Her Story - Game Changers

   Sam Barlow is a video game director, best known as the writer and designer of the two British Silent Hill games, Silent Hill: Origins (20007) and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (2009). He currently works as a Game Director at Climax Studios in the UK. Having recently developed and published the acclaimed interactive movie detective video game Her Story (Whilst also practically reviving the FMV game genre in doing so), PC Gamer describes it as 'all the drama and intrigue of the best TV crime shows, but plays to the interactive strengths of the medium in a daring, imaginative way'.

   As mentioned before, Sam Barlow had also worked on Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, a stand-alone re-imagining of the very first Silent Hill game. Set in a completely different universe from the main canon, this included the story, characters, relations and locations. For a time, Silent Hill fans were overjoyed at the prospect at having the game remade (Much like how Shinji Mikami had so successfully remade the first Resident Evil game), but soon that excitement simmered down to somewhat passive acceptance to the re-imagined version that was Shattered Memories.

   While Silent Hill: Origins itself made an attempt to deal with psychological issues just as all the other titles had done (Though wounded up with perhaps one of the most cliche backstories for its protagonist more than anything), Silent Hill: Shattered Memories had most definitely taken a far more interesting approach to it that kept its fans curious (Especially with the disbanding of Team Silent after the 4th game, interest was quickly dwindling with each new title after) enough to stay around for just a little longer.

   Noted for being bookended with a series of psychiatric sessions through first person view, the game in all had a far more interesting narrative structure and had some interesting questions about the role of the player and protagonist himself (Goodbye, simple, sweet Harry Mason) and how those two things kind of meld together. While choices could also be made in the other Silent Hill titles (Obviously to achieve one's desired ending, like many other games at the time), the choices you made in Shattered Memories gave you far more obvious results in the form of the man whom you have taken control of from the start. 

   Back to the main focus of this event, Her Story was Sam's first game an an independent developer and was released on the 24th June 2015 for Microsoft Windows, OS X and iOS (Which was apparently why I hadn't actually heard of it until I had been referred to this very event...). In the game, the players use a database of police video clips to solve the case of a missing man.

   Frustrated in the difficulties faced in making a certain type of game and portraying a certain type of story, and so Her Story was in a way Barlow's opportunity to explore into areas that haven't yet been explored as much in video game design and narratives. There is necessarily no barrier between you and the fictional world in this game, especially as you, the player simply views the police video clips like a real detective would. Despite the minimalistic gameplay, players find themselves taking numerous notes as they attempt to solve the mystery of the missing man whilst viewing these videos.

   Working independently has proven to be considerably different as compared to working with a publisher, Barlow has noticed that the Police Procedural genre especially had very little success in games. While it is practically one of the biggest genres in films and books, pitching a game of that genre proved to be a big challenge for Barlow when giving his pitch to various publishers. The possible issue with this matter is that this genre in particular places heavy focus on dialogue, character development, psychology, areas in which video games tend to struggle with. 

   Nonetheless, Barlow has always been fascinated with the genre from a very early age, with shows such as Homicide life on the Street (One of the first few shows that heavily focused on the interview process, that actually showed cases that weren't solved, and was always able to sustain the drama within the interview room alone) serving as a huge inspiration to him. Her Story was practically an experiment where they wanted to see how far they could go without the use of an avatar, 3D navigation and space. Subtext is key in any storytelling media. Video games have this conflict where the story content is instructing the player to drive the story forward, which in a way kills subtext. Again, Her Story was an exercise to move away from such constraints with heavy focus on subtext, where Barlow could write dialogue and have performance around that whilst exploring around subtext.

Visiting Lecturer - Barry Purves

   Barry J.C Purves is an English animator, director and screenwriter of puppet animation television and cinema and theatre designer and director and has worked for the animation industry for over 37 years. From a very early age, Purves has always loved to tell stories, believing that the most challenging aspect of it however is to make it interesting. Having started off in the theatre, Purves had wanted to be an actor, only to realise soon enough that there were far better ones than him.

   That still however did not stop his love for telling stories, and soon enough found himself joining the Cosgrove Hall. It was through animation where numerous questions were answered for him about performance in storytelling. Such as why have we wanted to tell stories from the very beginning? The answer to that question is that: We want to be noticed, to have our existence noted by others in some shape or form.

"Attention must be paid to such a person!" - The Death of a Salesman: 

   Storytelling in the end has nothing to do with real life, what matters if the focus on the good bits itself. To play with artifice, structure, to mess around with colors, editing, textures, lighting to tell a story, just... everything. Embellish the actions of the character, to make him/her/it more interesting. 

   Something artificial is required for one to talk about themselves, an external device that one can talk themselves through. One can never truly speak directly to another, a mask is required. And that is why through storytelling, this 'mask' is required, some form of device. Eg, Mary Poppins is a sort of device, being an outsider that aids in bringing out the issues the Bank family faces. She shows the audience and not just the family themselves about what's wrong with them. Mary Poppins also speaks to her umbrella, by speaking to it, it would seem less odd than talking to herself and voicing her own thoughts aloud.

   Again, enjoy the artifice. Do not think of a story in a straight forward manner, a good story will tell us about ourselves. Find the language that makes the audience buy it, Eg, Warhorse was able to set up the language of its story in a clever manner, the play was able to make itself comfortable with the language of its storytelling. The audience invested its story into the horse itself, they did not pretend that the horse is real, but simply a metaphor.

"Plume"

   Purves' goal behind this film was to tell a story with a puppet with a single source of light (This is also due to budget issues at the time, unsurprisingly). With the meaning behind it being to survive a trauma and finding a way to continue forward and move on, to embrace change after a trauma. Being the only film by him with no actual cultural history, the music was actually composed before the animation.

   The eyes in the animation are the most important thing you can give to a puppet, allowing it to clearly convey its thought processes. While many have believed it the film's main character to be an angel of some kind, he is but only a man with wings (With those wings being the very source of light within this film), a metaphor if you will. To help the audience know where the geography is, the character constantly travels across the screen from right to left.

   Due to budget constraints, the puppet is made out of silicon, and was really heavy and couldn't stretch, if Purves was to remake this puppet he would use latex instead. The wings were made of the loveliest duck feathers, with the bone replaced with a 4 jointed armature. They were surprisingly; never actually torn apart as seen in the film. Purves painstakingly tied parts of the feathers with strings to make them appear damaged and torn as the story progresses (Some CGI was also used for the stray feathers that gave a sense of movement and direction to the protagonist's journey).

   The imps (Or shadow creatures as Purves had officially stated them to be) conveyed stronger body language due to their lack of sight, while the protagonist constantly appears to the right, they start from the left. There were originally meant to be four of them (To represent the four elements), but once again due to budget constraints, only 3 could be afforded. Which was a blessing in disguise actually as this made it easier for Purves to animate them. Their out of sequence blinking made them all the more creepier along with their jagged movements. Such a contrast between them and the protagonist portrays a light metaphor for various things such as beauty and hideousness, and creativity and lack of.

   It is unsurprising that flying and swimming would be the hardest to animate, the swimming scene in the end also shows his embrace towards CGI (Aside from the original message of being able to move on from a heavy loss), swimming shot echoes the flying shot from the very beginning.

   And so, in the end, consider everything, even the smallest gesture can contribute to the story. And cut the number of characters down if possible (Bringing it from 4 to 3 imps had been a smart choice).

"Tchaichovsky, Tales of the Old Piano"

   As the title suggests, this film focused on Russian music composer Tchaichovsky as he goes over his life from beginning to end. The setting was literally framed with a grandiose picture frame (As shown above). With everything filmed in his bedroom, this had been the smallest budget that Purves had ever worked with. While originally wanting to make him play the piano, the lack of it actually liberated the movement of Tchaichovsky.

   As the door opens itself, the character is practically being brought into the room, a room of reckoning as he views the entirety of his life. Set up as a metaphorical courtroom, he is practically being judged. While Purves had wanted to kill him off in the end (With the glass of poison seen throughout), he decided to give the character more dignity, allowing him to walk out with his head held up high.

   Real letters and notes were incorporated into this film. Everyone he loves he gives a red rose, with the color representing love (And so these were placed on his family, friends and lovers), while the swan represented trauma.

   Once again, consider everything, embrace the artifice, enjoy the art of storytelling, find the language of the staging and setting.

Lecture Notes 3: Resolving your Research Project (Academic Conventions)

• Our dissertations require:
• Introduction
• Outline your question
• Outline your general argument and how it will develop
• Academic Conventions structure and standardise and aspire to academic honesty
• You're expected to:
• Demonstrate a critical knowledge of practice
• Apply theory to practice
• Analyse relevant material (Such as linking two materials together synthesis)
• Evaluate theory and evidence within the context of study
• Reflect - Critiquing and critically reflecting on your learning and using this to improve practice 
• Deep and Surface Learning: Knowledge/Remembering > Comprehension/Undersranding > Application/Applying > Analysis/Analysing > Synthesis/Evaluating > Evaluation/Creating
• Surface/Superficial Approach (What you won't get great grades for):
• Concentration on Learning Outcomes
• Passive acceptance of ideas (Without questioning it and comparing it to others)
• Routine memorisation of facts
• Sees small chunks 
• Ignore guiding patterns and principles
• Lack of reflection about, or ignorance of, underlying patterns and theories
• Little attempt to understand
• Minimal preparation and research
• Deep Approach:
• Independent engagement with material
• Critical and thoughtful about idea and information
• Relates ideas to own previous experience and knowledge
• Sees the big picture
• Relates evidence to conclusions
• Examines logic of arguments
• Interested in wider reading and thinking
• Ongoing preparation and reflection
• Deep understanding of your topic
• Academic Writing is formal and follows some standard conventions
• Each academic discipline has its own specialist vocabulary which you will be expected to learn and use in your own writing
• The substance of academic writing must be based on solid evidence and logical analysis, and presented as a concise, accurate argument
• Academic writing can allow you to present your argument and analysis accurately and concisely (No more than 500 words)
• Aim for precision. Don't use unnecessary words or waffle. Get straight to the point. Make every word count.
• If there is any uncertainty about a particular point, use cautious language (Such as may, might, could, potentially)
• Unless you are a confident writer, it is best to avoid over-long sentences and to aim for a mixture of long and short sentences for variation and rhythm.
• Avoid repeating the same words
• Avoid abbreviations and contractions
• Avoid slang words and phrases
• Avoid conversational terms
• In many academic disciplines, writing in the first person is NOT acceptable as it is believed to be too subjective and personal. Many tutors prefer impersonal language to be use in assignments.
• Structure:
• Preliminaries - Title/Acknowledgements/Contents/List of Illustrations
• Introduction - The Abstract (Quick summary, no more than a paragraph) / Statement of the Problem / Methodological Approach
• Main Body - Review of the Literature / Logically Developed Argument / Chapters / Results of Investigation / Cast Study
• Conclusion - Discussion and Conclusion / Summary of Conclusions
• Extras - Bibliography (Alphabetised by surname) / Appendices (Interviews, statistical data)
• 1.5 Lined Space, 12 Point Type, Single line space for quotes, all properly Harvard referenced
• 14th January - 4pm
• Project Self Assessment
• Write down the major aims of the project (So you don't go off track)
• Give a brief summary of the work so far
• Comment on your time management
• Do you know what the final project will look like? (How the practical relates to the written)
• What steps will you take to ensure it gets there?
• What areas of the project are you worried about?
• What 'risk management' plans do you have

Research from 'Hamlet on the Holodeck' by Janet H. Murray

Basic Details:
MURRAY, J. H. (1997), Hamlet on the Holodeck, NY: The Free Press.

21-22.

• Starting in the 1970s and 1980s, the same fears provoked by the... advent of film and television began to be expressed against videogames, which added interactivity to the sensory allures of sight, sound and motion.
• Critics have condemned the too-easy stimulation of electronic games as a threat to the more reflective delights of print culture.
• A prominent film critic, for instance, recently lamented the fact that his sons have deserted Dickens for shoot-'em-up computer games, which "offer a kind of narrative, but one that yields without resistance to the child's desire for instant gratification."

53.

• On the other hand, some game designers are making good use of film techniques in enhancing the dramatic power of their games.
• Myst (1993) achieves much of its immersive power through its sophisticated sound design. Each of the different areas of the game is characterised by distinctive ambient sounds, like the whistling of wind through the trees of the lapping of waves on the shore, that reinforce the reality of fantasy worlds, which are really just a succession of still images.
• ... a musical motif that gets darker and more foreboding with each step and reaches an emotional peak when I uncover a severed head. 

140.

• Stories do not require us to do anything except to pay attention as they are told.
• Games always involve some kind of activity and are often focused on the mastery of skills, whether the skill involves chess strategy or joystick twitching. Games generally use language only instrumentally ("checkmate", "ball four") rather than to convey subtleties of description or to communicate complex emotions.
• ... games are goal directed and structured around turn taking and keeping score. All of this would seem to have nothing to do with stories.
• ... narrative satisfaction can be directly opposed to game satisfaction, as the endings of Myst, widely hailed as the most artistically successful story puzzle of the early 1990s, make clear.

142.

• A game is a kind of abstract storytelling that resembles the world of common experience but compresses it in order to heighten interest.
• Whatever the content of the game itself, whatever out role within it, we are always the protagonists of the symbolic action.
• Even in games in which we are at the mercy of the dice, we are still enacting a meaningful drama.

145.

• Most of the stories currently told on the computer are based on the structure of a contest of skill.
• The interactor is given the role of a fighter or detective of some sort and is pitted against an opponent in a win/lose situation.
• ... computer games have developed multiple representations of the opponent, who may be another human player (as in the first videogame, Pong), a character embedded in the story (as in Pacman), and the programmer or game designer implicit in the game (as in Zork). 
• Contest games have also developed at least three different ways of situating the player: we can watch from a spectator perspective while operating out own avatar character or spaceship (as in Mortal Kombat); watch from a situated perspective while operating a character (as in Rebel Assault, where we see the vehicle we are operating as if we are following just behind it with a movie camera); or, most immersively, watch and act form a situated first-person viewpoint, as in Doom...

146.

• ... where we see the landscape of the game and our opponents coming toward us as if we are really present in space. These gaming conventions orient the interactor and make the action coherent. They are equivalent to a novelist's care with point of view or a director's attention to staging.
• Fighting games have also developed a sure-fire way of combining agency with immersion.
• It requires very little imaginative effort to enter such a world because the sense of agency is so direct.
• ... every object in a digital narrative, no matter how sophisticated the story, should offer the interactor as clear a sense of agency and as direct a connection to the immersive world as I felt in the arcade holding a six-shooter-shaped laser gun and blasting away at the outlaws in Mad Dog McCree.

147.

• ... the moral impact of enacting an opposing role is a promising sign of the serious dramatic potential of the fighting game.
• We need to find substitutes for shooting off a gun that will offer the same immediacy of effect but allow for more complex and engaging story content.
• We need to find ways of drawing a player so deeply into the situated point of view of a character that a change of position will raise important moral questions.
• We need to take advantage of the symbolic drama of the contest format to create suspense and dramatic tension without focusing the interactor on skill mastery.

Scriptwriting and Storytelling Workshop

• Look into "Everything that is bad is good for you" by Steven Johnson
• Aristotelian Dramatic Arc
  Start > Action/Tension Growth > Climatic Event Maximum Confusion > Unravelling of Plot > Resolution of Confusion > The End
• Narrator can be unreliable
• A character should go through some degree of transformation over the story (Eg, an ordinary man to a hero, a king to a beggar), namely character development
• Gustav Freytag's Pyramid
  Exposition (Explaining the world, background, etc.) > Rising Action (Started by an exciting incident) > Climax > Falling Action (Resolving) > Denouement
  AKA - The Dramatic Arc, Also the Three Act Structure

• The Hero's Journey

• Stories only really went around one character back then
• These days however stories are able to actually focus more on side character as well and given them the same amount attention as the protagonist

• Separation, Initiation and Recognition (Seen in a lot of games)
• Archetypes: Hero (Whom we identify with), Mentor (The teacher, gift giver), Herald (Issues the challenge or announces it, doesn't even have to be a character), Shapeshifter (Changeable), Threshold Guardian (Tests the hero), Trickster (Comic relief) and Shadow (Challenges hero, the villain)

• Advised to start from here in terms of writing your character, instead of attempting a thorough storyline first. These 'stereotypes' can be expanded upon once you get the basics done.
• 'Role play'
• Look into Natya Shastra
• Deus ex machina (Not a satisfying plot point, but you just need to get out of it)

Research from 'Aesthetic Theory and the Video Game' by Graeme Kirkpatrick Pt 1

Basic Details:
KIRKPATRICK, G. (2011), Aesthetic Theory and the Video Game, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

1.

• I argue that video games are not communications media in any standard sense but objects that furnish us with particular kinds of experience. 
• These experiences are a variety of game, or structured play, but they are also something more than this. What this 'more' is, what is consists in, is the enigma that has triggered the most heated academic debates about the video game and how we should study it and I argue that it is best understood as an historically specific instance of aesthetic form. 

2.

• It involves making the claim that video games are aesthetic objects before they are anything else, which has consequences for other parts of the discussion we want to have about them. 
• Most people agree, for example, that play or gameplay as it is referred to in connection with video games, is central to what people do with them and should inform our understanding of them in various ways. 

3.

• It is a conservative implication of ludology, for instance, that video games stand in the tradition of older games like chess or football and that it is only in light of this that we can see their true novelty. 
• Others find in them a source of cinematic innovations, with new viewing practices and new visual possibilities that extend the history of popular entertainments. An aesthetic approach finds itself in the, perhaps fortunate, position of seeming to claim that video games are art. 

11.

• Ludology is a branch of game studies centred mainly in Scandinavian universities that emphasizes the games of video games and rejects attempts to analyse them as 'narratives' or texts in which meaning plays the dominant, ordering role. 

12.

• ... the best way to understand modern video games is to focus on what they feel like to the people who play them and to reflect on what the significance of that feeling responses might be in the contemporary cultural context. 
• Taking an aesthetic approach to video games is made more complicated by the fact that everyone who writes about them already accepts that they have aesthetic properties and there is even some consensus that these properties matter and should inform our assessment of the medium as a whole as well as of individual games.

13.

• Geoff King and Tanya Krzywinska, for example, suggest that much gameplay is motivated simply by the search for 'visual pleasures', writing at one point that players may find aesthetic pleasures simply from 'the quality of graphical resolution alone' (King and Krzywinska 2006: 130). But what makes a visual experience pleasurable? On what basis do we separate the visual aspects of an experience that also includes other sensory components and questions concern aesthetic structure and it is in answering them that the resources of classical aesthetic theory are useful. 
• ... the concepts of play and form take us beyond a superficial characterisation of visual pleasure towards an appreciation of the whole experience of gameplay in terms of how it feels to players. 

15.

• This book argues that the relation between games and art is an important key to understanding either of them properly in the current period. Video games inherit certain of their key properties, especially form, from an art world that has to some extent absented itself from important areas of experience. 

17.

• Video games go not have to 'mean' anything to be popular and their popularity can be intelligible without reference to interpretation. This does not mean we should ignore the contents of on-screen imagery or what that imagery might represent or signify in some contexts. 

19.

• The term 'gameplay' is often used by rarely defined. As commonly employed it refers to the game dynamics, or more simply, 'how it feels to play a game'. Although this feeling is influenced by a game's audio and visual aspects, gameplay is usually considered a consequence of the game's rules rather than its representation. 
• Using this definition, we can say that the gameplay of chess is deliberative and [sic] while the gameplay of Burnout 3 is frantic and easily accessible. 

23.

• Aesthetic experience occurs when we find that something is pleasing to us by virtue of its form. Such an object stimulates us in the sense that it provokes and incites a feeling response, but it does so in a way that goes beyond merely being pleasing to the eye. 
• In aesthetic experience, which for Kant is almost exclusively about natural beauty, we find our imagination is pitched against our understanding- we can't discern 'order and finality' in the object but not its purpose. 

24.

• ... the human disposition to play is at the heart of the human creative response to being cast adrift in a meaningless universe. It it is not meaningful in itself, play is the activity that makes meaning possible by spinning forms out of the darkness. 
• ... play has intrinsic rhythm and harmony (1950: 10) and it is present as a kind of beating pulse in the sciences as well as the arts. 
• ... play is associated with contests and with representation, sometimes taking the form of role play. Play always goes on within what Huizinga calls a 'magic circle'; a specifically delineated zone where the normal conversations of social life are placed on hold and the rules of play (however minimal) are given free reign. 

25.

• The importance of play here lies in its foundational role for our ontological security and subsequently personal identity, because it is here that we first gain a sense of ourselves as agents who can act on the world and who must, in turn, adapt ourselves to its reality. 

26.

• ... the video game can be seen as a kind of stand-in for the parent, later the friend, with whom the subject constructs this precarious sense of a self grounded in transitional phenomena. Play here is based on a kid of formlessness that precedes both ego development and a secure sense of reality. This pre-ontological domain is one that we have to play our way out of in order to secure a sense of ourselves and to learn about the world. 
• Fantasy is an excess of imagination. Eve n short of delusion it can impede our ability to process external reality properly and inhibit the development of our inner personality. 

32.

• Aesthetic theory is concerned with understanding how it is that human beings find some situations, objects or artefacts attractive, or even beautiful. 
• Video games merit the concern that has been reserved for such items not because they are beautiful or 'art' but rather because they exist in a very specific tension with beauty and art, editing into the field of tensions that define the artwork and position it in relation to other social elements, and this incursion is essential to understanding them. 

48.

• ... ludology correctly identifies what is essential to the video games as a cultural object, namely, its character as a form of structured play. At the same time, however, the discussion here acknowledges the importance of meaning-oriented video game analyses, which have forced ludology to reflect on the differences between traditional games and their modern, digital variant. 
• Video games are more than games in the traditional sense. However, scholars who emphasise the story element in games jump the gun when they assert that attention to meaning and to the story-telling dimension of video games is the correct way to address the deficit in ludology's approach. 

50.

• Scholars who understand well how film works, for example, find that video games seem a lot like films except that the audience participate in determining what happens in the on-screen drama. 
• This active role for audiences can be called interactivity since it seems to reflect a new responsiveness on the part of the medium and implies a degree of complexity that makes the media object more like an interlocutor or co-participant and less like a finished work to be apprehended contemplatively.

54.

• ... Jesper Juul repudiated narrative theory's application to video games on the grounds that this theory introduces a temporal discrepancy that is essential to all reading but not present when playing video games. In narrative theory it is the difference between the time of narrating and that of the events narrated that is all-important. 
• According to Gerard Genette, for example, the temporality of a written text always involves a 'metonymic displacement' (Genette 1980: 34) whereby we, as readers, allow the false time of the story to stand in for the true time it takes us to read it. 
• This discrepancy between the time of reading and that of the events narrated is essential to the process of meaning-interpretation as it constitutes a kind of space where the reader interrogates and reflects on what she is reading. 
• The idea that games 'tell stories' is simply compatible with the reality that they are played in a singular time:
• In a verbal narrative, the grammatical tense will necessarily present a temporal relation between the time of the narration (narrative time) and the events told (story time). Additionally, it is possible to talk of a third time, the reading or viewing time...
• ... the game constructs the story time as synchronous with narrative time and reading/viewing time: the story time is now. Now, not just in the sense that the viewer witnesses events now... 

55.

• ... but in the sense that events are happening now, and that what comes next is not determined. (Juul 2001: 13-14) 

61.

• ... Kucklich presumes a strong role here for interpretative meaning in these processes, especially fictional meaning. The problem he raises it that sustained activity applied to a game seems to require a narrative or meaning element to explain why players seek to effect the relevant state transitions. 
• ... identification with character and immersion in some kind of storyline seem to be needed, to mediate, or explain the extra-ludic player activities- the things they do that do not fall under the lusory attitude. 
• Meaning based explanations would situate their play in a larger, fictional or social setting and would explain their involvement in all of its aspects. 
• Kucklick's point is that player activities, including... 

62.

• ... perhaps even subversion of the game's projected or advertised narrative context, must be meaningful for peopel and these meanings must play some explanatory role. 
• The fact that video games commonly include filmic and textual elements counts strongly in favour of such an analysis. 
• In the move between game states players' attention does move to extra-ludic reflection but their activities involve actions need to be understood as integral to the video game form as whole. Alexander Galloway usefully characterises non-story related actions as 'form playing with other forms... a play within the various layers of the video game' (Galloway 2006: 36). In this multi-layered play the human element must switch between discrete... 

63.

• ... sets of rules, each bearing different kinds of relation to meaning, including some movements and activities that have no significance at all, captured nicely in Galloway's phrase, 'multiple vectors of agitation' (2006: 38). 

75.

• Max Payne is an object with a distinctive feel, or aesthetic and this determines its character as an experience for players. At the centre of this is a feeling of expectation or anticipation that is worked and reworked by the tensions and releases of play- exactly what, for Ranciere (2007), connects the various experiences of form in the aesthetic regime of art. 
• The element of repetition is the clearest illustration of the importance of rhythm to the medium. Distinct types of action repeat and recur throughout the course of Max Payne. 
• When it happens you can assume a different attitude, namely, that of poking around, exploring the game situation to see what you are supposed to do next. Exploring, righting and watching correspond to feelings of tension, excitement and relaxation in the body of the player. 
• They define the rhythm of incorporation specific to Max Payne- different games have different rhythms. 

77.

• In video games the action and the intensities of experience are much more like music in being relatively detached from these elements, to such an extent that we often need cut-scenes to remind us where we (our characters) are supposed to be in the game's overall 'story'. 
• Such is the extent to which we are concentrated on play, its 'feel' and dynamics, and such is the narrowing of our focus onto game elements as signs not in a narrative story, but of the need to perform this move or that. 

79.

• Diderot's paradox, is a much discussed idea from theatre studies and concerns the actor's assumption of a role to which they must appear to be thoroughly committed if they want to carry the sentiments of the audience. The paradox is that they can only achieve this appearance through concentrated attention to something else (namely, the performance itself). 
• While an actor must know feelings intimately and express them sincerely to produce them in an audience, he cannot achieve this goal by sincerely expressing those feelings on stage but must have recourse to artifice. 
• The best actors are not the ones who actually feel what their character is supposed to be feeling. 
• This applies very much to games, who cannot identify too strongly with their characters, since they have to master the playing of the game. It illustrates a fundamental aesthetic problem with the idea of a straightforward (tension and paradox free) immersion in virtual space and fictional role play.

Research from 'Human Motion Based on Actor Physique Using Motion Capture' by Jong Sze Joon

Basic Details:

JONG, S. J. (2008), Human Motion Based on Actor Physique Using Motion Capture, Germany: VDM Publishing.

2.

• Motion Capture (Mocap) has some very useful applications for many types of users. Its purpose is not simply to duplicate the movements of an actor, as some people have naively stated (Trager, 1994). By employing specific Mocap application, this research studies realistic human motion of various subject with different physical attributes.
• Every individual has his/her own pattern of movement based on the nature of his/her physique, and yet every repetitive movement is always different in a slightly distinct manner.
• If a repetitive motion cycle of a particular individual can be sampled, it is clear that every time the cycle is repeated, the exact same algorithm of movement will not be achieved. For instance, when a person swings his hand from up to down and repeats the motion for a few times, the duration, velocity, angle, distance and level of the each swing are different.
• These subtle nuances in every biological motion serve as the essence to define realistic motion. It illuminates the identity of the person's behavioural pattern thus providing ideal characteristics that distinguishes every other individual.
• According to Pullen (2002), the term 'Motion Capture' generally refers to any method for obtaining data that describes the motion of a human or animal. 
• As the availability of Mocap data has increased, there has been more and more interest in using it as a basis  for creating computer animations where life-like motion is required.
• There are still various difficulties that arise based on its application, such as the question of the accuracy of the capture data and how much artificial data is filled in during the "clean up" process.

2-3.

• There are other cases whereby human motion data is not suitable to be applied to a non-human character. As a result, the art of keyframe animation is still being practiced.

3.

• Mocap is perhaps the most widely used technique for acquiring realistic motion. Recent production of feature films such as King Kong, The Matrix trilogy, Star Wars, The Polar Express and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, to name a few, employ Mocap techniques.
• Hyper-realistic virtual Computer-generated (CG) characters will be an element of the future of digital storytelling.
• One of the highest demands of Mocap is the gaming industry.
• Mocap is used to create 3D character animation and natural simulations in a performance oriented way.
• Mocap is also known as "Performance Animation".
• Its sole purpose is not simply to duplicate the movements of an actor or animator, but also as a process of taking and recording a human's emotion.

4.

• According to White (1986) and Ratner (2003), a similar technique, which is commonly used in animation production, called "Rotoscoping", was later invented in 1915 by Max Fleischer, a cartoonist; in an attempt to automate the production of animated cartoons by painstakingly traced the image of the live-action movement and captured film frame by frame onto paper in his series "Out of the Inkwell".
• In the early 20th century, this technique was used in traditional 2D cell animation by animators who traced individual frames of film to create individual frames of drawn animation.
• Later in 1930's Walt Disney and his animators employed it carefully and very effectively in 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs', 'Sleeping Beauty' and other animated feature-films. The technique has since developed into automated tracking functions, mostly within compositing softwares.
• In the mid 1980's, the type of Mocap used was really an extension of rotoscoping where an actor's movements were filmed from more than one view.
• Markers were attached to the subject and visible on the film, and were then manually encoded as corresponding points on the 3D representation of the character in the computer. This process is called 'Photogammetry'.
• Even though rotoscoping and Mocap are based on the same principles, the execution of the two is different. In the case of rotoscoping, artists trace human motion but interpret it with the model of the animated character.
• In the case of Mocap, human motion is copied and the data is directly applied to the animated character.

4-5.

• The temptation to use this captured motion and call it "animation" has led computer animators who practiced the art of traditional animation to regard Mocap as "Satan's Rotoscope" or "Devil's Rotoscope" (a term widely used by many though attributed to Steph Greenberg, 2000)

5.

• Mocap is now globally projected more into Computer Generated character animation. Basically, the Mocap system enables the animator to record the precise movement of a human subject in time and space for immediate or delayed analysis and playback, which can later be modified and applied to an existing 3D character model in any 3D platform.
• However, no matter how advanced the technology, the most important thing about Mocap is the actor's ability to act.
• This is supported by Grifter's (2000) statement that animation is not only about the timing, weight and 'character' of the motion; it is about acting and performance. This is one of the main reasons Mocap is regarded as 'Performance Animation'.
• From a more subjective point of view, White (1986) and Williams (2001) remarked that the goal of animation is not to create human-like motion, but to impart unique personalities to animated characters, to give them the "illusion of life".
• Both rotoscope and Mocap impose human motion on animated characters, which make them seem subtle and lifeless in comparison to those animated or hand-keyframed by skilled artists.
• This is because actors cannot break the law of reality and physics to fill in the Principles of Animation applied in a keyframe animation.

6.

• Mocap is used for games production, television, film production and education.
• Industry is increasingly depending on Mocap to produce fast yet realistic animation for their characters.
• The demand on gaming and feature-films enabled animation companies to allocate sufficient budget to apply Motion Capture application into their production.
• Mocap technology is frequently used in digital puppetry systems to aid in the performance of Computer-Generated characters in real-time.

7.

• In spite of the limitations, Mocap seems to have a positive response in the local animation industry and most likely the usage of Mocap will increase in the near future. This theory is subject to change based on the job market of the industry.

8.

• Most animators are often particularly concerned about the subtle detail such as slight nuances within a character's motion. This is because the nuances often define the level of realism in animation.
• Most key-frame methods practiced are difficult to achieve realistic motion due to the interpolation variables of tweening between keys.
• Realistic motions performed by human do not translate by those type of curves in animation.

9.

• Increased interest in using the information in Mocap data to assist animators in the creation of a character's base motion. If the animator required additional predefined movements for the character sets, the base data can be reduced or retargeted using a standard 3D application.

10.

• When adapting data to virtual characters, the animation will look more realistic in the sense that proper weight allocation manages the movements of the character.

39.

• The prominent twelve Principles of Animation by animators Thomas and Johnston (1981) serve as a fundamental guideline to most of animators, traditional cell animators, computer animators, or even Mocap animators.
• The Mocap animators, however, use these principles at different occasions throughout the animation process and in different ways than the other animators.
• A Mocap animator should consider the methods of application upon certain principles within the animation process. There are three distinct points within the process, the preparation stage, the capture session itself, and the post processing stage.
• Squash and Stretch: This is the first principle that cannot be achieved by a performer. Some people have attempted to add this property to captured motion data either by hand or procedurally, but the results have not been promising.

40.

• Timing: The performance, whether animated or acted, has to have the right timing to convey the necessary perception.
• Anticipation: A good performer can show anticipation to a certain degree, but is limited by the law of physics.
• Staging: A principle of filmmaking in general, the layout of the scene and positioning of the camera and characters are equally important in animation and live action performance.
• Follow-through and overlapping action: The opposite of anticipation.
• Straight-ahead action and pose-to-pose action: In computer animation, most of the characters' motions are created using a variation of the pose-to-pose action method, creating key poses for different parts instead of posing the whole character at a particular frame. This is done by creating keyframes and letting the software produce the in-between frames by some kind of interpolation defined by the animator.

41.

• Motion Capture is completely straight-ahead action; as such, it generates keyframes at every frame. This makes it very difficult to modify. Pose-to-pose action can be achieved through Motion Capture by selecting significant keyframes, deleting the rest, and allowing the computer to do the in-between as before.
• Ease-in and ease-out: Principles are based on real-world physics, so they can easily be achieved by capturing the motion of a live performance.
• Arcs: Another principle aimed at emulating realistic movement, which can be represented as a set of different types of arcs. When using keyframe animation, these curves are usually smooth between keyframes. With motion data, however, they are coarse and noisy, representing the natural nuances of realistic motion.
• Secondary motion: Secondary motion represents a lot of extra work with keyframe animation, whereas with Mocap it is a part of the performance. One has to be able to collect it, however, which may not be captured by an Optical system if markers are added to the clothes, but an electromagnetic tracker or electromechanical suit would not be able to collect that kind of data easily.

42.

• Exaggeration: The principle of exaggeration implies approaching or crossing the boundaries of physical reality in order to enhance or dramatise the character's performance. We must decide if capturing a live performance would be acceptable, or even feasible, for the level of exaggeration needed.
• Appeal: This principle applies for both live action and animation.
• Personality: When using Mocap, this is the number one reason to use a talented performer, as opposed to just anybody who can move.

Lecture Notes 2: Methodologies and Critical Analysis

• Every CoP3 project submitted has to have a methodology and critical analysis.
• Evidence to use logic, reasoning and critical judgement to analyse ideas from a range of primary and secondary sources, and critical and theoretical methodologies to evaluate examples from the relevant subject discipline. -- 20%
• Evidence the capacity for undertaking a wide range of independent practical and theoretical research that demonstrates an informed critical, testable, logical form of research taking. (Self planning and independent management, and critical decision making) -- 20%
• Every Research Project needs to have a methodology.
• Will have some sort of methodology, even if it is still ill thought out, or you don't recognise it as such.
• Some plan of attack to get through this module.

Methodology pretty much means:

1. A logical, systematic, and structured way of organising a research project and gathering necessary information.
2. Evidence that you have reflected critically on various research methods and chosen the ones that are most appropriate for your particular research project.
3. Strategy and what is the best strategy in terms of research gathering.

• Therefore, a methodology is unique to each project.
• Refer to Palgrave Study Skills.

1. What kind of research methods are you going to use? Quantitative, or qualitative, or a mixture of both?
2. What will the method enable you to discover?
3. What might they prevent you from discovering?
4. What sort of problems do you envisage in setting up these methods?
5. What are their benefits?
6. Refer to Chapter 13-15 of The Postgraduate Research Handbook by Gina Wisker

Methodology may include

1. Literature Review - Libraries, Journals, Internet (May not have the most reliable sources)
2. Questionnaires
3. Interviews
4. Sketchbooks/Critical Diaries/Reflective Logs

• Outline your methodology at the start of your dissertation.
• Set out your way of approaching the investigation to this question (An introduction should be 500 words max.), the strategy to going about this project.
• Try not to use quotes for your introduction.
• Focus on flashing out on one issue than attempting to focus on all of them.
• You get more marks for attempting to outline your methodology.
• Reasoned Thinking: Using evidence and logic to come to your conclusions
• Think about the bias of those sources
• Where was the author/artist/designer/photographer situated?
• Try to consider the different point of views, where the creator was coming from intellectually; emotionally; philosophically, politically
• Where am I coming from?
• Consider the influence of one or more of the following: the time; place; society; politics; economics; technology; philosophy; scientific thought...
• Marxist, neoliberal, sociological, psychological, postmodernist, technological, fundamentalist, positivist

Argument

1. What do I want to say? (Never lose sight of your central argument)
2. Have i got the evidence to back it up?
3. Could you find more evidence to support your conclusions?
4. Where else do I need to look in order to find more evidence?
5. Am I expressing myself clearly and logically?

Triangulation

1. Pitting alternative theories against the same body of data

Bad Argument

1. Contradict themselves
2. Have no relationship with precious statements
3. Do not have logical sequence
4. Are based on assumptions that were never questioned
5. Appeal to authorities that are known to be limited or suspect (Dictionaries, historical traditions long since discredited, research now challenge, famous people, writers of fiction)
6. Present opinion as argument unsupported by evidence
7. Take no account of exceptions of counter claims
8. Try to claim absolute instead of qualified truths.

A clear logical plan:

1. Keep it simple-refine what you want to say and focus on a few key issues
2. Look into your key issues in depth and bring in the maximum evidence in to support your views
3. Discuss your issues and the evidence you have found in a clear and logical manner.
4. Move from the general to the specific.

Evaluation

1. You need to show the reader that you are evaluating the evidence for its relevance and reliability
2. Looking at and coming to conclusions about the value of your evidence.

Critical Analysis of a text: Step by Step

1. Identify an aspect of your specialist subject that you would like to explore
2. Select a writer or theorist and a particular piece of writing about your specialist subject
3. Make notes that identify the key points in the writing
4. What evidence is used to support or prove the key points
5. Is it convincing? What else needs to be said in order to prove the key points?
6. Write a response to the piece of writing and comment on: the implications for your work: do you agree/disagree with what has been said? Does it help to support your views/argument? The thoughts you have had as the result of reading this piece; on the evidence used by the writer.

Visual Analysis: Step by Step

1. The following prompts could be used when analysing a piece of visual work:
   Comment on the usage of: Line, Colour, Tone, Texture, Form, Composition
2. How are these related to the function of, or message communicated by the piece?
3. How are they related to context, media and materials available; technology prevalent at the time the work was made?
4. What evidence do you have to support your conclusions?