Animation – The Finished Animation

The final animated video has been completed.

I exported the finished Photoshop animation and then put it into Final Cut along with the ball animation. I then transitioned between the two clips by animating down the scale and position of the ball clip to match the running clip in it’s last few seconds. I then just faded out the ball clips so the second clip shows through.

Then the titles were added as well as music and sound effects. I just spoke the sound effects into the laptop microphone, like the “boing” of the bouncing ball.

 

AO5 Magazine Ownership and Distribution

OWNERSHIP:

Total Film

Company:
Total Film is published by Future Publishing (PLC)
It has offices in the UK in London and Bath and owns the US company Future US and Future Austrailia.
They publish over 150 magazines and over 40 websites.
They have a contract publishing division Future Plus, but magazines and websites is there main source of revenue.

Structure:
Head of offices in Bath
Satellite offices in San Francisco, London, Sydney
The company is divided up in terms of types of magazines:
Technology
Computing
Games
Film
Music
Future Women
Photography
Creative & Design
Sport
Auto
Handpicked Future

Little White Lies

Company:

Little White Lies is published by Church of London, a privately owned company.Their offices are in East London. They currently published two magazines – LWL and Huck. Other revenue sources include graphic design, marketing, contract publishing and event management.

Structure:
Church of London is split up into 3 Magazine teams
Little White Lies
Huck
Contract publishing – creating bespoke magazines for companies

Design Agency
Creating posters, brochures and prospectuses

Event Organiser
Organising specific movie events and festivals.

Sight and Sound

Company:

Sight and Sound is published by the British Film Institute
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to promote British film and TV, use it as a record in terms of contemporary society and promote its education.
BFI is a non profit organisation.

Structure:
BFI’s headquarters are on the Southbank in London. Within the BFI there are teams working on the following:

The London IMAX cinema
The London Film Festival
BFI Education – Events and Publishing
BFI Archive
BFI – Production, UK Film documentaries.

DISTRIBUTION:

Total Film

Physical Distribution:
13 issues a year
Available UK wide at: supermarkets, newsagents at £3.90
Subcriptions – £25.99 from official Future site (37.99 from Myfavouritemagazines.co.uk)
ABC 78,000

Digital Distribution:
Iphone App launched Aug 2010 – £1.49
Interative Ipad edition launched June 2012
PDF Newstand version – subs £27.99
Zinio and Lekiosk

Analysis:
Total Film is a mainstream film magazine designed to appeal to the largest audience possible. To ensure the biggest possible revenue stream the magazine is distributed nationwide, everywhere you would expect to see a mag available.
Subscriptions are pushed very hard with online and in-mag promotions, as well as a 50% discount.
They have embraces digital distribution by altenate version for Ipad, Iphone and PC – all with a similar price.
This is a distribution model to maximise revenue and ensure brand awareness and high sales.

Little White Lies

Physical Distribution:
Bi Monthly
Available at selected Newsagents, arthouse cinemas (Picture House) and bookshop priced £4.25 – was originally launch exclusively in Borders.
Subscriptions – £21.00 a year for six issues from the official site

Digital Distribution:
Iphone App Aug 2011 – reviews and link to blog
Digital version of archive all available on the official site for FREE
ABC 16,000

Analysis:
The magazine is only bi-monthly and available in selected stores – partly do to a low circulation but also as LWL is an aspiration magazine that is conscious of being seen in the right places.
There is some appreciation of digital distribution with the app – but the app is reviews and links to blog post rather than being an interactive digital mag – this suggests the mag, the physical item is more important than the brand or content.
The fact that the archive is available for free is an interesting business move – LWL is about design appreciation – Church of London can attract more readers by making existing content available for free and attract business for their contract publishing and event business.

Sight & Sound

Physical Distribution:
Monthly
Available in most newsagents, selected bookshop, art-house and independent cinemas and at the BFI.
Price: £3.90
Subscription – 12 issues for £38.00
BFI members save 35% on subscription cost.
Circulation 22,000

Digital Distribution:
The BFI has an online digital archive.
There is no app, ipad version or interactive digital app.

Analysis:
The remit for Sight and Sound it to the critical voice of the BFI (the institution).
but mainly provide full production credits for every film that has a theatrical release in the UK and a full plot synopsis. It serves as a national record of cinema in the UK. As it serves this purpose in magazine format, there has been no rush to go to digital – this is comparison to Total Film who’s main remit is make money – BFI are a non-profit organisation.

Unit 01 AO4 – Discuss the effect of representations in media products on audiences

To understand the effect of representations, I will be using Judith Butlers idea of performativity.

Performativity – “That reiterative power of discourse to produce phenomena that it regulates and constrains.”

Butler believed that identity was based on performance and that we learn roles as we develop. She looked at gender arguing that we learn gender roles. It is not about who you are but what we do.

Louis Althusser ~ “The power of mass medias is in its ability to present a subject in a particular way and have their representation of that subject BECOME REALITY.”

-Looking at the Representations on Empire Covers-

-The Effect of Representation-

Empire covers represents men as stern and powerful action men. They build up the the idea that men should be powerful. They should take action and control of situations. The men are all in good shape as well, thin and muscular. Most covers fit the whole body in, to emphasise their fitness and build up there imposing form.

The woman are actually often represented in a similar way to the men; strong, intimidating, ready for action. There are examples of women on covers where the focus is very much on their looks and sexuality, however even in this they are dominint. They don’t just look pretty and sweet with cute make up, they’re dressed in dark colours, harsh reds and are dominant and seductive. Women on Empire may have highlighted sexuality, but they’re not shown as helpless.

An idealised view of masculinity/femininity – Can encourage reader to improve themselves, better themselves. But it can cause readers to judge themselves; they don’t match with the idealised view the magazine represents. It can also mean readers have an idealised view of the opposite sex. This can mean they judge them and this could effect friendships, relationships etc.

Readers can accept gender role, allow it to shape views, Or challenge them and subvert conventions.

Animation – Animating the Background

Today I finished the background layers and begun animating their movement with the running Panda.

I actually quickly noticed that I hadn’t coloured my character, and so it appeared as black lines on the background, so the first thing I did was fill in all the panda layers with white. I then animated the running loop to last a few more seconds, and then made the character run off screen.

I pasted the layers onto the first frame, and then just have to move each one a little bit each subsequent frame.

I tried to use guide layers to keep the movement somewhat consistent so the speed the layers move at doesn’t jump around. This seems to be working so far so I just have to keep this up.

So I’ve looped and finished the Panda animation, and now just have to complete the background movement, about half of which is done.

Empire – Contents and Readers

Empire Regulars:

Contents

Empires contents pages lay out the contents of the magazine in two sections; the regulars and the features. This is very accessible and user friendly.

On Location

This segment features a series of articles that go on location of films as they shoot. This gives readers a behind the scenes look, going further then just news and updates.

The Slate

The slate contains articles and interviews on upcoming films, these pieces usually being quite short and easy to read. The strap of this segment is “Hollywood in English”, so obviously the idea is to take news from inside Hollywood and present it in a simple way that the casual reader can understand.

In Cinemas

This section reviews and rates the current films in cinemas, featuring a mixture of big films and smaller, independent films. On the first page of the segment a bar across the bottom acts as a rating guide, telling you what the different amounts of stars mean e.g. 3 stars is “poor”

-Features-

Re.View

Reviews on home entertainment; DVDs, games, downloads etc. This section is very important, as it’s for a different type of audience. Some people don’t really go out to the cinema, and are much more interested in home entertainment, games and dvds and online streaming services like Netflix. This segment is a way of having the magazine still be appealing to this crowd.

Shorts

This is the reader interaction section. It has a letters page, where readers can write in, and competitions like a crossword and quiz.

Classic Scene

For the last page the issue will chose a classic scene from a film and transcribe it.

The Empire Readers:

An empire reader will be a fan of movies.

It’s easy to use; contents pages, guides on how to use the ratings system, and “Hollywood in English” They want to appeal to the common movie fan, so anyone can pick up an issue and understand it.

There isn’t really a news section, instead the magazine focuses on exclusive interviews and set visits; it’s mainly behind the scenes features.   The Empire reader doesn’t just want news; they want to know about the creative process, about the filming and the actors and directors viewpoints.

The “in cinemas” section appeals to audiences who want to know if they should go and see a film or not.

The magazine seems largely targeted at multiplex goers, fans of the big Hollywood blockbusters. The cover image is always a big movie and most of the features are focused on them. However there is independent film content in the magazine and this inclusion of both mainstream and a bit of indie shows that the magazine is targeted at general movie buffs. The “Classic scene” on the last page also marks out film buffs as the readers, as it’s not just about big current movies.

Animation – Parallax

Parallax is a way to animate backgrounds to move more realistically. When a background moves in real life everything doesn’t move at the same speed like it’s a flat image. Different levels, or planes, move at different speeds depending on their distance from the camera. The further something is from the camera as it scrolls past the slower it moves.

Disney developed a way of achieving this effect with a multi-plane camera. The camera would look down at many different levels of animation cells layered under it, and the animators could move these levels at different speeds, independent of the others.

I’m going to use the parallax effect to create a scrolling background animation, which can be looped and placed beneath the running loop of my panda character.

For this I went into Photoshop and created a long strip of a document. I then made 5 layers that build of the back ground; the sky and moon, blimps in the sky, buildings, street lamps, and road surface. The layer closest to us moves fastest, so the road will flash past, while the sky and moon will remain static.

I have no created my layers, and I’m just trying to work out how to make them move with my panda. It’s a bit fiddly and some trial and error as I’m not used to Photoshop’s animation feature, but I think I’m on the right track as the animation is coming together and looks alright so far.

Sound – Hunted – Finished

Today I finished and rendered out the re-dubbed video.

I’m very happy with the finished video, especially the scenes in the forest, where I think the foley is pretty strong; all the footsteps match up and I think the idea of giving little sound effect signs of the stalkers appearance worked well.

The dialogue mostly sinks up, although in some places it’s a bit choppy as I cut the audio to fit the picture, removing pauses or switching to a different take of the recording.

I didn’t use music a lot in the video, choosing to only have it at three points rather than running throughout. I thought that suited the calm and creepy tone of the film, and didn’t want to overpower everything with loud and constant music.

I’m also not really convinced I did a good job on the levels, making sure all the sounds are balanced and at the right volume. I really just placed the sounds onto the time line and if they were quite, turned them up until audible. It sounded okay whilst editing, but I did edit with ear bud headphones, so the sound could come out different when played out loud.

But in the end I’m pleased with the sound design, and think it all ties together well. It even manages to soften some of the jarring shifts of scene in the film by fading sound effects across the transitions.