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Month: May 2023

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Thesis Proposal

Week 17: Introduction and Conclusion

Does changing gender representation in the animation industry influence representation on screen?

Introduction:

From the inception of the animation industry, female representation in animated films has been minimal. The same is true for the representation of females in the industry itself. Although representation both in the production workforce and on screen has significantly increased over time a direct connection between these two is unproven. This research aims to understand if increased number of females working in the industry results in better gender representation on screen.

To address this question, it is important to study the history of the industry from the perspective of gender, alongside considering which positions within the industry influence the creative direction of the animated films. This will help to determine whether the presence of women in the positions they have taken has increased diversity of gender representation on screen.

Conclusion:


In the conclusion the result of the quantitative research will be summed up with the theory in the first chapters. The outcome will answer the main question of the research – whether the gender representation in the industry influences representation on screen.

Categories
Advanced and Experimental 3DCA Techniques Project 2

Week 17: LipSync Blocking

This week we had to start animating and put it in blocking first. The only parts I didn’t put in blocking is the mimics and lips movement.

My first attempt:

Artefact Animation

This week I worked on scene 7, previs of which looks like this:

I asked my classmate Gloria to help with a reference:

Playbast animation:

The second part of the week I spent on figuring out how to create a glowing effect for a firefly that is going to be visible in multiple shots, as well as how to create a fireflies swarm.

Our other tutor Michael was helping me to achieve a glowing effect. At first we tried putting a light in the body of a fly, but it didn’t give a desired effect. So then I tried adding emission to the body by adding a different texture first. It did help to illuminate light but the light was visible only when a fly was close to different surfaces. Michael suggested duplicating a body part and scale it but also didn’t do a wanted effect.

An example of the glowing I wanted to create was drawn over the rendered scene in procreate:

After hours or investigation I found the easiest solution to achieve a glow – I added a bloom effect under the “image” section in render settings. This effect blooms all the lights in the scene, but since my scene didn’t have any additional lights (I used Skydome for the light), the effect affected only a firefly.

A previous example also shows an example of the swarm.

To chive a swarm effect I knew I had to work with particle effect. Michael showed me a YouTube example that really helped to achieve a nearly desirable effect:

After testing a particle and a bloom effect:

Categories
Thesis Proposal

Week 16: Chapter content

Introduction

Methodology

Literature Review

1. Underrepresentation of women in the animation industry 

1.1. The early history from a feminist perspective

1.2. The increase of representation over time

2. Who can influence the representation on screen

3. Female representation in animation film

3.1. Female representation in animation film

3.2. How to define a good female representation on screen

4. Does the increase of females in the industry has a direct relationship to a female representation on screen

5. Conclusion

Bibliography

Categories
Advanced and Experimental 3DCA Techniques Project 2

Week 16: LipSync Idea and references

This week we started working on an animation that concentrates more on the lip-sync part.

For the animation, I had to go through lots of audios and find a one that resonates with me. I ended up with a sound from the Mean Girls tv show.

We had to write down the text and underscore words that we have to put the emphasis on and add pauses. In the white I wrote the text in a way how I hear it. This is necessary for the animation as the character doesn’t need to articulate all the sounds and lots of them are either skipped, changed or emerged with others.

For the reference at first I came up with one idea, but after the discussion with George I changed it. A final reference idea has two versions:

For the character I picked a Malcolm rig:

Artefact Animation

This week I started to develop scene 5 and 6. The second scene I would consider and the hardest one as it has the most character movement.

Previs:

For the scene 6 I filmed references to help understand the movement:

An animated playbast:

In the second version of the scene 6 I decided to shorten the scene and add a camera movement for more dynamics:

Categories
Thesis Proposal

Week 15: Research Design

What is research design?

Research design is the method that a researcher selects to organize their research project or study. Research designs can provide instructions for collecting, analyzing and measuring data effectively. Using a research design is important because:

It can help you ensure that your research addresses your research problem.

It acts as an outline and guide for the entire research project.

It can help you organize all the different components of your research project.

You can choose an effective research design by considering your research problem, which is the specific topic or knowledge gap that your research aims to address. Usually, researchers include their research question and research design selection in the introduction of their research paper.

1. Exploratory research design

One common type of research design is exploratory design. The exploratory research design format is useful when you don’t have a clearly defined problem to study. Often, this type of research design is less structured than other research design options, and you can use it as a guide for your initial research to uncover your research problem.

2. Observational research design

Observational design is also a common type of research design. The observational research design format emphasizes observing your research topic without altering any variables. When using an observational research design, you can simply observe behaviors or phenomena and record them rather than conducting an experiment.

3. Descriptive research design

Descriptive design is another type of research design. The goal of using a descriptive research design is to describe a research topic, so this type of research is useful when you need more information about your topic. Descriptive research design can also help you understand the “what,” “where,” “when” and “how” of your research topic. The one question that a descriptive research design does not answer is “why.”

The type of the research I am making is correlational as it is investigating a connection between increase of women working in the industry and female representation in the animated films.

Categories
Advanced and Experimental 3DCA Techniques Project 2

Week 15: Polishing

After the feedback George advised to change one particular movement and instead of the right hand going down, it has to ‘help’ the left arm to ‘get out’:

He also suggested to break the clip that holds the left arm and work a bit more on the last part of the scene – the crawling:

The final (almost) animation:

Artefact Animation:

This week I worked on the next two scenes:

To understand a movement I filmed a few references:

Final animations:

Categories
Thesis Proposal

Week 14: Reading Journal Articles Efficiently

It is necessary to read article in a efficient way to keep only the most important information.

Papers can be decided into two groups: supporting and key:

Categories
Advanced and Experimental 3DCA Techniques Project 2

Week 14: Spline Animation

This week I got more feedback on my blocking plus animation. George suggested to make a more interesting finger movement in the first part and make the mannequin collect fingers in a fist. It would also fill a small pause. I also had to work more on the paper body flexibility in order to make it look more natural.

After applying all the notes to the blocking animation, I have put it in spline and adjusted timing:

Animated Artefact

This week I decided to animated scenes in order of the story. I concentrated on animating first two scenes.

The first scene is an opening scene, where we see a part of the environment – that we are in a some kind of forest, and a whole character.

A previs for consecrating more on a body position within the shot and a firefly’s movement:

As a previs for this shot wasn’t really showing a pose of the character, decided to make a reference of myself lying on the ground to make it look more natural in the animation:

In the reference I added all the necessary movements including the breathing so the character doesn’t seem that static:

The second scene was a continuing of the first one, but with a focus on mimics.

In the previs there was not much happening as the rig didn’t have a face, but we can see a movement of a firefly and the ending of the scene – “waking up” and moving off the shot:

Playbast version 1:

In the version 2 I cleaned a bit the mimics:

Categories
Thesis Proposal

Week 13: Sources

Bryson, V. (1992) Feminist Political Theory. London: Macmillan Education UK. doi: 10.1007/978-1-349-22284-1.

Furniss, M. (1998) ‘Issues of representation’, in Art in Motion, Revised Edition. John Libbey Publishing, pp. 229–248. doi: 10.2307/j.ctt2005zgm.15.

Koroleva, T. A. (2013) ‘Women’s Movement: Genesis and Evolution’, Bulletin of Tomsk State University, 368, pp. 44–50.

Smelik, A. (2007) ‘Feminist Film Theory’, in The Cinema Book. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. doi: 10.5040/9781838710484.0065.

Smith, S. L. et al. (2019) Inclusion in the Director’s Chair: Gender, Race/Ethnicity, & Age of Directors Across the Top Films From 2007-2018. Available at: https://assets.uscannenberg.org/docs/inclusion-in-the-directors-chair-2019.pdf.

Thompson, K. (2014) ‘“Quick-Like a Bunny!” The Ink and Paint Machine, Female Labour and Color Production’, Animation Studies, 9. Available at: https://journal.animationstudies.org/kirsten-thompson-quick-like-a-bunny/.