Everyday Cake

Modelling to Filming

Cooking My Project

Day Three of modeling week and today's brief is to make an edible representation of my final year project. My first immediate idea was fairy cakes. Fairy cakes are just normal little cakes with two semi circle cut out in the middle, fill in with cream or butter icing and the semi circles placed on top to look like wings. My idea is to look at the anthropomorphism in these types of cakes and make my own cakes but instead of fairies make irons, toothbrush cakes, showing the characters from my project so far. Tonight will be full of baking magic and Martin Conreen is coming especially to taste our projects tomorrow. Hopefully they will all be very tasty.

Model Week: Day 1

During an intense modelling day using only black and white card, and some fabric from Fleur, I made two stages. I have been thinking about the situation in which the animation couls occur and whether or not I want to concentrate on films of the stories or on live performances. I am going to try out both during my Christmas holiday and discuss the benifits for communication of my project in both mediums in my context report.  

These are photgraphs of the laser cut shadow puppets I made last week sitting on the window sill next to my desk. I have been considering the difference of still photography perhaps speaking just as much about the personality of an object as puppet animation. I need to produce more of these experiments in order to determine which has better anthromorphic qualities, so through out my blog I will post as many examples of this as I possibly can in order to decide. 

A New Description...

The desciption of my blog used to be; My project is about finding personality in inanimate objects. I hope to discover the different way people animate objects from childhood toys to everyday household items. I have three areas of research I am particularly interested in; children and toys, adults and childhood toys, and puppets and puppeteers. This will be ongoing research in order to apply to a design process. I hope to produce a series of outcomes and test if this creates any attachment feelings towards the user.

I have decided that since my territory presentation I have followed the direction of of the puppets and found I have a special interest in animating everyday inanimate objects in order to change peoples values of them. Today I went to a story telling show in Deptford which was assisted by shadow puppets. The show was amazing, even though they didn't end up using the shadow due to technical problems. I have become very excited about the different was of story telling as I have been talking about in my previous blogs that I feel I should change my blog description to the new direction my project has taken. 

Writing stories

This week I have been thinking about the context in which I could build a narrative around my objects. I have picked out a few key themes in shadow puppetry. One particular theme that came to mind is the relationship between shadow puppetry and the mystery of the dead. One of the first shadow puppets I made was an iron including a length of string as its cord, with a plug on the end. I'd like to write a story about how an iron dies. It is usually related to a mechaninical failure, but in order to change peoples value of an object dying or being no longer of use I'd like to narrate a story in which the other irons ritualistically 'cut the cord' from the iron to the plug and the plug dies. I find this approach quite peotic, yet striking. 

I'd also like to look at existing myths or stories and reassign characters to everyday objects and then act out the show accordingly. Another idea suggested in my group tutorial was to get other users to use my objects as props, puppets and stages to create their own stories about these everyday objects and see what ideas emerge.

Another area of interests came about when I was first looking at the shapes of the shadows. The image of the toothbrush that looks like it's talking to it's shadow has provoked me to start a collection of objects relating to their shadows and attempting to play with light sources and other object to try to create warped or skewed shadows to tell a story about the object. I find these images so intriguing that they might become the core of element of inspiration for narration, or a piece in their own right. 

Why animate everyday objects?

I have been thinking about the difference in animating objects meant to be animated or have human-like quality, or objects with mundane everyday qualities. I have decided to go with the mundane as a reflection on use of everyday objects and how their essential qualities are over-looked in everyday life and routine. What if we treasured or appreciated these objects as if they were thinking beings. 

I have been making some shadow puppets of everyday objects such as tea cups, an iron and a toothbrush (taken from the image in the previous post). I hope to develop a narrative around which the viewer could develop a sense of the objects personality. To help develop the sense of my objects personalities I have been reading The Design of Everyday Life  where they talk about the abundence of things made to keep together systems and routines, 'there is no doubt that social life have things, that things have social lives'. This book is a great starting point for me in deciding the context of my work. 

Making Puppets - Shadow Puppets

For the last week I have been making puppets out of inanimate objects. I first started with shadow puppets. While doing this I did some research into shadow puppetry history and modern day use. I watched a recent short film called 'Our Man in Nirvana' by Jan Koester. It is a story about a man who dies whilst playing a rock concert and goes to Nirvana, a surreal heaven-like place, but when it comes to judgement the judge decides that he has not acted well in his life so he cannot stay in Nirvana and has to go back to life. I like the film as it begins with traditional black and yellow light shadow puppets animated by metal rods, but Nirvana is made by computer animation in full colour but moves in the same way as the puppets and the character image is made up of solid colour layers reflecting the more traditional techniques. 

I started taking pictures of objects and their shadows and then recreated the shape and look of the objects but stylised a like 'Our Man in Nirvana'. I will post images of them when finished cutting on the laser cutter. This is one of the images that I think shows signs of personality, it looks like the toothbrush is talking to it's shadow. 

During my research I have also come across a German animator in the 1920's called Lotte Reinger. She was most famous for the feature length silhouette film 'The Adventures of Prince Achmed' in 1926. She made all the scenes and characters by hand "holding the scissors still in her right hand, and manipulating the paper at lightning speed with her left hand so that the cut always went in the right direction.' 1 

When I have created some object puppets I would like to create a narrative relevant to the context of why and how I have created them. I think this would be a good medium to communicate the personality of the objects. 

My Territory

Three approaches to animating the inanimate...

• Children and Toys
• Adults and Childhood Toys
• Puppets and Puppeteers

Children and Toys

How do children form relationships with inanimate object?

"Toys are opportunities for play, for exploration, 

and for social interaction; an educational toy that promotes these will have a positive effect, but so will an everyday household object - if used in the right way." 

"Every child at play behaves like a creative writer, by creating a world of his own or ... By imposing a new and more pleasing order on the things that make up his world." - Sigmund Freud.

Adults and Childhood Toys

If a person can form a relationship with a childhood toy through to adulthood, can they form relationships with other objects?

The Velveteen Rabbit is a story about how toys become real and what happens when childen do not need them anymore. 

"He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey...he scarcely looked like a rabbit any more, except to the boy. To him he was always beautiful, and that was all the little Rabbit cared about...when you are Real shabbiness doesn’t matter."

Also see: www.toy-secrets.blogspot.com

Puppets and Puppeteers

How do puppeteers relate to inanimate objects in order to animate them?

To animate is ...

'to give life and soul to a design, not through copying but through the transformation of reality.'