Week 1

The briefing, Initial ideas and Presentation

The chosen topic for the dissertation - related to Sign Language Animation, was changed the day before presentations. By sudden realisation that the area of research in CoP1 and CoP2 no longer seem to connect to the techniques of animation that are going to be researched and used in other modules this year. That being stop-motion. Whereas, looking into character animation in Sign Language leans towards CGI and 2D Digital techniques. Previous CoP projects have proven SL Animation requires a vast amount of planning, preparation and collaboration. All necessary for such project to come to light — therefore locking it away in a trunk to be kept as a personal side project or better, for MA studies. Instead, this module will focus on exploring the underground of stop-motion sets.

Presentation Material

Evaluating the areas of interest, talks and books that can leave any stop-motion enthusiast speechless:

Wilford, L. and Stevenson, R. (2018) Isle of Dogs. New York: Abrams. This book is describing some of the thought processes of building the sets. Dondis, D. A. (1974) A Primer of Visual Literacy. Massachusetts: The MIT Press. One of my favourite books, which explores breaking art down into simple elements, will be useful in breaking the sets down to understand how they are built.
I want to learn more about sets. The fact is, I am not sure how I would approach building a set if I were to do it again. I do not feel as such there is a formula for building sets from the stop-motion books I have seen. At the moment I am interested in the two:
1. Adaptation of sets for special effects and elements such as fog, steam, lights. 2. Being opposed to styrofoam carving, I hope to learn what sustainable and functional ways of a set building are practical. Thorough research into building sets will be more than useful in the attempt to get to know my options and alternatives, and it will inform my EP.