Background Details of the Characters and Environment

 

 

 

 

Sound for the Video

This is the soundtrack I used for the majority of my video. I wanted an upbeat, joyful sound with a hint of mischievous aura about it because the character who cooks, acts like she has to bake sneakily.
Monkeys Spinning Monkeys Song- http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1400011

I did listen to other soundtracks from various website like Freesound.org and more on Incompetech.com
Since I knew that I wanted my video to rely on foley sound, I made sure I booked out a Boom Mic and Audio Recorder so that I could gather better quality sound. I think that with the context of my video, it relied more on foley sound so overall the sound works well for the time I had to work on it.

However, in the editing process I ended up using both the external audio recorded and the camera mic recordings.

In one of my scenes, I had to edit the sound to make it seem distant which I looked online for quick tutorial video explaining how to do it, it was not a hard process but I would need to understand it much more so next time I know more information on what the controls do.

It definitely worked for my scene and it was another lesson I learnt about sound editing. It has also taught to look into finding ways of recording it at a distance if I do not want to edit it in post production such as increasing the range of the Audio Recorder to record a bigger noise distance.

Thoughts on reuse, remediate & extend brief

For the responsive essay we are told to evolve our idea using the techniques of transmedia storytelling and deepen the world in which our story exists.

I chose a film brief for my responsive project, where my idea was to promote goodness. I responded to that brief with the idea of a friend baking a delicious dessert for another as a way to show the goodness of friendship when someone is going to through a rough time or having a bad day.

I am researching into how to transfer this idea or character that exists in my video into different platforms. Since the idea is based around cooking, the character baking the cake in the video could have a spin-off TV cooking show.

One of the ideas I had was, the cooking show could have a selection of contestants that each week would bake their favourite dessert treats to impress professional judges. It is a very basic idea so would not really deepen the world besides making the character a chef on a reality TV show.

This idea is similar to the TV show, The Taste, where contestants battle it out with four judges who are mentors as well. There are different themes set out each week in which the challenges are based off, such as 'comfort food',  the cooks have to create dishes that can be considered a delicious comfort food.

I could use the other character, who is experiencing a bad day and create a whole backstory as to what events cause the emotional downturn. That would change the happy tone into a depressing tone which is not really the route I want to go down.

I could also consider using the character that bakes and create a simple cooking show where she shows viewers how to cook delicious dishes, this would rely on the personality being irresistible to the viewers.

Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver who are chefs that have featured in various cookings shows, some are competitive reality shows and others just episodes instructing viewers how to create simple and difficult dishes.

Both have websites where you can keep up to date with their actions and find recipes.

Gordon Ramsay has a competitive cooking show, Hell's Kitchen, where the teams would battle it out to be the winner. There are US and UK versions of the TV show which is very impressive.

My character could create a website where video logs could be uploaded to create that reality sense instead of a scripted feeling and keep viewers up to date with their cooking adventures. On the website, it could be taken one step further where she stays in character to make the character more believable.

The interesting fact is that these chefs both have own restaurants, but have been shown in different characteristic personalities.

Gordon Ramsay is seen more as a business type chef who is very strict and does not like to wait for a person to learn their skills at their pace on the TV show challenges.

Jamie Oliver has featured in competitive cooking shows too, he has a more homely vibe conveyed to the audience so people would most likely seek advice on his website for recipes as he makes them feel like they can create any dish even if their cooking skills are not at a high level.

Gordon Ramsay

Jamie Oliver

These are just inspirations for how I could take my idea into a transmedia world.

http://www.jamieoliverfoodfoundation.org.uk/news_events

http://www.jamieoliver.com/

 http://scrapbook.channel4.com/programmes/all

Telmo & Tula

http://www.motionkids-tv.com/en/our-series-videos-games-activities/telmo-and-tula-little-cooks-and-arts-crafts/

This animated show features two siblings who teach kids how cook and improve their craft skills. The series was co-produced by Disney Spain and uses animation to make it fun for the kids.

I think this is a good inspiration, even though it changes the type of audience it is aimed at than my other ideas but this can be decided if there is a bigger need for children animated series that encourage kids to improve their practical skills.

Transmedia Storytelling

Transmedia storytelling can be defined as ''the crafting of stories that unfold across multiple media platforms, in which each piece interacts with the others to deepen the whole-but is capable of standing on its own'' (Weaver, 2012, 8)

There are ways to approach transmedia storytelling, you can ''create a story that can be told across multiple platforms or you take a story from one medium and add other media to it to deepen the world created in the focus medium.'' (Weaver, 2012, 8)

I have posted case studies on my blog about stories that have used transmedia storytelling to further expand the world the characters live in, such as Batman.

Transmedia storytelling does not mean ''breaking up a movie or game into multiple pieces'' (Weaver, 2012, 10)  The idea is that these stories can be crossed with one another. Interplay and depth are regarded as the elements of transmedia storytelling.

The story in its medium should be able to experienced on its own without needing to research into previous works done. However, make sure that the stories are not confusing because this will cause problems if there ever needs to be a gap bridged one another.

The other important factor is giving your audience the choice to explore the story more instead of telling them to, they should be the ones wanting to seek out the information. Choice is regarded as another element for storytelling.

A story is ''a narrative construction in which ideas and themes are communicated in entertaining, persuasive, or educational ways.'' (Weaver, 2012, 14)
Artists, writers, animators and filmmakers tell stories for different reasons but they fit among the category of entertaining, persuading, educating and creating an understanding.

Entertaining stories speak for themselves, they are meant to entertain you which is the important point, regardless of any other categories, these stories need to entertain. Persuading stories can be considered from a political point because they are trying to change your opinions using facts, educating stories can fall in the same category, but they might have less bias opinions and more facts.
Understanding stories can be used as ''some sort of story truth-telling.'' (Weaver, 2012, 15)

There are five elements of storytelling which are ''character, conflict, risk, place & theme'. (Weaver, 2012, 20)


There are two types of audiences when it comes to allowing the audience to have the choice of exploring more information, these are passive and absorptive.

It speaks for itself, the absorbers ''will seek out each and every piece of your story, but they will only do so if they have an emotional connection to your world'' (Weaver, 2012, 37)
The passive audience can be grouped as those that ''want to watch a film, read a comic, play a videogame or read a book.'' (Weaver, 2012, 37) but they do not seek out the whole series, play all the games, seek out the creators of the work. This could be dependent on the time they have.

If your story has a theme this means that it can also fall under a category and it can be the principles you stick to when you add characters, conflict, a place or risk. These elements combined together give the story a rounded edge and if it needs to be crossed to another medium, there will be events in the story that can be used for that.


Transmedia is becoming more common with the advancement of technology.

Technology advancing has made a huge difference, because since the increased use of smartphones, tablet PCs and Ipads, this means that the audience can be on the move and still engage in the game or film they like.

Most content can be downloaded and this means that instead of some audience needing to go to the shop to buy a book, there needs to be a e-book version available.

This has allowed companies to expand their resources, for example, the channel E4 have provided the option of catching up with episodes missed on live TV on their Youtube channel, this means that they can attract audiences that might have been too busy to sit and watch live TV. It also lets passive viewers watch their TV shows are their own pace.

Going back to the idea of transmedia storytelling, the channel E4 brand has taken their logo and created a 3D character and it not seem new but now this 3D character is animated in realistic situations. This creates another way for the audience to remember their brand even more and even move on to create toy merchandise for it.

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/news/motion-graphics/mpc-details-its-design-of-e4-ident-robot-eefer/

The link above explains how the company MPC designed the character for the channel. E4 has taken their logo and made into a character that goes on casual adventures but this is an example of transmedia storytelling even though the general audience may not know what it is. It is also an advertising campaign in itself.

Resident Evil

Quite a while ago, I watched the movie Resident Evil and found the storyline generally interesting, I then watched the sequel Resident Evil: Apocalypse. I have only researched into the plots of the other sequels but still the first two movies were really good.

I have chosen to add this to my transmedia research even though I have not explored the different mediums it has developed.

There are 7 films released following the story of the T-virus escaping a confined facility named 'The Hive' released by the Umbrella Corporation company. Troops are sent in to solve the problem but instead create more chaos.

There are graphic novels containing more details about certain elements of the story such as how the facility 'The Hive' came about and giving the video games released more backstory and explanation.
One of the novels, The Umbrella Conspiracy, contains information based off the first Resident Evil game, it tells Jill and Chris's adventures including other main characters from the story.
Other novels include Caliban Cove, City of the Dead, Underworld, Nemesis and Code: Veronica. 

Many video-games have released based on the story, I have not played these games myself but this is definitely an example of where transmedia has created a franchise that continually profits from its multiple storytelling platforms.

''Resident Evil games remain the most consistent and popular of the genre.'' (Keane, 2007, 110)

The games are considered to be ''restrictive rather than open gameplay.'' (Keane,2007, 110)

To name a few games from the franchise such Resident Evil: Nemesis, Resident Evil Code: Veronica and Veronica X. The games are in the horror genre so visually and cinematically have had to add these elements in their games to try and create similar experiences the audience would feel if they were watching the films. This can result in a positive outcome or can limit the exploration process most game players crave.

The interesting fact here is that between the Resident Evil video games and the film adaptations, new stories have been created using different elements from the games.

Harry Potter

The franchise of Harry Potter was well marketed and released at the right time.

There are a total of 7 books in the series: Harry Potter &  The Philosopher's Stone, Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter & Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter & the Order of The Phoenix, Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows.

There are were also 8 films released which visually told the story from the books. In terms of transmedia storytelling, the films do not move away from the stories in the book or deepen it so I would not class it as transmedia storytelling, but it is transmedia because the books have been transferred to another medium form.


There have been videogames based off the films and books, they mostly coincide with the storyline from the films and books, and the environment is based in and around Hogwarts.

There has also been a development of attraction parks created to give fans a real-life walkthrough and experience of the Harry Potter franchise. It serves as a profiting tourist attraction, two attractions exist in the UK and USA.

The author of the books, J.K. Rowling had the books aimed at children and teen audiences, some of the older books are mainly aimed at teens because there is more violence later on in the books. This means that the fans have grown with the franchise so have experienced the story as they grew up.

I would say as a Harry Potter fan, that most of the audiences can be classed as absorptive, even if they did not buy the games or watch all the films, most would have read the books because that was the first medium it was released.

During the release of each sequel, there was always a crowd of fans waiting outside book stores dressed up as their favourite characters, the reason that these audiences are more absorptive is because they are in their teenage years where school does not take up too much time and they have a lot of spare time to engage in their favourite hobbies. Being an absorptive audience requires time and curiosity that most children do possess.

However, in all the different mediums Harry Potter has been created in such as videogames, films and books, it is mainly books the books that have tried to deepen the storyline because the author wrote extended stories of characters brought up later on such as the Deathly Hallows and the Tales of the Beedle and Bard.

Animation Compare and Contrast Essay

Minimum 500 words

Write a short review, analysing, comparing and contrasting the two films, in relation to the above. 

Jiri Trnka, The Hand, 1965

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLtdCWrpM90

Dusan Vukotic and Zagreb Film, Surogat (Ersatz), 1961

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhfHXLuiTd8

The two films that are going to be discussing both present the theme ‘imprisonment’, or being ‘mentally imprisoned’, both animations were produced to convey a message of how people felt and lived during those times when dictatorship was present.

The film, ‘Surogat’ animated and produced by Dusan Vukotic and Zagreb Film is a 2D animation whether or not it was computer animated. This does not affect the film except that it was trying to tell the audience in a light-hearted way about how artificial objects of this world do not matter and cause emotions such as anger, jealousy and tragedy.

The country Yugoslavia at the time was under communist control, this was a time where everything was owned by the state or government, the people though lived on the same social status could not choose what they wanted and only had what they needed. This obviously eliminates the result of artificiality but it means that there is one person at the top that has control over all the people in that country thus the idea of people living in a very controlled world is not ideal or considered to be a ‘utopia’.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhfHXLuiTd8

In the animation, the tourist inflates an entire village and controls what’s in it from what he eats to who he wants to spend time with, mainly a female. The story progresses to where the female sees a better suitor than him and decides to spend her time with the hunky man, the tourist then chases after them to the other island they occupy and deflates the female and the hunky man is saddened by his loss and deflates himself.

This where vengeance and tragedy provoked by jealousy brings the loss of a human life. Though the way it is portrayed in this animation is comedic because the idea of inflating and deflating characters does not really show the true meaning of the message trying to be conveyed. The colour and lighting of the animation does not change, it does not show the difference between day and night, the tone stays the same so that does not aid in conveying the sad message, however the soundtrack does help when the hunky man dies, the music turns harsh and the tone deep. This, compared to the stop motion animation, by Jiri Trnka title ‘’The Hand’’ has a soundtrack that compliments the storyline. The soundtrack begins joyful and happy at the beginning when the puppet wakes up and has a joyful start to the day, the instrument used could have been a violin or trumpet, might be both but these instruments create powerful sounds and are more noticed when there is a switch from the white hand to the black hand during the animation. The tone of this animation is definitely not as light-hearted as ‘Surogat’ and the lighting changes as the mood changes. The lighting compared to ‘Surogat’ does change in ‘The Hand’, starting off with rich, bright colours but when the mood changes the light becomes dim lit and black backgrounds are being used more.

 

However, their historical and political problems raised in both animations are very similar in contrast because during the time ‘Surogat’ was released, Yugoslavia was a communist country during that time. The reasons behind both animators using this medium to create their art instead of using real people was probably because this way their work would not jeopardize their lives if they spoke out to the rules they lived under or aggravate the communists into forcing them to stop their practice if tried to encourage ideology or personal opinions of the political system.

Jiri Trnka was lucky to be able to live under the communist conditions and still practice his art, his use of puppets in his animation was considered to be innocent which could be the reason why he used them a lot in other films. In the animation ‘The Hand’, the puppet starts off his day happy until a hand disrupts it and orders it to create a hand sculpture and nothing else, the puppet’s resistance to this idea costs him his freedom and life, towards the end the puppet’s loses all emotion as opposed to the beginning of the film and becomes lifeless. This can be a symbol of how living under the rule causes these effets. Jiri Trnka, was promised a state funeral and this is depicted in this animation, basically predicting his own death the same hand that forced him is the same hand saluting him at the end, instead wearing a black glove which definitely can be connoted as being evil. The film was banned from screening for 20 years in Czechoslovakia.  Jiri Trnka shows how trapped he is living in this regime through the symbolism of ‘puppetry’, the black hand is seen controlling the strings when the puppet is sculpting and this is a very obvious message being conveyed, it could be what lead to the film being banned. The film prompted the period of time called ‘Prague Spring in 1968’ so you could say that function of the film was to make people wake up and stand up for their own opinions, so it means that the target audience was aimed at people aged 18 and older who worked and lived under these restrictions, this is probably the same target audience for the ‘Surogat’ animation. This could be when totalitarianism was present both in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia highlighted in different ways but aiming more at the public than political people.

In conclusion, the film ‘Surogat’ has a light-hearted tone with a serious meaning underlying, this could have been done purposely so as not to create conflict with the communist parties and cause an outrage so the comedic storyline is used to help cover that. Both films have the characters either humming or just expressing their emotions through actions instead of speech; this is probably done again so no misleading words can be used against the artists to raise a case against them. These films are an example of artists using their work to create a better improvement to the way people lived in those harsh times under communist control, which is the main theme in link with the idea of ‘imprisonment’ that was brought earlier in the essay.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.  http://www.rembrandtfilms.com/jiritrnka.htm
2.   http://www.afocr.org/communist-totalitarianism
3.   http://www.awn.com/mag/issue5.04/5.04pages/dutkatrnka2.php3