Updated Learning Agreement

Learning Agreement - Convergence/Divergence Unit

Through this unit I wish to be able to provide an awareness of how screen-based technologies are transforming the way that audiences are consuming information and how Illustration can enhance a specific concept and effect a target audience.

This unit will enable me to inform my creative ambitions with career planning within the digital/technological and inter-active industries. Moving my work along from what I have demonstrated previously in other units throughout my course, I will develop my creative solutions and skills in relation to the technology available to illustrators towards a screen based presentation. I will achieve this by creating a time plan for the duration of this unit, which will be reviewed and updated as my project develops, and evaluate my progress throughout through a blog.

For this unit I am building on the previous project by centering my work around a narrative. My narrative follows on using Todorov’s theory which I looked at in depth in the last unit. I intend to use the idea that “things aren’t always what they appear” and I will do this by manipulating the setting of my narrative, a forest at night, using shadows and sounds to provoke a reaction and emotion from my audience. When considering audience I intend to aim my work at a child audience, creating my work to provide light entertainment with an underlying message.

The body of my work will be represented as a blog, however I really enjoy working with hand drawn elements rather that working entirely computer based so I intend to do a large amount of my work by hand before bringing it all together digitally at the end as a screen based outcome. I intend to use stop frame animation to create the majority of my final outcome for this unit, as well as incorporating basic skills I have picked up during the After Effects workshop, and a mixture of hand rendered techniques I have learnt throughout the course.. I would like to use a mixture of hand draw images and cut out silhouettes which will be edited digitally to create a screen based outcome.

The last unit has taught me when creating a successfully narrative planning and storyboarding are key. I intend to utilize this for the convergence/divergence unit through hand drawn storyboards, planned out in a sketchbook and later uploaded to my blog (as this is how I feel I work out issues and composition best) but also since this unit will involve moving image I am going to use some of the techniques I learnt previously in the paper cinema workshop from the last unit. By putting my characters onto sticks so they can easily be moved around either in the background or foreground to work out how I need to this about things compositionally when considering the moving image.

For this unit my work will be represented as an on screen visual outcome, this is something I have never tried before and I am going to use this unit as a chance to push my work to a new level. I’m hoping that through experimentation I will be able to represent my work successfully on a new platform, but I know I don’t want to loose that hand rendered aspect I love so much about illustration.

Reference Material:
Blair, P. (1996). Cartoon Animation. Walter Foster Publishing.

Chong, A. (2007). Digital animation. Lausanne: AVA Academia.

Holmes, D. (2005). Communication theory: media, technology and society. London: Sage.

Kress G. and van Leeuwen T.(2006). Reading images: the grammar of visual design. 2nd ed. London:Routledge.

Salisbury, M. (2012). Children’s Picturebooks The Art of Visual Storytelling. Laurence King Publishing.

Tufte, E. (1997). Visual explanations: images and quantities, evidence and narrative. Cheshire, CT.: Graphics Press.

Wells, P. and Hardstaff, J. (2008). Re-imagining animation: contemporary moving image cultures. Lausanne: AVA Academia.

Wells, P., Quinn, J, and Mills, L. (2008). Basics animation: drawing for animation. Lausanne: AVA Academia.

Whitaker, H and Halas, J. (2004). Timing for Animation (Foreword by John Lasseter, Pixar). Focal Press.

Williams, R. (2004). The Animator's Survival Kit. Faber & Faber.

Zeegen, L. (2007). Secrets of digital illustration. Crans-Pres-Celigny: RotoVision.

My Narrative:
A little boy in his bed at home. Home and bed are associated with safety to children, therefore giving me my equilibrium. Originally I planned to have him reading in bed but now I think I will have the character being asleep to begin with, in a state of calm and rest before I introduce the disruption. I want to use a character of a dog in my narrative also and the idea of dogs being quite wolf like. I was thinking of introducing a disruption by having a noise wake the boy up. I decided that a bark from a dog would be a good way to introduce the dog character and disturb the boys sleep. Upon waking up he looks at the dogs bed to see what is wrong and discovers that his dog is gone and is somewhere outside. (Introducing disruption) In order to restore an equilibrium the boy must go outside to find his dog and bring him home safely. Now this is where I intend to use shadows and the nighttime to provoke fear in the audience, adding to the disruption. Reaching this part of my story has helped me think of introducing a theme/moral that 'Things aren't always what they appear.' I would show this theme to the audience by building up fear and then showing that everything is really okay. For example now the little boy is outside he goes into the woods in search for his dog. There are noises, there are shadows, all the settings needed to create fear. At first I imagined he could have eyes watching him, he would at first be afraid only to realise that it was a harmless family of owls watching him. Next he would go a little further into the woods and feel as though something is grabbing him, he would panic and cry out only to realise it was only his shirt caught in a tree branch. Finally the biggest fear would be introduced by a sound. He would hear a howl and assume it was a wolf. He would turn to run only to discover it wasn't a wolf howling at all but his lost dog ! Equilibrium is restored and could be further cemented by showing the little boy back in bed and the end with his dog curled up beside him.
 I think that this theme of "Things aren't always what they appear" could work well to add substance to my narrative and be successful with a child audience. Other picture books i've looked at contain a similar theme e.g. Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, Good Little Wolf by Nadia Shireen and The Big Bad Wolf and me by Delphine Perret.

Time Plan:

Date	Activity	To Do List
12th - 17th April	Character design / Story-board	Complete all character design and work out setting.  Start story-boards and be at a strong position to begin animating my images. Research into screen based media and audience to inform my work.
18th April	Stop-frame workshop.	Record and document everything learnt in workshop. Screen shots / Pictures are a must for uploading my learning process to my blog for a screen based response.
19th April	Critical evaluation	Review how the project is going so far:  What have I learnt ? Does anything need to be changed in my plan? What problems have I come across? How to move things forward from here?
20th - 22nd April	Story-boards	Have all story boards and planning completed by this point. It’s time to start animating !
23rd April	Paper Cinema Workshop	Record and document process to upload online.  Use techniques from workshops to see how story-boards work as moving images (screen-based) How does doing this help inform my practice when creating a screen based outcome for a modern audience.
24th April - 14th May	Work of final outcome	Using all techniques learnt up until now to begin creating a final response to this unit.
15th - 16th May	IT Support/ Trouble shooting	Final outcome should almost be completed by now. Use these last few days for any support or issues I have encountered.
16th May	Final critical evaluation	Fully evaluate my progress through this unit. What problems I encountered and how I tackled them? What I have learnt through this unit ? How this unit has made me aware of evolving technologies and what this means for my work as an illustrator?
17th May	Deadline	All work completed and handed in.