Transcript How do cinema/animation create a `sense of place`?

Proposed questions
How do cinema/animation create a 'sense of place'?- How
does an object and an environment embodies one's
memories and identity?
How film can manipulate space and time?
Key Terms:
• Body and perception
• Material and techniques -process, texture, structure,
tactility, motion, form, expression
• Embodiment, objectification and personification.
• Time, space and place
• History
• Memory
• Identity
• psychology and social science
• combination of art and science
• cinemtography- effects, 3D, CGI, framing,
lighting, camera movement
• sensory experience
• attachment, bonds, relationship -childhood
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'Sense of place'
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It is a characteristic that some geographic places have.
Authentic and historic sites
it is a feeling or perception held by people (not by the place itself).
A mental state, an emotional state eg. fear
It is often used in relation to those characteristics that make a place special or unique, as well as
to those that foster a sense of authentic human attachment and belonging.
Urban and rural studies- attachment of communities to their environment or homeland
"outer space" (environment) vs "inner space" (inside mind)
how to differentiate between 'space' and 'place' - "a place come into existence when humans give
meaning to part of the larger, undifferentiated space"
To develop a strong sense of place : comparison between places, learning and observing and from
childhood experiences ("primal landscape"). places which have a strong "sense of place" have a
strong identity and character felt by the invidivdual. ' sense of place' is personal and relies on
perception.
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Case Studies How does an object and an environment embodies one's memories and identity?
How do cinema and animation create a 'sense of place'?
Caroline Leaf
• "The streets" by Caroline Leaf It's about a boy's
grandmother dying where she takes longer than
expected and the boy is promised her room but grows
to be impatient.
• she uses paint on glass technique instead and
metamorphosis to transition scene to scene seamlessly
with no cuts. The technique used gives it this tactile
quality and allows this flow to resemble the process of
recalling memory.
• Metamorphose is a good way to convey change in
moods and express the sense of time passing.
• The bedroom is a significant place for the boy, often
people associate a place with a memory, in this case
the boy associates this bed to not only a memory but
also a person; his grandmother.
• Usually sensory experiences trigger the memory and in
the film the boy uses different senses to describe her
or the experience, for example (taste and smell) "when
we sat down to eat we could smell her", (touch) "...go
in and kiss my grandmother goodbye", (sound) "Boi yo
bio yo, the only sound my grandmother could make"
and "what's the use of telling her".
Hiyao Miyazaki
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One theme that's similar to my project is the 'Environment' where
Miyazaki's film often stresses it's importance of "man's concern for
nature" for example in Princess Mononoke there's destructions of nature
and homes of animals, which highlights the effect of the human's greed.
This was reflective of Miyazaki's own beliefs and experience. So in way
Miyazaki's film in captures his own memories where there's a feeling of
nostalgia with the use of nature as well as the use of dated back props
and architecture.
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Many of the time his characters are an embodiment of a place or nature
for example in 'Spirited away' there a river spirit mistaken for the "stink
spirit" This character also demonstrates the current issue of human's
waste contaminating nature and effects of pollution.
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Often Miyazaki's uses flight imagery to express freedom or growing up,
one significant scene which demonstrated this is from spirited away is
when Haku and Sen is flying, this is also the scene when Haku memories
come back and regains his identity, so it could express escape and
happiness and it looks at "the world from a different prospective and
allows character to transcend reality." This expresses one's identity is a
reflection of one's memories and one's experiences. Zeniba says
"memories are never forgotten, they are just difficult to recall" which
closely relates to when miyazaki mentions "[He] created a heroine
who is an ordinary girl, someone with whom the audience can
sympathize. It's not a story in which the characters grow up, but a
story in which they draw on something already inside them,
brought out by the particular circumstances. .
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In Howl's moving Castle, the caste represents Howl himself. the castle
has differnt faces and a lot of baggage which makes it heavy and it
moves around to be hidden and his way of escape which is a metaphor
for a man who puts on many faces to the world to keep his true self
hidden because of his painful past.
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How film manipulate space and time? Still images and sequence of images
• La Jetée ("The Jetty") (1962) by Chris Marker.
• Constructed almost entirely from still photos connected by straight cuts, fades and dissolves
• A story of a post-nuclear war experiment in time travel.
• The editing rhythms and variations in camera position make it seem like we watching a conventional movie.
• The film demonstrates there's a difference between event time and film time. How time can be manipulated in
films.
• The man is able to time travel and lives in the past witnessing a man being killed only to find that its himself.
Where time travel depends on the notion that all events are somehow present. An analogy would be a film reel
where as the film moves through the projector with each image becoming the present. so in a way we can feel a
sense of time traveling when watching a film.
• Flip books are essentially a primitive form of animation. They rely on persistence of vision to create the illusion
that continuous motion is being seen rather than a series of discontinuous images being exchanged in succession.
Rather than "reading" left to right, a viewer simply stares at the same location of the pictures in the flip book as
the pages turn. The book must also be flipped with enough speed for the illusion to work,
• Time lapse- is a technique whereby the frequency at which film frames are captured is much lower than that used
to view the sequence. It's shortening real time, the opposite method would be slow motion.
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Investigation and Methodology
• How does an object and an environment embodies one's memories
and identity? How do cinema and animation create a 'sense of place'?
• Journals:
• Michelle R. Nelson and Jacqueline C. Hitchon. (1999). LOUD TASTES, COLORED FRAGRANCES, AND SCENTED
SOUNDS: HOWAND WHEN TO MIX THE SENSES IN PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATIONS. Journalism & Mass
Communication Quarterly. 76 (2), 354-372.
• Anne-Marie Kramer. (2011). Mediatizing memory: History, affect and identity in Who Do You Think You
Are?. European Journal of Cultural Studies. 14 (4), 428-445.
• Nigel Morgan and Annette Pritchard. (2005). On souvenirs and metonymy: Narratives of memory,
metaphor and materiality . Tourist Studies. 5 (1), 29-53.
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Picture an enormous white room. In this room,
there is a cube.
1.) What color is the cube?
2.) What size is the cube?
3.) Where is it located in the room? Is it floating, or
on the ground?
Now imagine flowers inside of this room.
4.) Where are the flowers located?
5.) How large are the flowers?
Next, imagine a ladder inside of the white room.
6.) Where is the ladder?
7.) What size is the ladder?
Next, imagine a horse in the white room.
8.) Where is the horse?
9.) Name three personality characteristics of the
horse (mean, funny, sad, happy, etc).
Lastly, imagine a rainstorm inside the white room.
10.) Where is the rainstorm located?
11.) How large is the rainstorm?
http://www.personalityand-aptitude-careertests.com/cube-personalitytest.html
Experiment 1
50%
20%
80%
Interpretation of the Answers
For example:
• If your cube is small, it means you have a small ego, you are
humble.
• If your cube is large, it means you might be “full of yourself”.
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• A small ladder means that you have a few or no goals in life.
• If your ladder is large, it means that your goals and
expectations from yourself are set higher than average.
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• Gosling's work on social perception seeks to examine the
fundamental processes of impression formation through
everyday environments.
• A considerable amount of information can be gathered about
another person by observing his or her belongings found in
their personal living space,
• Although consensus among people tends to vary, most
people tend to be relatively accurate in their personality
predictions based on others’ personal spaces. Stereotypes
can play a helpful role in accuracy when there is slight truth
to the assumption as well as when the observer correctly
guesses the gender of the individual.
Samuel D. Gosling, a psychologist and author of
Snoop: What your stuff says about you (Basic Books,
2008), he analysed photos from a handful of New Scientist
readers to see what he could deduce about their
personalities.
He's learned how a person's personal belongings reveal
quite a bit about how they score on the "big five"
personality traits: extroversion, emotional stability,
openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness.
http://www.newscientist.co
m/blog/shortsharpscience/2
008/07/what-do-yourbelongings-say-aboutyou.html
This person values structure and neatness. This is
someone who thinks ahead (they buy supplies before
they run out), is methodical, organised, and neat.
There is evidence that this person is highly concerned
with and sensitive to aesthetics. The space is crafted
for efficiency, revealing a highly effective worker.
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This place does not have very much
stuff in it - it's not high on external
stimulation suggesting someone not
particularly extraverted. The person
seems relatively organised. There's a
narrow variety of stuff and not much
evidence of diverse interests. There
is not much evidence of social
relationships, either, or efforts to
make the place comfortable and
inviting to others - suggesting
someone introverted.
This person has gone to great lengths to
create a sense of calmness, order and
relaxation with the use of candles and
lighting and cushions.
Experiment 2
This person values comfortable and
attachments with the throw over on
the bed to the teddy bear and
cushions. These spaces are quite
conventional in terms of décor and
contents, suggesting a person with
scores lower on openness
dimension however would form
strong attactments to things or
people.
The room is small but appear
spacious and uncluttered. The art
piece suggests someone very high
on openness, and an imaginative,
inventive and unconventional person.
This person has a personalized the
guitar which shows this person is
creative, contemplative, and
thoughtful. However these could just
be things from the person childhood
or past as you can see the person
has created a collage of memories
and kept their childhood photos.
This room has a sofa which shows the
person is very socialable and likes to
entertain often. This room has a few large
posters which shows there fandom.
This room has lots of cushions and a
diffuser which shows the person value
comfort and relaxation.
This room is organized into sections, the
entertainment and work area. so this person
values structure and efficiency. The entrainment
area is very cluttered and work area is more neat.
which shows he approaches work and play
differently. His interests is very narrow in variety,
however he has a strong interest which shows a
passionate person. This bedroom is designed for
socially and work rather than comfort and resting
so it suggest this person is an active and social
person.
This person room is organized but
not necessarily neat. There's
distinctiveness of the space which
suggest that this person scores high
on conscientiousness, openness, and
agreeableness.
The various items of décor here seem to have a personal meaning
to the occupant, and don't seem to be displayed primarily for the
benefit of others. These items show the person's connections to the
past such as the picture of friends and family , posters and
paintings, the person has kept the old tickets and postcards that
would have some special meaning to the occupant. This suggest
that a sense of self that's strongly rooted in the past. Along with the
art supplies and the distinctiveness of the space suggest that this
person scores high on conscientiousness(being through, careful
and vigilant), openness, and agreeableness and lower on
neuroticism(negative moods).
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Reflection on your own filmmaking process
Our documentary is about memory where aesthetically we tried to convey a sensory experience because often a sense triggers a memory.
The intension of our film is to show our memories can be fleeting and fragmented and similar to the film making process its itself, its a series
of images pieced together to make a sequence that that be processed and made sense of. Another point we make is that the most powerful
memories are those that have an emotional attachment to which is usually our worst memories.
Often our memories has a root, a source or a location where it began. There's a method of memorizing called The Method of loci , also
called the memory palace or mind palace technique,
This is a technique where by you use visualization to organize and recall information. Many memory contest champions claim to use this
technique to recall faces, digits, and lists of words. These champions’ successes have little to do with brain structure or intelligence, but more
to do with their technique of using regions of their brain that have to do with spatial learning.
The method involves placing items in locations. Each location serves as a hook, to which you visually connect whatever you want to
remember. You accomplish this by creating an image or scene in mind, in which the location and the to-be memorized item interact. The
order is provided by defining a precise journey with distinct locations along a route you are familiar with. Also, like with any journey, you need
to define a fixed starting point.
At the Wellcome Museum, I saw a chart of head containing over 30 images symbolizing the phrenological faculties. Phrenology was the
theory that a person’s character and abilities could be read by the shape of their skull. Through this is considered a pseudoscience Franz
Joseph Gall’s assumption that character, thoughts, and emotions are located in localized parts of the brain is historical advance toward
neuropsychology. It was believed that the human mind had a set of different mental faculties, with each represented in a different area of the
brain.
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Key Bibliography References
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jet%C3%A9e
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_D._Gosling
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