Bradford Animation Festival

This was my first time to attend a animation festival which was not a Chinese animation festival, and I realized that it’s really unlike Chinese. Chinese animation festivals look like exhibition, there will some animation models and game models and some people dress as characters from animations or games. More of people who attend are interested and visitors, there are a few designer want to learn from those animation festivals. However, there are almost lectures in Bradford Animation Festival. It is a bit boring for me because my English is not very well and I can’t understand the details what they say, but I also learn some things.

I had to say I was especially impressed with a animation which i didn't remember its name.It talked about a relationship between a women and her son.I am barely tearing up because watching animations or any movie, however, i was tearing up and the audience who teared up was not just me, it was most of audiences. I realized the importance of strong feeling in an animation after calm down. Chinese animation lacks of strong feeling and most of them is just imitation, so there is hardly a successful animation in China, nevertheless, the animations from America and Europe is famous on their story lines. I think i can focus on imagining my story lines in the future.

A good story is a good story, no matter the medium. When you move to a visual and auditory medium such as animation, you have a much wider field to play with, allowing you to show things you could only normally describe without limiting yourself because of character point of view or other boundaries of the medium. Too, there are drawbacks, such as lacking much room for inner monologue in an animated scene, and the need tho show visually a character's thought process without narrating all of it.

We shouldn't need to be told how someone feels in a visual/auditory storytelling medium.We know someone is in pain by how they clutch the affected area, and their agonized cry; we even know the intensity of the pain by how loud the cry is, and how extreme their reaction. An agonized scream tells us to be worried, while an "ouch!" tells us something is a minor inconvenience. A flinch says papercut; collapsing to the knees says mortal wound. You don't even have to show the wound; it's all about the character actions and using them appropriately to convey emotion. A character can say "I love you" with a look without needing to say the words out loud. Though in animations, you also have the advantage of cartoon effects - fluttering hearts in the background, throbbing hearts bulging from the eyes or chest, etc. Motion, too, has its place; instead of saying "I'm dizzy" a character can reel back and forth with a slack, cross-eyed expression. Take every chance you can to show us how characters feel, whether through normal or extreme portrayals, rather than telling us.

One advantage you don't have in verbal storytelling is the use of color palettes to set the tone. Using color in deliberate ways can go a long way to convey the mood; a washed-out palette can convey a drab, gloomy scene, while dark, stark contrasts tell us we're in a hard-hitting noir setting or a horror. Pastels convey a lighter tone, while consistent use of warm tones can tell us we're in a romance. Think about how color affects your mood and what colors you associate with particular emotions, and choose the color palettes and contrasts for your scenes and settings appropriately. Understand, too, how lighting can affect the mood and the setting, whether soft or dramatic. A scene painted with soft gold or red-gold overtones of light can tell us it's sunrise or sunset; blues tell us it's night; deep shadows with the occasional stark edge of a shape can tell us it's night, or in the middle of a thunderstorm, or just...well, really creepy.

 

Creative futures

It was very helpful for me to this brief for creative futures, I heard wonderful talks and saw a lot of brilliant works from students and professionals. I saw a lot at the Creative Futures Week and I did learn a lot from it although I couldn’t understand all the details of those talks because English is not my first language.

I’ll begin with “Motivating yourself to get what you really want” from Denise Chilton as that is the most impressive for me, although she didn’t teach me any skill of game design. An effective persuasive speech includes a summary of the evidence presented. She gave us lots of data from her research, at the same time, she gave each of us a questionnaire. Everyone there thought of how satisfy of their lives, what they really need and what they need most at the time. Also she ask some questions and some of the answers she got were quite fun. I should say the atmosphere there was celebratory and I felt happy when I heard it. 

Although everyone could answer the questions as what motivates you, but I realized it was a problem when she want to get personal goals from audiences and there were few answers. A clear goal could help people works twice as fast and with half the fatigue, but there were few people have personal goal.

Back when I was a kid I wanted to be a animator and I drew on a wall of neighbour, then I wanted to be praised and signed my name, but what I got was just scold. After that I was barred to want to be a animator. Although I am doing this, I still believe drawing can motivate me more if my wish was been supported. I realized the importance of goals through this talk. Ensuring a clear goal is not enough, there will be varied things can stop you. Denise Chilton also told us methods to continue our efforts for our goals. The thing what I learned from this talk may be quite simple but it is really important for my work in the future, it is the most basic thing.

The talk “Design studio overview and insight(Fashion)” was awesome, it didn’t really serve me much applicable knowledge about my subject, however, I feel a lot of the most knowledge to my dissertation next year was from there. She has her own unique insights at fashion and her careers can show us her success. I think I can combine with her overview and insight and collect some game role costume design works to find out some information which I need.

Background information on speaker designer with own label trading for 20 years, Jane Davies is the Welsh designer using the national flag in her outfits. The dragon collection was developed in 1999 where at that time Wales was having its own assembly and holding the Rugby World cup. The concept was created from a Welsh dragon dress made for her niece and the collection developed into a 10 pieces aimed at adults and children. Overnight orders rolled in and sold through websites, independents and department stores globally. The visual idea caught the attention of the world media and the collection was produced in national flags of the world. Many private orders came from celebrities, ambassadors, media and governments. The collection was produced all in Wales which in turn helped the economy and small business.

Jane was not just done this. The inspiration came from the colors of the peacock feather itself and the collection was created to showcase at the British Embassy Dubai. From there the collection was taken as part of best of British in Kuwait a great achievement for a small company based in Wales. Pieces of the collection were commissioned by the Chrysler Building New York and awarded “Top 10” at Showcase Ireland. Talk about peacock feather, in the traditional Chinese culture is the embodiment of beauty, a symbol of the kind, beautiful, elegant, good luck and love. Chinese senior officials of the Qing Dynasty(1636-1912) use the peacock feathers as hat ornaments, called HuaLing, with one eye, two eyes, three eyes, So-called ”eye”, refers to the peacock’s tail tip color stripes.

Chris woodworlds talk from TT games was also awesome, i’ve learnt some real interesting aspects that will help me in the future to achieve all that i can in regards to hunt a job and motivation. Chris was quite a humor speaker, he show us how he got a job and how long it took him even the photographs where he had gone. He showed us some videos what he did from the LEGO games and some of the procedure. I never knew a 2D painting expression can move on a 3D software, I should say I got a lot of valuable information from his talk.