...

13. Simplicity & Readability: Don't unnecessarily overcomplicate your scene, character or performance. Do just enough to tell the story. Too much secondary and too many details can sometimes confuse the issue and make the idea being presented unclear.

14. Posing: A subset of "staging". Interesting poses are extremely important to effective & natural-looking animation. Pay attention to center of gravity issues (does your character look like he's going to fall down?). It’s usually a good idea to avoid too much symmetry in your poses. One hip is often a little higher than the other. Weight is rarely distributed evenly over both feet. How does the silhouette read?

15. Composition & Texture: If you “freeze” any individual frame in your scene, will the resulting still image be a well composed work of art? Do the elements of your scene work together visually? Are different objects moving too symmetrically? If so, is this intentional? Are your object’s trajectories too linear? Or perhaps too complex? Is there enough variety in the trajectories of the individual elements? Are important elements of your scene hidden behind less important elements? Pay attention to the overall “texture” when animating groups of objects or characters. Is there enough variation in the movements of the individual elements? Consider a school of fish or a flock of birds or a field of grass reacting to the wind. What is the overall feel of the group? Is every bird flapping its wings at the exact same frequency? Is the wind affecting every blade of grass in exactly the same manner at exactly the same time? Are the individual elements supposed to be working together? If so, are you using an appropriate amount of variation between these individuals? Are your synchronized swimmers exactly synchronized, or are there minor variations in the movements of each one?
16. Forces: An object moves when forces are applied to it. Consider where these forces are coming from. Are they being generated from within (desire, intention, muscle movement) or from without (gravity, the wind, a push from another character)? The origin, magnitude, direction & duration of these forces will dictate how your characters move. How is your character affected by these forces? Does your character resist them or does he “go with the flow”? Do multiple forces cancel out one another? Understand a force’s “attack & decay”. How powerful is the initial “hit” of the force? How long does an object continue reacting to the force? Consider the material of the object. Rubber “decays” slower than cloth.

17. Weight: Demonstrating the implied mass of a character. This is a function of the proper application of squash & stretch, anticipation, follow through, overlap, timing, exaggeration, and slow in/slow out. Whether or not a character looks especially heavy or especially light when getting up from a chair is dependent upon how these principles are applied. A heavier object requires more force to set it in motion. This is often demonstrated by increasing anticipation. Likewise, it requires more force to slow, stop or reverse the direction of a heavier object. Placement of your character’s center of gravity is an important aspect of weight. Physics rules indicate that a static object’s center of gravity must be directly above or below the average of its point( s) of suspension. For instance, when you stand on one foot, your COG needs to be directly above your support foot. Otherwise, you will begin to fall. Of course, this all changes if you are in motion. Pay attention to pivot/leverage points as well. Watch out for isolated body part movements. Even the simplest arm move often involves contributing motion from the shoulder & torso. Keeping your individual body parts appropriately working together is another way of indicating weight.

18. Non Symmetrical Motion: To maintain natural-looking performances, it is usually desirable to break up the motion of individual body parts so they are not doing the exact same thing at the exact same time. ie: when slapping your character’s hands on a table, you might want one hand to hit a frame or two before the other.

19. Details: Sometimes the difference between a good animation and a great animation comes from effective attention to detail. You never know where a viewer's eyes may be wandering. Just because the main focus of a shot is on your character's face, don't forget to animate the toes. Details like thigh muscles jiggling when a foot hits the ground add to the naturalism of a performance & can help tell the story. Keep in mind, however, that it is usually not desirable to confuse the action with too many details. (see principle #13) Watch out for technical glitches such as geometry intersections and IK “pops”. Material integrity is also an important detail to consider. Is it appropriate to squash & stretch a rigid object such as a stone? Some animators will do this as an aesthetic choice. Others prefer to follow realistic rules of physics. And don’t try to hide animation errors behind overly detailed modeling, lighting, texture maps & particle effects. This is an undesirable variation of the “attention to detail” concept.

20. Planning Ahead: It's always a good idea to plan out a performance before starting. Act out the motion with a stopwatch and take down some numbers. This is very important in stop motion where it's impossible to go back and fix an individual part of a performance after it has been filmed. It's especially important to plan ahead when you have a deadline. Most of us rarely have the opportunity to animate by trial and error. As the carpenters say: Measure twice, cut once.

21. Hookups & Continuity: To maintain flow and readability, each scene needs to “cut” properly with the next. Are the spacial relationships between your characters consistent from one scene to the next? Does an object’s trajectory look like it continues sensibly after a camera cut? Does the new camera position confuse the clarity of the action? If you cut away from a particular action then return later, do the changes in the scene make sense with the length of the time lapse? Do your actions overlap? Should they? Sometimes it is desirable to intentionally break the rules of continuity, but care should be taken when doing so.

22. Acting: Animation is acting. Always keep this in mind. What is your character's motivation & emotional state? Such information should be revealed in your performances. A shot’s story can't be told if the characters are simply moving through the scene without any indication of intention or personality. Always ask “why?” Every movement should have a purpose. Arbitrary motions rarely contribute anything to a character’s performance. Contrasts are an important element in acting as well. Animating the same character with significant contrasts in timing can imply completely different personalities & motivations.

23. Blocking/Refining: A third method of animating as opposed to Straight Ahead or Pose to Pose. This method (very often utilized in CG) involves initially establishing the overall posing, timing and trajectories of your character as a "blocking" phase. Details are added after these global issues are refined and approved. Similar to the (sometimes) preferred method of painting where the overall composition and colors are established rather abstractly and the image slowly comes together as a whole as the details are refined with smaller and smaller brushes. As opposed to finishing one corner of the painting before moving on to another. This blocking/refining method is especially desirable in CG so that global timing can be refined before there are a huge number of keyframes to tweak.

24. Understanding The Principles: It's not enough to simply be able to recite these principles from memory. To animate effectively, you must truly understand them. These principles need to be applied appropriately, and sometimes certain ones need to be left out entirely. Squash & stretch isn't necessarily appropriate on a bowling ball. A cat does not crouch down in anticipation before jumping up because its natural posture is already an anticipatory crouch. If you are asked to make your character look heavier, you can only accomplish this if you truly understand which principles need to be applied and how. Rules are made to be broken, but one must truly understand a rule before it can be broken creatively and appealingly. 

Kentic Verb

19/11/14

Kinetic Verb

Poor animation can look lifeless and robotic, this task is to help me learn to emulate from the real world to create more natural and expressive movements in my work. I am going to be exploring some of the fundamental principals of animation in this project.

I will come up with a word and animate it in a way that reflects the nature of the word. I will consider  weight, squash and stretch, slow in and slow out (easing, to create a more natural look as opposed to a robotic one), exaggeration. anticipation, follow through and overlap. 

I will be using adobe After Effects to animate my word and will try to keep the movements pure and clear for now so as to not overcomplicate things for my self and to show clear message of the action of the word and therefore relate the action to the word clearly. 

The 12 basic principles for animation were developed by the 'old men' of walt Disney studios, amongst them Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, during the 1930's. These principles came as result of reflection about their practise and through Disney's desire to devise a way of animating that seemed more 'real' in terms of how things moved and how that movement might be used to express character and personality. 

(i have added these principles on another post)

Animation Cartoons shows these principles well as they tend to exaggerate them making it obvious to notice when a principle has been applied. 

Roger Rabbit: Animation Directed by Richard Williams :

Looking back over his many triumphs – as well as some notable disasters – Williams himself ascribes much of his success to a decision he made in the late 1960s, when he effectively demoted himself within his own, highly profitable and multi-award-winning, company. At that time, on the other side of the Atlantic, some of the great animators of the 1930s and 40s were beginning to retire. And as Disney and Warner Bros dispensed with their services, Williams began to hire them.

              

This videos shows numerous uses of each of the 12 principles. To give examples of a few of them:

Exaggeration - This is the main principle used in this animation and same with many of the disney animation. When roger rabbits eyes pop out of his head when he sees the baby walking across the oven. This gives a humorous effect to the animation as it is an exaggeration of the 'extremely shocked / scared' expression. People generally tend to widen their eyes when shocked and lean forward as though they can't believe what they are seeing and need to get a closer view. Onto of this roger jumps in the air and hovers for a moment in his shocked state. When people are scared they tend to jump, this again is an exaggerated version of this reaction showing that roger is scared and shocked when he sees the baby. These are three actions that the animators have exaggerated, that people will relate too and understand, it then becomes humorous due to the exaggerated and unrealistic add ons, it only works however due to the grounding factors stemming from realistic movements and reactions that people know. 

Stretch - This can be seen in the video when the baby is trying to get out of the crib it is trapped in. He stretches the bars open and his body extends and stretches. Again this is exaggerated, but if someone was half in and half out of a small space and trying to pull their lower half out, the body would extend somewhat to do so. This tension also shows the anticipation action before the follow through movement of flying through the air.

Squash- when roger rabbit crashes into the vacuum his body compresses due to the impact.

Anticipation - is the movement before an action. In this video there are many examples. When the baby lands on the plungers handle, before it is sprung up in the air by it, there is a backwards movement showing momentum and showing a realistic movement of the baby landing on it and the force of its weight against the springy nature of the plungers handle flinging it up in the air. (of course however this is again exaggerated but the main underlying principles of force and momentum are there)

Follow Through - Follow through is the movements that follow after an action such in the video the obvious one to point out is rogers ears. As he moves his ears trail after his and reflect the movements he is making. 

Here are some quick words i did as practise before i created my chosen word:

This animation shows exaggeration of the principle squash. This helps emphasise the word as it makes the moving motion of the word from the right to the left of the word seem quick and there for makes the audience view the result of this as hitting a wall hard. Connecting the motion 'slam' to the word. 

I made this animation using the idea of the movement of a leaf. I made the text move gently and made it take longer to reach the bottom to appear light swell as making it move side to side in rack movements as it travels down the screen again to male it appear lighter. The font i used reflects the nature of the movements as it is lower case and curvy and small. 

This word i made sway by parenting the letters to each other meaning that when the bottom letter moves side to side the top letters follow the movements. 

In this second attempt at the word sway, i made the letters move separately rather than all together to add more movement into the animation and make it seem less robotic and stiff and more natural. I have included some follow through with this animation as well which can be seen when the letters flick slightly after a big movement. 

For this motion i made the animation fairly quick in order to show the force behind the compression of the text and make it seem springy due to the compression. 

Leap

I decided that i would animate the word Leap as it is one that i have not tried yet and i think it can offer me a challenge without being too complicated or fiddly to animate. 

Synonyms:
Surge, Upsurge, Upswing, Rise, Bound, Escalation.

Antonyms: 
Plummet, Fall, Reject, Drop.

What is the difference between a leap and a jump?:
The Collins COBUILD English Dictionary (HarperCollins, 1995) describes jump as being somewhat more frequent in usage than leap. 

It describes jump this way: "If you jump, you bend your knees, push against the ground with your feet, and move quickly upwards into the air." 

And it describes leap this way: "If you leap, you jump high in the air or jump a long distance."

From what i have gathered after looking into the two words and the motions behind them jump is more of a vertical movement where as leap is from one point to another, and possibly a more powerful jump. On the other hand hop would probably be a similar movement to leap however much smaller and with less momentum.
This is a video i found online that demonstrates the action of leaping in both a person and a horse:

I have decided that for my research of the movement of leaping a horse would be a good animal to look at, and how it jumps.  
    
             
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFImjWUvgQI

Various action poses of the horses jump at each stage:

This image shows the actions of each stage of the jump, however not including the beginning anticipation movement which should show the horse riveting backwards slightly before the jump (even when running). It shows the stretch of the horses body as it jumps of the ground and the body extends and then shows a stretch just before it lands. The point of the jump in mid air is less stretched. (this can be seen in the first diagram on the second row). These diagrams remind me of Edweard Muybridge's recordings of movements.

Eadweard Muybridge:

Eadweard Muybridge was an english photographer, important for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion and early work in motion picture projection.

He used multiple cameras to capture motion in stop motion photographs and was the first photographer to develop sequences of moving objects.

This is one of his pieces where he has captured the movement of a jumping horse and the stages of the jump. 

He also captured the movement of a jumping man, who compresses his height a lot and uses his arms to get momentum and to hurl himself forwards. this shows extreme squash and stretch, before and after the jump and in the middle of the jump.

This videos shows a different type of leaping to the previous action i was looking at:

(0.30 seconds - 0.36 seconds,  0.41 seconds - 0.48 seconds)
           

This video shows fox leaping into the air and diving into the snow. The fox is at a stand still before the leap takes place and so there is no previous momentum of running behind the jump, meaning the fox has to bend really low to create his own momentum (the anticipation of the movement) before he springs himself up into the air. I think this would be a good movement to try possibly as it very exaggerated before and after the movement due to the subject matter being stationary before and after (when running after the jump the 'sqaush'/ bend effect of the force of the jump is lost some what) it also shows follow through animation which i could consider in my own animation when making my word move (the trail of the letters perhaps flick at the end slightly as the word falls and lands).

The type of leap preformed by a ballerina will be much different again from the previous two jumps i have looked at:

         
As it is a form of dance and is supposed to be elegant and is more controlled. There is a more exaggerated stretch in the middle of the leap as the ballerinas do the splits in the air. the general flow of this leap is more smooth, less bounding motions. and the legs bend slightly backwards on themselves when they split. Natural leaps the legs keep a slight bend in them.

This movements most focusing principles are :
Arcs - All natural things move in arcs, leaping is a very clear example of movements in an ark as all of my research show that the movement of leaping makes a semi circle from where the subject jumps from to where the subject lands, the height and width of this ark varies depending on the momentum of the leap (the more anticipation, the higher the jump the higher and shorter the ark made by the jump)
Squash- This can be seen in my research before and after the jump even if ever so slight.
Stretch - This can be seen in the middle of the leap
Also i will involve:
Anticipation - before the jump (the squash)
Follow through - the trailing letters movements in the air

Types of Fonts to Consider:
Depending on the type of movement i choose for my leap (be it a high leap or a long leap or smooth or more clumsy) i will have to choose different fonts to represent this movement.

Horse style leap : a more lean and sturdy font such as Malayalam MN or rockwell extra bold. Engravers MT.
Ballerina style leap: a more dainty fragile font possibly curly and representative of ribbons (like on ballerina shoes) such as Lucida Calligraphy or Harrington.

This is the animation i made for my leap animation. I decided to use the leap made by the fox in my research video from 41 seconds as the jump that i will be creating for my animation. I used a font that reflects the leap slim nature of the fox in one of my research videos. My animation shows the Anticipation before the jump when it squashed down and tilts back on itself to create momentum, the small jump at the beginning of the jump also shows a build up of momentum. I also made sure i included the follow through motions of the tail flick at the end of the jump that can be seen most exaggerated with the L as it flicks up wards at the end when trailing after the other letters. However i think with the motion of this jump the ending dons look quite right and perhaps is too slows and control. It appears as though the P is pulling the letters down like a roller coaster after the leap reaches the top of the arc rather than gravity pulling the down. Perhaps the letters stay in the air for too long as well. 

I then decided to try and create a ballerina style jump version of this animation just to start to get an understanding of the principles and differences in motion between the two jumps. I used a more curved font for this animation to symbolise the ribbons that are associated with ballerinas and also to represent the flowing movements made by the dancers,The font is also slim to represent the delicate nature of the appearance of the dance. The movements i changed in this version is the exaggeration of squash which i made less so for the ballerina jump and made the first little jump quicker like a small skip before the jump as the ballerina video i watched shows that the dancers made small jumps before the big leap however they were very tiny and quick dainty jumps. I also made the word bend back on itself slightly imitating the shape made by the dancers legs when at the height of the leap. i also slowed the speed down in parts of the jump to create a more flowing and controlled effect to the animation similar to how the dancers move.