Digital Creative Learning Journal for CAT214TC - Zining.liu 2036770

I liked the topic of this course so much that I decided to take it after just reading the syllabus. I am very interested in animation, and I have tried to make some small animations by myself, but the production process is very difficult. Therefore, I hope to learn how to use professional animation production software in class, so as to make works satisfactory to myself first. However, I am sorry that I am a particularly introverted person, so I may seek advice and help from teachers through emails, so as to improve my works. Talking about specific things I hope to learn:
1. Understand the types of animations
2. Understand the director's approach and an overview of the theme of the work
3. Learn the operation of mirrors, expression techniques, light and shadow, special effects, making key frames and other technical aspect

Group: Our group has two members, Haosong Lu and Zining Liu AND JINGFEI SUN.

Preliminary plan: The subject of Chinese involves a wide range of aspects. My initial idea is to choose two aspects that I am interested in, calligraphy and religion, and maybe add one to two aspects (philosophy and literature). Calligraphy itself has a high artistic element and is an important art category in reality. If I can integrate it into animation and photography, it will bring different effects. While Chinese religion has a strong mystical atmosphere, Taoism is the only local religion in China, not only has a long history, but also involves a wide range of aspects. Taoist elements are widely used in Chinese films and cartoons. I expected to incorporate these two cultures into my work. The details will be discussed with the group later.

First of all, the topic of this assignment is Chinese religion, and some elements of calligraphy will be added.
Our photography is tentatively based on the Taoist temples in Suzhou, and we will conduct basic interviews and request permission to shoot in advance. At the same time, there may be some scenes taken from museums related to calligraphy. The whole video is mainly documentary, and there may be a little story plot in the animation part.

Another derivative element of Taoism that may be used in our animation is the unique Chinese magic culture, "xiu xian". This highly mythological behavior has been widely used in Chinese novels, movies, comics and anime. I analyzed two typical Chinese fantasy movies, "A Chinese Odyssey" and "Gold Taoist". This style of film, which contains Chinese fantasy elements and imagination, is based on Taoism or Buddhism.
A Chinese Odyssey tells a story that takes place in the celestial world. With a strong Chinese style of fantasy art, the film has bright colors and clear contrast. Based on the story of Journey to the West, it has been adapted into a classic love tragicomedy film. Since Buddhism and Taoism are closely related in China, many times Chinese Taoism and Indian Buddhism elements appear together, and this film is a good fusion of mythological elements and religious elements. However, I focus on learning its picture expression, hoping to achieve a visual impact but not dazzling feeling in my own works.
Golden Taoist is a Chinese Hong Kong comedy horror film, the folk legend of Taoist ghost capture plot filmed into a film, gained many audiences love. There are rich Taoist elements in it, and the whole film adopts a strong authenticity style to create a tense atmosphere. The visual effects of this film are actually plain, without exaggerated mirrors and gorgeous special effects, and the authenticity it brings also comes from this way of expression.

The general content of the video is to introduce and display Taoist culture and calligraphy art as the theme, showing the mystery and inclusiveness of Chinese culture. More specific details, such as how to intersperse story content and how to integrate calligraphy and religion in a coherent and natural way, are being discussed by our group.
The first reason for choosing this theme is that it is relatively niche and easier to arouse the curiosity of the audience. Second, religion and calligraphy can bring people a sense of mystery and chic, which can reflect the broad and profound Chinese culture from a special perspective. Third, I like religion and calligraphy very much, and have some understanding, so I may have more experience in selecting and integrating materials.

This week's lecture showed a lot of micro films made by Xiamen University students, all of which adopted the way of interview and had the characteristics of documentary. The stories of the first two people and the dog are shot in a very simple way, and the shooting methods are also immersive. However, what I pay most attention to is the shooting method of the micro film about the temple keeper. The overall picture of the film selects low saturation colors, but occasionally there is a strong contrast between light and dark, so as to highlight the quiet, dignified but peaceful style characteristics of the small temple.

30 seconds personal animation script: Taoist Worldview
Scenario 1: Start with a silent picture, the all-black scene stays for 3-4 seconds, and then a cloud-like image appears to simulate the scene of Taoist chaos. (6-8s)

Scenario 2: White gradually appears in the black scene, black and white interweave to form tai chi images, Yin and Yang fish become two instruments, two instruments change into four images, four images derive eight diagrams. This animation is a deformed animation, which makes people feel flexible and easy to understand. (10-12s)

Scenario 3: The eight trigrams born all things, at this time there is a key figure of Taoism, Lu Dongbin, character action for looking back. The camera zoomed in quickly from far to give an eye close-up, where the Yin Fu Sutra image was inserted, and the scroll appeared until it occupied the entire frame. (7-8s)

Scenario 4: All calligraphy characters are collected on a piece of yellow paper and turned into a symbol, the whole picture is still, and the animation is over. (3-5s)

The animation uses only narration, no voice acting or character lines.
Narrator:

混沌生无极，无极生太极，太极生两仪，两仪生四象，四象生八卦，八卦生而万物生，万物生生不息。

（Chaos gives birth to infinity, infinity gives birth to Tai Chi, Tai Chi gives birth to two instruments, two instruments give birth to four images, four images give birth to eight diagrams, eight diagrams give birth to all things, all things give birth.）

The narration comes from classical Chinese, which may have some mistakes in translation and needs to be understood in combination with animation scenes.

The following is a reference to the images found:
Figure 1/4: Portrait of Lu Dongbin
Figure 2/3: Yin Fu Sutra and inscription
Figure 5: Taoist talisman

Visual elements include everything that the viewer's eyes can see, such as field, Angle, subjective and objective lens, empty lens, shooting direction, focal length, color, light, fixed picture, moving picture, subject motion, camera position motion, slow motion, freeze motion, etc.

Montage and long shots as audio-visual editing methods are often used to express more complex narrative structure and emotional expression. In Lola Run, directed by Tom Tykway, the scene of Lola running three times is repeatedly emphasized, reflecting Lola's desperate run to rescue her lover. The use of repeated montage deepens the theme expression of the film, the unknowability of the world and the helplessness of human beings to the world.

About the three-dimensional sense, the train extends to the distance will converge, so that the space with obvious three-dimensional sense is called the deep space, then the relative, there is a plane space, the plane space will deliberately weaken the depth clue. The dividing lines were also covered in Monday's lecture. Take the 1999 film "American Beauty" for example, the scene of the girl's home is represented by the flat space as shown in the following figure, and the flat space represents the connection between families at this time. After the family was broken up, flat space was no longer used in films.

Metaphorical montage or contrastive montage may be used in parts of our film to depict the mysterious and time-honored feeling that Taoism brings to the Chinese people.
We may take a more fixed picture, and the choice of light is more gentle than bright.
It is possible to shoot the statue with an upward shot, and this shooting Angle will emphasize the feeling of majesty.

If the application is successful, we may record the spell practice process.

MOODBOARD：

In class, I learned a variety of camera processing methods.

1. Flat shot
An Angle at which the camera is at the same level as the subject. Flat shots can generally be divided into front, side and slope three kinds.

2.Back shot
The camera shoots from a low point up. Upshot is suitable for shooting high scenery, can make the scenery appear more tall and majestic. Use it to represent the line of sight of film and television characters, and sometimes can represent the high and low positions between objects.

3. Overhead shot
In contrast to upside-down photography, the camera shoots down from a high place, giving the impression of looking down. The overhead lens has a wide field of vision and is used to express a huge scene, which has its own unique features. It is very common in film and television films to use the overhead camera to show the hateful smallness of the villain or to show the despicable actions of the character.

Operation mirror : Push

"Push" is one of the most common mirror maneuvering techniques. When shooting, the lens moves slowly forward and constantly advances towards the subject, and the proportion of the subject in the picture gradually increases. This technique can focus and highlight the subject of the shooting.

Move

"Move" can be understood as parallel movement, the direction of movement can be horizontal, can be vertical, or tilt a certain Angle. However, the trajectory of the movement should be mainly in a straight line, and do not move randomly.

Wear

"Wear" can be understood as the meaning of crossing, crossing, when shooting, you need to find a prospect between the phone and the shooting subject, because it is this prospect to cross. The "wear" mirror technique can increase the sense of layer and space of the video picture, because there is a background of the prospect, with the contrast of the distance, in order to make the picture have an immersive sense of substitution.

Follow

The mirror operation technique of "follow" can be understood as following, when shooting a moving subject, the lens has been following the subject of the shooting. For example, follow a person walking forward in the back, or film a person walking toward the camera in the front. The synchronous movement of the lens and the subject can ensure that the proportion of the subject in the picture is unchanged, and the following shooting can also increase the sense of substitution in the picture.

The class introduced gamma curves.

Regarding color adjustment, the RGB color diagram as a guide to the operation of the later color adjustment, it is necessary to firmly remember that the complementary color of red is cyan, the complementary color of green is magenta, and the complementary color of blue is yellow, and the adjustment of the channel curve of the green primary color and the blue primary color is equivalent to adjusting the green/product and blue/yellow respectively.

storyboard:

In the film part, I participated in some editing, some shooting, and background music. In the end, I added the video of reading Zhouyi. Reading Zhouyi sixty-four gua allows people to intuitively feel the most profound culture of Taoism, which is one of the most important things for every Taoist priest.

The worshippers or tourists who come to worship will carry out several projects, such as tying red ropes or tossing coins for good luck, lighting incense, kneeling down to worship idols, and asking Taoist leaders to help see things (marriage, fortune, etc.). We shot scenes with very few characters and no dialogue, because part of our film expresses the real modern Taoism, which is not as exaggerated and whimsical as imagined, and the Taoist mainly cultivates the mood, rather than using fancy sorcery to attract attention. Taoism never forces people to believe. That's why we love Taoism and chose this theme. We did not pay attention to dynamic performance in the shooting, but mainly focused on static, such as burning candles and red ribbons blown by the wind.

My animation shows a Taoist worldview.

Next, I will explain the meaning of each part in detail:

the Taoist charms and eyes at the beginning are used to highlight the religious atmosphere as the beginning of the animation.

The characters in the second act are typical images of ancient Chinese people, giving people a sense of chivalry and freedom. Then the black smoke converged into chaos.

In the third act, the protagonist runs out of the bamboo forest and converts the true qi into "Yang". "Yang" and "Yin", representing chaos, collide and blend into "Tai Chi" in the valley, resulting in the collapse of heaven and earth. As the smoke clears, heaven and earth turn pure white and pure black.

In the fourth act, the protagonist's silhouette reappears, preparing to perform the movement of tai Chi.

In the fifth act, the camera zoomed in, and what I drew was one of the preparatory movements of Tai Chi.

In the sixth act, Yin and Yang fish are separated, and Tai Chi gives birth to four lotus flowers, which are pure Yang, Shaoyang (black in white), Shaoyin (white in black), and pure Yin. This represents the four elephants, "SiXiang".

In the seventh act, the "Sixiang" is integrated into the hands of the protagonist and gives birth to the eight diagrams, "BaGua".

In Act 8, "BaGua" gathers into a true qi and flows into the earth.

In the ninth act, the main character stares at everything, his eyes reflecting the scene of everything.

Act ten, the world suddenly has color. This is where Bagua is born and all things live forever.

Through the AE learned in class, such as the sub-layer of far and near shots, simple image movement and transformation and other techniques, I made some scenes. However, I mainly use procreate dreams, which is common to many AE technologies, so I also use a lot of skills learned in classes. However, it can be used on iPad, and the images drawn can be easily converted into animation software, so I mainly use procreate dreams.

In the process of making the frame-by-frame animation of the characters, I referred to the movements of the characters in some videos.

I swear I did all the work myself, without any AI software.

List of software I use: procreate, procreatdreams, AE, jianying. （Every image, every frame of animation I can provide the entire painting process if needed, but it takes tens of hours.）

Dubbing is paid to find a special voice actor. The background music was also copyrighted for work purposes. All sound effects are also copyrighted. Payment records for audio rights can also be provided if required.

The background has a photo reference.

If you still feel that there are traces of AI or surrogates, or traces of other people's help, I can even redraw it on the spot. But I have shown the whole process as far as possible according to your request, and I hope you can trust me， I really did it for a long time though.

In the part of group work, I did some shooting and subtitle configuration, and discussed the shooting theme with the team members. Our shooting location is Wujing Taoist Temple. Haosong Lu and I negotiated with the management to get permission to shoot, but the regulations forbid direct shooting of the statue, so we chose to shoot other scenes. Generally, believers or tourists who come to worship will carry out several projects, such as tying red ropes or throwing coins for good luck, lighting incense, kneeling down to worship idols, and asking the Taoist leader to help see things (marriage, fortune, etc.). There are very few characters in the scenes we shoot, and there is no dialogue, because part of our film expresses the real modern Taoism, which is not as exaggerated and fanciful as imagined, and the main thing of Taoist monks is to cultivate the mood, not to use fancy witchcraft to attract attention. Taoism never forces people to believe. This is why we love Taoism and choose this theme. We did not focus on dynamic expression in the shooting, but mainly on static, such as burning candles, red ribbons blown by the wind. The three of us are a team, which I will keep in mind, so I always try to finish my own work, and never blame others for their work in any way. The relationship between the three of us is always harmonious, because I believe that the effort and the return will be equal, which is a good team cooperation. Because the final judgment is supposed to be fair. Thanks to the understanding and support of the other two team members, all our work is open and transparent.

In terms of the time allocation of the project, I decided to do the animation part in advance when the team did not shoot. After the group discussion, my animation will be used as the beginning of the film, so I need to make an animation about the Taoist world view to fit the plot development of our film. My part is a very important part of the whole film. Because I wanted to make a very dynamic animation, and the time was controlled under 30 seconds, so I reserved a month to prepare it. This includes storyboarding, learning animation software, drawing keyframes, and voice acting. After I learned some ae techniques in class, I began to draw animations, which took me about a week, drawing many hours a day. But here's the problem. My animations tend to run over time, so I need to reduce the number of ideas and compress what I want to tell.

In the early part of May, our group conducted the film shooting. Haosong Lu and I decided to shoot some scenes showing the real Taoism, which just contrasted with my animation. The first active scenes were followed by quiet ones, which pulled the audience back to reality. The only part where we disagreed was that I felt there were too many long shots in the film. However, the team members think that it can better reflect the peaceful atmosphere. After seeking the professor's advice, I decided to compromise, and the shooting part was still mainly based on long shots, which could be supplemented by color adjustment and use aesthetics to polish these long shots. All the members of our group were serious about their own tasks and did not criticize other members. Since I can draw a little bit and Haosong Lu is good at editing, our division of labor became clear. I made the animation relatively detailed, and the story points were dense. He edited the video, and cut the shot out of the story sense through editing, which could benefit from each other's strengths, so as to ensure the coherence and perfection of our film. Before that, we were shooting together, I was setting up and selecting some scenes, and he was adjusting the lens to shoot. I was responsible for the voice parts of the film, as well as all the audio polish and audio editing. We used a total of nine big scenes, seven of which were shot by Haosong Lu and two by me.

Jingfei Sun provided a lot of valuable advice to our team and played a very important role in supervising my work. She actively communicated with the course leaders after class in order to make constructive suggestions for our work.

Also, I look forward to the rating of my work, as well as any comments. I was puzzled to learn that I had made the whole job worse by adding layers of audio tracks and color toning and fine editing. But I decided to ditch a lot of the work I had done and chose to put rough cuts in the team section. This is the major difficulty I have encountered in my work, it is very difficult to give up one thing, maybe art should be very abstract and simple, I will gradually understand. All in all, thank you for this opportunity of cooperation. I have learned a lot. By the way, on the disinterest of purely appreciative judgments, Kant states: "Everyone must admit that judgments of beauty, if mixed with the slightest interest, are biased and are not appreciative judgments. One must have no predisposition to the existence of things, but be completely indifferent to them, in order to act as arbiters in matters of appreciation." What Kant is saying here is very clear, that connoisseur judgment is possible only if it is impartial, which requires that we have no interest in our judgments about beauty; The neutrality of men with regard to the existence of things is a prerequisite for them to act as arbiters in matters of appreciation. At the beginning of the Critique of Judgment, Kant emphasizes that aesthetics have nothing to do with Interesse, which in this case refers both to perceptual preferences combined with individual desires and to moral interests associated with the laws of reason. That's one of the requirements of Immanuel Kant‘s connoisseurship.