Research Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Presentation

So I'm currently sat in the college library, waiting for my presentation slot to come up in about two hours. Perfect time to get this final blog post out the way. What follows will be a slide-by-slide talk through what I have made for my presentation, plus some final credits given to whichever sites I stole pictures from an hour or two ago.

I would also like to point out that both sources I used have already received a full Harvard reference in previous posts on this blog, so I shall leave you to assume that all information in this post and the presentation contained within it were sourced from one of those two sources.

 

PRESENTATION BEGIN

 

Slide 1

 

 

I decided to keep it nice and simple for the opening slide. Those of you who are particularly academic might even call me a 'minimalist', but presentation artists such as myself daren't throw praise so high upon ourselves when there's still so much in this world to present.

 

PS: Apparently this style is called Facet. Powerpoint is so artistically fascinating!

 

Slide 2

 

I decided to keep the simple theme going in my second slide to ease the audience in, but don't worry, words will be coming soon! I did place an embedded YouTube video, but as I painfully found out in a separate presentation yesterday, college computers don't allow that to work for some bizarre reason. Anyway, it was just the opening intro to classic children's cutout animation, Mr Benn:

 



 

Slide 3

 

Picture sourced from: https://prezi.com/mzfr1bp-4mwy/cut-out-animation/

 

A short slide summing up what cutout animation is, in my own words. As detailed in previous blog posts, there are very few sources on this info and they all differ slightly, so to be honest this could be complete nonsense. I'm not sure I care so much by this point.

 

Slide 4

 

Adventures of Prince Achmed picture sourced from: http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/the-first-animated-feature-film-the-adventures-of-prince-achmed.html
Monty Python picture sourced from: http://www.the-flying-animator.com/cut-out-animation.html
South Park picture sourced from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8p22rtNMoM

A little bit of history on the highs and lows the medium of cutout animation has had over the decades, focusing special focus on key reference points that audiences will easily recognise to encourage attention and hopefully in turn increase retention.

 

Slide 5

 



 

Everybody loves to find out how it works! I'd just like to quickly say that this is not actually how it works, because it doesn't include the bit where it makes you miss out on a good night's sleep and also emotionally breaks you, but hey you can't include every detail. Maybe if this was an essay.

 

Slide 6

 

It's at this point in the presentation that I get out my own shoddy, homemade resources to show everyone how it works with a physical example in front of them. Here are some pictures of my shoddy, homemade resources:

 

PICTURES TO BE ADDED LATER, AS NO POSSIBLY WAY OF DOING SO WITHIN COLLEGE.

 

Slide 7

 



 

 

Pictures say a thousand words and by that logic, if counting each individual frame as a picture, video speaks 24000 words a second. So I decided, instead of lecturing people on how cutout animation was dying out as an art form, I'd say it visually by recording myself crucifying and burning a picture of Mr Benn in my back garden. This embedded video is working on my presentation because I linked it to the local copy on my memory stick, but here's a YouTube embed of it all for pretty boys and girls at home:

 

 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

 

Slide 8

 

 

 

This slide admittedly got a bit out of hand. I didn't want to end my presentation on the video of Mr Benn burning, just in case anyone was related to him (awkward!), and I also really wanted to plug this blog because I've spent at least three hours writing trash on this now. But I also didn't really want to have a mostly-blank slide, so I just wrote whatever felt right. It's a good job I don't let my mistakes define me, because otherwise my parents would actually be right about something for once.

 

 

 

 

THANKS FOR READING.

 



Research Wars: Episode V - The Library Strikes Back

So I've got four days until the presentation, two of which I'm at work and one of which I'm at college, meaning really I only have today. And it's already late afternoon. And I'm cooking tonight.

So it's a real good job that I've now actually got some solid leads on research to start mining!

First up:

APOLOGIES TO THE INTERNET

Dear Internet, last time I blogged I kind of used Wikipedia's disappointing performance as an excuse to say you were a bit rubbish in general. But today I sit, humbly begging your forgiveness, as you have given me the truest of treasures. Well, you've at least given me a half-decent page.

 

See? Look at that! There's actual words about my thing on there! I mean it could still be better, for starters I'm not all about the life of autoplaying ads halfway through a text wall, but hey I'm an understanding guy and, at the end of the day, we all gotta be making that #CashMoneyDolla somehow. You're alright, AboutTech. Here's that first print screen again, only cropped to just the text, and another two additional print screens of new material afterwards, because filler.

Disclaimer: ALL OF THIS COMES FROM http://animation.about.com/od/faqs/f/What-Is-Cutout-Animation.htm

Please don't sue, my payday never lasts beyond the first weekend so I'm without value anyway!

As I'm going to be using this as one of my biggest sources, and this blog is apparently going to substitute as our research file/bibliography, Harvard Reference:

Sanders, Adrien-Luc. (Unknown). What is Cutout Animation?. Available: http://animation.about.com/od/faqs/f/What-Is-Cutout-Animation.htm. Last accessed 16th October 2015.

Second up:

APOLOGIES TO THE LIBRARY (BUT NOT THE COLLEGE ONE)

I was so eager in my research adventures last time that I even bothered to check the college library. Today, I am proud but not pleased to announce that I took this eagerness a step further by checking the actual city library. I even registered myself up for a new library card to get it. I genuinely don't think I've done anything this depressingly swotty since Year 4, back when I was filling the hole left by my childhood emotional issues with teachers as surrogate parents. ANYWAY.

I searched the library's online catalogue for 'cutout', and most of the two pages of results was DIY nonense, but one thing stood out to me as worth the effort.

Over 50 years old, written by someone who is (I'm presuming) French, and so niche it doesn't even have a cover online? If that doesn't get a guy's research a Distinction, then hell, I really don't know what will. Then I went to pick it up...

It actually has no cover. Distinction confirmed.

And there's my hand looking like some kind of alien talon while holding the title to the camera. Still, French!

Now here's a little peek at what it looks like inside.

Admittedly, I'm now a little concerned this might be more to do with cutout art rather than animation, but I'm sure there's some adaptable stuff going on here. After all, just look at this Indifferent Jesus I found on the top left of one of the pages. 

 

Now that's art.

 

And as I'm sure I'll still also be using material from this in some capacity, Harvard Reference:

Laliberté, Norman (1968). Silhouettes, Shadows And Cutouts : History And Modern Use . United States: Reinhold. p7-p110. 

Anyway, that's enough for this one. I'm going to go make some dinner, and then have a crack at turning these two half-decent sources into a half-decent presentation. One day, maybe, this coursework on a TV & Film course might even allow me the free time to watch a film! But maybe that's just me being a bit too novel with my ideas.

The short-lived surge of focus that squeezed out this blog post was brought to you by a nutrional lunch of leftover curry and Summer Camp's soundtrack to Beyond Clueless. 

You should try them, they're both pretty good.

Research Wars: Episode IV - A No-Hope

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, today I ask for your sincerest sympathies. Why, you might ask? Because I need to give a fully researched presentation on cutout animation, and when googling across the internet in hope of inspiring sources on the grand history and importance of such an art form, the best it can offer is the visual equivalent of a half-hearted fart sound.

So, because I'm bored and in desperate need of some productive procrastination (and also because I need to prove to my tutor I did do research so that my grade doesn't also represent a fart sound), I am going to share with you some of my recent failures in research. For starters, let's turn to every lazy student's number one friend when working from home...

Wikipedia

Ahh Wikipedia, truly the choice homepage for any second-rate academic. But seriously, as much as we all like to put on a good show in front of others and check other sites, in the privacy of our homes we all just end up here right? I don't care if my information is properly sourced or even correct. If there's one thing society has taught me, it's that as long as you present it with enough confidence, you can tell any lie you like and nobody will care enough to respond with anything beyond a half-smile. But what happens when immoral monsters like myself are finally failed? What happens... 

when Wikipedia has barely anything to offer!?

 

 I mean, what am I supposed to do with that? Sure, I've got a few lines at the top and then a list of stuff that has used it, but that's it. Look at the contents box. That's it. I've got a five minute presentation to give, that based off of this, will be a couple of sentences at the beginning and then a flashy montage of stuff off that list. Compare this to the Stop Motion animation page, which I KNOW someone else in the group has.

HOW IS THIS FAIR!? Look at what's going on there! Genuinely, the history section of that page is too long for me to even fit in one print screen. So here's an easier, more print-screenable comparison to make: the contents boxes.

In case you can't work it out, that's Cutout on the left and Stop Motion on the right. There is no such thing as equality in this poisionous world.

College Library

Okay, so if Wikipedia has failed me, I suppose I can take a drastic step and read words off something that isn't a screen. Where better to find such archaic printed relics than a library, and better than any library, the college library! It's like a normal library, only it takes out all the old-fashioned friendliness you find in regulars of real libraries, and replaces it with the terrifying teenage clique system best captured in the canteen scene from Mean Girls. But when I searched through their online catalogue, I was disappointed to find that I'd have to postpone my appointment with paranoia and social anxiety for another time.

Unbelievable. I've now tried two whole sources (while definitely not leaving my Google search and City Library search out due to them providing stronger results), and my limited success has led me to feel that perhaps I should just give up on this doomed dream and get a Distinction* anyway?

Yes, I definitely think this is how things should go.

*For those not in the BTEC know, that's the top grade possible for the presentation, which is definitely what I deserve for this blog post alone.

Beginning of the End: Thaumatropes

Hello, this is my animation blog and I am probably at least two weeks late making this post, so I should probably just get on with it.

As a warm-up introduction for the class to our animation unit, we were all briefly taught about thaumatropes and then told to make some for ourselves. Thaumatropes are an incredibly primitive, early form of animation which involved having two related pictures on different sides of a piece of paper, then spinning the paper round really fast to give the illusion of these two images coming together.

The most culturally prevalent example would be the bird and cage, which when spun gives the impression of the bird being stuck in a cage.

Image sourced from: http://arenamalleswaram.com/a/animation_facts.html

 If you're as incredibly lame as I am, your primary recognition of that might come from how it was used as symbolism in the disappointing 2013 video game, Bioshock Infinite.

Image sourced from: http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/110650/does-it-make-any-difference-if-i-choose-the-bird-or-the-cage-brooch

So anyway, I had to make my own thaumatrope. Good news for everyone hoping I might sink yet lower into the pit of lame, and bad news for anyone hoping to see something artistically interesting, because it is HORRIBLE. I'm just gonna throw the pictures up first, and then try to explain myself after if you still have the stoumach for it.

 

Mhm.

 So briefly, to try and explain myself, I was so desperate not to just do a bird and a cage that I somehow thought it would be less henious a crime against art to take all the unspoken brilliance of 2001: A Space Odyssey's opening 20 minutes, and then smash it against the twin rocks that are my lack of both subtlety and artistic talent. Yes, that is an ape holding a bone juxtaposed against a man holding a gun. By the time I was done, the message didn't resemble Kubrick so much as a 17-year old try hard activist saying "War's like really bad, yeah?"

Yes, I did cry myself to sleep that night.

 

 See you next time for more amazingly disappointing adventures, only next it'll be in the world of cutout animation!