My production piece so far has lead me to ask myself and consider the following questions to shape the theoretical context behind my motion comic:
- To what extent are we living in a media saturated world?
- How much information, we as society get from the media?
- How do we as society understand the world?
- How is the media effective in ‘controlling the mind’?
- How far can media control go?
- What is media control?
- What can be the extremity of media control?
- How is society controlled? Government/Media or both?
- What is effective in controlling behaviour?
The main idea that I am exploring is ‘Media Control’ by Noam Chomsky. The idea of Media Control aided me in understanding the role of persuasive communication such as public relations and to quote Chomsky, the United States pioneered the public relations industry. Its commitment was 'to control' the public mind'. Reading around this, it made me also question the term democracy and what sort of democratic society do we currently live in? This was further reiterated by Chomsky’s statement that 'the role of the media in contemporary politics forces us to ask what kind of a society we want to live in, and in what sense of democracy do we want this to be a democratic society’ (2002:9). I started to see a link between propaganda and the mass media which was further influenced and shaped by Chomsky’s suggestion that 'The MASS MEDIA SERVE AS A SYSTEM FOR COMMUNICATING messages and symbols to the general populace. It is their function to amuse, entertain, and inform, and to inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behaviour that will integrate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. In a world of concentrated wealth and major conflicts of class interest, to fulfill this role requires systematic propaganda' (2002:1).
This led me to read around the term Media Democracy within Meyer’s Media Democracy: How the Media colonizes Politics and suggests ‘The public sphere has been transformed as a result of changes in the mass media communications, a process that embraces newspapers, television, the Internet and the 'masses' themselves; in short, the ways in which public communication itself has been reshaped by the influence of the media' (2002:1). Moving away from the concept of Media Control, I have also explored psychological behaviour and persuasive communication. Richard Gross’ exploration of the Science of Mind and Behaviour was very insightful into understanding behaviour and how it can be described as either conformity or obedience depending on the persuasiveness of the communication. From also watching Curtis’ Century of the Self, I was introduced to Edward Bernays who examined and explored the effect and power of propaganda and further explored psychoanalysis, marketing, and public relations in the US. I found this very powerful and influential in terms of the role of the Media within contemporary society. Again it reminded me of PR as 'controlling the mind'.
Similar Work
Having been quite surprised by the plethora of Motion Comics that are in circulation, I was able to locate quite a few examples that remediated the traditional comic in various ways. It has been quite fascinating to observe how various examples of Motion Comics have been constructed. The motion comic as a form addresses the idea of remediation. The traditional comic is being reinvented where conventions are being played with and explored using new techniques that are changing and adapting the definition of the 'comic'. Motion comics are relatively new to the media scene, and have arrived at a time where they are becoming increasingly popular amongst media producers and the audience alike as Albrecht article addresses entitled The Rise of the Motion Comic. My decision to use the medium of the motion comic was influenced by Stephen King’s Motion Comic ‘N’. The mix of animation techniques, visual effects, sound and narrative used were exceptional. Another influence was that of the Watchmen series. The style within Watchmen acknowledges the traditional style of the comic through the conventions of speech bubbles in particular, brings the narrative and characters to 'life' in terms of VOs and movement for example that contributes to a cinematic/ photo realistic approach in remediating the traditional comic form.
Another example I have come across is Batman: Black and White (2008/2009). The use of smooth movement and sound effects is evident within this piece in creating a 'meaty' narrative and creating atmosphere and pace (moves away from the traditional speech bubbles that you'll find in such motion comics as Watchmen and The Darkest Hour). It is quite clear to see that the length of each frame depicts the traditional comic through the use of panels. For examples a concession of small panels within a page would suggest action or the building of climax, i.e. the length and size of the panel determines the pace to the reader. A motion comic is a hybrid of comic books and animation based on the actual panels of a comic (Wikipedia). Within The Last Sin of Mark Grimm motion comic, the sound effects and motion develop and create the depth in the narrative. The use of black and white is quite effective as it reinforces the use of colour within the shot of the light bulb and blood splatter.
The motion comic enables the endless possibilities of interactivity and further immersion into the narrative. Interactive motion comics can be seen in such examples as The Darkest Hour. The Green Wave (2010 incorporates the motion comic aesthetic; this documentary is about protests during the Iran 2010 elections. The motion comic aesthetic is useful in visually depicting the violence without the use of 'real' footage. Dumbing down the 'shock' factor if you like. The motion comic incorporates 'desensitization' as it is seemingly removed from the reality it is depicting through the comic effect. This is quite interesting in the example of A Scanner Darkly (2006) also.
From researching present motion comics, it's quite apparent that they use climatic instrumental non- diagetic sound throughout. Using audacity, I'm keen to create my own instrumental piece to accompany the motion comic as sound is a very powerful component in suggesting the atmosphere and mood and creating that all important climax.
Having started to delve into the conventions of the motion comic, it is clear that they are made up of the following elements:
· Movement (despite restricted)
· Sound (VO and diagetic atmospheric sounds)
· Visual layout (both background images e.g. buildings and slight movement in foreground)
- A short narrative/ story
As I'm starting to spend a bit of time understanding and researching the conventions of the comic (motion and print), it reminds me of McLuhan's: 'The medium is the message'. I've chosen to use the medium of a motion comic as it is an immersive form that has a lot of scope to present the narrative in a playful yet satirical way.
Research
I have been particularly fascinated and influenced by the wealth of research I have found to date. The research that I have conducted has helped me greatly in shaping my ideas and working towards creating a solid project idea.
My research initially began with Chomsky’s idea of Media Control, within his book of the same name, I found it a particularly useful bit of research as it made me question democracy as well influence my project which deals with the ideas of control:
'The role of the media in contemporary politics forces us to ask what kind of a society we want to live in, and in what sense of democracy do we want this to be a democratic society'. (p9)
'The United States pioneered the public relations industry. Its commitment was 'to control' the public mind'. (p22)
Leading on from Chomsky’s Media Control, I found it quite useful to research the idea of ‘Media Democracy’, particularly how influential the Media are:
'The public sphere has been transformed as a result of changes in the mass media communications, a process that embraces newspapers, television, the Internet and the 'masses' themselves; in short, the ways in which public communication itself has been reshaped by the influence of the media'. (Meyer, Hinchman 2002:1)
I then took a logical step in my research and began to look at the term Authority. I found Keat’s work, The Authority of the Consumer (1994) particularly influential in shaping my project ideas as Keat argues that the traditional patterns of authority are being eroded by the new spirit of democracy and the spread of individualism. Which in my motion comic’s fictional world is now being repressed again as Smith is keen to hold on to this (individualism), remember it and not to be mixed up and succumb to the controlling Medicon. Through remembering the past, he is able to have control over his future and his own mind (to some extent). The final scene will see Smith citing this in a status update. Ultimately giving him the 'freedom' to speak his mind...finally but he is aware there will be consequences. Shortly after he has clicked 'post' a knock is heard at the door, sirens are heard in the background, the shot will cut to a close up of Smith smiling... He's done all he wanted to do. Yet the final message and social critique if you like is to reiterate the power of media control. In some aspect it can and will take over your life and cannot be ignored. Particularly how this can be seen in today's society with our reliance on television, newspapers and the Internet to name a few!
During this point, I found my research was heading towards theories and ideas surrounding Behaviourism. I began with All in the Mind (BBC). All in the Mind was particularly interesting as it gave me an insight into Government and the Behavioural Insight Team or ‘nudge’ unit that was designed to persuade us (as society) to make decisions which are good for us and good for society as a whole. The ‘Nudge’ agenda uses psychology to persuade us to change our behavior. Government continuously seeks to persuade, cajole and strong arm us into changing our behavior. This can be done through introducing new rules and legislations to force us to comply.
Continuing with Behaviour, I found a very fitting article in the Guardian: ‘US spy operation that manipulates social media’. Again feeding into control behaviour and controlling the mind, but also being 'manipulated' through PR etc. The basic gist of the article in a few sentences: ' The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda'. Again this plays into the boundaries of the public and private, here, social networking sites aren't just for keeping in touch with people anymore, they are a channel for advertisers to track and target potential consumers for commercial gain.
As my motion comic is set in a fictional future, I started to read around the Science Fiction genre. From reading Hartwell's (1996) Age of Wonders: Exploring the world of Science Fiction. Particular quotes stood out to me in my justification for my motion comic:
· 'One of the foundations of all SF: It has to be possible, so the reader's suspension of disbelief is not betrayed'. This is particularly vital for my motion comic as it's a social critique the audience must be able to recognize aspects of today's society in order to fully understand the meaning within the piece.
· 'The authentic SF experience is a perception of truth, reality in an unreal environment. The immediate and clear presentation of the palpably untrue is a distancing device of great power and effectiveness. The radical distancing from quotidian reality frees the writer from many of the literary conventions through which reality is represented in fashionable literatures from Zane Grey to Saul Bellow. From this point of view, the Science Fictional world of the story is an unreal construct built to deceive the reader- and the reader eagerly penetrates the deceit to find the core of truth. This is an ancient reading protocol invented by the exegetical readers of the Medieval Church, called allegoresis, through which the knowledgeable reader provides the allegorical interpretation (truth) for which the text is only a concealment ... Any kind of allegorical reading makes the reader feel clever, a perception that has not escaped the most popular allegorist writer today, Stephen King'.
So another researching stint surrounding the ideas of behaviour and behavioural psychology led me to research the Behavioural Insight Team (BIT) on the Cabinet Office website. The BITs objective is to make a reality of the Coalition Government’s intention to find ‘intelligent ways to encourage, support and enable people to make better choices for themselves’. It seems that basically that we as society are being told what is BEST for us. Making 'better choices' seems quite redundant here as it seems the team are using covert manipulation in order to educate and 'change' the public's behaviour. I began to delve deeper in uncovering further academic research and located Skinner’s About Behaviourism (1974) which aided me in my understanding of 'behaviour'. Skinner’s work raised questions such as can behaviour can be 'predicted', can behaviour be affected by a 'feeling', or whether behaviour is natural or a learnt process?
Still spending time researching behaviourism, I came across a documentary entitled Century of the Self (Adam Curtis, 2002). Very helpful in terms of researching the idea associated with my project in terms of ‘controlling the mind’ and persuasive communication but also in directing me to the work of Edward Bernays and Freud which I intend to research further.
Thinking again about controlling behaviour, I wanted to research how persuasive communication in particular can influence behaviour and whether there is a difference between conformity and obedience. For this, I found Gross’ work of The Science of Mind and Behaviour (2010) very useful and again directed me to further work to research such as Stanley Milgram:
According to Milgram (1992), both conformity and obedience involve the abdication of individual judgement in the face of some external social pressure. In conformity, there's no explicit requirement to act in a certain way, whereas in obedience we're being ordered or instructed to do something. Obedience has to do with the social power and status of an authority figure in a hierarchical situation. Although we typically deny that we conform (because it seems to detract from our sense of individuality), in the case of obedience we usually deny responsibility for our behaviour (Gross 2010: 415).
According to Milgram (1992), both conformity and obedience involve the abdication of individual judgement in the face of some external social pressure. In conformity, there's no explicit requirement to act in a certain way, whereas in obedience we're being ordered or instructed to do something. Obedience has to do with the social power and status of an authority figure in a hierarchical situation. Although we typically deny that we conform (because it seems to detract from our sense of individuality), in the case of obedience we usually deny responsibility for our behaviour (Gross 2010: 415).
Over the last few weeks, I have experimented using both Adobe Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro to see which had the most desired motion comic effect look. I started by using Adobe Premiere Pro and used the comic effect. I liked the look but there a few factors that changed my decision to use Final Cut Pro for the Pilot:
· The comic effect was only available on one of the computers in M16
· Despite the timetable saying the room was free, M16 always had a class
· I’m more familiar with Final Cut Pro
· Knowing that I needed to use the Chroma Key effect I was aware that this was available in Final Cut Pro
After switching to Final Cut Pro, I was able to assemble my images to create the motion within my comic and also overlap the image of my protagonist with images I located online. After I had each of the components in the right place on the time line, I began to experiment with various effects, which took a very long time due to rendering!
Eventually, I found the following effects that I felt worked quite well for the Pilot:
· Posterize
· Line Art
For my final project, I would like to experiment with the vectorizing colour effect as this would create a style similar to that of A Scanner Darkly.
I realize for the VO, I had it on one channel rather than stereo whilst using the Marrantz, this is something to improve on and keep in mind for my final project. To create the images of the protagonist, I experimented using the photo studio. Originally I wanted to use the blue screen, but found the white background screen to be more effective, particularly as I wanted to include the desk within the shot to create images that allowed shadow and create an aspect of realism, which with the white background could be Chroma Keyed out. I then experimented in Photoshop to see whether a blue or green background was more effective. I decided to go with green as the protagonist was wearing blue and also the green background was better to work with.
To develop an understanding of the Motion Comic medium, I have spent quite a bit of time, watching pre-existing Motion Comics to identify particular conventions and form. I found the following Motion Comics to be extremely helpful in shaping my own interpretation of a Motion Comic:
· Watchmen
· Batman: Black and White Series
· A Scanner Darkly
· The Last Sin Of Mark Grimm
· Lost Girl
And finally the one Motion Comic, that began my journey:
· Stephen King’s ‘N’ Motion Comic
Further Research
From the research I have conducted so far, I’m particularly fascinated about further exploring authority and the relationship to behavior. The particular research that will help me and shape my knowledge and hopefully lead me to new thoughts and ideas are:
- Looking into more work by Edward Bernays, particularly looking at spin and public relations
- Reading around the work of Stanley Milgram, particularly his book Obedience to Authority (1974)
- Watching Adam Curtis (2002) Happiness Machines: Series about how the findings of psychoanalysis have been used to manipulate the masses
- Reading the work of Naomi Klein, in particular her work, entitled The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2008)
- Looking into more work of Chomsky, particularly his work entitled Understanding Power (2003)
- Exploring Shield’s work of Reality Hunger: A Manifesto (2011)
- I will also conduct further practical research surrounding particular effects
Pilot
Within the Pilot, I have hoped to express a society in the future where a powerful Media conglomerate is the government and in doing so, capture the despair felt by a lone character who ironically is part of this Media Control and is ‘controlling the behaviour and minds’ of the masses. The Pilot expresses the intention to create a social critique on society at present, as we are indeed heavily reliant on the Media to understand the world we live in. As the Pilot consists of a scene heavily reliant on a spoken third person narrative, it is important for the audience to listen to the words spoken by the VO in order to ‘get it’ and be able to make the link to our own society today and question it.
As a medium, producing and creating a Motion Comic is a very lengthy process and generally a medium that is initially hand-drawn and then heavily edited using colour saturation and other editing effects (see example of A Scanner Darkly). Throughout my research, I have watched many a tutorial on how to ‘create a Motion Comic’. I have learnt that in order to produce a Motion Comic to an exceptional standard, it requires a group of people with a particular skill and knowledge set e.g. using After Effects to create the motion or an Illustrator to create the scenes and characters. As a medium, I learnt that sound is very powerful in creating the tone and atmosphere as only minor elements in Motion Comics move. In most Motion Comics the mouth of the character does not move, it’s just a visual still so the sound is a very important element in conveying the emotion of the character. Despite the length of time it takes to create and produce a Motion Comic, the length of a Motion Comic is usually between 2 and 6 minutes, so quite short and each scene is referred to as a chapter. As a remediation of the classic comic, I found that select Motion Comics such as Watchmen play with the conventions of the comic, for example, using speech bubbles within the scene.
Production Planning
Using my own video camera and SLR camera I intend to record and shoot as much material as I can in order to have control over the outcome of my production piece. The shots and footage I intend to produce myself would be particular locations such as a ‘street’ view or ‘office’ view and also the movement/stills of my character using the Photo Studio’s blue screen backdrop in S37. For particular images that aren’t easy for me to produce myself I intend to use MediaHub to source images such as high rise buildings (conventional shot in Motion Comics). The VO for my production will be recorded using a Marantz audio recorder. The VO will be male as I want a somber deep tone to accompany the visuals within the Motion Comic. For particular sounds such as footsteps, phone ringing, alarm ringing, sirens, ambience I intend to use pre-existing audio tracks that I have located in iMovie. If I find that these audio tracks do not work as I intended then I will try out a Foley exercise and create my own using the Marantz audio recorder. The soundtrack within the index page will be created using the Audacity software. At present, I am planning on mixing two existing audio clips to create one that fits the tone within my Motion Comic. To create the website, I will use Dreamweaver. To edit my footage and stills, I will use Final Cut Pro which I will then import into Flash to create a Flash file. To create the image within the index page and to edit images if needed I will use Photoshop.
Bibliography
A Scanner Darkly (2006) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xExc_78RGrM] Accessed online 2.11.2011
Batman: Black and White (2008) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfvEY_beS9Y] Accessed online 2.11.2011
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Chomsky, N & Herman, E. (1988) Manufacturing consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. Pantheon Books: USA
Chomsky, N. (2002) Media control: The Spectacular achievements of Propaganda. Seven Stories Press: New York
Curtis, A. (2002) The Century of the Self Documentary [http://www.archive.org/details/AdaCurtisCenturyoftheSelf_0] Accessed online 21.11.2011
Economist Magazine. (2011) Hidden Persuaders II September 24th Edition
Fielding N and Cobain, I. (2011) http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/mar/17/us-spy-operation-social-networks. Accessed online 21.11.2011
Gross, R. (2010) Psychology: The Science of Mind and Behaviour. 6th Edition. Bookpoint LTD: UK
Hartwell. (1996) Age of Wonders: Exploring the world of Science Fiction. McGraw Hill: UK.
Hill, F. (2011) All in the Mind [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b016ldtj] Accessed online 1.11.2011
Keat, N. (1994) The Authority of the Consumer. Routledge: UK.
Lehrer, J. (2010) How We Decide. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company: New York
Lost Girl Motion Comic (2010) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z55-A6agzx0] Accessed online 27.11.2011
Meyers, T. (2002) Media Democracy: How the Media colonize Politics. Polity Press: Cambridge
Perry, J.M. (1977) Lobbying for the People. Princeton University Press: USA
Skinner, B.F. (1974) About Behaviourism. Penguin Books: UK
Stephen King’s N Motion Comic (2010) [http://www.simonandschuster.com/specials/stephen-king-nishere/] Accessed online 11.10.2011
The Darkest Hour (2011) [http://darkesthourmovie.com/comic/] Accessed online 2.11.2011
The Green Wave (2010) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg0OODPSc44] Accessed online 2.11.2011
The Last Sin of Mark Grimm (2006) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dZbAmBS4N8] Accessed online 2.11.2011
The Sin City Comic (2009) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7goHYsVdeTE] Accessed online 2.11.2011
Warner Home Video (2009) Watchmen Motion Comic
