Unit 4: FMP - Research

Research

To get some inspiration and ideas for my FMP, I was introduced to the idea of Pecha Kucha. I looked at what Pecha Kucha does and how to use it, and what kind of topics I could use for my FMP.

I am planning to create a mindmap and moodboard for my FMP. It was difficult to finalize my ideas for my FMPs but using the Pecha Kucha ideas i began to create a mindmap about Pets, for example, dogs. I'm passionate about our to rescue dogs we have had in our family so I would like to highlight how important it is for people to think about having a rescue dog instead of a puppy in their families. I plan to talk about why animal rescue centres want to rescue and save dogs and other animals which can be good pets. I also found a website: https://www.raystede.org/ It's called Raystede, a place where they look after and rescue animals and find new homes and lives for them.

After choosing the subject of my live action documentary I began to think how I will create it. I looked up some films that have live action and animation together, so I can get more ideas for my FMP. It was diffuclt to find a film that has live action people and animated dogs. I did manage to find a TV show that has live action and animated together called Blue's Clues and it could be a possible design idea for me. I like the animation and design looks of Blue's Clues because that has inspired me on other dog shows like Paw Patrol and Bluey.

Project chosen: Pets

Artist pets: https://www.culturewhisper.com/r/visual_arts/artists_and_their_pets_dogs_cats/14478,

I wanted to explore different animal artwork and animation design of dogs. I found out that Animals have been a source of inspiration for many artists. From art about rural life and growth, to myths and legends, animals are used in many different ways in art. There are multiple ways of getting started as a pet portrait painter. You can choose which path you pursue, although you need to keep it in your mind that a lot of legwork will be needed, since you're almost always going to get hired based on skills rather than your resume. There are ways to find a pet painting job, it takes a lot of your time as an independent artist will spend finding new commissions. It can be a lot of work, but the internet has made it much easier to connect with potential customers and show off on what can you really do. https://www.skillshare.com/en/blog/painting-pet-portraits-as-a-career/#:~:text=A%20pet%20portrait%20artist%20is,Photoshop%20and%20other%20illustration%20programs

Uncle Andy's cat - Andy Warhol has produced a Dog and cast series of silk screened paintings of house cats and dogs promoted by an art collector who wanted a pop art portrait of their dog and it turned out really well, so Andy continued creating more pet portraits.

During my project, I was thinking on how to combine live action and animated cartoons together because that's the technique I want to use for my FMP. I looked up on some YouTube videos and I found these two so far. Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SFRO6o7Bc4 & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilg1sHKSFpg. These clips showed me how I could possibly merge real life and animation together so it really inspired me to try and use these techniques in my FMP. These tutorials could be one step closer to create my FMP and I found out how to add cartoon characters on Live action scene, they use Adobe After Effects which I need to know how to use.

Research:

Dogs Trust: https://www.dogstrust.org.uk/about-us/who-we-are/our-story Dogs trust is one of the oldest dog shelters in the world. It first opened in 1891 and it was called The National Canine Defence League. In 1899, a major campaign was launched against experiments on dogs and then by the 1910s, fewer dogs are being used in this way. The league campaigned against using dogs in music hall performances throughout the decade and beyond. One success was the rescue of a performing dog called Choclat. Then in 2003, they changed the name National Canine Defence League to Dogs Trust and the year yet to come The Freedom Project is launched. It’s a free dog fostering service to help people and their dogs escape domestic abuse. In 2020 when Covid-19 pandemic reached the UK, the dogs trust moved so much of their work online. This included the rehoming process and their Dog School training classes. As puppy sales rose and rehoming enquiries increased, the Dogs Trust temporarily changed their slogan to ‘A dog is for life, not just for lockdown’. I'm going to use some of this information that I researched and add it into my own words for my script.

The Dogs Trust inspired me to make a podcast for a previous project and it was telling people about why animals need rescuing and what happens to them. I included the Dogs Trust because I got my second dog from Shoreham Dogs Trust.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA): In 1866, The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals by Henry Bergh after he stopped a carriage driver from beating his fallen horse. Today, the charity (ASPCA) is one of the largest humane societies in the world, advocating for the protection of all animals across America, including dogs. https://impactful.ninja/best-charities-for-dogs/#:~:text=Against%20Animal%20Cruelty-,The%20American%20Society%20for%20the%20Prevention%20of%20Cruelty%20to%20Animals,animals%20across%20America%2C%20including%20dogs

This has inspired me because I was researching the oldest rescue dog centres in the world and I decided to choose this because it first opened in 1866, but I didn't include the American version in my podcast because I looked up British Dog rescue centres in England.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bafKbK3kEhM: I looked at this video and it had some very useful information, and the things I like about this are the music at the start and footage of the dogs in their kennels (which reminds me of when me and my family got our second dog from Dogs trust from Shoreham), I like the voices of the people talking, it's like a narrator film. What I learned from the video, is that the Dogs Trust has 24 kennels that can look after about 200 dogs. I was thinking I could add music that's similar to the music that was used in the video, but I have to make sure that the music isn't copyrighted.

What has influenced my FMP and how it's related?

I'm going to include some of the historical information about when the Dogs Trust opened and how it changed its name in my film. I decided to make an animated documentary film about rescue dog centres because it would make my viewers more interested and it appeals to younger people. I think it's more interesting than just interviewing in real life because then the audience might get bored and wouldn't want listen to it. My film has a strong message about something that I am passionate about and I want people to listen to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07d2dXHYb94: I found this video and it shows about how orphan puppies train to be adult dogs and help people who are blind when they can't see where they're going. It also shows how much smaller dogs can be useful and help people compare to larger dogs. I do like the animation of the dogs in the short film, it's sort of similar to the Paw Patrol Movie (2021).

I've been asked to look up some music that I can add to my FMP documentary film, but I had to find music that is copyright free. I like listening to Kevin Macleod music, but before I was going to use it, I looked up to see if the music was copyright free, it was but I needed to give the music credit. Also, I need to find copyright sound effects for my FMP too, especially to record some sound effects to probably save time and I've got some footage of my dog Willow barking.

I looked up on a video on why adopting an adult dog is better that adopting a puppy. puppies take a lot of care and their owners need to be there to look after them, it's kind of like looking after you're own little children.

The reason why I chose to add an animated dog onto my documentary was because I thought about, why do I like seeing animation and I asked myself why do I like learning things when a documentary is animated? I find it easier to remember the information and it keeps me interested in the topic or the show. So I looked up on Google to research if this was happening for other people. The websites said that by using animation, it can help my work stand out from other documentary films, so I can use my creativity in a better way. The websites also said that animation can get my message across so the viewers will focus more on the information on the documentary and will retain this information for longer. I can create a character which will be memorable to deliver the information and these characters will be relevant no matter how much time will pass. This is because the character is not bound by fashion, interior decoration or any other time signifiers. It can also be cost effective because I don't need to rely on other people. Normally to produce a documentary, I would need a crew like a camera man, equipment and participance which can be time consuming and costly. Instead, with animation I can do the work by myself by using a software that uses animation and punctuation. Animators have to consider when to include voice over and text on the screen because it's been found that when both are being used at the same time then people can't process the message. So that's why I just had a voice over for my character and no background text, just visual pictures.

Adobe Animate:

The software that I used to create my project was Adobe Animate, an animation software where you can make your own 2D figures to animate. When I first tried out Adobe Animate, I wasn't really good at it because it was really difficult to operate and I felt like I didn't want to use it again. But there was another time when I had to use Adobe Animate when I was in a group and we were to create an animated short film to show a visitor the finished project. When I was using Adobe Animate, I learned some new things like changing figures that I created for the project into symbols and they moved across the screen. This work helped me feel confident and try and use Adobe Animate for my FMP and I created a dog character to make a short documentary film about rescue dogs. When I added my dog character (whose name is Buddy) it was tricky at first, because when I tried one of the tools in Adobe Animate, Flexi Bone, it didn't look the same as the YouTube tutorial I was watching, until my tutor saw what the problem was. When I added the flexi bone on one of the legs of the character, the other leg moved along with the first one because they weren't separated. After, I separated some of the body parts on Photoshop and I made them and my character as PNG files because, when I first tried my character there was a white background around it so I had to delete it in Photoshop too. After I separated the body parts, deleted the white background and add the rigging bones on the dog, it walked pretty well.