Final Artist Statement

My animation includes five total characters. Two of which are the main characters, as they are animated representations of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. The candidates are introduced to a boxing ring by Candy Crowley and go on to blurt out seemingly random comments and zingers. The animation is divided into three rounds, which represent the three presidential debates and each round focuses on the most commented on comment or action from each of the respective debates. In round one, Romey shoots the Big Bird/Jim Lehrer character. In round two, Lorainne pops out of Romney’s binder of women and the two get tangled up on how to pronounce her name. In round three, Obama makes an aggressive zinger comment towards Romney and Romney responds by shooting at him. The animation ends with Obama being pronounced the winner by split decision, to represent the fact that the presidential race was fairly close (at least by popular vote) and Obama won in a close race.

My animation was intended to comment on how much of a joke the presidential debates have become in the United States and how that candidates are no longer actually concerned about facts and presenting their plan, and are instead focused on attacking their opponent and coming up with “zingers” to impress the audience. The concept is displayed using animated characters for each candidate that represent the zingers from the debates and a few of their political stances. I also included multiple moderators and made them into laughable characters to show their lack of control over the candidates during the debates. I made the Jim Lehrer character represent PBS, but putting his head on Big Bird’s body and when the Mitt Romney character shot him, it represented multiple things. First off, how Romney said he would get rid of PBS. It also represented the lack of control Jim Lehrer had over that debate. A small detail of the Romney character that related to the overarching theme was the binder of women that he had tucked under his arm, which was perhaps the most talked about comment from the debate.

Creating the characters was the most fun part of this project, although it turned out to be rather complex and difficult. The most difficult portion was definitely making the horse that Romney was riding, walk in a somewhat fluid and natural motion. The easiest part was animating the mouths of the characters and syncing them with audio. I found that the part of the piece that actually seemed the most realistic and well-animated, was the gunshot wound and the bleeding that followed for the Big Bird/Jim Lehrer character.

Discussion Questions for Re-Imagining Animation

• As outlined in the article, what are some of the influences (technologically and culturally) on animators?

 

According to the article, there are a variety of influences on animators from the introduction of film to poetry to nature. Throughout the reading, influences on animators were discussed and explained. The reading talked about how film changed the way animations were created and how new software programs continue to change how animations will be created in the future. The reading also discussed the close and seemingly bizarre relationship between animation and poetry. The reading goes into detail about the surprising similarities between poetry and animation, such as the dependency on interpretation and their ability to present great ideas in a condensed form. The reading also talks about how some animators have been able to use nature to influence and even to directly create their animations such as those created by Karolina Sobecka and Bill Brand.

 

• What mediums/spaces is animation intersecting with, according to the article?

 

According to the article, animation intersects with a variety of mediums and spaces and perhaps intersects in some way with almost every medium. Animation intersects with film, video, photography, poetry, nature, and even the real/surreal and the impossible space.

 

• How might the medium continue to change and evolve in the future, particularly through upcoming technological shifts?

 

The medium of animation will be constantly evolving both now and in the future. There are an incredible number of technology shifts that will undoubtedly help the animation medium evolve. As mentioned in the article, software programs such as “Seadragon” will allow animators and viewers to view animations quickly at a high data rate and are looking to facilitate another dimension of animation, which is, of course, interactivity. The new touch interfaces are also revolutionizing how animations are made and viewed on screen and are aiding in that movement toward interactivity. The article also briefly discusses “Photosynth” and its ability to create a full 3D world that can be virtually manipulated by the user, which in and of itself is a form of animation.

 

• Look up two of the artists/pieces mentioned (via youtube, vimeo, the artist’s website, or some other source) and provide a mini-review.

 

I watched the Sony Bravia commercial with the Play-Doh bunnies and was absolutely amazed. It was incredible that that entire commercial was shot in stop-motion and not using special effects. I cannot even imagine the man-hours it must have taken to create that commercial and make all of the movements so incredibly fluid. This piece absolutely blew me away and this piece shows the potential to use classic animation techniques like stop-motion in conjuncture with new mediums and create something magical.

 

I also watched Peter Tscherkassky’s Outer Space. This film, on the other hand, I found completely and utterly obnoxious. It seemed as though the artist simply cut a few random clips together, created an obnoxious soundtrack with multiple overlaid and crudely cut audio tracks. Before I even made it through the first two minutes of the film, I felt as though I might have an epileptic seizure and once I surpassed that feeling and continued watching, I felt more like I was being brainwashed like the scene from Clockwork Orange. Although I absolutely despised the film, I can understand the narrative the artist was going for and the effects his used to try to create that narrative and while this was clearly a work of art, I was not at all a fan, most likely due to the fact that it made my eyes and ears ache.

 

 

Open Entry #4

Last night, I watched a documentary titled, 6 Days to Air. This short doc followed the creators of South Park and what it took for them to create an episode of the show. I’m not sure how many people know this, but I was astonished to find out that they created each show entirely from scratch every week, meaning they only had six days to come up with an entire episode, script it, get the script approved, plan it, animate it, and get it to the studios to show on television. Before learning about animation and practicing in class, I would not have thought that that would be too difficult considering the crudeness of the characters in South Park, however, seeing as it has taken me multiple days just to figure out how to make one of my character’s hands move in a fluid motion, I was baffled that they create the entire show in six days. The part that was even more ridiculous to me, was the fact that they didn’t even have a full story idea and an approved script until about 3 days before the show was supposed to air. That means that the animators had less than three days to create an over 20 minute animation! This relates directly to our class because of the animation techniques we are using and the very basic animation that we are doing with our characters is very similar to that used to make South Park. With the knowledge I have of animation from class, this film really made me appreciate how difficult the job of a professional animator is, especially for a show like South Park, where they are needed to turn out an entire episode of an animation in less than a week.

Final Project Idea

For my final project, I will be basing my animation on the presidential debates of 2012. I will be creating characters of Obama and Romney that incorporate a variety of the “zingers” from the debate as well as incorporating a character that is Candy Crowley on the body of a Candyland character. The candidates may be on the bodies of an elephant and a donkey to represent party affiliations. The background will be a boxing ring and the audio will likely be short clips from the debate of the candidates saying either ridiculous and completely false things, or saying the aforementioned “zingers”. The characters will likely move or transform based on the audio. For example, if president Obama says the “horses and bayonets” zinger from the debates, Romney will suddenly be riding a horse and holding a bayonet. Overall, the animation will be a comment on the irrelevance and overall falsity of presidential debates and how the focus has become on the “zingers” rather than the information that each candidate is presenting.

Video/Animation Review #4

For this review, I watched Agent Tax. I think the strength of this piece was the fact that it was very fast moving and always kept the viewer’s attention. I was never completely sure what was going on in the animation, but I was never bored watching it. I think the primary weakness of the piece was the confusing storyline. I think I partially understood the story by the end, I was confused throughout most of the piece. For some pieces of art and animation, the storyline doesn’t really matter because it is supposed to be more about the feeling that the images give you than the story. For this piece, however, it obviously had a storyline and the storyline was the focus of the piece, but it didn’t do a great job making that storyline completely clear. I was drawn to this film mostly because of the very simple and jagged animation that is similar to what we will be doing for this project. It gave me a good idea of how to create a world and make the animated characters interact with it. From the perspective of contemporary art, I think the jagged animation and comment of government taxes makes it a successful piece of modern art. The one thing that may have made this piece an unsuccessful piece of work is the clear aim to have a chronological storyline. This connects to some of the themes we have talked about in class, such as using animation to make a social commentary. We recently watched a previous animation project about the republican presidential candidate race that made a clear commentary about each of the candidates. This piece similarly had a very clear commentary about government, but didn’t make it very clear what that exact commentary about taxes was.

Project #4: YouTube Video Critique Response

For this YouTube project, my video of a variety of people from around the world lip syncing to Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend” was intended to comment on the ability of music to affect people of all different nationalities and ages. This video included videos from people all around the world and showed how much of an impact one song can be on so many people all around the world. During the critique, multiple people commented that my biggest strength was the syncing of the lip syncs with the single audio track as well as the quick editing. Despite the simplicity and fairly obvious narrative, most people seemed to like the narrative and thought it was a good comment on the world society. A few comments were made for possible improvements, including adding data of the number of views each video has as well as where they are from, to add more of a narrative and help people understand that these videos are coming from all around the world. I also would say one thing that I could do to improve this would be to make some dyptic and tryptic sequences to differentiate the video a little bit and allow people to see the videos side-by-side. I feel I did a good job forming and editing the video, but could improve on the clarity and complexity of the narrative involved. Based on the rubric, I would give myself a 13.5/15. I would say that I was a little sub-par in my conceptual complexity and therefore would deduct points from that section.

Open Entry #3

While searching the internet for some new music to add to my iTunes library, I stumbled across one of the most interesting music videos I have ever seen. There was no live video, no people, simply an abundance of animated typography that moved and altered not only with the beat and pace of the song, but displayed the lyrics and altered them to match the meanings behind them. This video really struck a creative nerve when I watched it and I instantly wanted to make something similar and am looking forward to incorporating it into future projects. I have some minimal experience animating typography in a 3D space using Apple Motion, but I hope to better learn and understand it, to make a more advanced and compelling piece in AfterEffects. After watching the video, I also considered making 3D animated typography a theme for my YouTube project by combining a number of different videos of it from YouTube to create something with a totally different meaning than each of the videos had previously. While I continued to mull over whether I would actually like to change my idea from the current one, I realized what made this piece of art so interesting to me in the first place. It was the fact that it created a mood and enforced an emotion using only text and a few basic graphics. With no actual images or animated characters, the video was able to not only tell a story, but make the viewer feel something that reinforced what the song was original trying to tell the listener. I look forward to learning how to create art like this and will certainly look to incorporate this type of art into a future project.

Project #4 Proposal

For my project idea, I wanted to make a mash up of people lip syncing popular songs to create a music video. The video would include a popular song with cuts to different people lip syncing it. I would stylistically edit it like a music video and include effects similar to those used in music videos to give it a very original and unique feel. I was planning to use a song that is a upbeat “dance” genre song that would have much more active beats to cut to, as well as include opportunities to cut in people dancing to the song.

Project #3 Critique Response

During the critique, my project was well received by the class. According to responses, one of the strong points of my piece was that it was anti-narrative, yet had a certain flow of concepts. Another strength of my piece was the strong images and their deeper meaning, as well as my use of overlays and color distortion. While a majority of my classmates enjoyed the the piece overall, a few did comment that I may have overused the overlay and it may have been more interesting if I had allowed people the time to see each image in a little more detail. As far as the audio, everyone seemed to like the audio and how it worked to compliment the piece.

Based on the critique and my impressions of other projects, I thought I did a good job finding images that worked well together and created a mood and meaning without creating a narrative. I also thought that I created an aesthetically pleasing surrealist piece with both video and audio. I do think that I could have improved this by having less overlay and a few more cuts and chances for the people to see each of the images on their own, instead of overlayed.

Based on the rubric, I would give myself a 17/18 due to fact that I could have had more physical investment and a little more conceptual complexity.

Video Review #2

To me, Locus Solus was a very interesting piece of video art. I thought it was incredibly well shot and edited. I also thought that the music and natural sound perfectly fit the video and made it all flow very well together. However, I was rather confused what the narrative of the video was if there was one at all. I was also unsure of the purpose of the recurring Asian woman throughout the video. I was also very confused as to what the purpose of the short pieces of text that appeared throughout the video. I absolutely loved all of the super slow-motion shots as well as the time lapses throughout the film. I was drawn to this video because it was so beautifully composed both visually and audibly. There was not one shot, that I did not like visually and everything seemed to flow together in a very soothing style. I believe that the beautiful shots of nature that connected on a very basic conceptual level worked incredibly well together and the excess of well composed experimental shots and made this a very successful piece of modern video art. While being very surrealist in style, this video was very familiar in concept and imagery, making it a very beautiful piece of art in my opinion. This piece connects closely to the surrealist art we have discussed in class due to the numerous visual effects and disconnected images and storyline. The piece also connects to the chapters we have read about the progression of video art and the increased use of visual effects. Although there were some aspects of the video that I could not explain or understand, I thought that this was overall a very good piece of video art and would certainly deem it a successful piece of art.