Food Module: Group Research Presentation Part 2 notes

Types of Documentaries:

Poetic - Early days of cinema involved a Russian montage, a montage of clips - these hold little dialogue - lets the imagery and visuals speak from themselves - this can be more emotional to the viewer through the lack of dialogue - a sense of tension and lack of power to change anything is evoked with in the audiences emotions.

Expository - Voice over - a narration takes over and explains the visuals

Observational - fly on the wall, editor is still shaping something, was quite popular in the late 60's and 70's - non interference - some just left a camera on a tripod and recorded everything - 'simply observing' - could be interpreted to be quite intrusive - audience knows that they are watching and the people on camera do not know they are being watched.

Reflexive - Documentary is aware of itself or process - relates back to Russian montage - Man with the Moving Camera - in animations, you would see the hand drawing the image.

Performative mode - experience by him or her - used as a device to understand a story


Research into different documentaries:

The Sinking of Lusitania, Winsor McCay 1918 - Considered to be the first animated documentary - due to the technology at the time, public believed that the animation was happening in real life - real recorded footage.

Educational Animation - A is for Atom 1953 - General electric company - narration over the animation - very desaturated - film grain quality to the aesthetics

I really liked the narration over the animation it worked really well, and I felt that this would work with a children's documentary with the tone of voice that could feed information to the viewers.
The overall appeal to the animation was quite dark, wasn't visually engaging with colour or shapes however it became interesting with the animation included. It needed to be educational, explaining what an atom is, ultimately selling the idea to young and old audiences.

A is for Atom

Victory Through Air Power - 1943 - Disney - Propaganda? - sketchy - hand drawn - relies on sound.

Tiny little super guy - sesame street - childrens educational puppet show - count dracula and cookie monster - uses a plastic cup to animate on - cell animation - quite light hearted - visually appealing to a very young audience - the use of interesting characters helps the children to learn with the information given.

'Charley Says' PSA - Central Office of Information - cel animation - very jagged animation - voice used over the top of the animation makes it look as if they are looking down at the kids - relates to 'every mothers nightmare' - informative but the sound effects and visuals make the video seem idiotic and not pointless - common sense.

I found this animation quite terrifying and pointless with the information given to the audience. I felt that the majority of the animation should have been common sense to the public anyway. The tone of the animation was quite patronizing even for the younger audience. The style of the animation works with the era that it was made but the audio is quite scary especially with the cat.

War story - Aardman 1984 - channel 4 interview narration - real life stories - illustrated radio - relates to another one they did 'Thief' - interview a thief that was caught and animate his story with the same visuals - interesting view.

Studio AKA - Meth Project Campaign - Poetic visualisations - voice over being interviews with some of the young audience that it has effected - showing real life stories - more emotional, especially seeing their age.

Each interview tells the story of how each child started to take meth and what experiences they went through, with a narration of which over the top of each animation. The style of animation varies but each holds its own aesthetic not only complimenting the narrative but enhancing the atmosphere of the visuals, making it more engaging for the viewer. I quite liked the animation for Rochelles' story, it holds a grunge appeal with a digital paper animation technique. It reminded me of the animation style for the cut scenes in the game Madness Returns, with the paper animation that works with the theme of the game. I felt that the use of the paper like animation in Rochelle's story worked well as it emphasised the engulfing and toxic properties of the drug. To use these animation techniques in a possible food documentary, I would have to use a very dark theme for example slaughter houses, in which only mature audiences would be able to view.

Sensory Overload - interacting people with autism - no dialogue but making people aware of this problem - abstract way of portrayal - rotoscope - goes from back and white to vivid colours when it overwhelms the character - shows someone trying to help him at the end - a nice touch.

I loved the aesthetics for this animation, the use of style of animation merged with the use of line and lack of colour unless symbolising the affects of autism worked successfully in portraying this to the viewer. I really liked the use rotoscope for the animation technique as it made it feel personal as a form of connection is almost made with the main character as the audience see the trouble that he goes through. However no-one else can see the visuals of the sound.  I have some experience with rotoscope from my applied animation from level 4, in which I created a title for a comic. I thoroughly enjoyed creating an animation with rotoscoped elements and with this documentary module it could be a good way to improve the skills I have already learned and refine them.

Sensory Overload (Interacting with Autism Project) from Miguel Jiron on Vimeo.

Invisible pictureshow 2013 - very web based and interactive - would be ideal for a young audience - keeps their attention - idocs - hosts lots of projects - interested in advancing software - allows you to thread sites into it - education starting to be more interactive - occulus rift - how can this be used for animation?

I really liked the idea for this campaign with the interactive elements that it contained. In felt that this would attract a young audience as well as an older audience through the game like aspect it contains, as well as it being educational. I found that this would work with a darker tone to documentaries with engaging the audience within the atmosphere with the aesthetics, but it would also work with a light hearted approach to a documentary however it would most likely only appeal to a young audience.  I liked the idea of considering how this, and an animation could be translated to new technology, the occulus rift. This is brand new and the capabilities/limits to this technology still haven't been founded. The idea of an animation being immersive to the audience in which they become part of the action and the story sounds amazing, and something that would greatly effect the way we perceive animation today.

Invisible Pictureshow