Research Plan Presentation

Vans Research Plan from maxmattacks

Animators: Burton, Aardman and Brothers Quay

Tim Burton

Tim Burton was born in 1958 on the 25 August in California. In his early life Burton used to make short animation films using 'crude stop motion animation techniques', and made his first recognisable film when he was 13 years old. 

Burton studied at Burbank High School however didn't do to well at school so then later moved on to California Institute of the Arts to study character animation.  After Burbank he attended and later graduated from CalArts in Santa Clarita, California in 1979. During this time he made a short film 'The Stalk of the Celery' this film attracted to the attention of Walt Disney's production company who hired him as an animator. 

In 1984 Burton released one of his first live action film shorts Frankenweenie, it was filmed in black and white and resulted in Burton being fired from Disney. Disney said the reason for Burton being fired was that he was "spending the company's resources on doing a film that would be too dark and scary for children to see."

With this event Tim Burton took the opportunity to peruse his dream to make a feature film, so he approached Griffin Dunne to direct the black comedy 'After Hours'. After this success Burton moved on to other projects such as 'Bettle Juice' and 'Batman' (1989)

During the 1990's Burton had succes with many films as a director and sometimes as a co-writer these films were 'Edward Scissorhands', 'Mars Attacks!' and 'Sleepy Hollow' and more. More recently Burton has directed such films as 'Planet of the Apes' and 'Sweeney Todd'.


Aardman 

Aardman is a British animation company that is famous for their stop motion animations; these are usually Claymation’s there most well known ones include Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run and many more.

Aardman was founded Peter Lord and David Sproxton and are still there the main heads of the company. Before 1997 Aardman one they’re first Oscar for the short film Creature Comforts.

The first full-length feature film that Aardman created was Chicken Run, for which they joined up with DreamWorks, however this wasn’t released till June 23^rd 2000 although being in post production since 1997.

Aardman signed a deal with Dream Works to make 4 films in an estimated 12 years. The films they made in these twelve years were Chicken Run, Wallace and Gromit, The Tortoise and the Hare and there first computer animated film Flushed away. 

The Brothers Quay

The Brothers Quay were twin brothers, Stephen and Timothy, who were born in 1947. The brothers are recognised for being two of the most influential stop-motion animators of all time. They both attended the Philadelphia College of Art where they studied illustration this lead them to further their education and experience at the Royal College of Art, in London, England.


At the Royal College of Art is where the brothers made their first short films, which unfortunately were damaged beyond repair meaning that no copy still exists. However there work at the college was not all in vain as it was here they met Keith Griffiths, a fellow student at the college. The Brothers and Griffiths went on the work together and create Koninck Studios, which is based in Southwark, London to this day.

The brothers' are influenced by a tradition of Eastern European animation, They have a unique and creepy animation style that is instantly recognizable. The Brothers and best known for their film "Street of Crocodiles": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgqmXK1pf7Y

The brothers have also directed some TV commercials for companies such as: MTV, Nikon, Slurpee. In 2012 the Brothers were honored with a career retrospective gallery exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Stephen Quay describes him and his brothers work as "dark fairy tales with elements of grotesquery and the pathological." While his brother Timothy Quay adds "We set them in a twilight world, midway between sleep and wakefulness." This dark, surreal style of animation is a rarity in the world of animation and has therefore influenced the likes of Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam. Gilliam recently selected the brothers film "Street of Crocodiles" as one of the ten best animated films of all time.

Questionnaire Results

Questionnaire Results 

1.) Do you a) like b) not like or c) don’t mind wearing vans?

2.) Do you own a pair of vans, or any other vans product? If so which one(s)?

Answers:

“Yes they are blue”

“No, I used to though”

No, I couldn’t find anywhere that sold a size big enough”

“Yes I do”

“2 pairs of vans plimsolls”

“Yeah, some shoes”

“5 pairs”

“No I do not own vans”

“Two pairs of Vans”

“No”

Black vans”

“No”

“Yes, white ones”

3.) Do you think vans products are expensive fairly priced or under priced?

 

4.) What one word would you use to describe vans and their products?

Answers:

“Colourful”

“Colourful”

“Stylish”

“Simple”

“Shoes”

“Hard wearing”

“Comfy”

“Skater”

“Comfortable”

“Breakable”

“Fashionable”

5.) Would you say that vans produce a) good quality b) average quality or c) poor quality products?

6.) How important are vans shoes to you?

Questionnaire Evaluation

My questionnaire was successful as it gave me back both quantitative and qualitative results. However there were some aspects I could of improved on for example I could of asked some more questions to give a wider variety to the data I received back. I also could of asked a question to determine how many of the people answering my questionnaire were male and how many were female. That would of allowed me to determine if Vans being a unisex brand meant that an equal number of male and female buy their products. 

The making of Creature Comforts

Creature Comforts

For Creature Comforts aardman tried to turn something very mundane and boring into something that was interesting to watch and they did this just by turning people they interviewed into animals. Turning them into animals was interesting as it created a character for the person and was funny. 

To make it successful they had to find people that were in similar situations to the animals and characters they were trying to create. What made the animals they created interesting was that they were based around the person they interviewed not around an idea they had before. Also in real interviews people get nervous and so they stubble and say words like "err" "um" and they also dont always say what they actually mean, this makes it very funny when they exaggerate this in the animations. 

The director said that sometimes the best voices were the boring ones as "a boring voice can be boring, but also it can be funny." Over the duration of the series they did over 300 interviews and they only had one director to choose which ones to use. Sometimes they would have a voice that they thought fit with lots of different animals. 

To really understand what the people were saying and what they ment by it they got actors to read through the lines while playing the interview at the same time. Another interesting method that they used to make creature comforts was that they had someone who marked on the tape when there were breaths or pauses etc. This was done for the animators so they could know when to move the mouth of the creature and make it even more realistic. 

My favorite creature comforts animation was the the one with the Lion on the Log, this was because it was very funny when they he talks about wanting fresh meat (as he's portrayed as a lion). Also as he repeats his point about "having space" in Brazil and how he misses it, that is very funny also the animators really show his little mannerisms like him tapping the log. 

The Lion on the Log one can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA5n5Oext5U 

Focus Group Results

In the focus group I conducted I started by showing the group an advert for Vans, which is the brand im researching.The advert i showed to my focus group is the advert above.




I recorded the audio for the focus group i did and have uploaded it to below, I have also picked out some of the most important quotes from the conversation and written them down.

Question: What did you think of the advert?
Replies:    "very fun" "a lot of stuff going on" "very eventful" "I like the rock music"

Question: So you like that kind of music on an advert?
Replies:   "builds and image of all the things you can get up to while wearing vans" "It doesn't really show vans shoes" "showed who wears vans" "theres a lot behind the simple design of the vans"

Question: So do you think it's better if I stick to a simpler advert?
Replies:    "start off simple" "make it subtle as to what your advertising"

Evaluation

I think my focus group went reasonably well and I think I got some good feedback and information from the members of my focus group. However I know that I could of improved on some of the aspects of my focus group, I feel that I should of asked some more questions. I could of, for example asked, how they feel about vans after seeing the advert, and if the advert made them want to buy a pair of vans etc. 

Another aspect I could of improved on was I could of given the members of my focus group more types of adverts for Vans. I could have shown them the logo of Vans or maybe even an article about Vans.

Having said this I do think that overall my focus group was reasonably successful and I also found it useful to get a better idea of how I should plan my advert. 

Willis O'Brien

Willis O'Brien 

Willis O'Brien was born on the 2nd of March 1886 and Died on the 8th of November 1962, most of his work was based on gorillas or dinosaurs. O'Brien's most famous work was done when he worked on King Kong in 1933, and also when he worked on The Lost World 1925. 

O'Brien was primarily a special effects expert, however he is also known as one of the pioneers of animation who inspired man people and other animations. 

King Kong 1933: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOMKnhN7ABs

Ray Harryhausen

Ray Harryhausen 

Ray Harryhausen was born on the 29th of June 1920, Harryhausen was also a big fan of using Dinosaurs and creatures from Fantasy Worlds. This can be seen in his films as can his sill for model making, which he learned at grammar school. 

Harryhausen was inspired by the original King Kong and then went on to inspire many film makers such as Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. 

Example of Work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF_Fi7x93PY