Understand the requirements of working to a brief

Within the media industry people are usually employed to work on a variety of different projects throughout their career, these projects are usually explained to the worker through a brief. A brief is a series of information given to the person working on the project but a brief can be given in many different ways:

Contractual

A contractual brief is usually a written publication in which the employer states what is wanted from the project, the duties required from them and how much they would be paid. It is also generally a brief outline of everything that must be included in the finished product. For example Russell Howard’s good news is commissioned to be aired only on BBC Three and within the contract there are specifications requiring him to make a certain amount of episodes and series, the length of each episode and how many episodes must be in a series. In a similar way we were handed a contractual brief at the start of the animation unit outlining all of the specifications required to produce a valid esting for E4 containing all of the required specifications.

Negotiated

A negotiated brief is where two parties talk about a project and come to an agreement over what the final product should include. A negotiated brief usually takes place when two different parties have a disagreement over what the brief should involve and this usually results in conflict. An example of this would be during the creation of Spiderman 3 when the writers had a disagreement over characters, a negotiation then took place to keep both sides happy by including different things within the movie.

Formal

A formal contract is a contract in which the employer would organise a formal meeting with the employee face to face. The employer would brief the employee on all that is required from him and outline everything he needs to do. An example of this would be for big companies such as Pixar when the animation team are briefed on what to do in a team meeting.

Informal

An informal meeting would be an employer telling and explaining the brief to the employee through a variety of different ways such as the telephone, email and programmes such as Skype. The idea of an informal brief is that it is more convinient for everyone involved and is much more relaxed.

Commission

A commission brief is when a company such as the BBC will hire an independent production company to produce a programme for them by sticking to a brief that the BBC have specified and outlined for the production company. A recent example of this would be Sherlock that was commissioned to be made by the BBC. Usually companies are commissioned to create a set number of seasons and episodes before thier contract is up.

Tender

A tender is when a brief, such as one for a TV show, is sent out to multiple different companies. The companies will then come up with some ideas and all their ideas will be put against each other so the commissioner can decide which idea they prefer.

Competition

You could also enter a competition. Competitions are usually given by big companies such as the BBC who will give a brief to anyone willing to enter. An example of this would be the E4 estings competition which is what out unit was based on. The brief was to create a 10 second animation that would suit the aims and purposes of the e4 company. However sometimes smaller companies will hold competitions to advertise themselves and to take on new staff.

Reading a brief

For this unit we were asked to stick to a brief given to us by E4 and overseen by our tutor. The brief was to create a 10 second esting and receive feedback. The brief stated that it must not be more than 10 seconds long, it must stick with the genre and style of the channel and it must include the E4 logo. As well as sticking to the brief it was necessary to make sure that the animation was smooth, fluent and looked good and being able to create and reference a timeline significantly helped. Sticking to the brief was important because if not the work I created would have been useless as it wouldn’t have been what the competition was looking for.

Negotiating the brief

While creating the idea with the esting I had many opportunities to consult with my tutor as to whether the idea was appropriate, if the design was acceptable as well as the set design and how the animation as a whole was coming along. It was very helpful to be able to consult with my tutor as it allowed me to change and tweak my animation depending on the tutors preferences.

The brief as a whole was very malleable, it wasn’t deadly strict as to what had to be included apart from the 10 second limit and including the E4 logo, the rest was up to me. This flexible brief allowed me to come up with any idea I found to be appropriate.

During the physical animation and filming of my Claymation I didn’t personally find any restraints within my idea. My animation was very light hearted and didn’t breach any of Channel 4’s editorial guidelines for example it didn’t have any copyrighted content, didn’t offend any religious or any ethnicity and didn’t contain any vulgar content.  However, if my animation did contain any content that was not sutible for an audience commissioning bodies such as Ofcom, under the BCAP code, would not allow my animation to be aired which is why it's always important to stick to the brief.

After receiving feedback for my animation, most of which was positive, I did find that all of the negative feedback given was because of the lighting change where I had to reshoot some footage. The way that I amended this was by taking the frames from the clip and editing them in Adobe premiere pro with the colour correction. After I had edited the clips they all seemed to flow together a lot better and much smoother.

During my animation I personally didn’t find that I ran into any financial restraints or budget problems but if I were working within the professional media industry I would have an extra 10% of any budget given to me just in case any materials were needed after the budget had been used up. I did however find that there were some time constraints, but because I had left ample time to make sure I could change anything in my animation that needed to be before the deadline I was able to complete my video and hand it in when it was specified in the brief.

Opportunities

Throughout this project I found that animation is a lot more difficult than I first thought. I learnt that there isn’t just the fact that you have to sculpt and craft the models but you also have to design them in such a way that they stand freely of any support and also they tend to fall apart if moved too quickly. Although I did find filming the animation difficult I did however enjoy filming and editing. I also managed to make the animation a lot smoother and more fluent than I originally thought I would be capable of. Also, I feel that this animation unit has allowed me to learn new skills such as how to physically make a clay model but also how to edit a stop motion animation and even helped me to understand how to organise myself and stick to a brief. It also allowed me to understand how to create a fluid animation through the use of frame rates and learn abut different types of animation.

As well as learning new skills I was able to develop my ability in being able to multi-task. I mainly multi-tasked and showed multi-skilling when I was reshooting some of my footage just before I posted my final esting. I had to do three things at once whilst reshooting; I had to film my animation, edit the footage that I already had as well as creating different items out of clay, for example the skull from Hamlet.

I feel that my idea was original and that I brought a completely different idea to the table. Throughout the class there were many varied ideas none of which were remotely the same. I stuck to the brief completely by staying to the same genre and style of the channel and also by abiding by the 10 seconds maximum rule.  I feel my animation suited the E4 esting brief to the best of my ability and I would be happy to do animation again.

Final esting and Evaluation

                                                         Evaluation

Within this project I had to gather feedback and gather information regarding the animation including the character design, the set design, the fluidity of the actual animation and whether the audience enjoyed it or not.

To show an audience my finished animation the video was put up on YouTube to allow public viewing I also showed people such as family and friends the video from YouTube on my mobile phone to gather more feedback and most of the comments from YouTube have been positive for example "great idea and the sound effects suited perfectly”. You could also use social networking sites such as Facebook, twitter, my space, tumbler and many more. Also, within class we all took part within a focus group where we all watched each other’s videos and gave our opinions, this was to ensure that everyone in the class received feedback from everybody else.

In the focus group we covered multiple aspects of the animations for example it was said that the aesthetic aspect of the animation were good as the set design “well made”    and the character was “very solid and also well made”. Also in the focus group we covered the technical elements of the animation, it was said that majority of the technical aspects where good but it did suffer from some “continuity errors with lighting in some shots”. As well as a focus group I also conducted a questionnaire to see if people outside the media group understood and enjoyed the animation I asked questions such as “what genre/style do you think the animation was?” most people I asked answered that they thought the animation was mainly “comedy” which is the genre I was aiming for. Another question asked was “did you understand what was happening in the narrative?” where the majority of people said yes a few people said no which shows a slight misunderstanding in the storyline. People who commented on my YouTube video and conducted my questionnaire also said that it was  “very creative and different” which shows they were happy with the creative quality although, some people said it would have been better if “he walked instead of standing in the same spot” but the majority where happy with the content.

I personally feel that to show my finding I should do so by doing a written report. This way I could use Microsoft excel to create tally charts, pie charts and bar graphs to show my feedback that I have received from my questionnaires. Another negative point was that some of the tape holding the set together was rather visible and this took away from the illusion of stop motion animation. I could also create a PowerPoint with screenshots from my animation with detailed captions explaining why a shot does/doesn’t work for example I would take a screenshot of the animation where the lighting changes and explain that for the clip to have kept with continuity the lighting within a few of the shots needs to be changed as it is a big distraction from the animation its self. I have also created an action plan within the focus group to see how I can improve my animation. Most of the negative feedback was mainly because of the lighting change where I have reshot the last couple of seconds and the camera angle doesn’t match up exactly.

In conclusion I personally feel that overall my animation went well. The animating its self I found to be quite difficult because the character I created seemed to have trouble standing on his own but other than that I feel that it went well. I think the animation is relatively smooth although at some points during the video the camera does jump and the lighting did change but apart from these small errors the video did turn out better than I thought it would in the beginning stages of my planning. I am pleased with the quality of animation I have produced and would love to do it again.


                    Evaluation part 2

For this unit of media we were asked to create an animation. Whilst making the animation we were asked to work to a brief and keep to all the deadlines. The animation was then shown through a stop motion animation video; I then reported my findings and feedback through a written report containing multiple people’s opinions.

While working on my animation there where some constraints for example financial constraints. Because the college isn’t a professional animation establishment we had to supply the clay that we used and therefore was a limited amount of each colour as the whole class needed to use it. Another financial constraint I faced was the size of the set that we used. For major animations such as Wallace and gromit they would have vast sets to allow easier animation but during the process of my animation I used an A3 cardboard box to make my set design which was very restricting. As well as financial issues I was also faced with the issue of copyright. Although I was creating an esting as specified in the brief I did question as to whether the E4 logo should be used as the E4 logo is still a trademark of E4 its self but, because images such as the E4 logo was on their website for download it was assumed that these pieces of media be allowed for use within my animation. I was also very careful when searching for sound as I made sure that all my sound effects are completely royalty and copyright free, this was to ensure that when my video was put up on YouTube it would not be infringement of any copyright laws.

 

Through the entirety of creating my animation I do feel that I have stuck to and met all of the deadlines given, I created my model in the specified time as well as creating the set. I even wrote up a plan of how many shots I needed in each section of the 10 second animation which can be seen here:

 Animation total 120 frames for 10 seconds

4 seconds- 48 shots :

2 seconds- 24 shots- one arm with skull being raised other arm being drawn into chest

2 seconds- 24 shots- arm with skull stays still arm which has been drawn into chest moves out to full extension

4 seconds- 48 shots

All shots consisting of E4 logo hitting clay figure from the front by rolling into him then move onto an Ariel shot of the logo

2 seconds- 24 shots

Slowly zooming in on E4 logo with skull rolling on top

 

Also when filming my animation I left time at the end to go back and make any changes that were needed. The reason I left time for myself to make changes is because through the whole project I would show my tutor my work at different intervals to see if there was anything I could improve upon allowing me to make changes before the editing stages. Leaving this time at the end to make changes was extremely critical for me because I had to re-shoot the ending as my tutor wasn’t happy with the original ending and without having left time at the end I wouldn’t have met the deadline for completion. I do feel that I have reached all the deadlines given within the brief and that throughout the whole process I stretched out my work load evenly to avoid rushing different parts.

 

Feedback was an important part of this unit of work as it allowed me to see what I did well in my animation and what I didn’t do so well. Most of the feedback that I received was positive although some people did say that there were some inconsistencies with the lighting in some of the shots. I received my feedback mainly through YouTube, word of mouth and questionnaires which allowed me to gather information regarding my animation through a variety of different ways.

 

This unit of media has allowed me to improve my time management skills and if I were to pursue a career in media this animation section would help me to manage and prioritise my work load accordingly.  I do feel that throughout this unit I have shown the necessary skills required to work within the media industry. I have worked well to a brief and met all of the deadlines, I have improved and changed my work according to feedback and opinions and I have managed my time to allow me to finish on time. Although I did enjoy designing and making the animation I don’t think I would consider taking a career within it. I did find it fun but I don’t feel like animation is the way to go for me as I don’t feel I have the patience to hold a career down in it.

 

E4 esting

I feel that my E4 esting will be appropriate for E4 as it sticks to the same conventions and themes as most of the estings at the moment. My esting will primarily use Claymation which links in with many E4 estings as a lot of them use Claymation. It also contains a sense of random happenings for example when my character gets hit off the stage by an E4 logo. As well as this it also shows humour because the character being hit off the stage is unpredictable and also it goes along with the idea that “it’s funny when it’s not happening to you”.

 My esting also has the E4 logo at the end of the 10 second clip, suspended by a wire in the centre of the stage but my set design also has an E4 logo painted onto the stage. This helps because when the esting is shown on the internet or TV the audience already know what it is they are watching as the E4 logo is widely known. It also gives them a sense of suspense because within the estings lately there has been some impressive animation so it allows the audience to know something is about the happen.

I believe that my esting is appropriate for E4 as it sticks to the themes and animation techniques already used in some estings today.

E4

E4 has programmes such as the big bang theory which is primarily aimed at people aged between 14-30 but may also have a secondary audience of an older generation. This target audience is the same throughout the channel through programming aimed at that target audience as well at their iconic estings. These estings usually show clips that only people aged between would find humours for example the half man half horse singing.

 Another project that E4 have is E4 slackers. This is a competition to allow young students to win cinema tickets to new upcoming films. This doesn’t just re-enforce the fact that E4’s audience is primarily teenagers but it shows that E4 want teenagers to tune in and watch their broadcasting and therefore shows they choose certain programmes accordingly.

 As well as their programming E4 also plans its programme times later on in the night, for example the big bang theory is shown after 4 on a week day but during holidays and weekends it is shown in the middle of the day because it is the most popular show on E4 at the minuet and it allows students to access the show and watch it during the day.

Synopsis

My idea for an esting will involve my character Phillip Smith who strives to be a famous actor but has no talent.  The plasticine character will be stood centre stage with a skull in his hand to imitate Shakespeare’s famous play Hamlet. An E4 logo attached by a wire will then swing down from the right, hitting Phillip and making him fly off screen. The E4 logo would then swing back and forth until eventually coming to a stop in the middle of the screen.

set

 

 

 

The reason that i have chosen a stage to be the set for my esting character is because i plan to use him as an actor performing for a crowd on a stage such as this one. The E4 logo is placed in the middle of the stage to allow the audince to know exactly what they are watching as soon as they see it. The E4 logo will also appear later on when my character is hit by a swinning E4 logo.

Test video

 

 

 

 

Name: Phillip smith



                                                                 Age: 21
                                    Info: Typical posh englishman, strives to be a famous actor but has
                                             no talent, has a strong sence of self importance.

Animation

Persistence of Vision

Persistence of vision was the theory that if two images are seen in quick succession of each other the two images would merge together because of a 0.04 second delay in our vision. This theory was then debunked in 1912 by Wertheimer who stated that the real reason the two merge together is through fault of the brain and a process called beta movement.

Stop Frame Animation 

Stop Frame Animation is a series of pictures that are put together to give the illusion of a moving image. Usually clay figures or paper based drawings are used in stop frame animation. This type of animation works by moving an object bit by bit and taking a picture every time it is moved to give the illusion of an object moving on its own. This  type of animation is generally shown in 12 fps meaning for every 12 pictures there is just 1 second of footage.

 

Frame Rates

Frame rate or fps (Frames per second) are the speed in which a group of individual images are pieced together. Animation is usually filmed at 12 frames a second and normal films at 24 frames a second as this is the normal rate a human sees the world anyway. Different frame rates can be used for different purposes for example slow motion sequences can be filmed at 1000 fps meaning that when played back the sequence would be slow. This works in reverse too as if you were to shoot something in 8 fps the sequence would be fast but also very jumpy.

 

Joseph Plateau (Phenakitoscope)

Joseph Plateau born 14th October 1801 was the first ever person to give the illusion of moving images and he did so through the use of the Phenakitoscope which was created in 1832. This creation used drawings that were repeated for example 12 different pictures of a man running on a circular piece of card.this card also had slots cut out around the edges to allow viewing. when spun, the Phenakitoskope would give the illusion, in this case, of a man running and was a revelation in animation. An example of the Phenakitoscope can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odm2zk2RtoE

 

William Horner (Zoetrope)

 

William Horner born 1786 was the inventor of the Zoetrope. The Zoetrope was a cylinder with slits cut out to allow viewing with, like the Phenakitoscope, had a piece of card inserted into it with different drawings on it for example a ball bouncing. When the cylinder was spun it would give the illusion of the person(s) watching it that the ball was bouncing up and down. An example of a Zoetrope can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKEM5sYnOjE

Emile Reynaud (Praxinoscope)

Emile Reynaud born 8th December 1844 was the inventor of the Praxinoscope. The Praxinoscope was effectively the same and was the successor of the Zoetrope. The Praxinoscope replaced the Zoetropes viewing slots with an inner circle of mirrors this allowed a smoother less jumpy piece of animation to be shown and was also the first projected piece of animation. An example of the Praxinoascope can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez_UJAafRMs

 Edward Muybridge

Edward Muybridge was born 9th April 1830 is known for his work in motion and motion picture projection. he is most famous for his work of proving that a horse does indeed lift all four legs off the ground as it runs. The way he proved this was by setting up a series of cameras along a race track and as the horse ran the cameras took pictures. by the end he had enough pictures to prove that he was right in the way the horse ran.

 

Thomas Edison (Kinetoscope) 

One of Edisons many inventions was the Kinetoscope. the Kinetoscope was a box designed with a peep hole at the top for one viewer at the time. The way it worked was by showing multiple images on a piece of perforated film in quick succession with a high speed shutter and a light source behind it. This would give the illusion of a moving image. Although the Kinetoscope was not a projector it did however possess the early fundamentals of one.

An example of the Kinetoscope can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=686Y7bZYavA

Lumiere Brothers

The Lumiere Brothers, Auguste Lumiere born 19th October 1862 and Louis Lumiere born 5th October 1864 were the earliest film makers in history. They wanted to use the same method of animation by using pictures but put it into practice within the real world with real people. The brothers created the Cinematograph allowing them to take many pictures in quick succession making them into a film. Their first film shows workers in a factory.

 

George Pal

 

George pal born February 1st 1908 was a Hungarian born American animator. He was a well known animator who has won many awards and also has an honorary award which was given to him in 1944. His most famous creation must be the puppetoons which were a series of stop motion animated cartoons usually using wooden hand carved puppets.

 

  

Willis O'Brien:

  Willis O'Brien was born on March 2nd 1886. Willis had many jobs including farm hand, factory worker, Proffesional marble sculptor a boxer and even an guide to palaeontologists where he picked up his love for dinosaurs. In his spare time he would scuplt and illistrate and eventually got a job working for sports cartoonist for the San Francisco Daily News. He longed to work with animation and Later he made 90 seconds worth of test footage and was then comissioned to make his first film, the dinosaurs and the missing link: a prehistoric tragedy for a budget of $5000. A period of time after this he began to work with Harold H Hoyts The lost World and this eventually lead him to work on his most famous film King Kong.

Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhausen Born June 29th 1920 is an American visual effects artist. Who developed a brand of stop motion animation called “Dynamation”  He later worked with Willis O Brien and created famous films such as Jason and the Argonauts which featured multiple aspects of stop motion animation for example, the skeletons towards the end of the film.

A clip from Jason and the Argonauts can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF_Fi7x93PY 

 

Jan Svankmajer

 

Jan Svankmajer born 4^th September 1934 is a Czech filmmaker and artist known for his surreal animations and creations. His first film was called Alice, based on the book of Alice in wonderland. influenced other artists such as Terry Gilliam, the Brothers Quay.

The brothers Quay

 

The brothers Quay, Stephen and Timothy Quay, are identical twins born on June 17^th 1947. The two brothers are better known for their animation. They now live in England having moved here in 1969 to study at the Royal College of Art, London. They then formed a partnership with Keith Griffiths who produced all of their films. They have made some successful films including “The Chairs”.

 

 

Tim Burton

 

Tim Burton born August 25, 1958 is an American Film director, Film producer, Writer and artist. He is widely known for his dark and gothic themed films. His most famous animated films of the time are “Nightmare before Christmas” and “Corpse Bride”. Both of these films used Claymation and  stop frame animation.

The opening scene of Nightmare Before Christmas can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOtEdhKOMgQ

 

Aardman Animations

Aardman Animations is a British animation studio based in Bristol. The studio is known for its use of Stop motion animation techniques using Claymation. Its most popular films from the studio are Wallace and Grommet franchise but the company did recently enter the computer animation market with “Flushed Away”.

 

Cinema (animated films)

Animation has been in the cinemas since the 19^th century. It has been extremely popular especially in today’s generation of cinema. The first ever feature length film shown in the cinema was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. This film was hand drawn frame by frame by the team at Disney.

 

TV Animation (TV shows that are animated)

Today there are multiple forms of animation on Television, most of which are shown on children’s channels such as Cartoon network and Boomerang. There are also some adult animated shows shown on TV though such as the Simpsons, Family guy and southpark.

 

Channel idents

Channel Idents are short clips, usually animated,  to show that you are watching a specific channel and to give that channel its own unique spin. A good example of this would be the channel E4 and its estings which feature different animated clips.

An example of a channel ident can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzJY3vVOLBE 

 

TV and Cinema advertising

TV and cinema advertising can be just as effective if done through animation. Animation is used a lot in TV and cinema advertising as it is efficient, simple and cheap. A good example of an effective piece of animated advertising is Cartoon Boy which is an advert to raise awareness for child abuse.

 

Animated music videos

Animated music videos have become ever popular in todays music industry and domains such as YouTube only help to promote this popular demand. Music videos are animated officially or even sometimes fan made animations. A good example of officially animated would be KT Tunstall’s Suddenly I see.

An example of an animated music video can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toC2NjwMVKM

 

SMA for website use

Stop motion animation is used for website use a lot recently a good example of this would be E4’s Estings website which asks fans of the channel to submit their own animated channel ident into a competition. A lot of these estings are stop motion animation and are showcased on the E4 website.

 

Thaumatrope

Here are the Thaumatropes that we made in class on Monday. A Thaumatrope is a is a piece of card with two lengths of strings attached. Two pictures are then drawn on a side for example, a bird on one side and a cage on the other and when spun, it gives the illusion of a bird in a cage. The Thaumatrope was originally a toy invented in victorian times and up untill 1912 people believed in a theory called Persistence of vision.

This is the belief that the eye has a slight lag to it, 0.04 seconds to be exact and when the Thaumatrope spins we see the two images as one. This theory was then debunked in 1912 by Wertheimer who claimed that the real reason this illusion takes place is because of beta movement. This means that because the brain has seen two images in quick succession the brain automatically assumes a connection between them and therefore shows us, for example, a bird in a cage so the image is retained in the brain and not the eyes.