10/ Practical Progress

-Continuing to contextualise my research so far into some coherent chapters for the draft submission.

-I have been researching the context around my chosen story 'Momotaro'. I decided on the original, Edo Period version of the story whereby a woman eats a peach she finds, giving her youth and the couple the ability to have a child, Momotaro. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momotar%C5%8D, fortunately this made the decision of the target audience to an older child. This will in turn affect the style I choose.
I will be making concept art for this story.
-I've been comparing lots of versions on the story to enure that I get the facts of the story right.
-I've learnt the cultural importance surrounding Momotaro and the significance in Japan includng the Momotaro Festival on May 5th.
-Researching the Edo period in Japan (1603-1868), including what would be cultural respectful in regards to characters and clothing, the landscapes that would've been indicative of the time, and understanding the dynamics of japanese society at the time and how this impacts the portrayal of the character. https://www.japanpowered.com/japan-culture/gender-expectations-of-edo-period-japan
-Looking at landscape inspiration for my background design. https://www.tokyoweekender.com/2018/04/14-traditional-japanese-towns-that-still-feel-like-theyre-in-the-edo-period/
-By deciding that the audience is not young children, the style does not need to be too children's book esque- I'm thinking of focussing more on a feature film style like Figure 4 (Nico Marlet). Fig 1&2 are examples of children's book Momotaro depictions in the past. Fig3 is in a more traditional style that I am considering where I could put a modern twist on the character designs. Fig6 is a an example of my work where I've done this before but for Chinese horoscope.
-I have been trying to plan out my practical response: which characters I want to focus on, whether I want to tell the story through colour, what part of the story I want to focus on.

After discussing with Mike, at the moment I hope to re-design four of the characters, with full character sheets, one background design with the characters in and one character turn around for reference.

Fig2

Fig3

Fig4

Fig5

Fig 6

9/ Essay update

After my second COP tutorial:
-I've shared my essay so far with Mike so that he can give me feedback on whether it's good or not.                                           -I've written a few thousand words and not half way through so I really need to cut my essay down and get rid of the waffle. Mike and I agreed on parts to cut out- like condensing the number of ethnicities that I'm comparing.
-We agreed that a survey will not assist my essay in any way but I am going to reach out to some collectives to hopefully get some insight about diversity in animation. 
This week I reached out to Black Women Animate (Fig1), I am hoping for a reply:

Fig1

 -I found an interesting angle which looks at what happens when you flip racial diversity on its head. 
In Dr Strange, Swinton's casting was controversial, but she argues that by white washing the character it actually breaks down damaging stereotypes.  
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/mar/31/ghost-in-the-shells-whitewashing-does-hollywood-have-an-asian-problem 
-Equally Jordan Peele has said that he would never cast a white man. I will be exploring the spectrum of views 
surrounding casting and whitewashing; including looking at the conroversial case of Scarlett Johannson

-"My hope is that next time issue," says Del Vecho. "I hope that Princess Tiana opens the door for many more animated movies where the characters just happen to be black"

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/jan/21/race-disney-animation-brief 

 

-I am editing through my essay so far and working on chapter two.

8/ Essay Progress

After my first COP tutorial, I knuckled down in writing my essay, the introduction and the beginnings of chapter one for the next tutorial.

-We agreed to condense the topic by eliminating capitalism and racial propaganda from the essay. 
-Mike mentioned Jackson 5 and Globetrotters animations have been great examples of positive representations, aiding my essay comparisons. 
-Mike suggested that I look at Access VFX in regards to inclusion in the industry.  https://soundcloud.com/accessvfx/16-the-inclusion-diversity-survey 
-This discussion sparked my interest further into racial quotas and box ticking. This has been one of the most important reports that I've found for diversity in animation statistics:
 https://www.ukscreenalliance.co.uk/subpages/inclusion-and-diversity-in-the-uks-vfx-animation-and-post-production-sectors/\ .
-How to improve diversity in the workplace:
https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2016/11/28/8-ways-improve-diversity-workplace/
https://www.socialtalent.com/blog/recruitment/4-simplest-ways-improve-diversity-organisation 
-Diversity hiring at the top
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jun/20/bbc-vows-to-increase-diversity-of-senior-management-by-2020
 - Aziz Ansari discussing racial quotas 
https://www.businessinsider.com/aziz-ansari-on-tvs-racial-quotas-2015-10?r=US&IR=T 

-

It’s all about education and training to make people aware of the possible bias that they may hold, as “Resumes are certainly an imperfect means of screening talent. There's a lot of room for unconscious bias”, Google has been working hard to understand the intricacies of bias and how it can affect diversity and how educating a workforce can better this.

https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/hiring-review-resumes/steps/introduction/

“we fill in the blanks..with things we don;t know with past experiences, we pattern map”

When they don’t look like you they don’t match that pattern you don;t know how they’ll make that jump.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=129&v=NW5s_-Nl3JE&feature=emb_title

Whilst writing the first chapter of my essay I have found it really fascinating researching the connection between racial portrayals and the laws around race and immigration at the time. Also, the connection between Asian and black portrayal and how they were used against each other for political motive. 

7/ Deciding on a story

ESSAY RESEARCH

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-47868871 Looking at plastic merchandising, toys. 
Deciding not to focus too much on capitalism as it’s not so much about the psychological effects, and it brings
 in a whole other discussion of sustainability, consumerism etc. which is too big a topic for this essay. 

http://www.womensvoicesnow.org/wvoice/bridging-cultural-diversity-magic-animation/ Looking at diversity in 
animation, this talks about a film called ‘Mila’. Talks about bridging diversity and using animation for something 
higher. Their TED talk discussing why diversity is beneficial:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=189&v=_teF-2n8CLQ 

http://www.womensvoicesnow.org/wvoice/about/  Listening to female stories and issues. 

STORY SEARCHING

I've been trying to find inspiration for my practical response, I have found Pixar's Bao interesting
https://www.npr.org/2018/06/15/619253624/in-pixars-first-female-directed-short-a-dumpling-child-fills-an-empty-nest  
It's relevant to my essay because it’s about the first female (and of colour) directed Short film. It interested me 
Domee Shi mentions the comparison between the fairy tale of the gingerbread man and the little dumpling child.
This has influenced me to look at fairy tales as well as folk tales to re imagine for my COP practical; or how I could 
put a twist on one of these stories for an extended practice idea. There are similarities with the painting ‘Saturn’
 https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/saturn/18110a75-b0e7-430c-bc73-2a4d55893bd6 
which has made me realise that my story doesn’t need to be sickly sweet to be child friendly. It can be a bit gotesque 
so long as it’s pallatable. So I had a look at the Hunchback of Notredame to look at a questionably ‘scary’ children’s 
tale; I realised the kids genre isn’t homogenous and that I can pick a specific age group. How to understand what is 
expected of the different age restrictions:https://bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/pg.
Similarly https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/the-hunchback-of-notre-dame-1996/user-reviews/adult 
allows you to review whether a title is child friendly with tickboxes such as: positive messages, positive role models,  
 Educational Value, Positive Messages, Violence & scariness, Sexy stuff, Language, Drinking, Drugs & Smoking.  
This shows me the range that is in a children’s genre

I found the story ‘The stone of the wise men’ which was interesting but didn’t represent a specific culture. I have 
decided to look for a story which has: a moral, a defining culture and potential for interesting story telling visuals- 
using art as a learning tool.

Story options: 

Momotaro: https://www.spirotta.com/story-momotaro/ 

The tongueless bird: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtXzVPsojE4 

The cats elopement https://www.storynory.com/the-cats-elopement/ 

Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Fair https://www.storynory.com/baba-yaga-a-scary-story-for-halloween/ is also a 
scary children’ story and an alternative telling of the more commonly known Cinderella. 

I have decided on finding stories that have a moral message within them, rather than just being a folk tale, I would like to focus on using the medium as a tool for learning about a culture.

6/ Proposal

In my essay I hope to discuss ‘Cultural Representation in Animation: The effect on a Child’s Psyche and the Knock on Effect on Society’. I want to understand how animation has been used in racist propaganda in the past, how it continues to show a racial bias, and how this could be affecting us sub consciously.

This is why I intend on exploring how it affects our psyche as we grow up, this will mean trying to understand the psychology of culture and race, and how the quality and quantity of representation can affect us. I’ve found it useful to look at the parallels between animation and children’s books as learning tools for children, as “Facilitating early learning from visual stimuli is a major goal of both psychology and education researchers, and children’s films serve as an important medium for conveying both artistic and educational information” (Brunick and Cutting, 2014, p. 9) . By starting at the beginning I hope to demonstrate why it is so important that we improve cultural representation, especially when it’s a source of information for impressionable children. I hope to answer ‘what have we been teaching children over the years?’ as I progress, by comparing past and present examples of representation, and hopefully discussing the progress in between.

This leads on to discussing the effects of both positive and negative representations in animation. I aim to talk about how it can affect self esteem. Having looked at research into how children perceive their own race in accordance to certain representation, I will explore how self esteem issues can then manifest in adults later along the line. I will consider how representation affects the dynamics in society and how it can “provide rationales for why certain groups should be viewed in these ways” (Mastro, p.5), what these ways are and subsequently how people support political policy. As I look at the idea that Racism is learnt and not inherent to a person, I will focus on the pivotal point of the ‘Us versus Them’ mentality and why we must destroy it.

Once I look into how and why negative depictions continue to thrive, I hope to demonstrate how we can deconstruct this toxic space to improve the animation industry and have a more positive effect on society. I will be looking to the top of the industry and discussing the benefits of having people of colour in studios, and diversifying this white dominated industry. This is something that has been tested in the films Purl and Crow, and has called for collectives such as GoldHouse and BlackWomenAnimate. An important case study has been the discussion surrounding Moana, money and ‘diversity points’; the cultural insensitivities, the effect tourism and marketing can have on Hawaii’s landscapes and the issues that arise when you throw culture into the capitalist machine.  

 I want to prove the importance of redefining culture and race in animation. I hope to re learn about different cultures and their stories. My practical will be focussed on reimagining a folk tale into a body of Visual Development work, which I’m considering proposing as a children’s book; this harks back to the idea of using art as a learning tool for children to learn about different cultures.  

Bibliography

·        Brunick, K.L. and Cutting, J.E., 2014. Coloring the Animated World: Exploring Human Color Perception and Preference through the Animated Film.

·        Mastro, Dana (2017) ‘Race and Ethnicity in US Media Content and Effects’, Oxford Research Encyclopedias, p.5, Available at: https://oxfordre.com/communication/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.001.0001/acrefore-9780190228613-e-122 (Accessed: 8/10/19)

·        Schelong, Megan (2019) ‘Pixar’s Sparkshorts Set out to ignite more diversity in animation’, National Public Radio, Available at: https://www.npr.org/2019/04/17/709644139/pixars-sparkshorts-set-out-to-ignite-more-diversity-in-animation?t=1566943360078 (Accessed: 8/10/19)

·        Robinson, Joanna (2016), ‘How Pacific Islanders helped Disney’s Moana find its way’, Vanity Fair, Available at: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/11/moana-oceanic-trust-disney-controversy-pacific-islanders-polynesia, (Accessed: 28/8/19)

·        Tegeilolo Talanoa Tora Rika, Arieta (2016), ‘How did Disney get Moana so right and Maui so wrong?’, BBC News, Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37430268 (Accessed on: 18/9/19)

·        Grandinetti, Tina (2017) ‘Moana might be great for representation but it’s not all heartwarming for Hawaii’, The Guardian, Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jan/13/moana-might-be-great-for-representation-but-its-not-all-heartwarming-for-hawaii  (Accessed: 18/9/19)

·        Associated Press (2016) ‘Why Moana is drawing criticism in the South Pacific’, New York Post, Available at: https://nypost.com/2016/11/30/why-moana-is-drawing-criticism-in-the-south-pacific/ (Accessed: 18/9/19)

·        Yoshinaga, Ida (2019) ‘Disney’s Moana, the Colonial Screenplay, and Ingigenous Labor Extraction in Hollywood Fantasy Films’, Narrative Culture, Vold 6, No. 2, (Fall), Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13110/narrcult.6.2.0188 , (Accessed: 18/9/19)

5/ COP Presentation

This is the consolidated survey plan that I am considering undertaking, with the hope that it may give me ideas for folk tales and broadening my understanding of other people's experiences with race.