Edward Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge was an English Photographer who spent most of his life in the United States. He's most notable for his pioneering work on animal locomotion which is used to capture motion, and his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures pre-dated the flexible perforated film strip.
Muybridge became well known for his Landscape photography , particularly of the Yosmite Valley. He spent must of his later years in San Fransico, California lecturing and demonstrating his photographis work and early motion picture sequence findings.

In 1872 the former governor of California, racehorse owner and business man Leland Stanford hires Muybridge for some Photographic Studies to illustrate whether all of the feet of a horse were off the ground while trotting, and also whether the same technique goes for a horse gallop.

To accomplish his demonstartion he captured images in the form of Silhouttes onti a disk to be viewed on a machine he had invented, which is called a Zoopraxiscpe. He also invented his own high class speed electronic shutter and electro-timer to be used alongside a battery of 24 cameras in his set project.Using all these technologies and the Chronography, which was used to recored the vibration when the camera shutters went down, and therefore recorded the movements to prove that all four of the horse feet came off the ground whilst trotting and Galloping.

Muybridge findings and techniques are what inspired most, if not all pohotographers nowadays.

Claymation Animation Evaluation

Claymation Animation is one of the various forms of stop motion animation, but with the advent of good technologies, including digital cameras and easy to use computer software . Each animated piece of object is made from clay, usually plasticine clay, it is then manipulated and filmed to produce an image of lifelike movements.

In claymation Animation the objects are made by clay or a similar moldable  material known as Plasticine. 

As in all stop motion animation, claymation animation is set up on the set (background) when film frame is exposed you move the object/ character slightly by hands to create an effect that it moved by itself. This cycle is repeated until the Animator has achieved the amount of minutes that is needed. 

I've had a positive experience using the plasticine to create slow motion animation comparing to cut out slow motion animation, this was because plasticine can be used with ease, it's moldable enough to created any form of object, it is flexible enough to be moved in any way, shape or form and it does not melt under hot studio lighting. Also, it makes a 3D effect. On the other hand,  cut out animation is more complicated seen as the actual characters can't stand up because it's 2D animation. the movement of the object is limited seen as you can't make the fade out of the film frame, nor can it looks as though it's coming out of the screen towards you.

Morph is the first plasticine claymation character sculpted by Peter Lord, appeared with the late Tony Hart. Morph appeared usually in 1 min shots through out the , with Tony Hart usually saying a line or few and Morph would reply with meaningful gestures. Morph was produced for the  BBC by Aardman Animation.  The character Morph inspired Aardman to create other claymation animation, like Wallace and Gomet, chicken run, flushed away, arthur christmas etc.  They also created television series and  short animated films such as, planet sketch, shaun sheep, timmy time, animated conversation etc.

The strengths of using claymation animation are that clay can take the shape of any character in any way shape or form where the clay maintains a recognizable character throughout the shot. It is easy to mold and flexible to move in any direction. It enables us to be very creative and we are free to make which ever character we want.

The limitations of claymation animation are it is very difficult to move the body parts of the character without it falling into pieces. It is also difficult to stick anything to the back of a particular character in order to play its role. For example, in my Claymation animation, one of the character is superman and as we all know superman saves the day. In order for the superman character to save the skater character he must pick him off the ground, doing so was very difficult. So my group decided to use strings to pick them both up, but it was pretty difficult because the string kept cutting through the plasticine, as it was so heavy.

Overall, i think comparing to all the other stop motion animation my class engaged in, this was the easiest. Comparing to cut out it took less time to prepare because we did not have to find suitable images, then cut them out. We just mold our characters and went straight for it.

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Murdoch Phone Hacking Scandal

The news of the world shut down because of the Phone Hacking Scandal, after years in printing it was the first significant effects of the scandal. They hacked into the voice mail of missing school girl "Milly Dowlers" This was illegal because they went against the Data Protection Act which clearly stated that invading personal information whether through voicemail, bank statement etc is against the law.

In a report by the Guardian on July 4th , 2011, the police found evidence linking private investigator Glenn Mulcaire  Have collected personal information about the missing school girl Milly Dowler. According to the paper, Glenn and other Private Investigators were hired by News of The World to hack into the Dowlers voicemail. In doing so they released information that gave the Dowler family false hope that their daughter was still alive when she was already dead, and also whilst they were going through these voicemails they deleted the evidence which could have helped the detectives and the police in finding Milly Dowler months earlier and give the family a sense of closure. One could argue that such irresponsible behavior could be what led to the missing school girl's death.

There were to many allegations and evidence been put forward against the News of The World to keep it in tact. Whilst majority of the high class individuals stoop up for the news of the world scandal, their was only one person who stood up against such disgusting behaviors and this was Labor MP Tom Watson. He claimed that there was " More chance of parliament being hit by a meteorite than conservatives passing judgement on the Murdochs' leadership of News Corporation"  Meaning that our current government would rather go down for the whole thing instead of speaking out against the Murdochs. He also lashed out against Torry members of the commons' culture committee for siding with Rupert and James Murdoch, as they were brought to an amendment which said that Rupert Murdoch was "not fit" to run an international company.

Because of all the allegations against the news of the world Rebakah Brooks, the chief executive of the News International quit after worldwide spread criticizm  of her role in the phone hacking scandal. Although she claims to not having any knowledge of what was going on around her, she was still being scrutinized by member of the oppositions and the public.

Even the Prime Minister david Cameron is said to be involved in the phone hacking, when his communication Director Andy Coulsdon resigned from his post because it was said that he has been covering events to his previous old job at the news of the world.  Also because it was alleged that David Cameron was seen horse back riding with Rebakah Brooks's husband Charlie Brooks, a horse trainer.  It was then reported in the Mail that Cameron had finally admitted to having been out horse riding with Charlie Brooks, but it was only because the horse was loaned to Rebakah by a metropolitan Police.

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