Understanding the requirements of working to a brief.

BRIEFS:
A brief/project is a strict set of guidelines that someone has to follow. They are instructions given to a person for them to complete. Being commissioned is to be hired by someone or some company to work for them, or to write for them. You may or may not be payed to do so. In regards to the media, the term 'Tender' means that you are trying to get people to hire you so you can work for them. You could also respond to a brief by entering into a competition, they always require strict guidelines and requirements. There are many different kinds of briefs, one of which is: Competitions. Here is a brief for the E-Sting competition.

http://estings.e4.com/terms.html


READING A BRIEF:
When reading the ESting animation brief, there were certain things that I had to do and had to add in my ESting. Things that were required to be included are: It had to be stop-motion animation, it had to be ten seconds long, the ESting must use soundtracks that have been provided to us, and the E4 logo must be included in the ESting animation somewhere. In order to meet these requirements, we had to do very specific things, for example. In order to reach ten seconds, we had I had to take 120 pictures. In order to make it stop-motion, I had to take a photo of my self, then move ever so slightly to the next position, and then take another photo, I did have help because I was the actor in my video and I could not have taken the photos and act at the same time. In the brief (Picture above) it states that you must use the soundtracks that have been provided for us. There were many different soundtracks to choose from and they were provided to us by the college files.Finally, the E4 logo had to be in the animation, we were only allowed to use the logo in this video only. I used the logo at the end of my ESting.
http://estings.e4.com/criteria.html

NEGOTIATING A BRIEF:
Because this is assessed work and there are strict guidelines for the E4 ESting competition, nobody was able to negotiate the brief. Although we did have the choice of what we were to put into the videos. In the media industry when you are negotiating a brief, you will need to make sure that you have the same sort of ideas as the person you are negotiating with, this is so you do not have further problems in the future. You may encounter many different constraints when responding to a brief such as budget problems and having trouble finding actors. Those were not a problem for me but I did have one problem in which I had trouble with editing and this set me back a few hours. I did make changes to my final project because it was not fully completed and I had to complete my editing. I added an explosion to my video to make it more appealing and interesting to the audience. Sometimes people cannot come to negotiate a brief and people will leave projects due to differences such as people not having the same ideas or there may be some kind of feud between people in the work place. So actors, writers, directors and other members of these projects could potentially leave, and most of the time they will try to get their names removed from the projects as well. People who have left a project because of differences are directors Chris Miller and Phil Lord, from the upcoming Han Solo movie. They left the project mid development due to creative differences and they could never agree and what would work and what wouldn't. "Phil Lord and Christopher Miller are talented film-makers who have assembled an incredible cast and crew, but it's become clear that we had different creative visions on this film, and we've decided to part ways." - Kathleen Kennedy, Lucasfilm president. 

http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/feature/a833145/directors-who-quit/

OPPORTUNITIES:
People usually respond to a brief for many things but brief are most popular among competitions, they will get work and experience for doing these and even if they so happen to win, they maybe even get noticed within the media industry. I have found out that filming stop-motion animation is harder that I originally thought and it requires a lot of patience. I learned how to edit a bit better and I have also learned how to create stop-motion animations properly. I did have to multi-skill because I had to film, act and direct the video. Because I worked mostly independently during this project I made most of the contributions to the brief, everything that you see in the final product was my idea and filmed by me. In the media industry if you get a lot of recognition, you are more likely to be someone who other producers and directors will want to work with. For example, in the media industry, Actor Samuel L. Jackson and director and writer Quentin Tarantino have worked together for 20 years over 5 films. Their first film they worked on together was Pulp Fiction, which is what Samuel L. Jackson is perhaps best known for.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/33665/13-directors-who-work-same-stars-again-and-again

ESting evaluation.

STEP 1:
Create your own user feedback survey


STEP 2: 

For my animation project I want to review it by making a written report. Reasons for this are as follows: Firstly I do not like oral presentations, I'm not a confident speaker and I do not like standing in front of large crowds and speaking aloud. Secondly audio commentary is not a great way of conveying a review of something, so I would not do something like that.

After I had created my ESting my teacher had uploaded it to YouTube. At the moment this is the only place my animation has been shown/exhibited. There are only a select few who have been sent the video as they needed to complete my survey. If I have wanted to show it to a wider range of people I would have posted the video to Facebook and other social media websites. If my ESting gets entered into the competition and somehow gets put on TV, that will be a great way to show off my project.

For my feedback I created a survey, below you will see all of the questions I asked in my survey, and all of the responses that I have received. The criteria for my survey is the following: Genre & audience, content & narrative, style, characters, techniques, aesthetic qualities, and creative abilities. The overall reaction of my ESting and judging by my survey results, most people liked it and posted good feedback, at the same time there were a few people who did leave some constructive criticism.

Questions Used:

1) Age, Gender and Profession - I had a large range of different ages and professions. None of the people who watched the ESting were within my age group for what I planned my ESting. The age group I wanted was ages 10 to 12.

2) Rate ESting out of 10 - Everyone who responded to the survey had to give a rating out of ten. Out of 15 results, the average rating for my ESting came to 7.5.

3) Genre of ESting - In my survey, I asked people what genre my ESting was. I gave them many options to choose from. The genre for my video is action and comedy.

4) Is the narrative clear and understandable? - The majority of people who answered my survey thought that the narrative was clear and understandable. I believe 2 people who took the survey did not think that the narrative was clear and understandable.

5) Style of animation - Everyone selected the stop-motion animation. The whole class had to do this style of animation because that is what was stated in the brief. It was obvious that the video was stop-motion animation but as part of the brief we had to ask this question.

6) Age group - My age group for my ESting is ages 10-12. I had a variety of different answers for this question. The majority of people who took my survey said that my age group was 10-12, closely followed by people saying that the age group was 13-15 year olds.

7) Do you like the characters used? I only used 2 characters throughout my ESting, I used myself as the main character, and a LEGO monster that I filmed in front of a green screen and made him large. People who answered the survey said they like the character that were used however there was 2 people who said they would rather see new or different characters.

8) Did the animation run smoothly? I personally believe that my animation ran smoothly, most of the respondents agree that the animation was smooth but there was 1 person who did not think this.

9) What was aesthetically pleasing to you? I had a whole bunch of different answers to this question. My ESting did not have many colours but did have a lot of special effects and editing involved. Such as making the LEGO monster huge and making him look scary. I also added in a large explosion when I punched the LEGO monster.

10) Was the ESting creative and unique? I think that green screening a LEGO monster into my video was a creative idea. I do agree with some of the respondents as they said that it was both creative and unique. However a few people have said that the idea was probably not unique and to a certain extent, I do agree with what they are saying because there are things that are similar to this in other existing movies and videos.

STEP 3: 

In creating my ESting, I did come across one constraint/problem. This was when I was editing the explosion effect and transition and when I added it into the editing system, the explosion had a black background behind it and it very difficult to remove it. To resolve this problem, I submitted my current work unfinished, then the whole class watched it and gave me feedback on what went well and what I needed to improve. The majority of the class said there needed to be more effects within the video. So afterwards we had a week to go back to make any changes we needed to make. During that time, I added an explosion to the part in which I punched the LEGO man. We had to use a soundtrack that was already provided for us, if we used any other soundtrack we would have broken the rules of the competition and our video would get a copyright strike and then the video would not be allowed into the competition.

In terms of filming I managed my time very well and I managed to film everything and still had enough time to film. But when it came to editing my animation, I did not manage to complete it all within the initial time limit because of the explosion effect problem.

The ESting I made has met the requirements of the brief. During pre production and also during filming I made sure that the animation was going to be 10 seconds long, and is stop-motion animation.

I gained feedback by creating and sending out a survey to my friends and family. The answers and responses to my survey were all serious and there were no jokes being made. All of the feedback I take into consideration so that if we ever do this again I know what I can improve. I like getting feedback because then I have the knowledge to make changes.

I feel that I have learned A lot about the different types of animations and also a lot on how to make stop-motion animation. I however did not like working to a brief because this restricted my ideas and creativity, and so this meant I could not create what ever I wanted but had to follow strict guidelines and rules.

Knowing that working to a brief is commonplace in the media industry I don't think I would like it too much, but I do enjoy expanding on ideas that are already given to me so it would not be a problem therefore I think I could potentially be a suitable candidate.

For me I did like the animation topic, but I do not think it will be right for me as filming things like stop-motion animation is tedious in my opinion and it could potentially get boring very quickly.

Survey for Esting

Create your own user feedback survey

Final ESting

Research and Planning: Responding to the Brief.

3 ways my Esting meets the requirements of the brief:

1: It included the official E4 sound track.
2: It is 10 seconds long.
3: It includes the E4 logo.

What I need to do to meet the requirements of the brief:

There are a lot requirements in the brief for the ESting, the main requirements are things such as the video must be stop-motion animation, the video must be 10 seconds long, the video has to include the E4 logo somewhere in it, any music that is added into your video must be official, authorized music that has been provided by E4 themselves. The video must also be fit for broadcast, this means there must be nothing obscene or nothing that could be of adult material, as well as there must not be any profanity involved. And finally if you want the video to be judged, it has to be in the English language.







http://estings.e4.com/terms.html

http://estings.e4.com/criteria.html

Improvement from feedback

What I am going change:

There is not anything in my Esting that I want to change, but based off the feedback that I have received from my classmates, I do need to add some sort of effect, like an explosion, to the death of the Lego man. And I will also need to make the transition to the E4 logo a lot smoother and aesthetically pleasing.

Draft Esting: 

Esting Pre Production.

Research and Planning: Designing an ESting

The ESting competition requires very specific entry requirements. Here are some of the things you must do, and some of the things you mustn't do: You cannot show anything explicit content. It must be exactly ten seconds long. You must have a public YouTube or Twitter account. It must have the E4 logo in it and the URL for the video has to have #EStings2017.

For my final ESting I am going to be using stop-motion animation with Lego and have a small amount of human animation added into the mix as well.

Idea:

My idea is to have a lot of Lego people fighting against a human. At the end of the fight the human gets defeated and explodes into the E4 logo. The audience that my idea is aimed towards is the younger audiences and both genders. The genre this idea falls into is action. My Esting is going to be targeted towards the younger audiences because it is going to be comedic. Judging by who the main viewer of E4 is, the Esting is going to be mainly seen by female viewers, but this will be aimed towards both genders. The Esting is going to be set in and around the college, there won't be any other location where it will take place. The outside areas of college and the corridors are going to be used the most.

Characters:

Name - The LEGO monster.
Description - This LEGO monster is a giant LEGO being that is attacking innocent people. Made up from different LEGO characters, something that hasn't been seen before. The monster's dramatic motivation is simply to kill, it has only known one thing and that is to attack and destroy everything it sees.

Name - Boy
Description - 18 year old student, who isn't scared of anything.


Soundtrack:
In my ESting, we had to use specific soundtracks that have been provided to us to use by the college and also the E4 competition brief. We have to stick to what the brief says and that means we have to use a soundtrack that has been given to us and one that we have special permission to use. The sound track I will be using for my ESting is called HARDCORE1.

Research and Planning: E4 and the Brief.

Paragraph 1:

 E4 is a television channel that is owned by 'Channel Four Television Corporation'. E4 was launched for the first time on the 18th of January, 2001. E4 has a number of different shows that are aired every day. Some of the most popular shows include: The Big Bang Theory, The Inbetweeners, How I met your mother, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and New Girl.

The primary target audience for E4 is 16 to 24. This is because the channel features a lot of high quality dramas, and comedies which have more of an appeal to the nations 16 to 24 year olds.

The secondary target audience for E4 would be people in the classes: Such as people in the classes C2 and DE.

Paragraph 2: 

An E Sting is a competition for animators to have their work published on the TV. It gives them a chance to show off their work and to inspire others to animate too. An E Sting is a television channel ident (Identity).

Content - This E Sting is about depressed dinosaur who turns into a party monster.

Audience - The target audience for this E Sting would be younger audiences.

Genre - Comedy

Content - Animated octopus playing Whack-a-shark and then a bigger shark smacks the octopus with an E4 stick.
Audience - Younger audiences because this is more on the comedic side.
Genre - Comedy




Content - Sheep are grazing on a field and then they get sucked up into the ground and spat out into the E4 symbol.
Audience - Another comedic E Sting so this would be aimed to the younger audiences.
Genre - Comedy

Paragraph 3:

For the Battle of BURGENDY we were tasked to create an animation that was totally made up of inanimate objects. The task was called Inanimate? Let's animate! and we had to always have 2 or more objects being animated at the same time all on one screen. For the Human figure animation was a test to see how much we knew about animations, and to see how much we could accomplish in a short amount of time. In terms of the three animation gadgets, we had to create 3 little animations that fit into each of the gadget. The task was to make these for a post on the history of animation.

There was one more post that we were tasked to create and that was a LEGO stop-motion animation. And we had to animate the mouth of one of the characters to say "Lego of me". Unfortunately my group lost footage and did not have enough time to remake the animation, and as a result of this we did not have the final piece of work. Below is an example of someone else's work in our class (made by Livvy and Lawrence) and this is what it would have looked like.

Paragraph 4:

For my final assessed animation I have decided I am going to use Lego stop-motion animation, but also I am going to change my idea slightly and also add in a bit of human figure stop-motion as well so it make things a little more unique and interesting. I came to this decision because I originally had decided to just make it out of Lego only, but I didn't think it would be very interesting as there are lots of E Stings that's have been made purely with Lego before, so the combination of Lego and Human stop-motion animation will make things far more unique.

Stop-Motion Research Evaluation.

For the animation we were tasked to create a human stop-motion animation. We were tasked to complete this as a test to see what we were capable of in terms of animating.

What went well:

1) Firstly, I think that although we did not manage to get the animation up to 10 seconds I still think that it was quite smooth and there were not that many gaps where the footage looked too jumpy.

2) Second of all, the sound effects that we have added go perfectly and are in sync with the animation.

3) Finally, I think that the way that I skid around the corner, in this kind of animation I think it works very well.

What could have gone better:

1) I believe that if we got more time I think we could have gotten our animation to reach the 10 second mark.

2) At the beginning there is a tiny shot where I stand in one place for a little bit longer than we would have liked.




For this animation, we had to created an animation with inanimate objects. We were given a selection of random objects and we had to make a 10 second animation. The task was called Inanimate? Let's Animate!

What went well:

1) During this animation process I believe that the whole Idea worked quite well and everything runs so smooth.

2) There are a few moments where the cutlery lift up and in this kind of animation this looks unique.

3) I think our ability to make more than one object move around and be animated at the same time works really well in this piece.

What could have been done better:

1) The grass background in our animations move around a lot and so that reflected in our final product. There was a lot of movement and this could potentially put off the audience from what they should be looking at.

2) Personally, I don't believe we had as much time as we had hoped and because of this, we were unable to reach the 10 second mark once again.

Lip-Sync Animation:

The lip-sync animation was created using Lego. At this current moment in time, we have not yet completed the editing stage of this task. During this task we had to create a Lego scene using stop-motion animation, but we had to animate mouths on to one of the characters and they had to be saying "Lego of me".

What went well:

I don't think I can make a comment on what went well because this piece is not yet fully completed so we do not know what the finished product is going to look like. The same applies for what we could have done better.


For my assessed editing piece, I am going to be using Lego to create my animation. I have chosen these materials because I think Lego is light-hearted and fun. I believe that using Lego is not only overly complicated, but it will be a fun process as well. The use of Lego will appeal to the younger audiences.

Adam Shaheen Presentation.

The History and Development of Stop Motion Animation

PART 1:
The persistence of vision:

Persistence of vision refers to the optical illusion that occurs when visual perception of an object does not cease for some time after the rays of light proceeding from it have ceased to enter the eye

Thaumatropes:

The Thaumatrope was invented by John Ayrton Paris who was a English physician. The Thaumatrope is a piece of circular paper with string attached to either side. There are two images on each side of the paper and when spun and a rapid speed. The images look as if they are blending together to make one image.

Phenakistoscope:

The Phenakistoscope was invented by in 1832 by the Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau. The phenakistoscope was the first widespread animation device that created a fluent illusion of motion. The phenakistoscope is regarded as one of the first forms of moving media entertainment. It is sometimes compared to a GIF animation since both show a short continuous loop.


Zoetrope:

The zoetrope was invented in 1834 by William George Horner. A zoetrope is one of several pre-film animation devices that creates the illusion of moving images at progressive pace. To see these animated images you have to be looking through a little slit on the side of the device.




Praxinoscope:

The Praxinoscope was created by Charles-Émile Reynaud in 1877. It was adapted and based off the previous animation device known as the zoetrope. But the Praxinoscope uses a flat surface and mirrors to project the animated, moving images. This makes viewing these images a lot easier. And can be seen from any angle.



Kinetoscopes:

The Kinetoscope was invented in 1889 by Thomas Eddison. The Kinetoscope was designed for films to be viewed by one individual at a time through a peephole at the top of the device. The Kinetoscope was not a movie projector, but introduced the basic approach that would become the standard for all cinematic projection before videos. By moving a strip of paper across the device the viewer could see the illusion of movement.

PART 2:

George Pal
Date and Place of birth: George Pal was born February 1st, 1908 in Hungary.
His inspiration: After he moved to Berlin he founded Trickfilm-Studio GmbH Pal and Wittke. After his award for 'Puppetoons' in the US. He moved to live-action filming.
Examples of his animations: George Pal's animations were known as puppetoons. Puppetoons were a series of puppets that are stop motion animated, mostly known in the 'Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm'

Willis O'Brien
Date and place of birth: Willis Harold O'Brien was born in the USA, March 2nd 1886.
His inspiration: Willis spent a lot of his spare time molding and sculpting creatures, which led him into animating.
Examples of his animations: Willis was also another stop motion animator and animated dinosaurs in 'Monsters of the Past'. These dinosaurs were modelled out of clay.

Ray Harryhausen
Date and place of birth: Ray Harryhausen was born in June on the 29th, 1920. Ray was an American stop motion animator.
His inspiration: After seeing King Kong on its original release, Ray began to experiment with different models and animations, which eventually lead him into animation as his full time career. His early models urged him to take classes in graphic design and sculpting to improve his skills.
Examples of his animations: Ray created and animated a variety of different creatures and monsters that were used in feature films.

Phil Tippett
Date and place of birth: Phil Tippet was born in September on the 27th, 1951. California.
His inspiration: Phil had seen what Ray Harryhausen had done and he knew what he wanted to do in the future, and so was inspired to become an animator.
Examples of his animations: Phil works on stop motion animations and a piece of his work includes when he was hired by George Lucas to create the miniature chess scene from the original Star Wars.

Otmar Gutmann
Date and place of birth: Otmar Gutmann was born in 1937, April 24, in Germany.
His inspiration: Not much is said about Otmar's inspirations or much of his early life either.
Examples of his animations: Otmar Gutmann was most well known for his animated TV children's show, 'Pingu'. Otmar was also a stop motion animator.

Tim Burton & Henry Selik
Date and place of birth: Tim Burton was born in America on the 25th of August, 1958. Henry Selik was also born in America, November 30th, 1952.
His inspiration: He started off working for Disney as a animator, storyboard artist and concept artist.
Examples of his animations: Tim Burton is a stop motion animator and has made films such as 'The nightmare before Christmas' and 'Frankenweenie'. Henry Selik is also a stop motion animator and has worked alongside Tim Burton in the making of 'The nightmare before Christmas' and has also directed 'Coraline'.


Adam Shaheen
Date and place of birth: Adam Shaheen was born 13 October 1964 and is a British-Canadian Animator.
His inspiration: Adam Shaheen always wanted to make high quality animations but also inspire others to do great in all kinds of performances as well.
Examples of his animations: Adam has made lots of different types of animations, all of which are from his own company known as 'Cuppa Coffee Studios'.

The Brothers Quay
Date and place of birth: Brothers Quay are twin brothers born on June 17th, 1947 and are American.
His inspiration: Both brothers moved to England to study at the Royal College of Art, London. Timothy studied illustration and Stephen studied film.
Examples of his animations: They are both stop motion animators and are known for their work known as 'The chairs' and also 'Street of Crocodiles'.

Nick Park
Date and place of birth: Nick Park was born in England, December 6th, 1958.
His inspiration: Nick went to Cuthbert Mayne High School. At 13 years of age Nick loved to draw cartoons and make short films with the help from his mother and her home movie camera and cotton bobbins.
Examples of his animations: Nick Park is a stop motion animator and he most well known work is known as 'Wallace and Gromit'.

PART 3:

TV Programme:

Pingu appeals to children as it is light-hearted and funny. The animation is made with clay and in the past all of the animations made with clay have been for children.

Feature Film:

Yet again more clay animations. This Wallace and Gromit film is also indented for younger audiences. Frankenweenie is a PG rated film so this is appealing to younger children.

Advertisement:

These appeal to teenagers as they are the ones to most likely be eating those kind of snacks at their age.

 Music Video:

These songs appeal to the younger generation because a lot of teenagers and kids in todays day and age are listening to these kind of songs.


Ident:

This Lego ident is light hearted and funny so this would really appeal to anyone who would watch E4 and then it could hopefully make them come back and watch more of that channel.

CONSLUSION:
In conclusion, I believe that stop motion animation was created for the younger audiences like children. I think this is because the majority of the stop motion animations that have been created are usually comedic, funny or child friendly. There are not many stop motion animations that are not suitable for children to watch. I think in the future stop motion animation will not disappear, however I do think that it will not be as common as it has been in the past. This is because technology and computer animation has taken over the media industry and the outcome of digital animations are far greater than those of stop motion animations.

Examples of our own Zoetropes, Praxinoscopes, and Thaumatropes.

Thaumatropes