About Millie

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I animate, therefore I am a teacher. I teach, therefore I illustrate. I illustrate, therefore I draw on my environment. In drawing on my environment, I am animated!

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Beginnings of the question...

IMMERSED IN ANIMATION
MILLIE YOUNG

PHD DESIGN PROJECT PROPOSAL


Image result for drawings by Glen Keane
Mia progression. https://www.awn.com/animationworld/glen-keane-talks-duet-and-legacy-disney-animation

“ A drawing with a pencil is an expression of your soul.
A seismograph of your soul.
You put a line down –it’s a feeling and emotion.’
Glen Keane


WHAT THIS RESEARCH IS ADDRESSING?
Site-specific live interactive immersive performances that integrate with animation to engage the audience in story
The challenges to creators and storytellers on how to utilize the 360otechnologies toward narrative storytelling that engage the audience in the ‘suspension of disbelief’
Maintain the diversity of visual aesthetic offered in the traditional animation techniques into the new technology settings



WHY?

Image result for drawings by Hayao Miyazaki

‘Creating animation means creating a fictional world. That world soothes the spirit of those who are disheartened and exhausted from dealing with the sharp edges of reality’

HayaoMiyazaki


RESEARCH ISSUE

The new technology in animation is being pushed to new extremes in gaming, virtual and augmented reality. The screens are no longer limited to a fixed screen rectangle but can cover buildings, be 360o full dome or encased in a goggled virtual world.
The technology prioritizes the visual aesthetic toward hyper realism or absolute abstractionand much of the content relies on the sensational‘wow’ factor at a loss to storytelling and visual diversity.
The audience’s experience and interactivity is no longer as the ‘passive observer’ receiving the story as dictated by the director. They can pick and choose where, what and when they view and even interact with participating‘in’ the narrative experience.
It is geared to the individual’s experience not the collective audience making it limited access and not shared experience

BEGINNINGS OF A QUESTION

What  would be the necessary/effective AESTHETIC and NARRATIVE considerations
needed to create  360o IMMERSIVE projected environments /performances/ experiences
that utilize traditional  2D ANIMATION techniques?


or Can the new 360o technologies be harnessed to combine with traditional animation techniques to create site-specific live interactive immersive performances that engage the audience, tell narratives and maintain the ‘suspension of disbelief’?

Through an Investigation of theory and performance analysis, experiments and practical process I aim to determine the variable and constants needed:

 • To design animation narratives that explore non-time based immersive 360 projection and audience interactivity
 • To develop live music and performance that integrate with immersive 360 animation projection\
 • From experiments develop further diverse animation storytelling experiences in live performance interactive contexts


KEY WORDS

‘THE SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF’
Immersion Deep mental involvement
Interactive mutually or reciprocally active
Narrative the representation in art of an event or story
Aesthetic in particular when concerned with illusion and immersion
Performance the manner of reacting to stimuli a public presentation or exhibition
Illusion a misleading image presented to the vision; something that deceives or misleads intellectually
Animation To Breathe Life into….(something) especiallly when expressed as the perceived illusion of movement


Literature Theory
...analysis to come.
Paul Wells - animation narrative structures and strategies
•Understanding Animation
Animation: Genre and Authorship 
Werner Wolf - illusion aesthetics
•Illusion (Aesthetic) the living handbook of narratology University of Hamburg 2014
Marie-Laure Ryan- immersion vs interactivity
J. Yellowlees Douglas and Andrew Hargadon - Immersion
•The pleasures of immersion and engagement: schemas, scripts and the fifth business University of Florida Digital Creativity 2001, Vol.12, No. 3, pp.153-166
Robin Nelson – Intermediality and performance
•Mapping Intermediality in Performance Edited by Sarah Bay-Cheng, Chiel Kattenbelt, Andy Lavender, and Robin Nelson


practitioners of immersive and interactive animation experiences

...ANALYSIS TO COME.



Nam June Paik http://www.paikstudios.com/   Historical Video Installation
Opera North Love of Three Oranges https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPGPP773zFY  Animation theories applied in Opera Performance
Forkbeard Fantasy http://www.forkbeardfantasy.co.uk/forkbeardinfo.php Animation interactivity in theatrical performancePRESENT
Team Lab https://www.team-lab.net/   International immersive interactive installations 
J Walt K Adamczyk  http://www.johnadamczyk.com/  Disney Imagineer
A dandy punk Projection Mapping https://vimeo.com/50197298  Disney Imagineer and Animation Performance practitioner

The research will be investigated through a series of experiments exploring the constants and variables:


EXPERIMENT 1

Animation                     Traditional 2D
Music                       FIXED recording
Live Peformance                      NONE
Audience                       Fixed  seated
Story                  Circular Continuous
Interactivity              sensor activated
Aesthetic                             Illustration
Animation created in conjunction with Ayutthaya musicians
Test projections and interactive sensors
empirical feedback from audience              



EXPERIMENT 2
Animation                   Traditional 2D
Music       Live performed set piece
Peformance        Scripted/adaptive   
Audience                      Fixed  seated
Story                                      Linear
Interactivity            with performers
Aesthetic                           Illustration
Redevelop existing animation story for an interactive opera performance
Work on Soundtrack and musical score with musical professional
Collaborate with Nuni Opera to devise the performance
Empirical feedback from audience



 EXPERIMENT 3
Yet to be conceived installation based on outcomes and methodological framework from first two



Millimations’ Elefunk Minitop Experience


Inspired by Pirates of the Carabina flying trapeze circus performances:

A bell tent/GEODESIC DOME with 360 o projection from 3-10 projectors.
Infrared sensors triggering off the projected films from audience. (VARIABLE)
Soundtrack determining the complete show time frame. (CONSTANT)
Simple looped sequences depicting various circus stunts performed by Elefunkseach eventually ending in disaster. (VARIABLE)

IMMERSION IN DRAWINGS

‘…immersive quality is achieved primarily through sequential drawings on single sheets of paper. You are always aware that the visuals are drawings –some beautifully rendered with detail and fully animated,[…], some drawings are wild scribbles, lines that coalesce into, and out of recognizable shapes’
John Canemakeron Glen Keane’s film Dear Basketball

ELEFUNKDESIGN DEVELOPMENT



The ideas started as an elephant...



 Went through an evolution exploring styles of other animators


Playing with action poses
Working in a template from The Animator's sketchclub

Kicking arse...

Following Fred Astaire
Walking the walk


IDEAS AROUND THE  TIME SETTIGS FOR THE PERFORMANCES





NEXT TIME MORE EXPERIMENTAL DEVELOPMENT AND PLANNING FOR THE ANIMATION AND TEHCNICAL SPECS AND FURTHER READING ANALYSIS