Individual Evaluation

The project my group and I have created is a stop motion animation with inspiration from a song. The song we chose was “Dance Dance Dance” by the Swedish band Lykke Li. The idea for our project was to tell a story based on the lyrical context introduced in the melody. When evaluating the project in accordance to our proposal it is comparatively close to what I had hoped it to become. With the lyrics in mind, we wanted to create an artistic piece by adding our theoretical knowledge through the use of appropriate equipment and software. The purpose was to remediate the lyrics into actions. As there was no specific story to tell other than portraying the lyrics in a creative way, the final presentation of the project proves this.

Because the lyrics entail both a concrete and abstract meaning, it allowed us to explore a range of possible outcomes for our project. The finished product reflects our awareness of topics mentioned during lectures and seminars. In our suggested proposal we had a varied range of inspirations, finally deciding to explore concrete poetry, typomania and semiotics for the animation. We also made use of the song itself as a source of creativity for the development of the animation. Although we have applied much theory from this specific module, one of the project’s weaknesses is that it lacks research and depth from other modules. Our focus was within Digital Media Foundations, thereby possibly missing a scope that could have improved the final result.

We have gained much knowledge on the history of concrete poetry and its original purposes. Maria introduced my group members and I to some books, giving us a more historical understanding of concrete poetry. This was helpful in gaining a perspective of the different contexts concrete typography has been used before. Prior to the proposal writing, we watched some lyrics videos on YouTube for inspiration as well. This shows that concrete poetry has not resigned in value despite being in use for centuries.

The expectations of what we thought we could produce were probably slightly unrealistic due to some of the avant-garde inspirations we had watched prior to creating our own project. Even though the project itself might look simple, it has taken countless hours to produce. Admitting that it doesn’t look particularly advanced, this doesn’t affect who we have considered to be our target group, notably those who are interested in this specific musical genre. However, we also noted in our proposal that we also wished to reach out to people who appreciated creative works. Seeing that our finished product is supposed to be a portrayal of our imaginative abilities, it might not live up to the expectations of this particular target group. Due to lack of time we had to develop the project, we needed to limit our own anticipations of what we would be able to produce. However, I think we’ve managed to take an initial idea and developing it into an original concept.

The narrative of the project has definitely made the development of the project easier than expected. Because we based the animation upon the lyrics, we just needed to make the music and images correlate to one another. When it comes to reading the media, I think we’ve made sure it’s comprehendible for every person willing to watch it. It demonstrates much knowledge gained from this particular module, whilst allowing those who may not spend their time being digital to understand the project. 

Despite the simplicity of what we have produced, we could have chosen an even more concrete approach. Because we wanted to create an animation purely with digital tools, we have developed great insight in combing both theory and practice. Applying much of what has been taught during our workshops combined with lectures and personal research, we have been able to achieve what we wished. This entails a better understanding of the software introduced in this module and ability to work successfully within a group.

Final Result of Project

This is the final result of our stop motion animation. We have explored semiotics, typomania, concrete poetry and lettrism as inspiration for our work. We chose a purely digital approach to the project in order to demonstrate our awareness and eagerness to explore the field of this module further. Through the use of software programs such as Flash, Audition, Premiere and Illustrator we have gained the ability on how to select appropriate tools to complete the project in accordance to our proposal. 

This project has helped us gain a new appreciation for digital media and how it can be utilized. It is obvious through the range of projects produced for this module, that everyone has a different understanding of digital media communications. Our wish has been to explore theoretical ideas and narrative through the use of audio and visual media. With the variety software used, we have shown an understanding of a selection of imaging, multimedia and audio skills. With the finished project we hope to have a visual concept that demonstrates our knowledge and understanding of visual communication, design principles, simple media production and relevant technical applications.  Finally, we hope to prove the module aim: a “production of digital imagery and sounds”.

Bear in mind that the quality of the video is poor because of the upload. 

 

Presentation Slides

Stop Motion Animation

I find it very interesting to see the creativity and results by some makers of stop motion animations. I have found some of my favorite animations on YouTube and listed them below. As you can see there is such a major variety and takes on creating stop motion animation - it's only you who can limit your creative abilities.

Research

While randomly searching on the Internet, I came across this fascinating article on the future of digital media.

"David Armano is one of the most respected voices in digital media. Six months ago, he listed the "Six Social Media Trends for 2012" in Harvard Business Review. All six are becoming increasingly more relevant. 

Airing honest feedback in advertising, more awareness of our own digital influence, gamification, social sharing, increased social integration into television and crowd-sourcing are all trends that are becoming more prevalent".

I added a link to the interview, giving detail to the latest insight on what's next, what's coming and how other forms of media will adapt.

Link:
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/status-update/2012/may/16/david-armano-future-digital-media/

Software Tutorials on YouTube

Here are some tutorials I've found to be helpful for this assignment

Illustrator tutorials on how to use pen tool:

Illustrator tutorial on how to use brush tool: 

Flash tutorial on how to edit frames:

Project Process & Development

In order to prove the existence of concrete poetry in this project we created the ballerina figure with pen tool to make a path in Illustrator. The writing used to create the shape of the ballerina is a handwriting font, rather than a gothic font, as we wanted softer lines to create the shape. This is because the ballerina is often associated with gracious lines and movements. Further, the skirt on the ballerina shape is made by brush tool free hand in Illustrator.

The bird figure isn't inspired by concrete poetry, but rather semiotics as we thought of it as analogy for the ballerina. We made it with brush tool in Illustrator. The bird has been added to our project because we were able to finish the ballerina earlier than expected. We also thought of it as a challenge to see what we could achieve with the software. I think the bird becomes is an unexpected element of creativity to the initial plan introduced in our proposal.

Adding music has also been essential for this project. We've had to make sure every word hits the screen in sync to the music, meaning the frame rate of the images has needed to be simultaneous to the lyrics of the song. We edited the song in Audition before adding it to Flash.

Because we had all done different parts of the animation in Flash, we needed a way to combine the different sequences; we chose to use Adobe Premiere as our tool for this process because it allowed us to import the sound with improved quality.

Inspiration and Discussion

Maria introduced my group members and I to some books she thought might to be helpful with the project and our wish to use concrete poetry as inspiration. We did some research on concrete poetry and its historical context by looking at "An Anthology of Concrete Poetry" by Emmett Williams, published in 1967 and "Concrete Poetry: An International Anthology" by Stephen Bann, published in 1968. These books have been in great use for interconnecting previous theory and our current practice.

After skimming through these books I decided to do some further investigation on concrete poetry in analog and digital media. This link (http://dichtung-digital.de/2003/parisconnection/concretepoetry.htm) was extremely interesting with its exploration of concrete poetry.

A great historical example from this website also discusses semiotics, which interestingly enough can be interlinked with concrete poetry and calligrams; "In the figurative poems the text shapes a certain figure, in religious context often a cross, in Baroque secular figures as well as here a goblet as a wedding poem for a couple from Bremen in 1637. This poem is an early version of interactive writing, which calls the reader either to turn around the paper or their heard in order to perceive the text. The deeper wit of this playing with form lies in the fact that after this performance one feels dizzy as if one had just drank a goblet full of wine. 

The philosophy behind this playing with form, behind this shift towards typography, is to free the word from its pure representational, designational function. While in literature the physicality of language - such as its graphical aspects - normally is neglected and even considered to poison the authority of the text, the relation between signifier and signified, here the visual form of the word was used as an additional meaning. The word not only represents an object it presents it on the visual level. The goblet is to be seen before one even starts to read".

There is so much to be discussed on concrete poetry because of its long history. Our project has a great aspect of originality as it explores the creation of a shape with words in a digital medium. We're creating a stop motion animation with an element of excitement, seeing that the figure will not be revealed until the end of the song. Rather than producing our project with static photographic shots and later editing them, we are continuously using modern software to produce this piece of work. As I don't think anyone else in my class are taking a solely digital approach to this project, I think that gives my group a unique advantage. We wish to experiment and become better at the programs which are the future of digital media.

Project Process & Discussion

During our workshops we have been able to experiment with different programs and software to better the results of our semester projects. This has been very useful seeing that all the students have different experience with the use of the different software introduced for this model. My group and I have decided that for our project we would focus on the use of Illustrator and Flash in order to create the outline of the ballerina figure. As Marina (group member) has the most experience with the programs from her previous education in Norway, she took responsibility for creating the a draft of the initial idea for our project. This proved to be a very successful result, and we're considering to use this as a potential inspiration for our project.

As you can see, the lyrics of the song "Dance, Dance, Dance" create the outline of the ballerina figure. I think the handwriting font Marina chose to create this shape is ideal, as it emphasizes the associations we often have with ballerinas, notably grace and harmony. I also think that the different use in boldness of the font also accentuates the shape in a favorable manner.  

I'm very excited to continue with this idea for our project as it correlates with our proposal perfectly. It also brings forward our fundamental idea, which is to create concrete poetry and make use of historical inspirations (e.g. Avant-garde calligrams). 

Teaching Week 6

In the lecture of week 6 we were introduced to current and future trends in digital media. We were informed about new distribution models and networks; copyright issues; convergence and, prevailing debates about social media. The lecture also explored how these themes might impact on student work. To sum up the lecture I did some research to find some shorter explanations of the terms introduced.

Intellectual property: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property)
"Intellectual property is a juridicial concept which refers to creations of the mind for which exclusive right are recognized. Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; discoveries and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs. Common types of intellectual property rights include copyright, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights and in some jurisdictions trade secrets".

Copyright: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright)
"Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time. Generally, it is "the right to copy", but also gives the copyright holder the rights to be credited for the work, to determine who may adapt the work to other forms, who may perform the work, who may financially benefit from it, and other related rights. It is a form of intellectual property (like the patent, the trademark, and the trade secret) applicable to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete".

Patents: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent)
"A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time, in exchange for the public disclosure of the invention".

Design rights: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_right)
"Design right is a sui generis intellectual property right in British law. There are two types of design rights: the registered right (Registered Design Act 1949) and the unregistered design right. 

The unregistered design right is similar to copyright in that it subsists automatically when a new design is created. However, its length is much more limited, since it only lasts for 15 years. It was introduced into British law by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Design right protects the shape of a three dimensional design. It subsists if the design is recorded on paper, or if an article has been made according to that design. It does not subsist in designs made before the commencement of part of the 1988 Act relevant to design right. It has rules on qualification for protection by both citizenship of the designer and place of the designing. Qualifying countries include the United Kingdom, the rest of the European Economic Area and British overseas territories. 

Design right does not subsist in parts of a design necessary to connect to another article, to surface decoration, to methods and principles of construction or to those parts of a design which are dependent on the appearance of another article, where that article and the article that design right applies to is an integral part of the second article. Design right also does not apply if a design is not original, and a design is defined as not being original if the object so designed is commonplace in the field when designed".

Trademarks: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trademark)
"A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify for consumers that the products or services on or with which the trademark appears to originate from a unique source, designated for a specific market, and to distinguish its products or services from those of other entities".

Infringement: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infringement)
"In a legal context, an infringement refers to the violation of a law or a right. This includes inellectual property infringements such as":

• Copyright infringment
• Patent infringement
• Trademark infringement

Useful links:

• http://www.own-it.org
• http://www.ipo.gov.uk
• http://creativecommons.org
• http://www.mobygratis.com
• http://www.flashkit.com/loops
• http://www.flashkit.com/soundfx

Web 2.0 and Convergence:
"Web 2.0, is loosely defined as developments in technology employed online that enable interactive capabilities in an environment characterized by user control, freedom, and dialogue,... (it) brings a new degree of interactivity and consumer involvement to advertising applications... It truly enables two-way or multiway communication between brands and consumers".

Social Media & Current Debates:

• Privacy rights (Twitter; Facebook)
• Reputation / defamation (Twitter; Facebook)
• IPrights (Twitter; Facebook; Flickr; YouTube)
• Web 3.0 - who is using your data, information, use patterns?

New Distribution Platforms:
Examples:

• Vimeo
• Blip TV
• Flickr / Instagram / Picasso
• SoundCloud / MixCloud
• Spotify (to whose advantage?)
• Aggregator Websites (e.g. CD Baby and more)

This was our last lecture in Digital Media Foundations as the following weeks are dedicated to project development and process. 

Storyboard & Project Process

When we started developing a storyboard we were undecided on whether we would like to do a digital approach or a more photographic version of our proposal. However, we decided quickly to do a digital project as this seemed more relevant to the module and its requirements. We would also be able to test our abilities with the software introduced in this module. Our module guide states we should: "demonstrate the ability to think theoretically, applying concepts from other modules to media productions, interconnecting theory and practice". 

Wikipedia writes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storyboard); "Storyboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. The storyboarding process, in the form it is known today, was developed at the Walt Disney Studio during the early 1930s, after several years of similar processes being in use at Walt Disney and other animation studios". 

We didn't make a very thorough storyboard, but it displays all the accurate content and sequences of what we would like to produce for our project. As you can see from the last picture we want to create a ballerina figure where we display the outline of the shape in an image succession. 

The reason for choosing the ballerina as a shape for our project is based on the song "Dance, Dance, Dance". Although it might lack some originality, the project will include a surprising factor as we will only reveal the shape of the ballerina in the end. The lyrics of the song will be revealed in the shape of the ballerina as the song progresses. 

Lykke Li & Lyrics

Wikipedia writes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lykke_Li), "Li Lykke Timotej Svensson Zacharisson; born 18 March 1986 in Ystad, is a Swedish singer-songwriter. Her music often blends elements of pop, indie rock and electronic; various instruments can also be found in her songs, including violins, synthesizers, tambourines, trumpets, saxophones and cellos. Li possesses the vocal range of a soprano. Her debut album, Youth Novels, was released in 2008".

These are the lyrics of the song we chose for our project:

Having troubles telling how I feel

But I can dance, dance, dance

Couldn't possibly tell you how I mean

But I can dance, dance, dance

So when I trip on my feet

Look at the beat

The words are, written in the sand

When I'm shaking my hips

Look for the swing

The words are, written in the air

Dance

I was a dancer all along

Dance, dance, dance

Words can never make up for what you do

Easy conversations, there's no such thing

No I'm shy, shy, shy

My hips they lie 'cause in reality I'm shy, shy, shy

But when I trip on my feet

Look at the ground

The words are, written in the dust

When I'm shaking my hips

Look for the swing

The words are written in the air

Dance

I was a dancer all along

Dance, dance, dance

Words can never make up for what you do

Dance, dance, dance

Teaching Week 5

In the lecture for teaching week 5 we explored the creative uses of sound either as application of sound to other media or as a medium in its own right in different platforms from interactive software to video, iPhone, MP3 player.

As I don't have much experience with the software programs exploring sound/audio, I chose to focus on understanding some tutorials during our seminar/workshop. It is extremely useful to watch these tutorials as they step-by-step focus on different aspects on how to learn the programs.

This is a "getting started" Adobe Premiere CS5.5 tutorial:

Project Proposal

This is the final proposal outline for our group project.

Concept:

Our main goal for this group project is to create a stop motion animation with inspiration from a song. The song we have chosen is Lykke Li with “Dance Dance Dance”. The idea is to tell a story based on the lyrical context introduced in the melody. With the lyrics in mind, we want to create an artistic piece adding our theoretical knowledge through appropriate equipment and software. We would hope to see that the finished result proves our awareness of topics mentioned during lectures and seminars. We see the possibility of exploring Bauhaus, semiotics, typomania, concrete poetry and lettrism as inspiration for our own work. We will also take use of the song itself as a source of creativity for the development of the animation. Our primary decision for choosing to make a stop motion animation was partially based on the influence of watching several lyrical videos on YouTube. Considering the song choice, our target audience would ideally be those who are interested in the specific musical genre. Additionally, our target group would also have to be people who appreciate creative works, seeing that our finished product is supposed to be a portrayal of our imaginative abilities.

Project Requirements:

To make this a successful project we have to estimate the resources required. Our primary support references would firstly be our core textbook, followed by the Internet for additional information needed. With this project we wish to prove our understanding of what the world of digital media entails and how it can be applied in a variety of manners. In order to complete our animation we will have to display our comprehension of software programs such as; Photoshop, Premiere Pro and Illustrator. This means using appropriate imaging, multimedia and audio editing tools with the programs mentioned above. In addition we will use a camera, tripod, string and pencils to create our stop motion. We will primarily be located at school for photographing and specifically the Mac lab for digital editing. We will also have to consider if any additional equipment, rooms or possibly studios have to be reserved in order to complete this assignment. If we encounter the possibility of something not mentioned in this proposal is needed, we will notify our tutor immediately.

Project timeline:

We have divided our project timeline into the following four phases: creating a storyboard, photographing, digital editing and adding music. The first phase is to be finished by week 5. We will brainstorm and thereby develop a storyboard based on the best ideas for the animation. After this we will continue on to the part we believe to take the longest amount of time, photographing. Due to the need of accuracy in this part of the project, we expect to spend around 3 weeks on taking still photos, seeing us done by week 8. The digital editing will also take a fair amount of time. We have estimated to spend nearly 2 weeks for this stage of the task, finishing by week 10. We will need to use various tools in Photoshop, Illustrator and Premiere Pro in order for the result to be completed successfully. The editing of photographs will include tasks such as finding appropriate filters and effects for a polished result. The final touch will be adding the music to the short film. This is crucial as the song portrays the actions going on in the animation. Our current estimation is to spend the least amount of time on this stage of the project, therefore narrowing it down to one week and a nearly finished result before week 11.

Product description:

Our goal is to create a stop motion animation based on the lyrics of the song “Dance Dance Dance” by the band Lykke Li. The lyrics will have a concrete and abstract meaning, contributing to the narrative of the film. We don’t have a specific story to tell other than portraying the lyrics in a creative way. Our purpose is to try to remediate the lyrics into actions. The format and presentation of the animation will hopefully give meaning to the audience, proving that we have acquired noticeable skills throughout this project. String and yarn will be the dominant materials in use for the stop motion, along with writing of letters. We would ideally see a natural flow between the narrative and the equipment used in the short film, making the content understandable for the viewers without necessarily knowing the lyrics of the song from before. As a finished product the stop motion animation will be a piece based on song text turned into a new medium.