Recollect and the Remix Process

Returning to the earlier topic of my honours project, I thought I would post some more visual examples of my work and talk about the context behind them.

The discipline of motion graphics was a useful field to situate the project within. This is because the unused work being repurposed was all illustrative, whether completely finished pictures or simple concept sketches in a diary. So it had a strong illustrative bent. One of my goals was to take implied narrative, suggested by static single images, and create overt narrative by adding motion, depth and time (among other things, such as visual effects).

The boundary between animated film and motion design remains indistinct. According to MotionPlusDesign, the difference lies in whether characters express themselves directly. The exact definition remains the focus of some argument amongst practitioners due to its all encompassing parameters. But this broadness is perfect for dealing with animation that is not strictly cel animation. This kind of work is made possible of course through the use of software, in this case Adobe After Effects.

The remix process (in this instance) works quite differently to a normal animation pipeline. In general the animation pipeline is a streamlined and well-tested method, to smoothly move from beginning to end. It begins with an initial concept and proceeds through the various stages of scriptwriting, concept art, storyboarding, animatics (rough animations based on the scanned storyboards), and an intensive production phase, leading to the finished work (see Animation Pipeline video below - an excerpt from a motion graphic presentation made for my Honours seminar).

Animation Pipeline: © copyright Zak Waipara on Vimeo.

By contrast, the remix process starts without a specific guiding concept, but begins by assembling material and asks ‘What do I have?’, and ‘What can I do with it?’. (see Remix Process video below - another excerpt from a motion graphic presentation made for my Honours seminar).

Remix Process: © copyright Zak Waipara on Vimeo.

In my own project, given that the raw material was created in a variety of styles, and loaded with meaning from their prior context, some way to link them all was required in order to create a cohesive motion graphic series. When gathered and compared, some illustrations seemed to naturally group together into themes. What determined the theme were a few key pieces that strongly suggested a particular genre, and once decided, other pieces could be altered to fit. One thing that became apparent early on is that time spent creating motion graphics is disproportionate to the final runtime of the product. When remix is added to the process this increases even further. A significant amount of time was spent on the repurposing stage, which was possibly more time-consuming than just starting afresh: the work was physically altered, by way of changing colours, redrawing sections, adding or removing material, and separating into layers (where the material existed in a digital form). When a file had disappeared, or if it were an unused sketch, then it had to be built from scratch.

Screen grab from the 50s Horror genre motion graphic.© copyright Zak Waipara.

Despite this, the melding of disparate pieces worked remarkably well. In the end nine distinct genres emerged. I plan to post more examples of artwork from each of these genres later on...

Destination: Transmedia

Building on the research begun in my honours project, this year I plan to create a transmedia project for my Master’s degree. Remix (discussed in my last post) is also closely aligned to transmedia, as existing material is often transformed via remix into divergent digital media. This new project will also add to a greater understanding of remix, and is a continuation of my investigation into the language of remixability.

My project will use three digital media platforms (an animated motion comic, an e-comic, and an interactive game), to tell a single story. Transmedia is often described as storytelling across multiple platforms, and Henry Jenkins (author of Convergence Culture) calls transmedia storytelling “the art of world making”.

So what is the project about and where does it begin?

In 2002 I created a four page comic strip, Rock of Ages, that was published in a childrens’ book collection, Storylines: The Anthology (2003). Pages from the prologue can be viewed here (minus the text):

Promotional card. © copyright Zak Waipara.

Following this, in 2004 I was awarded a grant by Te Waka Toi, Creative New Zealand, to develop a script continuing Rock of Ages in graphic novel form. The script was completed and subsequently tinkered with, but the graphic novel project was never quite realised (though bits and pieces have continued to materialise over the years).

A new panel from the project. © copyright Zak Waipara.

In 2010, while teaching an interactive media paper (that had at its core aspects of game design and non-linear storytelling), I started noting down ideas for how my Rock of Ages story might translate into a game.

Game concept art. © copyright Zak Waipara.

These three strands form the basis for a new transmedia project. The comic strip print material will be remixed into a motion comic, that serves as a prologue or origin story. The graphic novel script (or a portion of it) will now be envisioned as an electronic comic (e-comic). The game design ideas will be linked together to form an interactive quest style game.

Rebranded project. © copyright Zak Waipara.

As well as a place to post reflections on completed study, this blog will document my ongoing research and any changes that occur along the way. One of these changes is rebranding the project under a slightly different title. The best part of all of this, for me, is a return to comics!

Remix and Remixability

Recollect was the name of my AUT Digital Design honours project (completed at the end of 2012). When I was thinking of a title for this blog, it seemed suitable for the material I want to gather here. Repurposing was a big part of the remix methodology used in my project, so it’s fitting to re-use the title.

Screen grab from opening scene of Recollect. © Zak Waipara 2012.

My project Recollect: Remix and Remixability was created from unused self-sampled illustrations, remixed into a series of motion graphics.

The term remix, borrowed from musical sampling, can be applied to all forms of visual media as new media theorist Lev Manovich has done. He expanded on remix by coining the term ‘deep remixability’: not simply the addition of content or techniques, but the creation of a new hybrid visual language.

Recollect used the language of deep remixability, in order to better understand it. It was a proof of concept into the possibilities of using remix to create a seamless collection of short motion graphics experiments linked by a central spine. A discovery that emerged from the project was that the remix process can be a really useful improvisational creative methodology for the digital media practitioner. I plan to apply this methodology in a different way in my Masters research this year... more on that later.