Research Project - Laban Movement Analysis

Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) is a system looking at describing movement in a precise manor for the purpose of teaching and understanding different aspects of movement through observation as well as experience.

LMA states that every movement can be described through the following categories:

-Body

-Effort

-Space

-Shape

-Relationship

-Phrasing

Body

Looks at movement of separate body parts and their relationship.

Consider - Which body part initiates the movement?

               -In what way are the different body parts involved in the movement?

               -Are parts of the body being held?

Effort

How the body concentrates its exertion while performing movements.

The appearance and style of a movement can change depending on the characters inner involvement and personal preference. (Depending on how someone feels towards something effects the level of effort they put into a movement involving it)

Analysis and conscious use of effort is an important tool to observe, label and expand nonverbal expression.

Space

The location, direction and path of a movement. 

The relationship between someone and their environment.

Uses the five Plato solids as models for personal space (kinesphere).

Shape

The changing forms the body makes in space.

Observation of shape changes can lead to understanding of a characters affinity/disaffinity towards their surroundings.

For example: Extending a hand in greeting can have its meaning altered if the character were to lean forwards at the same time.

Relationship

The modes of interaction oneself, others and the environment.

The relationship between a character and others can be conveyed through how they position themselves.

Phrasing

In reference to the other aspects this is how a movement is structured and stressed by someone to discern a pattern. (Possibly give a trait to a character in how they move, making them recognisable to an audience?).

Looking at the LMA will be a huge factor when considering the different elements of my research project as it primarily focuses on expression through movement and uses methods to articulate and measure its effectiveness. 

Its breakdown of each area of movement will aid in the production of my artefacts, giving me more aspects to experiment with to give a different effect.

Assigned Client Project - Considering Composition

With some feedback from my tutor I have been reconsidering the final form of my scene.

My original design has the unfolded cityscape in a squarish block on a mostly flat plane, lacking depth and the impressive appearance I intended.

Directed to look at the Disneyland castle for reference, this has a much more grand look with numerous towering spires and a 'completeness' about it that has all of its elements fit together.

The triangle shape it forms, thinning as it reaches the tip of the central spire, is a good reference to follow, containing most of the elements in the central area and including much more height within the overall shape.

My original design already featured spire-like structures that are its key parts, so keeping these but adjusting there positioning and connection with the rest of the structure will hopefully achieve a much more impressive form that will illustrate my idea effectively.

Some other images I found that have a similar spire structure or interesting design.

Assigned Client Project - The Box

The Box - Aleksander Magnussen
I found this video along with a tutorial that has the style of animation for how I plan to have elements of the structure unfold.

Link : http://www.3dtotal.com/tutorials/the_box/

Assigned Client Project - Final Idea

More development and taking feedback from my presentation showing my work on this project I feel I have reached the point where my idea is hitting the target I was aiming for and that it will convey my two key areas well ('Home' and 'Variety').

The Story

A man leaves his home (work? holiday?). 

He's sad and disappointed to be leaving (long day? missing something?).

He's left. His home small and simple.

Silence ensues.

Suddenly the home opens, a wall slides down, the roof lifts.

A castle wall extends from the side, a building rises opposite as a fountain sprays lightly in a square.

More buildings continue to rise, forming towering structures with the house at its core.

A Christmas tree pops up within a small room. The tracks of a tram spiral around a structure as the tram it self slowly trundles along them.

The Christmas tree grows squeezing into its tight room. The tram travels further, track growing ahead of it, as structures continue to build and unfold.

The Christmas tree bursts forth from the small room as it grows again, a towering structure of its own.

Night falls as the tram continues its journey. Lights flicker on inside it and spotlights illuminate the vast structures.

At the peak of the structures the tram ends its journey, the colourful lights of the fair shining out against the black of the night as it unfolds.

The structure is complete, rising high, full of activity as the rides jump into action and the tree gently rocks in the wind.

The man comes home, a skip in his step as he gets closer.

The man sees the structure, staring in awe at all that its built up from.

The man stands in wonder, silent.

Walking with eagerness/ pride he heads to his home.

The structure begins to close, folding back in on itself.

The man reaches the door of his home.

The structure is gone, it is a home again.

The man goes inside.

The warm glow of a fire/TV shines through the windows, the only light in the dark.

The home is small, warm, welcoming.

Explanation

This is the story outlining what happens with my final animation. It details the idea of my character leaving his home with a sad and negative feel about him. With him leaving his small, simple house unfolds and elements symbolizing that of Nottingham features begin to form from it. All this happens resulting in a large active structure with the house at its centre.

When the character returns home, with a much more positive spin on his emotions, happy to be back, he stares in awe at the structure, taking it all in.

The structure closes up back to the simple home as he reaches the door, ending with the house giving off a warm glow through its windows.

The completed scene of the unfolded structure.

Assigned Client Project - Nottingham Loves...

What is it that you think Nottingham Loves… and what do you love about Nottingham? There are many great things about the city and through this competition; you can share what you love with others.

This is the first client brief I have been assigned for the Young Creative Awards 2014.

When thinking about this brief and considering topics I could choose for why I or others love Nottingham I couldn't think of anything. I joked about Nottingham’s numerous flaws and issues I am aware of, having lived here for all 20 years of my life, but I couldn't think of one solid thing or reason I actually ‘loved’ it. I just do. It’s my home.

And there it was: ‘Home’. That was it. I might be cynical and negative about it sometimes, but I’m glad I live here and I don’t think I would have wanted to live anywhere else for those 20 years.

Nottingham is a large city with such a vast number of events, landmarks and history that I personally take for granted and don’t realize the sheer amount of things available.

Talking to others about the subject also brought up a similar mind set; joking about its problems and having that negative edge to their comments.

This started to push my idea and get the ball rolling.

My initial idea I came up with revolved around two things: ‘Home’ and ‘Variety’.

These two points are what I want to get across and try and give the idea that there’s so much available and taken for granted. At the end of the day it’s home and I’m always glad when I come back home. Back to the familiar and back to everything I know.

This drawing is the culmination of my first ideas coming together and refining my initial idea. The basics of it feature having the house clearly defined and the key focal point of the whole animation. From this however elements will pour forth symbolizing all the features of Nottingham.

Research Project - Reading Material

In preparation for working on my artefacts and developing my ideas for them I have been looking into existing research papers and theses that could be of relevance to my work.

On posture as a modality for expressing and recognizing emotions.
http://web4.cs.ucl.ac.uk/uclic/people/c.jennett/BerthouzeHCI06.pdf

Creating Believable Acting in Animation. 
http://hig.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:533710/FULLTEXT01.pdf.

Recognizing Emotions Expressed by Body Pose: a Biologically Inspired Neural Model.
http://www.igp.ethz.ch/photogrammetry/publications/pdf_folder/schindler08nn.pdf


These mainly focus on the conveyance and recognition of emotions through body movements as this will be what my first two artefacts circulate around and will help when formulating the specifics of how I go about them.

I have also been reading other books that have more general information that will be useful:

The Illusion of Life - Disney Animation - Ollie Johnston, Frank Thomas

The Animators Survival Kit -Richards Williams

Research Project Artefact Concepts

With my research project I have been considering my first two artefacts to produce. The main factor I want to focus on with these is the conveyance of emotions from a character, solely using body dynamics.

Looking at existing examples that focus on this concept such as the ‘Animation Mentor’ courses that have character posing as one of the lessons, producing strong, static poses conveying an emotion effectively as well as a research paper looking into the perception of emotions through static postures (http://staffwww.dcs.shef.ac.uk/people/D.Romano/ShaaraniRomanoACII07.pdf), I intend to produce my first artefact following on this line of static poses, feeling it to be a good starting point on understanding the basic elements of body dynamics.

My first artefact will consist of a series of images having a simple character, lacking a face to focus purely on the pose, being set into a variety of poses to convey different emotions. To get strong results I will mainly focus on key emotions e.g. happiness, sadness, anger, fear, but also include other more vague emotions to see how effective it can be at conveying these.

Some examples of static poses produced from the Animation Mentor Courses.

In terms of my second artefact I will want to evolve my original concept of conveying emotions through static poses into an animated form which will allow me to gain an understanding of how motion aids in giving of different emotions and also compare this with the effectiveness of how well they are conveyed in a static form.

This artefact will follow a similar vein as my first in producing a number short scenes each intent on conveying an emotion, again focusing on much more common emotions whilst also including less obvious ones.

I feel like the combination of these two artefacts shall be useful in understanding the effectiveness of body dynamics in how much they can be used to convey a character and their feelings to an audience as well as look at if the form in which they are placed alters the effectiveness of this.