Copyleft

Under Copyleft, an author may give every person who receives a copy of a work permission to reproduce, adapt or distribute it and require that any resulting copies or adaptations are also bound by the same licensing agreement.

The sharing, reusing and remixing of information legally.

This led to the creation of the creative commons whereby;

• You can let people share and use your photographs but not allow other companies to sell them.
• You can look for access to course materials from the world’s top universities.
• You can encourage readers to re-publish your blog posts, with credit added to your name.
• You can look for songs that you can use and remix, royalty-free.

A great idea encouraging creatives to combine ideas and knowledge and work together.

I found this video which simplified the information to me;

Wanna Work Together? from Creative Commons on Vimeo.

With this comes loads of different levels of licenses the owner can apply;

ATTRIBUTION BY CC BY

This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.

This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

ATTRIBUTION ShareAlike

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use.  Used By Wikipedia

ATTRIBUTION - NoDerivs

This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

ATTRIBUTION - NonCommercial

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

ATTRIBUTION - NonCommercial- ShareAlike

This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

ATTRIBUTION - NonCommercial- NoDerivs

This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

Copyright

Information on copyright laws is something everyone in the creative industry should have exposure to. But for animators it is even more prominent with the possibility of making it into the film industry.

Copyright is what gives us creatives possession over our work, protects originality.

A wide range of things can be copyrighted, from drawings to films, anything that has been made as a result of intellectual effort.

In the UK our copyright is automatic, which is different to other countries who have a registration system or even nothing at all.

Copyright has a duration however. Now we are finding many films, songs etc, losing their copyright laws. Cliff Richard got it raised from life + 50 years to life + 70 years, over fears that his copyright would run out and he would no longer be making money from people playing, using and buying his music.

To get permission to use someone elses material, (for commercial purposes) contacting them directly is usually the best way to go.. This could also be an organisation, for example a recording company if you wanted to use someone esles sound.

To claim copyright yourself;

©YourName and Year of Publication

Has to be printed at the bottom of the page, drawing, film etc. Watermarks can also achieve this on video uploads for example.

A good way to prove that you own a piece of work is by posting it to yourself with a date and stamp to prove it was created at a certain time, or leaving with the bank or solicitor.

USEFUL LINKS;

UK Copyright Service - http://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/copyright/p01_uk_copyright_law

Intellectual Property Office - www.ipo.gov.uk

PRS For Music - www.prsformusic.com

Copyright Licensing Agency - www.cla.co.uk

Copyright Clearance for Music - http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar08/articles/sampleclearance_0308.htm

Piracy is a profound factor within the films industry. Meaning in a huge loss for many companies as more and more people watch pirated versions of films instead of purchasing and giving something back to the company to legally watch it.

However, piracy has not always had negative effects on industrys.

For example in America, anime was introduced through means of piracy, piracy gave anime an identity in the western world. However after soon realising that the content didn't suit with the western industry, the animation companies pulled their shows because of notion that the effort was greater than the profits that would have been earned.

However it was piracy yet again that showed Japan wrong.

With a cult following, the western world still latched onto anime and even ended up dubbing some of the episodes themselves, which in turn made it more accessable to the masses, the ball was gathering momentum.

In the end Japanese companies found that the popularity in underground groups had grown massively and it became justifiable yet again to release content to the western world.

And has lead us to where we are today.

That introduction to the western world making anime as big as it is today would not have been possible without piracy. Piracy lead to the promotion, people sharing, building hype. A contradicting element.

Doll Face

I came across this short and meaningful 3D animation.

The narrative follows a robotic creature, she observes a TV screen where she is shown a face, a facade of a beautiful woman. She mechanically starts to apply make up to her face to look like her. Then, she is shown another image, and another, and another. She keeps distorting her face, coating it to mimic the avatar on screen. The TV distances away from her, she tries her best to reach it but damages and breaks herself in the process. She falls and her face smashes.

This animation has a direct correlation to the media industry polluting our society with their twisted definition of beauty, and the pressure women face as a direct cause. What we see on TV, what we see on posters, it is written into us as a society to want to aspire to be that on TV, be that on the poster. As the robot aspires to mimic the woman on TV. She tries so hard to be perfect but in the end becomes broken. This could reflect how some women in society try so hard to look perfect, otherwise they feel they are broken and worth nothing. 

Also the fact that she is a mechanical robot and applies her make-up mechanical, kind of reflects the whole inhumane process of making yourself look attractive, day and day out, like a mechanical process. It also could reflect the mechanical way models are treated, they are coded for visual and erotic impact, objectified almost.

Caleb Wood - Plumb

Plumb from caleb wood on Vimeo.

Coming from a fine art background, I was most intrigued when I came across an "animation installation" by Caleb Wood. This video "Plumb" shows his installation.

The video starts by showing Caleb Wood drawing these doodles in columns, doodles that when you browse down the columns you see the movement occurring. The doodles look great as they are, drawn freehand on the wall, but obviously that part of you wants to SEE the movement happening visually infront of you, which Caleb surprised me with showing 40 seconds in as he took pictures of each of the doodles in order and put them together as an animation, which was truly mesmirising. What I found most entrancing is how you could see the left and right hand columns also moving in your peripheral as you focus on the middle action. It is unique and original, something I have never seen before. The messy aesthetic is perfect, its come straight from the brain onto the wall, its free and full of spirit and charm, I love it.

What I fins also really special is how the animation stands alone on the wall as an installation, a piece of art in itself.

This really sends across the message too how profound animation stands in the world of art. Animation IS an art! Thats what it shouts.

Unity resarch - following tutorial

With my desire to test with games design software I took some time away from my other modules to follow a Unity tutorial and tech myself some C# and get a feel for this game dev software.

This is what I achieved:

The ball rolls using basic physics, it collects the squares and the counter goes up when the boxes are collected, finally generating a "win" text.

It was relatively easy to follow the tutorial, the tutorial was incredibly detailed and I have a gist for the software now, not enough to obviously make my own game though.

In my spare time (On the rare occasion when I get some) I will be following more and more tutorials to hopefully familiurise myself over summer by creating a game by teaming up with a computer scientist.

I really enjoyed animating my game in Unity, the software is easy to work and I enjoyed every second. 

Also over summer I hope to get to grips with some modelling in Maya and how to composite textures to make things look beautiful. On the sides I wish to learn some basic C# coding, even though the computer scientist I will be teaming up with will have a great amount of coding knowledge to make the mechanics run beautiful, whilst I stick mainly to the aesthetic part.

The Backwater Gospel

The Backwater Gospel is a BA film project by The Animation Workshop.

 

 What caught me about this animation imparticular was the aesthetic, achieved using 3D software combined with some 2D elements. It creates a very rustic aura which complements the horror core running throughout. 

The characters have a very wooden aesthetic, wood that looks rotten and decaying, with jagged destroyed edges. When they move, it feels as if you would hear creaks because of its rotten state. The movements aren't fluid, they are clanky and jumpy, to enhance the horror rather like Tim Burton's style of animating.

 The wood I think stands as a motif to reflect the coffins of the undertaker which we see at the end in the credits scene as they shut on all the characters that died.

 

 The film starts off with a very dark aura and austere feeling, set entirely in monochrome. The colour pallette changes brighter somewhat as the animation progresses but still maintains a bleak tone to reinforce the horror element and unsettle the audience with a dull atmosphere. The Undertaker is strongly correlated with the grim reaper, the people claim that he is the one that takes the dead when in reality he deals with the dead after death. We see scary subliminal flash visuals off him having wings like grim reaper which make you jump, yet again antagonsing the dear aspect.

 

 Pathetic fallacy is used to further fuel the horror, the introduction of the rain makes this scene more powerful and dramatic. The shards of rain interfere with the visuals. Intercepting our vision making it  frustrating as we feel restricted because we cant see the action clearly, which in turn further grips the audience as we strive to see clearer.