Friday 23 January 2015

Adaptation & Professional Practice Part A: Breakfast Cereals Research

An influence map of some of the examples of breakfast cereal fonts, shapes and positioning's. All of them together creates a variety to select from. The colours seem to compliment each other and some strive for simplicity, others for intricate placements. You can also tell which are children breakfasts by just observing the characters, always filled with happiness in their space. There is always one dominant colour in these as well. For example the Frosties cereal uses deep blue to bring forth the character to the audience, eye-catching reds in both the tongue, scarf and font.

My favorite to select from these though would be between the Dorset and Jordans Cereal.


I've put them into a colour order from what I would think would be night to day. I prefer this design because of its positioning, simplistic yet effective designs with the most basic typography. Some of the colours compliment each other really nicely. I would like to incorporate this style into my own workings.


 
 
I want to use the dorset cereals colours from above to annotate the passing of time into morning. I could set a timer on the colour to contrast from one to another. I'm also thinking of a wiping transition to display information on the screen. I will be briefly going back to my designs, taking some font styles and creating colour compositions of possible steps.

Adaptation Film Review: Paprika

Directed by Satoshi Kon and released in 2006, Paprika is an Japanese animation co-written by Yasutaka Tsutsui and Seishi Minakami. Satoshi Kon born in 1963 studied at the Mushashino College of arts. He began as a manga artist, moving onto animation working in the background of many films such as 'Roujin Z' (1991), his first feature film was 'Perfect Blue' (1997). In 2001, he finished work on his second feature, 'Millennium Actress'. Satoshi's style as you can guess is as a anime/manga artist. With this art form he can explore surrealism to an audience who is quite familiar with it, anime and manga always looks to push the boundaries on what to expect in cinema.

The film is about three scientists at the Foundation for Psychiatric Research who fail to secure a device they've invented, the D.C. Mini, which allows people to record and watch their dreams. A thief uses the device to enter people's minds, when awake, and distract them with their own dreams and those of others. Chaos ensues. The trio - Chiba, Tokita, and Shima - assisted by a police inspector and by a sprite named Paprika must try to identify the thief as they ward off the thief's attacks on their own psyches. Dreams, reality, and the movies merge, while characters question the limits of science and the wisdom of Big Brother.

It was attempting to push the boundaries of surrealism and force them into realistic spaces. It felt like in some areas to be reminiscent of 'Inception' by Christopher Nolan. I believe it did this by asking us subliminally if the animation was currently in dreamspace or awake, just like Inception did. The editing was repetitive just like the dream sequences, it was a constant reminder to events that occurred earlier in the film. The soundtrack was filled with energetic Japanese pop, it gave us a hint we would see Paprika by including her own theme tune.

I would recommend this to people who have seen animations such as the Studio Ghibli collection or looking for a fresher release from anime eastern cinema.

 

Adaptation & Professional Practice Part A - Potential Font Styles?

10 steps to becoming a morning person

I have searched for fonts that are related to morning consumable brands we all see on a regular basis. May it be in the cupboard, fridge or in a advertisement. I have included three fonts with their individual alphabetic fonts, to show which letters work more than some. I have also selected a few fonts in a short list that I also think could be adapted into my info graphic. All the fonts on here are free to download and loyalty free;

My favorite are:
  • Before Breakfast
  • Rum Raisin Regular
  • Marmellata Jam
Please comment on what you prefer and what you think will not work. Feedback is welcome

Friday 16 January 2015

Adaptation & Professional Practice Part B: Feedback

For the Adaptation & Professional Practice Part B project, I would like to create character designs that can then propose an animation project into the area. I wish to do character design because I feel personally I haven't explored the area well enough, both in initial designs and in maya builds. I would like to make this the project that has me going back to developing characters and working on this skill.

Alan and I discussed some feasible sources to create an adaptation from, I presented 4 possible choices of novels;  The Martian, Good Omens, Steelheart and finally Misspent Youth. All of the books have a promise to character I believe and the best I think would be 'Good Omens'.


Terry Pratchett has a reputation for detailing splendid characters, I also believe that from extracts I can create 3D character designs for them. Of course I must read this novel to uncover reasons to why the characters must be created to propose an animation. I researched some quotes of the character descriptions taken directly from the novel, I think the details are enough for a starting point for creating the characters three-dimensionally. Also take into account that the descriptions of the characters aren't all put on the same paragraph as they are introduced. Their attitudes and appendages are detailed the longer you read about them;

The Four Horsemen of the apocalypse

Death
-He has the grinning, skeletal appearance of the traditional image of the Grim Reaper, and his voice is “a dark echo from the night places, a cold slab of sound, grey, and dead”
-Extremely tall, when wishing to conceal his identity he wears a long black coat and hides his terrifying features behind a motorcycle helmet
-Death unfurls “wings of night, wings that were shapes cut through the matter of creation into the darkness underneath” and reveals himself as “the angel of Death”.

War
-In the Good Omens universe, War isn’t a man, but a woman, who calls herself Scarlett or Carmine Zuigiber
-Her hair was true auburn, neither ginger nor brown, but deep and burnished copper-color, and it fell to her waist in tresses that men would kill for, and indeed often had. Her eyes were a startling orange. She looked twenty-five, and always had”
-Her laugh is like “machine-gun stutter
-And though she’s described as beautiful, it’s “the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close”

Famine
-Looks like a “pleasant, thrusting, successful businessman”
-He’s thin, of course. He has black hair, a short black beard, and he dresses all in black. He has “dark grey eyes”
-“Tall gent with a beard, nice suit.”

Pollution
- “His skin was pale, his hair a faded blond, his eyes light gray. He was somewhere in his twenties at a casual glance, and a casual glance was all anyone ever gave him.
- “Farther down the riverbank sat a young man dressed all in white. His hair was white, his skin chalk pale. He looked like Victorian Romantic poets looked just before the consumption and drug abuse really started to cut it”
- A little later, it’s specified that his hair is long
- He enjoys his job: to him, a polluted river is “all so damn beautiful”
- “The wind blew empty crisp packets and newspapers and ice cream wrappers in with him. They danced around his feet like excited children, then fell exhausted to the floor.”

Adaptation & Professional Practice Part A - Tutorial Feedback Week 1

Feedback
After consulting with Alan on the results of my '10 steps to becoming a morning person' research and findings, I have progressed further into my development. Alan agreed that the list need alterations and re-phrasing here and there. He is a draft of that revised list of steps;

  1. Go to sleep at the same time everyday
  2. Start slowly (Alarm)
  3. Expose yourself to natural light
  4. Be hygienic
  5. Eat a breakfast
  6. Caffeine
  7. No gadgetry
  8. Listen to your favorite music
  9. Persevere and be realistic (Composure)
  10. JGU&FDI


Colours
Also for style we discussed the application of using breakfast cereal colours to create a consistent flow of 'morningness' in the audience. Each colour would represent the step perhaps, I shall be looking into cereal types and seeing if I can connect them to the steps.
So for example the colours for steps 2 and 3 could be light oranges to whites, because it is the rise of the morning, sun rise and would remind the audience breakfast could potentially also come near.

Fonts
Alan gave me the idea of using the fonts and colours in collaboration with one another, maybe even base the size and style of font on the shapes of the cereal I could be using. Or the other option would be to negate from this and choose a consistent font style that can be used throughout. But I must take into consideration the styles of the colour and animation usage or they wont integrate properly.

Next Step
From this point I must try to fit some colours and shapes of cereals into the steps, plan each step on screen whilst consulting with Alan. Finally the animation style needs to start developing in after effects with some playblasts of examples and the direction I want to take.

Adaptation & Professional Practice Part A - infographic style ideas


I have looked into a few different animations and info graphics I feel could influence my own workings and perhaps inspire a new style for me. Taken from a scene in Wall-e, this is the culture aboard the axiom. With the screens heavily influencing the lives of the passengers, it instructs them on the day. The enthusiastic voice is ironic I think because everyone aboard the vessel is morbidly obese, the Axiom's screens detail a 'Healthy' style with big bold fonts and various bright colors to catch peoples attentions. Also I noticed a selection of frames where the computer tells passengers to change colors by literally scrolling from a red to a blue shader. Simple animation, but serves a purpose I think.


Another idea was to re-arrange existing information on screen by adapting them into other forms. I was inspired by the Monsters Inc opening sequence of animation. If I was to replicate this kind of animation into my own working I would probably use a folding technique or like a pop-out. Linking to the information gained by one of my previous posts, the information could fork out from one object with the re-arrangement of sentences and imagery on screen.

Adaptation & Professional Practice Part A - Infographic Research Stills


Thursday 15 January 2015

Adaptation & Professional Practice Part B - Novel Ideas

The Martian - Andy Weir
 
Six days ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first men to walk on the surface of Mars. Now, he's sure he'll be the first man to die there.

It started with the dust storm that holed his suit and nearly killed him, and that forced his crew to leave him behind, sure he was already dead. Now he's stranded millions of miles from the nearest human being, with no way to even signal Earth that he's alive--and even if he could get word out, his food would be gone years before a rescue mission could arrive. Chances are, though, he won't have time to starve to death. The damaged machinery, unforgiving environment, or plain-old "human error" are much more likely to get him first.

But Mark isn't ready to give up yet. Drawing on his ingenuity, his engineering skills--and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit--he steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. But will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome the impossible odds against him?
 
Good Omens - Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett
 
According to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch (the world's only completely accurate book of prophecies, written in 1655, before she exploded), the world will end on a Saturday. Next Saturday, in fact. Just before dinner.
So the armies of Good and Evil are amassing, Atlantis is rising, frogs are falling, tempers are flaring. Everything appears to be going according to Divine Plan. Except a somewhat fussy angel and a fast-living demon—both of whom have lived amongst Earth's mortals since The Beginning and have grown rather fond of the lifestyle—are not actually looking forward to the coming Rapture.
And someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist . . . 
 

 
Steelheart - Brandon Sanderson
 
Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics. But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his wills.

Nobody fights the Epics...nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.

And David wants in. He wants Steelheart - the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David's father. For years, like the Reckoners, David's been studying, and planning - and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.

He's seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.

 
Misspent Youth - Peter F. Hamilton
It is forty years in the future and, following decades of research and trillions of euros spent on genetics, Europe is finally in a position to rejuvenate a human being.

The first subject chosen for treatment is Jeff Baker, the father of the datasphere (which replaced the Internet) and philanthropist extraordinaire. After 18 months in a German medical facility, the 78-year-old patient returns home looking like a healthy 20-year-old.

"Misspent Youth" follows the effect his reappearance has on his friends and family -- his young ex-model wife Sue, his teenage son Tim, and his long term pals, themselves all pensioners, who are starting to resent what Jeff has become.
 

Bibliography
 
 
 
 


Adaptation & Professional Practice Part A : Evaluation of Ratings

From the short rating system I made for the steps for becoming a morning person. I took a brief initial questionnaire that the subjects would rate each step out of 5 being relevant to them and 1 being non-relevant. In total I asked 6 people just to get an idea for the steps that seemed most appeasable to the audience. I have also tried to put them into progressive steps so step one is going to be something that you would presume would come first and not last.

1. Go to sleep when you are tired
2. Get up at the same time every day
3. Persevere and be realistic (Composure)
4. Start slowly (Alarm)
5. Expose yourself to natural light
6. Be hygienic
7. Eat a breakfast
8. Caffeine
9. Listen to your favorite tunes
10. JFDI

Above is the revised list that I have comprised from the results from my short questionnaire. I have put them into a chronological order I think is fit to a wide audiences morning. There are a few steps that can be re-phrased to become even more relevant. for example the caffeine step could be anything that would be a consumable that would waken the subject. JFDI stands for Just F****** Do It, and I am wondering if its too blunt and would deter the audience from the general message. Its supposed to just be humour to get on with the day in a positive attitude.

I will be making alterations to the naming of the steps if necessary but this is the order I want it presented in.


Adaptation & Professional Practice Part A - Ratings on steps

These are the ratings for the 20 steps I've provided for the 10 steps to becoming a morning person. I have asked a few of my friends for their ratings on each.

Hannah -
  1. Get more sleep (5)
  2. No screens in the bedroom (1)
  3. Go to sleep when you are tired (3)
  4. Create the right night time routine and environment (2)
  5. Stop pressing snooze (5)
  6. Get moving as soon as possible (3)
  7. Get up at the same time every day (2)
  8. Work out in the morning (4)
  9. Expose yourself to natural light (2)
  10. Always have something to look forward to (4)
  11. Start Slowly (Alarm) (4)
  12. Eat a breakfast (5)
  13. JFDI (5)
  14. Set some happy sounds (2)
  15. Persevere and be realistic (5)
  16. Listen to your favorite tunes (4)
  17. Do a puzzle (3)
  18. Be hygienic (5)
  19. Be comfortable (3)
  20. Caffeine (2)

Scott -

  1. Get more sleep (4)
  2. No screens in the bedroom (1)
  3. Go to sleep when you are tired (4)
  4. Create the right night time routine and environment (3)
  5. Stop pressing snooze (4)
  6. Get moving as soon as possible (5)
  7. Get up at the same time every day (5)
  8. Work out in the morning (1)
  9. Expose yourself to natural light (4)
  10. Always have something to look forward to (1)
  11. Start Slowly (Alarm) (1)
  12. Eat a breakfast (3)
  13. JFDI (5)
  14. Set some happy sounds (2)
  15. Persevere and be realistic (5)
  16. Listen to your favorite tunes (1)
  17. Do a puzzle (1)
  18. Be hygienic (5)
  19. Be comfortable (2)
  20. Caffeine (2)
Adam -

  1. Get more sleep (3)
  2. No screens in the bedroom (2)
  3. Go to sleep when you are tired (5)
  4. Create the right night time routine and environment (4)
  5. Stop pressing snooze (1)
  6. Get moving as soon as possible (1)
  7. Get up at the same time every day (5)
  8. Work out in the morning (1)
  9. Expose yourself to natural light (5)
  10. Always have something to look forward to (5)
  11. Start Slowly (Alarm) (4)
  12. Eat a breakfast (4)
  13. JFDI (5)
  14. Set some happy sounds (5)
  15. Persevere and be realistic (2)
  16. Listen to your favorite tunes (5)
  17. Do a puzzle (1)
  18. Be hygienic (5)
  19. Be comfortable (1)
  20. Caffeine (1)
Ruby -

  1. Get more sleep (5)
  2. No screens in the bedroom (1)
  3. Go to sleep when you are tired (4)
  4. Create the right night time routine and environment (5)
  5. Stop pressing snooze (1)
  6. Get moving as soon as possible (3)
  7. Get up at the same time every day (3)
  8. Work out in the morning (1)
  9. Expose yourself to natural light (1)
  10. Always have something to look forward to (1)
  11. Start Slowly (Alarm) (5)
  12. Eat a breakfast (5)
  13. JFDI (3)
  14. Set some happy sounds (3)
  15. Persevere and be realistic (3)
  16. Listen to your favorite tunes (5)
  17. Do a puzzle (1)
  18. Be hygienic (4)
  19. Be comfortable (4)
  20. Caffeine (5)
Tom -

  1. Get more sleep (4)
  2. No screens in the bedroom (1)
  3. Go to sleep when you are tired (1)
  4. Create the right night time routine and environment (1)
  5. Stop pressing snooze (1)
  6. Get moving as soon as possible (4)
  7. Get up at the same time every day (3)
  8. Work out in the morning (1)
  9. Expose yourself to natural light (5)
  10. Always have something to look forward to (3)
  11. Start Slowly (Alarm) (4)
  12. Eat a breakfast (5)
  13. JFDI (1)
  14. Set some happy sounds (1)
  15. Persevere and be realistic (3)
  16. Listen to your favorite tunes (2)
  17. Do a puzzle (1)
  18. Be hygienic (5)
  19. Be comfortable (1)
  20. Caffeine (5)
Sam -

  1. Get more sleep (2)
  2. No screens in the bedroom (1)
  3. Go to sleep when you are tired (3)
  4. Create the right night time routine and environment (1)
  5. Stop pressing snooze (1)
  6. Get moving as soon as possible (2)
  7. Get up at the same time every day (1)
  8. Work out in the morning (1)
  9. Expose yourself to natural light (3)
  10. Always have something to look forward to (3)
  11. Start Slowly (Alarm) (4)
  12. Eat a breakfast (5)
  13. JFDI (5)
  14. Set some happy sounds (3)
  15. Persevere and be realistic (3)
  16. Listen to your favorite tunes (5)
  17. Do a puzzle (1)
  18. Be hygienic (5)
  19. Be comfortable (5)
  20. Caffeine (3)

Adaptation Film Review : Max & Mary

Max and Mary (2009) is an Australian animation directed by Adam Elliot. Starring the voices of Toni Collette as Mary Daisy Dinkle and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Max Jerry Horovitz. It is a drama comedy from Australia that manages to be sickly-cute, alarmingly grotesque, and right-on at the same time – often in the very same scene. The animation is a stop animation mould, the creators move the characters and set pieces slightly in each photo frame to illustrate movement in a still world. It is actually based on a true story , the director had a pen-friend with the Asperger's condition. The animation is a adaptation of this fact.

In a brief synopsis, Max and Mary (2009) follows the friendship of two pen-friends whose fates intertwine by pure coincidence, they look to learn more about the world from each other conquering themselves in the process. Set firstly in the mid 1970's, the story spans over 20 years of their friendship. Their ups and downs, agreements and disagreements, a tale of the pursuit of knowledge and loving themselves before others. The main characters as the title suggests are indeed Max and Mary, although their are a couple of other characters that feed into the story as directly.

To my belief the animation was trying to achieve an emotional response in the audience, trying to be relevant with connecting with our exterior and interior flaws. It tried to bring the bleak and uninteresting life of a middle aged New Yorker, with the life of a young intrigued girl from Australia. It did this correctly through the use of clever colour schemes so we could differentiate from the two locations, and the narration of the characters emotions to the audience. I think the animations editing was clean cut throughout, it didn't need many tear aways or transitions due to the fact the story was forever moving forward on screen. The passing of time was illustrated with a straight cut to a panel detailing the time passed from each scene to another. It is quite a disturbing film, it is quite blunt with its explanations of processes. It is both light-hearted and dark humorous. I would recommend this film to people who have seen films such as Coraline and Boxtrolls.

 

Wednesday 14 January 2015

Adaptation & Professional Practice Part A - Steps to becoming a morning person

Adaptation & Professional Practice Part A - Decision

I have decided to go with doing the '10 steps to becoming a morning person'. This decision is due to the fact I believe it has the most potential graphically and also can be relevant to many users. I have taken to multiple web searches and have concluded in a few steps I think can be progressed into becoming a morning person.

I have researched online and found an article on the Huffingtonpost website detailing on how to become a morning person. These can be found here in more detail, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/casey-cavanagh/morning-person_b_5502768.html but here are the steps they have detailed.


  1. Get more sleep
  2. No screens in the bedroom
  3. Go to sleep when you are tired
  4. Create the right nighttime routine and environment
  5. Stop pressing snooze
  6. Get moving as quickly as possible
  7. Get up at the same time every day
  8. Work out in the morning
  9. Expose yourself to natural light
  10. Always have something to look forward to 
There are more ways possible I think but I may compile these into a quick questionnaire on what each are most relevant to them out of 5 perhaps. Instead of presenting 10 steps in this questionnaire Ill present more to create a variety. 

Friday 9 January 2015

Please VOTE! - Adaptation & Professional Practice Part A

I need help making a decision on what to do for this project, I have chosen three ideas to be taken forward from the pitch feedback today. The aim is to create a 30 second to 2 minute animation to detail the steps to become (Blank). So the three ideas I have are;

1. 10 Steps to Becoming a Ninja
2. 10 Steps to Becoming a morning person
3. 10 Steps to Becoming a serial killer

Please comment on this post as I'm stuck for choice Ill be making a decision shortly.

Adaptation and Professional Practice Part A - Initial visual research



Dumb Ways to Die, is a dark comical animation regarding the ridiculous deaths of these strange cartoon characters. its a campaign to get peoples attention toward health and safety around trains. The elaborate deaths with the collaboration of the woman softly singing about these impending deaths almost makes the acts acceptable and fun. The audience would probably be from quite young as well because of the colorful gruesomeness of the piece, we've all been taught what would roughly happen if you were to be in one of the situations of dumb ways to die. So we are being told what we already know in a fun and exuberant way.



Kung Fu Panda, for the un-informed people out there, is a animation created by Dreamworks following the story of a unlikely warrior as he faces various tests of valor, bravery and skill. The Panda Po, must be taught in the mysterious teachings of ancient kung fu and in the above clip you can see a short clip of him being taught in a harsh manner the skills he would require to fulfill his position as a master at kung fu. Even though it links to kung fu and not to being a ninja/shinobi, I feel this is relevant to the theme. It uses humor to draw in the audience to his trials so perhaps I could also deploy humor in mine to create the response I need in the audience to pay attention to the screen.




My Typical Morning, Is a funny animation about someone having conflicting alarms that go off every few moments to alert the character and wake him from his sleep state. All the alarms are set to 07.00 with the snooze happening also, there are a few alarms that go off after 07.00 that keep the mechanic active throughout the animation. The character also does some activities that would be vital to the morning schedule, there could also be additional steps he could have taken but I was drawn to this animation for its humor around a simple task.

Adaptation and Professional Practice Part A - Pitch Feedback

From the pitch for the adaptation project part A, I received positive feedback on quite a few of my ideas with nods and hints to what could be successful if conveyed across to the audience correctly. The ideas that stuck to the pitch audience were;
  • A morning person
  • A ninja
  • A serial killer
  • A wizard
  • A healthier person
  • A planet/star
Easy

A planet/star
Healthier person

In process of elimination I will try to single out the ideas I feel would be difficult to lengthen out 10 individual steps to produce the said theme. I think that the planet, star and healthier person have quite a variety of factual knowledge and statistics and I feel that they would be easy to detail 10 steps successfully.

Moderate

A wizard
A serial killer

The wizard and the serial killer ideas both have the potential to become great info graphics if done correctly and the tones suiting the themes that jive them up in a way that compliments them both. I can see the serial killer idea being quite comical if I presented it in a dark humorous way, for example the bodies being disposed of in a collage of different ways. has potential to be controversially dark but with a humorous undertone. The Wizard idea would reflect on learning incantations and brewing potions, it would be a fixed info graphic without relevance as the theme itself is absolute fiction.

 
 
Difficult
 
 
A morning person
A ninja
 
 
I feel that these two would be the most challenging of the six ideas I've taken time to reflect upon, again both have much potential but I don't know if I can stretch the steps out equally over the areas. As relevant as the morning person idea is to the audience, it needs to ring true with the majority of them. More research would be needed here in my own opinion, creating a questionnaire about the theme could help. A ninja on the other hand could be comical and also cliché as the trope is for a ninja to hide in the shadows and strike enemies with precision. They also reside in temples in the mountains somewhere. The danger is not evenly distributing the steps to a progressive climb, at the moment I'm restricted to about 6 steps on this before reaching the end.
 
 
 
The Verdict
 
I am drawn more to the ninja and the serial killer ideas, I know the strengths and weaknesses but there may still be some inclines on the way. I also see the promise of the 'morning person' theme and I think with the right research and progression, its the winner here for the time being but it being from the off, I want to keep my options open to the ninja and serial killer ideas also. I may look into research into these themes and then cross reference them to my own findings and ideas and make a more executive decision then.