BMA243, Three illustrators whose work I admire, in-class presentation 29 July

Erte', also known as  Romain de Tirtoff , (b.1892, d.1990)

• From 1915, created 240 covers for Harper's Bazaar
• Theatrical designer for 35 years
• Beautiful swooping lines and intricate patterns
• Influenced by Persian miniatures found in his home and fashion world in Paris 
• Worked in pen and ink and gouache
• Art Deco style

References: Designs by Erté: Fashion Drawings and Illustrations from "Harper's Bazar" Paperback – December 1, 1976
by Erté  (Author), Stella Blum  (Editor, Introduction), Eric Estorick (Preface)

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Erte

Charles Dana Gibson (b.1867, d. 1944)

Charles Dana Gibson

Biography: Charles Dana Gibson

• Pen and ink illustrator
• Most famous creation is "The Gibson Girl", an icon of American emergence on the world stage at the beginning of the 20th century.
• Illustrated double page spreads for Collier's Weekly and popular books like "The Prisoner of Zenda" .  He published a number of books of his own illustrated stories including The Education of Mr. Pipp (1899).
• Creates shadow and form with quick pen lines, glamour and character portraits, and tells a story with or without text.
• Figures full of life and movement, even in still moments, due to the controlled use of "quick" and "slow" ink lines.  

Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham
Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham (CHRUCKY)
Generation Next, "Age of Apocalypse", Marvel Comics, 1995

• Chris Bachalo, Penciller for Generation Next title for Marvel Comics and The Sandman for TPB ("The Doll's House")
• Mark Buckingham, inker for Generation Next title for Marvel Comics.  
• Line work creates texture and movment

References:
Chris Bachalo Illustration

http://www.chrisbachalo.net/profile.html

BDM127, Monkey concept art for critique, 28 July

Graffiti Girl in Toon Boom harmony with adjustable pencil lines.  

proposal due Friday 8 August at 5pm

Is this a permissible variant on the board game shape?

Proposal has colour character portrait, character 1 page bio, rendered in chosen style, story page with logline and treatment covering arcs in story (succinct).  Visual counts for more than written.  Title page that visually reflects project, contents page, all of documents printed in colour and bound (bound can be all piece in a slide bind or hot glue bound.  No staples or loose sheets.  All storyboards must be rendered in chosen visual approach.  boards must be presented in HDTV panels on a graphic novel format (speech in bubbles, etc.)  See Assignment one check list on Y drive.  Make it in A3 template so it shrinks down nicely onto A4 paper.  Will be printed for an exhibition in August.

All characters should be made in Toon Booms Harmony, NOT Photoshop.

The Uncanny Valley, 28 July

Creepy Dolls
Because we animate, make non-living drawings appear to have the quality of life, it is worth looking at "The Uncanny Valley", the concept coined in the 1970s by a Japanese roboticist for the point when humanoid robots cease to be cute or interesting and instead cause humans unease.  This article in Smithsonian Institute's magazine examines why dolls cause this reaction.  Humans need to be on the
alert for danger and they also need to be socially aware.  So when someone gives mixed signals that aren't overtly threatening, humans go into a state of alertness that we now call feeling "creeped out".  It essentially leaves us in a state of heightened awareness without rocking the social boat.  Dolls can trigger the creep because they mimic the human form and give off some social cues (their seeming ability to make eye contact being the most often cited) but aren't "doing" anything.  Robots, as they become more sophisticated, can mimic human form, behavior and social cues.  The image below shows where moving and still things that mimic humans fall in regards to the Uncanny Valley.

3D animated characters are more likely to attract negative association with the Uncanny Valley than 2D.  3D is working really hard to make on-screen reality better than real life and the technology isn't quite there yet.  An example that made me wish the film makers hadn't gone there was the "young' version of Jeff Bridge's character in Tron: Legacy.  It looked like a death mask of the actor without the spark of life.  I would have happily accepted a younger actor playing the character next to the older, real Jeff Bridges over this:

Jeff Bridges in the original Tron (1982)

BDM106, Animation History, Timeline homework for next week, 28 July

History of Animation timeline
powerpoint
main dates and examples, no fewer than 20 dates and links and photos
have a hard copy for turn in and digital copy, too

Aaron Hodgins Davis
history of animation part 3 you tube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuHnJozhYYM&list=PL88D809B2D0DC3AC3&index=3

1906 Humorous phases of famous/funny? faces stop motion

emile cole phantasmagorie animation
The Man in the moon combo of animation and live action
Winsor McCay
Little Nemo in Slumberland 1911
The famous cartooonist of the NY Times and his moving comics
The Story of a Mosquito- accused of tracing his drawings from photos
Gertie the Dinosaur
John Randolph Bray did for animation what Henry Ford did for autos
visited Mccay pretending to be reporter, Bray copied and patented Mccay's processes and then tried to sue him.  looked for more eficient way of doing animation
The Artist's Dream 1910 (copied backgrounds and animated characters onl6y)
took Bray 6 months for Pathe'. "Colonial Heeza Liar's"
best contribution was cell system
Hertz's also came up with celluloid system- characters on cells that were laid over backgrounds
BRay used rootscopeng to trace over live action to create training films
signed up with Goldwyn (Goldwyn Bray Comic)
Debut of Thomas the Cat first coloured animation
Bray sold up in 20s.  last film was 1928?
animated version Felix the Cat by Otto Mesmer from comic by somebody else, 1922
mature adults and kids cold identify with him and it also reached across multiple classes
Felix had merchandising deals
assembly line produced every two weeks.
with talkies, Felix not so popular. over by 1930s
max Fleischer invented rotoscoping. filmed image projected onto a board and then traced
"Out of the Inkwell" clown renamed Ko-Ko, Inkwell Imps
Betty Boop pushed out KoKo 
Walter Lantz? former Bray employee
Unnatural history and dinky doodle went to work with Walt disney
Disney started in Kansas City and he worked with a cinema business
Disney went out west to California "alice's wonderland" live action and aniamtion
margaret winkle, only female distributor, agreed to distribute alice films
roy and walt disney started a business
Oswals the Lucky Rabbit to be released by Universal.  renamed Oscar by accident
Charles Mintz took away rights to Oswald and Disney  made sure it never happened again
Mickey Mouse- Plane Crazy and Galloping Gaucho
no one interested so he started making talkies: Steamboat Willie the first
Mickey trademarked by Walt so he couldn't lose him.  
Walt decided to spend more money to make more money and went into feature length films: Snow White.  first feature length animation in English
250,00 original budget.  2 million spent at the end. 
screen cartoonist guild picketed Disney in 50s?
former disney employees went on to form other companies UPA, distributed by Columbia pictures
Fox and Crow
Mister Magoo 1955
praised for flat style and no realism "Gerald McBoing Boing" 
Warner Bros slapstick comedy "Bugs Buny and his Friends"
produced by leon schleisinger
recurring characters looney toons
merrie melodies had new character eachtime, then two series combined by 1940s
Fritz Frelang and Tex Avery joined WB
Chuck Jones Robert Clampett- added pepe Le pew, daffy duck, foghorn leghorn, Marvin the martian
john Burton took over '57, branching into network tv
MGM studios Harmon-Ising team, Happy Harmonies the calico dragon
in house MGM studio retaliation for over budget cartoons of Harmonies
"peace on earth" post-apocalyptic earth without humans cartoon coincided with start of wwII
Joseph Barbera and William Hanna "puss gets the boot" became tom and jerry
HB enterpirses their side business until MGM stopped production
focused on made for tv animation Huckleberry hound show, Flintstones.
first to make series exclusively for tv.  before that, there were reruns of movie animations
animation pigeonholed as kids' entertainment
Jetsons yogi bear scooby doo, smurfs
Golden Age over in 1970s
evolved into Cartoon Network.
movies stopped showing cartoons before movies

BDM124 stop motion, 27 July

Created a google doc for Ryan, Anna, Ken and I to work on.  Today, I worked on filling out the story beats and suggested a third character, the inexperienced stuffed animal who takes over from the Knight Bear at the end.  Will see what the others think about a new character and what character and story twists they throw in.  Anna had the excellent suggestion, building on Ken's premise, that the knight bear become the new monster under the bed.  It gives the story a very interesting twist ending.

Played with camera with Ryan and Anna and made short stop motion "Yellow I am Bored" in class and uploaded it to After Effects.  Ken is off to Korea until the 6th? of August.  He has been sent the link to the google doc and can make story submission online.  I'm assuming that we can also load concept art, too...

BDM106, Animation history, Jan Svankmajer, 27 July

Jan Svankmajer, Czech,  info in Y drive
known for dark reimaginings of well-known fairy tales with avant-garde use of 3D stop motion coupled with live action
Lots of experimentation in puppetry and film techniques
Alice, 1988, based on Alice in Wonderland 1865
Lekce Faust, 1993
Wooden Baby
Lunacy, 2005
His reputation grew after fall of the Soviet Union
www.britannica.com/biography jan svankmajer?

provide synopsis of given movie and answer the following: 
Faust: based on Christopher Marlowe's play Dr. Faustus.  Mephistopheles comes to Faust and offers him love, wealth and fame if he renounces Christ.  An Angel comes to Faust and offers him the chance to repent at each turn.  The filmmaker 

Lunch:  A wealthy man and a poor man fail to catch the waiter's attention at a restaurant and eat everything on the table, then their clothes, then the table.  Finally, the wealthy man turns on the poor man.

Alice:  A bored little girl sits throwing rocks into a brook while her adult attendant reads.  When she moves inside, she re-enacts the previous scene with one of her dolls.  A taxidermied rabbit pulls the nails from its feet and dresses itself in hidden ornate garb.  
what is artist communicating?
Faust: What does anyone want to communicate with that play?  That man is free to follow good or bad, that he will be held accountable for his choices, that bad seeks to deceive, that forgiveness is offered many times until death when it's too late.  It's definitely the most interesting interpretation of the play that I've seen.  I wanted to see more, and I certainly never felt that when I read it.    

Lunch: The Rich and powerful will consume everything in sight and encourage everyone else to do the same.  In the end, they will then fall on the poor and consume them, as well.  Made in 1992, I'd say it's a commentary on life in the disintegrating Soviet Union and it's satellite countries.  

Alice:  I didn't see enough of the movie to be able to tell if there was anything else going on past a darker take on the source material.  Maybe the nonsensical and contradictory nature of Lewis Carroll's words are used to secretly point to the nonsensical and contradictory nature of communism and State dominance over people's lives.  
   
how is this achieved?
Faust:  there's a mix between scales- small puppets, human actor, larger than life size puppets.  Human face, stop-motion clay faces speaking, static puppet faces.   At times, the puppeteers hands can be seen and Faust looks up and sees them.  Even the Angel is controlled by the faceless puppeteer and faust imagines that he himself is without strings.  Until he runs after Helen, then he, too, has a control mechanism.   
   
Lunch: the costumes show the difference between rich and poor and in the end, the actor's bodies do, as well.  The rich man is older and has a slight paunch.  He's been well-fed.  The poor man is younger and bony.  He's just scraping by.  The absurdity of their consumption is emphasized when their heads switch to clay heads that eat giant chunks of fabric, plate and table.    

Alice:  The stop-motion Rabbit carefully adjusts his gloves by flexing and running a finger between each finger.  The coat goes on quickly, which is a nice way to further set off the carefulness of the glove dressing.  

what methods used?
stop motion and live action, very little sound or dialogue, except in Faust which uses dialogue from the play.  Alice does some speaking, which emphasizes the non-sensical nature of Lewis Carroll's writing and thoughts. 
is comunication successful?
Yes.

Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner shorts

Alice movie
Faust conjures Mephistopheles
Faust, the Angel and Helen of Troy

BMA115, comic development, revisiting the story beat sheet to create an 8 page comic, 26 July

I've re-written the beat sheet to sync up with what I've drawn up in the comic so far.  If I have the time, I can add another 4 pages on to the comic to tell the story with the polar bear, The Machine, Amelia Earhart, etc.  If other projects call me away, I'm still ready to go for drawing class week after next.

Page 1

1 Opening image:  A woman stares moodily at the first rays of the sun as it rises over a futuristic and disintegrating cityscape.  Her digital and analogue readers flicker back and forth by a few seconds.  The battery gauge is reading nearly empty.   
3 Set-up:  Tempus Agent M. M. Macintosh has pushed herself to the edge of her 21^st century time limit in a self-indulgent attempt to get to the North Pole to stop “The Machine” without the aid of a Geo-ambulator agent.   

 

4 Catalyst:  The Time Window that allowed her to enter 2099 has shut and the automaton systems that have extended her life will go into torpor unless she makes it to another Window that will be opening overland.

Page 2

5 Debate:  M3's Geo-chronometer registers readings that indicate the presence of someone who has an unusually high number of latitudinal and longitudinal incursion markers in their bloodstream.   If she can find the source, she can “piggy back” on his stored travel experience to get them back to the Chrono Hub to reboot her systems.  From there, she could send herself through time to a place that’s close to her mark.  

6 Act Two Plot Point:  Her readings lead her to a freshly dead body which is the source of the irregular incursion energy signatures.  Before his executor can start on her, she does a little short term time jump to circle back.  

Page 3

7 B Story:  The now live body belongs to F. Scott McMurdo, who is attempting to illegally enter the FUSEZ for the 5^th time.   

8 Fun and Games:  Series of shots from M3’s perspective where she attempts to rescue McMurdo with him refusing her help.   Finally he says something that helps her realize that he’s under a narcotic delusion.  She cycles back one last time.     

Page 4

9 Midpoint:   McMurdo is not where he thinks he is.  This whole time, we've seen him as he sees himself: in a dashing spy outfit, blindfolded and cigaretted in a film noirish interrogation room.  Mary Marie McMurdo thwhips him in the nose, hard.  As his eyes water and he reacts in pain, the scene changes. 

10 Bad Guys Close In:  They're in an abandoned industrial zone, overgrown with weeds, and instead of a bespectacled bureaucrat looking through papers, IKE the automated sentry squats.  McMurdo is wearing a grubby utility suit.  The "cigarette" is a stick lozenge with drugs in it that change his perceptions and keep him calm.  McMurdo’s argument with M3 is interrupted by IKE the automated sentry that did, and still might, execute him.  

Page 5

11 All is Lost:  Escape from the Processing Facility.  M3 and McMurdo race to the roof to get away from IKEs.  Tempus Agent convinces McMurdo to come with her by proving that the FUSEZ is actually empty- the people have been killed off by a variety of automated systems and starvation.  Refugees like McMurdo keep coming because the “Join us in FUSEZ” ad/propaganda campaign is also automated.  The retrovirus was created to make populations amenable to "proper" government but will make the people so passive in 200 years that they just die off because they can't be bothered to do ANYTHING.  Robots have been programmed to do stuff for them and they listen to their programming first and keep going, even though nobody's around anymore.  M3s automatons have failed and she begins to age before McMurdo's eyes.  IKE advances and he's forced into the corner holding her up.

Page 6

12 Dark Night of the Soul:  McMurdo has to get M3 into the Time Window.  He jumps into the Window with M3 in his arms.  He lands in the Chrono Hub in a pile of dust.  A shadowy figure leans over him and sweeps dust off of his uniform into a bag.  

Page 7

13 Act Three Plot Point:  M3 is reconstituted to McMurdo's relief and discomfort.  Her automaton systems change her from a 120 year old woman back to the 37 year old he met hours before.  

Page 8
14 Finale: Station chief William S. Pearce explains stuff and McMurdo must decide if he's in or out. 

15 Final Image: McMurdo and M3 look ahead to the aurora borealis over the North Pole.  They set off together to find The Machine.