PPP Disseminate Presentation Notes

As part of PPP we were required to produce a presentation exploring a topic relating to animation that interested us. For mine I chose to do a presentation about visual language and storytelling in film and animation, listing off examples and providing insight into the things that interest me personally about the topic in question. The following are my notes for during the presentation with accompanying slides...

Show Don’t Tell: Design as a method of storytelling

1. Title

2)

• Stanley Kubrick, one of the greatest visual storytellers of the 20th Century and arguably the master of encoded meaning in the filmic medium, insisted on a green table cloth in the War Room of his Cold War satire ‘Dr Strangelove’ to hit home the idea of his characters playing poker with the fate of the world, despite the fact the film was shot in Black and White.

3)

• The point is Kubrick put thought into every aspect of the design of his films and used the visual medium to it’s fullest in order to communicate ideas and concepts in uniquely visual ways which might not necessarily be picked up upon by the viewer on their first viewing, which is part of the reason why his films are so widely celebrated and lauded as shining examples of the medium.

4)

• As Animators we have been put in a unique position.
• Everything that is put up on the screen is a conscious and calculated decision made by artists, from the movement of a camera, to the design of a character, and thus has the potential to carry an encoded meaning.
• In film encoded meaning can be found in everything from the staging of a scene to the design of a character.

5)

• David Fincher is a film director who often uses camerawork and the staging of a scene as a way to communicate the power dynamics between characters in a scene.
• Fincher is famous for taking calculated directorial decisions and overseeing the previsualisation process of his films, making sure every decision made by him is motivated and has a purpose in the broader context of the film.
• SPOILERS

6)

• For example: during climax of the movie Seven, when disturbing revelations are made clear and the situation takes a turn for the worst, Fincher shoots his detectives using a handheld camera  to reflect the instability of Detective Mills and the anxiety the audience feels for their situation, while our antagonist John Doe, who has all the power in the scene is shot on a tripod in extreme close up from a low angle, emphasising the power he has over Detective Mills and Somerset.
• The audience may not consciously pick up on these directorial decisions, but it is an effective use of camera angles and camerawork precisely because it falls under the radar.

7)

• Colour motifs are another way of communicating meaningful narrative information through visuals.
• While there is no universal way of applying colour, the colour red is often used visually to symbolise blood and violence.
• In Lynne Ramsay’s film ‘We Need To Talk about Kevin’ based on the novel of the same name by Lionel Shriver, the colour red is used on numerous occasions to imply the mother has blood on her hands.
• The violence for which the mother feels guilt for is implied rather than shown, through the uses of the colour red.
• Often the colour red surrounds our main character, externalising her anxieties and inner struggle to come to terms with the violence she feels indirectly responsible for.

8)

• Colour plays an important role in costume design also...
• For example, the colour Yellow is often used to invoke feelings of the hazardous such as Walt in his Hazmat suit from Breaking Bad, Lee from Utopia and the Bride in Kill Bill.

9)

• Some Directors often stick to a strict colour scheme in their films in order to evoke a certain tone or Mood.
• Wes Anderson for example often sticks to Autumn tones and complimentary colours to evoke a vintage retro feel in keeping with the aesthetic of many of his films.

10)

• While we’re on the subject of Wes Anderson: Composition and Staging serves an important role in emphasising what visual information on screen the audience’s attention should be directed to.
• Anderson will usually play out scenes in a single master shot using ensemble staging, often emphasising a character or action by placing them in the centre of frame and balancing it by making the composition either vertically or horizontally symmetrical.
• Movement of the camera is usually restricted to lateral movement, with restricted movement on the y and z axis. This is most apparent in his animated feature film adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox in which shots play out sort of like an animated diorama.
• Anderson is very much a post-modern director, as his aesthetic and directorial style can be best described as a multiplicity of different styles from different eras. The staging of scenes often makes reference to this as characters face the camera and break the fourth wall.
• This aesthetic suits the source material also, as Anderson’’s postmodern fourth wall breaking is a perfect fit for the wisecracking character of Mr Fox.

11)

• I don’t really have a segway here so onto Environmental Storytelling…
• In animation particularly, backgrounds are often seen as an afterthought when actually they are a vital part of visual storytelling.
• Environments, when utilised to their fullest can be characters in and of themselves which shine insight into the world the characters in the story inhabit.
• For example, the architecture of the cities in dystopian sci fi films such as Ghost in the Shell and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner evoke a conflicting sense of time and place, juxtaposing modernist architecture with more futuristic architecture to reflect the disillusionment characters have with the advancement of technology and direction their societies are heading, which by extension is the authorial intent and preferred reading of the films put forth by the directors.

12)

• Video games are particularly good at environmental storytelling as often the designers have to try and find ways of directing the player in the direction of progress without being too obvious.
• Journey is an excellent example of thematically relevant environmental storytelling, as there is no dialogue and communication between players is completely non-verbal, with the player having to rely entirely on the visuals to gain understanding of the story.

13)

• The goal of Journey is to reach the top of the mountain which looms over the player throughout the entire game, giving them a clear direction.
• The mountain, with its ethereal light omitting from the top and seemingly angelic presence itself serves as a sort of metaphor for heaven, thus the ascension towards the summit serves as a sort of metaphor for life.
• The journey to the summit takes the player through a series of environments, each one symbolic of the different struggles we go through on the journey through life.

14)

• On a slightly darker note, another fine example of environmental storytelling in Video Games is with PT and it’s looping hallways, littered with beer cans and prescription meds which symbolise a deranged alcoholic father’s Post Traumatic revisitation of the night he murdered his family while being haunted by the ghost of his dead wife and unborn child out for revenge.

15)

• PT tells its story through interaction with the environment and has to be pieced together by the player by finding clues and solving puzzles.
• While only a short demo for a cancelled Silent Hill Reboot by Guillermo Del Toro and Hideo Kojima which was erased from the face of the earth, PT is a masterclass in environmental storytelling and non-linear narrative in the video game medium.
• The beer cans and prescription meds that litter the hallways hint at the father’s alcoholism and paranoid schizophenia while the talking foetus in the sink and injuries to the ghost of the dead wife hint at some extremely sinister deeds on the father’s behalf that I won’t go into, but can probably be pieced together.

16)

• Alright, lets wrap it up with something a little more lighthearted and less murdery.
• Character Design can also serve a valuable storytelling purpose and bring the audience closer into the character’s world.
• Tomm Moore’s Song of the Sea makes use of the subjective perspective of our main character Ben’s point of view, telling an almost allegorical story of a young boy and his mute sister as they try to get home to the sea and escape their Grandmother.
• On their journey they encounter an array of characters based off various characters from Irish and Celtic folklore, such as The Great Seanachai (seana-chqui) and Macha, whose designs in the film resemble the characters Ferry Dan and Granny respectively.
• Both the Celtic folklore and literal versions of each character serve similar purposes in the eyes of our main character. Ferry Dan and The Seanachai both provide passage while Macha and Granny are antagonists in pursuit of our main character, though ultimately in the end not necessarily for selfish reasons.

Summary:

• So in summary, everything that is put up on the screen is a conscious and calculated decision made by artists, from the movement of a camera, to the design of a character, and thus has the potential to carry an encoded meaning.
• As animators we shouldn’t slack on any one element of a scene as it is the combination of all these ideas that creates meaningful art.