Class summary:

In this lesson we talked about stories and movement. We learned how to use the relationship between the lens and the subject in the service of our narrative. As the camera moves within the frame, we can control what is shown to the viewer and what is hidden. In this regard, there was an animation in class that was very enlightening to me.A Mouse’s Tail(2008) Dir Benjamin Renner.

The camera of the story keeps following the mouse. It tells the story of a mouse walking on the road, unknowingly came to a lion's head (the lion is black pattern. It blends into the background). The lion tied up the mouse. In order to survive, the mouse begged the lion that he was too small. He could find other food for the lion. The mouse was bound by the lion. The mouse found a lot of food, panting tired lion is not satisfied. Just then the mouse began to taunt the Lion. At this time, the audience was confused, everyone thought that the mouse was mad with exhaustion and lost the desire to live. The camera began to zoom out to reveal the full picture. The mouse had tied up the lion long ago.

Story:

In class, our team selected a wiki for story creation. I adapted the story of our group again according to the teacher's feedback in class.

Here's my updated version of the story:

1. A very tired delivery man who had been working for a long time because he needed money and was hungry.
2. The delivery man took the wrong way on the subway.
3. The tired delivery man was walking on the hot day. (The camera moves with the protagonist)
4. The delivery man's foot sank into the ground. (Zoom in)
5. The delivery guy gets deeper with every step he takes. (The camera moves with the protagonist)
6. Eventually the delivery man's back sank in, too, and he couldn't walk. The pizza in his takeout box smelled good.(Camera move up)
7. He took the pizza out of his takeout bag.(Fixed Focal Lens)
8. At last he fell asleep standing up.(Fixed Focal Lens)
9. When he woke up, he found that he had fallen asleep on the subway and the pizza smelled good.(Overlaps with the last frame and zooms out)

The story I want to tell is about an overworked and hungry delivery man. He went on working through hunger and fatigue. His feet sinking into the ground is a metaphor for how tired he is walking. In the dream he fell asleep and ate the pizza to show his hunger and exhaustion.

Class summary

In this lesson we discussed diegetic and non-diegetic.

Diegetic refers to the objective and true voice. For example: conversation, water flow, character movement...Non-diegetic refers to the sound of something outside the story.In a game, for example, the player can hear sounds that the characters in the game can't hear. Like the BGM of the game, the UI sound.

The importance of sound is undeniable. The sound can let the audience get a lot of information.The video watched in class: Arak Football. (Dir Grant Orchard. OneDotZero,2005.) well illustrates this point. The sound lets the viewer know that the black spots in the original picture are crows. Red rectangles and white spheres represent someone kicking a ball. I can't even guess what the black blobs represent without the sound.

Sound can also add to the mood. Horror films become less scary when they are watched with their ears covered. The addition of scary music to less scary videos can also upset viewers.

Sound can be subjective or objective. It means we can enter the character's world.

The sound effects are also very interesting.  In the world of animation can put all animals even things can be personified in the world of animation. Humans have human language, and animals have animal language. For example, Pixar's 2016 short, Sandpiper, was directed by Alan Ballilaro. The only dialogue in this animation is in “bird language.” 

Director Alan Barilaro talks about the sound effects:

"Most of it is real birdsong, a little bit of it is Adrian Belew making with guitars, and some of it is foam. I learned a lot from Andrew Stanton on Wall-E, and he worked so hard to get the robot language right that I felt I had to get the bird language on the same level as him. "At the beginning there was a lot of noise and a lot of noise, and it was a challenge to get it right, especially with the mother-daughter focus."

However, animation has such magic power to turn the "bird language" that we can't understand into a language that everyone can understand, and even resonate with the characters inside. This is what makes animation fascinating.

Story beats

In response to this week's theme. In class, our group created a story. 

According to the teacher's feedback in class, I made my own adaptation.

1. A house in poor care，paints on the walls are patchy with mold on some spots, rotten wooden front fence. In the room upstairs, there is a young man, he focused on his computer.
2. He is addicted to playing games.（Keyboard sound. The closer the picture is to the keyboard, the louder the sound/ Game music/Hot summer ambient sounds）
3. Ten hours passed. The man finally got tired. He turned off the computer.(Objective voice)
4. The computer screamed. (Computer screams)
5. He turned on the computer. The computer chuckled. (Objective voice/ Computer laughter/Suspense background music)
6. The man freaked out and unplugged the computer. (Objective voice/The man sounds frightened and / Suspense music)
7. After a few minutes it was quiet. He thought he was hearing voices.
8. The man was lying on the bed playing with his Ipad. Then he heard the computer telling him to turn it on. (Funny video voice of iPad, ethereal voice of computer)
9. The Ipad also made a sound. "You've been playing games for 10 hours, and I'm your best bet before bed." At this time, the phone also made a voice and said, "I am the best choice, you should see me!" (Dialogue,The conversation is repeated in the man's ear/ Suspense background music)
10. The man jumped out of bed and rubbed his eyes and ears. (Silence)
11. The man finally left the room.
12. Outside is the sound of leaves blowing in the wind, birds singing....

After the adaptation of the story I want to express is that a person addicted to the network, His life revolves around electronics. The voice of the electronic speaker is used as a metaphor for his need to relax his spirit. The sounds of nature outside contrast with the sounds of terror inside.

In response to the week’s theme of Tinkering, I created a simple frame-by-frame animation. It's an orange that's been sliced and reassembled into a whole orange. I tried to animate flashbacks and mimic the look and feel of frame by frame animation.   I was inspired by the use of materials through director Anh Ngoc's stop-motion animation related to food.

Conclusion in class

The first week of this lesson begins with "What is a Story?" A story can be thought of as a series of cause-and-effect events. It is usually a series of events recorded in chronological order. There are three things that a story needs: character, place, and action. With these three points, we can continue to flesh out the content. For example, what does the character want, what conflict is encountered, and how to resolve it. The four main expressive techniques of the story are abstraction, metaphor, transition and metamorphosis. Then we discussed whether live-action films could replace animation with the development of modern technology. I don't think live action can replace animation. I think of Disney turning over a lot of animated movies. For example, Beauty and the Beast and Snow White. From an audience's point of view, live-action animated films are beautifully made, but seem to diminish the magic. And the appeal of animation is its magic, which can't be replaced. From the creator's point of view, animated films tend to think about how to tell the story well, but live-action films think about how to present it in reality.

Story: Beauty pageant

• Miss toast is watching a beauty pageant.( The bakery opened. It's a beauty contest in bread's eyes.)

• The winner of the beauty contest was Miss Baguette(Many customers opt for the baguette, and the winner is sold in pride of place in the bakery the next day)

• Miss Toast felt the meat on her stomach(Miss Toast thinks she's unpopular because she's too soft and fat)

• Miss Toast came to the plastic surgery hospital (bakery) for liposuction (bread slicer into bread slices)

• After the surgery miss Toast was still not chosen by many customers.

• The next year, the pageant began again（Delete this sentence and change it to inside parentheses）---> (until the shop advertised the toast)

• Miss Toast is watching a beauty pageant on TV（Delete this sentence and change it to inside parentheses）---> (customers start buying more toast)

• This time the winner was another confident toast lady and toast won the beauty pageant（Delete this sentence and change it to inside parentheses）---> (toast became the most popular product)

The story is inspired by the rise of the cosmetic surgery industry, which has brought with it some misshapen aesthetics. Some people think big eyes, pointed chin, thin body is beautiful. But with the changing times, natural beauty is more popular now. Those who had undergone extensive plastic surgery began to recover their faces. What I'm trying to say is that standards of beauty are evolving. In every historical period, the standard of beauty is different. The standards of beauty are most suitable for the living environment and social culture at that time. For instance ancient times popular color of skin white is beautiful, and in modern popular healthy color of skin. Everyone has their own characteristics, know how to appreciate their own, confident people are the most beautiful.

The art of metaphor: https://ed.ted.com/on/abp8iQ6Y After watching this video, I changed the content of my story. I want to add some metaphors to my story. I added some scenes in parentheses. The speed of bread sales is likened to a bread beauty contest, in which customers vote. At first customers preferred to buy baguettes. But ever since the store started advertising a lot of mediocre toast. Customers became more likely to buy toast. It is developmental to use advertising and purchase quantity as metaphor for aesthetics.