The Cheap Man

Artist Statement

    I am always fascinated by the unreal and odd stories. Every time when I watch the stories through animations, I feel like that I am participating in them. It seems like I have experienced a lot of different, unique and exciting lives. So I make animations, because I want my audience can feel the same thing like what I feel from other animations. In addition, I feel like my imaginary lives are recorded while I am creating stories. These reasons encourage me to keep creating.

   The animation The Cheap Man is in Black and white style. Inspired by the Japanese animation Atama Yama, I would like to use the same method to tell story, so the story is by a third person’s narrative. At the same time I decided to use Chinese dubbing with English subtitle to display a Chinese modern fable. As a summary, it is my first time to make an animation in this style, but I like it.

Spring

project 2 - scene 1-4

Project 2-shot 1-2

Some thoughts for Hedgehog In Fog

This is a really nice animation within a traditional ink art style.

For technique, the director painted the characters on paper and shot them by camera. I like the feeling of hand drawing animation, because it seems more emotional than digital animation. Meanwhile, digital animation is elaborate,  but the unique roughness makes the ink art animation more art feeling, which are many digital animations want to imitate.

For the story, the animation successfully made an atmosphere like a wonderful fable story. The hedgehog was on his way to bear, cause they were going to count stars. On the way he experienced a horrible fog and he met a lot of animals. Even if coward hedgehog was scared by them, the only thing impressed him was the  beautiful white horse in the fog. When the hedgehog finally got to the bear's house and saw the bear, he couldn't stop thinking about the horse so that he forget his original arm. In fact, as a important character, the white horse doesn't have manny shots in the animation. The director spent a lot of time to describe the horrible experience about the smog, the tree and the river. Even though these makes the hedgehog scary, but the hedgehog doesn't impressive them at all.  This is a interesting arrangement, through a lot of description of the other unimportant scenes, to emphasis how beautiful the white horse is and how it impressive to main character.

Project 2- style test with sound

Project 2- storyboard and character desugn

Project 2- storyboard

Snow

Hide and seek

Project 1- hide and seek-01

Response for Fallen Art

Fallen Art is a great black humor animation, also it's full of political metaphors in character design, details and the plot.

Through the dramatic character design I can realize the characters' social statue and personalities. The soldiers are skinny and weak,it matches their lowest statue,the plebeian class. Also their eyes are hided by their caps that stands for the situation of obeying orders without question. the military officer and the chief are big and strapping, which indicate their strong power like ruling class. But the difference between them is the hidden eyes. The military officer wares a caps which hides his eyes as well as the soldiers, it express the same meaning that he is the one who following the orders. However, the chief is the only one who didn't use any tool to hide his eyes, because he is the one who has the most power; he realizes every truth and can command all of the people in the animation.  I think the design of doctor is the most interesting character for me.  He looks like a skeleton in white coat, it could explain his marble-hearted personality. A doctor should help people keep their lives, but here the doctor ignore the soldiers' lives and calmly takes pictures. Under the martial environment, the doctor has lost his ethics and help ruling class control their people.

The unfair treatments also ironically show in many details of the animation. For example, the warning sign for no photo, the smile medals for the dead soldiers, the soldiers don't know the true purpose till them died. Another detail, from the picture I realized the previous chief is much thinner than now, he is crazy in art, and he look happy in his younger photo. So I know the chief used to be a normal person who loves art; and he has friends who made him happy. For now, power make him fat and sick. He still loves art but use power to make it in a more cruel way (kill his people to make art). He is lonely in his room with no one around him, I guess maybe his friends has been frame up by him, in order to get power. He miss his previous time (he cries), but he won't give up his statue and power so that he is cruel and trough. Politic is dark, war is ruthless.

Otherwise, the organization of the plot is ingenious. At the beginning the director make a set of event to attract audience's curiousness, then display the truth unexpectedly. That's make audience interests in the story until the end. At the same time, the director didn't directly show people the ruthless of the ruling class, the darkness of politic and the cruel of the war; he use a black humor story but make people think about these things. The influence of the animation for the audience is much better than show them up a serious one.

So many thing I can learn from the animation.

Studio presentation

Studio presentation by Xiaoyue Hong

Animation Name: Atama Yama/ Mr. Head

Animation Link: https://vimeo.com/22361976

    This animation was directed by Japanese animator Koji Yamamura. I think it is a successful animation and make people impressive of it. The reason is its strongly Japanese nation style and high quality production, which indicate on sound, version, story and details.

    The story is based on one of traditional Japanese Rakugo stories (In Wikipedia’s explanation,  Rakugo is a form of Japanese verbal entertainment. The lone storyteller sits on stage, called Kōza. Using only a paper fan and a small cloth as props, and without standing up from the seiza sitting position, the rakugo artist depicts a long and complicated comical story. The story always involves the dialogue of two or more characters, the difference between the characters depicted only through change in pitch, tone, and a slight turn of

 the head). This is the primary factor that attracts people to watch it. When the male storyteller is speaking the animation’s name by using the standard Rakugo style, they know a great show is coming up. Through the whole story, there are only storyteller’s voice, samisen playing and some sound effects; but they won’t let people feel bored. There are several reasons. First, the storyteller uses both speaking and singing to describes the humors story. With the emotional narrative, it makes the sense of ridiculous comedy. Second, even though there is one person to speak, he appropriately changes his accent and tone to play different characters. The story becomes more vivid. The last, with the cooperation by playing of traditional instrument samisen and the using of sound effects; they enhance the whole atmosphere that the storyteller. The sound is successfully enough, people can understand the story even they just listening it.

    For the visual style of the animation, Yamamura combined traditional Japanese style and modern manga style. He used the light yellow as the basic color of the animation, to both imitated conventional rice paper, and made a retrospective feeling. Also the linear in the animation combines west solid style and east line drawing style. Meanwhile, since this is a Japanese absurd story, the characters must funny and have Japanese personality. Correspond with the story, the protagonist has been designed like a chunky and hairless middle-age man. He has bushy brow and big circular eyes. This is a typical middle or lower level mid-age male looks like.  

           

Another example is Japanese salary men. Slender eyes, orderly hair, suits and poker face are their dramatic feature. Yamamura showed the all feather on his characters. Because of the suitable style and character design, Atama Yama is full of the taste of Japan.

      

    The story is attractable, because it has many unreal factors. For examples; cherry blossom tree grew up on the man’s head, people go to his head to admire the beauty of the flowers, people keep play in the left pond, a cycle about his head and the pond, the man died into the pond on his head. These ridiculous plots divide the world from the real world. Normally, fantastic story is charmingly. At the same time, there are some points connect reality and unreal world. Like the single lost shoe from the drunk man; he is one of the small size people who enjoys the flower, but when his shoe throws into the protagonist’s instant noodle bowl, the shoe becomes as the normal person’s size.

Otherwise, even though the story is absurd, the details for the people are follow the reality, like the behaviors during cherry blossom party, and the cherry blossom follows the growth rhythm. Just because the mixed fantasy and reality, make the story ridiculous but doesn’t break away from people’s real world; and that’s the greatest point to write the story.

    The last but not least, there are so many description of details in the animation that let people realize many unknown information just from version. For instance, the protagonist’s thrift can be indicated the background of the protagonist’s home, the used plastic bag for picking up cherry, the rolled toothpaste, etc.

   Because of his thrift, he eats the cherry seed and then people see the next ridiculous plot. Also, while the protagonist is chewing the noodle, the people on his head chew their food with his beats. There are so many details there, which make the plot completely and make the story vivid.

    As an absurd story, it arouses people’s feeling. As a Japanese animation, it displays Japanese culture very well through its sound, version and story.  National one is the world one. Japanese animation can be popular, because its unique culture, creative style and high quality production; these are Japanese animation’s features.

    What are yours cultures feature? How can you display it?

pdf download address:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwkFsOMWc2FEQXp3bnBaZ1ZQVWs/edit

New storyboard for project 1

Project 1- Story changed- the new story

Project 1- Animate

Comments for William Kentridge: How we make sense of the world

Before I watched this interview of William Kentridge, his animation Felix in Exile has already given me a deep impression. Through this video, I realized more things about his life experience, his thought about the world, and how and why he made animation and short films; that make me getting more respect for him. He kept trying many different careers and failed, until he decided to go back drawing at his age of 30. So he made it successfully.  He thought making animation is like a demonstration about how we make sense of the world. Thus, people can feel his feeling, understanding and emotion to the issue he focused on through his works. He use the unique method to draw; like making animation on the book, and using the same sketch to make motion movement by revising part of the drawing. Those brings people different sense of art style and make people catch the extra thing, for example, the clearly timeline. He also thought it is not necessary to write a script first and then make the animation, because it will ruin so much potential  of the development and possibilities of the story. Therefore, his work includes so many incredible and imaginative factors that surprised me. I think Kentridge  is a good sample for me to develop my animation career: loyal to self, relief the imagination, try hard to find and practice new things, break the rules.

Two points of thinking of Heidegger Reframed

    Heidegger said, "the essence of art, is the setting-itself- into- work of truth". Also he thought the essence of art is from work. The " work" which has mentioned in the whole article is not means the art object, it is work of art. Here he emphasizes the  "work'' and  ignores the ''creator''.  For a work, the creator which is like a media of production is not important, the core is the work itself. That reminds me the book Death of Author. There is a thought that the name of the writer in a article or book is not important, because it has no effect for the content, so for some extents, the writer is dead. Meanwhile, in Heidegger's book, work includes literary, so the idea in Death of Author supports Heidegger's opinion. If the creator is not important for an article, the important thing is its truth of article itself. The " work" which has mentioned in the whole article is not means the art object, it is work of art.

    About the "truth", it is not equal with the "corresponding  theories of truth", and it also different with mimesis. As the example of Van Gogh's painting in the article. The peasant's shoes appears in his painting; for the fact of shoes have been painted, is a mimetic display without  substantive thing shows on the shoes. For this angle to judge, there is no "truth" . However, for another angle,  in the painting, the space and the shoes indicates the relationship as shoes essence in the objective world. So here exists the "truth". The truth is not like the thing I saw through my eyes, but the thing reflects in the meaning of philosophy.

 

Project 1- proposal

story:
 A man was working on the street, he found if he through touching with others that can go into their inside world. He must keep with them in a extent, or the inside world will disappear.

key point:
scenes of inside worlds, transition shots and sound effects.

Sketch：

Response of Felix in Exile

The story I understand is below:
  The exiled Felix seats in his room.He begins to look some pictures or photos from a suitcase.Through the pictures I realized a sad story (maybe it is history). In somewhere of Africa,a poor place,and it was lack of the basic infrastructure. There was an engineering team, which consisted of a female designer and some male workers. The woman was Felix's wife or lover, Felix missed her very much. The engineering team began to make the plan of the whole project of tap water, and built the foundations.However, when the project was continuing,for unknowing reason, the whole engineering team has been murdered.
  When Felix reminisce this history, he feels so sad and painful so that he stops to watch and tries to wash his face to calm down. But it doesn't work, the memory keeps playing while his sadness like overflowing water in his room begins to inundate him.
  Felix might be the one who participated in the event, or really knows the process of it. At the end of animation, Felix stands up with the suitcase from the pond where is the site of the project.As far as I am concerned, no matter is the pictures remind Felix the feeling of the event he participate, or the intense pictures make him being personally on the sense; he is in too deep of the feeling of the event.

Music:
The whole process of the animation accompanies with a woman's sad croon, like soul of Felix's lover retell the history to him. I think this is a humanized music, because sometimes when people reminisce some memory, the scene will replay in his head, and the people's voice will replay as well.Thus the music develops the effect of the scene of plot, and enhance the tense of emotion of the animation.

Style:
I really like the drawing style for this animation. Base on the resource, I realized that the animator is a South African. He used the method through revise part of the drawing and take pictures to make the stop motion animation. First, the method he has used will remain the traces of drawing of before, with the dirtiness of pencil sketch; it will produce a natural scene of historicity. Second, I believe hand-made work will indicate creator's emotion, like the soul of a animation that will bring audience more intense feeling.

Comment for Selection of Goodman's Aesthetics

  Through the reading, Goodman explains the relationship among symbol, art and understanding of world. In his opinion, people use symbols to perceive, understand and construct the world of people's experience; and the understanding of the world are consist by different science and different arts. So,people use symbols to compose artworks in processing different functions and bearing different relations with the world they refer to,which like a particular cognitive for the world. Because of the complicated construction, people need explanation and description to help them understand three things about artworks: theme, method and style/system of rules. Also, the aim of art is understanding the world, which get the same aim of other form of human knowledge. So art is a branch of epistemology. Art is a important part of understanding and making knowledge enterprise. Since the process of making art is a mode like making seriously science; through discovery, creation and refine the knowledge that base on understanding. It can be said, art is the second development for the part of things of the world to understanding, Before arts show up by aesthetics symbols, everything about the artworks must be deliberated and it is a serious behavior.