Animator Biography

Pete Docter: Animator Biography

Pete Docter is an animator who is best known for his work at Pixar Studios. Docter was born on October 9, 1968 and grew up in Bloomington, Minnesota in a family very involved in music; however he never found himself interested in that field. Being very introverted and socially isolated growing up, he found himself keeping to himself quite a bit. At the age of eight he started to create his own flipbooks which gave him a passion to explore other types of media; this includes teaching himself cartooning and making homemade animated shorts with the family camera. He became very interested with animation, thinking it was a sort of way to play God by making up nearly living characters. He spent a year at the University of Minnesota studying philosophy and art but then transferred to the California Institute of the Arts. There he won a Student Academy Award for one of his films and graduated in 1990. Although he thought he would work for the Disney Corporation, Docter joined Pixar Studios as an animator the day after he graduated. He loved the tight-knit atmosphere there which made him sure that this was a good place to work. He quickly assumed many large responsibilities from John Lasseter including in writing, animation, sound recording and orchestra scoring. He has worked on many movies including Toy Story, Up, A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc., etc. He has been nominated for six Oscars. Docter’s inspirations include Walt Disney, Chuck Jones and Jack Davis. He also is a fan of anime, especially the work of Hayao Miyazaki and was even asked to direct the English translation to Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle. He continues to work at Pixar, to create more animated pictures and has a new movie Inside Out being released soon in which he directed. 

The Corporation: Movie Critique

What is the principal purpose of this documentary?

The principal purpose of this documentary is to show the impacts, nature, evolution and possible future of the business corporation.

What does the film critique? How do you know that?

The film critiques the different aspects of the business corporation; it does this through breaking down these different aspects. It separates the aspects of corporations into different sections, some including Democracy Ltd, Hostile Take Over, and Unsettling Accounts. In Unsettling Accounts, the film talks about the company Monsanto and the effect of its bovine growth hormone. This is just one of the many examples of what they show within the divided sections. The film also critiques the many things that are wrong in the corporation world and how harmful corporations actually are in a number of ways. There is a section where they actually go through the many different ways corporations can harm people, animal, the environment, etc. They flip through these ways and then stop on one and explain it a bit more, for example child labour as a form of harm against humans or drug testing as a form of harm against animals.

What methods did the filmmaker use to increase public awareness about corporate responsibility and affect people’s beliefs and behaviour?

One of the main things the filmmaker does to increase public awareness about corporate responsibility is give what the speakers were saying a sort of familiarity. They matched some of the stuff the speakers were saying with video clips, some more popular than others. What this did was gave viewers a better understanding of what message the filmmakers were trying get across. They did this when talking about the Monsanto controversy with their bovine growth hormone. They were talking about how two reporters were being paid to keep their mouths shut about what was going on as well as having their report about Monsanto rewritten. The reporters were instead being told by the company what to write in their report and as the reporters are talking about this the filmmakers show hands typing on a keyboard and then showing a finger pressing the “control” button. Here the filmmaker subtly shows how corporations were trying to control others in order protect themselves. That instead of taking responsibility for the negative effects of their product, Monsanto did all it could to “control” the situation and to have a certain power over others in order to have a clean record.

Which methods of theirs did you think were most effective in supporting their position on corporate responsibility? Why?

One of the most effective ways the filmmaker shows his position on corporate responsibility is when comparisons are being made, the actions of those who are against corporations and those who run corporations. The film went back and forth between showing different clips of the two. It showed activists standing up for what they believe in and being beaten and trying to be contained by police because things were getting out of hand; the streets are both a mess and chaotic. It then flips to scenes of the people who run these corporations. These scenes are completely opposite to what is going on outside, it’s as if they don’t even care about the effect their corporation is having on society. This was an effective method because these scenes truly show how corporations aren't taking responsibility for their actions. It shows that they are oblivious to anything that doesn't benefit them and simply don’t care if they harm anyone else.  Corporation owners are inside living the good life while others are dealing with the repercussions of these same companies.

Did you have any issues with this documentary? What were some parts that you did not agree with, or question? Why?

I didn't really have any issues with this documentary. I thought it was a good representation of what corporations are and what they stand for. It explained its point of view well and went into great detail in order to explain where they stand on corporate responsibility. It gave lots of example, which I enjoy when learning about something new and it's visuals (the certain pictures and different video clips) were very helpful when trying to when trying to explain an intricate point or idea about corporations. 

Describe another film you have watched that has an impact on your values. How and why did that happen?

A film that had an impact on me was Bill Maher’s Religulous. It was basically a film exploring religion from a satirical point of view. I think it had an impact because it was produced in a way that related to me. It was able to convey its point of view through its sarcasm and wit as well as the certain interviews Bill Maher conducted. It is through these things that Religulous made an impact on my belief system. When something is familiar or has some sort of connection to you to makes it easier learn something. 

Kangaroo Animation

Art Video Game Brainstorming

Art video game brainstorming

Memory

Trophy hunting/ poaching

I have chosen to make my game about poaching and trophy hunting. A favourite comedian of mine is a huge advocate for animal rights and has made me very aware of the situation going on. I’m quite bothered by what’s going on because I don’t understand how people can kill anything just for sport. I think it is grotesque to kill an animal just for one feature they have that could be valuable. I hope one day that poaching will no longer exist and that those species that are currently endangered will prosper once again.

1)      The instruction screen

·         Picture of the desert

·         Picture of a hunter with it

2)      The game background

·         Picture of the desert still

3)      The question side of cards

·         Bullets which signify the killing of innocent animals

4)      The picture side of the cards

·         Pictures of animals with facts about their population, for example one population being high 25 years ago, and one card from today showing how much it has dropped.

5)      Fonts/game description/messages

·         A description of the purpose of the game

·         The same font (Goudy Stout) for each time there is writing

6)      The lose screen

·         Picture of a happy hunter

·         Desert background

·         Options to play again or not

Refusal of Service in Indiana

·         Match up people with businesses

o   Matching people with places they aren’t allowed to go to

1)      The instruction screen

o   Downtown scene

2)      The game background

3)      The question side of the cards

4)      The picture side of cards

o   Person saying what they need

o   Match it with the right store

5)      Fonts/game description/messages

6)      The Lose Screen, messages

Oil Spill

·         Match up a card with oil on it with an animal

1)      The instruction screen background

o   Oil drum on its side, oil spilling out

2)      The game background

o   Water or a dock in water

o   Or the rainbow stain oil gives off

3)      The question side of the cards

o   Oil drum with question mark on it

o   Or a question mark made of oil

4)      The picture side of the cards

o   Some with pictures of oil

o   Some with pictures of animals being affected by the spills

5)      Fonts/game description/messages

6)      The Lose Screen, messages

Flappy Bird

Religious Freedom vs. Gay Rights

·         Have stores be the pillars

·         Have a person be the bird (or something else representing same sex community)

·         Keep the person away from the stores

o   Shows discrimination towards same sex population by not allowing them to get service from a business

1)      The instruction screen background

o   Downtown scene

2)      The game background

3)      The flappy bird graphic

4)      The pipes

5)      Fonts/game description/messages

6)      The Lose Screen, messages

World Hunger

·         Have the pillars be people

·         Have the bird be a piece of food

·         Keep the food away from the people 

Art Video Game Reflection

Media Arts Video Game

Stephanie Brighton

Medium: Flash

Friday, May 8, 2015

Technical

All elements of using Flash were new for me. I have only ever used the old version but now that it had been updated I had to re-learn the entire thing. This includes simple things like changing backgrounds and symbols and also making sure that the game didn’t end up turning into a video which had happened during the first steps of creating my game.

Idea or Concept

The issue I tried to reflect in my video game is the poaching that is going on around the world. Innocent animals are being targeted for one specific trait they have and are then being discarded. This has caused many species to become gravely endangered and even extinct. I tried to show the degradation of the populations of some species by writing different population amounts, one from awhile back and one from today; it shows the real gap between the two and how much of an issue poaching really is. There were other ideas I had during the brainstorming stage, like world hunger or the refusal of service to same sex couples in Indiana. However animal rights and poaching are issues that are quite important to me as well and I found I would be able to communicate this better than the others.

Influences

Actor Ricky Gervais actually influenced me in this project. He is a big advocate for animal rights and regularly posts things on Facebook to make others aware of species endangerment and how cruel the sport of hunting animals can be. He is the one who really made me aware of this issue. I was moved by his passion for this issue and thought it would be interesting if I based my game around it.

Motivation

My motivation for this project was probably to try and be creative. Though that sounds simple, it’s true. I have never tried to communicate an issue through something like a video game and to do this is quite a unique idea; I therefore had a motivation to use a different type of creativity.

Critical Assessment

The part of this project that surprised me the most was the actual process. It took me awhile to actually get going because I had to learn Flash all over again. The brainstorming also took a while. In general I just do not enjoy brainstorming; I know it’s necessary but it feels tedious to me. The part of my project that I like the most is probably that I thought of the concept to show the degradation in the populations of certain species. Because the higher and lower populations are on separate cards I feel like it makes a bigger impact so that you can see the significant difference. With more time I’m not sure what I would change. Perhaps I would just make things a bit neater, making sure all of my pictures have smooth edges.  

Spirited Away Critique

1. Spirited Away incorporates many elements from classical Western literature and folklore: people who magically turn into pigs (the Odyssey); the hero’s quest; the prohibition against eating the food of the Faerie (Irish folkore); a girl who goes to Grandma’s house (“Red Riding Hood”); the need to solve riddles. Do these familiar elements make the story easier to understand, or does their appearance in a Japanese film make them too alien to be helpful?

I do think these elements make the story easier to understand because there is in fact a sort of familiarity to it. Because we see these elements in so many different forms, books, movies, our everyday lives, we become accustomed to the fact that they are trying to get a point across and that they represent something specific. Through this familiarity we are able to make that text to self or text to text connection that we are taught to do early on in our lives, something that says “oh yeah, this is like when this happened in this other book”. Then when something is familiar then we can also start to expand our knowledge on it; for example trying to solve a math question when looking at it for the first time. If I knew nothing about math I would be very confused, but if I have a prior knowledge of math I can look at the question, say “okay, here’s what I know” and then work from there. Because I have a prior knowledge of these elements I am able to have a better understanding of the message the creator is trying to communicate. I don’t think it’s alien to see these elements in a Japanese film because they have already been integrated into many other different types of stories and media. These days it seems very common to find these elements when telling a story.

 

5. Does it make sense to think of bodies of water as possessing spirit? Have you ever had a relationship with a river, a pond, an ocean, or the rain that prompted you to speak to water? Have you ever been rescued by a body of water? Have you ever cleaned a body of water?

I believe it does make sense to think of bodies of water as possessing spirit. “Spirit” is defined as the principal of conscious life and water does in fact have a great association with life. It creates life, saves life, endangers life, ends life, houses life; if we didn’t have water then we wouldn’t be here. I’ve never had a relationship with water where I’ve talked to it but I do love the rain; to me, it has a calming element to it. I grew up sitting on the porch with my mom, listening to and watching the rain fall. She never wanted me to be afraid of the rain and I think it’s because of being close to the rain that I find it so soothing, as if perhaps it is a spirit saying there is nothing to be afraid of. I have tried cleaning a body of water before. During the summers my mom and I would go along the trail that goes by the river and we’d pick up any garbage we could find. We did this in honor of my friend who was a big environmentalist who passed away at the age of 12.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facebook Profile Picture

Toy Hack Reflection

Toy Hack Reflection

If you were to box and try to sell this item, how would you describe it and its purpose? 

I would describe it as an attempt to create a sense of unity. It is taking two opposing forces, putting them together and creating something unique in the end. It's a fun way of learning to accept those who have different views than you as well as learning to work together.

What do you like most about the new toy?

What I like most about my toy is the voice box, horn and top hat. These are quirky things that make my toy unique, things that you wouldn’t see on other toys. It’s what makes a toy memorable.

What do you like least about the new toy?

It’s a small aspect but the thing I like least about my toy is the eyes. I feel like they don’t really go with the rest of the toy. They seem kind of subdued but to fit with the rest of the toy I think they should be more lively or energetic.

What would you do if you were to re-do this assignment? 

If I were to do this assignment again I think I would change the purpose of my toy. Perhaps I would do something to symbolize feminism, something with a doll. As I got older I found Barbie to be a grotesque figure so maybe I would remodel her.

Art Movie Brainstorming

Art Movie Brainstorming

Battleship Potemkin

My favorite part of Battleship Potemkin is at the end wear the carriage is falling down the steps but then looks like someone stabbing the exact spot where the baby is but it never shows the baby being stabbed.

 

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid

My favorite part of Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid is when the guy is looking at a list of names while being followed by someone else. It feels like that is a completely different story line; it’s quite intriguing.

Metropolis

My favorite part of Metropolis was the music. Because there was no dialogue to move the story along, I found that giving the film music gave it a bit more emotion and feeling while still maintaining the qualities of an art film.

 

Brainstorming

Battleship Potemkin

I would like to incorporate the baby carriage. It seems like very suspenseful footage that could be interesting in a storyline

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid

I want to use the man checking the list of names as well as him getting on the train.

Metropolis

I want to use the part with the man reaching out and the thermometer rising. These pieces of footage seem like they could move a story along nicely.

 Loose story line

Idea #1:

·         story of a relationship

·         find secondary footage of a woman in order for this to work

·         a man and woman separated for a long time but are anticipating the day they will meet again

Idea #2:

·         show the past life of a man

·         have a reunion between family members

·         a family being separated in the past

·         let others interpret if they actually meet or not

Art Movie Reflection

Art Movie

Stephanie Brighton

Friday, April 17, 2015

Video (Premier)

Technical

In the technical aspects of this assignment it wasn’t so much learning new techniques as it was refreshing my previous knowledge of Premier. Something new for me would be downloading footage from secondary sources to use in my video. I changed the colouring of some footage and used different transitions in order for the footage clips to be smooth instead of choppy.

Idea or Concept

I started out with the idea of telling the story of a relationship. Automatically I thought of a romantic relationship. As I thought about it more I decided to change the type of relationship to a reunion between a father and son. The video starts in the past with the mother dying and her baby disappearing, leaving the father to be alone. Time then passes and goes the future where the baby is now a full grown man. Throughout the video, whenever there is a flash of white light, are flashbacks that the man is remembering from his past. This includes some flashbacks by the other main man in the video who is meant to be the father years later. The idea is for there to be a reunion between them. The flashbacks are them trying to put the pieces together, as if they recognize each other but can’t place how they know each other. One after the other they get on the same train. The last flashback is of a man killing someone. It is meant to make the viewer think about what is actually going on; has the dad or son died? Is that really them? Is this all just a coincidence?

Influences

An influence may have been human interaction. That’s one thing I like analyzing: human behaviour. I like thinking about all of the different situations people may go through in their lives. When I start to think about this then I end up wanting to show my own interpretation of something like, in this case, a father son reunion after being separated for a long time.

Motivation

My motivation was to tell a story because that’s what any artist, whether it’s musical, dramatic or visual, should do with their work. I tried to use different elements in order to create a story, such as the music, transitions and the way certain clips fit together.

Critical Assessment

I really like the music I chose for this video. Clair de Lune is one of my favourite pieces; it has such depth and emotion to it. In my opinion, this story is sort of heartbreaking, uncertain. Clair de Lune goes through many different emotions, the tempo changes which I think suits the video quite well. The only thing I found difficult about the progress was mostly the cutting of the videos. It was a bit of a learning curve to cut videos so they were precisely where I wanted them. And of course the brainstorming part took me awhile. I would think that I would have a great idea but I would keep changing my mind; I was finally able to stick to one idea and I’m with the one I chose.

Art Movie: Reunion

STEM logo

Light Painting

7 Photo Edits

 

My contact sheet

Memories in My Skin picture

Memories in my skin reflection

Memories in my Skin Reflection

Stephanie Brighton

Photoshop.

Monday, February 23, 2015

Technical

There were various techniques new to me that I used. This includes altering the hue and saturation of images, altering the opacity of images as well as their layer blends. I used various layer blends on almost every image so that they looked like they belonged and playing around with the opacity helped with the layering.

Idea or Concept

Originally I didn’t really have a concrete idea; I had a memory and ideas of pictures I wanted to use. However it took me a long time to actually come up with an idea on how to combine the two elements I already had. Working on this piece was basically a big game of trial and error for me. The one design idea I actually thought I did have, which was a background, was the aspect I actually had to change because it was too busy and that none of my pictures went with it. Once I had a simpler background to work with then I felt like I had more space to work with without worrying that my piece would be too crowded. I also found it easier to work once I had collected a bunch of images and then started to play around with them instead of “perfecting” an image then searching for more.

Influences

I had no particular influence from other artists for this piece. This piece is focused around my own memory and I therefore felt that because it is personal that I should design it the way I would and not the way someone else would.

Composition

I tried to balance this composition by having similar structures offset from each other; for example, the birds flying at the top and the footprints in the sand at the bottom. Each structure isn’t just one big picture, but is a combination of many little images. These small images keep moving one after the other and helps with the movement as well. I also offset the more powerful pictures in my piece so that attention would be focused on each side instead of one side being overwhelming.

There are various ways that one’s eye can move around my picture. There are a couple pictures that are focus points in my picture but a good point to start at are the hands holding the sunset because it is quite prominent. From there, the eye follows both the curved birds and rounded pool of water which lead to another prominent picture, the earth. The pieces of the deteriorating earth falling brings the eye downward and the way the way the earth is almost grabbing at the picture of the person brings the eye to the left. This is continued by both the footprints in the sand and the rounded bottom of the pool of water. The eye then travels up with the grey butterfly morphing into one that is more colorful flying back up to the sun. I find that the eye can easily move around because there are structures on both the top and bottom that are rounded which gives the piece a smoother transition from picture to picture or side to side. Each picture has emphasis because of what it’s paired with. For example, the colored butterfly has emphasis because of

Motivation

My motivation for this piece was that I wanted to express my feelings in a new way and to have images that really connected to me personally. I’m so used to expressing myself with words and music that to express myself with pictures seemed like an intriguing challenge. I wanted to really dig deep and focus on how my memory of Nicaragua truly made me feel and I feel I was successful with that.

Critical Assessment

My favorite element of this piece is the man walking towards the keyhole within the deteriorating earth. To me, this feels like one of the most powerful parts of the piece and really communicates how I feel about my memory. This part feels like a real portal to another world. It expresses that we as humans are the key to a better tomorrow and are the only ones who are capable of rebuilding the earth which is slowly falling apart. I’m proud of this particular part because I feel like it is really profound. I’m also proud because it makes me feel like I succeeded in understanding the true meaning of a mission’s trip.

The most surprising thing about creating this piece, for me, would be how long it actually took me to come up with an idea. I had thought that because it was my own memory that I would know exactly how I would want the layout to be; the part of the process was actually rather time consuming. I also found it difficult to fill the center of my background without having just one picture that would be focused on in the middle. It also surprised me how much time had to be put into this piece; because I’m not much of an art student I’m unfamiliar with things such as how much time a piece takes to create. Overall, if I had more time I think I would try to acquire and layer my pictures more and maybe even be a bit more adventurous with my ideas.

Memories in My Skin: My Mission's Trip

Memories in My Skin.

My mission’s trip

Nicaragua: a patchwork of societies rich and poor. When I was in grade 9 it was always my goal to venture to this beautiful country on my school’s mission trip and lucky for me, it became a reality once I hit grade 11. Never having done anything like this before, I truly did not know what to expect. I was the type of person who worried about everything and had never really been the adventurous type. I did know, however, that I wanted to make a difference in the world. So I left my comfort zone and journeyed to a land of uncertainty; I just never knew that it would become my second home. I didn’t realize how great an impact this journey would have on me but I am extremely thankful every day that it did. Otherwise I would not be the person that I am today.

I had so many new experiences there that still seem too good to be true. 29 of us worked and stayed at an orphanage, doing maintenance, farm work, building a sidewalk and teaching English. Some days we would have day trips to different villages and on our last day we went to the beach. We went zip lining and got to explore the Nicaraguan culture as well. Although these day trips were fun, we also got a taste of the poverty in Nicaragua. It makes you realize how lucky you are and that in retrospect our little everyday problems are quite insignificant compared to them. We had kids come up to us and beg for food and money which was devastating. It’s easy to forget that this is how people live when we don’t see it every day in Canada. But I was happy to at least make a difference in the lives of some kids, the kids of the orphanage. We would eat lunch with them almost every day and would hang out with them after they were done school. Going into this I thought that they would have been miserable in an orphanage but in reality they were happy, healthy and just one big family. It was impossible not to be happy when around these kids. Each kid was unique and no matter who you were they treated you like family. It was difficult to go home because I knew I would be missing these kids every day. But I’m ecstatic to say that I will be seeing them all quite soon once more; I’m counting down the days.  

What I got from this experience will stay with me forever. I wasn’t even back home for five minutes before telling my mom that I needed to go back. I believe that I am a very different person than who I was before I stepped onto the Nicaraguan soil. Being in a different country for two weeks doing charity work made me look at my own life and realize that I needed to make some changes; that was a big year for me. I truly found myself and realized what I wanted from life. Now, I feel outgoing, willing to take risks and not so judgmental. I made bonds with people that will last a lifetime and I even still keep in touch with them to this very day. It’s hard to explain an experience like the one I had. It was like I shed my skin or broke free from the chains holding me back from my true potential. Each day I feel freer than I ever have and like I actually made a difference in someone’s life.

9 of Me: Heath Ledger Edition

Hue and Saturation

Layer Blends and Erasers

First try at brushes