Ethics and Legality in my Motion Graphics Projec

Copyright and Ethical Issues in my Motion Graphics Project

What is Copyright?

Copyright is a law that states that any work or idea that has been created belongs to the rightful owner and creator. Any profits or credit from the produce goes to the rightful owner of it and the work cannot be copied, changed or remade without the rightful owner’s consent or they could risk getting sued. This law is immoral in some people’s viewpoints. These people believe that work should be free and it is unfair to keep people from working together and promoting creativity and inspiration through others’ work. This common view created the Creative Commons association which I shall discuss further on in this essay. Associated with the copyright laws are the three moral rights that further protect ownership of work.

The three moral rights include:

The right of attribution – the creator of the work has the right to be identified as such. This means that any work you create can have your name or alias placed upon it or tagged with it so people know who owns and has created this work.

The right of integrity – the work may not be altered or changed without consent. An example of this could be when a musician decided to adapt an album created and produced by the band The White Stripes. The musician put a bass track over all the songs and then re-released it under a new title but still featuring the band’s name. There was a lot of controversy of this issue as to whether or not the musician had permission to do this. But luckily, the musician happened to meet Jack White, a member of The White Stripes, and Jack said that it was okay for the musician to do what he did. This is a rare case. Not all people are lucky enough to meet the people who produced work they would like to adapt, or lucky enough to contact them to make sure that what they are doing is legal and right.

Lastly, False attribution – the work cannot be attributed to a creator falsely. This means that the real creator must be stated. Anyone who steals work from another creator or author cannot, by law, attach their name to the work in-question.

Copyright is heavily included in any industry, especially the media industry. Because it is such a creative industry, everything made and born into it is protected by copyright. This means that when working in this industry in the future, I cannot copy existing work or use or change it in any way (for example, a game idea, music, designs etc.) unless the work is under Creative Commons.

Creative Commons are an association based in California that oppose the copyright law so they created their own laws that state when creators and people want their work to be shared and used in any way. The creative commons licences that you can use include, Attribution – this allows other people to use, change, tweak and adapt your work as long as they give you original credit. Another licence is 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.

For my motion graphics project, I must not use or copy any work already produced if I am to publish it or release it publicly. If I use any work that has already been released in my project I must credit it at some point in the feature otherwise I could risk getting sued. Any music I use must also be credited. 

Ethics

In my project, ethics is an important feature. Equality in gender and ethnic background is imperative. In our group we had two girls which is a rare thing in the media industry but it is becoming more frequent. Media has a large effect on what people think and feel so representation is important. If you publicize offensive views or explicit content, you will receive a lot of negative stigma. That is why, for our project, we will not mistreat people of other genders and ethnicity. Everyone is equal. 

Motion Graphic Techniques

Here is some research I have conducted into motion graphic techniques that I might like to use for my Motion Graphics Project.

Animation-
I looked into an animated movie called Tekkonkinkreet and I found out a lot about the way they made the animation in the opening sequence.
It was made using the SOFTIMAGE|3D Toon Shader and is an excellent animation work, even when viewed now after 3D CG has become commonplace. The opening scene was made with 500 hand-drawings. The film has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and the whole movie was drawn and animated using SOFTIMAGE|3D Toon Shader. The scenery is made using an output image which is drawn by the Art Director and then is affixed onto a 3D layout. This is called camera mapping. The first scene of crows is created with XSI Particle. The movie also uses 2D motion blur. To reduce the CPU costs of motion blur, a render tree was created to change the colours of locations with a large amount of motion changes. Based on this information, motion blur was added using 2D software. The scene of a gangster character is also created with XSI using toon shaders.

Typography-
I will be using typography for the title in the title sequence so I looked at the opening sequence of Zombieland which features the credits as 3D texts being affected by the environment in the film. The text featuring the credits and 'rules' of Zombieland are made using Maya and lit to fit each scene. The credit texts are cleverly placed in the scenes to make them look like part of the environment, for example, placed on glass so it can be animated to be smashed along with the glass to make it look realistic. Zombieland has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and the 3D rules text is featured throughout the film. 

Rotoscoping-
I saw a rotoscoping technique in the opening sequence of Juno that I really liked so I decided to look into how they made it to see if I could learn something about creative rotoscoping and if I could incorporate that into my project. In the intro, a romantic folk song plays whilst Juno is walking to a convenience store holding a carton of juice. The design of this intro is very interesting and took a long time to make. All of the frames were hand-drawn over real images and cut-out and scanned onto a computer and printed off on a Xerox printer to give it a unique look and then scanned in again to put on Adobe AfterEffects to turn it into a stop motion animation. The text was created in the same way. This illustrated look is completely unique for this movie and proves its authentic independent nature. It looks like it was doodled in a school book and is very creative. The screen ratio of Juno is 1.85:1. 

Motion Graphics Project

You are one of a team of Motion-Graphic artists who have been commissioned to produce a 45 second web-based trailer for a Channel 4 ‘Inbetweeners–style television series based in Weymouth College.

Your target audience for this project:

Gender – Male and Female. Race – All. Age – 16-24 Socio-Economic Status – C1/C2/D

My response to this project idea -

My team and I have decided to base our TV show on a group of college friends who have different skills and interests. The title of our mock show is 'Talents'. Supposedly, the show would focus on their daily lives in college and would be a comedy with some drama.  The opening sequence reflects this idea through the style and shots as well as the music and film content. The opening will be upbeat and and appealing. We will achieve this atmosphere through upbeat music and colourful, fun effects. We have decided to include different techniques of film editing such as rotoscoping, where you draw or replace original footage with a different graphic style or effect, stop-motion animation, which is creating a frame-by-frame animation by changing the focus of the footage a little bit in each shot so that the end result will look like a smooth animation, regular animation using drawing software and creating a sequence using Photoshop or After Effects by importing all of the frames. This show will be aimed at teenagers and young adults and will feature an adult theme at times through humour and scene content. We have designed our project for this audience and we have decided to feature things that will interest young adults and teenagers such as fast-paced action and camera shooting, bold graphics and colouring and titles, relatable characters and a fun theme.  

Motion Graphics

The following is an insight into motion graphics that can be seen in different movie openings and TV shows. I will be discussing what techniques have been used and will briefly go into detail about the TV show/Movie itself.

Serenity http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/serenity/

Serenity (2005) is a cult-classic movie by the director of The Avengers, Joss Whedon. It's about Rebel Brown Coat Leader Captain Malcom Reynolds and his ship and misfit crew trying to stay alive and out of the view of the Alliance on the brink of space. The movie follows the crew's unraveling of a dark secret embedded in the history of the Alliance whilst dealing with financial problems and River, a successful Alliance experiment who was rescued by her brother. While the crew are running from the Alliance, they discover more about the horrible truth of the experiments that River underwent and run into trouble whilst taking dodgy jobs to scrape by with the money and supplies they manage to salvage. The atmosphere of Serenity is a rough, sci-fi space movie with lots of action and emotional content.
The title sequence of Serenity opens with grey, stone-looking 3D text reading the movie title with a red flame animation behind it. The camera zooms out to reveal that this is a logo on a spaceship which quickly zooms away as the hectic music and busy scenery of the internal areas of the ship are displayed. We are immediately brought into the action as the captain is frantically attempting to keep his ship under control. As Malcolm navigates through the ship, we are familiarised with its homely interior and the characters begin to get introduced one by one. The cast names follow in the same animation as the title except with a blue flame behind each one. The music is upbeat and cheerful but also nerve-inducing as it hints at potential oncoming danger with its fast-paced violins and rhythm. Serenity's aspect ratio is 2.35:1 and the title design was done by PIC.This title sequence was created as an introduction to the film and you are dropped immediately into the action.

Tekkonkinkreet http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/tekkonkinkreet/

Tekkonkinkreet (2006) is a Japanese animated motion picture about two young orphan brothers using the suburban city as their playground. It is about the bond between these two children and their freedom and violent behaviour in the city. The art style slightly differs from the traditional style associated with anime and manga which gives it a distinctive, unique feel and atmosphere.  It was made using the SOFTIMAGE|3D Toon Shader and is an excellent animation work, even when viewed now after 3D CG has become commonplace. This opening scene was made with 500 hand-drawings and really sets the scene of the story with its gentle, dark atmosphere emerging into a bustling city-scape as we follow a birds journey in flight across a visually striking blue sky and we meet the brothers again in their day-to-day life as they defend the town from the Yakuza. This film has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and the whole movie was drawn and animated using SOFTIMAGE|3D Toon Shader. The scenery is made using an output image which is drawn by the Art Director and then is affixed onto a 3D layout. This is called camera mapping. The first scene of crows is created with XSI Particle. The movie also uses 2D motion blur. To reduce the CPU costs of motion blur, a render tree was created to change the colours of locations with a large amount of motion changes. Based on this information, motion blur was added using 2D software. The scene of a gangster character is also created with XSI using toon shaders.

Zombieland http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/zombieland/

Zombieland (2009) is a comedy-thriller film about a young, nerdy college student surviving in a post-apocalyptic zombie world. This anxious teen is faced with more problems than he can handle when he meets other survivors in Zombieland, a rough man named Tallahassee with an infatuation for Twinkies, and two troublesome sisters who trust no one and play by their own rules to survive. This intro to the movie starts with a patriotic theme with a warped version of America's National Anthem playing in the background. The main character narrates and introduces us to the new apocalyptic America as the camera zooms out to a destructed scene of an upturned car as a camera man is devoured by a zombie. This sets the scene and atmosphere of the movie to have a satirical, ironic and gory theme. The text featuring the credits and 'rules' of Zombieland are made using Maya and lit to fit each scene. The credit texts are cleverly placed in the scenes to make them look like part of the environment, for example, placed on glass so it can be animated to be smashed along with the glass to make it look realistic. Zombieland has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and the 3D rules text is featured throughout the film. 

Juno http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/juno/#

Juno (2007) is an independent film about a teenager who gets pregnant and decides to give the baby up for adoption. It is a movie about real life issues and how one girl deals with them whilst surrounded by people that love and care for her. It is a real, raw movie about making mistakes and being in love and being young. In this intro, a romantic folk song plays whilst Juno is walking to a convenience store holding a carton of juice. We quickly learn that this film has a real unique, wholesome atmosphere and is relatable and true-to-life. The design of this intro is very interesting and took a long time to make. All of the frames were hand-drawn over real images and cut-out and scanned onto a computer and printed off on a Xerox printer to give it a unique look and then scanned in again to put on Adobe AfterEffects to turn it into a stop motion animation. The text was created in the same way. This illustrated look is completely unique for this movie and proves its authentic independent nature. It looks like it was doodled in a school book and is very creative. The screen ratio of Juno is 1.85:1. 

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/scott-pilgrim-vs-the-world/

Scott Pilgrim Vs the World is a comic-book style rom-com about a boy who lives in Toronto, Canada and plays in a band. When he meets the girl of his dreams (literally, he sees her in his dreams), he learns he must battle her seven evil exes if he wants to continue his happy relationship with Ramona. It is a very idiosyncratic movie and shows heavy themes of pop culture with its numerous video game references and comic book style of fighting. The opening features a 3D 8-bit render of the classic 'Universal' logo with a chiptune, retro video-game music rendition of the Universal theme playing. This already gives us an idea that this movie is shows styles of video games and is a very geek-cult movie. We are then introduced to the main characters with mini-profiles animated by each of them one-by-one. When Scott's band is playing, the band is aided by animations illustrating their actions like 'zappy' drawings coming from the guitar and drumsticks to make it not only sound, but look loud. The couch is then extended from the view of the band making it appear as if they were literally 'blown away' by the music. Then as the credits appear, there are several animations of rough, colourful sketches which really aid the atmosphere and theme of the band. The animations of the colours were made on a computer but the film was taken out and scratched and kicked around to make it look rough and raw, just like the band's sound. This movie has a screen ratio of 1.85:1 and is based on a series of comic books by Bryan Lee O'Malley.

Skyfall http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/skyfall/


Skyfall (2012) was the most recent installment of the James Bond movies featuring Daniel Craig as Bond. It had a rather dark theme as we were given a more detailed glimpse into Bond's past and the head of foreign intelligence's deep psychological past and involvement with the villain Raoul Silva, an ex MI6 agent who reveals the identity of field agents as revenge against MI6. In the Skyfall credits, the viewer is completely immersed within the mind of Bond as he sinks to the bottom of a riverbed after being shot by friendly fire during the film’s climactic cold opening. The credits and opening theme song begin and we are introduced to a very dark, underwater setting. We watch Bond drift slowly down to the bottom of the riverbed with the bullet wound leaking large amounts of blood into the river, leaving a cloud of darkness behind. We are shown some important scenery from the film but 2D and underwater. We are shown the important house, Skyfall where a lot of the action takes place in the film, we are navigated through a graveyard implying Bond's possible fate. All the while blood rains down upon these scenes, clouding through the water reminding us of recent events. We see Bond nervously searching for an enemy as he relentlessly fires at shadows with his handgun. Then as the music reaches its climactic chorus, we see footage of a woman dancing in a negative filter and then mirrored the other side as we pass through the middle. We are taken into Bond's important, possibly life-threatening wound and we see nerves that are transformed into the silhouettes of trees as more blood rains down upon Skyfall, destroying it in the process. This destruction is a little taste of what is to come and the house is ripped like paper and the camera zooms into Bond's bright, blue eye and the intro ends as does the song. This sequence was made using real footage of Daniel Craig as James Bond but then rendered into an animation with underwater physics. The screen ratio of Skyfall is 2.35:1.