Stop Motion - 4

Filming was done more recently for the paper scene, this was a relatively quick procedure as we had all our frames prepared beforehand, this is the opening scene of the fight with 2 of our characters standing off. This is the fight to resolve who plays the video games.

Stop Motion - 3

We hung around for a long time on the name of the notes. Originally the name of these notes were going to be the title of the animation, however we decided on a better name for the animation. The title of these notes is a spin on the anime name "Death Note", whereas writing a persons name in the death note kills them, drawing a picture on the life note brings it to life.

Stop Motion - 2

2nd filming day. We did a rather idiotic thing and didn't save enough for the filming of the scene so we needed to change the conflict. We quickly changed to another effective one. Who plays the video games. This is enough of a conflict to fuel the need to use the 'life notes' to resolve the conflict.

Stop Motion project - 1

In early - mid September we started our filming. The intro was simple, "A box dropped off at the door with a bunch of notes in it that said they could make drawings come to life"... The main problem we had was the source of conflict... We just didn't have one. So after a while we devised that a great cliche yet effective source of conflict would be the classic last slice of pizza as can be seen. This made the story more interesting.

Photos and details of filming the stop motion

It has been a while since I updated this blog. However we have been working pretty hard at filming the stop motion, ahead will be a few frames with details from differing dates and updates concerning events on those days.

BDM 103-2

1. MICROSOFT V. MIKEROWESOFT

At 17 years old, Michael Rowe started his own website design company. Looking for a catchy name for the business, he decided to create a parody of computer software giant Microsoft using a variation of his own name. Rowe purchased the URL mikerowesoft.com.

The Bill Gates empire caught wind of the site and threatened to sue for trademark infringement. To avoid litigation, they graciously offered Rowe $10 to reimburse the expenses incurred in buying the web address. When the story started hitting online news sources, the outcry from average web surfers was intense. A defense fund was set up in Rowe's name and people donated around $6,000 to help him fight the power.

After the online commotion died down, Rowe began to realize just how much was at stake if he saw this case through. His measly $6,000 was nothing compared to the billions Microsoft had at its disposal. And should he lose, Rowe would be responsible for the court costs of a team of Microsoft lawyers, a fee he'd be struggling to pay for the rest of his life. He began to wonder if he should just take his $10 and throw in the towel.

However, the bad press Microsoft received was enough to make them sweeten the deal. In the end, Rowe handed over the website in exchange for Microsoft Certification training, a trip for his family to a tech conference in Redmond, Washington, assistance to set up a new website, and an Xbox videogame system.

BDM 103

MCDONALD'S V. Mary blair's Mcmunchies

If you want to use the name Mc-anything for your business, think again. There's a good chance Ronald and his lawyers will be on you like barbecue sauce on a McNugget. Here are just a few of the many trademark infringement cases McDonald's has brought against small businesses that dared use some variation of "Mc" in their name:

"¢ Back in 1996, if you were looking for a quick lunch in Buckinghamshire, England, you might have stopped at Mary Blair's McMunchies, a small corner deli whose name combined slang for snack food and the owner's Scottish heritage. McDonald's threatened to sue her, saying the "Mc" prefix was a registered trademark. To the rescue came Lord Godfrey MacDonald, head of the MacDonald Clan of Scotland, who started a campaign against the corporation's harassment of businesses using the Mc prefix. McDonald's received enough bad press that they eventually dropped the case against McMunchies as well as many other small McBusinesses in the UK.

ASA - People in Advertising Cases

Case 1: Video Ezy Queens Birthday Sale Ad.

 Complainant, A. de Villiers, said:

“The above advertisement breaches the A.S.A’s ethics in that it’s portrayal of her Majesty the Queen is offensive to the dignity of her Majesty, attempts to ridicule the honor of her Majesty and shows contempt for her Majesty’s person.

Related Principles

3.  Advertisements should not portray people in a manner which, taking into account  generally prevailing community standards, is reasonably likely to cause serious or widespread offence on the grounds of their gender; race; colour; ethnic or national origin; age; cultural, religious, political or ethical belief; sexual orientation; marital status; family status; education; disability; occupational or employment status.

and

6.  Humour and satire are natural and accepted features of the relationship between individuals and groups within the community. Humorous and satirical treatment of people and groups of people is acceptable, provided that, taking into account generally prevailing community standards, the portrayal is not likely to cause serious or widespread offence, hostility, contempt, abuse or ridicule.

Deliberation:

Within the Advertisement, the Queen did not speak, nor was ridiculed or poked fun at in any manner, therefore the complaint was not upheld.

Decision: Complaint not upheld

Case 2: Wicked Campers Mobile Billboard

Complainant, W. Hill, said:

In reference to a Wicked Rentals Van

Seen 31 December 2007 at Whangapoua, Coromandel, outside the shops and playground at approximately 9.30am. Looked like the van had been tagged, but it was actually professionally spraypainted on and included offensive language. Also saw another van on 8 January 2008 in . Cambridge which included the female name for a dog written on the side of it.

Related Principles

4: All advertisements should be prepared with a due sense of social responsibility to consumers and to society.

5: Offensiveness - Advertisements should not contain anything which in the light of generally prevailing community standards is likely to cause serious or widespread offence taking into account the context, medium, audience and product (including services).

Deliberation:

The Chairman took into account the content of the wording on the campervan and was unanimously of the view that it would be likely to cause serious and widespread offence in the light of generally prevailing community standards. Thereby it ruled that the advertisement was in breach of Rule 5 of the Code of Ethics.

Decision: Complaint Upheld

2d animation style

This is not quite final. It is still being slightly refined. In the end it will be closer to adventure time. Basically it is a small detail change and more vibrant colouring.

2D animatic

This is my current animatic. It has not changed from storyboarding due to the fact I feel the story is worthy of animating. It will be done frame by frame rather than rigging.

Propaganda in Modern Media

Propaganda in modern media is still a very common thing. It may not be based around World War II, but that does not mean it is not propaganda. One of the most famous examples of that in recent history is Obamas "Hope" poster. This poster promises there will be changes and that Obama is a better president to have because of his ability to change things. Even though Obama has not lived up to his expectations, he has performed a tremendous job, keeping this "Hope" poster a sign for actual hope within the future for the U.S

Propaganda

Popeye the sailor man is an iconic character in America. By exploiting the use of this character and making stereotypical Japanese people the enemies, Popeye becomes a symbol of propaganda and an 'ideal role model' for sailors around that time.

In this animation, Popeye is very nearly defeated, however as usual he relies on his spinach to give him the strength to overcome the odds. The way Popeye deals with these enemies makes them seem feeble. At another point a Japanese Pilot starts firing shots at Popeye, but these take no effect whatsoever making the Japanese look powerless. Just after Popeye notices the Japanese pilot whose easily destroyed is labelled "Made in Japan", again mocking the Japanese and labeling them as cheap.

All in all, this animation makes the Americans look far superior by extensively using racist stereotypes to create a sense of the superiority. This also breeds confidence in war and potentially caused more recruits to join eagerly to fight for their country.

Copyright Infringement Case

Vanilla Ice vs Queen & Bowie Vanilla Ice became a household word for a while, not because of his talent, but because of the copyright infringement that occured in 1990 when it came to light that he had sampled Queen and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure” without consent or license. Ice Ice Baby hit number one on the charts in the United States and Vanilla Ice became the one ‘under pressure’. Vanilla Ice altered the rhythm of the baseline thinking he would thereby avoid any question of credit, royalties, license or even permission. This case never went to court as it was clear that Vanilla Ice had stolen the sample without permission. He settled out of court with Queen and David Bowie for an undisclosed but very likely very high amount. Ice Ice Baby has been released in many different versions, since then, with all of the legal procedures followed. Source: http://www.fairwagelawyers.com/most-famous-music-copyright-infringment.html

Project Bible Title Page

The simplistic design shows what i am attempting to achieve with my animation. It is a similar simplicity to Adventure Time

Character and background design

I have been tossing up ideas for colouring for some time. This is my current idea. I like how the attention is drawn to the character instead of the background, even when it is present. This simplistic background style would allow a large focus on character emotion and movement, rather than background design.

Posts about Parody

Tobuscus is a popular youtuber, known for many things including gameplays and Vlogs, but he also has a Literal trailer series where he takes the music from video game and movie trailers and puts his own lyrics to them.

Key of Awesome is a popular youtube channel for song parodies. They purely do song parodies as their content.

Robot chicken is quite popular for probably being one of the most televised forms of parody, where they use stop-motion to parody many things. Tv shows, movies, childrens toys, and songs.

Hishe is a company that looks at movies, Tv shows, and Video games then re-imagine the endings in a comedic manner.

Abridging is a popular form of parody on youtube. The most troubled series would have to be LittleKuribohs Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged. Over the time it has been up it has faced issues over Youtubes copyright system. Many times these videos have been taken down due to the copyright system, however more recently this series has been approved and is now in most if not all it's entirety on youtube.

Research and Pitch for 2d animation

For my 2d animation I would like to use my story from the first semester. This story has the appropriate elements I am looking for in a story. Comedy, Action, and Drama, all rolled into one short animation.

Log Line: A student runs for his life when being pursued by a large student, only to figure out not everybody is as evil as they look.

Character designs: Although I have made the characters look very anime-like. When it comes to actual animation I would like these characters to look quite comical. Inspirations include Mac and Cheese, and the Scout and Pyro from Team Fortress 2

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Although these characters are 3d, I believe I will be able to achieve this character style in a 2d format. The backgrounds and scenery I want to give a vibrant city anime look.



This is the sort of style I will be looking at. The characters, even with odd proportions, will have colour palettes to match the style of the overall animation. The backgrounds, even with this style will be much more basic yet entertaining to look at.

The story is the same as the first semester story

A student leaves school, noticing he is being followed by a larger student he rushes from school as fast as he can to try and reach the safety of his home. A chase begins and continues until he reaches his home. Only then does he realise the student is trying to give him his wallet.

Overall this animation will have a very anime oriented look with the proportions of more comical 3d styles which I believe will make a believable story of a person fearing for their life.

Animation History lesson 2

Animation History: Winsor Mccoy

Today we studied the works of Winsor Mccoy, one of the first character animators. The animations include Gertie the Dinosaur, Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend, and How a Mosquito operates. These animations are both quite basic due to being such early on in the progress of animation. However, at the same time shows how far animation had already come by 1911.

Everyody here was Kung Fu Fighting

At an earlier point I was introduced by another student to a youtube channel named Hyuns Dojo. This is a channel which specialises in stick figure animation of sorts. Series include Collaborations such as Doors, in which a variety of animators work together on a project incorporating all their different styles. Another series is stick figure spotlight where the animation is design to demonstrate the abilities of champions from the popular game League of Legends.

Storyboard progress

I have been working on storyboards for a while. Here are 2 screenshots on the work. The first is a draft for the first moment in the animation where we see our main character for the firs time Dave Davidson as he leaves the school via front door, it is almost a moment of huge revelation.

The second is later on in the animation when our main character is trying to pass the antagonist and return to his home. We start with a close up of the house zooming out to show that the antagonist is at a point where it disadvantages the protagonist.

Quick Draft (N1NJA)

In the comic class we have to create comic. Mine is based around video games. I required a character that had an agile yet partially threatening look to them. This is is the first draft for such a character and it shows the qualities of what he is going to be. However, I have a distance to go as his design does not incorporate emotion, and so I will change to allow showing of emotions.

Dave Final Portrait

After settling on Dave for the character and designing him. Here is the final portrait of him. The basic design of the character and the scene is so the viewer is more focused on the character. The simple colouring is to bring Dave down to a more basic level so people may better understand him with minimal viewing of the animation.

Final Character Design

This was the final character design I went with. The characters name is Dave Davidson. He is designed to be a generic high school going student. This is to give the viewer a sense of familiarity with the character. More details will be seen about the character with the story.

Previous character design

These were the first attempts at character turnarounds. At this point in development my story was about a young teenage girl dealing with fears while trying to fall asleep. The simplistic design of the character was meant to compliment the simple design of the story. Unfortunately the story was scrapped. However the character lives on.

Time for Adventure

For about 7 years Adventure Time has graced cartoon network with multitudes of tales about the brothers Jake and Finn in the post-apocalyptic land of Ooo. On the surface this is a basic television show made for children. However upon inspecting this show further there are many elements which are not made for children, not only this but there is a large amount of depth to some characters withing the program. These elements combined make an interesting animated program with and interesting animation style. Here is an example of adventure time parodying the card game Magic: The Gathering

Beatboxing... Using animals

Animal Beatbox is a short film music video... With a twist. Instead of all the usual beatboxing this video uses the names of animals to achieve the same effect. The unique sound basis of this video gives the audience a new look at how sounds can form music without necessarily being music. On top of this we are given the video in stop motion animation. These unique combinations of sound an visual creates a visually and audibly pleasing.

Feast your eyes on this!

A short while ago I viewed the movie Big Hero 6. The movie itself was a joyride exploring the uses of technology ind the combined Japanese and American city of San Fransokyo. While the movie was great, there was another gem along with the movie. The short film Feast. The film itself is nice and basic, yet the background tells an entire other story which the main character is only later involved in. This unique story style paired with the elements that make disney movies visually appealing makes this story become so memorable.

Original apologies

First of all, there will be apologies to any who were wanting to view my progress throughout the year. However, I have been gathering up resources to be posting on this blog. Now they shall all be simultaneously uploaded. Some of the earlier posts may reorder somewhere in the mix as what I have with me day by day changes. Without further ado... Here is a world of content