during a seminar hosted by Barry Purves I learnt some very valuable things in relation to my dissertation as it is quoted quite often with the brilliant points that he brings up, but obviously I questioned his quotes using other sources. Here are my notes from the seminar:
Barry Purves has been in the animation and theatre business for 37 years and has just begun directing his own opera which made him feel out of his comfort zone but wanted to pursuit it as a new presentation of storytelling.
He stated whilst having a love for storytelling that finding the story is the easy bit. Making it interesting is the hard bit!
At the start of his career he wanted to become an actor and tried his hardest to achieve this, but as he realised this wasn't what he was destined to do, he then decided to pursuit the art of storytelling!
He joined Cosgrove hall as his equivalent love for animation made this an important part of his life. and he especially pointed out the reason why he loves animation and that is for the detail in which one can achieve through animation.
So why do we tell stories?
stories have been around for decades "I think stories are made to say - I'm Here!"
we need to be noticed, and stories are there to make our lives noted. story telling has nothing to do with real life - its the good bits.
with technology we use everything to tell a story - lighting, colour, textures etc.
An amazing quote from the seminar was as follows: "man is least honest in his own voice, give him a mask and he will tell you the truth. we need a safety device."
we find its safer with a mask to talk about ourselves - teddies/pets/kids (tell your father stop being a pain, when you should reply with why not tell him yourself but its the mask that is the reason why.)
whether it be through a technique like animation.
In Mary Poppins we want to know more about Julie Andrews but how do we know more? she has a device that she can talk to - the umbrella to know how the protagonist is feeling.
"A mask is something that should conceal, but it actually liberates - its ironic!"
"find the device in the show, enjoy the artifists"
"A good story makes us learn about ourselves"
"Don't think literally - the audience has the ability to fill in the blanks." In the play entitled the War Horse the horse was controlled by two actors dressed in black but being as though the acting was so good the audience didn't notice the actors and saw the wooden horse as a character.
the animation budget as a whole then started to spiral downwards so Barry Purves had to come up with a way in sustaining his career despite of this!
His animation that he is very fond of that he took us through shot by shot was a masterpiece in terms of storytelling and animation processes.
the animation was of blue hue with a contrasting black background. and the last third of the animation is CGI.
after jumanji used cgi to create extra animals in one of the shot he thought "this is the end of my career". and he was constantly asked "why don't I embrace CGI?"
and being a director he stated that he considers everything possible all from the colour scheme to camera angles and style of animation. he also urged us to keep this attention to detail in all our work.
Plume was written using a "textbook 3 act structure"
ACT 1 - A man that flies, falls down and can't fly.
ACT 2 - Thwarted to fly and encounters obstacles.
ACT 3 - Over comes those obstacles
one thing that Barry stated was that the eyes are the most important part of a puppet are the eyes, you could take everything away such as the eyes and nose and be left with just the eyes and it would still be convincing.
on a side note, wings are used in every piece that he creates due to the mystical nature and texture of them.
since there was no set for the animation Barry needed a way of geographically placing the protagonist, he started by making sure that the character is always travelling from right to left.
he used cgi elements such as feathers to also establish a floor for the audience.
The puppet was made of silicone - heavy and cold. if they were to do it again he would use latex as silicone doesn't stretch, this is one of the main disadvantages of stop-motion compared to CGI where all the characters are modelled virtually so there are no worries about having to rig the character with a physical rig which needs removing in post production. But this is the appeal of stop motion animation, the actual skeletons inside that are physical and tangible.
The colour pallet is a very important part of the animation process according to Barry Purves due to the uni-formality of the whole show and keeping the aesthetic consistent. this is one slight hurdle that stop-motion could encounter as different paints need to be precisely mixed to get the same pigment where as computer technology has precise tools to acquire the same pigments.
"texture is a great advantage in stop-motion, unlike drawn and CG where you have to create the texture where as stop-motion you have it there for real. the only issue was not to disturb the texture whilst animating."
He then goes on to explain about cuts, where the cut has to be invisible and unnoticeable. for example if there is a long shot of a character and it jumps to a close up, keep the head in the same place in both shots to avoid disorientating the viewer.
"never think of animation as mathematical, make it not dull and keep it dynamic."
"if i can't touch it I'm not interested."
Another differing factor between stop-motion and CGI is the price of materials, for example the character in flume cost the team 12,000 pounds as opposed to CGI characters costing nothing other than the staffed man hours behind it.
His response to my question of why do you think stop-motion is still popular despite CGI is as follows "The anatomy of a ballet dancer - she is on her toes and you are aware of the anatomy and restrictions - its the same with stop-motion, you are aware what the trick is - the limitations, CGI has crossed the line of taking the technique away people think "oh anything is possible cameras can be anywhere" like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, you know the mechanics."
I learnt some very valuable things from this seminar that have helped to order certain opinions in my head about my topic which is why I chose to feature the information quite heavily in one chapter.
we find its safer with a mask to talk about ourselves - teddies/pets/kids (tell your father stop being a pain, when you should reply with why not tell him yourself but its the mask that is the reason why.)
whether it be through a technique like animation.
In Mary Poppins we want to know more about Julie Andrews but how do we know more? she has a device that she can talk to - the umbrella to know how the protagonist is feeling.
"A mask is something that should conceal, but it actually liberates - its ironic!"
"find the device in the show, enjoy the artifists"
"A good story makes us learn about ourselves"
"Don't think literally - the audience has the ability to fill in the blanks." In the play entitled the War Horse the horse was controlled by two actors dressed in black but being as though the acting was so good the audience didn't notice the actors and saw the wooden horse as a character.
the animation budget as a whole then started to spiral downwards so Barry Purves had to come up with a way in sustaining his career despite of this!
His animation that he is very fond of that he took us through shot by shot was a masterpiece in terms of storytelling and animation processes.
the animation was of blue hue with a contrasting black background. and the last third of the animation is CGI.
after jumanji used cgi to create extra animals in one of the shot he thought "this is the end of my career". and he was constantly asked "why don't I embrace CGI?"
and being a director he stated that he considers everything possible all from the colour scheme to camera angles and style of animation. he also urged us to keep this attention to detail in all our work.
Plume was written using a "textbook 3 act structure"
ACT 1 - A man that flies, falls down and can't fly.
ACT 2 - Thwarted to fly and encounters obstacles.
ACT 3 - Over comes those obstacles
one thing that Barry stated was that the eyes are the most important part of a puppet are the eyes, you could take everything away such as the eyes and nose and be left with just the eyes and it would still be convincing.
on a side note, wings are used in every piece that he creates due to the mystical nature and texture of them.
since there was no set for the animation Barry needed a way of geographically placing the protagonist, he started by making sure that the character is always travelling from right to left.
he used cgi elements such as feathers to also establish a floor for the audience.
The puppet was made of silicone - heavy and cold. if they were to do it again he would use latex as silicone doesn't stretch, this is one of the main disadvantages of stop-motion compared to CGI where all the characters are modelled virtually so there are no worries about having to rig the character with a physical rig which needs removing in post production. But this is the appeal of stop motion animation, the actual skeletons inside that are physical and tangible.
The colour pallet is a very important part of the animation process according to Barry Purves due to the uni-formality of the whole show and keeping the aesthetic consistent. this is one slight hurdle that stop-motion could encounter as different paints need to be precisely mixed to get the same pigment where as computer technology has precise tools to acquire the same pigments.
"texture is a great advantage in stop-motion, unlike drawn and CG where you have to create the texture where as stop-motion you have it there for real. the only issue was not to disturb the texture whilst animating."
He then goes on to explain about cuts, where the cut has to be invisible and unnoticeable. for example if there is a long shot of a character and it jumps to a close up, keep the head in the same place in both shots to avoid disorientating the viewer.
"never think of animation as mathematical, make it not dull and keep it dynamic."
"if i can't touch it I'm not interested."
Another differing factor between stop-motion and CGI is the price of materials, for example the character in flume cost the team 12,000 pounds as opposed to CGI characters costing nothing other than the staffed man hours behind it.
His response to my question of why do you think stop-motion is still popular despite CGI is as follows "The anatomy of a ballet dancer - she is on her toes and you are aware of the anatomy and restrictions - its the same with stop-motion, you are aware what the trick is - the limitations, CGI has crossed the line of taking the technique away people think "oh anything is possible cameras can be anywhere" like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, you know the mechanics."
I learnt some very valuable things from this seminar that have helped to order certain opinions in my head about my topic which is why I chose to feature the information quite heavily in one chapter.
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