Lecture - Modernism (OUAN401)

What interested me most about this lecture was the way it explored how media is always changing. This surely means that whatever I create will inevitably become obsolete. People look for new things. I could invent the funniest cartoon in the universe but it will surely grow stale with time and be forgotten, which is a bit of a shame.

Modernism, we were told, is about improving on old art and developing a new vocabulary of styles. I’m all for this since variety is the spice of life and status quo is the bland muesli with a dog poo in it of life.

Back in the days of old, critics of modernism described it as a sensory overload, and that it caused the world to become too fast paced. One guy, an anti-modernist named Max Nordau wrote about his concerns of the modern world. He was concerned that the next generation would not struggle to “read a dozen square yards of newspapers daily” and that we would be “constantly called on the telephone” and “thinking simultaneously of the five continents of the world”. Max Nordau is referring to sensory overload, too many things happening for the brain to process. Many of his predictions have come true in a sense, but modern human brains have adapted somewhat to a constant stream of media. (I still think that boredom can be healthy, but I shouldn’t judge considering that as I write this I’m watching eight different films at once on different Apple watches strapped to my arm)

This relates to filmmaking and my field of study because it got me thinking, since our attention spans are getting shorter and new technology is becoming more immersive, embodying the principles of modernism, will this contribute to making modern films obsolete faster in the future? Just in the same way that nowadays we look at a lot of old films and think they are really slowly paced, people will look back on our films in the same way.

For instance, in 2017, virtual reality is taking hold as the hot new immersive way of absorbing media. Will we become so adapted to it that we can’t watch regular films anymore without losing interest? As an example, after photography was invented, painting had to revolutionise itself drastically to be more meaningful and different than just used for reference.

When it comes to this, I would say that I am both a pro-modernist and an anti-modernist in ways. Of course, societies always need to develop a new range of art styles but at the same time I don’t want to lose appreciation for what we already have, the brilliant movies, animated and otherwise, that established the principles of modern movies. I think we are a long way off this, as books and theatre haven’t died out yet and classic cinema shows no indication of going extinct any time, but it’s an interesting thought.

"The Millionaire"'s Awesome Minimalist Art Style (OUAN401)

My love for this cartoon is well documented in the animation analysis essay, but I want to take the opportunity to talk about it in a non-formal setting because I bloody love this cartoon! It's a Russian Film from 1963 created to discredit capitalism. I love it as a propaganda piece because it was very convincing with its message and by the end of it I was growing to resent our nepotistic capitalist system. It was also brilliantly animated and I can apply a lot of its principles to my own work.

The art style is really awesome and has started me thinking about how I can play with a minimalist and abstract art style, which I had never considered before.

What I used to worry was that more minimalist or abstract animation couldn't be relatable because it lacked structure and stuff. BUT I WAS WRONG. The emotion came through with the larger than life movements and bold use of colour that engrossed me, as well as a kickass thumping jazz band soundtrack that has stuck in my head for ages. It felt wild and unhinged and like it would be very freeing to animate.

The Millionaire has a wonderful colour scheme! It feels like its been shot very playfully, with energy and joy crammed into every design choice. I would love to experiment with this kind of zestful style.

It made me wonder how else an animator could convey a mood or theme using minimalist shapes, so I looked at Len Lye's work.

Rainbow Dance (1936)

Tusalava (1929)

What "The Millionaire" and Len Lye's work have in common, regardless of whatever message they are trying to convey, is that the line work is extremely expressive and full of energy, where some animations are very calculated in where everything is placed which can make it seem rather staged, the pieces I've referenced above have the illusion of being untamed, which is cool!

Lecture: Colour Theory (OUAN401)

This lecture made me consider the way I use colour very carefully and brought to light the extent to which a choice of colour can enhance or ruin a scene.

For instance, I used to believe that complementary colours would look great in a shot as they would, well, complement each other, making both stand out more vividly. Turns out that sometimes the opposite is true and the combination can seem a little overbearing and gross.

To be fair, though, the examples of complementary colours given in this lecture were extreme cases, where the only things on screen were just BRIGHT red and green stripes. I would have liked to see some more subtle uses of complementary colours.

Complementary colours work really nicely here because the shade of red is darker so it doesn't clash so much with the green. Also, there is only a small splash of green in the shot so the two colours don't battle for attention, making efforts to each appear the most glaring and obnoxious. I don't care for how the two colours look side by side, but it draws the eye superbly and subtly.

The opposite of putting complementary colours together is to use a set of closely related colours. This involves using hues and shades of colour to create a less jarring contrast.

I suppose that this bottom right one would best sum up what I'm talking about.

"The Revenant" sticks to a blue/grey colour scheme throughout the whole movie. And that works as well.

Never before had I considered the way you can change how the viewer perceives a colour by placing another colour next to it or behind it. This can add a sense of depth or shading to the scene and it can draw the eye of the viewer to a section of darkness or brightness. I used to think in terms of "this thing is this colour, then add a layer marked 'shading' set at a low opacity to complete it" but I am becoming more aware of the potential of colour. I want to learn to be more playful with it.

I've learnt that no use of colour in film is inherently better than another use of colour, and that they can all do very different things for a film's atmosphere. Often, it's good to have the colour reflect the mood of the scene or the location where the scene is set. This is especially useful when shooting scenes where the weather is important, as the audience experiences another layer of empathy with the characters on screen if it's noticeably hot or cold or windy or wet. Temperature can be indicated through hues of colour.