Au Nom Du Peuple - Final

I've finally finished my short film! Overall I'm very happy with the outcome. One of my biggest strengths is the use of different colour palettes. Especially compared to my work last year, the colours I've use are much more consistent. Furthermore, where I didn't put much thought into colour palettes last year, in this film the colours look much more to a professional standard. I feel like I've moved a lot closer to having my own artistic style.

I'm proud of the film I've made, after many storyline revisions, my narrative finally tells the message I wanted to provide. When I had originally drafted my narrative, there wasn't much of a point to the story. I think by having the main characters involved in a terror attack it reinforced media stereotypes rather than reduce them. Instead, my story is now framed around the destructive effects of mass media.

After showing others my film, I've received positive feedback. Moreover they understand the deeper message. It's also been nice to hear that others have noticed the little details that I've used and to appreciate the hard work that I've put in.

I've made the YouTube video public for anyone to watch and added a lot of tags to increase its potential at being viewed. I would also like to upload it to Vimeo, as this platform seems to be more for filmmakers. However I would either need to convert my video into a smaller file size, or upgrade my account to the Premium version. If I did this I could submit my film to other websites which host short films, such as Short of the Week.

Recording Additional Sounds

Today I recorded a few more sounds that I needed to add to my film.

The video above shows me in the sound studios, using the microphone and Adobe Audition. This sound effect will be used in Scene 2, when Alecia taps on the bridge.

I also recorded a few more sounds:

• Footsteps on carpet
• Alecia gasping
• Alecia whimpering
• Manon grunting

Week 11: Progress

Strengths

• I'm happy with the pacing of the opening scene and think it flows well with the music
• I've added another sound effect of wind to the opening to further connote the emptiness in the city

Need to improve:

• Change the colour of the subtitles as it's hard to read at times
• Add more sound effects during the third scene

Scene 3 amendments

Made changes to some of the backgrounds which were in a low resolution.

Improved the news sequence with the explosion

I followed this tutorial:

• I really liked the look of the explosion in this tutorial. However like many others it required me to download the following plugin: http://www.redgiant.com/products/trapcode-suite/resources/
• I could not afford to buy the plugin ($399!!!), so I got the free trial
• I skipped the first half of the tutorial, as my explosion was not coming out of a visible bomb

• After creating my own explosions I added these to my already existing composition
• I think these look much more effective that the shape layer I used before
• My only issue is that I believe because I used a free trial it appeared to have a large red X on the layer
• I managed to mask over the red X for the most part, but it is still slightly visible
• Hopefully this won't be too noticeable, as I still think the overall effect looks good

Week 11: Scheduling

I've created a schedule for this week in order to plan my time. I'm hoping to get most of the components for this module nearly finished by the end of the week, so that I can start working on my other module next week. I've split up my tasks into different days so hopefully I should be able to get everything done.

Week 11: Tutorials

Workshop

• 00:38 - brochure pic
• More bounce on book kick
• Eyes going across and then hold
• Faster head tilt Alecia
• Move Marine's hand faster

Practical

• Timing on actions - walk cycles can be shorter etc

Title ideas:

Most people, including Paul, suggested that I give my piece a French title, therefore I tried to come up with something..

Easter week 2: Progress

This week I have been working solidly on production. I've put together the rest of scene two and added to scene 3. I still need to finish the conclusion.

Inspiration:

Process:

• I took inspiration from different newspapers I'd seen online
• I used the image trace to embed real pictures onto the cover of the papers
• I used photoshop to replicate the newspapers

Where I am now:

Strengths:

• I'm much happier with the narrative and I think it makes sense
• Although I haven't added much sound I think what I have so far works pretty well

Need to improve:

• Add titles to the beginning - could use wind sounds
• 00:31 - improve Manon's walk
• 00:33 - amend background colour
• 00:35 needs to be a shot in between
• 01:01 fix Manon's weird arm
• Add backgrounds (blue screens)
• 02:32 Fix animation of  explosion
• Add another shot to the ending

Sounds

Sound effects:
Text alert - oringz w36
Oringz-w436 - free mp3 and m4r download | Notification Sounds

Music:
Emotional and Dramatic Music - Reverie (Copyright and Royalty Free)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ72Z9S305I&index=2&list=LLhda1AjYMm8knzTKudNd9EA

whitesand - last goodbye
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPHVpCSJoeY&index=3&list=LLhda1AjYMm8knzTKudNd9EA


White sand no tomorrow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At_-oo5fSv4&index=5&list=LLhda1AjYMm8knzTKudNd9EA

Nor'ledges - white zans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VNRzU2wIHE

Dialogue/speeches (le pen)

ambient - for seine bridge
http://www.freesound.org/people/Joljo/sounds/174816/

http://www.freesound.org/people/yadronoff/sounds/320380/

paper in wind
http://www.freesound.org/people/adejabor/sounds/153439/

Paper in wind 2
https://www.freesound.org/people/RossBell/sounds/389440/

News broadcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYNC6PnFbPA&index=2&list=LLhda1AjYMm8knzTKudNd9EA

news sfx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibXqB93Yd6g&list=LLhda1AjYMm8knzTKudNd9EA&index=2

vinyl sfx
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOY8pXNu-ew

Book falling
https://www.freesound.org/people/theshaggyfreak/sounds/320285/

Reading: Folk Devils and Moral Panics - Stanley Cohen

Deviance and Moral Panics

• "A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests" p. 1
• Stereotyped in mass media
• Can have serious long lasting effects (i.e. Islamophobia since 9/11)
• Cohen argues in the case of youth culture - deviants and delinquents
• Generalisation of mods and rockers 
• Sceptical revolution  - questioning the media representations
• "Deviance is created by society" p. 5
• Every society has certain 'images' of its deviants
• The media provides already constructed/biased arguments as news
• "even if they are not self-consciously engaged in crusading or muck-raking, their very reporting of certain ‘facts’ can be sufficient to generate concern, anxiety, indignation or panic." p. 10
• "‘a considerable portion of what we call “news” is devoted to reports about deviant behaviour and its consequences'" p. 10
• Such news informs us of what's right and wrong
• Once filtered through media, representation becomes stereotyped
• News reports on disasters, or potential disasters create fear
• "Potential of threat"
• Sequence of disaster:
  1. Warning: a condition which may arise
  2. Threat: exposed to communication from others
  3. Impact: disaster strikes and reaction to death, injuries etc.
  4. Inventory: those exposed to disaster form a preliminary picture of what happened
  5. Rescue: help for survivors
  6. Remedy: more deliberate and formal activities to help those affected
  7. Recovery: the community recovers from the events - stabilised condition

Inventory

• Distortion and exaggeration
• Over-reporting of events
• Sensational headlines, melodramatic vocab etc.
• Knopp 'shotgun approach' - front page build up, splashing pictures
• Excessive hyperbolic language to a point where it doesn't even make sense (i.e. the use of trigger words such as Islamist, or terrorist)
• "The continued media use of the term contributes to an emotionally charged climate in which the public tends to view every event as an “incident”"
• Spreading mass hysteria

Easter week 1: Progress

I started to develop scene 2. Manon checks her phone and reads a news article.

Inspiration:

Researched articles in french of the attacks, looked out for key words used and what  kind of imagery was used. I used the websites of different news sources, aiming for a mixture of left and right wing and neutral.

• Key words: terror, death, Paris
• Creates a sense of fear

 

• Iconography: police with guns, citizens, memorials, Paris locations such as eiffel tower. 

Process:

• Created the appearance of an iPhone lock screen with a News notification
• I re-created an icon, inspired by the one used on iOS 10

• I then used an image I found on Google which was similar to the iconography I'd researched: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04qx7h4
• Using an image of Police makes the audience aware that something serious has happened, but at the same time makes them feel protected
• Rather than using the 'image trace' feature, I used the paintbrush tool to follow the basic shapes of the officers

• On another layer I created a screen showing a news article with the image above

• Need to fill in the background imagery
• Manon has a weird arm in a couple of shots

Research: French news

Since my new storyline will have a strong focus on the news and headlines, I thought I'd research some French news sources. I will look at these different websites to find how they've reported on previous incidents, and use a similar style in my own work.

Brainstorming

Today was spent re-organising my ideas so that I can resume production on my project.

I very roughly sketched the images I'd like to follow in my sequence:

• Manon pulls her phone out of her pocket
• Close up of her holding her phone
• A French flag waves in the air
• Citizens anxiously check their phones/newspapers
• Close up image of the news on the TV
• Crowds of people watching the news on TV

I know that I had to improve the atmosphere of the scene 2, so that it contrasts the deserted locations in the opening scene. Therefore some videos people had recorded around Pont de l'Archeveche to get a sense of the sounds around the area.

I then conducted some more research into Le Pen and her policies. I wanted to use this idea to build a frame work for my narrative. Main ideas:

• French patriotism
• Fear of immigrants
• Reclaiming France by getting rid of immigrants

I then brainstormed some new ideas for my third scene. I didn't want to get rid of what I had already, but still it had to make sense with what I'll be adding to scene 2.

Finally I re-wrote my shot list following the research I'd done today. I feel a lot more confident in my idea now.

Further Research

I spent most of the day researching on how to improve my animation.

Camera

I researched some camera techniques. I like the 'dolly zoom' or vertigo effect. I think this could be a really cool effect to use in my animation is it creates an uneasy, dramatic effect.

• This effect is created by zooming in whilst moving the camera backwards on a dolly
• Although mostly used in live action, it was also used in other animated films such as Ratatouille

• I tried recreating this effect on my phone's camera
• Not too sure how effective this would look within animation

Sound
I researched which movies had the best scores. I shortlisted the following films:

• Moonlight
• La La Land
• The Shining

I think I like classical music for my piece

Feedback

Showed my mum what I have done so far with my project 

Her advice:

• Change the colour of the padlocks on the bridge as they blend together too much
• Add some more life to the second scene - mayb a boat going past on the bridge
• Spider diagram for title ideas
• Better sound quality - perhaps shattering glass in the disaster scene

Viewing log

As I was starting to feel quite uninspired by my project, I decided to watch something to reignite my imagination. I chose to watch the tv series Black Mirror is it deals with conspiracy. The pilot episode just so happened to be very relevant to my idea. The idea is centred on the Prime Minister's daughter being kidnapped and having the news go to the press. *Spoiler alert* the deeper message of the episode is that the public get so caught up in what's in the media that they lose sight of what's happening in reality. This is really interesting to me, as I want to convey a similar message within my own project.

Key ideas:

• Social media vs Mainstream news
• Checking news on TV, laptop etc
• Breaking news
• Rising pace
• Scrolling through Twitter

Further Research

Articles on nationalism:
The rise of anti-immigrant attitudes, violence and nationalism in Costa Rica
http://theconversation.com/the-rise-of-anti-immigrant-attitudes-violence-and-nationalism-in-costa-rica-73899

• Costa Rica adverse to conflict, violence and poverty
• Congressman, Ricardo Toldeo, critical of immigrants - wanted to close Nicaragua borders
• Divide between 'white', middle class, educated Costa Ricans, and poor, dark-skinned Nicaraguans
• "Citizens feel that their way of life is under threat"

It's Not Just Trump: A Toxic Right-Wing Nationalism Is Rising Across the Planet
http://www.alternet.org/world/its-not-just-trump-toxic-right-wing-nationalism-rising-across-planet

• Politcal leaders gave voice to converns over globalisation
• Trump anti-Islam; radical
• Between 1991 ad 2011, China closed 2.4 million American jobs
• Right-wing parties in Europe scored votes by using nativist, anti-islamic responses to globalisation

Opinion: The nationalist wave in the U.S. and Europe that liberals still don’t get
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-nationalist-wave-in-the-us-and-europe-that-liberals-still-dont-get-2017-03-20

• Geert Wilders - nationalist candidate in the Netherlands
  - lost election
  - strong (racist) views towards immigrants
• "Nationalism assumes distinctions"
• Nazi Germany wouldn't have happened without obsession with national identity
• Nationalism at the root of our existence
• Poor people more affected by immigration
• Hitler played on the fact that citizens didn't have much to be proud of after WW1 and the Great Depression, except being German

Nationalism is driving us towards a hard Brexit that puts Britain at risk
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/article-50-theresa-may-brexit-nationalism-driving-us-to-hard-brexit-pat-mcfadden-labour-a7656151.html

• Theresa May recently evoked Article 50
• No more access to the Single market
• Customs Union membership rejected
• Advocators don't care about economic consequences

Overall thoughts:

• There seems to be a strong divide between nationalism and globalisation
• People are using their "patriotism" as an excuse to be racist/xenophobic

Articles on Marine Le Pen:

Marine Le Pen promises crackdown on immigration and globalisation

https://www.ft.com/content/9854f5e4-ebc3-11e6-930f-061b01e23655

• Supports chanted "France! France!" and "On est chez nous!" ("This is our country")
• In favour of Trump's victory
• Considers radical Islam barbaric (evoking fear within her audiences)
• Anti-immigration
• Wants to make it harder for migrants to become French citizens
• "There is no rightwing and no leftwing any more," she said. "There is only those who support globalisation and patriots"

Le Pen says uncontrolled immigration has pushed France to the brink of ‘CIVIL WAR’

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/778995/marine-le-pen-french-election-president-civil-war-immigration

• Blames France's practically 'non-existent' immigration policies for refugee crisis
• "The situation is spiralling out of control, and things can only get worse"
• Some migrants refused to integrate into French society
• “They have intimidated and threatened France via a series of anti-French and terrorist attacks. Civil war is no longer a dream, but a real possibility.”
• Radical extremists, not migrants, were the 'enemy'
• The FN leader added that all citizens had to “learn to love France,” and that, if elected president in May, she would let the French nationals decide “who can be French” via a nationwide debate on citizenship.

note: I don't know how credible this information is since there are no sources

France election: Why people are voting for Marine Le Pen

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/39109365

• Her supporters want their country back
• Some believe that she isn't racist - they just support the French way of living
• Others support her as they want to be protects from immigrants

note: this video was really interesting to see the first hand perspectives of Le Pen's supporters, rather than just reading about her

What are Marine Le Pen's policies?

http://www.euronews.com/2017/02/09/what-do-we-know-about-marine-le-pen-s-policies

• I said the evening of Trump’s election that this is not the end of the world, it’s the end of a world. The EU world is ultra-liberalism, savage globalisation, artificially created across nations. I believe that this world is dead,” she told BBC Radio.
• Wants to distance herself from her father's far-right legacy
• Claims to be "In the name of the people"
• Has a strong stance on law and order - visited prisons
• Wants to create a new world order
• Wants to leave the EU - finds it a "failure"

Overall thoughts:

• Has the belief that you must have an extreme love for you country otherwise you can't be a part of it
• Promotes her 'patriotism' by using immigrants as a binary opposition

Week 10: Workshop and Practical

Workshop
In class today, we all viewed each other's projects in their current state and were given feedback.

My strengths:

• Visual style - including colour scheme, background and character design

Things to consider:

• Think more about sound
• Cut down on narrative as there may be too much to animate, and the story could be too complex
• Make the backgrounds move consistently, some move more than others

I found this feedback really useful in knowing what I have to improve. It was also useful in increasing my confidence in what I have so far.


Practical
In this session I sought help from Paul on how to improve my storyline. I showed him what I'd written for the brochure, and he gave me some suggestions on how to amend this. I'd re-written my story so that rather than using terrorists as the antagonist, I would metaphorically represent them with aliens. When I pitched this idea to Paul he was very unsure of it (as was I to be fair). Instead he suggested that I focus more on the wider agenda, which would be to frame my narrative around media.

I thought back to an artist we'd looked at during second year who would be relevant to my work this year.

Mark Fiore

• American political cartoonist
• Uses humour and satire
• Summarises current events

Paul suggested I look at some other artists work:

Peter Howson

• Howson is a Scottish painter
• Worked as the official British war artist during the Bosnian Civil War in 1993
• The image above denotes a mixture between real life influences of war, and fantasy elements such as the mummy/zombie
• I think this is relevant to my own work as I'd like to combine fantasy elements, in a metaphorical sense

Fransisco Goya - The Black Paintings

• Paintings from around 1819 to 1823
• Quite dark and scary

Week 9: Reflection

Strengths

• I went back over the first scene and made adjustments. I think this has helped my project as the colour scheme is now consistent
• Taking time to research and develop my concept

Weaknesses

• I feel bad because I haven't made any progress in terms of production. I would have liked to work on more scenes than I have done so far. Subsequently I feel as though I'm behind
• Still unsure about my new storyline, I don't know if it is a strong enough idea. Hopefully once I speak to my tutors, they'll be able to point me in the right direction

Brochure text and Photos

Text:

Set in a dystopic Paris, after the city was affected by an alien invasion. A new government regime divides the country and its citizens alike. Two sisters, Manon and Alecia, must find a way to put their differences aside to support their familial bond. Film title is an animated short film that explores themes of survival and finding hope through hard times

The narrative was inspired by recent terror attacks in Paris, such as Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 and the coordinated attacks throughout Saint-Denis in November 2015. A headline which read “A year of attacks leaves Paris’ streets emptier than usual” demonstrates how an international moral panic has left citizens fearful.  Arguably this moral panic has been propagated throughout the media with world leaders in the US, the UK and France alike aiming to popularise nationalism by spreading a sense of fear of the other. Film title innocuously alludes to this issue by using a combination of fantasy and drama, following the bond between two sisters with conflicting beliefs.

The visual style of the film was inspired by the short film Somewhere Down The Line (2014). The use of flat design, hand-drawn animation and a heavily stylised colour scheme subverts the mainstream preference for hyper-realist, 3D computer-animation. Film title aims to spark a re-emergence of the classic animation style, but with a modern influence. Contextually, the film draws inspiration from animation with a political influence such as Persepolis (2007) and Zootopia (2016), all of which deal with heavy subjects but use the animation medium as an easily digestible form.

Thoughts:

• I still haven't been able to come up with a name for the piece
• I like the images I've created, although I hope they're not too vague

Research for new ideas

For my new idea I've thought about using aliens as a metaphor for the other. I want to highlight the issue of nationalism that has been omnipresent recently, with world leaders such as Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen focusing on national identity. I believe that this creates a fear of the other. Within my narrative I could allude to this issue, with Alecia conforming to the ideology presented in the media as she becomes fearful of the aliens, however Manon is more open minded.

I created a list of how my narrative would relate to conventions of the dystopia genre.

I also created a list of how alien invasions are presented within the media. Most of the films I'd seen already, therefore I just re-watched their trailers to refresh my memory.

This was the interview that Paul suggested I watch. I didn't know much about the French Election prior to watching this video. Le Pen seems to have a similar way of thinking to BNP leaders or dare I say it, Donald Trump. I think these kind of opinions draw people apart, rather than bring people together

Further articles:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/marine-le-pen-bbc-newsnight-interview_uk_58db7a78e4b01ca7b4283033

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36653381

I amended my shot list with the changes I wanted to make. I thought about using bits of sound from Le Pen's interviews.

Week 9: Scheduling

I created this schedule to organise my tasks for over the weekend.  I have taken some time this week to complete work for my other modules.

For next week we need to show the rest of the class what we have done so far for our project. I would like to make some more changes to the scene 1 and 3. In order to make the story coherent, maybe I could just include rough drawings for the rest of scene 2 and edit it all together using Adobe Premiere.

We also need to have the first draft for the Media Practice Brochure. Before I can complete this work, I need to amend my storyline, as I've been having doubts about it. Then once I've finalised my idea, I can write the supporting text about my project. Hopefully I will come up with a title too.

Change of Ideas

On Wednesday I was doing some research about my project as I wanted to find out how to represent my fourth scene accurately. I firstly viewed a list of terror attacks that had taken place on trains. Strangely enough I found out that there was an actually an explosion that took place on a Paris Metro between Notre Dame and Saint Michel in 1995. After a while, I had read many stories about terror attacks which started to make me feel a bit uneasy. Especially in light of the recent terror attack in Westminster, I've started to doubt that I still want to represent this subject matter in my project. I feel as though the topic has become to sensitive.

Subsequently, I met with Paul today to express my doubts. He completely understood my uncertainty and said it would be okay to slightly change my project. We both decided that I should change the antagonist in my story from "terrorists" to something else, possibly more metaphorical. Paul suggested that I research Marine Le Penn and the current state of French politics. This would be related to my project as I'm setting it in Paris. One of my biggest concerns was not wanting to completely start again, as I'm happy with the scenes I've created so far. Therefore I must find a way to use what I've got and change the story only slightly.

Week 9: Workshop and Practical

Workshop
During this time I had a tutorial with Mary. I showed her my progress and work on sound design. She said that I seemed to making good progress.

Practical
I used this session to update Scene1 with the corrections I wanted to make.

I firstly experimented with using the graphic tablet and photoshop to add some details to the opening shot.

I like using this method, however it was rather time consuming, so I thought I would come back to it at another point.

I added some more details to this shot so that the scene didn't look so empty. I used the tree script on Illustrator, and then used Photoshop to keep the colour scheme consistent.

These are the first three shots of my animation. I now think they look much more consistent, with a neutral colour scheme.

Sound - first draft

Process:

• Music - I edited the music to sound like it was being played diegetically on the record player. I followed a tutorial I found on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eD-qODP5JCY) and edited the values to suit my taste:
  
• Sound effects - I downloaded a few different sound effects online from freesound.org and freesfx.co.uk. I then added these to my timeline, adjusting the volume and pitch.
• In the scene, Alecia kicks Manon's book into her face. I couldn't find an appropriate sound effect online, so tried to create my own, using the recorder on my phone. This doesn't really sound how I want it to, so maybe I should try again using a marantz recorder.

Strengths:

• I think I mixed the sound levels quite well
• Timing - I believe I edited the sounds to synchronise with the visuals so that it makes sense to the audience

Need to improve:

• Pacing - I think I need to add more shots to the end of the sequence, and make them longer as the pacing is too fast. Since the scene is a little bit emotional, it should be much slower to allow the audience sympathise with the characters
• Music - I just used a copyrighted song that I already had in my library, but I would not be able to use this in the final version of my film
• I could create some more sound effects myself, so that it sounds a bit more realistic

Week 8: Progress and Reflection

I think I worked really hard to complete the majority of scene 3, although there are still many issues that need to be resolved

I've started working on scene 2, however at a much slower pace. I do feel a bit frustrated as I had planned to complete this scene by the end of the week. Although I'm trying not to be too hard on myself, as there is still time to do so at another point.

Scene 2 is set in the same location as scene 1, along Pont de l’Archeveche, however it set on a sunny, happy day, before the war took place.

I created my own scatter brush of three different padlocks. This was a really time efficient method of replicating an image.

The screenshot above shows the result as I wanted to make it look like Love Lock Bridge

When creating the scatter brush, I also discovered the symbols tool, which has many pre-made shapes and objects. The grime vector pack could be useful in scene 1, to make the location look more dilapidated.

I was very much inspired by some of the sunsets I've seen this week. I love the bright blue, orange and pinks that are shown within the sky. Using these images as a reference, I created the following colour palettes:

I like the second palette the most, and I think it's quite similar to the colour scheme I used in scene 3.

 Here I used the colour scheme shown above to change the colour of the sky and water along the river.

I then used Photoshop to increate the brightness and saturation of the whole image.

So far, I've assembled the first three shots of the scene. As mentioned previously, this is behind my schedule. I think I would like to take a short break from animating and come back to it in a few days, with a fresh mind.