This is my final magazine style essay. I have double checked the grammar via Grammarly and corrected all the mistakes in the past.
If I have more time, I would focus on the layout because it looks too simple. I would like to make it more interesting by adding a background colour or other layout.
I added some sentences that relates to the animation to conclude the essay. Moving into modern media, overly exaggerated body language found a storytelling home in animation. Early cartoons such as Steam Boat Willy, the characters’ body language and the program’s music were the only storytelling element.
I have read some film magazines in the library and it inspired me of making my own layout plan.
Here are few simple examples that indicate myself where to put the images, quotes and text etc.
Research of Actions and body movement
Inborn Actions
Inborn Actions are primitive and instinctive. When we are born, our body already has information, mainly instinctive, that we use without knowing how or why. When a baby boy is born, he is brought to his mother’s breast to feed. The baby doesn’t know what is food, what is a mother, or even what are humans. He doesn’t have sight yet, but he knows that he has to suckle the breast to get food and live. Almost all baby actions are Inborn Actions. If you take, for example, a baby that is born blind and deaf, he/she will still laugh and smile even though the baby never saw or heard a smile.
Discovered Actions
Discovered Actions are developed as we discover our body and our environment. For example, when we cross our arms it helps to keep our body warm, can rest our arms or even protect us. Everywhere in the world people cross their arms, not always the same way, but for the same reasons. To salute, people show their palm, putting their defense down to show no threat to the people they are saluting to. A big part of human sexuality is also discovery.
Today, we have talked about layout of the magazine and some In Design skills. I have learnt some basic knowledge with grids and columns.
I decided to use three column grids to layout the essay, as one of the principle KISS (keep it simple, stupid), I think three columns can present the text easier than other style of grids.
Here are some animation books that I found in the library. There might have relate information about body language.
Animated Performance
Acting for Animators
The Illusion of Disney Life
I found one book has a useful information in a particular chapter: Movement and body language. In the <Acting for Animators> , it interprets how the acting influent the animators and how have they been using in the industry.
In addition, I found some interesting paragraphs that can be used as a quotation in the essay. For instance, 'Movement is almost always a result of thinking and emotion, and a character animator really should have a strong understanding of the connections.' This quote not only can support my point of importance of body language that have made int he body of the essay, but also indicate to the reader that I have read and understand the research that is relevant to the topic.
Body Language by Allan Pease
How To Tell Lies Successfully
In the book, Allan Pease has analysis the common gesture people would do when they are lying. The difficulty with lying is that the subconscious mind acts automatically and
independently of our verbal lie, so our body language gives us away. This is why
people who rarely tell lies are easily caught, regardless of how convincing they may
sound. The moment they begin to lie, the body sends out contradictory signals, and
these give us our feeling that they are not telling the truth. During the lie, the
subconscious mind sends out nervous energy that appears as a gesture that can
contradict what the person said. Some people whose jobs involve lying, such as
politicians, lawyers, actors and television announcers, have refined their body gestures
to the point where it is difficult to ‘see’ the lie, and people fall for it, hook, line and
sinker.
They refine their gestures in one of two ways. First, they practise what ‘feel’ like the
right gestures when they tell the lie, but this is only successful when they have practised
telling numerous lies over long periods of time. Second, they can eliminate most
gestures so that they do’ not use any positive or negative gestures while lying, but this is
also very difficult to do.
I decided to choose The Body Language in the character design as the topic for the essay.
Gibbs Reflective Cycle
I've chosen the body language in the character design as the topic for the essay
I felt it will be easy to find lots of resources or other references materials because anthropologist has been studying the human behaviors for long time and has been publishing a lot of relevant books.
the good thing about chosen this topic is I can learn more acknowledges about body language and gain more understanding about the importance of gesture and poses in the animation. However, this is wild topic that contains lots of information, I better have to narrow down the field I am going to write in order to make a effective essay.
to narrow down the subject, I should read the general content of the body language and choose the specific area to write
I could also get recommend from other people such as tutor or friend to help me with specific subject
if the problem rise again, I would do some research such as read the content of the book first, and then choose a specific area to study.
This is a computer-animated comedy television series made by Tuba Entertainment in South Korea. I love it because it depicts two larvae: Yellow and Red who are the main characters's daily life in a incredibly humorous way. To me, the most successful elements of this animation are the character designs and storytelling. They characterised the Yellow, Red and other insects very well, not only featured on the aspect of the 3D computer techniques, but also presented the various of personalities and interesting behaviours.
For example
Yellow (the images above)- is a dimwitted and happy-go-lucky yellow coloured larva with an antenna. He is my favourite character because he owns a good heart, he always adopts the abandoned or lost animals in the TV. However, He is always abused by Red, but that never endangers their friendship. Although usually he obeys Red, he loses his mind in front of food.
Red- is a mostly hot-tempered and greedy red coloured larva. He is always mean to the Yellow and his specialty is shouting and kicking like Bruce Lee. He is always showing off and abusing Yellow, but he often ends up hurting himself instead.
Although Larva is a brilliant comedy computer-animation, the major drawback of this approach is unsuitable contents to children. There are some pervasive gross-out humor (such as farts, burps, urine and bird poo are frequent fliers) and physical exchanges between the grubs, which are pretty humorous to watch. On the other hand, Larvae also run the risk of glimpsing things parents might not want to see in magnification, from a bubble inflated by farts to mysterious Yellow liquids that stream down the grate from passing dogs. What's more, the fact that characters communicate in grunts and squeaks rather than in words makes their physical behaviour even more prominent.
In week 11's Animation context, we had a tour to the Manchester Art Gallery. There are hundred and thousands art collection in the gallery. The following photos are the arts that I interested.
Vase
I really like the colour and engraving of this ceramic. The pale blue of the porcelain set off the tone of purity and naturalism. Not to mention the exquisite carving. The bottom of the vase revolved around two naked men, who seemed to be supporting the top of the vase. Each inch of their skin and muscles are carved in great detail. This is a gorgeous Jasperware!
Bestie
The reason that I liked this piece of artwork is the horse looked very feminine and unique. Usually, the horse people see in the life is characterised by an athletic and muscular feeling. However, this one isn't. It's been covered with a circular pattern of black lace, which is particularly mysterious and unique.
Eva Tempted
This painting depicted the temptation of Eva from the Bible story in the book of Genesis. As we can see that the naked figure of Eve strands beneath the Tree of knowledge on a carpet of blue, white and yellow flowers and grass, with one hand leaning against the earthen bank behind her, the other reaching up over her head to grasp an apple.
On the left, a blue serpent with a hideous human head and red hair, entwined about the trunk and branches of the tree whispers temptation, in the form of steamy breath, into Eve's ear. (referred from http://artuk.org/discover/artworks/eve-tempted-206097)
Roses
This is one of my favourite painting, the combination of beauty and death. Obviously, we can see that this is a rose from its leaves. However, this plant does not breed roses, but skulls. Those skulls look very creepy and thriller. It conveys a tone of death spreading in the midnight. I believe this is very novel and easily to attract the people's attentions, it is thoughtful.
Jackie Chan is a brilliant actor that most of his film combine the scene of action and comedy. This short video has briefly analysis the Jackie Style fighting. First of all, he always gives himself a disadvantages such as he's been handcuffed, he has a bomb in the mouth and so on, but he would always find a way to fight back with a logical reaction and those funny reaction made us laugh a lot. Secondly, He barley swing the camera to create the violent scene. Another reason I admire Jackie Chan is that he's a awesome fighting actor.We saw him jumping from the top floors, flip over the wall, falling off the ladder... He barley uses substitute for fight scene and all the wide camera angles were steady. This is very impressive as you can see the action and reaction are in the same frame. Furthermore, he's willing to spent as many time as possible to get the action right, not many director would do that. Jackie is a professional man who would correct the thing again and again till it's right. The most distinctive factor in his film is that a unique music rhythm as background music. The most inspirational sentence for me is that '' He doesn't win because of he's a better fighter, he wins because of he doesn't give up. For me, Jackie Chan is the best action comedy actor in the world, I respect him not because his fighting skills but also his persistent.
In week 7, we are going to choose a theme related to our personal interests in animation. We have to find information from a range of sources that include:
2 quotes from two experts/authorities
3 or more eye-catching images
2 magazine/newspapers
2 chapter in a library book
Several Websites
The theme I'm going to do is the eyes because I'm always interested in how people pass the emotions through their eyes. In the two following weeks, I'm going to investigate how would eyes change when people feel happy, worry, angry, sad and so on.
Library research
<The Animator's Survival Kit>
The photos below shows the techniques of expressive eyes that been described on the book of ''Richard Williams''
Quote 1. Early Disney Studio advised that ''If you're short of time, spend it on the eyes. The eyes are what people watch.'' (R. William, 2009, P325)
I strongly agree with the theory they said above that ''The eyes are the visible part of the brain directly connected to it. I think that's why we see the 'soul' or person revealed in the eyes'' (R. William, 2009, P325-326)
I frequently heard that the eyes are the window to the soul, the more clearness your eye is, the more purity your soul have. Our brain proceed the emotions through the eyes, when we feel scary, our pupil would dilate. When we lying, our pupil would rotate around because we scary to look directly at people. Our eyes are supremely expressive and we easily communicate with the eyes alone rather than body language.
<Character Animation>
In 3D character animation, the eyes will lead all movement of the face and body. It makes a character seem alive. The following photos showed that how to create the effective eyes to make character alive.
Always give your character something to look at either on screen or off. Even when a character is thinking, their eyes also could look up heavenwards for inspiration or down at the ground.
There are some knowledges I've learned from the book:
When character sees something you like, their pupils of the eyes will dilate and make the character look more attractive.
When a character is frightened, evil or hates somthing, the pupil will contrat into pinpoints.
When a character is surprised the eyes will bulge, emphasizing the whites of the eyes.
The photo below explained how can blinking eyes affect to the character. I've learned that with a standard blink, The eyelid will close slowly and open quickly. However, if you want to make the character look sleepy or stupid, animate the eyes with shut slowly and open slowly.
The Master Guide to Drawing Anime
The eyes on anime are always different to 3D character as they are bigger and brighter in order to show the beauti of the characters.
For the anime characters, the girl eyes are usually drawn larger than boys. But they used same techniques, which sketched top and bottom with arched first, then add eyes between them. The most important things is to add multiple shines to the irises to give the eyes that glistening appeal.
Drawn to Life
In this book, it talks about the structure of the eyes that consist of eye lid, a side temple, bottomor and eye ball.
It also mentioned the relationship between eyebrow and eyes. When the eyes looked widely, the eyerown will raised up by muscle, and it will forced down when eyes becomes wrinkle.
Video of Blinking Eyes
(Jessica Skyler, 2016)
This video shows how are blinking eyes work. It's a really detailed frame by frame animation video that you can see the eyelips dropped down and the eyeballs rotate downward while she blinks eyes.
R.William. (2009) The Animation's Survival Kit. London: Faber and Faber, cop.P. 325-326
S. Roberts (2007) Character Animation. Second Edition. Oxford: Elsevier Ltd. P.217-219
F. Press (2009) Drawn to Life. Oxon: Taylor & Francis. P.22 C. Hart (2015) THE MASTER GUIDE TO DRAWING ANIME. China: Caroline Kilmer, P. 66,86
J.Skyler. (2016) Animated Blinking Eyes. [Online Video] Available from://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUychKUkQFE [Accessed on 9 November 2016] Ferdinand Englander. (2013) Making Eyes that see. [Online website] Available from://www.animatorisland.com/making-eyes-that-see/ [Accessed 9 November 2016] Pinterest. (2010) Disney Eyes [Online Image] Available from https://www.pinterest.com/argentum25/glen-keane/ [Accessed on 9 November 2016]
