Animation Context semester 2: Week 4: 19/2/18: Self directed lesson: research and development.

This week for Animation context it was a self directed lesson for us to do research for our chosen topics, and Johny meanwhile was finishing the feedback talks on our statements of intent. Knowing what it was I needed to focus on I spent this morning looking for books at home to research which I did from art books on perspective and colour theory. I decided to go to the library to do some research and find possible books to add to my bibliography of research. Upon arriving I found the dreamworlds book by Hans Bacher, I found his book to be of use in my concept art poster research in terms of visual development.

Upon revisiting old books I found a book of animation by Andrew Shelby which had a lot on pre production and having used this once before I decided to use it again given its vast knowledge into the idea of concepts. I returned to the classroom, and started reading the books, to mark down what areas to read later to start making notes. Upon marking I started coming up with an idea of structuring my essay. I looked to my feedback for ideas and using this I typed up a plan in Word (as shown below)

Structure idea for essay.

I found this to be an acceptable structure, as it covered  basic things I wanted to include in the essay such as what is concept art?, Visual development research, qualities, conclusion. I hoped Johny would agree with this structure but didn't have time to show it to him.

Feelings:

I was confident, for what it was I wanted to do toady, but I had forgotten to bring the books in from home to read for my research and structuring I adapted to my plan. I went to the library knowing what to get and even finding the animation book to add to my research list.  I was a little uneasy however, as I wasn't sure using the same source twice was a good idea and could get me marked down in the hand in. Whilst looking around I found something surprising, it was a book about the art of an artist named Posuka Demizu, the artwork was very illustrative and simple, I felt intrigued by this and decided to take it out for personal reading. 

Whilst reading the content, I knew which parts were most important such as the visual development and preproduction in concept. The structure was a simple one and by jotting down the main points it would be a reminder on what to talk about giving me some reassurance that I'm looking at a possible structure for the essay. I wasn't feeling certain about not finding the time to show Johny the structure idea but I realised that this would be something to cover at a later date. 

Evaluation:

I did well collecting research sources for my essay, and getting a good idea of how to structure it for writing out my draft. Whilst I didn't have the books from home to read for research I did adapt to the situation and went to the library to search for other books to read. Using the found books I did well marking the relevant information. However I did have an issue with wondering what information would be relevant given there was a lot being said in the book and I couldn't highlight the information. I realised however I could write down notes later for independent study. 

Looking at the structure that I had planed for the essay I would think I considered all the attributes and key information to discuss.

Analysis:

In hindsight perhaps asking for Johny's opinion on the matter of alternative essay structures to look at as we had learned a lot of different structures over the last two weeks. However as artist/animator Loish described in her book we can pursue our own styles and I think I've followed a good example of some of the structures that Johny showed us. I should've waited till Johny was finished to show him my possible structure idea for my essay to hear his thoughts on the subject.

Conclusion:

I would've considered looking at things differently, such as I would tell Johny what it was I was planning to do, and see if he could look over my structure later. This way I would get feedback and make sure that I was on the right track. Another thing I could've done was look through the library internet search first so that I would know what to look for first and even look for additional books for research. However, I do believe I have done sufficient work toady even found a book of an artist that could possibly help a steer in my other modules such as an art style steer for Storywriting script to screen. 

Action Plan:

In future I will make sure I have the right research materials on me in the event that we have another self directed lesson in context. This way I would have some more material to research from and could possibly start writing my draft but, having the structure done first was a better outcome today than later. I may also consider spending more time in the library after my recent discovery of an art of book, since if I found this I could find something else of interest much like I did in college when I found a comic book of interest in the library. I will need to read my chosen research choices, and take necessary notes so that I may make a start on my essay draft and begin designing my layout in the Indesign PDF.