LAUAN601: Module Evaluation

Practical Evaluation

• The practical has allowed me break the barrier of intricate technicalities and uses purely imaginative approach within the poetic realm of visual music. 
• I have used various traditional medium and let their materiality speak of my expression.
• I have discovered that visual music is not about the music, it is about articulating personal impression of phenomenological experiences.  
• As I do more of them I felt more engaged with my thought as I embraced the sensation of movements in free form animation.
• KinoManual experimental workshop has taught myself about the process of direct-on-film animation and creating synthetic sound. It made me realise that everything is in the grasp of the hand as long as the artists have strong passion in their personal emotive expression.
• It is easy to lose train of thought in the process of free form animation, which resulted on an incoherent animation during the process and have to rethink of doing things differently. 
• This is why it is hard to put a full stop in the whole practical investigation as I learned new things every time with the framework of embracing the outcome of without having a solid plan. 
• I found that the process of visual music is similar to meditation in which the physical sensations of things are felt through constant rehearsals of closely observing our surroundings. 
• In the future, I want to do more of the experiments using nicer music or go even more abstract with the noises, or perhaps create a hybrid animation combining both narrative and abstract aspects; like those animations screened in festivals, I want my animation to have a bit of both.

Animation: Birds

To complete my practical methodology, I did a visual music piece using the chirping noise I have gathered from Hyde Park.

Mapping out noises at the park

The chirping sound is a fugue. Its impression is conveyed in Klee's painting below.

Fugue in Red (1921) by Paul Klee

Visual Music: Birds from Brenda Christie Muliawan on Vimeo.

Media: Acrylic paints on cartridge paper

I applied the direct-on-film animation technique while doing the visual music of the chirping sound by lining up papers and make long brush strokes over several pages and shapes which interweave.

Animation: Triangles

Inspired by Boogodobiegodongo to create a free form animation using oil pastels. I have developed a workflow by rehearsing the rhythmical pattern in my mind, drawing loosely based on it, then match it up to the music.

Learning points

• Developed an intuition for timing and spacing.
• Oil pastels' rough texture combined with loose lines creates jittery movements, saturates the screen.
• Within the loose synchronisation, there are coincidences in which the sound and visual are synchronised. Having this variation allows the whole composition to achieve harmony.

Visual Music Practice: Household Triangles from Brenda Christie Muliawan on Vimeo.

Peter Millard

Millard's naive drawings are inspired by Basquiat and Dubuffet. By incorporating this style in his animation, he creates a sensorial experience of the manic in everyday life.

Man from Naples (1982) by Jean-Michel Basquiat

The Lost Traveller (1950) by Jean Dubuffet

Boogodobiegodongo from peter millard on Vimeo.

Animation: Monster Inside the House

Deconstructing the anatomy of a radiator.

Possible forms that goes with the sound rupture.

Learning points:

- Be more spontaneous

- Take the observational approach, using forms from surroundings

- Using characters. Inspired by Boogodobiegodongo and rubber hose animation from 1920s

Critical Reflection:
- I tend to put moving character at the centre of the screen
- Should think about composition within the whole screen

Visual Music Practice: Crocodile Heater from Brenda Christie Muliawan on Vimeo.

Visual Journal: Len Lye

Lye is interested in motion as a language of art. 

Vibrating sensation through sequence of vivid colours and repeated patterns inspired by tribal art characterises Len Lye's work.

It has vast influence in the history of music video.

Stills from Rainbow Dance

Applying what I have learnt from Len Lye's work:

Potato Stamp Pattern Test

Mark making using paints and dyes by Len Lye compared to the organic look of the potato stamp

Marks conveying a sequence of motion

Repeating patterns in a direction

Variation of overlapping patterns

Brushing action

 Patterns Len Lye's work is inspired by tribal art and cave paintings

There are other exceptions of some monochromatic films and sketches

Primitivism in Free Radicals and Tusalava: messy, strong lines brings out the energy of the jitter

Study Sketches: Mapping the impression of movement through patterns

Visual Journal: Contemporary Inspirations

Books on Books by RAY

Abstract visual composition made using paper cutouts. Mechanical movements tells a satirical narrative of the future of graphic design in China.

Books on books from RAY on Vimeo.

Jazz Factory by Ed Cheverton

A unique approach to visual music: Loose synchronisation, timed so that the visuals seemingly produces the sound. Vibrating textures on the background follows the audio trajectories as an accompaniment to the melodic stem. 

Jazz Factory from Edward Cheverton on Vimeo.

Eye Echo from RCA MA Animation Workshop 2016

Visual music exercises done in RCA to explore the effect of vibrations using jittery textures and colour contrast. Judging from these visual responses to the audio, it can be discerned that the visual elements gets more saturated as the stems in the audio increases.

Eye Echo - RCA MA Animation Workshop 2016 from karolina glusiec on Vimeo.

Jazz Foo Foo by Emanuele Kabu

Abstract music video: Uses textures and repetition of sequence helps to convey the pulsing energetic rhythm.

Winterplay - Jazz Foo Foo [OFFICIAL] from Emanuele Kabu on Vimeo.

Colorimetrie en Mouvement by Nicolas Menard

Menard creates a mathematical colorimetric system based on his appreciation of Josef Albers' theory of interaction of colour. The film is a montage of recording during the development of the app, showing the metamorphosis of shapes and colour randomly jumping from one rule to another. Soundtrack applied to make the abstract universe more illustrative.

Colorimétrie en mouvement (2013) from Nicolas Ménard on Vimeo.

Woop, woop, chop by Nicolas Menard

Early development of colorimetric system.

woop woop, chop (2012) from Nicolas Ménard on Vimeo.

Spank Shot by Gina Kamentsky

Repetition of audio to create the comedic effect of the players fighting in hockey game. The intensity is conveyed through flashing colours in the background to match up with the upbeat rhythm.

Spank Shot from Gina Kamentsky on Vimeo.

Visual Journal: Different Stages of Geometrical Abstraction

Basic abstraction of concrete objects:

1. Non-objective fragmentation
2. Deconstruction
3. Two dimensional
4. Non-figurative two dimensional

Geometrical abstraction used in performing arts:

Dance Curves: On the Dances of Palucca (1926) by Wassily Kandinsky

Dominant Geometry on Chaplin's Performance

30 seconds gesture drawing exercise to convey dynamics of motion:

In this experiments I am trying to abstract concrete imageries in the 'Athletes of God' exercise from https://www.quickposes.com/en into its dominant curves and lines to express the direction of force and weight. The purpose is to accentuate the distribution of energy based on observation.

Wassily Kandinsky - On Spirituality in Art

In the book, Kandinsky explained that spiritual harmony in music is taken from natural phenomena and a matter of soul alone. Similarly, abstract painter is studying and proving their material to create the effect of spiritual vibration.

Kandinsky believes in the spiritual nature of colour:

• No objective connotation
• Synaesthesia - 'hear colours' and 'see sound'.
• Having to paint just circles, makes him focuses on colours interaction.
• Psychic effects of colours echoes and reverberates to other senses.
• Manipulation of unsuitable combination gives fresh possibilities to harmony.

Colour Study: Squares with Co centric Circles

Animation: Experiment with Graphical Notation

For this experiment, I have mixed pre-recorded sounds into an abstract rhythmical piece.

Appreciating sound artefacts by showing the dominant shapes and colours.

Graphical notation made through reduced listening of the cooking track.

Storyboard drawn with consideration of the graphical notation.

Outcome: Making a spontaneous free form animation with the audio wave structure in mind is more effective in capturing the feeling of movement than storyboarding.

Animation inspired by the graphical notation

• Mix and match each audio stems with a representative visuals. 
• Repetition makes point of reference which helps to express ideas effectively.

Visual Music Practice: Cooking from Brenda Christie Muliawan on Vimeo.

Oskar Fischinger's Visual Music

Oskar Fischinger's animation the movement of forms and the rhythm of the music echoes each other. This symbiotic flow arises from the interaction of colours and energetic movements linked to Fischinger's psychological states.

Fischinger's structural workflow:

• analyse a piece of music.
• breaking it down into time components.
• do the drawings separately from the music to create a visual composition.
• as a result, synchronisation is done entirely on its own.

Kreise (excerpt) by Oskar Fischinger from CVM on Vimeo.

Sources

• A credible documentation of Oskar Fischinger's Biography from Center for Visual Music: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Fischinger/
• William Moritz on Oskar Fischinger and Music: https://vimeo.com/13793156

KinoManual Experimental Workshop and Synthetic Sound

As major contribution to the development of my practical, the workshop has exposed me to the process of direct-on-film animation and Norman McLaren's synthetic sound.

Process of synthetic sound:
-drawing on the audio side of a film strip
-different shapes generates different sound

I have learnt that the queer aesthetic of direct-on-film comes with spontaneity and versatility of the mind. I felt more engaged with my thought when I do more and embrace the sensation of movements in free form animation. This humble pursuit preserves the organic quality within visual music.

Gestalt and Josef Albers' Interaction of Colour

How do we perceive and interpret forms & colours in mind?

Constellate: Perceive in terms of patterns rather than individually. Create a relational structure of the simply objective and turn them into a sensed natural phenomena.

Colour Intervals and Transformation

Transformation concerns colour intensity and light intensity showing equilibrium between contrast and affinity. By stepping up and down, it creates a special effect of transparence called film colour. 

Colour interval

Middle Mixture : Intersecting Colours

From the top - spatial illusion through connection and separation.

Last two - illusion of volume called fluting effect.

Spacing and relation between similar colours

Free studies with 3 colour stripes

The Bezold Effect

A method in which the colour combinations can be changed entirely by adding or changing one colour only.

Bezold Effect

Free Studies 

Practically, colour application has physical attributes of shape and size. Variations these inherent properties and other factors - recurrence and placement - are taken into account in the overall effect of their interactions. Hence, unlike notation in music and choreography in dance, colours' shapes and sizes does not necessarily directly related to tones. It is a more complex natural phenomenon which should be investigated in a qualitative manner through experimentation.

Failed attempt of free studies - No focus

Free studies with music: Redbone by Childish Gambino

Free studies with music: Fantômas by amiina

Mouse Click

Doors Opening and Closing

Quantity

2 basic quantity questions:

size - extension in area

recurrence - extension in number

"Both measurements concern predominance and emphasis. They establish weight in space - and weight in time."

Quantity (animated to Get It On by T. Rex)

Exploring Quantity in Circles and Squares

Exploring Quantity in Rectangles

Investigating Movement as Gestalt

Examining Barthes' the 'diction of language' in music in which 'body' performance plays an important part in creating gestalt; merging the theories of form with the making process of objects to create a sensed natural phenomena.

Learning Points

• Performance: Variations of timing and spacing give a different nuance to the new image formed.
• Intuitive trial-and-error with spontaneous movement repeatedly done to create the desired effect (personal agreement of what is aesthetic).

Translation and Rotation

Vibration

Tutorial 3

Change title to 'Importance of audio to animated performance or movement'

Tacit: understood or implied without being stated

Visual language

Chaplin economy of gestures

Wassily Kandinsky - Constructivist geometry and spiritual effect of colours

Don't bring up animated characters, just elemental figures, forms and animated composition

Visual Music

Principles of animation: acting or reacting which comes first?

Acoustic language

Dedicate a section about diegetic and non diegetic sound

Audio motives. melodic repetition.

Tacit language developed based on prior knowledge of acoustic properties such as timbre, minor/major key, pitch, layers of sound affects planes in visual composition.

Practitioners

Oskar Fischinger

Len Lye

Norman McLaren

Samantha Moore

John Whitney

Stan Brackhage (responding to organic noises)

Markus Waltz

(Contemporary ones)

Rainer Kohlberg

Steven Woloshen's Casino

Experimental Composers

William Basinski - Disintegration Loops

Keith Fullerton Whitman / Hvartski

Relevant Quotes from Animation in Context

‘The narration told the overall story, but the music created the deeper shades of meaning.’

‘The musical phrase associated with each character is known as a leitmotif.’

‘Leitmotifs can also be ‘hardwired’ into the human psyche. In other words, there are many natural and manmade sounds that can evoke an instinctive emotional feeling or association in the human mind … Leitmotifs can in this way be associated with abstract cultural ideas and evoke spiritual feelings’

Modernist Philosophy

Italian Futurism

vision of progress

celebrated the modern utopia made up of machines, revolution, movement and speed

dynamism and energy

Gesamkunstwerk

'cross-fertilisation of modernist art forms was often expressed in tactical programmings of the manifesto.'

Arnold Schoenberg

Twelve tone composition

'explore ideas of creating structures of visual pattern'

formal patterns and dynamics, fluidity

Wasilly Kandinsky

non-objective abstract art

Music satisfies the modern desire for rhythm in painting, for mathematical, abstract construction, for repeated notes and colour, for setting colour in motion.

Analyses forms and colours not from ideas association but from painter's inner experience.

'inner necessity' - Sensorially rich, intuitive, inner subjective observation.

Constructivist

Seeing aesthetic combination as a whole not as separate things.

Approach of learning: reflect on our experiences and construct our own understanding of the world.

References:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassily_Kandinsky#Theoretical_writings_on_art
• http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/constructivism
• Rodrigues, C. (2004) Introducing Modernism, Royston: Icon Book Ltd.

Synesthesia: Intuitive Scribbles

I was inspired by and loosely draw lines and forms to some of the old Blade Runner soundtrack. I realise one thing about making visual music is that you have to get the mood of the music right before scribbling in order to get the right form. The form is shaped after first few seconds listening to the music and familiarising with the rhythm.

In the first two drawings I use one continuous line to get into the flow. 

The circles and dotted lines drawing is inspired by Oskar Fischinger's Experiment Painting. Sparseness between lines signifies rhythm and the size of the circles follows fortissimo. Constructing the composition according to the flow of the music.

Examples of Visual Music

COP3 Practical Refined Idea

Practical: Sound informs the visualisation of the movement

• Sound acquisition have to come first.
• From where? Choose 3 among historic landmarks in Leeds.
• Examples: Corn Exchange, Shopping arcades or Kirkgate Market (crowded), Kirkstall Abbey, pubs, cafes or eateries (recreational), Meanwood (natural).
• Research the historical context before going to the places.
• Journal sketches while listening to the ambient sound in the landmarks.
• Create moving character that tells the story of the landmarks: Texture, shape and colour.
• Consider visualisation of rhythm & harmony and disruptive sound.
• Product: 30 seconds animation that relates to mood and audience perception.

Aim of the practical:

Storytelling through visual inspired by rhythm of sound. Focus on the sound projection in historic landmarks to relate to Extended Practice.

Chapter Structure Proposal

Movement

• Tacit vocabulary of expression through leitmotifs and plasticity of image in Chaplinesque comedy.
• Image as abstractions, cut out by senses and understanding progresses, manner of consciousness.
• Movement as a whole indivisible continuity. Transition between frames.
• Performance with social significance.
• Synaesthesia and overcoming language barrier.

Acoustic

• Diegetic and non-diegetic sound
• Temporalisation: timing and spacing in movement
• Listening modes
• Naturally and culturally based influence. e.g: Stan Brakhage (relevant to responding to environmental condition)
• Animism and dynamism apparatus

Audiovisual relation

• Wassily Kandinsky
• Visual music: Music as model, movement as primary design factor.
• Examples: Oskar Fischinger, Norman McLaren, Len Lye,
• Laban movement thematics (choreography / flow of movements)
• Abstraction of geometry and colour in animated composition
• Accentuation and exaggerated silhouette in gestures
• Play around with intuitive animated compositions, shapes and forms.

• Sound-image relationship: iconic, isomorphic, anarchic
• Textual analysis: How mood and meaning is conveyed through different sound-image relationship.

Cultural Aesthetic and Technological Development

• Reproducibility: made accessible for everyone
• Constant shift between low brow and high brow: animators constantly experimenting ways to deviate the conventional structure
• Constant experimentation with sound: Disney's Metronome, McLaren Neighbours (synthetic sound), Carl Stalling (illogical SFX for gags), Hans Zimmer (shepard tone - illusion of rising tension
• Relate this back to the purposes of animation: consider their structures.

Practical

• Create an animation based on sounds, take into account textures and noises of audio pieces selected when designing the characters and the environment.
• Consider mood and meaning when listening to the audio. (outcome: chaos or order?)
• Experiment with different traditional medium to best express my response to the audio.

Conclusion

Summary of Reading - Understanding Animation

Abstract Animation
- shape or forms moving in illogical continuity
- primal: seeks to represent inarticulable personal feelings beyond the orthodoxies of language
- rejection of rationalism and emerging from the unconscious mind

- philosophic and spiritual

- subjective interpretation

Sound
- distinguish diegetic and non-diegetic
- interpreted through the feelings it inspires
- specific signifier for the purpose of narration and characterisation
- Some conventional use of non-diegetic sound: reinforce naturalism (Disney), accentuate comic imperative (Warner Bros.).

Choreography
- Laban's movement thematics: formalist approach to define mood and meaning
- observing people to discern the need for and aims and intentions of their movement
- 'focuses on the flow of the weight of the body in time and space, articulating the effort action'
- Depicting conflict through juxtaposition of rhythm and function in any sequence

'Experimental Animation has a strong relationship to music and, indeed, it may be suggested that if music could be visualised it would look like colours and shapes moving through time with differing rhythms, movements and speeds' (Wells, 2006)

Source:

Wells, P. (2006 [1998]) Understanding Animation, King's Lynn: Routledge.

Choreography Notes from Understanding Animation

Choreography
- the prominence of the dynamics of movement as a narrative principle

- for McLaren, every animated film echoed dance 'because the most important thing in film is motion, movement. No matter what it is you're moving, whether it's people or objects or drawings; and in what way it's done,  it's a form of dance.' (Bendazzi, 1994)

- 'Understanding movements and their functions can therefore be a means of understanding people. If they move to satisfy a need to express, then by observing and analysing movement one can discern the need and also the aims and intentions of the movement' (Hodgeson and Preston-Dunlop, 1990)

- 'narrative often played out purely through the movement of the body as it is represented in the animated film.'

- 'The 'body' here might be understood as an obvious representation of the human/animal form, an abstracted version of human/animal form, or purely abstracted shape that finds correspondence with the dynamics of movements available to the physical form.'

- Rudolf Laban's modern dance theory:
  16 basic movement themes (construction of movements):

(on weight, space, time and flow)

1. Awareness of body
2. Awareness if the body's resistance to weight and time
3. Awareness of space
4. A recognition of the flow of the weight of the body in time and space
5. The need to adapt to the movement of others
6. A recognition of the instrumental (functional) use of limbs
7. An increased awareness of isolated actions
8. An understanding of occupational rhythms (work-related movements) 

-'it (the animated forms) can only give the impression of 'space' and 'weight''
'It may be argued, though, that animation is liberating because it can manipulate the illusion of space and needs no recognition of weight unless it wishes to draw attention to the implications of a figure or an object actually being light or heavy.'
'the weight that the animators wishes to imply'
'relies on the viewer's understanding of the actual weight of figures and objects in the 'real world''


(on rhythm and function of movement)

  9. The ability to create different shapes of movement
10. The deployment of the 8 basic effort actions
       Wringing
       Pressing
       Gliding
       Floating
       Flicking
       Slashing
       Punching
       Dabbing
11. Orientating the body in space, playing out the following key tensions:
       Firm          <--->   Light
       Sustained  <--->   Sudden
       Direct       <--->   Flexible
       Bound      <--->   Free
12. Relating shape of movement to effort of action
13. The ability to elevate the body from the ground
14. To create group feeling through the expression of movement
15. To create group formation through movement (e.g. circles, rows, etc.)
16. To determine action moods through the expressive qualities of movement

'especially useful in the detailed address of choreographic movement in animation because the elements successfully focuses upon the specific vocabulary of any one movement. This helps to distinguish the source of the movement, and the impulses from which it arises; the direction of the movement and its purpose; and the final outcome of the movement, either as it completes its own process, or informs the following cycle of movement.'

Paul Wells on Richard William's view of the whale scene in Pinocchio:
- focuses on the flow of the weight of the body in time and space, articulating the effort action

- Using Laban movement thematic to explain the process from 'floating' effort action to a 'punching' effort action:
Action moods 'from passivity to anger' triggered by heat and smoke -> 'bound' state -'free' state tension, stillness till the sneeze 'freeing' the body to move (sustained-sudden) -> changes the space orientation.

Juxtaposition of rhythms and functions that occurs between the whale and the fleeing characters:
(movement and counter-movement) instrumental use of limbs by Geppetto and Pinocchio; 'slashing' in contrast to whale's 'punching'. -> climax: whale's failure -> final outcome: stillness and quiet

'By addressing the different and conflicting modes of movement in any one sequence, it is possible to reveal the inherent qualities of the animation itself in the determination of time, space, weight and flow.'

'The formalist approach engages with the implicit meanings of movement and serves to add another dimension to the understanding of animation as a medium over and above its capacity to capture the thrill of the chase or a moral and ideological conflict'


Case Study

(Feet of Song, 1988. by Erica Russell)

- abstracted human figures engaging in a number of dance oriented movements correspondent to a soundtrack of calypso music.

Analysis using movement thematics
Awareness of body - opening image which prioritise symmetry and balance in upright form
Awareness of space - circular turn pivoting in one leg
Adaptation to partners - multiple figures abstractly linked together and are compressed to indicate the center of the body as the key instigator of movement.
Instrumental - redetermined pushing movement as expressive rather than functional
'gliding' and then 'slashing'

The 'body'
- Abstract and highly-stylised design - calls attention to the illustrative and choreographic elements of both animation and dance, essentially defining their intrinsic relationship.
-fusion of different shapes and forms
-narrated through the vocabulary of dance and the expressive design schemata of the animated form.

'Russell has not subjected her bodies to the demands of realistic movement and 'a story', but used her bodies to narrate the inarticulable abstraction and satisfaction of rhythm and movement. Laban's movement thematics enable the viewer to penetrate this language and define the mood and meaning of physical expression.

Sound Notes from Understanding Animation

Sound
- creates mood and atmosphere, pace and emphasis

- 'creates a vocabulary by which the visual codes of the films are understood'

- elements that composes sounds in films:
     1. Voiceover [omnipotent narrator] (non-diegetic)
     2. Character monologue (diegetic)
     3. Character monologue (non-diegetic)

     4. Character dialogue (diegetic)

     5. Character dialogue (non-diegetic)

     6. Instrumental Music (diegetic)

     7. Instrumental Music (non-diegetic)
     8. Song [music with lyrics] (diegetic)
     9. Song [music with lyrics] (non-diegetic)

   10. Sound effects (diegetic)

   11. Sound effects (non-diegetic)

   12. Atmosphere tracks

- Sense of now-ness:
 'Music may be normally interpreted through the feelings it inspires, and is deployed to elicit specific emotional responses in the viewer and define the underlying feeling bases in the story.'

-'From the use of 'real', un-scripted, non-performance voices through to the overt mimicry and caricature in the vocal characterisations by such revered figures as Mel Blanc and Dawes Butler, the tone, pitch, volume and onomatopoeic accuracy of spoken delivery carries with it a particular guiding meta-narrative that supports the overall narrative of the animation itself. In the same way as music, the voice, in regards to how it sounds, as much as what it is saying, suggests a narrative agenda.'

- hyper-realist texts (e.g. Disney):
'emotional synchrony of the voice is reinforcing modes of naturalism'; uses non-diegetic to heighten the emotive aspect.

- Warner Bros. (Chuck Jones):
 '... whenever possible, never use a sound effect that you'd expect. It should have the same effect on your ears but should not be the same sound effect.' 'So your eyes sees one thing and your ear says the opposite.'

'constitute a sound/image relationship unique to the animated film, particularly with regard to the comic imperatives it placed within the narrative structure.'

'delineate specific narrative information'

 Case Studies
(Gerald McBoingBoing, 1951 by UPA)

- A film directly addressing the role of sound in animated cartoon

- minimalist, expressionist background, 'smear' animation

- Anarchic - liberate from Disney's hyper-realism and Warner Bros. and MGM's comic anarchy - 'to achieve more aesthetic and philosophic effects, or an altogether more self-conscious style of humour.'

- The language of sound as a narrative tool:
'The noise essentially narrates the scene and determines its visual possibilities.'
'drawing attention to the consequences of the sound itself as the substitutional representation of an action.' as displayed by the gradually heightening tension stirred up at the beginning up to effect of the explosion.
'defining its central character through the non-diegetic apparatus of the voiceover and musical interludes and, most importantly, through the shift of sound-effects as non-diegetic imposition on a scenario to a diegetic voice within the scenario.'

-'The pertinent use of sound as a specific signifier for the purpose of narration and characterisation': 'Gerald McBoing-Boing recognises sound as a mode of authentication, and implicitly illustrates the relationships between the impositional animator and the requirements of the texts. In many senses, sound is the chief mechanism by which this relationship may be properly evaluated.'


(Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Prologue (1989) by Disney)

- Musical narrative: 'a self-conscious expression of the tension between the realist mode and the performance mode, where the musical presupposes the translation of speech into song, walking into dancing, objects into props, and any environment into a version of a stage.'

- Song's mood dictates the pace and rhythm of the action with occasional diegetic authentication.

- 'The role of a song in the soundtrack, may therefore, legitimise the use of the lyrics to illustrate thoughts and emotions, and/or extend narrative questions and issues. It may also provide a structural device for the specific choreography of a scene or the background for other exchanges. Further, it might be an expression of both diegetic and non-diegetic information, and the stimulus for particular  kinds of imagery.'

- '... it also defines aspects of character, particularly those concerning motivation.'

Experimental Animation Notes from Understanding Animation

Abstraction (aesthetic)
- 'abstract films are more concerned with rhythm and movement in their own right as opposed to the rhythm and movement of a particular character.'
-'shape or forms rather than figures'
-'highest mental and spiritual faculties'

Specific non-continuity (distinctive language | non-narrative)
-'signals the rejection of logical and linear continuity and the prioritisation of the logical and linear continuity and the prioritisation of illogical, irrational and sometimes multiples continuity.'
-'continuities are specific in a sense that they are the vocabulary unique to the particular animation in question'

Interpretive form
- Self-expression: 'vocabulary used by painters and sculptors'
- Subjective: 'the audience are required to interpret the work on their own terms, or terms predetermined by the artist.'
- (William Moritz) 'using animation in a directly metaphoric - "spirit and integrity of its own"- way and not working in the realms of the purely abstract.'

Evolution of materiality
- recognises the physical nature of the medium of choice

Multiple styles
Orthodox Animation: unity of style
Experimental: mixing 'to facilitate the multiplicity of personal visions an artist may wish to incorporate in a film, ... to challenge and re-work the orthodox codes and conventions and create new effects.'

Presence of the artist
-personal, subjective, original responses
-'relations between the artist and the work, and the relationship of the audience to the artist as it is being mediated through the work.'
-'closely related to philosophic and spiritual concerns and seeks to represent inarticulable personal feelings beyond the orthodoxies of language.'

Dynamics of Musicality
-'if music could be visualised it would look like colours and shapes moving through time with differing rhythms, movements and speeds.'
-'psychological and emotional relationship with sound and colour which may be expressed through free form which characterises animation.'
-'often resisting dialogue, the cliched sound effects of the cartoon, or the easy emotiveness of certain kinds of music.'
-'Silence, and avant-garde score, unusual sounds and redefined notions of 'language' are used to create different kinds of statement.'
-'if orthodox animation is about 'prose' then experimental animation is more 'poetic' and suggestive in its intention'

Case studies: non-objective and non-linear animation
(A Colour Box, 1935. Dir. Len Lye)

"A Colour Box" (1932) from Bob Sitton on Vimeo.

'Composing motion' as it reveals the 'Body Energy' which connects the music and images
-the lines, shapes and colours that move in relation to the music represent the spontaneous physical response of the artist during the moment of expression.
-'narrative' is entirely bound up with the psychological and emotional state of the artist in relation to social and environmental stimulus, the background and experience of the artist, and the artist's knowledge and use of the medium.'
-'action that takes place between the frames; subject to intense variation given the conditions he imposes upon himself in making the film.'
-'viewers must find their own relationship with imagery and its determinate meanings on their own terms.'


(The Nose, 1963. Dir. Alexander Alexeiff)

-pinscreen technique: prioritised the ways in which light redefined solid materials rather than animation concerned with line-forms or surfaces.
-'create narrative ambiguities and destabilised environments.'
-'His films seem dream-like and render the viewer uncertain and vulnerable, yet encouraged to participate in dream logic which seems to define parallel worlds.'
- (in other words) create 'the unnatural' and address 'the uncanny'
-'resisting an obvious 'story' in order to create mood and atmosphere'
-'music was later added to punctuate aspects of it rather than to create a specified emotional response.'
-Strong Surrealist tendency: rejection of rationalism -> Freudian theory
(Andre Breton Surrealist Manifesto) 'art should emerge uninhibited from the unconscious mind, recovering the imagination to engage with notions of supernatural  and the re-creation of myths.'
-'Characters' slip in and out of a fluid physical environment and have a temporary narrative status, seemingly operating as figments of the imagination.
- the 'uncanny' can materialise through the acknowledgement and acceptance of the power and effect of any animated image.

(Deadsy, 1990. Dir. David Anderson)

Deadsy (Excerpt) - David Anderson from Film Club Productions on Vimeo.

-Xerography and puppet animation
-Xeroxed (photocopied) and enlarged, and then rendered and drawn on before being re-filmed on a rostrum.
-'The effect to distort and degrade image to create a haunting and hallucinatory quality to 'the character'
'The film continually blurs lines in regard to its representation of 'life' and 'death', masculinity and femininity, and the physicality of sex and violence.'
-'Animation also reduces the status of 'the body' and, in doing so, extends its vocabulary of representation, thus using it as an infinitely malleable property less fixed by biological or social constraints. The body here is uncertain but obviously politicised.'
-'Anderson is attempting to re-engage an audience with its deepest fears, using an abstraction of visual and verbal languages, which resist rationalist interpretation and evoke primal 'babble' of the unconscious mind directly expressing the taboo and the repressed aspects of the human condition.'
-'deliberately resisting interpretations', 'disorientate and provoke the viewer'
-'refutes and invalidates it (sense of 'the real'), insisting upon the medium's capacity to create different and unique image systems with their own inherent form and meaning.'