Heavy influence.

What I looked into quite a lot was StoryCorps. This heavily influenced my ideas and decisions how to approach this brief. Plus it’s a wonderful little piece of really nice and cute animation.

One of my favorite "episodes" is right below. 

Influential work

I was stumbling my way around the internet when I came across this piece "In-Transit" done by: 

http://chuwenjie.tumblr.com

I can only say that it is beyond beautiful in creating an atmosphere that is incredibly well maintained not only by the art style but by the narrative itself. A great example of an experience a lot of us have. Ill let the work speak for itself. 

Link to "In Transit"
http://chuwenjie.tumblr.com/post/126785529084/in-transit

I'm not being punny,but...

 Another thing that was worth looking into is something hiding in plain sight. The way we actually talk. It seems like something so easy to grasp and understand, but if you look into it under a certain light you start realizing how colorful a simple conversation can be.

Yes, puns do come into this portion of my research, but it’s not just that. It’s so many things we barely ever give a second glance at hyperbolization, exaguration, metaphors, (that’s a whole nother can of beans right there… All of these are to be honest.)
But the thing that really did reassure me about not only having dialogue and voice acting in my final piece but also cleverly written metaphorical dialogue is word play.
A great example bellow. 

In loving memory...

Back when I was looking up quotations at first I started out looking into Famous Last Words. Because it seemed like a good thing to look into when keeping in mind the Brief. Since I assumed people would try to summarize their entire experience in one single dying breath. Despite how morbid the subject seems I came across a lot of amusing ones, which spoke chapters about the people who left them behind. My brain then came to a brilliant idea. Gravestones. 

I started looking into it as quickly as possible and the results did not disappoint. Especially since when chatting to people about my findings I saw a lot of different reactions for it. Some laughed, some questioned others thought it was plain ought moronic. Thus it seemed obvious that this was a perfect example to continue researching or fitting into my own project, mainly because a gravestone (to some extent just as the roadside example) is HAVING a conversation (despite of the lacking the ability to progress it). 

The power of a Conversation.

There’s a lot of things one can say about a conversation and how it could be used to "turn the tables" on many occasions, but while i was looking into this I came across, or "struck gold", with this Greek legend about a famous (or rather infamous) prostitute who managed to avoid a death sentence by showing the judges her breast and arguing that it would be a crime against the Gods to destroy something so beautiful.

Before you ask, yes there are paintings of this. And yes, i am going to provide an example.

Thus even if having visual assistance to help your point come across, the words and phrasing can add a lot to a point you are trying to make. So this was an interesting subject to look into and I’m sure I’ll find a use of this while working on my final piece for the Conversation brief.

For what it's worth...

Its rather obvious that I’ve have a fascination for quotes .And while I was researching for non-Verbal conversation I stumbled upon the idea to just start overlooking some quotations that would come close to defying the human experience with conversation.
The following are some of my favorites.  

“I use to think the worst thign in life is to end up alone. The worst thing is to end up with people who make u feel alone.”

— Robin Wiliams

“I still love the people I’ve loved, even if I cross the street to avoid them.”

— Uma Thurman

“They spoke less and less between them until at last they were silent altogether as is often the way with travelers approaching the end of a journey.”

— Cormac McCarthy

You say you love rain, but you use an umbrella to walk under it. You say you love sun, but you seek shelter when it is shining. You say you love wind, but when it comes you close your windows. So that’s why I’m scared when you say you love me.

— Bob Marley 

I could write chapters about how much these quotes inspire me to visualize the stories behind them. To consider about metaphors and their expressiveness in the most mundane surroundings and obviously the power of words spoken and left to drift in the metaphorical void, but truth be told I’d rather keep this shorter for the greater good, dear reader. 

Quid-pro-quo

Keeping on the track of Non- Verbal interactions, let’s take a look into something less aggressive then throwing spears into an airplane. And this would sit more”comfortably” among the lines of interaction and conversation. The tweet bellow tells a remarkable story that is just asking to be animated or atleast put into a fairytail. Another one of "those" things if i may.

A Non-Verbal Conversation

Not every conversation has to be verbal. It can only be actions or something among those lines (the cat example in the previous post would do wonders here.).

One of the best stories about non-verbal communication I have found is below.

"The anthropologists decided that this tribe was to remain “uncontacted”."

In my opinion it’s the perfect example of Non-Verbal Communication. Also I have a deep love for obscurity appearing in day to day life and am hoping to introduce some of it in this Brief.

A constant wordless communication with your surroundings,

A conversation can be anything. It doesn’t even have to be with a living thing. Not in the sense like having a casual discussion about the weather with your microwave oven (eagerly awaiting its reply), but more like the feeling of closeness and comfort u receive when a pet cuddled up to you at night when you’re feeling a bit under the weather.

A cat indeed is a living thing however.

But road signs aren’t.
And it’s rather a curiosity how we perceive them and understand them by a glance. Although it doesn’t take much for simple a road sign to carry a message that might reach a person on an emotional level.

It’s interesting how our casual environment can be manipulated to become something more meaningful. Something we can connect with. 

Baby steps. (The Definition.)

The Definition of: 

Conversation

1. informal interchange of thoughts, information, etc., by spoken words; oral communication between persons; talk;
2. association or social intercourse; intimate acquaintance. 
3. the ability to talk socially with others.

Communication

1. the act or process of communicating; fact of being communicated.
2. the imparting or interchange of thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs. 
3. something imparted, interchanged, or transmitted. 

Miscommunication 

1. to communicate mistakenly, unclearly, or inadequately.

I'm not lost...

So truth be told this isn’t a map you would follow while hiking, but here it is anyway. 
This is my mind map of a rough thought process while overly analyzing the brief and where it can take me, or to be more precise - vice versa.
Either way, here it is (good luck on your hike!)

Post Modernism In Animation

"It's PoMo! (beat) ...Post-modern. (beat) ...Weird for the sake of weird." —
Moe Szyslak, The Simpsons

Postmodernism is one of the things that are very difficult to put in words. Postmodernism began in the late 20^th century. A movement based in various forms of arts including architecture, literature, listing everything postmodernism touches is rather pointless, that came from modernism. Mostly Postmodernism is a very skeptical outlook and critique of almost everything modernism provided, showing itself in deconstruction .

However I looked at what postmodernism has achieved in the grounds of animation. It did not include any grand new techniques or anything similar, but inserted more of a critique and self-aware narrative into it. It thrived in satire, parody and most of all irony of everything that came before it. A good example is the Shrek franchise. The first movie was an ironic and an iconic twist on the classic fairy tale genre. Forcing the characters we would usually serotype as something else into a whole new box. Or in other, more accurate terms destroying the box in general and making them 3D. Not in the way of animation that is, but giving them personality traits that no one would originally associate their character stereotypes with.

This attack Shrek did on these fairytale stories could also be traced back to the fact that the animator and director who started DreamWorks previously worked at Disney because he didn’t agree with the franchised films they were making over and over. All for a bigger profit. Shrek his first production was a critique on that and a stab at his previous co-workers. Ironically same fate awaited the Shrek franchise as it sold itself out with Shrek 3 and Shrek 4. The more you know.

Moving on another trait in animation and storytelling which appeared during the movement is not only the critique of a higher narrative, and character stereotype parody’s but also a lot of attempt’s to break down the fourth wall. As mentioned before, making the cartoons become self-aware that they indeed exist in this drawn world. This showed itself as self-insertion into the show (as in mocking the animators or pitying them about all their work they put in) and as mentioned above self-awareness of being a cartoon and even occasionally taking a go at society’s structure, problems and etc.

Remarkable examples of animation

Yet again I’m making a post about animation/animated shows that inspire me to reach greater and work for my goals. These are a few examples of modern animated television shows that are extraordinary in how they treat their audience and what sort of messages they give to their viewers.

First of all I would like to bring up the newest program from Disney that has reached a vast audience in numbers and not to mention also the age differences – ‘Gravity Falls’.
The show has been slightly criticized and censored by the producers mostly because the subject matter is very brave and if I dare to say it, rather grim and dark. Just like Laika’s “Coralline” the subject matter has been criticized of it is suitable for children, but the show refuses to speak down to kids or its audience in general and thanks to this brave attitude and on point humor it has become a fan favorite one dares to imagine what it could be, if not for the censorship, which mostly is concerned about representation. Another thing that I admire about the show and its creator, that when asked about who is the shows targeted audience (again question raised from the occasional dark subject matter) the creator responded, that he’s making the show for himself. I find that very admirable. 

(Gravity Falls intro posted below)

The second animated show I wanted to bring up is Steven Universe. It’s hard to know where to even begin with this one. It’s amazing visually, story and humor are completely on point and the character representation is very vast and vivid (not only by race, body size, gender identity, but also it showed a lesbian couple, confirmed on screen to in fact be a couple, kiss on screen. It was portrayed as of seemingly platonic, but given the censorship on this subject matter lately it is very impressive.). It touches a lot of important notes any story should and some episodes hit, for a lack of a better expression, too close to home and when it’s over your left sitting there wondering what honestly did you just see. A lot of episodes in the further season can just be described as very lucid and heavy with melancholia. This is one of the many reasons the show is so good. It doesn’t speak down to its, yet again, very vast and diverse audience, but instead it treats them as adults, even more so to be honest.

(Steven Universe intro bellow)

The last show I wanted to talk about I have mixed feelings about. Don’t get me wrong it is a wonderful peace of animation. An excellent story compared with very grim and rather existential story and writing. Over all the show being more of an experience than anything else. The last animated show I wanted to talk about, which gives me incredible, seemingly endless, amounts of inspiration and drive Is – Over the Garden Wall. I made it often clear how I feel about children being exposed to grim and thought provoking subject matter. This cartoon has not changed my opinion what so ever. Perhaps only increased it. I would recommend adults to watch this short series it is just very relatable and incredibly thought provoking as I mentioned before – an experience among anything else, the atmosphere is incredibly on point and adds to the whole general mood of the show itself. I dropped the title sequence bellow and am going to let it speak for itself:

(Over the Garden Wall title sequence)

to summarize this post I would just have to say that these animated shows are beyond inspirational to me. It is a personal dream and an aspiration to one day be able to work on a project similar to these animated shows because yet again, they are incredibly inspirational. 

Silk Cut Cigarette Sureal Adverts.

One of the things (from Monday lectures from Tracy) that stuck with me most is the example she gave us when she was talking about advertising. The example was Silk Cut cigarette surreal approach to marketing. This whole campaign was started solely because named Tabaco company advertisings was banned. Bellow I posted their first released advertisement.

This type of marketing amazes me and to me is a perfect example of visual language and visual metaphors in play. In the advert itself there is no reference to smoking, cigarettes, smoke or the company itself. In fact the only way one could tell that this is an advert for cigarettes is by reading the mandatory health warning attached to the advert. The image is just a result of world play of the brands name, while off course using the brands color scheme.Their other advertisement became a bit more complicated, but only to their own benefit since solving the riddle would bring a lot of positive emotions towards the brand itself. The advert that Tracy brought to our attention in the lecture and in a way formed my interest in the rest of the companies adverts out there was the visual metaphor for the phrase – The next best thing since sliced bread.

Their adverts also involved a lot of references to popular culture that a person would have associate in their own head. The bellow advert shows the famous shower scene from the ever so popular Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960’s movie Thriller “Psycho”. The association that comes to the viewer’s head instantly is the knife slashing threw the silk shower curtain. Hence yet again complimenting the viewer’s intelligence when they solve the riddle.
 

Their last advert released and most likely my very favorite one is another take on the visual metaphor. It portrays a woman singing while wearing the iconic silk dress with a cut in it. The metaphor isn’t hard to figure out, it’s a take on” “It’s not over until the fat lady sings” and given the fact that this is a company that advertises cigarettes it can be rather grim given the concept. 

The Silk Cut cigarette surreal approach to advertising is really interesting to me. Not only that they successfully managed to continue their advertisements solely using visual metaphors for their representation., but also that they found a way to keep advertising their product despite the ban that was present. They found a way around it.

The Silk Cut cigarette surreal approach to advertising is really interesting to me. Not only that they successfully managed to continue their advertisements solely using visual metaphors for their representation., but also that they found a way to keep advertising their product despite the ban that was present. They found a way around it. Also these adverts sort of play off on Semiotics as they use visuals to make the viewer associate the entire poster/advert into a singular message. 

"WHAT‘S A GOD TO A NON-BELIEVER"

1. Albert Camus. A French Nobel Prize winning author, journalist, and philosopher.

"WHAT‘S A MOB TO A GOD"

1. Merilyn Monroe.Became a worldwide recognizable Sex Symbol. Comiited suicide.

2. Joseph Stalin. Leader of the Soviet union. "The Man who Saved Capitalism" E.Kaplan. Died of natural causes.

3. John F. and Jacqueline "Jackie" Kennedy. Kennedy was stripping rich and powerful people of their money. Assassinated.

"WHAT‘S A MOB TO A KING"

Nobilities: 1. Katherine The Great. Empress and Autocrat of All the Russias. Reign 1762 – 1796. She died in her bed, after a stroke.

2. Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Dracula Prince of Wallachia. Reign 1448; 1456–1462; 1476. Exact reason for his death is not known.

3. Louis XIV of France or The Sun King. Reign 1643 –1715. Died of natural couses.

4. Marie Antoinette The last queen of France. Death by guillotine.

"HUMAN BEINGS IN A MOB"

Famous Revoliutions with Global reprecutions. 1. The October revoliution. (Socialist Revolution). Vladimir Lenin

. 2. The French Revolution.Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre. (Reign of terror. Guillotined the nobles)

3. Cuban Revolution. Fidel Castro.

Some of the reference I have looked at,