Frame of Appearance High resolution version

Nicky Final

Frame of Appearance

Frame of Appearance

Artist Statement

Artist Statement

In the process of creating my animation work, I am generally concerned with how the character changes in the animation. The character should be different with the beginning no matter it will turns into a good or bad at the end. It is hard to tell how the emotion changes of the character in few seconds. So iInn my work, I am attempting to create an adult with normal cloth, after he bought the frame and cover it on his body, his appearance changed. It is a straight and simple way to show how the character will be different with pervious scene. 

My work is inspired by Derrida’s concept of framing. I am interested in Derrida’s theory of ergon and paragon. He states that the frame can be considered as part of an art work. I think it is an interesting way to explore the way in which the frame cannot just the physical frame, it can be the frame of thoughts.  And in this particular instance, I am focusing on a frame which can be purchased and can also change peoples’ appearance. It is also a kind of magic frame which can change peoples’ different personalities in variable situation. 

Artist statement

Artist statement

I am interested in Derrida’s theory of ergon and paragon. He states that the frame can be considered as part of an art work. I think it is an interesting way to explore the way in which the frame cannot just the physical frame, it can be the frame of thoughts.  And in this particular instance, I am focusing on a frame which can be purchased and can also change peoples’ appearance.

I am generally concerned with how the character changes in the animation. Ultimately, the character should be different with the beginning no matter turn into good or bad. So I created an adult with normal cloth, after he bought the frame and cover it on his body, his appearance changed. It is a brief and simple way to show how the character will be different with pervious scene. 

Rigging

Rigging

Scene 2 Lifting frame

Scene 2 Lifting frame

Scene 1 Walking

Scene 1 Walking

Character adjustment

Character adjustment

Mid Point-Storyboard

Storyboard

Black Frame BGM

Sound Track of Grocery Store

Character Design

Character Design

Walking Test

Walking Test

Walking Test

Record video

Project 2 Storyboard

Reflection on Winter Days by Yori Norstein

Reflection on Winter Days by Yori Norstein

At first time, this story makes me feel that it is a two monks’ story. The color is more brownish which can lead viewers go back to the past. Also the scenes are vague and sublime because the background such as trees, branches are blurry. Honestly, I didn't notice that the first character appears on the screen is poet Basho until I saw the greenish hat and kimono at the second time. It’s a little bit distracting for me because it is hard to grab both: scene or subtitle. So I am trying to look at the scene instead of words. For me, it is more like a non-linear story. Blue monk is a little naughty and full of energy, he jumped one tree to other to listen to the trees. The other monk with yellow kasaya seems full of knowledge and mature.

After I read the interview article about Yori Norstein, I found this story is adapt by Basho’s poetry. The background scene (the poetry appears and the camera panning) reminds me the Along the River During the Qingming Festival by Zeduan Zhang. In addition, it is not a monk story. One is a Chikusai which means he/she is not a real doctor just a charlatan. They do know some tricks but no one will looking for them if they ill. The other is a wanderer and his bamboo hat and kasaya was tore by the strong storm. The character design of Chikusai is interesting. He was set with a buffoonery personality. That is why he has a big nose and a smile mouth. He helps wanderer scratch his back and replaces his better bamboo hat from him which makes character fullness. At the last poetic scene, the winter is coming, the wind bending the braches, running the hats, rolling the leave, there is other poetry occurred to me –

江雪

柳宗元著

千山鸟飞绝,

 万径人踪灭。

孤舟蓑笠翁,

 独钓寒江雪。

a River Scene in Snow

Authored by: Liu Zongyuan   Translated by: Longwind

Birds vanish from the surrounding hills,

footprints disappear from the winding trails;

Clad in leaf cape and hat in a boat alone,

an old man is fishing on a river in snow.

Reflection on Time&Again by Jacques Khouri (2010)

Reflection on Time&Again by Jacques Khouri (2010)

In my opinion, this animation is more like a moved comic book. They both have several frames on one page or scene. On the other hand, audience do not have to read in a certain order because in this animation, one frame will be highlighted and starts to move in order to draw audience’s attention while the others are static and grey. 

The other thing worth to mention is rhythm. In order to express character’s routine and tedious life, in general, the pace lean to slow especially in this part: he watches the time pass. The small picture is a clock which shows 4:30pm. In the speak bubble, “watch the time”, these letters appears in a normal pace but the “pass” appears extremely slow. After all the text shows up, the clocks’s indicator moves a little bit. 

Jacques uses the winkle paper as the background and the winkles also have subtle movements. When character dreams about Marine, Jacques approaches sketch female characters which are drew on the notebook to separate the dream with real life. There is no monolog in the sound track and the texts in speak bubbles are usually start with “I” which is easier to bring the audience into the main character.

Reflection of Derrida Reframed

Reflection of Derrida Reframed

This is the first time that I get to know Derrida’s theory. He is the most critical philosopher in France since 1960s after Roland Bathers. I have read Roland Bather’s Camera Lucida few weeks ago. His idea about photo such as “stadium” and “punctum” is quite interesting. Go back to the Derrida, he is a founder of “deconstruction” which brought a huge mind bandwagon in the Europe. According to this book, the author brings up a question at the beginning, “What is paragon?” It’s outside or beyond of the work, but it can be the part of the work. The essential part of the critique of structuralism is duality which means everything have one directions either inside or outside, soul or physic body, nature or phenomenon, etc. The former usually is way more important than the latter. But Derrida is sort of blur this boundary. He takes a frame as an example, frame can be the part of the art, it is important, in some way, it is more valuable than art itself. His is attempting to use this new type of reading and thinking way to subvert history for a variety of binary opposition in order to launch powerful critique of traditional western philosophy.

week 8

Presentation

Week 7

Week 7

Reflection of The Crockdaile Street

It is a grotesque puppetry animation and composite with real shots. For me, it is extremely bizarre and creepy. The main color is brown and navy blue. When I saw the rusty screws, I thought live me along, I don't want to get Lockjaw. One part I like most is that puppy went to the tailor shop, the staff are the gigantic head babies with empty eyes. It reminds me the first episode of Doctor Who. The plastic models become live and want to conquer the human world.

Week 6

Motion Test

Peacock viedo

Kaleidoscope

Week 5

Video Part

Reflection of Homer 3D

This time, Homer gets out of his home which the two dimensional world he usually lives and jumps into the two deferent levels of 3 dimensional world. He acrosses the wall and goes into a 3D space which seems like 3d software window. Some cubes suspend in the air, they are not controlled by gravity. He has not enough time to expolre the new world because the grid-like ground was pierced by a sharp object. It likes a black hole with the extrordinary suction. Homer sucked in the hole and fell on the real world. 

There are two transitions in this short animation. One is from flat sences to 3D space and then to the real world. Every transtion is reasonable. It is parallel to his home with three dimentional world and vertical with real world. Personally, this relationship is a sort of like animation whatever 2D or 3D can be fantacy and they are settled in our mind yet we stand on the real ground. 

Reflection of 3 short animations

Dots, Norman McLaren (1940)

This is animation is more like a narrative story of dots which I think is the most interesting part. It also reminds me of Minimalism—a dot dances in the middle of the scene, and transits to another shapes or splits into several part. Viewers could concentrate with the movement of dots with completely no distractions. In addition, the movement and the audio track are very cohesive. I am not sure if Norman is the first person who combine the electronic sound track with animation but it matches images perfectly.

Object Conversation, Paul Glabicki (1984)

To be honest, I did not quite get the purpose of this short animation. Despite the fact that every footages flash, I still caught some continuity footages, such as arch and piano turned into lines and dropped on the bottom. All the elements are incongruity and not linear. The audio of rings, woman’s voice still on, but there is no images on the screen.

Creature Comforts, Nick Park (1989)

It is a funny short clay motion-stop animation. Nick uses a new perspective to describe the relationship of human and animals. Animals are interviews by us and tell their qualities of their new home. Literally, someone who is accept interview are all politics, famous stars and it is also a serious and solemn moment. But when it changes to animal, it becomes more funny and grounded. They act like real human. The lion, his gestures and complains what a small zoo it is. Kuala wears glasses and satisfied with living in the zoo, etc. For that moment, I feel like I stand their position which is very intriguing.

Week 4 Peacock Dance&3D Test

Live Performance 1:26'

Spin Test

Week 3 CONCEPT

Art mimics nature, human mimic birds

There is a dancer who dance on a leaf, she uses her hand as a peacock's comb. At the beginning, she stretches her body and mimic peacock's movement slowly. Then the camera move up until get a top view with the dancer. The dancer start to whirl. The leaf like an eye and her stage like an eyeball, then everything turns to black and white smoothly. She keep whirling and whirling, the eye becomes plaster and carves into the ball (earth) and the ball spins with an opposite direction with dancer. The ball starts to duplicates many others to surround itself (mirror effect). The ball turns to white, the music stops, everything slows down, the dancer appears with in a fetal position and curl in the middle of the circle.

REFLECTION of Mimesis Theory on Republic Book 10

Mimesis 

I have been reading this chapter for a week and here are my reflection. First, reading English version at the beginning is definitely not a good choice. The other thing worth to mention is that I feel like the artists are insulting by Plato but I cannot find a strong reason to refute him. 

In the book 10, there is a question, “who this imitator is?”

                                                made by God (only one of them that made by God is real)

  3 kinds of couches             made by carpenter      

                                                made by painter

                                             God – the creator of nature

    conclusion                      Carpenter – the craftsman of couch

                                              Painter – the imitator of couch

In my words, painter just mimic the image, the real objects won’t change their shape or forms when we look at it. We also can be considered these three kinds of people as users, inventors and imitators. But then Plato discussed about “the form of beauty” and “the form of good”, I didn't see the relationship between this concept. Plato take a flute musician as an example. Only the musicians who play the flute know if it is a good or bad flute. After that, they report back to the flute-maker to make sure the flute works functionally because users are the most experienced people. On the other hand, imitators neither know right opinion nor be aware with what they imitate.

The artist do imitate from nature, art mimic nature, they inspired from nature. However, it is not fair for artists to say “imitation, an ordinary thing having intercourse with what is ordinary, produces ordinary offspring.”(Plato, 286) Nowadays, artists, no matter poets, painters, directors etc. have higher social standers than the craftsmen. For example, an artist who exhibit his/her works in museum will receive more respect than a plumber or carpenter.

But if I take Brian Acton, the founder of WhatsApp, in general, he can be considered as craftsman, he also belongs to upper class and Facebook had to cost 19 billion to acquisition WhatsApp. I am so confused now. (This part just jumped on the top of my head, I repute myself eventually.)

This is my superficial reflection about Plato’s theory.