10/19/2010

StudioSkeie`s videoblogg

HER kommer StudioSkeie`s videoblogg - med første innslag om ca. litt over en uke...: http://bit.ly/9Ev9wJ

"Pistolen", Flip Ultra HD er bestilt... Nå skal vi fylle den med ammunisjon, og om ikke mange dagene er vi altså i gang.

Det vil nok ta litt tid å "finne" formen på det men det får gå seg til litt etter hvert. I utgangspunktet vil videobloggen være en promoterende sak for StudioSkeie, men samtidig være et sted hvor jeg kan kanalisere ut min hobby og pasjon med akkurat samme tematikk: Jobb-innslag, produksjon, design, impulser, observasjoner, inspirasjon og refleksjoner etc. Heldigvis (i hvert fall i denne sammenhengen) er jobben også min hobbygesjeft ETTER formell arbeidstid.

Tror dette først og fremst vil bli nyttig - forhåpentlig også for andre enn meg selv. Men jeg regner også med at det blir MYE moro...

5/25/2010

update on final year project...

The website for the stop motion animation project will be:Clara's Animated World

This site will feature a short teaser giving an outline of what the full animated sequence will be - I'll be shooting the main sequence over the summer months.
To find out more or subscribe to the blog at:
visit Lenny's blog.

This blog also show's how Clara was made and tips on stop motion animation, as well as useful links for people to learn how to create their own stop motion animation!

Clara herself has her own blog which will feature her own puppets and how she manages to create her own animations using an extremely low budget!
visit Clara's blog.

3/20/2010

Project Proposal for Year 2 by Lenny Carter

Project Proposal for Term 3, Year 2


At the start of the year we had to prepare a project proposal for the end of year assignment.

I decided I wanted to create a stop motion animation using a puppet that I had already started to create over the summer break. This first puppet was awful (first go at such a project) so I decided to remade it using a ball & socket jointed armature - which is more durable than simple twisted wire.

I’ve been keeping a blog on the process which will eventually be attached to it’s own website – click Clara’s Animated World to visit her blog.




How Digital Media can aid self-expression
Integrative Project Proposal by Lenny Carter


Introduction

In using Digital Media as a means of self-expression will raise awareness of how a person can bring their dreams and personal thoughts into reality. This can be educational as well as a possible aid to personal development. The process of creating such work can create skills that could be used in the future, for example: better job prospects and career choices. This could also bring a greater self-awareness towards personal goals, and desires.

Whilst Digital Media cannot itself solve the issue of stress or self-fulfillment of dreams etc, but it can be used as a tool, just like pens, paints and music can help towards stress relief and this has become much more accessible to people since Digital software and computer equipment has become less expensive especially to the young or who have limited budgets.

Aims

The project will consist of a stop motion animated film that features a young teenager character that shows how she escapes from her problems (or the attempt to understand and reconcile the effects of them) by using a personal item (a toy that becomes her friend and mentor) by dreaming imaginative scenarios. The characters will be seen in ‘real life’ and a partial sequence of her dream sequence. It will also have the main character re-create this dream world using digital media. The viewer of the animation will see the character teach her-self new skills, and could then try the same techniques themselves. The results of the animated film created by the character can be posted onto a social website, like youtube.com, Facebook, MySpace or flickr etc.

This project is educational in the development of new skills of Digital Media tools and also interplays with Art Therapy. John Harley and Kelly McWilliam’s book, Story Circle: Digital Storytelling Around the World, write about how ‘people are taught to use digital media to create short audio-video stories, usually about their own lives. The idea is that this puts the universal human delight in narrative and self-expression into the hands of everyone’, again regardless of budget and skills this is a possibility in today’s technological environment.

Cheaper computers or using computer at libraries (for free) means that creating self-expression art works with digital media is now available to a lot of people. Most computers now come with a web camera, and software can be downloaded for free (especially open source software, i.e.: Gimp is a well known free alternative to Adobe PhotoShop Photo Editing Suite).

Objectives and Research Methodology

* Storyboarding of animated sequence.

* Primary Research and secondary research will feature questionnaires on Facebook to the general public and a poll on Deviant Arts aimed at similar types of self-expressionist work using Digital Media software and equipment. Relevant books and Magazines on the subject will also be researched.

* Research of costs of making an animated film (free versions of software, equipment etc) analysing and researching the techniques of stop motion and animation, including timing and to convincingly move a wired armature, building props and sets, sound techniques, storyboarding, and how to create mood and atmosphere with software and positioning of props and lights etc.

* Website Design – Platform creation for Animated Film. The site will contain links to useful sites that will aid viewers to make their own animated, alternative realities themselves and to stress the importance of accessibility and that this type of project can be created in the viewers home – specialist equipment or skills is not necessarily needed to create their own self-expressed ideas in animation.

* Art therapy similar organisations on how self-expression can deal with stress and personal development? Also to research similar websites that use Art therapy to aid self expression in the creative arts and to whether there are any current sites that cover these areas using stop motion animation.

Resources for Project

This project will be completed in a home environment using an iMac, Digital SLR (entry level), or Camcorder (depending on research and software used), and the website will stress the aspect.

The film will feature a homemade stop motion character that is glued and sewn (It will contain a wired body and the main character will feature a ball and socket joined doll (these are now within the amateurs budget – the wired version is the cheapest and more accessible type to use for those on a very limited budget), both options will be used and information given on ease of use.

Software which will either be PhotoShop, After Effects, Final Cut Pro, SoundBooth, and a stop motion software package (i.e.: iStopMotionPro), PC or Mac.

Free options will be featured on the website so that viewers to the site can see that stop motion is accessible to the young and those who do not have the funds to explore what used to be a specialist or professionals hobby. Free options to include are Gimp (similar to Photoshop), Audacity (sound), and Window’s moviemaker or iMovie on a Mac.








Bibliography


Ross, C. (2006)

The Aesthetics of Disengagement, Contemporary Art and Depression (2006), University of Minnesota.

Hartley, J. McWilliams, K. (2009),

Story Circle: Digital Storytelling Around the World, (2009), Wiley Blackwell, England.

Murphy, M. (2008),

Get started in Animation, (2008), A & C Black Publishers Ltd, England.

Online sources


‘Stories for Change is a website that encourages digital storytelling and individuals can add their own self-expressions in all formats’:

Stories for Change, (s.d.) [Internet], available from [accessed 18th October 2009]

MindTools, Imagery – Mental stress Management, (s.d.) [Internet], available from [accessed 9th November 2009]

Eliminate Stress with Imagination. By ‘Linc2010’, (s.d.), [internet], available from [accessed 9th November 2009]

Teen Metal Health (s.d.), [internet], available from [accessed 9th November 2009]

Art therapy with adolescents, Western Journal of Medicine, (200?), [internet], available from [accessed 9th November 2009]

Web Sources for Stop Motion Animation information:

Stop Motion Animation, information and forum for help from other animators. [Internet], available from

Stop Motion Pro, Information and forum for help from other animators. [Internet], available from

Stop Motion Works, Information and forum for help from other animators. [Internet], available from

Stop Motion Central, Information and forum for help from other animators. [Internet], available from

Wikihowto, (s.d), Simple stop motion for amateurs, [Internet], available from [accessed 26th November 2009]

12/05/2009

TED Talks - Johnny Lee demos Wii Remote hacks.

A really interesting talk from Johnny Lee, about ways to use the infrared camera on a Nintendo Wii remote to build different interactive applications.


Project proposal - by Mats Nielsen.

Ok, so this was my Integrative Project Assignment Proposal for PPD. I realise that it is not a proper proposal, since it has no aims of doing any primary research. Neither does the product intend to answer the title/statement, but the proposal is more like a brief of the topic, in a way. This is because my product is not going to be informative, it is just going to be an animation without any concrete purpose.


An investigation into how abstract animation can be used as a medium to express and convey the topic of human perception - in the consciousness of the brain - as the observer of reality.

Introduction.

This project is proposed to create an animation that offers a critical view on what we regard as reality in our everyday lives, as a result of our five senses. Based on recent scientific discoveries made by leading quantum physicists and philosophers, this project will try to express the idea of critical observation of the physical world around us. The animation will in an abstract way envision how our outside world might look like without the boundaries of the human brain, and objective observation. The narrative will therefore have an abstract theme, but will strive to express the topic in an artistic way, rather than a linear narrative way.

Aims.

The aim is to use digital animation to express and vitalize a strict scientific theory. The theory tells us that what we see through our human senses is only a fraction of the vast amount of information out there in the universe. Further aims would be to explore how combination between different animation tools can be best used to enhance the aesthetical appearance of the outcome, and how music can affects the experience.

Objectives.

-    Incorporate several animation techniques such as digital 3D tools, traditional frame-by-frame animation and video, but still maintain an individual and unique style of animation.
-    Cooperate with a musician on a sound piece suitable and underlining of the animations theme, to be synchronized and merged with the final visuals.

Topic.

As proposed, the animation will try to convey on an abstract level the idea that what we observe around us might not be reality. What we observe is eventually what we use in order to create in our minds the reality we live in. As sight is our most dominant and influential sense of perceiving the outside world, the animation will address an approach to make the subject aware and reflect on the idea that there might be more to what we see in our daily lives than what we normally think.
The eyes function as the lens on a camera, but the back part of our brains are in fact what records what we see, like the tape of a camera. But unlike the camera, we have objection and judgement, and are therefore filtering what we receive through our vision (Knight, 2004). The ability to register and remember that information therefore depends on the level of consciousness we are in. As human beings, what we feel and experience is a result of the information we receive through our five senses. And consciousness is the ability we have to register and imagine what and where we are. Therefore it can be said that if you have a golf ball sized consciousness, when you read or see something you will have a golf ball sized understanding. When you wake up in the morning you will have a golf ball sized wakefulness, and you will keep on living in this golf ball sized universe, until you regard other possibilities (Lynch, 2005).
What we then in fact believe to be reality is a result of the procession of that information in our brain. Therefore it might seem correct to assume that reality exists in the world outside the mind and body, and what is outside the mind is then something we think of as the world of physical reality. But scientists today believe, based on modern quantum physics, that we only experience a fraction of the total amount of information potentially available in reality. “We are living in a world where all we see is the tip of the iceberg. A classical tip of an immense quantum mechanical iceberg” (Hagelin, 2004).
It can therefore be criticized whether the outside world is real, or if in fact reality is something we as human beings create and control in our minds.
Our brain doesn’t know the difference between what’s taking place out in the physical world, and what’s imagined inside the brain. Upon testing, neuroscientists have found that if a human visually looks at any given object, certain neurons in the brain activate. When the same person is imagining the same thing in the brain, the exact same neurons become active. So the human is then limited by the level of consciousness, when acting as the observer of reality.
Another idea also essential in the theory of quantum mechanics is the theory of something called “The Grand Unified Superstring Theory”, discovered by a physicist called John
Hagelin.
It consists of the idea that at the basis of all source of matter, and all being, is a unified field of pure and fundamental consciousness. Everything we are and see and that exists is not based on solid particles, as opposed to what we long have believed based on Aristotle’s philosophy. But instead, the very building block of all matter is consciousness. Consciousness in different states and rates of vibration, which give rise to all quarks, atoms and molecules, which we then perceive as solid and fixed objects (Hagelin, 1998).
Therefore we too, as human beings and the observer, are subjects and results of pure consciousness.
“I think if we keep quantum physics really simple, that out observation has a direct effect on our world, then people can begin to get about the business of practising the skill of observation. The subatomic world responds to our observation, but the average person loses their attention span every 6-8 seconds. So how could the very large respond to someone who doesn’t have the ability to even focus and concentrate? Maybe we’re just poor observers, and maybe observation is a skill that can be practised and evolved” (Dispenza, 2004).
This issue of consciousness and the observer is eventually what the project will try to convey, in an abstract and artistic expression, through animation.

The end goal of the project is not to give the subject a full understanding of the topic, but to visualize and vitalize the idea.

Bibliography.

Dispenza, J. (2004) Interview with the director in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know!? . Oregon. [Joe Dispenza is a chiropractor, author, and a devotee of Ramtha's School of Enlightenment].

Dispenza, J. (2008) Evolve Your Brain: The Science of Changing Your Mind. Health Communication. © 2008.

Hagelin, J. (2004) Interview with the director in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know!? . Oregon. [John Hagelin has since 1984 been teaching physics as Professor of Physics at Maharishi University of Management (formerly MIU), and serves as Director of the Institute of Science].

Hagelin, J. (1998) Manual for a perfect government: how to harness the laws of nature to bring maximum success to governmental administration. Fairfield, Iowa: Maharishi University of Management. © 1998.

Knight, J.Z. (2004) Interview with the director in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know!? .
Oregon. [Judy Zebra Knight is the author of the autobiography “A State of Mind, My Story”].

Lynch. D. (2005) Speech at University of Boston. Boston, 1 October.