ePub Planning

Planning:

· Include each shot with corresponding story line

· On opposite page, include written commentary with still images

· Below, include shot with commentary

· Extras:

- Deleted scenes

- Planning – story boards, character profiles

- Bloopers

- Practice animation

· Commentary:

- Problems – making my character, camera

- Original plan

- Changes

- Aspects I like

- Photoshop/editing – before and after

- Improvements

Story:

· There once was a box, and in this box was a model of a cute little town in which a little boy name Timothy lived.

· It just so happened that that day it was really hot in the little town, and Timothy, who was walking around the town, decided to buy an ice cream, and so walked up to this adorable pink ice cream stall.

· “Hello,” the stallholder said, in a deep scary voice. “Would you like to try the every-flavour ice cream? It’s free, just for you.”

· “Sure,” Timothy replied. “Thank you very much kind sir.”

· The ice cream man passed him an enormous ice cream, with every flavour pile on top. The man passed over carefully, the ice cream wobbled precariously; it wasn’t very stable.

“Have a nice day,” he said.

· Holding the ice cream, timothy slowly walked forward. He tried to balance the ice cream, but it was a lost hope. The massive ice cream began to topple and scoop after scoop fell and smashed on the ground.

· Then a surprising thing happened. As the ice cream melted, the colours began to merge forming of colour. Timothy, who was learning over to watch the amazing phenomenon, slipped and lost his balance.

· With a scream he fell forward, expecting to hear the bone-sickening crunch of his body against the pavement. But it never happened, and when timothy opened his eyes he found he was falling through darkness, surrounded only by scoops of ice cream of every colour. Timothy fainted in shock.

· As Timothy slowly regained consciousness, he became aware that he was lying on pavement, but not in his town. This town was like his, but different; the buildings were in ruins, their windows were smashed, and the ice cream stall was planked up. As timothy got to his feet, he noticed a dark figure moving behind him, looming over him. As he slowly turned to look, the hood over the figure’s face slipped down, revealing and empty skeletal frame.

With a scream he ran off, down dark twisty alleyways, until be got lost in the maze of corners and turns

· He stopped at a corner, his chest rising and falling as he panted, but then looked up as something caught his eye. A small glowing orb danced passed his face, and was absorbed into a man lying unconscious on the footpath.

· There was something unusual about this man, and Timothy crept closer to have a look. As he did, he began to feel faint and swayed alarmingly on his feet as everything went dark.

· When timothy next regained consciousness he was lying on the pavement of his hometown, and his mum was leaning over him.

· “Sorry, my child was being troublesome…” She spoke to the phone, walking off.

· “Mum!” Timothy yelled to her, quickly getting to his feet and running after her.

· As he ran off a small beach ball rolled down the footpath, and slowly sank into the puddle of ice cream.

· It was just a dream, or was it?

Checklist:

o Cut animation

o Write Story

o Write commentary

o Format epub

Read more

Final Analysis

Digitopia Analysis

The film Digitopia, created by Miwa Matreyek in 2005, is a very abstract film, which uses various elements and principle of art to create a story of the destructive nature of humans. She has carefully selected a particular colour scheme, lines, shapes and movement, which work with her use of tone, light and art principles give the film a storyline and valuable messages that can be interpreted by the audience.

Miwa Matreyek has used various visual art elements in her animation, including colour, shape, line and movement, to create her desired overall visual affect and mood. The colour scheme that has been used is monochromatic, and consists primarily of blue of the sky and shades of grey. As blue is used globally to portray peacefulness, optimism and tranquillity, the colour scheme works to add those feelings to the scenes that contain colour, and emphasise the contrast with those that don’t, giving them a darker, more dismal, miserable mood. Likewise, the shapes and lines predominately used in the images of the animation are mostly geometric, even in the nature scenes. This is demonstrated in the jagged horizon line of the mountains, which convey feelings of pain and suffering to the audience. As previously mentioned, the shapes used are also geometric, such as the rectangular buildings in the city scenes, the only exception being the hands, which are more organic in nature. This 'organic' aspect of the hands is also shown through their rhythmic movement in the beginning and final scenes of the clip, however their movement slowly becomes more robotic and perfunctory as the film progresses. It is clear that the art elements of colour, line, shape and movement all work together to add various moods, optimism, tranquillity, pain etc. to Miwa Matreyek’s animation.

Additional elements such as tone, light and texture have also been used through out this film to work together with the existing elements to tie the film together and complete it. Tone in particular plays a major role in multiple images of the film, and is a crucial element as it has not only been used to create the illusion of form and make the film more realistic through the addition of a whole new dimension, but the artist has also used it in conjunction with light to add contrast in various scenes. This is evident through Miwa’s use of greater amounts of black to create darkness in the city scapes and more abstract scenes, which distort the images to expose the raw emotions of depression and suffering or evil, and emphasize the contrast between the lighter and more colourful, optimist scenes. Tone has also been used in some instances to add the illusion of texture, as is apparent in the mountain scene, where shading has been used to create the shadows, and rocky texture in order to bring the mountains and the shot to life. When put together, this juxtaposition of images work together with the sound to create a very abstract composition of moods and emotions, differing from optimism to depression, and add essential messages and a form of storyline to the film, and form relationships between the otherwise quite non-related images. In summary, it is unmistakable that not only do the various elements and principles used in the film play their own personal purposes, but also work together to generate the most vital aspect of the film; its purpose.

In this animation, the artist, Miwa Matreyek, has made a clear statement about the destructive capabilities of humankind. This is apparent through her story of human’s exploitation of once peaceful creatures in order to create slaves, who work for them and are constantly tested on. This is demonstrated in the beginning scenes, where images of hands exist peacefully on the mountains of their home, absorbing the energy given to them by mother earth, who is represented as head protruding from the earth. It is clear that this scene is intentional tranquil and peaceful because of Miwa’s use of the colour blue, which is globally understood to be an optimistic colour, and the peaceful, albeit eerie, music. One particular scene, where humans are sitting within the hands and appear to control their movements, forcing them to walk over destroyed forests, perfectly portrays the message of exploitation, destruction and abuse, a message that can be applied in today’s society about of our destruction of nature. Additional scenes of humans testing and experiment on the hand creatures further cements this message, relating it to animal testing and such in our society. Everyday thousands of square kilometres of rainforest are destroyed by humans for use as paper, timber or land for plantations, and although this does not particularly relate to my life, or me, it does however relate to our society as a whole because it is reminding us how we need to work to conserve our very fragile environment. Specific elements in the film do represent particular things, and there are quite a few examples of symbolism throughout the animation. Take for example the very first shot, which contains the dove symbol for peace in Miwa’s representation of a deity or god. Another instance of symbolism within the film is the image of two hands, one with points and images of organs, and the other of various characters. These images represent both palmistry and reflexology, but in this case have been included by Matreyek as an explanation, in which a theoretical concept has been taken literally, meaning that the hands have actual organs and personalities, which is why they are alive. Matreyek has chosen to create her animation exactly the way it's is, as a very abstract composition of shorts clips, so that individuals can personally interpret and find meaning in her animation, therefore making it appropriated and relatable to an incredibly wide audience.

I believe that this animation does have intrinsic value and worth because it is not only a quite important piece of culture as a piece of art, but also contains a very valuable message to today's society about how it is necessary to take care of the world in which we live, which is increasingly important considering the various environmental issues that are constantly arising. As the images that Miwa has included in her animation are also quite confronting, there are mouths protruding from the darkness, creatures made of hands etc, they are not necessarily beautiful, and so watching this film may also enable people to look at the world around them anew, and appreciate a more abstract form of beauty. My only criticism of the work would be that the film is slightly disturbing, and initially does not appear to contain a message at all because the various shots that Miwa has chosen to include do not really fit together or relate. However this does also work to add to the abstract feel of the film. In conclusion, although I do not particularly like this film, I do realise that it does contain valuable messages and is in its own abstract way, a beautiful piece of art.

Read more

Analysis - More Planning

Miwa Matreyek has used various visual art elements in her animation, including colour, shape, line and movement, to create her desired overall visual affect and mood. The colour scheme that has been used is monochromatic, and consists primarily of blue of the sky and shades of grey. As blue is used globally to portray peacefulness, optimism and tranquility, the colour scheme works to add those feelings to the scenes that contain colour, and emphasise the contrast with those that dont, giving them a darker, more dismal, miserable mood. Likewise, the shapes and lines predominately used in the images of the animation are mostly geometric, even in the nature scenes. This is demonstrated in the jagged horizon line of the mountains, which convey feelings of pain and suffering to the audience. As previously mentioned, the shapes used are also geometric, such as the rectangular buildings in the city scenes, the only exception being the hands, which are more organic in nature. This 'organic' aspect of the hands is also shown through their rythmic movement in the beginning and final scenes of the clip, however their movement slowly becomes more robotic and perfunctatory as the film progresses. It is clear that the art elements of colour, line, shape and movement all work together to add various moods

Analyse

Paragraph 1: Elements

• Colour - monochromatic grey (represents magnitudes of good and bad/passing of time) and white, blue (optimism, happiness, peacefulness, calm/sad, lonely, depressive emotions)

• Shape – hands, the contrast between

• Line – organic/geometric, jagged lines of nature

• Space –

• Tone + light – city scapes use greater amounts of black, create darkness (may mean presence of shadows, depression or evil/used to emphasize the contrast between the two settings), used in mountains and buildings to create the illusion of form and texture and bring the film to life

• Illusion of form – ^

• Texture – mountains?

• Overall visual affect/mood –

Describe

1. Miwa Matreyek

2. Digitopia

3. 2005

4. The literal objects in the animation include hands, mountains, a head, city scapes, scientific instruments, etc.

5. When I first look at the work I notice the artists use of hands in multiple scenes because the way in which she has included them (without bodies attached, moving as if they have a mind of their own) is very unusual and quite abstract.

6. Matreyek has used what I would describe as a monochromatic colour scheme, as she has only used a very bright light blue paired with shades of grey, occasionally verging on completely white or black.

7. The shapes that Matreyek has used in her film are predominately geometric in nature, and have quite sharp, straight edges, particularly in the city scape and it’s high rises and buildings.

8. The artist has used lines in the work, not as a central point in her artwork, but to define the various shapes through out the film or divide space, as demonstrated in the horizon line of the mountains in the first scene.

9. Texture does not really play a major role in the animation, however there are some scenes where Miwa has created the illusion of texture through the use of tone and lines to add a sense of reality to the images. A prime example of this

Ana

Principles

• Movement

• Sound

• Balance

• Unity

• Contrast

• Pattern

• Abstraction

• Composition

• Distortion

• Emphasis

• Harmony

• Juxtaposition

• Pattern

• Proportion

• Relationships

• Repetition

• Rhythm

• Tension

Read more

Additional Notes

DIGITOPIA

Could transmit what the god sees into the head, as eyes are closed, and then process information and emmitts it, dove symbol

Mountains are closer to gods

Mother nature, in the mountains because everywhere else is destroyed

Could be a god emitting the thought of religion

Dreaming of utopia

Thoughts are going up into the sky to feed creatures

Hands symbolic of grabbing things, associated with connection, sharing love

Sticks could be nails, relating to jesus on the cross, hands suffering, earth is in pain

Hands could be a wall of pipeline, with stuff – blood, information – flowing through it

Animals from the mountain side mutated to adapt to city life

Similar to avatar –

The creature have been exploited by humans – people inside doing actions like they are driving, circle symbolise control, walking on destroyed forests – symbolised destruction of nature

These arms could be working for the lady/ younger versions of the hand being trained

Flowers initially sleep, then awake as the light comes

Solar panels to absorb energy

Line in the song – I’m not supposed to feel

Could be replacing humans, have their own organs – later on see the heart pumping in the hand, have their own character, future/destiny

Before it was exploited it was just a creature – is now evolved, future has changed

Looks like their massaging the earth, putting energy into the city, relieving stress, giving new life

Read more

Notes on Miwa Matrayek's Animations

FACTORY

• Black and white – dull and dismal, gritty, cold
• Hand machine, blender, guys on spanners
• Lethargic atmosphere
• Abstract, surreal
• Retro, old school
• Geometric, sharp, boxy shapes
• Positive space, full of objects, stuff

CIRCUS

• Starts with negative space and quiet sounds and creaks
• Imagery is associated with a circus
• Black and white – old circus
• Sounds to create the noisy, bight, albeit strange atmosphere generally associated with a circus

DIGITOPIA – utopia: a place where

• Starts with a sun/Hindu god
• Representation of a bunch of things
• Head coming out of the mountains,
• brain appears (looks like a flower, represents growth, mother earth/nature) – (butterfly, freedom) – (tree of life, knowledge) – (angel, heaven)
• emits rings – sounds, thoughts, brainwaves, energy, love?
• ‘plants’ and ‘flowers’ formed by hands consume the ‘energy’, ‘life force’
• hands in the city are dying, away from nature
• humans exploit hands to use as transport
• Reflexology (nerves in hand connected to body organs) and palmistry (reading hands to see the future) chakra points
• Hand 1 – points, intestines, spleen/pancreas, small intestine, brain, stomach, eyeball, mouth, lungs, heart,
• Mysticism, hands are important in every religion, represent human emotions, human body, human spirit
• Artist used digital backs to represent city, dark, scary, mouths,
• Microscope, examining reproducing cells

Shot 1: This shot depicts an eye connected to multiple hand moving in the sky above mountains

It could be:

• A representation of the Hindu god Vishnu, who has multiple arms, flying in the sky – represents spirituality
• A representation of the sun, rising in the morning
• A futuristic flying vehicle – represents technology
• A combination of religious and physical representations created into a form of deity or god that exists in this from of utopia

Shot 2: This shot contains a large head protruding from the mountains, in which an image of a brain appears and begins to emit white circular lines

It could be:

• Mother Earth/Nature waking up, with the image appearing in her head being a flower or tree to represent either beauty, nature, growth, life or knowledge, and emitting rays of energy/sound/light/love
• Alternatively, the image could be a butterfly and represent freedom
• The head could also be a giant stuck in a mountain sending out thought or brainwaves for help

Shot 3: This shot depicts multitudes of arms protruding from the mountains, moving around as the circular lines hit them

It could be:

• Creatures living in this utopia, who feed off the rays of light/energy/love, and are moving around to better absorb them
• The arms of trapped giants, moving around in desperation to escape
• Trees/plants/flowers moving around to absorb the sunlight

Shot 4: This shot depicts giant arms moving or twitching in a city

It could be:

• Creatures kidnaped from the wild to be exploited by humans, whose life force is fading away in the mechanical surroundings of the city
• Chopped-off giants’ arms left behind in the aftermath of a war
• Invading creatures, who are attempting to destroy the city
• A form of transport in this utopia

Shot 5: This shot depicts hands with people in them walking around on what looks like dead tress next to a building

• The creatures being exploited as transport by humans – represents slavery, destruction of nature
• The hands ate the people or are developing into people
• Merely depicts one of the various uses of hands

Shot 6: The hands are performing actions on and a round a multitude of different electronic devices while a woman stands by, whose arm turns into a zig-zag shape

It could be:

• The hands could be enslaved by the woman, and forced to work on a representation of a machine
• In this utopia they could exist as a race similar to humans, or a more evolved version of the human race
• The woman could be evolving to become like them

Shot 7: This shot depicts another scene of the hands on the mountain, this time moving in unison.

It could be:

• Similar to before, they are moving in order to soak up the light/energy/love
• They are moving in unison in a form of mourning for those of their kin that have been enslaved as the world develops and become digitalised
• They are searching for sustenance as no more energy rings are coming

Shot 8: This shot depicts two hands, one with points and images of various organs, and the other with numerous symbols and lines

It could be:

• A representation of reflexology, depicting how nerve points in the hand are connected to various organs
• A representation of palmistry, depicting how palms can be used to read ones future and pathway through life, as well as health and character
• An explanation from the director for how the hand exist by themselves, by taking theory and making it literal and real in these creatures

Read more