Research Project - Artefact 3 Reflections

Having produced a third artefact and showing it to a small focus group, the feedback I received was generally negative or unsuitable for use in furthering my research. The main comment I got was just on the overall goal of the artefact - what it was aiming to explore.
Considering this and looking at the main my main project question, "In what way can the use of body mechanics in animation be used to enhance storytelling and can they effectively be used to communicate a story to an audience without the use of dialogue?", I realised that my focus had gone to far in the wrong direction, looking more at context than body dynamics effect on narrative.
With this in mind I intend to approach my fourth artefact differently, redirecting my focus back onto body dynamics and create a more relevant artefact that will hopefully gain beneficial results to continue with. 

The results themselves I gathered for the artefact, however had possible signs of meeting my intention, that of having context provide recognition to an action. The main issue I believe my artefact fell down on was the definition of context. When I produced my artefact I had some instances where context was the object/thing the character was interacting with, whilst in one scene, the one I feel was most successful, the environment was the contextual factor. This lack of continuity in terms of the context meant that so of the scenes of my artefact were in no way as effective as they could have been. Consideration into this during the development of my artefact would have led it to be more successful, however the key point gained from this was that context is able to in some way reinforce the understanding of an action, with it needing to have a more definitive identity within the confines of my artefact to be completely successful.

Research Project - Artefact 2 Reflections

Hypothesis -'I believe that if you give context to a characters emotional reaction the emotion will be easier to recognize than without it.

Looking at my hypothesis for this artefact I believe the results I got from the focus group were fairly successful.
With each set animations the answers for what emotion was being conveyed altered depending on contexts inclusion and in most cases became more affirmed in the latter scenes when context was added. The correct general emotion was recognised in all of the scenes however an interesting point I found was the specificity of said emotion changed depending on which context was applied. For instance, with the anger clips, the first featuring no context was read as being an internal conflict with building frustration. Adding the context of a falling ball gave a similar result of pent-up anger with the ball being suggested as the final straw in a string of angering occurrences. Finally, against the character based context clip, it was again read as pent-up anger, however now with the idea it was prior to a response or "release" of this anger, either directed at the other character or in some other manner.

The feedback I received on the format of my artefact is going to be very useful for the next ones as it gave some alternatives for how I could have utilised the different forms of context as well as a drawback to the three short clips way I presented it. The drawback, which also had a minor influence on the results, was how the responses for the third clip were "sullied" by the second, with people considering their answer for the second clip when answering for the third. This may have meant that the responses for the final clips of each section weren't completely unbiased, however I feel this is unlikely to have altered the results too much, having discussed each clip in turn as well.

A consideration for how to alter my artefact, which could both improve the results and avoid the drawback stated above, was to have the clips featuring the second character be effected by the inclusion of the second character. For example, by having the second character being the cause of the emotional reaction, the way it is conveyed will be different, with it being focused towards said character, rather than just being a general maintained action throughout all three clips. This would then feature the main character performing a different action, however still be conveying the same emotion just in a more suitable way for each form of context.

Research Artefact 3

For my 3rd research artefact I wanted to continue on from the context aspect of my 2nd, looking at how this can effect the overall narrative and inform the audience of events.

Hypothesis:

I think contextualization allows for more minor actions to inform the audience of the narrative and foreshadow its events.

To test this I have produced 4 small sequences featuring a character prepping to perform some recognisable actions, that has been slowed down to allow the audience time to consider what is happening in the sequence. 2 out of 4 of these sequences feature objects or environment set pieces that are key descriptors of what the character is about to do.

Research Project: Artefact 2

The four finished animation clips for my 2nd research artefacts looking at applying context to reinforce a characters conveyance of an emotion.

Clip 1

Clip 2

Clip 3

Clip 4

Artefact 2 - Hypothesis and Preview

Following on from my first artefact I am going to look at the conveyance of emotions when contextualized and whether this can have a greater effect on the audiences understanding.

Hypothesis: 'I believe that if you give context to a characters emotional reaction the emotion will be easier to recognize than without it.'

To test this theory my artefact will feature between 5-8 short animations featuring a character displaying an emotion in response to something. Each of these individual animations will be broken down into 3 duplicates: one featuring the character on its own; one having an object that the character reacts to; and the last one introducing a second character performing there own action that would trigger the original reaction from the main character.

My intention is to show these sets of 3 animations to a focus group pausing between each clip to ask what they believe the emotion to be, so I can gauge at what point the correct emotion becomes apparent.

A quick preview of an animation set to be used for this artefact:

Research Project: Artefact 1 Reflections

Looking at the results from the focus group and outside questioning I did in regards to my first artefact, asking people what emotion the character was conveying and what aspect of the character gave them this impression, e.g. a hand gesture or back arch, there were a few common occurrences around what people said.

Hands were a key point that people said directed their opinion of the emotion, with their placement being indicative of the characters emotion. Whilst this was a main response from those I asked I cannot be certain whether this has anything to do with the particular poses I chose, however I feel like it being the majority reason for a lot of people is something to look at.
A possibility to take this further would be to look at hand gestures on there own and see the whether they alone can convey emotion and indicate more to an audience.

One step during the focus group session I did was to use questionnaire forms for people to fill out rather than immediate verbal feedback. My reasoning for this came from an initial test of my images where people were influenced by others responses prior to giving their own resulting in multiple similar answers.
To avoid this the form meant people weren't 'copying' others answers and gave me a mixed variety of results or, more to the point, produced several matches of responses, strengthening the ability to state clearly whether or not a image worked in conveying the desired emotion.

In terms of answering my hypothesis, whether or not a still image can be used to convey the emotion of a character, the majority of images received the correct answer for the emotion, however the more positive emotions and ones such as shock or surprise didn't have as great of a result.
The main reason for this I believe is that positive emotions are more based on pace and the way someone moves rather than just the way the body is affected when static/held, like with negative emotions (sadness, anger) where the body slumps or stiffens in response to this. Shock and surprise are also like this due to them being motion based reactions, a quick jump or start in response to something, and can not be shown in a held form.

The next stage for my second artefact will be to move on to conveyance with animation, where I can look more in depth at the emotions that had a weaker result e.g. happiness, shock, surprise, and explore how motion has an effect on the conveyance, using aspects such as timing and spacing to experiment with different aspects.

Assigned Client Project: Nottingham Loves Finished Piece

My Nottingham Loves university client project all finished.