Jasmine Telford

Graphic Design, Photography, a liiiiittle bit of short film. I'm trying my best! ♫ ★

[tb-personal]

The only way to consume Disney property’s is illegally

Fuck Disney all my friends hate Disney

[carnelianfoxx]

Piracy is a “victimless crime”? Idk i was kinda hoping there would be a victim. I want the mouse dead

[antidisney]

The Disney Company has made it’s back-catalog of work the foundation of the corporation since the 90′s. While at the same time, distancing themselves from the ugly realities that plague the companies history. Covering them up in hopes that the public forgets. Racism, animal abuse, and their now-obscure, former-superstar, young Bobby Driscoll. 

The Disney Company, while so-often celebrating their “masterpiece collection” of films, and “Disney Legends” such as Mary Blair, Annette Funicello and Kathryn Beaumont, the name Bobby Driscoll remains conveniently left out. This is entirely intentional.

Who is Bobby Driscoll?

Discovered in a barber shop at the age of 5, Bobby was the first actor to ever be signed under-contract by Disney Studios. In 1946, his starring role in Song of the South made him an overnight sensation. At one point, he was the highest paid child actor in Hollywood. Soon, he was Disney’s golden-goose, with films like Melody Time, So Dear to My Heart and Treasure Island. He even won an Academy Award for his performance in the film noir, the Window.

Today, he is best remembered as the voice and live-action model of the titular Peter Pan.

What Happened to Bobby Driscoll?

Despite his success, Bobby could never seem to please his parents. They physically abused him, and kept him locked in a closet for hours at a time. Sometimes, all night. When Bobby was around 9, the beatings became so bad Disney temporarily moved the boy in with the family of his co-star, Luana Patten. They could not shoot, after all, if their star was battered and bruised.

When shooting wrapped, he went back home. Child abuse was still extremely normalized during this time, and was also an accepted method of getting a good performance out of a child. Many of Bobby’s contemporaries describe being slapped in the face or being manhandled by adults as every-day occurrences on set.

Around this time, Walt Disney himself became fixated on Driscoll, Marc Elliot stating Walt often referred to Bobby as “the living embodiment of his own youth.” He saw the child as an extension of himself, and ignored Bobby’s own identity. Bobby was susceptible to the attention and latched onto Walt as a father figure. He came to see Disney Studios as a family, and indeed “Uncle Walt” encouraged this idea, especially among his child performers. One former animator described feeling uncomfortable by seeing higher-ups kiss Bobby on the face and mouth.

During Bobby’s pre-teen years, he was signed to a new 7-year contract and given a substantial raise of $1750 per week. Bizarrely, Bobby was now making the most money he ever would, while actually working less than ever before. 

He was cast in the leading role of Peter Pan, as both the voice and visual inspiration for the character. Peter had Bobby’s wide eyes, and upturned nose. If you watch any Bobby Driscoll movie, and then watch Peter Pan in motion, you can easily see the character’s every facial expression and mannerism taken directly from Driscoll. His expressive eyebrows, nose-scrunching, even down to the way he positions his wrists.

As Bobby got older, Walt stopped speaking affectionately of him in meetings. He stated Bobby was no longer likeable enough to play protagonists. Meanwhile, Peter Pan was released, and is a massive hit.

In 1953, Bobby began to hear rumours he would be fired. He tried asking the higher-ups he was formerly friendly with, but none would speak to him. He went to Walt’s secretary, asking to speak to Mr. Disney. She refused to call him, and when Bobby asked again, she abruptly told him he was no longer needed and to get out.

Stunned, Bobby burst into tears. She called security, and had the boy escorted off of Disney property. Disney Studios told the press they had let Bobby go due to an extreme case of acne, which sullied his image with other movie studios. 

Personally, I don’t buy the acne explanation. Acne can be covered, and Disney was focusing heavily on television at this time, which had terrible picture quality compared to film. Not to mention, Walt had already talked about shifting Bobby into playing unlikeable bully characters. But the true reason for the cancellation of Bobby’s seven year contract may never be known.

Unable to find work, Bobby’s parents enrolled him in public school. He was mercilessly bullied for his Disney roles, being beaten up by his classmates constantly. He stated he “became afraid all the time”, and it was at this time he began experimenting with drugs.

After being imprisoned for possession of marijuana, he was eventually sentenced to a “rehab centre”. The so-called first of it’s kind, employed no doctors or nurses, and used abusive psychiatric practices now outlawed.

During this time, Disney was making millions off of the heavy merchandising of Peter Pan. Bobby never saw a dime from this, despite his likeness being used.

Bobby’s life remained difficult, and although he had a few more acting roles, and became a talented artist in the beatnik scene, he just couldn’t make enough money to get by.

He died on March 30th 1968, aged 31, without a penny to his name. Alone, and forgotten. He was found on a dirty cot in an abandoned building. His body was unidentified, and police could not find anyone who recognized him. He was buried in a mass grave, unmarked, on Hart Island. 

Eventually, his mother asked Disney to help find him, and he was finally identified through finger prints. Although, his remains were not moved to a cemetery, which would have been possible at the time.

The public did not learn of Bobby’s death until 1973, when Song of the South was re-released in theatres.  After his death had been reported, actress Jane Wyman insinuated in an interview that Bobby had been sexually abused while working for Disney.

Erasure of Bobby by Disney

As mentioned above, Bobby has never been named an official “Disney Legend”, despite fan petitions and letter-writing campaigns since the start of the program in the late 80′s.

Both the Peter Pan VHS, and DVD making-of featurettes only mention Bobby Driscoll in passing. Compared to the Alice in Wonderland DVD, which features an entire documentary about Alice’s voice actress.

The DVD release of So Dear to My Heart was cancelled without explanation. Years later, it was quietly released as a Disney Movie Club Exclusive. Making it rare and difficult to find.

Fan requests for a memorial to Bobby Driscoll in Disney Parks have also gone unanswered. Disney will likely never own up to Bobby Driscoll, or what the company did to him. His story is tragic, and paints the company in an uncomfortable light, going directly against it’s branding of love, family and happy endings. After all, if the average joe-blows and Karens of the world knew what happened to Bobby Driscoll, they might cancel their Disney+ subscription. And Disney certainly doesn’t want that to happen.

[happylittlemarmite]

Digital Practice Journal: Evaluation

Throughout the duration of this course, I’ve learnt about many interesting new topics and techniques that I’m excited to employ in my future media making.

A key topic that has stuck with me is Stuart Halls Encoding and Decoding model of communication. It was extremely eye-opening to try and think about adapting media to suit a variety of audiences, as opposed to creating something with a specific audience in mind. When we looked into narratology, I was surprised to hear of so many variations of classic fairy-tails made to suit different cultural contexts. Having looked so much into web 2.0 and what it means to be interactive, I can see how audience engagement applies to even this. The audience’s perspective is in some ways interactive; not everyone will understand what you’re trying to say unless you make it understandable to them. For so long we have looked at media as a one-sided consumerism, whereas I see this Encoding and Decoding model to be one of the earliest forms of audience engagement. Our lesson looking at connotation and denotation also tied into this in some ways for me. Where previously I have looked at fairly obvious examples for this kind of task, in our session we looked at an old piece of anti-communist propaganda, something I know very little about. Across the board, every person seemed to have at least one unique inference made from the graphic. It was very interesting to see, in practice, how a media texts message may differ depending on the perspective of those looking at it.

Non-linear storytelling was another avenue I wasn’t expecting to be interested in. Being neurodivergent, I have always struggled to follow anything that wasn’t exactly chronological. The introduction of these class tasks made me so stressed and uncomfortable, but in practice it wasn’t so bad. Through my own research and expanded examples on the topic my developed understanding has shown me that there are plenty of non-linear narrative media texts that I have enjoyed consuming without realising it was considered such.

I really enjoyed looking into Gestalt theory. Having created my own graphics for a while now, it was interesting to hear the exact theory behind why certain layouts work. It’s easy to look at something for what it is, but to know exactly why certain design elements translate the way they do and why they’re effective is something else entirely.

The transmedia theme throughout the course was nice to learn about in more detail as it’s the kind of thing I would like to be doing when I finish university, with advertising and branding. It was important to think about how a campaign can exist across multiple platforms with unique story elements put together, as opposed to pushing the same ad on different platforms.

Overall, I have really enjoyed my time studying digital practice, and have picked up many key skills that I hope to display in my own work. In my second assignment for this module, I hope to further explore the topic of transmedia, not necessarily to “tell a story” in terms of narrative, but to look at it from the perspective of someone interested in branding and marketing. I would like to explore the concept of creating individually unique media texts together under one campaign.

[happylittlemarmite]

Digital Practice Journal: Extended Task

Research: To start, I began researching the Gestalt Principles into further detail to make sure I had a greater understanding of them. As expressed in my Week 3 diary entry I greatly enjoyed the session as it touched on my specific interest area and could apply it to previous projects, however I did find it challenging to design something with these specific principles in mind. It was very interesting to look into further real-life examples and understand a more broader sense of what each principle meant. This further learning improved my understanding of why certain design elements work visually. In my class task for this session I conducted research into the Mind charity, so I wanted to extend on this. I thought it was interesting to try and create something with specific branding in mind as opposed to designing something totally based off my own design styles.

Planning: Looking at the statistics available on the Mind website, something that stood out to me was the disproportionate effects of mental health issues in the BAME community compared to that of white people in the UK, and so this was what I decided to convey in my graphic. “Black or Black British people. 23% of Black or Black British people will experience a common mental health problem in any given week. This compares to 17% of White British people” To start, I overcomplicated things in some ways by trying to apply statistics and maths, not considering that under usual circumstances the person making the graphic would be provided with this information and that I could, in theory, make something up for the ease of the visual. I found that according to the 2011 census, 3.5% of the UK are black, with white people making up a further 81.8% of the population. This was something I wanted to factor into the graphic, however with much mathematical experimentation in the end I decided to disproportionately represent the population to make the image clearer. I feel this option still demonstrated the figure I was trying to communicate.

Making: I made several variations for this task which allowed me to see the effectiveness of The Gestalt Principles in practice. I started with a population of 100, with 50 white and 50 black people represented using corresponding colours and red faces to mark those affected by mental health issues. This colour coding was my main focus, thinking about Gestalts law of similarity.

I found the graphic was too large, and with the minute number those effected displayed decided to use a smaller sample population so i could make the image smaller with room for some other information.

With this smaller sample, I was able to display the statistic whilst using a smaller amount of space, so that the graphic was still visible and no longer so visually overwhelming. However, with this variation I found the comparison of those effected by mental health issues in both groups now became more difficult to decipher, so decided to display the population divide side by side.

This variation I feel truly displays Gestalts principle of proximity. By splitting the two groups up side by side instead of combined as in the variation above, it’s much easier to compare the statistic I was trying to convey. This really helped me to understand the relevance this principle. By splitting the two groups, it’s much differentiate between the two groups of people.

This is what inspired my final variation. The application of the proximity principle also allowed me to understand how grouping text can make a poster more legible. Although I didn’t experiment with this element as i felt it an obvious one, it was great to see this theory in practice and understand exactly why it works.

[happylittlemarmite]

Digital Practice Journal: Week 6

Sessions Themes: In todays session we were looking at transmedia; a narrative that spreads across multiple media forms often featuring interactive elements. We recapped media convergence, thinking about web 2.0 and how user generated or otherwise interactive content have played into a “digital revolution”. As technology progresses and the generations move on, we as an audience are typically regarded as impatient, often flicking between different media formats in a short space of time. We’re also more communicative and interactive, where past generations may have blindly consumed media we are now asking questions and talking to each other about this. Sometimes media discourse online can become bigger than the media text itself. This is why transmedia is so effective, with a generation of people switching between multiple different media platforms at such a fast pace it’s important that your campaign is everywhere they look. I noted down part a quote from media scholar Henry Jenkins, “Ideally, each medium makes it own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story”. I thought this factor is extremely important to keep in mind moving forward, as it’s easy for media practitioners to reproduce the same content over again across multiple avenues, which is definitely not what transmedia is all about. The separate elements need to uniquely expand the overall narrative. Not always, but many transmedia narratives are expected to have an interactive element also, some avenue wherein the audience can contribute and discuss, which is made a lot easier by use of modern social media platforms such as twitter and Instagram. We looked at plenty of examples in class, but an example I thought of is American fast food chain Wendy’s advertising campaign. Wendy’s are fairly well known for their social media presence and in some respects disliked for their transparent attempts at relatability with the younger generation, often berated as being “out of touch”. This is due to their referencing of memes and other pop culture references, subject areas that move too fast for anyone who isn’t in the know to keep up with.

Wendy’s X Rick and Morty Collab

Wendy’s Never Stop Gaming Collab with Twitch streamers – TFUE, FLIGHT, itsHafu, xChocoBars and Myth

Wendy’s attempt at relatable Twitter content

We moved on to look at transmedia marketing techniques. At it’s essence, transmedia marketing is about connecting a product/brand with the consumer. We are living in a “converged culture” wherein users are taking advantage of a range of channels in order to engage with content. Transmedia marketing is the form of transmedia I’m most familiar with, having prototyped marketing campaigns across a range of platforms including social media, video advertisement, sales platforms and physical print. This element of transmedia is what springs to mind first, so it has been interesting to look at how a narrative can be told in this way.

Moving on now we looked at creating a trans media “story world”, which is all about the world you’ve created in which your story occurs. The characters, location, theme etc. It’s important to keep in mind when creating a story world that each individual component exists with a purpose, what it means to the story and how it interacts with other components.  We looked at an image of a pond ecosystem to demonstrate how a story world needs to work in the same way, with each individual feature serving its purpose in the story. Speaking from acquaintance with an “experienced screenwriter” in his 2007 book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Henry Jenkins states “When I first started, you would pitch a story because without a good story, you didn’t really have a film. Later, once sequels started to take off, you pitched a character because a good character could support multiple stories. And now, you pitch a world because a world can support multiple characters and multiple stories across multiple media.” Thinking about this in the context of transmedia, being able to produce multiple elements to a story world across multiple different platforms is an incredibly profitable tactic, allowing businesses to sell a wider range of media.

Class Task: For our initial smaller class task we were asked to “map out” a transmedia story world, using an existing story and developing it to work across multiple platforms. My group decided to work on a modern take of the classic Robin Hood story. We briefly discussed the changes we were going to apply to the story and started writing down different potential media avenues, although i think it would've been much more beneficial to have used something like Lucid Chart to help us map it all out visually.

Our take basically surrounded the idea of taking from the rich and giving to the poor, but wanting to take a modern spin on things. We wanted Robin to be an online hero, scamming and hacking the rich and redistributing the wealth. We also played with the idea of this “wealth” being something other than money: followers and views. I liked this idea particularly because i thought it would be interesting to have a campaign that only existed online using this “currency” that otherwise has no real-world value. We discussed how on his rise to notoriety Robin Hood could be redirecting the general public to smaller creators; stealing clicks and views from the “rich” and giving it to the “poor”.

Task 6: For our final class task we were asked to prototype some content for the aforementioned story world we had invented. We all discussed what we were going to make and went off individually to do it. I think it would’ve been good to think about prototyping online platforms in more detail, perhaps thinking about setting up social media for Robin or even spoofing some “instagram takeover” stuff. For example, i think the idea of an instagram takeover would be a heavily audience interaction based medium, whereas the pieces we drafted were less interactive and in my opinion would’ve been less effective in terms of user engagement. I drafted up a downloadable game where every now and then little glitches and pixelation occurs making the audience believe there may be something wrong with their computer or the game. After a while, the game continually “crashes” with video of Robin Hood interrupting to let the player know they’ve been “hacked”. Taking this idea further, it would be interesting to think more about the actual gameplay. I was considering an idea where perhaps the choices the player makes influences the outcome, thinking about making this a piece of media itself as opposed to some kind of promotional material for something bigger which is how i’d envisioned it previously.

[happylittlemarmite]

Digital Practice Journal: Week 5

Sessions Themes: In todays session we moved on from visual story telling over to nonlinear story telling. Nonlinear storytelling is just telling a story outside of its expected chronological order, often also referred to as disjointed or disruptive narrative. We started talking about Ergodic literature which I found so interesting! Ergodic literature is about “requiring non-trivial effort to navigate”. So a normal book you can just read through from left to right no problem, but an Ergodic literature requires more effort from the reader. The term comes from the Greek words “ergon” meaning work and “hodos” meaning path. This isn’t a concept I’m really familiar with outside of Choose Your Own Adventure style books so I found it super interesting and hope to maybe pick up some Ergodic texts of my own.

Moving on, we looked at hypertext, which is essentially a link within text that leads you to another text. Hypertext fiction is all about using this method as a storytelling device. Hypertext is essentially just interactive content at its very simplest form. From here we went on to look at interactive film, essentially just hypertext in visual form.

Class task: We were asked to look at 2 different examples of interactive nonlinear narratives in groups and answer some questions. My group looked at Welcome To Pine Point, an interactive documentary capturing a former mining community “frozen in time” that was abandoned and deconstructed in the late 80′s. In terms of story, there wasn’t really a story to follow. It’s not a documentary in the usual sense, we don't hear about how the town came to be or how it came to end. It’s almost like a documentation of fragmented elements of the town: people, places, experiences, as opposed to fragmented sections of a story. The level of interactivity was super interesting, I really liked how as you move on through parts of the documentary the way you interact changes depending on layouts etc. I think the scrapbook art style really helped in fitting all these disjointed fragments together. Overall I really enjoyed it, but would have liked to hear more of the towns story instead of stand alone events that happened in the town. They still could have used these less significant tales to build together the story of the town reaching its peak and eventually being abandoned. It felt more like I was looking at a collection of fact sheets and lose anecdotes instead of a cohesive documentary that followed a story. Perhaps if I had more time to play around with it I would feel differently though; maybe some of my questions were answered I just didn't get that far.

We discussed interactive storytelling as a “conversation between user and content”, unlike passively consuming media. It’s all about choice and control, giving the audience a sense of agency over their choices and the results of which. The next part of the lesson was very useful to me in terms of visualising a nonlinear path, we learnt about Interactive Story Structures. Throughout my learning on this topic (as I go on to explain later) I have only ever really been accustomed to the branching tree structure, which for me as someone who prefers visual explanation can be exceedingly overwhelming. The examples shown including the Critical Story Path may be useful to me later should I have to tackle a project of this nature in future.

Having studied nonlinear story telling on other modules this year, on my degree last year and at college I already knew this is a subject area I despise and was not looking forward to, however tried to keep an open mind. I’m not sure if it’s down to neurodivergence, but I have always struggled to follow any nonlinear narrative that isn’t mapped out in a simplified visual way. In the student media world, often people use the work of Quentin Tarantino as a case study as though he invented cinema. Whilst I respect and appreciate the legendary status of his works, how he has pioneered so many great techniques and is so iconic in his artistry; I cannot watch his films. My brain is too smooth. I can’t comprehend jumping from one place or time to another like that, its far too jarring for me. Throughout learning this topic I’ve always thought it was interesting that I’ve managed to cover it in such detail when it’s a concept I’ve rarely seen in popular modern media, besides the examples of Tarantino and Black Mirror: Bandersnatch that are always referred to. However! On some further reading I came to understand that nonlinear storytelling has been presented to me in a variety of media formats that I have consumed and enjoyed. I think because the examples I’ve been taught are always seemingly at the higher end of the scale in terms of confusion for me. So for example, one of my comfort films Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, although has some chronology to it is for the most part regarded as nonlinear due to it’s use of flashbacks/flashforwards throughout. I may not previously have regarded this as nonlinear as to me it fits a chronological story, unlike the Choose Your Own Adventure nature of Bandersnatch or the extreme level of disjointed narrative I’m used to from Tarantino. There is in fact plenty of nonlinear narratives that i have enjoyed without understanding it to be that. It can be as simple as a series of flashbacks, like the “side quest” element of the critical story path.

Task 5: For this weeks task, I really struggled. I think if I were to do this again in the future with some of the understanding I’ve made through my further reading perhaps I would’ve approached it differently and with a more open mind. As explained, i have a strong distain towards this subject area in particular due to my past experience, which was only accelerated by the mere mention of “Twine.” I think trying to wrap my head around so much of this during the lesson left me quite frustrated, with some definite analysis paralysis occurring throughout. It was hard for me to make a start on this piece without my brain rushing 100 miles ahead and getting myself confused. If I were to do this again, hopefully with a more clear head, I would like to direct my attention more to the Critical Story Path method. Although I am a visual learner, Twine’s many arrows and boxes linking all over the place is too much for me. I don’t see myself doing this for the extended task, but at least now I have a better understanding of the subject area should I be confronted with it again in future.

[happylittlemarmite]

Digital Practice Journal: Week 4

Sessions Themes: For this weeks session, we were expanding on last lessons theme of decoding visual design, this time looking more specifically into moving image. I learnt the term Metonymic meaning, which refers to metaphorical meanings drawn from physical and psychological signs. I read “An informal definition of ‘metonymy’ is that it is a figurative expression (trope) in which a phrase is substituted by one which is associated in meaning as an indirect reference to the original phrase. Verbally, examples include ‘Wall Street’ (or, in the UK, ‘the City’) meaning business, industry, the financial markets; ‘the White House’ meaning the President of the US”. We also learnt Synecdoche, I noted down “relationship from part to whole” and “figure of speech” but found “An informal definition of ‘synecdoche’ is that it is a figurative expression (trope) in which an object or concept is represented by a part of it, or a part of an object or concept is represented by the whole. Verbally, examples include ‘bread and butter’ meaning livelihood”. This further reading helped me to understand the concepts much better. So for example, “day of rest” in lieu of “Sunday” is a great example of metonymy. For Synecdoche, it truly means something to be represented by a fraction of itself. So for example, if you were counting a room of people you may use the word “heads”, or how if someone needs help from their crew they’ll say “all hands on deck”. Metonymy is associated meaning whereas Synecdoche is partial meaning. Next, We looked at Stuart Halls Encoding & Decoding Model of Communication (1973), which is essentially all about how our inferences are dependent on our background or experiences. To me, this is one of the most interesting concepts we have been thinking about over the past few weeks and something I’ve often thought about in reference to my own work. Throughout media making i have always been taught to think about my target audience and what they want, but never to explore how different implications have different meaning depending on an audiences social context. Moving on, we watched a video essay decoding the opening scene of Mad Max 2 (1981). It was really interesting to try analysing something after learning about the Encoding & Decoding Model of Communication, I couldn't help but try to think about how someone with a different perspective might read into the same semantics.

Class Exercise: This week we were put into breakout rooms and asked to decode film clips from Grease (1978) and Blue Velvet (1986). I have pasted my notes bellow once again for ease. 

As stated previously, decoding things with Stuart Hall’s model in mind has opened up so many new avenues for me. An interesting note i made whilst analysing blue velvet is that it’s been increasingly popular to use upbeat retro music styles to directly juxtapose something sinister or creepy. For example in the Channel 4 series The End of The F***ing World, they used for the most part vintage doo-wop tracks to counter the terrifying visuals of murder, fear, escape etc. It’s especially notable in scenes with heavy use of shock or gore, they’ll use an especially happy and light-hearted track to counter the visual. In an interview, director Johnathan Entwistle explained “because we were playing that whole creepy, suburban thing, I automatically went to a ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s doo-wop thing. I think that’s the saddest music in the world.”  Analysing the scene from Blue Velvet, we were shown shots of suburban america accompanied by a similar music style. The reason this ties in to my thinking surrounding encoding and decoding dependant on social context, is that having seen this trope used in modern media as I’ve just described, hearing a similar soundtrack I automatically assumed it must be to juxtapose something. Like some kind of “calm before the storm”. Whereas the audience in 1986 may not have made this same assumption based on media trends of the time.

Task 4:  For this weeks task we were put into groups and asked to create a treatment for an updated fairy tale, moving forward to create a “Pixar prompt” structure to tell it. The main point was to try and think deeply about the connotations, not just to make a random story. To start, we were playing with the idea of a modern take on Little Red Riding Hood, wherein Little Red is represented as a drug dealer and The Wolf is the police officer. Looking back at the document we made together, I was interested to see that somebody from the group had edited to clarify that the "modern twist is that she is the villain as opposed to the Wolf, she sells drugs while the Wolf is the police officer”. This is not at all what I was trying to connotate with my original idea so I thought it was interesting that this was somebodies takeaway. For me, I was trying to use the story to talk about petty police violence and abuse of power in comparison to non-violent drugs charges. The police are most certainly not the “hero” character in my version of events, this is something I would like to work harder to connotate more clearly assuming the other members of my group didn’t grasp it.

[happylittlemarmite]

Digital Practice Journal: Week 3

Sessions themes: This weeks session is one I’ve been hoping for for a while now! My specific area of interest is graphic design and so I was extremely excited to work on something that I have such confidence with. We explored visual design and how it can be used to convey a message. To start, we looked at Ferdinand de Saussure, a swiss philosopher and semiotician.  “ De Saussure is regarded by many as the creator of the modern theory of structuralism, to which his langue and parole are integral. He believed that a word's meaning is based less on the object it refers to and more in its structure.” The example we looked at is the word “star”, it can mean a star like in the night sky but also be used to refer to a celebrity. There’s not one specific meaning but multiple implied meanings. On the contrary, French literary theorist, philosopher, and semiotician Roland Barthes argued that “Saussure’s model of the sign focused on denotation at the expense of connotation”.  A denotation is characterised by exactly what we see; a definition, something obvious. A connotation is characterized by “second-order” signs; not a direct definition but possible implications. For example, anyone can look at a picture of the Apple logo and see it for what it is (an apple with a bite), this is the denotation. Whereas for example a religious person may look at this and see it as a reference to The Story of the Fall from The Old Testament. In breakout groups, we were asked to analyse a series of images, thinking particularly about what signs make up the image and what messages they convey. It was interesting to share our immediate ideas with each other and see how our answers differed depending on individual perspectives and experiences (linking back nicely with last weeks session). We looked at a piece of American anti-Soviet propaganda from the 60′s and the range of ideas was so wide thinking in terms of where people came from, education level and their comprehension of the subject. We can only make individual inferences based on things we already know.

We moved on to look at Persuasive design, thinking about the idea that image is more effective in triggering an emotive response from people than other mediums. Often seen as just a way to make something eye-catching or otherwise aesthetically pleasing, we discussed how colour can be used to convey a series of different emotional responses in an audience. For our class task we were asked to look at a range of colourful logos in order to think about their connotations and the artistic decisions behind them. I have pasted the logos and my notes below for the sake of simplifying the entry.

We examined suggestion through typography, and how it’s a crossroads between verbal language and visual language.

Moving on with these elements in mind, we started reading into the 5 Gestalt principles:

Similarity - “Elements that share similar characteristics are perceived as more related than elements that don't share those characteristics.”

Proximity - “Objects that are closer together are perceived as more related than objects that are further apart.”

Continuity - “Elements arranged on a line or curve are perceived as more related than elements not on the line or curve.”

Closure - “When seeing a complex arrangement of elements, we tend to look for a single, recognizable pattern. [amongst it]”

Figure & Ground - “Elements are perceived as either figure (the element in focus) or ground (the background on which the figure rests).”

Task 3: For this weeks task we were asked to prototype a poster for an institution of our choice, employing gestalt theory. We had to research and make during this time, so I didn’t have a lot of room to think super creatively but I’m considering making this my extended task so hopefully will have more time to experiment then. I used up the majority of the time doing research, which is a shame because I didn’t really apply this research to the piece. I had decided to make a poster for the charity Mind, using a statistic in order to illustrate the law of proximity. I think in some ways I also applied the law of similarity, by using similar shapes with opposing colours to make the 1/4 statistic stand out, as shown below.

Had I put more time into this, I would've liked to have applied some of the research I put into the charity’s existing materials, in terms of typography, colour and shapes. This poster as a stand alone is fine, but it doesn’t really fit with Mind’s brand and perhaps wouldn’t be recognised as such. I also would have liked to have experimented more creatively. Although I'm confident it fits the brief, it’s very basic and I don’t feel that its up to par with my usual standard of work.

[happylittlemarmite]

Digital Practice Journal: Week 2

Sessions themes: In this weeks session we learnt all about Narratology, the study of how a narrative can alter an audiences perception. To start, we looked at myths and folk/fairy tales to discuss cultural differences and how this plays into narratology. An interesting example I picked up on are the different global takes on the western Little Red Riding Hood story. I found out that in Iran the story uses a boy, since little girls wouldn’t be allowed to wander out on their own in Persian culture, and in some Asian versions the story features a big cat or lion instead of a wolf due to the wildlife of its climate. It’s believed that the modern western version is closest in relation to the Nigerian and Iranian versions of the tale. Although I understand that many of these old fables are inspired by or passed through many different cultures, I was very surprised to learn the small differences made to such a familiar story for the sake of cultural context. Through this research I also found how the story of The Wolf and Her Kids is thought to be a different cultural take on Little Red Riding Hood, whereas i had always seen it as a different story altogether.

Next we looked at a series of images and discussed what we thought the story could be. One of the images showing Angelina Jolie’s Lara Croft from the 2001 film by the same name. Keeping cultural context in mind now I thought about how with the recent aestheticism of Y2K fashion in the west, perhaps our audience would perceive this differently to the audience at the time. I also wondered how the audiences knowledge of the franchise may affect their perception, triggering a different emotional response depending on familiarity. 

Class exercise: For our first class exercise we were asked to create a 6 word short story. I found this task difficult to start as I have a fairly limited vocabulary I often have to go the long way around explaining things. However, it was interesting to experiment with this limitation and think about how to communicate so succinctly. Looking at the short story example (see final line), I liked how the story left me with so many questions and tried to use it to model my own, experimenting with varying elements of the senses, such as a deaf man setting an alarm.

Sessions themes continued: We moved on to look at story types and narrative structures. We learnt about Christopher Vogler's Hero’s journey concept, where act 1 = normal world, act 2 = special world and act 3 = ordinary world. It starts with a call to adventure continues with crossing the threshold, then onto some kind of ordeal and eventually a road right back to some kind of resolution. This narrative structure concept was interesting to me as I had never seen one that broke the narrative up into “worlds” as well as acts. Although the actual setting may not change, there has been a significant change in some way to this initial “world” through whichever ordeal the protagonist follows. We then looked further into these individual building blocks that make up a story, such as ”inciting incidents” and “climax”. Today i learnt a new word! Denouement which is used to refer to the final part of a film wherein the resolution takes place.

Next we explored visual storytelling, specifically how we can visually tell a story without words. To start we looked at sequencing and how placing one image next to another can convey chronologicity. We also looked at how without establishing causality, an audience will do it themselves, according to the Kuleshov Effect.

Task 2: Our task this week was to create a 6 image story, using no words, that could be instantly understood by an audience. I decided to think of some standard simple stories I could put together utilising semiology that would be globally understood, and ended up using a “dog trapped in well” story. I’m not sure if the story particularly builds suspense, so perhaps if I were to extend on this task I would spend more time playing around with the structure to see the outcome.

I tried to use widely recognised symbols such as the telephone and fire engine, even including some emojis. I tried my best to use stock images from the same website in order to make the aging of the dog and firewoman characters more obvious. If i were to extend on this task I would try a story that was a bit more challenging and use the time to find more cohesive art styles for the different graphics elements, otherwise trying to make them myself instead of using stock images from online.

[happylittlemarmite]

Digital Practice Journal: Week 1

Sessions themes: This week was our introductory session to the module, where we learnt about what will be expected of us throughout the module, the learning outcomes to look forward to and what exactly is meant by "digital practice."

To start, we looked at digitality, a term derived from the work of technology author Nicholas Negropante in 1995. Often also referred to as "digitalism", it surrounds the concept of living in a digital culture or digital age. An important note I took was "[digitality] encompasses both the artefacts and the systems of signification and communication" from Raymond William's book A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. From this I have inferred that in modern digital society, "digitality" is defined by not just the things we consume or create, but also the systems we use to do this and communicate.

Class exercise: Our first class exercise was introduced extremely early on, allowing us as a class of unfamiliar students to better understand each others abilities and expectations. We were each asked to research two questions from a list, and so I ended up looking into "Where did the internet come from?" and "What was the memex machine?". Researching the same topics as a group allowed us to experience a greater array of findings that we may not have found had we done it individually, with such differences as search engines, search terms and interest area. I have copied some interesting notes bellow from some of the research shared for future reference:

Where did the internet come from?

Initial concept of worldwide communication network of computers

1969 US Department of Defence create ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency and Network)

WWW invented at CERN 1990 in switzerland by british man named Tim Berners-Lee

The Memex Machine

Vannerar Bush 1945 Atlantic Monthly

Hypothetical system for desktop management

“enlarged intimate supplement of his memory“

We then went on to do some further learning into some of the research, in order to introduce ourselves to some of the key themes of the topic.

Characteristics of Network Society

Connectivity

Digitisation

Nodes

Flows

Decentralised Power

Everything Connected

Media Convergence

Gary Hayes 2006

Three Cs:

Computing

Communication

Content

Web 2.0

David Gauntlett 2011 Making Is Connecting

Instead of “tending own gardens”, coming together in a collaborative space to tend one large garden

Embrace Collaboration = More power > Internet as a “broadcast channel” (If we interact/collaborate we have more power, which is far greater than inactively consuming)

Sherry Turkle Alone Together (2013):

Relentless connection = overwhelming, separates us more (analysis paralysis, overconnection = overstress)

Jaron Lamier You Are Not A Gadget (2011)

Social networking replaces individual creativity

basically, “more places to express, nothing to say”

User generated content

Citizen Journalists

Non-linear Storytelling (think bandersnatch)

Transmedia (single story over multiple platforms)

Task 1: The first task we were set this week was to document “My most interesting digital adventure” that started online via mindmap/flow diagram format using an online software called Lucid Chart. In hindsight having looked more into transmedia and user interactivity I would’ve made elements such as the variety of platforms and level of interactivity more clear, but instead I really focused on my adolescent journey with Facebook. To start, I took some notes on different communities on areas of interest I discovered online and how that factored into my personal development. I am familiar with a similar looking software called Twine which I absolutely DESPISE, so honestly I did approach this with some misconception, but once I began mapping out the starting blocks for my story I found the connectivity of different chunks allowed me to link key aspects together in a way that visually made sense. I have always been a visual learner and struggled with understanding things I can’t see in front of me, so I think this software has been beneficial to me and may well be used in future planning.

[glovelylovely]

she is so cool <3

[ID: Ramona Flowers. She is bent over with one hand on her hip and the other on her leg, which is extended outward. The other leg is bent. She is wearing a headband, a sweater with a bomb on it, a skirt, and rollerskates. /end ID]

[happylittlemarmite]

Creative Journal + Reflection

11/01/21- Week 12

DSD: For my do something different activity this week I’m using a phone with a sim card!! I know it’s silly, but for the last four years up until September i haven’t had a working phone. It really doesn’t bother me in the slightest as I'm used to it by now, but it bothers my friends as I'm always struggling filling in online forms with no contact information and always using other peoples phone numbers for deliveries etc. My boyfriend made me get a phone in September so i would be easier to reach but unfortunately i broke it over Christmas. It’s not an issue i saw as pressing considering I’ve gotten so used to not having a phone, but my boyfriend has been essentially trying to force me to let him buy me a phone, so i asked my mum if i could have my mobile phone from when i was living at home as a birthday present. It’s exciting to use some of the features and things but i dont feel like ive been missing out on much. The biggest change i have noticed since having a phone is observing other peoples social etiquette. I think it’s interesting how, as somebody used to being phone-less, I’m a lot more comfortable with silence than some of my friends. Sometimes I’ll realise everybody in the room is staring at their phone, with nothing on the tv or anything, and we’re all just sat in silence. I’m not one of these people who doesn’t have a phone or a tv and doesn't wear shoes or something, but it’s made me really think about my own social media consumption especially. I think having a break occasionally from phone use is something a lot of people could benefit from. You don’t realise how exhausting it can be to constantly have everything going on in your pocket at any given time; I shouldn’t be finding myself getting stressed about an email regarding an assignment in the middle of dinner.

Inspiration: For my final “interesting piece of media” I’ve been working on a title card and closing credits this week for a short film assignment. Having been assigned the role of “Graphics artist” it was important for me to try and find a way of working with limited materials and archived footage in order to create a visually cohesive piece. For the short film, we’ve carried out an interview following a man’s childhood experiences having moved to Australia for boarding school. Due to the nature of the topic, and the disposable style stills our subject has provided, i wanted to work on a rough sketchbook kind of theme. At first i was thinking a lot about what kind of fonts and visual grammar i could use to fit this theme, and eventually decided to make the credits and film them by hand. This I decided, is extremely fitting with the art style i use across my work. As important as digitally creating is now, i’m particularly interested in “hand-editing” or what I’ve grown to understand as “Analogue editing”. I’m not sure what the group were expecting from me in terms of Graphics so i can’t be 100% on their feelings towards it. Part of me feels like they’ll have expected standard white-on black rolling credits and so they’ll be pleasantly surprised, but the other part of me feels like they’re going to think i don’t know how to do that, or that i was being lazy?? even so I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out considering I’ve never done anything like this in moving image before.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_qH-mxho0rotGEqNZkmD8nNwxbtk_kmj/view?usp=sharing

Reflection: I’ve found writing these creative journals to have been extremely useful to me in terms of documenting key points from lectures and being able to look back and see my own progression throughout the year. I love taking quick concise notes in lessons super fast so i can’t read my handwriting later on when I’m looking back my notes, so having everything typed up somewhere where i can just search for whatever topic or subject I’m trying to find all on one page has made things so much easier. It’s also encouraged me to think more about interesting media i see in my daily life. During college i started taking photos of interesting textures and patterns i thought i could use for my collage pieces, but i’d never thought to document interesting media i see. Even if it only started for the sake of these diary entries, I’ve got into the habit now of bookmarking or screen capturing any interesting media i see now for my own inspiration. I particularly want to work in graphics and branding/advertising, so it’s been good to start thinking more about advertisements i see out and about in more depth. It’s also made me start to explore media i previously wouldn’t have in new ways, I’m thinking more about the creative processes that are going into things and why elements appeal to me, what it is about those elements that appeal to me.

I think this module overall has really helped with my progression as a media practitioner, I’ve started approaching things with more of a planner hat than an ideas hat recently. In the documentary making module i mentioned above, my group have been extremely disorganised and the only kind of idea generation that would spark anything was me saying “should we make a mindmap?”. I’ve been able to apply some of the planning and teamworking skills i have learnt about on this course and it’s made things so much easier. It’s really interesting to think now in hindsight, about how for all these years in education and in work I’ve been instructed to plan something, solve a problem, do something in a group; but never told exactly how to do these things. I never would've thought i struggled with problem solving or idea generation before, but now i know new ways to do it i can say without a shadow of a doubt that i am nowhere near as good for it as i thought it was. 

[happylittlemarmite]

Creative Journal

4/1/21- Week 11

Session themes: In this weeks session we refreshed over the topics we studied throughout the year. I found this very useful as it allowed me to rehash any key points i may have missed out and link together some of the ideas we’ve discussed in class having seen it all connected in one bigger picture. I’m sorry its a bit long but I’ve jammed all my notes in here for me to refer to.

1.Theories- What is creativity: theorising and defining

Big C and little c creativity

Big C- grand creative expression (painting, writing, music piece etc)

Little c- “everyday creativity”- every day creativity (organising a calendar, making a recipe etc) (Kozbelt et al.)

Everyday creativity - “...making something which is novel in context, and is a process that invokes joy” (David Gaunlett)

Creativity as a process-

Convergent and Divergent thinking-

Convergent- Logical, leads to a single answer

Divergent- Curiosity, risk taking, willingness to make mistakes, making connections, innovation.

-Fluency, originality, flexibility + elaboration

“The best way to have a good idea... is to have lots of ideas” (Linus Pauling)

Techniques + exercises for thinking differently

Alternative uses

reimagining the familiar

2. Creativity and techniques

Brainstorming (Alex Osborn 40s-60s)

Generation of ideas, problem exploration + concept evaluation

Can be done at any stage in the creative process

Free/open environment- encourages participation

opportunity to build upon unusual ideas

     4 Rules-

Go for quantity

Withhold criticism

Welcome wild ideas

Combine + improve ideas

Reverse Brainstorming - as above, instead of asking “how to solve problem”, asking “how to cause problem” and reverse engineering

6 Thinking hats (De Bono)

Tools approach

Software for thinking

Important- All thinking with the same hat at once in order for parallel thinking to occur

Parallel thinking

All thinking on the same path

one at a time, unlike brainstorming

Originality

Importance of building from others

read only culture vs creative commons

Simplicity

Elegance? Good taste? Goal of creativity?

Fetishism of simplicity- hiding complexity is a privilege 

Complexity

3. Creative Tools- are they a help or a hindrance?

Editing

Keep editing 🢂 endlessy editing 🢂 endless indecision 🢂 never finished, always in a flux

Planning

Commit to creative choices

Build on + work around mistakes

Paradox of choice

Creative limitations- embrace

Environment- inspiring, playful, freedom to try + fail

DSD: For my do something different activity I’ve been trying to read a little. I dont have a lot of time to sit and read and i have a very short attention span, but at school i was always big into reading books. I was always at the library and wanted to be an author, but i grew out of it at college. For Christmas i received a book named  The Diary of Two Nobodies, an autobiographical piece written by my favourite Gogglebox couple, Giles Wood and Mary Killen. I’ve been wanting to pick up reading as a hobby for a while now as i have noticed recently that my vocabulary range is extremely slim. I often can’t find the proper words to use in place of slang and go a long way around explaining myself when I’m sure if i knew the right words i would be more concise. Even looking back at my school work sometimes, I find myself having to look up what some words mean. As I’ve said before I’m always super busy, so sitting and reading isn’t really viable for me. I’ve just been reading in placement of listening to music when i travel at the moment; the bus to work is only around 20 minutes but it’s still something.

Inspiration: An interesting piece of media i have consumed this week is the Netflix drama Ratched. It’s a psychological thriller made as a prequel to Saul Zaentz's 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (based on Ken Kesey's 1962 novel of the same name). It follows titular character Nurse Ratched’s story before the story its based on. I have not seen the original film to compare, but the Netflix drama is incredible. I do not like scary films, so there are some gory scenes that weren’t really for me but they weren’t enough to put me off. What i found particularly compelling about the series are the amazing visual aesthetics throughout. Being set in the late 40s/early 50s, the fashion, the hair, the music and the set design is very appealing to me. I’m not sure what kind of style i could consider this, maybe late art deco, 40′s pin up or modernism? There’s a lot of colours and patterns i would’ve previously attributed to the 70′s in this show that have made me so interested in post-war fashion. The blues and yellows especially are so vibrant it’s a beautiful show. I found the fashion and interior design to be the most captivating, although i believe the gory and surreal nature of some of the show may have given me some spooky dreams.

[happylittlemarmite]

Creative Journal

7/12/20- Week 10

Sessions Themes: In this weeks session we looked at being alert to unexpected opportunities and different creative environments. The example we looked at when discussing the former was for the invention of the post-it note which i have bullet pointed as follows:

Designed by accident

Spencer Silver- trying to create “super strong” adhesive for use in aerospace industry

Creates an extremely weak adhesive- Acrylate Copolymer Microspheres

Arthur Fry heres of this in a seminar and decides it would make for a good non-residual bookmark

Post-it is born- Unsuccessful at first due to unfamiliarity but after work with free samples 90% of American households would go on to buy them.

We also looked at some creative environments from big companies such as google and Pixar, and discussed how our environment can impact on our creativity. Brad Bird of Pixar said “if you have a loose, free kind of atmosphere, it helps creativity.” in relation to the interesting working environments throughout Pixar, where employees are allowed to decorate their workspaces however they wish. I think this was an extremely interesting concept to think about, it’s one of those background things that you know to be true but don’t give a lot of thought. Recently with trying to do my uni work I’ve been driving myself up the wall a bit, and i think it’s to do with there being no clear work/rest divide now we have to work from home. I wake up, sit on my bed at my computer studying, watch a little Netflix before i go to bed and then sleep in the same bed I’ve been sat on all day. Hopefully once lockdown is lifted, I’m going to try and study in commons during the day time so i don’t get stuck in such a weird cycle. 

DSD: This week for my do something different activity i have been working on my anxiety. Daily i leave for work at the same time and usually there are around 4 or 5 faces that i see every time. Sometimes as i pass them i smile, but often they dont see or smile back and i get so embarrassed, so I’m going to take the initiative and start saying “hello” as i pass them. One of them in particular, i know we have the same employer because of our uniforms but assume we must work different shifts, ALWAYS blanks me which is particularly disheartening to me, so once I’ve cracked that I’ll be golden. I know it’s silly but I’ve given some of them nicknames based on description in order to feedback to the boys i live with regarding my success.

Inspiration: Some interesting media I’ve been looking at recently is early 2000′s British sit-coms. I’ve been trying to find something i can watch on Netflix that makes for good “passive viewing”. It’s unlike me to have any more than 2/3 series’ on the go at any one time because my attention spam would not allow for it. I like to watch one series that’s long and in depth but with something shorter and more light-hearted for when i just want something on in the background or if I’m not feeling like paying too much attention. I hate American lifestyle TV SO MUCH, it’s one of those things i feel like I'm watching to laugh at not participate with, and especially American comedy I have to be in a very specific state of mind to try and enjoy it. As much as i hate to admit it, my friends always say i like “boomer humour” because of the way i communicate with older people and the type of jokes i like to tell. It’s not that i think my taste is “mature”, it’s most likely that i virtually grew up down the pub surrounded by people my parents’ age. I don't understand a lot of the older pop culture references but i find myself laughing at silly “mum humour” often, it’s just not something I’ve ever thought to pursue in terms of the media i consume. I’ve been watching things like Teachers and Spaced on Netflix and i love the witty dry humour so much. The only reason these kind of shows stand out to me against newer sit-coms also is the pacing of the jokes. I’ve been trying to watch some modern sit-coms on Netflix too such as Drifters and Crashing and the humour is so much more obvious. It’s like something will happen in front of you and then, just to make sure you got the joke, a character will explain what you just saw. 

I find early 2000s TV particularly interesting because of the stark differences in social attitudes between now and then. For example, I know socially that LGBT+ issues have progressed so much in the past few years, however it’s so much easier to pinpoint these progressive peaks through TV. The stereotyping of the “gay best friend”, or “trendy gay” tropes, with people asking questions like “who who is the man in the relationship?” It’s not that they’re being overtly homophobic, but it’s so crazy that these kind of cliché’s were socially acceptable not even that long ago.

All that being said, as i mentioned in my last post with the rise of the y2k trend i could just enjoy this under the influence of the aestheticism of the 90′s and early 2000′s, but even so, it makes for good tv.

[happylittlemarmite]

Creative Journal

30/11/20- Week 9

Sessions Themes: This week there was no taught session and instead we were encouraged to arrange a 1-to-1 tutorial with James. During our meeting I explained that I have been “backdating” some of these journal entries and how I’ve found it useful in terms of refreshing my memory on what we learned in class. Although most of these entries are dictated by my in-class notes (or often out-of-class catch-up), being able to flick through the lecture slides in order to decode some of my faster notes in order to extend on them in a way that my brain will be able to understand is huge. I often find myself struggling to understand the notes i jot down when i go back through, and so through doing this not only do i feel it’s better cemented in me memory but I’m also able to change my notes so that they make more sense to me out of context.

DSD: For my Do Something Different activity this week I’ve been working on replacing negative reinforcement with positive. I know I’ve mentioned it before in terms of classwork but “analysis paralysis” is a very real feeling for me and i often decide against approaching a task because I overanalyse it and freak myself out, whereas in reality actually doing the task probably isn't that difficult I’ve just overthought it. Literally the best way i can think to describe it is “paralysis” because in my mind if i start making moves to do the task I’ll become overwhelmed, which then leads to me sitting around and getting upset with myself for not being able to do anything, Such a silly and irritating cycle to get myself into. So recently, in the spirirt of getting my assignments done, I’ve been trying to focus on telling myself “I want to pass fist year” instead of “You should be doing uni work right now”. It’s taking it’s time and I’m still struggling not to put too much pressure on myself but hopefully this can develop into a long-term thing and I’ll learn to become more motivated.

Inspiration: Some interesting media I’ve been looking at this week are “Dance Mom edits” on YouTube. The early 2000s on YouTube birthed a genre of comedic editing known as “YouTube Poops”. “ A YouTube Poop (YTP) is a type of video mashup or edit created by remixing/editing pre-existing media sources often carrying subcultural significance into a new video for humorous, satirical, obscene and profane, as well as annoying, confusing, scary, shocking, surreal, or dramatic purposes.” “ Lawrence Lessig, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, compared this aspect to a form of call and response, here seen as being prominent within remix culture”(Wikipedia)

When these kind of videos were popular and i was of the age to partake, i didn’t find these edits enjoyable and always thought the over the top and sometimes slapstick comedy was immature and didn’t add anything to the original media it was taken from. Alongside this, i never watched Dance Moms when it was on TV and have only ever seen short clips from it on Facebook watch or IGTV. That's why I found the resurgence of this phenomena so interesting, because it combines two things I otherwise wouldn’t have been interested in and yet i find it so compelling. I think with the rising trend of “Y2K” fashion and aesthetics, older reality TV shows are coming back too, such as Paris Hilton’s The Simple Life and early episodes of Kitchen Nightmares, Which would explain why Dance Moms is all of a sudden all over the internet too. The type of humour is exactly the same, but i think online culture has changed in a way that I’m now able to enjoy these as some kind of “abstract humour” as opposed to thinking it was just “loud noise + warped image = funny”. It may also be to do with my own social development too. Although i was super into the internet as a kid i had very niche “special interests” and so perhaps i just didn't understand as many of the pop culture references at the time and couldn't see the humour in it.

[happylittlemarmite]

Creative Journal

 23/11/20- Week 8

Sessions Themes: In this weeks session we learnt about complexity.

There is pleasure in the revelation of complexity

There is pleasure in manifesting creative solutions to problems, even if the problems themselves are trivial

Rube Goldberg (1883-1970) is an American cartoonist. He invented a concept known as the Rube Goldberg Machine; a machine intentionally designed to perform a single task in an indirect and overly complicated way. This links to our “secret project” assessment wherein we’ve been asked to design a Rube Goldberg Machine of our own, to either transport an egg or perform another trivial task. 

For the assessment we’ve been asked to make and write a report for this. Documenting: Plans, Design, Successes, Failures, Redesign and Reflection. The report:

Initial thinking

How did i interpret the brief?

My Original/Initial ideas

Background research

Examples of other contraptions

Wallace and Gromit, YouTube “pointless inventions and contraptions”, domino topples

Planning and preparation

“Show your working”

Document designs, plans and ideas

What materials could i use?

How have i added complexity?

Image, video, time lapse

Contraption in action - Still images or video

Evaluation and reflection

How successful/unsuccessful was it?

Thoughts

What worked well/ what could i improve

Reflect on level of creativity

DSD: This week I’ve been doing something a little more menial for my do something different activity: organising a bookmarks bar. At any given time, I have multiple windows with multiple tabs open, to the extent where on mobile google chrome doesn't even show the number of how many tabs i have open, instead a “:D”. Even right now as im writing this this is what my window looks like 

I never shut down my computer through fear of losing all these tabs, and on the occasions i have lost these tabs found I’d lost extremely important items that I’d been keeping open just in case i couldn't find them again. I’ve began by making a few bookmark folders for online shopping, house hunting, recipes and graphics inspo. I would also have liked to make a folder for bookmarks relevant to my studies however much of minerva/blackboards links expire after a short time indicating a “stale request”. As bad as my window looks at the moment, making bookmarked categories has made using my browser much less stressful and easier for me to find exact links I’m looking for.

Inspiration: An interesting piece of media i have consumed this week is Michel Gondry’s documentary with philosopher Noam Chomsky; Is The Man Who is Tall Happy. The film gives Chomsky the opportunity to explain some of his theories to an otherwise non-academic audience, which is animated in an engaging and educative manor. The animation used in the piece does not depict an interview for the most part, but instead used as a metaphorical device to explain some of the concepts discussed graphically. I’ve never been particularly interested in documentaries, nor philosophy, but watched this for another module exploring digital storytelling. I instantly fell in love with the art style of this piece and the different mixed media elements involved. I had absolutely 0 interest in being a film maker before watching this, but through the interview Gondry’s self awareness towards the making process as well as his unusual animation methods are so endearing to me and it’s something I’m more interested in trying out. The Documentary is animated entirely in stop motion with very occasional snippets of video, which is definitely not something I’ve seen in non-fiction film before. Once again the graphics style of this uses mixed media (bet you’re surprised to hear me talking about that again) but in this case i found it particularly fascinating due to the way it’s animated. Although mostly drawings, Gondry also incorporates archived documents, physical objects including playing cards and rocks, and photographs in this piece.