Research Project: Artefact 3 - Shifting Power Centres

After looking at whether my focus group was able to identify a character's power centre and define their personality through a series of still poses, I decided to look at the shift of power centres within a character.

Through this artefact, I wanted to see if my audience was able to see where a power centre was shifting to and from within the character and what they thought might be happening in the clip.

These were the clips I presented:

 Having presented these to my focus group, I found that most people were able to identify the movement of the power centre and generally had an idea of what the situation was. However, as I finished this artefact, I realised that I've gone slightly off topic from my research question, so I'll need to try and refocus my artefacts for my 4th and 5th artefact.

Research Project: Artefact 2 - Power Centres

For my second artefact, I will be looking at the importance of using power centres with characters - they help us to define a character and also affects a characters "tempo/rhythm".

I want to find out whether my audience can identify a character's power centre by their body language, without any facial expression, and whether they are then able to define the character's personality through these poses.

These are my 11 poses:

Research Project - Reading List

Just a little note of resources that I'll be using for my research project work...

The Animator's Survival Kit - Richard E. Williams 
The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation - Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston
Acting for Animators - Ed Hooks
How to Cheat in Maya 2013: Tools and Techniques for Character Animation - Eric Luhta, Kenny Roy
Stop Staring: Facial Modeling and Animation Done Right - Jason Osipa
Gesture Drawing for Animation - Walt Stanchfield, edited by Leo Brodie
Shadow of a Mouse: Performance, Belief and World-Making in Animation - Donald Crafton
The Disney Villain - Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas

Cartoon Brew:
The Milt Kahl Head Swaggle
Why Is It So Difficult to Make Cute Cartoon Characters?

Cartoon Research

Power Centers and Personality - Keith Lango

Power Centers and the Importance of Body Language - Tea Time Animation, in a lecture presented by Frank-Joseph Frelier

Posing a Character

Animation Studies Online Journal

Gesture Generation by Imitation: From Human Behaviour to Computer Character Animation - Michael Kipp, 2003

I'm about 80% sure there's a very important reference that I've forgotten here...