Secondary Action, Overlap and Follow Through - 04/11/19

Secondary Action
This is an action that follows a main action OR a secondary supportive action. The first helps to make the action more realistic and believable, it sells the primary action. The second uses tools to reflect their character's thoughts. Both exist to assist communication of narrative.

Overlap
This helps make an action more fluid and lifelike. It involves a lead action and then a following action that "lags" behind. It offsets the action to make it flow better. Overlapping actions can be represented through the body (e.g. head moves forward and body follows) or through apparel (e.g. flowing dress).

Follow Through
This also helps to make an action more lifelike, but where overlap was about motion, follow through is about what happens when the action halts. Loosely connected parts continue to move after the main body has stopped.

To put these into practice, we had to record a video and augment it by animating a loose article over it. I chose to do a beard, and use overlap and follow through for when the head turns to the side quickly. I found this quite hard as working on top of a video meant that any discrepancies in the drawings were more obvious, as well as the fact that there was slight camera movement. I also found it quite challenging to make the drag of the beard realistic and did multiple takes. It's definitely an area I need to practice more. I feel that the beard looks a bit floaty because of how slow it is but how much it moves on each peak. Furthermore I think that the first peak should be higher and longer than the second as the turn that way is faster. I also tried to incorporate a tiny bit of secondary action with the cheek ripples as the hand slapped it, which helped make the slap seem to connect more.

Exaggeration - 29/10/19

The principle that is linked with anticipation is exaggeration - where the dimensions are altered beyond normal properties to emphasise the action. Sound is an integral part to this principle.

For this principle, we had to create a short animation based around a goat scream audio file that incorporates both anticipation and exaggeration. I wanted to utilise anticipation to misdirect the audience into thinking something is going to happen with the mouth, but instead the tongue screams. To sell this and to add comedic effect I really wanted to exaggerate the tongue's scream, both for the tongue's mouth as well as its overrall movement (lifting up and wobbling with the scream). 

I feel the exaggeration of the tongue is effective however I could make the larger mouth react to the scream as it feels out of place because of its stillness. To tie the opening of the mouth with the tongue's scream a bit better, I could use a sound effect such as a yawn or a "here comes the aeroplane" clip to give more context to this clip. 

I really need to work on making different actions flow better together in my animations too. One way to do this is to work on separate layers so that I don't have to think about all the movements at one time and can focus on them individually.

I changed the animation after feedback from Ben saying that the mouth should be wobbling rather than the tongue, as that's the part making the noise. Doing this also gets rid of the strangeness of the still mouth inside the mouth, making this version much better.

COP - Academic Writing - Sources, Analysis and Triangulation - 31/10/19

• It is important to use a variety of sources as well as both primary and secondary research.
• Analysis is about taking a source apart objectively.
• "Triangulation involves seeking accounts from three or more perspectives"
• Your POV only matters either in context of other sources or with evidence backing it
• Analyse --> Close reading (handout on estudio) --> Triangulate (connect, compare and contrast) --> Form your analysis and conclusions

After the theory of this workshop, we then went into the library to find written sources. This was very useful as it prompted us to get away from using just the internet, as well as showing us how books can be used as a source for multiple sources due to the references they include. I found that there were a lot of books on VR, which are useful as they share the same concepts of immersive narrative and immersion in general. Researching in libraries is a new skill to me so I found sifting through the information quite challenging and very overwhelming, however it was very useful.

In the afternoon, we then started to look at our sources and analyse them whilst looking for patterns and links to start triangulating. This stage was very overwhelming as there are so many topics within 360 degree animations. I managed to narrow my topic interest down to either:

• Effective immersion in "Immersive Narratives" (non interactive 360 degree stories)
• Multiverse narratives/multiple storylines and the FOMO (fear of missing out)
• I can look at immersive theatre as this is a concept in that artform as well
• Film language of Immersive Narratives and how its different from 180 degree stories

My next steps are to sift through the books, focusing on just these topics to both decide on what I want to specify on as well as to analyse them. I will then expand my research by looking on the internet and finding more sources to triangulate.

Anticipation - 28/10/19

Anticipation is the preparation before an action, and can be bold or subtle. Bold generally being more comedic and more of an exaggerated action, whilst subtle anticipation generally has less frames.

I first tried a more subtle anticipation scene, using the movement of the arm as the anticipation before closing the laptop lid. I don't think this was a successful example as the anticipation isn't entirely clear, it just feels like two separate movements. I feel that it could be improved by having a pause when the hand is just about to grab the lid, showing the character's indecisiveness. 

I then tried a more bold example, using a firework or rocket taking off. This was definitely better as the exaggeration of the anticipation worked really well in conveying the action and it was a much more engaging scene for it. To improve I feel that I could either have the rocket shake a lot more and proggressively more aggressive, or I could have it start shaking before the fuse reaches the rocket to tie the two actions together, as at the moment it seems a bit stilted.

After feedback from Ben, I revisited the rocket animation, taking out one of the frames at the start of the takeoff to improve the spacing.