COP2 - Evaluation

For my COP2 essay I wrote about why Pixar are good at connecting to the audience. I learnt a lot of interesting stuff which has in turn helped my animation practice. In my essay I talked about how technical aspects of animation and emotional/psychological understanding of the human condition are both very important to the overall practice of making an animated film. What Pixar does so well is combining these two factors to create a seamless experience for the audience.

For my practical I made a facial rig. Rigging is my favourite part of 3d animation, although it is very technical. Combining this technical artefact with the emotional understanding is what happens when animating the rig, which I have done. This simulates the process Pixar goes through of combining the technical side with the emotional/psychological side.

Throughout COP2 I have learnt that to make anything work within animation there needs to be a blend of technical ability and psychological understanding. This is because the main objective of animation is to tell a story. Using just technical skills, there is no story to be told, whereas using only psychological/emotional understanding, there is nothing to make the story with.

For my COP3 dissertation I want to explore this field more generally and focus more on storytelling in general. This is because storytelling is everything in animation, everything stems from the story. Without a story, there is no animated film. However a good story doesn’t have to be formulised in the way most mainstream animated films are. A good story makes the audience entranced in a different world and makes the audience emote accordingly.

In conclusion, I have learnt that good storytelling is the key to every aspect of the animation and that having a balance between emotional understanding and technical skills is also very important. I will be exploring this field in COP3 and will hopefully learn a lot more about storytelling as a medium of expression.

COP2 - proposal for COP3

COP2 - Essay

COP2 - Adorno 'How to look at TV'

Adorno says that television is often put into categories and the audience has preeconceptions of the programs based on the type of show 'We are all familiar with the division of  television content into various classes, such as light comedy,  westerns, mysteries, so-called sophisticated plays, and others.  These types have developed into formulas which, to a certain  degree, pre-establish the attitudinal pattern of the spectator  before he is confronted with any specific content and which  largely determine the way in which any specific content is being  perceived.'(Adorno, 1954). Animation has the same structure and especially in mainstream animation this structure is solidified. However there is a lot more experimental animation, which breaks the boundaries of the categories and this makes them more unique and interesting.

The reason for television being put into categories and that it is already established in the audiences mind is to make it subdued so the audience doesn't have to think too much to understand it. Essentially just providing the audience with a quick cheap bit of satisfaction, this satisfaction could be multiplied by the reward of knowledge and understanding but that is often looked over. 'This defense is made in order to dismiss  insights as irrelevant because they are actually uncomfortable and make life more difficult for us than it already is by shaking our conscience when we are supposed to enjoy the "simple pleasures of life.""(Adorno, 1954).


Adorno, T. W. "How To Look At Television". The Quarterly of Film Radio and Television 8.3 (1954): 213-235. Web.

COP2 - Practical

My essay title is 'Why is Pixar so good at connecting with the viewer?' and through my essay i have explored a range of subjects relating to this question. The key point i chose to focus on for my practical was the link between technology and and connecting with an audience, the blend of good tools and artistic expression.

This blend is important, because as i have mentioned in my essay Pixar has a very strong focus on both technology and understanding of the way people take in the visual elements on screen and connect to them.

To embed this point in my practical i will make a facial rig and will animate it to show various emotions and demonstrate this link between the technological and the emotive. The facial rig being the technology and the animation being the emotive. Researching this topic and exploring it in my essay has helped me to understand my practice more because i never put much emphasis on the blend between technology and expression, i didn't really give it a thought until my COP2 research.

COP2 - Choosing a Research Question

1. Research question: Why is Pixar so good at connecting with the viewer?
 
2. Is it viable?: Ontology: fields of psychology and character studies mainly.
Epistemology: Through psychological research and existing character studies
Methodology: By using existing research on the topic and extending it down a different path.

3. What resources are available on this topic? 

Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses Of Enchantment. 1st ed. New York: Knopf, 1976. Print. 

Pirsig, Robert M. Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. 1st ed. Morrow, 1974. Print.

4. What animations, or animation related artefacts, relate to your chosen Research Question?
Doctor, Pete, and Ronnie Del Carmen. Inside Out. United States: Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios, 2015. film.

5. Peer Feedback: Sounds like an interesting topic and could be quite a general question.

COP2 - Writing an Introduction

Pixar studios have been toying with audience’s emotions with such high capacity since the studio was founded by John Lasseter in 1986. What is exciting and impressive about Pixar’s animated films is the ability to present the audience with such relatable characters and story situations in which the audience can heavily relate to these components and become entwined in the film.

Undertows of psychological research can be seen in the practice of Pixar and one of the most recent films, Inside Out (2015) explicitly displays this connection between Pixar films and psychology. Pixar uses various factors to aid in the manipulation of audience’s emotions. Exploring these factors might give a better idea of how Pixar is able to create such emotional responses to their films.

If we strip it down, all an animation really is in detached terms is marks and colours on the screen, it’s our brain that adds recognition and meaning to these symbols.’If I hold my head to the left and look down at the handle grips and front wheel and map carrier and gas tank I get one pattern of sense data. If I move my head to the right I get another slightly different pattern of sense data. The two views are different. The angles of the planes and curves of the metal are different. The sunlight strikes them differently. If there's no logical basis for substance, then there's no logical basis for concluding that what's produced these two views is the same motorcycle.’(Pirsig). We put the data together in our brain that we receive from our senses and that's what builds this passage for the storyteller to connect to.

COP2 - Parody/Pastiche

Parody and pastiche are two similar terms. Both these terms relate to the reusing and reference of historic and cultural events however they do so in different ways. Parody uses the information with a satirical tone, intended for amusement. Whereas pastiche simple references the information without any other intentions. Hutcheon argues that postmodernism is parodical because postmodernism finds what is at the core of the subject and then finds a way to encompass a twist within the pre-composed conventional idea of that subject. "I want to argue that postmodernism is a fundamentally con-tradictory enterprise: its art forms (and its theory) use and abuse, install and then subvert convention in parodic ways," Jameson describized pastiche as recycling ideas and cultural aspects once they have already been done. "the random cannibalization of all the styles of the past".