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Film Studies and Cinematography : Lecture and Exercise

30/08/2022 - 00/00/2022 / Week 01 - Week 00

Film Studies and Cinematography PVT60104
NAME: Sea Hirayama

I.D: 0347596

COURSE: Bachelor of Design in Creative Media / Taylor's Design School




●Instructions 






●Lecture
Week 1 (30/08/2022):
For this week class, we had briefing. What is animation, how we can express in animation, how we can get inspiration for creating anime and so on. After the class, we're required to do new task for project 1 and exercise.

Week 2 (06/09/2022):
We also learned how to create anime from ideation with exercise. 

Week 3 (13/09/2022):
Honestly, I attended the class with recorded lecture because I was going to go back to Malaysia. In this session,  we learned about the process of creating story of animation such as Act1 to 3. 

The three-act structure is a theory of story structure for films, developed mainly in Hollywood. It has an excellent ability to hold the audience's attention at the beginning of the film.

The breakdown of the three-act structure is as follows
  • Act One: The beginning - describing the setting and presenting the story question.
  • Act Two: Conflict - conflict for the story question
  • Act three: resolution - significant movement of the story to resolve the story question and the conclusion
In Japan, stories are often created using the 'Kiyo-tatsu' (起承転結) method, but worldwide, the 'three-act structure' is the most popular method. Kiyo-tenketsu is a composition theory in Chinese poetry, so it is not originally a theory of story-making. It is thought that the theory of how to make a story came first, and then it was inserted into the Ki-Sei Sequence later. Therefore, Ki-Sei Seisen is weak in some aspects as a theory of how to make stories.

The most important aspect of the three-act structure is the 'protagonist's goal'. It does not always have to be a literal "I aim for 00!" It is not always the literal "I'm going for 00". It can take many forms, such as "I'm going to confess to Mr. 00!" Searching for the culprit, surviving, etc. There are many different forms of goals. In other words, the story should present "where it is going" and "what to focus on", and the story should proceed around that.

Let's start by summarizing what needs to be done in the first act. The key is still the 'protagonist's goal'.
  • Set the protagonist's goals
What you need to do in the first act is to clarify what the 'protagonist's goal', or story question, is. Explaining the goal is not as simple as suddenly saying, "I'm going to play in the Koshien!" You can't get people emotionally involved in the story if you just explain it like that. So use the first act to explain how, why and why you want to go to Koshien. So the first act is to explain the 'situation' or 'character'.

The breaking point between whether the audience can get into the story or not
The first act is "the turning point in whether the audience can get into the story or not". If the setting is unclear or the goals of the protagonist are vague, the audience will not know "where to focus their attention" and the subsequent development will be boring. It is like watching a sporting event without knowing the rules. On the other hand, if the setting is clearly explained and the goal of the protagonist is clear, the audience can enjoy the subsequent development of the story. In other words, the first act is like explaining the rules of a game.

The second act is about 'conflict'.

There is a break in the film, called 'Plot Point I', about 30 minutes into the screening, where the protagonist begins to work towards a goal. This is the part of the story where the story starts in earnest, the start of a sports match.
  • The protagonist moves towards his goal in the face of adversity.
The second act depicts the 'struggle' of the protagonist to reach his/her goal in the face of 'adversity' and 'obstacles'. It is not interesting if the protagonist only progresses smoothly towards his or her goal. It becomes more interesting if there are various obstacles, such as the headmaster hating baseball and interfering, or not being able to gather a good group of members, even though he wants to go to Koshien. In any case, the second act is like the main dish of the film, depicting the protagonist's progress towards his goal.

About half an hour after the second act begins is a crucial break, known as the 'midpoint', which is the turnaround point exactly in the middle of the film. Although the film is about the same conflict, the storyline changes dramatically from this point onwards.

The 'turning point' in the storytelling sequence
The second half of the second act is the 'turning point' of the story. This is where the second half of the film begins and the flow of the story changes. In many cases, the second half of the film shows the protagonist falling further and further into a predicament. For example, in the film Titanic, the 'midpoint' is the moment when the ship hits the iceberg, and this is where the second half of the second act begins.
The sense of danger rises dramatically from this point, as the ship was going well until the first half-hour, but from the second half-hour, the shape reverses. And in Titanic, the second half of the second act ends with a scene where the heroine is placed in a lifeboat and the hero remains on the sinking Titanic. It is in the second half of the second act that the ship finally reaches its greatest pinch, or rock bottom.
  • Midpoints matter!
The idea of the midpoint, of 'creating a turning point in the middle of the story', is very important as a basis for story structure. Not only in films, but also in animated TV series, it is fundamental to structure the story by 'splitting' it into two large parts. Setting a midpoint makes it easier to move the story towards its conclusion.

'Plot point II' is the starting point of the third act.

As discussed below, in the third act, the story takes a new turn, so much so that it can be said that a new story has begun. The midpoint is also the preparatory stage for 'connecting' to it.

The third act is the 'resolution'.
There is a break in the film at the start of the last half-hour, called 'Plot Point II', where the protagonist begins a new course of action towards his or her goal.

He 'starts moving again in a big way' towards his goal.
This is the part of the film where the story begins to move again in a big way, as the protagonist, who is in a tight spot in the second half of the second act, finds some solution and puts his plan into action. What resolution is, again, a resolution to reach the 'goal' of the protagonist set at the beginning. Sometimes the goal is a little different than in the first half of the story, "Plot Point I". Sometimes the same goal is achieved, but with a different stance from the first. Try to watch the film with the idea that 'in the last half hour of the film, something changes.' You will always see that something is moving in a big way and that you are moving towards the ending.

The three-act structure is "a mechanism that keeps you interested until the very end".
What is the three-act structure all about? I would say that it is a mechanism for getting the audience involved in the story and keeping them interested until the very end. In the first act, the protagonist's goal is firmly established and the audience becomes emotionally involved in it, hoping that the protagonist's wish will be fulfilled, and wanting to see the rest of the story. In the second act, the audience sees the protagonist struggle with many things and cannot take their eyes off him. In the third act, the story takes an unexpected turn and you can't take your eyes off it.

I don't want to be stuck in the formula" of a three-act structure or an origin/sequel. I don't want to be trapped in a formula such as a three-act structure or an origin and ending. It's true that it's not good to be 'trapped', but there's no reason not to use it as a 'means' to create an interesting story.

Week 4 (20/09/2022):
In this week, we learned again about the emotion, theme and so on for deciding the 
art style of animation such as concept art. After the lecture, we got some feedback of project 1 with some rough sketch scene. We also discussed about how to explore the story we created and focus the next point we gotta do for next session.

Week 5 (27/09/2022):
We learn about how to draw some better as Design Principles. After that, we discussed about concept statement and so on. Also we got introduction of Project 2 and brief discussion of it. 

Design principles are general rules that designers use to guide their work. Following the principles does not mean you have to exclude your own style from the design. If you utilise these principles appropriately, you can create designs that are functional, beautiful and consistent. Functional and beautiful design is the key to a better experience for all.

Design principles can also help designers to evaluate the designs of others. This is because they provide a basis for judging why other designers have made certain decisions during the production process.

Design principles and design elements

'Design principles' are rules that designers use to create a sense of unity in their creations. 'Design elements', on the other hand, are the basic elements that designers use to construct their designs. The main elements included in design elements are line, colour, texture, size, shape, brightness and margins, which are available in almost all design and prototyping tools.

Design principles and design elements work in a complementary way to each other and help designers who want to create well-crafted, user-friendly designs.

Seven design principles
There are many approaches and ideas that can be utilised in design work, but here is a brief introduction to seven important basic principles that form the basis for these.

Unity.
Design usually consists of a combination of many parts. The principle of 'unity' in graphic design means that no one aspect is more important than another. In other words, a design is considered unified when all parts complement each other and share the same brand message.

It is very difficult for designers working alone to achieve design unity. In many cases, the resulting design tends to be more like a combination of fragments, without a sense of the whole picture. It is easier to produce a unified design when designers collaborate as a team from the outset.

Emphasis
Designing with 'emphasis' can direct users to see the most important information first and help them understand what they are looking at. For example, highlighting a company's key services in the homepage title will ensure that visitors to the site know exactly what they can expect to get from the company.

Apple's homepage is a good example of this. As shown in the image above, the latest products and the most important information about them are displayed at the top of the page. This is deliberately designed to draw users' attention to the latest products.

Hierarchy.
The visual organisation of a website or app is a major determinant of what users get out of the experience. An organised visual 'hierarchy' creates an understandable flow to the design and improves usability. When determining the hierarchy, a good method is to assess the importance of the elements and arrange them in order of importance.

Ideally, the design should have clear guidelines for hierarchy: users of a website or app generally scroll from top to bottom, so it makes sense to put the most important information at the top of the page. In the example of Apple's homepage mentioned earlier, the latest high-spec iPhone is placed at the top of the page, with older products below it. Apple clearly wants to sell more of the latest models. The page structure is designed to support this goal.

Without a hierarchy, users would be confused. Confused users may leave the site without making a purchase or stop using the app in frustration. Designing with a clear hierarchy is important to avoid losing users.

Scale
'Scale' is the size and proportion of a design as it appears on screen. Getting the scale of a design right is an often-overlooked but important principle. Scaling images down to fit a small screen or enlarging text to fit margins are examples of this.

White space is an empty area that creates boundaries and gaps between elements. White space plays a major role in scale. It also keeps elements from becoming overcrowded, giving a sense of unity to elements while maintaining the principles of hierarchy and emphasis.

Padding and white space may seem superfluous, but they play an important role in making everything easier to read, scroll through and understand. Without space around the elements being displayed, users will be confused.

Contrast.
Like objects in the physical world, all objects in graphic design have weight. The heavier a design object is visually, the more it attracts the viewer's attention. Size, shape and 'contrast' can be used to add visual weight to objects. Contrast is one of the basic design principles.

Contrast is created by the difference between two elements on the screen. For example, placing black text on a white background can create visual contrast. Contrast can be used to emphasise one element on the page from the other, as can be seen from the fact that contrast is closely related to other principles. Repetition.
Another important design principle is repetition. This principle is involved when one or more design elements appear repeatedly within a page or throughout a site. When designing complex and large projects, certain elements can be repeated to achieve familiarity and ease of understanding.

Familiar design not only creates visual appeal, but also helps build trust with users and establish the brand. Different types of repeated elements can be used, e.g. icons, colours, etc.

This principle also creates consistency in design. In the image above, you can see that although each slide has a different design and purpose, they are interrelated. Repeated use of colours, elements, icons, images and style combinations serve to link the whole.

When building a design system, it is important to create a style guide to clarify the colours, fonts and logos to be used in the project. Ideally, a style guide should be prepared for each project to ensure uniformity, especially when working in large teams.

Rhythm.
'Rhythm' is a word often used in music, but it is present in almost everything in the world, including paintings, products and architecture. Rhythm can create different emotions and can express a wide range of feelings, from relaxation to excitement. In graphic design, rhythm is created by the placement of elements and the spacing between elements. Rhythm can be created, for example, by the repeated placement of certain elements throughout a site or app.

When design principles can be ignored
If you want to create a unique design, you need to do something different, something unique. But how can you achieve this if everyone follows the same design principles? Breaking the rules can be a safe area to stray from, but in some cases it is possible to make such choices to achieve a particular goal.

For example, you might break some rules to achieve a design that is more creative than practical. In the example below, the rules of hierarchy and scale are not followed. However, the end result is very attractive.

Week 6 :

We learned how to improve the animation scene, drawing, perspective animation. Also we learned about the story board.

Storyboards are indispensable in the field of animation production.
They are also used in TV dramas, films and promotional video shoots, which also deal with moving images, as they enable the content of animations to be conveyed concisely to the actual production staff and the client.

What is a storyboard?
A storyboard is a picture of the cut layout of a film, including the movements of the characters and camera positions.
Storyboard comes from continuity, meaning a picture that becomes a series of images.

The job of the storyboard is to think about the structure.
The role of the storyboard is to express the entire composition in pictures that are easy to understand.
Although storyboards are often drawn by a director or a person specialising in storyboarding, called a storyboard man, some directors may draw the storyboards themselves in detail.
A storyboard is a blueprint for the entire animation, so the structure of each cut must be expressed in pictures so that everyone can understand it.

The main structures used in storyboards are
Next, let's take a look at the structure used in storyboards.
There are two main types of storyboard structure: 'kiyo-tansetsu' and 'genbaku-bakyu'.
As the name suggests, kiyo-tansetsu is a structure that divides the beginning and end of a story into four parts: kiyo, shou, tô, tô and kyû.
The beginning and ending of a story is not very different from the beginning and ending of a story.
It is a structure in which the start - end of the story is divided into three parts: 序,破 and急.

Therefore, the difference between Ki-Ro-Sei-Kyū is whether the whole story is structured into four or three parts.
And if we look at the finer details, there are also three types of structure

chronological (i.e. from the beginning of the story to the end of the story)
Pull to lean
Action or reaction

Timeline.
If a storyboard suddenly jumps to the past or to the future in a single storyboard, it will be difficult to understand, so storyboards are basically drawn in chronological order.
This is important to make the storyboard easy for anyone to understand the development of the story.
Pull to lean
A pull is a cut seen from a distance, while a close-up is a cut seen from close up.
By alternately weaving in and out of pull and leaning, it becomes easier to see who is doing what and where.
The basic flow is to start with a pull shot and then move on to a close-up shot.
This is easier to understand if you think of it as a cut where you get closer and closer to the characters.
However, if you use too much alternation between close-up and close-down shots, the screen will switch too often and the viewer will become tired.
This delicate balance is where the storyboard artist shows his or her skill.
Action and reaction
As the name suggests, this is used to depict characters performing actions and reactions.
Simply put, this means alternating between a character who has some action in the cut and a character who reacts to that action.
For example, if a character is shown talking in an animation, then another character is shown responding to what is said.
Storyboards are created by alternately drawing reactions to actions like this.
It is used in many scenes where characters talk to each other, making it easier for people involved in the work to refer to the work.




●Exercise

Week 1 (30/08/2022):

1. Create blog for VSP module, 4 categories: Exercises, Project 1, Project 2, Final Project

2. Provide individual info in below spreadsheet:

FCS0822 student info

3. Self intro (Post in blog): What I love about animation. Why I want to be an animator. Sharing my favorite animation.

– What I love about animation. 
I really love about the expression which is unreality because I supposed that it animation can only show some characters and scenery without real stuff. For now there're a lot of kind of real animation such as Disney, but it also show like some dream and so on. The animation has a lots of dream. Especially for EVANGELION which is one of my favorite show colorful and so emotional. That is why I really like animation.

– Why I want to be an animator. 
Just because, honestly, I supposed that I can learn about graphic design and so on myself, but for animation or animator, I wondered that I cannot get skills of it without some tutorial and classes. For another reason, I would like to create some art craft with animation, which is show movement and potential. And someday I would like to create some music video, CM and some like short animation as my art collection.

– Sharing my favorite animation.

1. EVANGELION

Figure 1.1 The music video with animation

Figure 1.2 The explanation of EVANGELION


–Anime by Satoshi Kon


Figure 1.3 The series of Satoshi Kon

Figure 1.4 Paprika


–Ghibli

Figure 1.5 The Intro of Nausica

Figure 1.6 The Intro of Princess Mononoke

4. Watch Netflix Love, death & Robots season 1, whole series. Discuss 3 of your personal favorite in term of their CINEMATOGRAPHY. How the cinematography compliment the art works.

Week 2 (06/09/2022): Concept Art

Concept art : post under exercises in blog, together with selected emotions, theme, genre, visual references, and 1 paragraph of description.
So for this task, we did in the class and after the session, I just tried to explore with my concept art. 

The instruction: 
So I selected these,
  • Emotions : Panic(Fear) and Delight(Joy)
  • Theme : Coming of Age
  • Genre : Sci-fi
Figure 2.1 Draft of Concept Art in PDF

After the class, I tried to create new sketch for showing more clearly. 

Figure 2.2 Exercise of Concept Art in PDF


Figure 2.3 final design for concept art in png


Week 6 (04/10/2022) :

In this week, we continued about the pitch bible. Especially, we also did the exercise of creating the script in KIT SCENARIST with Kung Fu Panda short scene.

https://kitscenarist.ru/en/download.html

Figure 2.1 The scene of Kung Fu Panda in youtube

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_j894ShFkGbpLU7fSSO1Cq2pYhjGBmZV/edit#


Figure 2.2 The screenshot of process doing the exercise

Figure 2.3 The script for the exercise



●Feedback

Week 1 (30/08/2022):
General Feedback
For this week, I learned with sir after the lecture ends at night. I really appreciated to sir doing the session for me anyway. So for this week session, I got the brief introduction and discussed about the animation. I just tried to figure out why I select the Digital Animation for this module. Also I looking forward to explore the animation skill in this module.

Week 2 (06/09/2022):
General Feedback
In this week, we got the exercise of concept art in order to understand how to come idea up from the theme, emotion and topic. It's kind of interesting for me to think about the new story immediately. It was really good experience for me to do this task as well. Also, I got the instruction for project 1. After the session, I tried to clarify the image of dream I saw. 

Week 3 (13/09/2022):
General Feedback
For this week, I couldn't attend real time though, I could know about the story telling. And it was first time to show the draft of project 1 to sir (also I couldn't get the feedback for it though). After the session, I tried to create the story, but the animation which I decide is just dream, so I couldn't think about the story.

Week 4 (20/09/2022):
General Feedback
For this week, I tried to think about the topic, theme and emotion as well. Also I could gave the souvenir from Japan to the classmate and sir. It's kind of absolutely nervous for me to do though.

Specific Feedback
For my animation, sir told me that I don't need to create the story, but I gotta compose the scene of dream such as how to show the transform with expressing about shape, color, smell and so on. That is why I tried to draw some sketch for it after the session.


Week 5 (27/09/2022):
General Feedback
In this week, it was really good time for me to think about concept statement and so on. Also I could learn about design principle again that is why I'll be able to focus on each part of drawing and animating as well.

Specific Feedback
For my project 1, animation detail, I tried to draw some sketch to show the scenes, so I discussed about it and got some feedback as well. So, for the sketch of scene, I can continue with them and also I can get another feedback from animation fundamental lecture to figure out about good scenes of animation such as story, it haven't story though.




●References

Experience :
I could learn about how to create good animation with story component and skills of good drawing such as design principles. It was really good opportunity for me to understand about principle and focus on my animation details as my memory. Also I could enjoy exploring art style, I gotta practice more and more though.

Observation :
From these experience, I could realized that what description show viewer interesting and fascinate. I mean I could noticed that the words make them more attract. It's really important for us, animator, designer and creator to focus on the script more and more to put the spot light to animation.

Finding :
In these lectures and exercises, I could find the point that I can improve such as drawing in emphasis, repeat and so on.

References :

filmmaker's eye

Do you want to become film literate?　If yes, then this is a must-buy book.

Learn the basics of visual storytelling. How can you make sense of it as a film?

This book can be used as a textbook for film and video producers.

It explains camera shots and composition from the filmmaker's point of view in an easy-to-understand way.

One of its attractions is that it explains film grammar (and how to break it) using actual scenes from classic films such as The Shawshank Redemption and Amelie.


Introduction to film analysis

If you want to know more about film as an academic discipline, this is a book you should buy.

This is an introduction to film analysis that delves into the academic study of 'meaning' in cinema.

Using examples from masterpieces such as The Shining and The Lord of the Rings, the book explores the

Meaning in cinema
  • Composition
  • Camera work
  • Editing
  • Narrative
  • motifs
The course teaches the analysis of films based on a variety of factors, such as

The book is relatively easy to read as it includes images of scenes from the films discussed.



High School U.S.A.

It is out of print and cannot be purchased new. It is not easily distributed, making it one of the most difficult books to obtain.

This book will be a genre-specific book about works depicting American teenagers.

Authors Machizo Hasegawa and Madoka Yamazaki delve into the genre, defining films depicting teenagers as 'school films'.

The book analyses the beginnings of 'school films', the grammar and characteristics of the genre.

This is probably the only book on 'school films' that goes into such detail.




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