COP3 - Development of designs

Expressions.

Here I developed some basic expressions for my characters. The main focus for the characters will be their eyebrows as they have strong eyebrows and I think it would be funny. I want my characters to have a simplistic design as the episodes will focus mainly on dialogue.

Further Development sketches.

Because I am still trying to get to grips with using a tablet, I found it difficult to draw original content in photoshop. I kept having to sketch out shapes on paper and then scan it in and draw over the top in order to keep my sketches consistent. 

Adding colour

I wanted to keep the tones quite warm for my characters as I want it the colours to juxtapose the content on the show that would deal with heavy subjects but in a light hearted way.

Final designs

This is the set of colours I decided to go with for my characters.

Overall, I feel as though I would be able to convey the emotions that I intended to do with these characters through the use of space and the characters themselves. Because I took a lot of content inspiration from Bojack horseman, I wanted to dedicate the show to entertainment as well as empathy that usually comes with UK families. 

COP 3 Poster

COP3 Character development

I decided to put together a brief bases for me to go off in order to develop my character designs. here I quickly mapped out the brief characters description. The mother character will be mysterious as she would only be spoken of.

This is my character description for Holly who is the oldest child out of the two. 

Joe Carmen works as a florist, his uniform will involve an apron much like a chef, which was what he wanted to be in his youth. He will play the typical strong father figure, but will also deal with dark personal issues that only the audience will see through the use of the one room being used throughout each episode.

Steve Carmen is the youngest sibling out of the two. His outfits will change each episode depending on what typical teenager phase he will be going through. In one episode he will be dressed in "chav" attire, and adopt a typical chav accent, another episode he will be dressed in a peaky blinders-esque outfit and have a brummy accent after binge watching the show etc. 

Moodboards.

This is joe's moodboard. I decided to base his looks off actors that have that sort of "dad" look about them. I also included floral designs as he works as a florist and I want his apron to have a similar pattern. 

This moodboard is for Holly Carmen. Because shes an art student, I want her to look and dress similar to what a "typical art student" would wear. I want the characters to have similar facial appearances as they are related. I will do this by giving them similar eyes and hair colour.

this is the moodboard for steve. I want him to look quite nerdy and like a scrawny, confused 14 year old boy. Because he will be going through phases like a teenager does, I included images that represent chavs as well as a few nerdy ones for the base of the character.

Initial character designs.

Joe.

Here are my initial sketches for joe. I want him to look quite angry to juxtapose his seemingly happy demeanor towards his children. Because I plan on having the animation look like traditional hand-drawn animation, but i will be creating this effect by using similar brushes in photoshop.

Steve

I wanted steve to look like a gaunt, scrawny teenager, with bad skin and strange hair. 

I want his outfits to change in every episode, so I will create different variations of his phases and outfits in photoshop.

Holly

I wanted Holly's face to have similar eyebrows to her dad in order to demonstrate that they're related. to make the characters look like they exist in the same world, I made their eyes similar as well as making the ends of the hair look siilar.

this was a quick sketch of what I wanted her body to look like. I will develop her outfits further down the line. 

my next step is to create different variations of my characters, like expression sheets as well as outfits. 

COP 3 - Character research and concept building

For my practical I want to create a set of character designs and some sort of pitch bible. I created some brief notes to help get the ball rolling on what exactly I wanted the show and characters to be like.

From my visual and contextual research on already existing animated sitcoms, I came to the conclusion that the shows revolve around family dynamics but the protagonist is usually a male father figure. The main point of my essay and practical is to challenge the dynamic of animated sitcoms but still conform in certain aspects. 

The plan is to have 6 episodes in the first season. I will mainly focus on what happens in the pilot episode because that will be what sets the tone of the show.  The idea is that the parents have split up and there will be a sense of mystery about why and where the mother is. the characters will know and hint throughout the first season as to where the mother is. Each episode will be 15 minutes long

I came up with the idea that because UK families value dinner time a lot that the episodes will be based around the dining table and focus on dialogue fueled by the main protagonist. I decided that the protagonist will be a young female character who's family dynamic mimics the common UK family dynamic. Her parents will be divorced and she will live with her dad rather than her mum in order to conform as well as challenge what the dynamic is when parents split up. Usually the mother has custody over the children, but I want to challenge this concept in this show. I want there to be a comedic vibe to the show but I also want there to be some relatable aspects as well. Because it's common for parents to split up in the UK, I want there to be a sense of a broken family but they find solace in humour and each others company in order to support my essay that challenges how comedy is presented through animated sitcoms.

I want the aesthetic of the characters and show to be individual but still readable in the sense that it's not too outlandish so it distracts from the dialogue. I decided that the families last name would be "Carmen", a play on words for "common" as they are meant to be representations of a common UK family.

COP 3 - practical - research

For my practical response I will put together a set of character designs that will be for an animated sitcom, similar to classic like The Simpsons, Family guy and other popular, modern animated tv shows. However, my characters will live in the UK and be representations of what a uk based family is. My reason for doing this is because from my initial research, I found that there is a lack of successful UK based animated sitcoms.

here I put together a quick moodboard with images of popular animated sitcoms for me to take inspiration from. my main animations that I will be taking inspiration from are shows like The simpsons and Family guy as they are similar is content and are also two of the most successful animated sitcoms to date.

I also decided to do some factual research that revolved around the idea of a UK family. I looked at statistics to help me gain an understanding as to what uk families view as vital family time.

• In 2016 there were 18.9 million families in the UK.
• There were 12.7 million married or civil partner couple families in the UK in 2016. This was the most common type of family.
• Cohabiting couple families were the fastest growing family type between 1996 and 2016, more than doubling from 1.5 million families to 3.3 million families.
• In 2016, around 25% of young adults aged 20 to 34 were living with their parents, increasing from 21% in 1996.
• In 2016, around 7.7 million people lived alone in the UK, the majority were women.
• “In 2016, married or civil partner couple families remained the most common type of family in the UK although cohabiting couple families were the fastest growing family type over the last 20 years. The growth in cohabiting couple families may be due to couples choosing cohabitation as an alternative or precursor to marriage”.
• Pamela Cobb, Population Statistics Division, Office for National Statistics
• A family is a married, civil partnered or cohabiting couple with or without children, or a lone parent, with at least one child, who live at the same address. Children may be dependent or non-dependent.
• A household is one person living alone, or a group of people (not necessarily related) living at the same address who share cooking facilities and share a living room, sitting room or dining area. A household can consist of more than one family, or no families in the case of a group of unrelated people.
• Dependent children are those aged under 16 living with at least one parent, or aged 16 to 18 in full-time education, excluding all children who have a spouse, partner or child living in the household.
• The families and households estimates are based on social survey data from the April to June  quarter of the Labour Force Survey (LFS) household dataset.

• *Married couple families include both opposite sex and same sex married couples. Cohabiting couple families include both opposite sex and same sex cohabiting couples
• Families without dependent children have only non-dependent children or no children in the household
• Lone parent families grew by 18.6%, a statistically significant increase; married couple families grew very little (0.3%), not a statistically significant increase, over the 2 decades.
• Of the 2.9 million lone parent families in the UK in 2016, the majority (86%) were headed by a female lone parent, the remaining 14% were headed by a male lone parent. These percentages have changed little over the 20 years since 1996. This could be associated with women being more likely to take the main caring responsibilities for any children when a relationship breaks down and therefore becoming lone parents.
• In 2016, of all lone parents with dependent children, 55% had only 1 child, higher than both other family types shown in Figure 3. Further, only 13% of lone parents had 3 or more children. Conversely, married couples with dependent children had more children on average than other family types and only 39% had only 1 dependent child. These patterns are likely to reflect the stability of parental partnerships, as well as the fact that people often marry after having a child and then have further children within marriage; this is demonstrated in the registration status at birth statistics.
• 
  
• “Mealtimes reflect UK Family life”
• 
  
• "We stick together," she says. "We're a unit of individuals."
• "We always eat breakfast together," she says. "It tends to be the only time we're always together." 

From this research, I understand that UK families typically favour meal times as a fundamental and key time for their families to socialise, much like in the US, sitting in front of a tv as a family is commonly seen as "family time", (much like the couch gags in the simpsons).

This research helped me come up with a concept for my animated sitcom, where it will be based around a dining table. Because of how high the divorce rate is in the UK, this has given me the idea to focus on one character who will switch half way in the episode to go visit the other family. the two seperate families will be distinctly different. The set up of the episodes will be based around the dining table which will allow for a lot of dialogue and will focus mainly on the characters dynamic and how they communicate and "function".  

COP 3 - week 1

After my tutorial with Fred, I came to the conclusion that I should be focusing on what goes into an animated sitcom rather than the aesthetics. We also identified that US animated sitcoms are a lot more successful that UK ones, which is quite interesting to me. This has lead me to think that I could possibly make a pitch bible or even a short pilot of a UK animated tv show that juxtaposes US sitcoms. 

Fred advised me to identify 5 examples of US animated sitcoms that I could use as case studies.

5 Examples of US animated sitcoms:

• The Simpsons
• Family Guy
• South Park
• Bojack Horseman 
• The fifth one could either be Archer, Adventure time or Rick and Morty. These 3 options are quite different from my core 4 options, however they are still entertaining and modern and have that classic popularity that the core 4 have.

10 Key quotes

1 - Family guy takes a more fractured approach. relaxing or completely deconstructing the rules of narrative structure to allow for pop culture references and non sequiturs."

2 - "The pay off for the viewer is the pleasure that accompanies the "Knowingness" of recognising an obscure reference and the status elevation this can bring within a community of fans" - Plays on the viewers mind

3 - "Family guy has been accused of all the crimes of blank parody: meaninglessness, plagiarism, banality, laziness, and being formulaic." - " Oh Yeah!: Family guy as Magical Realism?" - Alison Crawford

4 - "Logic is at the root of all humour" - How to write for animation - Jeffrey Scott pg 132

5 - "We ought to make people forget they are watching a cartoon" - Matt Groening on realism in the Simpsons

6 - the idea of a "channel surfer" - "...channel surfer is actually an extremely savvy and aware individual, deftly skipping over persuasive advertising and assessing narratives in a short space of time.." - Douglas Rushkoff 

7 - "Family guy certainly provides many opportunities for viewers to exercise this kind of mental agility because program parodies and interruptions provided by characters from other shows come thick and fast" - "Oh yeah!"

8 - "The real vs fantasy debate has been central to all manner of cartoon criticism... The emphasis however, always falls on how physical violence affects the behavior of the child-spectator, never on the broader, social analysis of the effects of misogyny, racism, or classism." pg 134 - Cartoon and comic classicism: High-Art histories of Lowbrow Culture

9 - "Hank Hill is no victim. And he's not a clueless buffoon like Homer Simpson. He's the kind of guy TV usually makes fun of but Mike Judge, a Longhorn State resident, clearly has affection for. Not quite redneck, he's neither upscale nor downscale - more like midscale" (Marin). According to this critic, Hank was represented in a way that suggested audiences were likely to identify with him rather than against him. Pork rinds and barbeque grills are popular all across America, after all, though the TV taste makers might look past them at the gas station, and the Hollywood elite might dress up their barbeque pits and backyard patios." "I am not down with that": King of the hill and sitcom satire - Ethan Thompson.

10 - "Aiming for realism, the everyday and strong emotional resonance" - "Oh Yeah" 

Statements that I want to make:

1- I want to discuss what makes an animated sitcom successful, focussing mostly on the content and referencing the aesthetics of an animation as well. 

2 - The outcome I want to achieve is a "UK" equivalent to the typical animated sitcom. This is driving me to contemplate what the cultural norms are in a UK family setting. Even though almost every family can relate to the simpsons, whether that be in the uk or anywhere else, there isn't a distinct UK equivalent to an animated, family sitcom. 

3 - I also want to discuss what makes a sitcom funny and relatable in the sense of realism within an animation. 

4 - Does popular culture have a large impact on what people find funny?

5 - What role does "Magical Realism" play in animated sitcoms?

I still feel like my reading list is limited, so my next step is to study in depth the key points I have made through research. From the journal entries I've read, i need to find their sources as a lot of them quote other people and make relevant points. Also, after watching Rick and Morty, I think this is a good "sitcom" to reference as it is part of a new wave of sitcom animation that is at the same popularity as family guy was a few years ago, and it has completely different content to family guy.

COP 3 Proposal - updated

triangulating an essay - Laura Mulvey

Using Laura Mulveys Essay on Visual pleasure and Narrative Cinema as well as two other texts to either critique or support the points that Mulvey makes.

Key Points which Mulvey makes in her text:

1. Women have an erotic image that has been created by men.
2. A woman's main role within a feature is to be a sexual object.
3. A woman's presence within a film is distracting and has a negative impact on a films storyline.
4. Women are objects of the audiences desires as well as the men making the film.
5. In cinema, there is a drastic difference between the roles of men and women.
6. the idea of an active (male) and a passive (female)
7. Men project themselves onto characters on screen.
8. The Male Gaze.

Key Quotes

1."The determining male gaze projects it's fantasy onto the female figure."
2. "From pin-ups to strip-tease... she holds the looks, and plays to and signifies male desire."
3. "...her visual presence tends to work against the developments of the storying, to freeze the flow of action."
4. p.20 "In herself the woman has not the slightest importance." (Boettichair in Mulvey 2009 [1975]
5. p.20 "women displayed as sexual objects"
6. p.20 "...Bearer of the look of the spectator.."

Contextual Facts about Mulvey

1. tends to intersect film theory, psychoanalysis and feminism as a political weapon.
2. Heavily focuses on Classic Hollywood films and their structures and the roles which they portray.
3."The male gaze"
4. Professor of film.
5. Born in 1950's, grew up with women's liberty and sexual politics heavily surrounding her.
6. Feminist activist as well as a feminist writer.
7. Most well-known essay is centred around critiquing gender

Laura Mulvey attempts to combine and analyse feminism, film theory and psychoanalysis within her texts as a political weapon. She is an avant-guarde film maker, focusing mainly on the creative art cinema side. She is an academic professor of film, as well as a used-to-be feminism activist.

Mulvey focuses in on how women have an erotic image that has been developed and created by men, and how the male gaze impacts on how women are presented. A woman's role is to fufill the desires presented by men. "The determining male gaze projects it's fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly." The roles which women play are said to be distracting and negative from Mulvey's opinion. "...Her visual presence tends to work against the developments of the story line, to freeze the flow of action." Describing a woman's influence within a feature as distracting is a negative view...

The idea that women are aware and try to please men by playing the starring role in the males gaze is heavily focused in within Mulvey's essay. "...From pin-ups to strip-tease...she holds the looks, and plays to and signifies male desire." Woman are not only there to be looked at, but they are there to signify male desires as well as the audiences desires.  It could be said that a woman's key role in a feature is to be looked at, and to be a sideline character. Mulvey quotes Boettichair saying "In herself the woman has not the slightest importance." This is a strong suggestion considering women are often seen playing the same roles. Women are often seen as weaker, side line characters.

The active (male) and passive (female) concept seems to be a structure that is heavily present in a variety of Classic Hollywood films. The idea that a woman is a desirable object that needs to be "won" is a key aspects in a wide range of films that involve a male and female protagonists. A lot of the time women are "displayed as sexual objects" that live up to male fantasies, whether it be the opposing actor on screen, director or the audience themselves.

COP 3 Proposal

COP 2 - Creative Critical Response

For my creative response, I decided to challenge the ideas of aesthetics. It sounds quite pretentious (which it is) but I wanted to do it in a way that felt comfortable instead of forcing myself to create the typical "opposite" of what disney stuff like every other edgy creative. I decided to take inspiration from David O'Reilly, who I reference in my essay, who said that he gave himself limitations. I gave myself limitations in the sense that I has to create drawings/character designs/concepts that were made out up of things that ou wouldn't usually associate with character design. 

I drew character's that didn't take any inspiration from the sources i reference throughout my essay.

My aim was to challenge the concepts of colour, shape and placements of characters but in an expressive way.

At times I stripped down, and took away the typical elements that go into creating characters, such as building on top of shapes. instead I made the characters themselves the shapes I drew. I learned from this practice that adding nipples and other ridiculous elements that juxtaposed the "typical" designs associated with character design makes everything better. (imp)

at times, I challenged the aesthetics that have already been applied to certain iconic characters.

I also played around with concept art in the sense of stripping it all down.

I liked letting my idiotic mind take control and just design/ redesign characters in a way that wouldn't make my dad proud.

I enjoyed scribbling mindless stuff. I sort of made myself do the complete opposite to what the industry standard is which was pretty fun. however, I am completely aware that this practice would not get me hired at Disney anytime soon.

I understand that this seems like a lazy response, but what can I say. 

*Aesthetic.*

COP 2 Initial Research

After being briefed, I instantly wanted to focus on Aesthetics, but more specifically on how certain creative and visual aspects can affect content. I decided to do some initial research on aesthetics in animation as a whole and then research into key aspects and how these shape an animation and how it is viewed.

Basic Animation Aesthetic - David O'reilly

• http://files.davidoreilly.com/downloads/BasicAnimationAesthetics.pdf

I first of all found a text by David O'Reilly titled "Basic Animation Aesthetic". In his text, he discusses "Aesthetic coherence" and "Aesthetic harmony". He also refers to how Aesthetics in animation and film making are developed by following "Laws" that restrict the creative process. These laws come in the form of style, ability, budget, arbitrarily. O'Rielly also discusses his own work, and also how a film makers unconscious aesthetic preferences are what is natural and obvious to them. I feel as though this body of text could be a good piece to refer to in my response. Because he is an experienced practitioner that questions the authenticity and legitimacy of aesthetics in animation throughout his short paper, I feel as though his point are valid in my argument both for an against.

Art in Motion by Maureen Furniss

I had been reading this book for a while to understand what goes into creating an anmation. She discusses the development of technologies and demonstrates how aesthetics in animation has shifted over the years; Disney being quite a large focus in sections of the book. She discusses traditional storytelling. I feel as though the points in this book can support/ counteract the modern day animation aesthetics.

Animations to reference:

I decided to create a list of interesting and aesthetic driven animations and practices that have been creating over the years. I could discuss how and why they were pleasing as well as the audiences positions and understanding of animation at the time, whether they were intrigued because it was the first animation ...

• The magic lantern - developed in the 17th century, mostly used for entertainment purposes and then eventually for educational purposes. Quite a simple and early form of animation. Used two slides usually of an image that could be repeated and looped e.g, windmill. Phantasmagoria -  form of theatre horror where one or more magic lanterns projected frightening images like ghosts for entertainment purposes - utilising a form of animation for an immersive and frightening experience.
• "Classical-era Disney Studio" - wide spread - ground-breaking full - length animation. Aesthetics centre around their inspiration and live-action references in their productions. 
• With the limitations of a certain character (Mickey Mouse) that had been developed and influenced by the gags of silent comdedians, the additions of Donald Duck, pluto and other characters provided more breadth for storylines. Their unique personalities provided versatility for entertainment. The visual aesthetic of Walt Disney's early productions demonstrates the early stages of their over arching aesthetic...  - "Silly Symphonies" - not plot driven like Disney's Mickey Mouse - "Provided a place for experimentation" the use of different techniques and equipment could be employed without risking the popularity of a set of developed characters. - Snow White
• The amazing world of Gumball - successful multi-media animated television series on Cartoon Network. Lacks Stylistic unity - visually and narratively daring - unique - 2011
• Adventure time -2010 - linear, bright, engaging. -flat but a lot of dimension and depth

COP Research - Articles

I decided to look more into articles created over the past view years that relfect on how women are designed within animated features. I found that articles are a great source of modern viewpoints from young writers.

The Daily Dot - How Sexist video games animators keep failing - Aja Romano

http://www.dailydot.com/via/assassins-creed-gaming-sexism-also-about-animation/

I found this article when researching sexist stereotypes in animated features. I found this one interesting because of how the author focused mainly on the presentation of the characters, and how the overall features of the females characters haven't changed for years. There's an explanation where the author mentions how even though all the characters have vastly different personalities and storylines, they are still subjected to the overly exaggerated sexual appearance their animators/designers create. Even though this article is mainly about character design within computer games, I still feel the points made throughout is relevant to my essay.

Gender Representation within animation - http://fourthreefilm.com/2015/09/looking-from-the-outside-in-gender-representation-in-animation/ 

“women existing as a separate, codified entity, with a limited, often sexualised design and relatively narrow narrative role.” Describing the way that female characters are depicted. – Looking from the Outside In – “Gender Representation In Animation” Article by Tansy Gardam, September 3, 2015, Fourthreefilm.com




I found this article interesting in how the author focused mainly on modern animation, and how the role of women in animated features are often weak in narrative but sexualized in appearance. I feel like this quote could be related to both Peter Pan as well as The Little Mermaid, purely because both features, and original novels, contain females characters that have little to no lines in the film and often depend on overly exaggerated and sometimes sexual gestures in order to communicate e.g Tinkerbell/Ariel.

Why Children’s Cartoons Have a Sexism Problem. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nikki-gloudeman/why-childrens-cartoons-have-a-sexism-problem_b_5924390.html  – 1-/06/2014, 05:30pm, Article by Nikki Gloundeman quoting Margot Magowan in 2012, Huffington Post. 

“Unfortunately, the reason that there’s no disclaimer and no introduction [about sexism] is because sexist stereotypes in kids’ cartoons are just as accepted in 2012 as they were sixty years ago. Sexist jokes in animation are, apparently, still hilarious.

I feel like this quote could support the argument that I want to make in my essay when I respond to how modern animation is still striving to create strong female character, but are failing due to the design aspect and also how the characters execute their actions in order to achieve goals. 

- “Researchers have found a major problem with “The Little Mermaid” and other Disney movies.”

Article written by Jeff Guo, The Washington Post, January 25  "The Little Mermaid” represented a backward step in the princess genre. For a film centered on a young woman, there’s an awful lot of talking by men. In fact, this was the first Disney princess movie in which the men significantly out spoke the women."

I feel like this quote would support the argument that even though animators and designers alike are constantly trying to create strong female roles within animations, it seems to be counteracted with the lack of progression in the balance between men and women roles throughout the animation process, as well as the feature itself. 

My Main focus with my essay is to focus on the body image as well as the representation of roles that woman are presented with having at that time, and also how the mind of children can be warped into thinking that certain ways to act from different stand points is acceptable.

Gender Representation

In my response, I have decided to create a storyboard/animatic of a concept based around a sexualised female character. This character will take on typical characteristics found in both the animated world and the real world. This combination will hopefully represent the standards that are set for women.

Betty Boop was created by Max Fliecher in 1930. She has been regarded as the first ever animated sex symbol. She was depicted as clumsy, ditsy and sexy. She was often animated working as a nurse or a dentist which often sexualised that specific practice. 

Jessica Rabbit is one of the main characters from the iconic animated feature Who's Framed Roger Rabbit. She is considered to be probably the most sexualised female cartoon character, and is extremely recognisable.

Over the course of this visual research, I have decided to base my main female character on these two iconic figures. 

In my essay I want to mainly focus on the female characters from Peter Pan as well as the main protagonist in The Little Mermaid. Wendy Darling, Tinkerbell and Ariel are perfect examples of female roles that are warped in a subliminal way, and clearly capture the sexism presented to the creators from that era. I also want to reference the original texts that the Animated Features are based off, purely because of how sexist and obscure the females are shown.