Finished Animation

        Although the final outcome of the practical Context of Practice brief, is somewhat different to my original idea, I have enjoyed the process of watching my animation evolve throughout the production process.

        Having assembled the figure animation separately, and being pleasantly surprised by the results, I was a little apprehensive as to how she would sit within my digitally augmented setting, which i feel is the weakest aspect of the piece due to my inexperience with digital painting and alterations. Thankfully the dark colours were relatively forgiving and the brightness of the character's skin draws attention away from the backdrop, and consequently the two sit alongside one another quite comfortably.

        Were I to undertake this project again, the one thing I would change is the extent of the figure's movement, as I would loved to have seen her stand and walk off screen, pausing before slinking behind the curtains at the back. Yet working within the allotted time and my skill range, I am pleased with the outcome, particularly considering this is my first time animating a figure.

Lecture 11: Postmodernism

Lecture 10: Modernism

        The concepts of modernism and post modernism have always seemed a little beyond my grasp. They had never properly been explained to me, and so I had consequently come to view them with no small amount of confusion and trepidation. However, lectures 10 & 11 have managed to clarify the matter for me, at least to some extent, by providing clear definitions, guidelines, and visual examples. Hopefully I am now on the way towards being better able to understand these artistic movements.

Lecture 9: Communication & The Mass Media

Lecture 8: The Photograph as Document- Documentary Photography

        This lecture, which questions the reliability of photography as a truthful depiction of everyday sights recalled how I was taught to handle photographs as historical sources. Largely, we place a great amount of trust in photography due to its realism, and neglect the possibility that we could be seeing a staged, doctored or biased perspective of reality. You must also consider what is not shown in the document, and treat photography with caution.

Figure Animation

        My initial plan had been to draw Dahl standing up from her reclining position before walking seductively off screen, and I had looked at Richard Williams' Animator's Survival Kit for inspiration. This book pointed out fundamentals such as the fact that a seductive female walk cycle has more exaggeration, with the feet crossing in front of each other as though the character is walking along a straight line. There is also a detailed series of images featuring a Jessica Rabbit style character, which would provide an excellent frame of reference.

 

        After careful consideration, however, I realised that I had never animated a human figure, let alone a complex walk cycle, and it might be more sensible to attempt something a little more simple. So, as an alternative, I chose to depict her rolling over into a more modest position, before fading away to demonstrate the emptiness of the advert.

 

        Originally, I had intended to use the eyedropper tool in Photoshop and a graphics tablet to digitally paint over my hand drawn figure. But the eyedropper showed that Dahl's skin was pretty much white in the photo, which left little reason to paint over her body again. To accurately capture all the shade and variation in her hair  would also have been a mammoth task digitally (as I have no prior experience working with a tablet), so to keep things simple I used watercolour, which has its own natural colour variation.

        Having never animated a figure before, and considering that this was animated using the 'straight ahead' technique, without the structure and reference that I ideally would have liked (I was unable to persuade anyone to model for me), I am pleased with the result, and think that the manoeuvre is quite fluid and believable, and it has given me confidence to attempt more complex sequences in future. 

Background

        To save time, but also to maintain the depth of colour and quality of texture from the original advert, rather than paint my own background I chose instead to use Photoshop to digitally remove Dahl from the advert and use that as a backdrop. However, as my animated figure would stretch further than Dahl's pose, it was necessary to expand the original backdrop.

 

There is not much room around Dahl to depict her stretching.

         The area around the edges are largely dark, and so it was relatively easy to merge the image into a single dark colour, as areas of lighter definition mostly fade before the edges of the original images. However, the pale blue areas above Dahl do extent to the edge, so to accommodate this I combined numerous copies of the advert, and blended the edges using the eraser and blur tools. It is by no means perfect, but the focus is drawn to the female model, and the result is better and more textured than if I had digitally painted it myself.

 

 

        So that the contrast between the photographic background and my hand drawn figure is not to great, it has occurred to me that I could begin the animation with the original image, and use After Effects to fade from the original to the hand drawn. I had also pondered keeping the original hair until the model lifts her head, but on further reflection I believe that this would only draw attention to the difference between the photographic and painted hair colours, whereas merging the two entire images together allows the transition to be gradual.

Proposal

        So, how to address the complex topic of sexual exploitation in advertising? The main point that I wanted to focus on was whether suggestive adverts stick in the memory for the right reasons; is it memorable for the product or just the provocative imagery? I haven't been able to find a more apt demonstration of such an advert than the controversial 2000 Opium campaign, which focuses solely on a nude Sophie Dahl (successfully communicating the brand's glamorous and opulent image, but neglecting the  product). 

 

        I propose to make a short animation which communicates how the desire to capture attention can often eclipse the actual purpose of advertising campaigns. My first thought was to construct a narrative, with a character (either male or female, as there are just as many adverts featuring scantily clad men as women) glued to a provocative advert. Later, as the character reminisces about the advert, they are unable to recall the featured product. This idea is quite complex however, with a lot of elements and animation involved which may be beyond my capabilities within the remaining timescale. I needed to pare back the animation, making it as simple yet effective as possible.

 

        The solution was to abandon the narrative aspect, and extra character and focus just upon the advert (I'll use Dahl's Opium campaign rather than create my own), removing the suggestive figure to show that the rest of the advert is empty, and is not best utilised to make the product seem enticing or appealing, as indeed it is not present anywhere within the image.

 

        The nature of this idea fortunately means that I won't have to use multiple angles or backdrops, as I will be animating within the pre defined parameters of the existing image. Consequently I will be able to efficiently create the backdrop and moving figure separately rather than redrawing the background for each frame, and layer the two components together later.

 

        Hopefully, the effect of my completed animation will be that the viewer pauses to contemplate the appropriateness of provocative imagery in advertising. I am not against such adverts as long as the suggestive content is justified, rather than just employed to be eye catching and memorable.