Journal Question

Pick a piece and, making use of the vocabulary below, write a paragraph that articulates your sense of how successful or unsuccessful the piece was. We are not necessarily “judging” the piece, but making informed observations about it:

• evidence of strong structural elements (narrative or otherwise: sense of place and context in introduction, clarity of articulation of and viewer engagement with the introduction of the hero’s conflict, growing sense of tension as development events occur, clear and powerful articulation of climactic moment, satisfying conclusion)

• sophistication of movement design (sense of weight via speed changes, squash and stretch, secondary action; strong acting via silhouette, gesture, and key poses; grace and fluidity via arcs and secondary action)

• evidence of character thought process, motivation, and appeal

• strength of composition and staging (effective and informed use of closeups, medium, full, wide, and other shots; use of active negative/positive space, size relationships and overlapping of forms to orient the viewer towards important shot elements

• effective pacing that keeps the viewer engaged from beginning to end

• strength of design and color: line quality, character and object proportions, color palette that supports the story and establishes an appealing aesthetic

"Bruxism" by Aleson Ho

What stood out to me the most was the design and color in this one. The main character is stylized and visually appealing to a point where I like her in the first millisecond. There was also an appealing sense of texture in this one, and the painted background was good too; it brought to mind the more artistic animations of UPA studios.

The main character's actions were easy to follow due to good use of gesture and expression, or.

The woman's gestures could use a little more hesitation to get her actions or intended actions across better, but the squashing and stretching does help articulate her stress and frustration while inside the eyeball.

For the character's thought process it was helpful that there was a lot of expressive gestures and such, however they could have been a little more exaggerated because I didn't quite understand it on the first viewing. Though when the eyeball seemed to start devouring her painting and she tried to pull it off, I did get the idea that she wanted to protect her artwork.

I think I can say the same for the structural elements. I didn't quite understand what the giant Eyeball was about until the second half of the cartoon. When the harsh voices started to annoy the young woman I figured this cartoon was about the insecurities artists go through when receiving criticism. Rather appropriate for an art student.

Regarding the pacing I liked how the character held on the more expressive poses.

The composition and staging seemed appropriate for the story; getting the basic story across with long and medium shots and establishing details with the closeups.