Week 8/9 More pages, Finished Research Poster, Finishing essay, Polishing and Harvard ref

More Pages
I sketched out a few more pages with this project I definitely bit off more than I can chew however unlike in previous years when I have giving myself a lot of work instead of being able to scale back I just ended up giving myself more work to do instead of realising that I needed to cut down, I just kept adding and adding and adding to the point where I wasn't able to actually complete or finish anything. I think I focused too much on the research and not enough on the practical. My essay is definitely stronger than my practical as it has been in previous years but this year especially for the above-mentioned reasons.

Finished The Research Poster

Finished the Harvard referencing

Finished 2nd draft of essay. Gave it to Ben for feedback.

Feedback received

• The flow of your writing is pretty good and the content is great and engaging make sure,

• where possible, that you include appropriate references and figures (images) to support your discourse.

• MAKE SURE THAT THIS ARE PROPERLY HARVARD REFERENCED – check the libraries guide.

• Don’t bother writing Chapter 1, 2 etc., just give them appropriate headings and make sure that there is a separate title page (possibly with an image on – like a cover page) this should include your research paper title/question – which I still think is too long – and name and word count etc.

• Triple check spellings and grammar – make sure that you read this out loud to someone or get them to read it to you.

• Make sure that there in consistency within your Bibliography not titles in capitals etc – highlighted in yellow.

• The bibliography should be in alphabetical order:

• A reference list for the sources were the figures (images) came from should appear before the bibliography.

• The figures themselves could be either within the main body of the text or alternatively they could appear in a Figure Index, but either way make sure that they are clearly labelled: figure 1

** PROMPT in Action **

Source One
https://www.quora.com/How-would-you-describe-Light-Yagamis-psychological-profile-in-Death-Note-Is-he-a-sociopath-a-psychopath-or-something-else

Presentation 
A bit messy, with different colours of fonts, but reasonable font size.
Relevance Does relate to overall topic, being a discussion relating to an anime
character, and potential underlying mental health issues that may explain their
behaviour.

Objectivity Is a multiple expression of opinion, with the main point of referencing
being Wiki, so not objective, and not correctly evidenced. People expressing opinions
do not indicate they are “qualified” to comment on mental health, as do not indicate they
are currently practising mental health professionals, but still an interesting discussion.
This is quite an abstract idea. No one would make a diagnosis on the basis of observing
behaviour described in a comic book, after all.

Methodology N/A

Provenance Good. Descriptions, of authors, and qualifications.

Timeliness 2017, so within the last 8 years.

Source Two
https://casuistor.tumblr.com/post/149988857881/re-light-yagamis-presumed-sociopathy-and-why-he

Presentation Font size too small.

Relevance Does relate to overall topic, being a discussion relating to an anime
character, and potential underlying mental health issues that may explain their
behaviour.

Objectivity An interesting counter argument, with elements of research but no stated
author. Or referencing. Draws upon American research, so potentially American.

Methodology N/A

Provenance Poor. No clearly stated author. But well argued, with no overwhelming
bias. This is a discussion about a fictional character. Interesting level of self awareness
as states “the ability to read articles and checklists online does not translate into
academic or clinical literacy.”, and that they are not a medical professional but someone
with insight as they state “have had half a year of clinical psych is more exposure than
is typical”, suggesting they have accessed clinical psychology themselves, rather than
being a mental health practitioner.

Comics!

Comics

Comics are a universal language. Visually appealing sequential images that follow a narrative. They represent a primal need to tell and share stories. They are both easy to read and digest making them accessible to anyone. Panels are like scenes in movie or television as such some classic film cinematography is used such as Dutch angles which are used to imply conflict. Each illustration is therefore subject to basic filmmaking techniques and shot compositions. Instead of timing in animation, time is displayed as panels and usually involve action poses. The pacing is also left up to the reader as supposed to live action or animation where you are forced to experience the film at the director’s pace. The bigger, more illustrated panels are usually action scenes. This is because action scenes require more detail.

History

"Before 1929, almost all comics were part of magazines, newspapers or supplements and were not sold separately." Ramsey, T (2013) Western Comics and zines are read left to right and typically speaking have more realistic proportions.
In later years comics where used to spread WWII propaganda and uphold the American image. Caption America and Superman are great example of this. They use colours and patterns associated with the American flag and utilise strong American cultural themes such as Freedom and The American dream

“American children were targeted through some of our most prominent superheroes to date such as Captain America, Superman, Batman and several others. These superheroes embodied the ideal virtues of American soldiers and demonstrated the courage and resolve needed to fight evil during World War II.” Onyon, D (2018)

Comics can take on many different forms and uphold many different meanings and interptations. This is largely in part due the country that they are published in. Japan for example has the largest comic book market. The term Manga “was first used in 1798, to describe the picture book Shiji no Yukikai (Four Seasons) by Santō Kyōden. In 1814, it showed up again, as the title of Aikawa Mina’s Manga hyakujo and the celebrated Hokusai Manga books of drawings by the famous ukiyo-e artist Hokusai.” Kordic A, Pereira L, Martinique E. (2017) In addition to this "The history of manga is said to originate from scrolls dating back to the 12th century, and it is believed they represent the basis for the right-to-left reading style.” Wikipedia (2019)

Manga is characterised by over evacuated facial features and body proportions. These give the artist more freedom to come up with unique and interesting character designs. However, It's not specific to just Japan. Almost every country in East Asia has its own style of manga.

Ramsey, T (2013) The History Of Comics: Decade by Decade Available at: https://the-artifice.com/history-of-comics/ (Accessed: 12^th November 2019)

Onyon, D (2018) THE POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF COMICS IN AMERICA DURNIG WWII Available at: https://www.sagu.edu/thoughthub/the-political-influence-of-comics-in-america-during-wwii (Accessed: 12^th November 2019)

Kordic A, Pereira L, Martinique E. (2017) A SHORT HISTORY OF JAPANESE MANGA Available at: http://www.mangabigbang.co.uk/blog/a-short-history-of-japanese-manga (Accessed: 12^th November 2019)

Wikipedia (2019) Manga Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga (accessed: 12^th November 2019)

What and Why PROMPT Evaluation

I reference a lot of internet sauces. I find reading things on the internet easier than in books because of my dyslexia and processing disorder. It is something i've been called out on in 1st year and in 2nd year. So i was looking at ways of insuring the quality of information that i was ingesting and also to give the information more validation. Thats where i came across PROMPT evaluation. It is mostly used by the Open University to insure and validate the quality of information on the internet. PROMPT stands for the following

Presentation
Is the information clear?
Is the language right?
Can I find what I need here?
Is it succinct?

Relevance 
Does this information match my needs right now?
Scan it quickly to get an overview.
What is it mostly about?

Objectivity 
Is the language used emotive?
Are opinions expressed?
Are there sponsors?
What are they selling?
What are the vested interests?

Method 
If statistical data is presented, what is this based on?
How was data gathered? Was the sample used really representative?
Were the methods appropriate, rigorous, etc.?

Provenance 
Is it clear who produced this information?
Where does it come from?
Whose opinions are these?
Do you trust this source of information?

Timeliness 
Is this current?
When was it written and produced?
Has the climate/situation changed since this information was made available?
Is it still up-to-date enough?

Sauced from https://www.open.ac.uk/libraryservices/beingdigital/accessible/accessible-pdf-13-evaluation-using-prompt.pdf

Week 7 Case Studies, Question Change, Tokyo Ballet and Kidney Infection

Finished Case Study 1
Finished Case Study 2
Started Case Study 3

Slight Change in Question

As this project has developed I have come to the conclusion that I'm not necessarily looking 

at the impact on Japan society I'm more looking at how anime is reflective of society in general. 

Although I will still be making references Japan's treatment of mental health and disability. I feel 

that broadening the research will strengthen my argument and make for a more interesting 

discussion especially as with the rise of social media and technology, anime is no longer 

limited to just Japan it's something that people can connect with globally and there have been 

anime inspired productions that have been produced in the West so it makes more sense to do 

this from a broader perspective as opposed to just it being contained to Japan.

                                                        Response from Tokyo Ballet

I haven't revived a response from Tokyo 
National Ballet. So I decided to pester them 
on Facebook too, with the exact same 
email!! 

Got a kidney infection. Didn't manage to get any practical done because I was dying. Wont go into gruesome details but I've been pretty ill. Might have to get an extension. 

Week 5/6 Practical, practical practical, another survey and emails

6 pages done
These past two weeks I have been working solely on practical. I have made good progress and have finished 4 of the 12 pages as well as completing my character design. Bringing the total of pages sketched out to 6. 

I have fallen into the pattern of eat, sleep, work, repeat. At present this seems to be working well for me. Although I fear I will burn out after the submission, especially as I am incredibly stressed.It feels as though I still struggle with basic things like proportions and perspective. In some of the shots the background looks flat. Although so the main reason why I wanted to create this comic/zine was to get better at perspective and proportions. So in that respect I have succeeded because although I'm struggling, I am getting better and constantly improving.

2nd character design sheet
I also decided that i needed another character design sheet for all of Ellies friends/ classmates (theres only 2) I'm recycling some sketches that I did for Ellie but that didn't make it into her character model sheet. I also added a pose of them all together so that it gives better context. I've called them Rosie and Jess. Jess is the blue character and Rosie is the red character their dresses where inspired by traditional and contemporary ballet dance costumes.

2nd Survey

I created a second survey which was distributed around the university.

Emailed Tokyo Ballet

I also emailed Tokyo National Ballet to get their opinion on mental health in ballet. Based on the outcome of the second survey I said

Week 4: Everything done over MAF

2 pages of comic
Manchester animation festival was a brilliant experience it really helped to put everything in perspective for me and I left feeling more motivated to do my work then I done in a while. I also spoke to some incredible animators and and I think I found what I want to do and how I want to do it animation wise. I didn't get much work done during this period as I was travelling from Liverpool to Manchester and back again each day during the festival to save money. However I did manage to get two pages of the comic roughed out. I think I'm happy with the layout of these two pages although until they actually in the comic it will be difficult to really contextualise them I also need to add in the speech bubbles and and the dialogue and narrative.


Worked on research
poster
I also created some doodles for my research poster. Doodled a temple, ceremonial bell and samurai. These will be used to contextualise the timeline I have created for the poster.