Letter to the BBC Regarding David Starkey

Dear BBC,

I'm writing to you in reference to the recent episode of News Night featuring David Starkey.

This is a letter of complaint regarding his outburst on National Television when outlining reasons as to why the London riots occurred. In the interview he accuses an entire race of being responsible for the commencing of the riots. Not only was his comments and argument racist, it was prejudice and also stereotypical. I felt that it was disgracefully and distasteful for he alone, to blame the entire ordeal on the Black Culture so freely and proudly.

To add insult upon injury, when Dreda Say Mitchell brought up the argument of the White Public were also involved in the riots he gladly stated that 'The whites have become black'. This suggest that the black culture had negatively influence the white community. He consideration and respect for the other members of the panel is minimal and none existent to some extent. This is clearly shown to the audience when he describes their views and opinion as 'hysterical'.

Further more, he has to audacity to quote Enoch Powell's "Rivers Of Blood" speech. I don't believe this aided his debate in any way shape or form; if anything made it his downfall for the 'Rivers of Blood' speech attacked immigration.

I feel that for the sake of the the reputation of News Night, David Starkey should be severely dealt with.
I would urge you to look over at the interview and understand my reasons for my complaint.

Your Sincerely



Amiee Wolf

Organising my Editing

PleasentVille Effect- Amiee Wolf

Scratch Disc-Amiee Wolf

Super 8 Effect. Amiee Wolf

Cut Out Animation Evaluation (Stop-Motion Animation)

In this unit we were given the opportunity to construct our own Cut out Animations.

A cut out animation is the process of creating a piece of animation via the usage of cut out images. Cutting images from magazines, newspapers, old books and more could make up these images.

Personally, my cut out animation was very simple to fabricate. I already had in mind an inkling of what I wanted to do. This was to produce a catwalk like short animated film. Firstly, I drew a quick rough mind map of the things I would have liked to incorporate in my film. This made it easier for me when it came to the production stage. I did this by cutting up random pictures in the Shortlist magazine in order to make up my background of the catwalk. I then used images of people in the same magazine to play my models. To make my images ‘talk’ I cut out the mouths and moved it up and down during the filming process to personify them.  I tried to make my animation humorous as opposed to serious as I thought it’d be more fun and easier to do, which it proved.

The software of I-Motion on the Mac computers was very helpful during the making of my animation. I also used a removable webcam in order to capture every single move accurately as the camera device built into the Mac didn’t reach the table.  

Upon researching Cut out Animations I came to find that one of my favourite animated shows is a subject of Stop-Motion animation; South park. This was something I hadn’t notice before. It has certainly made me more conscious of Stop-Motion productions out there.

I very much enjoyed cutting anything and everything from the different sources I had and conjuring up a storyline to go with it. With Stop-Motion animation, anything can be a characters, it only depends on how it is personalised and personified. An example of this would be the scene in my animations where I have two different pairs of shoes having a ‘dance off’ so to speak. To produce something such as Stop-Motion animation, I feel requires a lot of creativity which is not something I have.  Creativity is needed to create something out of nothing or everything. However, I found this unit both enjoyable and uncomplicated. My aim was to make my animation as simple and humorous as possible. I hope that my aims and objectives for this are clear to my audience.

The only limitation and perhaps negative thing that I could mention about this process of animations is how restrictive it is. When I say restrictive, I mean it in the sense that I couldn’t make images that I’d necessarily need, such as a proper backdrop for my catwalk scene. Again, it could have only worked in a 2D shapes, which narrowed the production process. I had to make do with the images I could get from the magazines, which did turn out better. It is also very time-consuming as it requires the absolute care and precision when taking the shots and patience I feel as I could be feel myself becoming irritated during the production stage. One thing I could have done differently is remembered to take my hands out of the image before taking the shot. However, I don’t believe that it’s ruin the animation for me but made it obvious that it’s a cut out animation, which is something I wasn’t too worried about. 

Amiee Wolf Cut out Animation. Fashion Show!

Amiee Wolf Video Profile

Bubblez and Amiee Wolf Claymation Project

Evaluation of Claymation

Evaluation of Claymation Animation.

During this unit, we were given the opportunity to produce our own Claymation.

Critical Analysis of my Claymation:

Upon starting this project we watched a short Ten minutes film about on the masterminds behind the character of ‘Morph’ (Lord and Sproxton) who are also the founders of Aardman.

Firstly, I made a Morph like version of Claymation using plasticine. I started my process by making the shape of a ball with my plasticine. The ball was then to be transformed in to the entire body of the Claymation character. I then began to shape the head of my character by pushing the clay in an upward motion, however maintaining its round shape.  I pulled the clay left and right and massaged it until each side had formed in shapes of hands. I pushed down on the clay to elongate the clay thus creating the body of my character. Having done this, I pulled each side of my Morph’s lower body in a downwards positioning in order to make its legs and feet.  In order to stabilize my Morph I had to thicken its feet for it to stand up and firmly. I did this by folding back its leg on itself and flattening it down. I then, gave my Morph eyes and a nose to make it human like. Having made my Morph character I had to incorporate it in an animation and I chose to do mine with Naomi. Our animation sees each of our Morphs’ having a dance off, which was tedious but fun to do. 

The complete process of producing my Morph was challenging. Morphing my character into the end product I had in mind was hard because pushing up and down and pulling the clay proved difficult as at some stages of the production it became rock hard and had to wait for the clay to warm up again before continuing the process.

Over all I feel that the unit went well. I enjoyed the project to some extent. The only things that could have gone better is if I spent a little more time making my Claymation looking like the actually Morph character that we studied.

Who is Morph and why is he significant to the success of Aardman?

Aardman Animations was founded by Peter Lord and David Sproxton. This double act started this productions company after realizing their dreams of making motion picture projects. As a low-budgeted company they produced Gleebies. This was their first animated short film that got aired on the BBC during the year of 1975/76. From Gleebies came their most popular and significant project to date: Morph. Some would argue that Gleebies were the ancestors of Morph.  Morph is a important and significant part of the life of the two founders as he’s the character that landed them their big break, when Morph appeared on “Take Heart” (a Kids entertainment show starring Tony Heart) in 1997. This episode of the TV program, showed Morph messing up Tony Heart’s desk and hiding. Overall, it was a short but remember-able appearance. Aardman went ahead in later years to produce classic animated films such as ‘Chicken Run’ and ‘Wallace and Gromit’ Which I feel have made up majority of my generations childhoods.

The Strengths and limitations of Claymation Animation.

Claymations are amazing for allowing the artist to become creative with whatever they wish to create. It allows them to think big and be creative with their characters. This may vary from producing simple 2D characters and shapes to 3D one. Doing this will personify their character and bring to life…such as the Aardman did with Morph. Even though Morph spoke no words, the audience understood everything he was saying as we have grown to connect with the character I feel. That is due to the creativity of his producers.

As well and good is the strengths of the Claymation animations, I personally feel that the limitations are greater.  Making a Claymation animation is very time consuming and frankly hard I found. Each shot taken to produce the end result requires the maker to have an outstanding level of accuracy. It is every important also that each move in consistent and follows the previous key-frame shot. This is crucial to making a smooth animated film at the end. As characters in the animation are made out of clay, it does restrict the movement of them in the animation, to keep it from falling apart. As I briefly mentioned in the first paragraph, the moulding of the character itself is very hard. One has to be sure that the temperature is at the right level. High temperatures can be fatal for the production of a Claymation. This is because the heat will met the clay and essentially ruin ones animation.

Evaluation of Claymation against other animation techniques.

Out of all the other animation techniques, Claymation is mostly similar to Cut Out Animation.  They both require a large amount of key frames and are equally time consuming. The way in which they differ is perhaps, the Cut Out is restricted to staying 2D and by the images cut from the magazine or newspaper and the Claymation isn’t for you can make anything you want from the clay.  Although Zoetrope, Muybridge, Cut out and Claymation all use the same kind of method such as key frames and the different shots in order to be produced, they all differ somewhat. The Zoetrope, because of circular shape and the splits which it has at the side makes it easier to produce, all which has to be done is the image to be drawn and put inside the Zoetrope. It makes the image seem consistent because of the way we perceive things. Muybridge’s methods of proving his theory of the horse’s four hooves being lifted from the ground at one time will be more suited to the Zoetrope.