Author: Emma Copeland

One of my coworkers mentioned to me that this was one of the “better animations he’d seen me do”, but also noted that although it was arguably good animation, it was confusing what the character was supposed to be doing. My reference was of a girl practicing martial arts alone in an empty room, and I’d hoped that his “practicing” would also read as natural. Obviously, though, it didn’t, so I decided to add in the element of a punching bag.

I downloaded the model online, then added the texture and rigged it myself. It’s comprised of four joints, and it was honestly a delight to animate. Though of course it presented the challenge of matching the swing to the punches, it gave me a chance to show off my overlap and weight skills. And speaking of weight, someone also gave me feedback that the punching bag “feels light”, which I completely see and agree with; however; I want to leave it that way because it is satisfying to watch. It can be a lightweight punching bag. I’m a bit too tired to decide what I think it’s filled with, but the best I can explain is it’s like those neon sandy pillows from the 90s. I don’t want to change it now, I’m very happy with the weight and timing of the arcs that I’ve done. I also like that he’s kind of ducking under the swing after the jumping kick, it feels more interactive.

So instead of adding in a comedic feline moment where he sees a cucumber and freaks out, I decided to make it more reliant on the punching bag; otherwise there’d just be too many elements involved. So I think for the ending I’m just gonna have it smack him in the face and he’ll fall down.

The next step for this scene is to add in the ending. As mentioned before my original concept is to give the character comedically feline behavior, perhaps by knocking over a barrel of groceries, spotting a rolling cucumber and jumping away in fright.

As of now, I’m already very happy with this work; it still needs some polishing in the graph editor but I feel that it shows good knowledge of weight and timing. This is going to be one of my strongest pieces.

I am very grateful to have the opportunity to add in ear and tail animation, as it (as well as hair) is one of my strongest suits and always adds a nice bit of interest.

This is the first 60 frames of my “tiger animation”, or the cartoonish version of the martial arts shot. I’m mostly posting this here because it’s beyond insane to me that I did this in 2 hours. A year ago, this would’ve been unimaginable even for a month’s work.

Here’s the realistic counterpart of the cowboy shot (which still needs lots of reworking)- the realistic cowboy walk. I interpreted this character as being a zombie, and feel validated in this, as when I showed it to a small child he said “I think he’s a zombie!” This shot may be my second-best work for my FMP, the first being my Dana shot. It’s miles and miles better than my cartoonish cowboy shot.

When I first began working on this shot, I struggled to find a rig that worked well for me, and was near giving up when I finally, as always, reached out to Luke for help and discovered a solution in hours. We set the rig up with advanced skeleton, and from there it was extremely easy to animate with a video reference. I got it done smoothly with no problems, and it’s one of my favorite pieces of work now, especially in comparison with some of my early walk cycles when I first started the course.

I like the idea of giving it a Red Dead/Dark Souls kind of feel, so I have asked my sound designer friend from work if he’d be willing to incorporate some footsteps, music and ambiance to the shot to really give it a video game vibe. I was thinking of even using it as the title card of my showreel, with Skyrim-esque “UI” appearing on the right with my information and a box labeled “proceed” which a cursor clicks on. I’m only indecisive because the Dana shot is so good and I know most employers make their decision within seconds.

All that’s left is the final two shots. I’ve chosen an anthropomorphic tiger for the cartoon version, who will practice some karate moves before knocking over a basket of groceries, and when he sees a cucumber roll next to him he freaks out and jumps away like a cat. It’ll be a good demonstration of body mechanics as well as being comedic if I can pull it off. I think for the realistic version I’ll be using some of the samurais we have.

 Animating Adulthood: Emotional Resonance, Affective Quality, and the Human Condition in Adult Animated Television:  An Examination in Theory, Viewership, and Practice, Andrea Marek

• Author makes a point of noting that it is hard to define what animation is, and the term animation in itself is a catchall because (similar to what Mitchell said), it isn’t a genre but an artistic style so it’s hard to use it to define any specific thing.
• “Animation can be described as any media material which uses an animation technique, regardless of the narrative content, but this explanation is endless, encompassing all techniques, all media of any genre using animation techniques such as animated comedy, animated documentary, animated horror, and animated science fiction. “[A]nimation is an imprecise, fuzzy catchall that heaps an enormous and historically far-reaching, artistically diverse body of work into one pot” (Buchan, “Animation, in Theory” 113). A great deal of effort is made by scholars who write about animation to achieve a conclusive definition, but the results remain inconclusive. There is no all-encompassing framework in which to examine animation simply because of its scope and diversity.” [p.1]
• Author is arguing that although much of adult animation features crude and immature storylines and humor it is actually secretly progressive. I’m ready to disagree but willing to listen
• “The three programs which popularized the genre both for audiences and academics alike are The Simpsons (1990-present), Family Guy (1999-present) and South Park (1997-present). These three programs are often seen as archetypes for adult animation, not only due to their longstanding success but also because they contain many of the presumptions that have become associated with adult animation: misogynistic content intended for a young male (often white) audience, reliance on crude humor including sex, bathroom humor, violence and alcohol as central elements—highlighting certain tropes those unfamiliar with the genre might expect. However, these initial iterations of the genre have also been progressive, featuring family-driven and dysfunctional-family storylines, social and political commentary, and subsequently laying the groundwork for emotionally-driven storylines.” [p. 2]
• “Animation provides a unique means of escapism unparalleled in other film mediums precisely because there are not only no limits to the realm of possibilities within the genre, but also because the lack of real world referent emphasises the break between the real-world and an animated-world” [p. 8]
• “As a child, animation serves multiple purposes: a babysitter, a distraction, a form of entertainment, a friend or companion, all of which serve to take the viewer ‘away’ in that moment of watching. As an adult, animation continues to serve many of the same purposes: as with other film or television genres it offers narratives which allow the viewer to enter the world of the story and temporarily relinquish their lived reality.” [p. 9]
• “The success of adult animated television encompasses childhood nostalgia for animation, the element of surprise or the unexpected from the juxtaposition between the contrasting visuals and storylines, escapism from one’s own lived experience, limitless visual possibilities, as well as what Goodall refers to as “spectatorship as surrogate participation” (164). Therapeutic in a sense, adult animation opens a space for self-reflection, and confronts the individual with the reality of their own emotional state, however decayed it may be.”
• (it’s worth mentioning that this author comes off as like suuuuuper nihilistic so a lot of her statements are like that)
• (here’s another one! “This desire for unwavering happiness remains a societal fallacy” [p. 21] Girl???)
• Author mentions the value of adult animation having the ability to comment on television itself and the state of the medium. While I agree this is valuable and common in adult animation, I would argue that it is not a trait that is absent in children’s animated comedies.
• “As adult animation continues to show, animation is no longer simply about bringing the imaginary to life but rather bringing life to the everyday issues that viewers are faced with, reversing the narrative of animation portraying the fantastical and impossible, instead providing a very real account of everyday adult reality.” [p. 35]

An Examination of Why Animation Should Target a Broader Demographic by Bobby J Osborne

• Why is animation labeled as a genre rather than an artistic style? Black and white is not a genre of movie. Action, romance, horror, should all be genres within animation, not alongside.
• “As a storytelling medium, animation is capable of telling any type of story for any age, yet animation is used by Hollywood as a means to fill an empty niche in an entertainment market that primarily caters to older audiences.” [p. 2]
• Discussion of propaganda in the wartime Popeye short You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap, which delt with WWII tensions with the Japanese and portrays racist stereotypes. It is not a child-friendly cartoon as it discusses real-life violence and politics, yet is passed off as being all-ages entertainment, thus enforcing the belief that political propaganda is the exception; even a child can “recognize the enemy”
• How can animation target a wider audience?
• three key reasons why it SHOULD:
• 1. technology has changed the marketplace
• 2. children of the 80s have retained their love of cartoons, unlike baby boomers, thus opening the industry up to adults- market shift.
• 3. lines are blurring between live action and animation anyway with vfx dominating popular movies (example: marvel incorporating mostly cgi and also utilizing characters that are pretty much entirely animated- like The Hulk- this is essentially a cartoon character without viewers realizing it)
• video games have already shed the stigma of being for children

All kids out of the pool!: Brand Identity, Television Animations, and Adult Audience of Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, Hye Jin Lee, University of Iowa

-what is the meaning of “adult” in Adult Swim, and how does the show as well as its audience define what it means to be an adult/what constitutes adult content?

-“Adult Swim enabled Cartoon Network to recontextualize classic cartoons and challenge the assumption that cartoons and animation are children-only entertainment” [p.3]

-what is the relationship between media and brand/lifestyle content and how can this be used to profit off the viewer? in what ways does this take advantage of the consumer or water down product?

-“Through the use of various multimedia technologies, Adult Swim encourages viewers to not only intensify their relationship with the programming, but also to further extend and normalize the Adult Swim brand culture. And by marketing Adult Swim as a lifestyle rather than simple a television programming, it had been able to become a successful multiplatform brand today” [p. 12]

• “Being designed as an outlet in ‘edgy’, ‘subversive’ cartoons that specifically appeal to young adults, Adult Swim has been able to collect adult cartoon fans who not only enjoy watching cartoons but do not consider watching cartoons to be an ‘abnormal’ or ‘weird’ adult activity as members of the Adult Swim brand community.” [p. 15]
• convergence culture: giving the viewers the illusion (or potentially, reality) of being part of producing their own content by both viewing and using, aka viewsing, which adult swim did by allowing discussion boards and question & answer segments with creators of the network + featuring certain comments on the network, as well as selling adult swim marketed lifestyle products
• “infantile adulthood”
• “According to Barber (2007), consumer capitalism has encouraged adults to hold onto, if not follow, the tastes and habits of children so more consumer goods and services can be sold globally” [p. 21]
• the author argues that when people worry over men consuming childrens content, but not women, they reveal that they do not view women as real intelligent adults but rather children or subhuman themselves
• author also argues that the boundary between kid and adult culture and content is not natural and instead has been socially and culturally constructed
• Adult Swim markets itself only to men and recruits only male promoters, as well as relying on sexist jokes, yet that does not dissaude female audiences
• “Heather Hendershot points out how this industry logic that encourages girls to be receptive of the boy-centric shows is evocative of Laura Mulvey’s (1988) problemization of the patriarchal society that encourages women (from childhood onwards) to adopt trans-sex identification as a habit to the point of it becoming second nature….it is imperative for contemporary women to embody simultaneously both genders if they want to make it in the patriarchal society full of male-dominated activities.” [p. 66]
• “The long-held establishment and understanding of cartoons as children’s-only genre, or inappropriate/illegitimate adult entertainment form, have created tensions for many of the Adult Swim adult viewers who happen to be cartoon fans, especially those who became attracted to Adult Swim because of its cartoon and anime lineup. As demonstrated in chapter 7, many adult fans of Adult Swim actively defy the notion that cartoons are not for adults and that adults who enjoy watching cartoons are ‘abnormal’ or ‘un-adult’. Even those who acknowledge Adult Swim to be juvenile and immature resist the connection between their consumption and pleasure in cartoons and Adult Swim shows and their identity as ‘immature’ and ‘irresponsible’ adults to fail to fulfill adult responsibilities.” [p. 264]

I’m currently 3,000 words into my thesis. After delving into my introduction and analysis of statistics collected in previous studies, I’m faced with the decision of how to go about conducting my actual surveys regarding the work I’m doing for my FMP. This morning I finally settled on my research methodology.

As you know, the goal of this study and work, besides adding to my showreel, is to determine whether audiences, particularly in relation to their age demographic, respond more positively to different animation styles- realistic or more cartoonish, and for this reason I’m animating two different versions of the same lip sync performance / style of shot that feature different artistic styles.

Now the key to conducting my research correctly is making sure that I have responses from different age demographics. My original, unformed idea was to just conduct an instagram survey, but the problem with this is that A) all of the correspondents are my own age and B) know me as a person.

So here’s an outline for my research methodology.

Younger Age Demographic (Children):

For this group, my interview will involve less analytical questions. I’ll simply ask them which animation they like better and why. As far as finding participants for the survey, at my internship we often bring in children to give feedback on the video game we’re creating; I can pull these visitors aside to ask them questions with the permission of their parents and my boss. I can at least collect data from one or two children under the age of ten and one or two teenagers this way.

EDIT: it has occurred to me that because I am leaving my job in the middle of October and returning to the US, I will not have time to finish all of the animation that I plan to have for my research (3 separate shots) and have all of this available to use in my studies conducted at work. It would skew my data if I only show the children one of the shots (Dana/Carla) as opposed to all three, and show the other groups all three. Therefore I may have to rely on in-person interviews with younger children that I know as family members of friends. This may significantly decrease the pool of participants in this survey group.

Adult Audience (Gen Z and Young Millennials)

This group will be split into two parts: animators/artists and non-animators. For the group of animators, I can survey and interview my coworkers and classmates. The downside to this is that all of the above know who I am, and may be tempted to be kinder or skew their answers towards what they think I want to hear, although personally, I know them well enough to believe they will most likely be brutally honest anyway. Another resource for animators is Reddit, where I can ask on r/animation. Now, this may hurt my feelings a little bit, as people on Reddit tend to be a little bit mean, but it’s a good resource. And besides, if they want to roast my work I can report that result and mention that perhaps it is this or that technical issue that skewed data. So, for the animator group, that’s how I’ll collect data from people who know me and people who don’t. The group of people who don’t know me will encapsulate a wider age range, although will most likely still be young people, as Reddit users are often between 18 and 30 years old.

For the non-animators, I can still use an Instagram poll to collect responses from my friends. This does face the same problem of them knowing me, but with Instagram’s polling feature it is more likely that a wide swathe of people will respond, as it takes mere seconds to report an answer. I can also easily collect an answer in regards to why they prefer their selected animation in the questions box that Instagram features. Obviously I must still collect answers from people who don’t know me, and so for this reason I will ask several friends to feature my work on their stories and report back to me the results that they got. It will be interesting to see whether they are vastly different from my own, which could indicate whether people who know me will answer less honestly out of emotional obligation. It’s funny how I’m afraid of people on Reddit being too mean and hurting my feelings while people on Instagram may be too nice and skew my results, lol.

Not everyone will be willing to participate in the interview segment, some may only answer the poll. But if they are willing to respond, the questions may involve: Which animation do you like better? Why? What kind of media do you think you’d see this in (TV, movie, video game?) Which do you think is more professional? Which one is more interesting?

note: I may choose not to interview my classmates as they share too much knowledge of the background to my work and our studies to give accurate results.

If I can I will ask friends with roots internationally to share this, and compare results from my friends in the UK vs US vs South America vs Australia.

Friends who may be a good choice (thinking out loud) Catrin Harrison, of Ross, England: 1500 followers. Cole Irwin, of Chicago, USA: 1000 followers. Vanessa Vilchez of Lima, Peru: 450 followers.

The Late 50s+ Crowd (Baby Boomers)

For a moment I was baffled as to how I’ll collect data from this audience. Adults born before 1964 don’t tend to broadly use niche spaces of the internet or check social media often. But then it hit me: I will ask my grandparents, who are in their late 70s, to share the animations on Facebook without stating that it is the work of their grandchild and report back to me the results. It is also likely that I’ll be visiting my grandparents in Tennessee towards the end of October and into early November, and in that time I can ask older adults in person what their response is and conduct interviews.

For seniors, my plan, like with the younger children, is to ask less analytical questions. I’ll simply ask them which one they like better and why, although I will also ask whether they enjoy watching animated movies and whether they are less likely to watch them than a live-action movie- and why.

Participants to Conduct: Betty Jane and Charles Campbell of Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Will collect information regarding followers and participants when I get to it.

Thoughts on the first Clara test render.

Well, it’s no Dana. It’s not the big show-off piece, but that said, it’s still very good. It’s a close second for some of my stronger work. The track itself is tight but I think the scene setup needs a second look, there’s some jumpiness. Also, those chairs on the left are huge. They need resizing.

The contrast between Clara and Dana is very nice. It’s a long-awaited glimpse of what this is gonna look like when it comes together.