RESPONSIVE Project Report - Molly C Lester ML255090
Loop De Loop 2015 Brief ‘SISTERS’
Loop De Loop is a bi-monthly animation contest, where a theme will be submitted to the global public; the brief I entered was the 2015 brief ‘Sisters’. The brief outlined the concept of what being a sister was, from siblings to a deeper bond than friendship. I started the brief with vague idea of the sort of animation I wanted to produce; I wanted to make a punk fuelled sarcasm approach to cat calling and how groups of women deal with it. I was inspired by a variety of media; such as the artists Gemma Flacks illustrations, that depict a variety of women with a very heavy feminist tone. Gemma Flacks work heavily inspired me when I began designing the women featured in this animation as well as the currently trend of ‘90s fashion’. I wanted to develop this idea before I thought it was an interesting take on the term ‘sisters’ - as in a close bond between two women, that isn’t necessarily blood-relations or friends. I referenced the satirist tone found in Sun Creature Studios ‘The Reward’ series regarding how they depict flirtatious men. The animation runs for 47 seconds including one loop and was animated at 12FPS on photoshop timeline software. This was the first fully animated film that I had animated within Photoshop software, without the help of After Effects; So I developed a very quick understanding and feel like I’ve improved my skills within the software greatly. I was heavily reliant on using the positioning tool within the Photoshop software timeline, when positioning the segments of animation with one another on screen. I also used the software pre-installed on my laptop to record all the sound effects of the characters and found additional sound effects online. I uploaded the animation onto the Loop De Loop website three weeks clear of the official deadline for the brief. Overall I’m very proud of my entry for this brief and the message it portrays (despite being sarcasm). Looking back at the animation, what I would do to improve it is add more animation to the sequences and better sound quality. The characters I’ve depicted that respond to the term ‘sister’ approach the word with the understanding that being someones ‘sister’ can be something that transcends blood-related or even close friendship; But can be a joining of ideals or an approach to a situation - ‘Sisters in arms’.
OnForm Brief ‘SHAPE’
OnForm is a Tumblr based weekly contest, where a shape is submittable to the social media blogging site and artists respond to the shape by visually communicating what they seen within the shape by drawing within,atop or shaping the image. This is a globally submittal brief. With this contest I submitted work to the page 3 times, all of which were animated GIFs. The first shape I responded to quickly, animating simplistic black and white segments to depict a woman in a window, hair blowing in the breeze and tears falling; looking back at this submitting I could of improved this greatly. The second shape I added black and white segments to the image, both in the foreground and background; to shape a snail creature out of the shape OnForm submitted; Although I really liked the end result, which was an adorable Snail GIF I could of improved this entry by better looping the animation as it’s rather jarring when looped. The second shape I simplistically animating the image as a GIF because the deadline was close and looking back I really would of loved to animate this GIF further. These animated GIFs were inspired by simplistic rather graphic approach to animation. As far as responding to OnForm briefs I feel like I responded well, as non of my entires were rejected; but I could of responded better to these briefs.
Do It In Ten Brief ‘DARK’
Do It In Ten is a 10 second themed animation contest featured on ‘show me the animation’s website. This months theme that was submitted by the site was ‘DARK’. Anyone can submit to this monthly contest, as long as the animation itself is in the time realms of 10 seconds. When approaching the brief I was struggling to sleep, I was seeing a number of mental health practitioners but nothing seemed to be benefiting me. However I managed to move past the situation and begin to recover with the help of very close friends and loved ones. I wanted to recreate this feeling within a piece of my work. I was inspired by my own understanding of what support really is, of how raw and venerable being in that place feels like and of what ‘DARK’ means to me personally. I designed the characters nude in a simplistic cartoon manner; in order to portray the feeling of venerability within these characters and understanding with each other. I struggled at first to depict the story I wanted to tell across in a natural feeling way in the time frame of 10 seconds; storyboarding the animation multiple times in different orders in hopes of fitting everything into the briefs rules. The final animation comes to 10seconds in length and is animated at 24FPS. For the audio I used James Grimshaws own recorded music, with full allowance of usage within my animation. I used the digital software photoshop to animate this, within its timeline function and layer function. I also used the same software to stitch different saved animation files together into the final 10seconds of footage. I also used the layer function within photoshop to set the lighting for this animation. For the candle animation itself I used a 50% opacity layer of yellow to suggest the colour change onto the scene from the animated flame. I did the same with the blue-ness to the animation, so it would be easier to design the colours for the characters and still give the illusion they were in the darkness. I met the deadline head on, uploading the animation itself onto the websites contest page on the day of submission deadline. Regarding the animation movement and fluidly itself in this contest entry I’m very proud; I feel like the movement depicted by both characters is one of the most smooth and fluid pieces I’ve done to date. I didn’t win the contest, despite the fact I was only one of three animators who entered that brief title. I feel like I was successful within this contest entry, as it took it to subtextual deep very personal level. Of course ‘personality’ doesn’t necessarily make the best brief entry, but it does produce an original idea.
Illustrated Friday Brief ‘TROPICAL’
Illustrated Friday is a weekly brief broadcasted by their very own website, the site has been up and running since the early 2000’s. I did plan on submitting to this contest multiple times running up to the deadline for responsive but I did forget about these briefs all together until now. The brief i entered was themed ‘TROPICAL’. I did a brief mind map of ideas and leant towards the idea of doing some sort of ‘Hawaiian themed’ pin-up, but to avoid unnecessary sexualisation I produced the illustration in an innocent cartoony visual aesthetic. I scanned a rough sketch into the digital software Photoshop and redrew the image on separate layers. I honestly feel disappointed in myself that I didn’t enter more into these sets of briefs and looking back at it, I really would of liked to get more involved within this websites contest briefs. I will most likely continue to enter these contests on and off, heading off into the end of 2016 and possibly for the rest of the websites living life.
D&AD Brief ‘AMNESTY’
The D&AD Brief ‘Amnesty’ was my choice for the collaboration segment of this module. I was drawn to this brief because I was interested in producing work within a project that was in some form political. The brief itself asked for some sort of visual attraction for young people/students to get them involved in Amnestys current work, with a folder of information, colours, icons and suggested material. Originally I was part of a team of three with Emily Flanagan and Poppy Young, however after meeting once and outlining both Emily and Poppy would develop an in-depth idea of the sort of approach we’d take to this brief and I’d animate it; both myself and Emily lost contact with Poppy. Beginning developing work for this collaboration brief late with just myself and Emily now, we began quickly working out possible ideas a few weeks before deadline. Because of the lack of production time we ruled out producing an animation but rather something that was animated. Myself and Emily developed the idea of producing animated posters, both physical copies and GIF versions. For this collaboration project we thought producing media for social media impact as animated images would fit perfectly with the brief, as young people/students are very fond of social media. I also suggested we approach our response to this brief with constant understanding of whats appropriate; in order to not offend any of the sensitive material Amnesty deals with globally. We began researching into possible visual ideas, creating image boards to inspire us. I suggested we focus on the ‘positives’ of helping out Amnesty and not the issues they combat; purely because within my research, the images themselves seemed heavily intimidating and not really something a teenager would want to firstly get involved within. Emily began developing illustrations, from my vague ideas of what we should focus on which were; Meet ups, Sign ups, Get involved and Get Informed. Emily produced four traditionally drawn and inked images which she scanned onto her computer and in order for me to animate them, split segments of the images into layers. I began animating the images, within photoshops time time function; by setting position keyframes for each frame so simplistic movement was achieved in a GIF format. Deciding to leave each slogan for the last minute in hopes Poppy would appear and engage with the project, Emily ended up designing our own graphic text and inputting them onto our posters/animated posters. Our images were put together by myself on photoshop and saved as both a PNG and a GIF file (as well as rendered out as a quicktime video for referencing). I also edited the Amnesty icon onto our images and our hashtag, ‘GetAmnesty’ which I developed. The term ‘Get Amnesty’ refuses to getting to know Amnesty and ties in with the over all verbal theme of our four pieces. The slideshow which was requested by Amnesty for this brief was something I also put together, outlining out basic idea for our response to their brief. Myself and Emily submitted our collaboration project as a join team, leaving Poppy out of the credit because she didn’t add anything or do anything for this project. Looking back over the response our collaboration group did to the Amnesty brief, hosted by D&AD; I feel like it’s a very appropriate and successful. Having both physical poster and animated versions of our images is a huge unique benefit our collaboration group has. By producing a response designed for having a visual impact on social media we’ve responded to the request from Amnesty within their brief to attract the attention of young people and students; as research our collaboration group developed confirmed social media is the new market place for information for this age group. To improve this submission I would of loved to animate our images further and into more detail.
