'There is no sincerer love than the love of food'
-George Bernard Shaw
With an emphasis on providing us with greater creative freedom, and encouraging us to begin developing our own briefs and taking greater responsibility for our own projects, the brief for Applied Animation 2 is quite vague. The main requirements? It must concern food. And be a documentary animation.
Aside from these two points, the world is pretty much our oyster. We could look at food growth, production, preparation, consumption, dietary requirements et. al. It could be hard hitting or comedic in tone. We will need to identify our own audience. We could create Creature Comforts style animated interviews (although as the interviews in Creature Comforts are taken out of context, it is debatable whether they can be classed as documentary), fact heavy info-graphics, or a docudrama. We can use any animation style we feel is appropriate.
Another new consideration is who to work with. Until recently, every project and brief has been undertaken individually, with everyone completing every stage of a module on their own, from beginning to end. While that is still an option with the Applied Animation 2 brief, there is also the option to work collaboratively in small groups of up to three, or co-operatively, where classmates can be drafted in to lend assistance with specific processes based on their skills and strengths. This is a lot to take in and think about.
The potential to work across multiple groups and projects could easily result in an overload of work. It is important to bear in mind that the resultant animations are intended for public exhibition at the end of the year, and so must be of high quality, broadcast standard. Quality, not quantity (although the 1-2 minute guide time is longer than any animation I have attempted thus far) is the key.
The briefing provided a number of interesting prompts to get us thinking about food, not just as a subject, but how best to visually represent it. Food is integrally linked to our sense of taste, smell and touch, so how can we simulate that sensory experience using only visual and audio? Can we exploit intrinsic links between certain sounds and tastes/smells?
Also, food can be an emotionally charged topic. I have known arguments to break out over vegetarianism. Is animation well placed to address some of the more controversial or distasteful topics surrounding food? If the right tone is struck it is possible that an audience may be more open to and less antagonised by an animated documentary, but get the tone wrong and it could come across as patronising. It is important to bear in mind that while some animations are clearly aimed at adults, the medium is still largely perceived as being for children. Perhaps this misconception would allow an animator to spring a topic upon a viewer that they would not be expecting, and would not otherwise pay attention to?
The briefing provided a number of interesting prompts to get us thinking about food, not just as a subject, but how best to visually represent it. Food is integrally linked to our sense of taste, smell and touch, so how can we simulate that sensory experience using only visual and audio? Can we exploit intrinsic links between certain sounds and tastes/smells?
Also, food can be an emotionally charged topic. I have known arguments to break out over vegetarianism. Is animation well placed to address some of the more controversial or distasteful topics surrounding food? If the right tone is struck it is possible that an audience may be more open to and less antagonised by an animated documentary, but get the tone wrong and it could come across as patronising. It is important to bear in mind that while some animations are clearly aimed at adults, the medium is still largely perceived as being for children. Perhaps this misconception would allow an animator to spring a topic upon a viewer that they would not be expecting, and would not otherwise pay attention to?
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