How to write a Practice-led Research Question / Focus Groups

I've been working on writing my Focus Group Plan, which led me to really think about what I want to find out through my research?
I've been struggling slightly with how to word my Research Question, change and focus it in from my research question last semester.
On this website called www.unconsciousanimation.com I read an article which helps to breakdown how a practice-led research question can be worded.
These are the notes I took down from it, followed by an example of how my research question could be worded:

I think there's still a little bit of development to go until the question is finalized but this has been very helpful!

Reflection On The Week (17): Starting Monday 20th January

Week Summary

Reflection on Practice - For this module this week, mainly I've just been thinking about how I might structure my final presentation due to the relevant workshops and seminars we have had this week and last.

Advanced Production - The team meeting this week was very productive, we all gathered round a big piece of paper with post-its in hand and brainstormed and drew out the rough storyboard. This was a very quick and useful way of working out the story and flow of the film. It also allowed us to clearly see the 'chapters' of the story and divide them off equally to one another to draw more neatly for the final storyboard, due next week.

Going Live - Made a lot of progress with this project this week, I produced a good amount of research and references for each of the assets and look of the film, through using Pinterest and then compiled images into themed Moodboards. Also made a paper sculpture, which should help the team with reference of how to maybe produce the 3D model for one of the assets and also how the texture might look.

Monday 20th Jan
Programme Meeting:
Discussed what we all need to have done for the first Going Live Milestone deadline - Moodboards, animation references, an animatic and storyboard.
A storyboard should be finished by the end of the week, and a 2D animatic by the end of the week after.

Afterwards we had a class meeting for Going Live.
Discussed the story idea again and then broke it up into detailed shots to help with the storyboarding.
I'm going to be putting together some moodboards and animation references for the different elements of the story idea. Pinterest may prove very useful for organizing this!

Tuesday 21st Jan
Finished a variety of moodboards today for Going Live, which detail research and inspiration for different aspects and assets for the project.

Wednesday 22nd Jan
Today's workshop seminar for the Reflection on Practice module included discussing the 5 presentations we listened to last week.
We also discussed how to phrase our research questions for practice-based research. We are essentially examining and questioning our own work as it's about advancing our own practice.

Spent the evening constructing a paper sculpture for the Going Live project which should help for inspiration for the 3D modeling and texturing.

Thursday 23rd Jan
Going Live Meeting:
All the moodboards I put together were pinned up to the wall and presented the paper sculpture I had made.
Discussed the setting up of a specific group blog for this project.
Make the 2D storyboard presentable and annotate with descriptions and dialog.
Try and meet the milestone requirements but go one step beyond.
Anything that's a technical challenge, notify and there will be a tailored workshop to suit.

Team Meeting:
Discussed Aesop's Fables, reviving an old method of storytelling.
Watched a Ted Talk by Andrew Stanton, which covered some useful information about story telling and audiences. What he was talking about also related to some of my research module, so it has been useful for that also!
Discussed what the target audience would be for our film - families, pet owners. Would definitely like our film to be something that everyone can watch.
Had a look over the very rough post-it storyboards. Moved post-its around and drew new ones, trying to condense the whole story as ideally we don't want a film that's over 2 minutes long:

Divided up the rough storyboard so each of us have equal amounts to redraw. I will be storyboarding the 1st biscuit stealing sequence.
Also decided that I would edit together these post-its into a rough animatic to see how long the film roughly is at the moment.

Friday 24th Jan
Rigging workshop with Sang: Click here for relevant blog post link

Rigging Workshop

Rigging workshop with Sang:

Who is in charge of character rigging?

FK = Forward Kinematics. (if you want to move the arm, start at root shoulder, then move to elbow, then to wrist...)
IK= Inverse Kinematics. (if you want to move the leg, can move the foot which will move/make everything else follow. Good if the character is holding something, if move body, hand will stay where it was)

Squash and Stretch = needs deformers on the joints.

Make a rig as simple as possible! Only do what you need!

Build things real scale to allow lighting to act better with mia X material etc...

Open Maya file.
Set Project.
PAL (25fps)
Incremental save - up to limit 20.

ctrl + shift + rmb on joint to swap axis to world.

MEL: select -hi; (to select all individual joints, by selecting roots first)

Display - Transform Display - Local Rotation Axis

Select root thumb, F8 component, switch on question mark, press a letter Axis, use rotate tool to change thumb rotation axis.

Hold 'v' to snap nurbs circle to joint.
Delete history on Nurbs circle, then freeze transformation.
When constraining nurbs circle to joint, make sure 'Maintain Offset' is ticked on 'Orient'.

Binding the Mesh:
- Make sure the geometry has clean history before binding model to joints!
- Use low poly model for painting skin weights.

Reflection On The Week (16): Starting Monday 13th January

Week Summary

Reflection on Practice - The presentations by academic staff this week was useful to start giving me ideas at how I might present my own paper later this semester. Need to take the research work I did last Semester and develop it and go into greater depth for this Semester. Also maybe what might help is to focus my research topic down even further as to allow for more detailed research.

Advanced Production - Lots of team discussions this week to go over the idea that I developed near the end of last Semester for the film. As it was quite later on in last Semester we have some pre-production work to catch up on. The story needs a lot of development, also the look and style of the film will need decided. The Supervisor meeting mid-week helped to set out some goals for us to achieve for the next Supervisor Meeting in 3 weeks.

Going Live - With the launch of Going Live this week, mostly brainstorming of ideas and discussion of team roles have taken place. All details of my work for the Going Live project will be posted to a separate and private blog for the time-being because this is a industry-set project, which will be treated like a real world industry project. Once the project has been completed and permission given, and of my work from this project will be available to view by the public.

Monday 13th Jan
Programme Meeting:
Discussed the Belbin workshop that will happen in a few weeks. It's a test that evaluates your personality with group dynamics. Should be interesting even though we will already have sorted out our groups and roles by then.
The Going Live project this year will be more Animation focused than VFX. Need to think about what type of roles I would like to do for that project by next week. Think I know already though - definitely animation!
Need to organize a team meeting with Supervisor.

Since I was absent from Uni last week, I had my feedback meeting with Phil today to go over my results and work from last semester. One piece of feedback was that our group needs to assign roles.

Had a quick team meeting with Kirti and Sheng who were in the studio. We spoke about what roles each of us wanted to do for our film. Also discussed the need to create animatics this semester. I'll also be taking some reference photos of my own garden and dog to help with designs, inspiration and references. Organised to have a full team meeting tomorrow.

Tuesday 14th Jan
Team Meeting with the whole team to discuss everything: Click here for relevant blog post link

Wednesday 15th Jan
For the Reflection on Practice Module today we listened to 5 academics and DJCAD staff give past conference paper presentations: Click here for relevant blog post link

Thursday 16th Jan
Today the Going Live Brief was given out and explained. Phil explained the brief to us and showed some reference clips.
We have to think about what roles we each want withing the team, which will be locked down on Monday. The rough production roles should be sent to Phil before then.
Start gathering reference.
Try an 'elevator pitch' of our idea - a short and concise paragraph of our story idea.

After the brief was given out we had a big class brain storming session to come up with and discuss initial ideas. We seemed to come up with quite a lot of ideas so some more research and references into the subject of the brief will be needed.

Had a Supervisor Meeting with Sharon: Click here for relevant blog post link

Friday 17th Jan
Had another class meeting about the Going Live project.
Production roles were discussed. My roles include Animator, Rigging, and Production Manager.
Discussed story ideas again and it has been focused down to one idea and how it could be developed.

Supervisor Meeting - Thursday 16th January 2014

Since the last meeting with our Supervisor our story idea had changed and developed, so first thing was to explain our new rough plot idea (the dog who keeps having his biscuits taken by a bird each time he gets given one by his owner.)
The style of the film needs to be decided. Inspirations already include Simon's Cat and Birdbox's Carpark. If the finished film was to be black and white range of colours, it might look to similar to these, so would preferably like to use colour in our film.
Do we even need a background? Sharon showed us an example - Pocoyo:

Who is our target audience? Aiming at pre-school? Or a general audience that can relate to the situation in the film? Pet-owners? People with an interest in local wildlife/environment?
Need to start storyboarding, the story may have an effect and influence the character designs.
Could look at an organisation to get involved with? - If the film is trying to promote a message. Could have a logo/message written at the end? Example that came to mind was Fed Up - Simon's Sister's Dog with the RSPCA:

We want to make sure the human character has a significant-enough role in the film. (Could be having a BBQ in the garden, bird is a scavenger and gets to scrap bits of food before the dog. Maybe the bird is gathering food for it's young in a nest. Or the owner could be taking the rubbish out, scraps of food from that?)
Production roles within the team were also discussed.
We should all start storyboarding and researching, this will generate more ideas and be more time efficient. Plus the story has an effect and influence on everything else, including character designs, modelling, etc.

For the next Supervisor Meeting in 3 weeks time:

• Have a storyboard (potentially a timed animatic).
• Moodboards of reference and inspiration for the style of film.
• Rough Character designs.
• Production Schedule.
• And anything else we have to show.

Past Conference Paper Presentations

For the Reflection on Practice Module today we listened to 5 DJCAD Academic members of staff from DJCAD present their last academic presentation. As we will have our own 15-20 minute presentation to do later on in the semester, it was useful to see how much information could be conveyed in that amount of time and observe different styles of presentation.

Here are some notes I wrote down whilst listening to each of the presentations, thinking about their presentation style, use of visuals and the structure of their presentations:

Professor Calum Colvin DA MA(RCA) RSA OBE Programme Director Art and Media
First started talking about his own past experience giving conference presentations, he found that those who just read straight from their paper created a bored audience, whereas use of imagery in a presentation doesn't.
He handed 3D glasses out and said to use them whenever a certain symbol appeared on the PowerPoint slide. This was to allow us to view his artwork in a different way and gather more information about how they were created - painting portraits straight onto a 3D environment. I thought this was a great way of keeping the audience engaged with the talk.
He also used a red point light to direct our eyes to specific parts of the pictures as he was talking about them.
First he explained the origin of the title of his exhibition and explained the historical context of his work, the foundations of visual science and how we see the world.
Throughout the presentation he showed examples of his work along with his research into different visual phenomenons that he investigated.
One piece of advice he gave was to project your voice and speak up when giving a presentation.
--- The overall structure of the presentation was first explaining the context of his work, then showing examples of his art work interspersed with his background research.

Hazel White MA (RCA) Course Director Master of Design for Services
Explained background and the research paper that was submitted and explained the context of it.
Talked about relevant previous projects.
Explained the process of researching and testing out their project and prototype.
Showed drawings instead of photos because of ethics.
'Prototype like your right, listen like your wrong' - Jeremy Moon.
Explained how development process continued for methods and research outcomes after realizing there was already a similar product in the market.
Used headers on the presentation slides which helped to structure the presentation.
www.kistproject.com - where to find the paper online.
Also explained what other members of the team are working on now. Taking what they learned from that project and applying it elsewhere.
Advice for presentations: It's easy to talk about a subject area you are very familiar with, if you are not, rehearse the talk lots! Write down notes, record self and listen back. Write notes on postcard size so the paper is steady, and put the notes on a key-ring so they don't get muddled up and stay in order.
--- The overall structure of the presentation was talking about background, context, relevant previous projects, researching and testing prototypes, identifying problems, continuing methods and research outcomes, what did they learn from that to apply to other work.

Prof. Elaine Shemilt MA (RCA) FRSA Chair of Fine Art Printmaking
Talked about art and science collaborations.
Explained the history and background. (Narrative style)
Explained what she does (printmaker and photographer), her background, where she grew up and how that has influenced her work, explained her role within the project and where her interest is focused.
Talked about the practical things the project has helped, eg. helping to save the endangered Albatross.
Showed photos of what was happening to the birds, they took action, made awareness of the situation.
She explained a few examples, and the effects they were having, identified problems that arose and how the problem was tackled.
Talked about collaboration with scientists for different projects.
Explained practical problems involved with creating the piece of artwork and how to overcome it.
--- The overall structure of the presentation: Started in a narrative style to explain history and background. Then explained identifying a problem and how to overcome it with different examples of projects within the same area.

John Anderson Senior Research Assistant, 3D Visualisation Research Lab
Had a PowerPoint slide for context - to give an idea of subject area he was talking about.
Explained some terms/definitions of jargon words that would be used throughout the presentation.
Slide for Partners in the project.
Slide for what their contribution was.
Explained the problem which the project was based around and what they wanted to do/achieve, and how to approach the problem.
Every image in the presentation was referenced, so we knew the source of the image.
Showed a video demonstrating what the software they were developing could do.
Explained the problems that were identified from the test, and finding a solution.
Re-done the test, new prototype to test new solution. Another video showing the results.
Credits slide
Email at end.
--- Overall structure based around a collaborative team project, explaining the development process, identifying a problem, finding solutions and testing the software.

Sarah Cook Reader and Dundee Fellow
Had keywords on the title slide to give an idea and put audience in mindset of what will be talked about.
Explained what the brief was.
On the slide was the question being addressed, plus a summarized answer written.
Used quotes throughout on the screen to help explain.
Used a flow chart to help explain.
Explained how they overcame problems of an exhibition of digital projections in an old building. How many problems could be overcome in advance.
As she is a curator, she has all the shows and exhibitions she has worked with on separate slideshows to save time and also for a more fluid and adjustable presentation. Allows her to quickly bring up an appropriate image from a specific exhibition quickly.
The one thing she would change about her presentations is to add captions to all of her photos.
--- Overall structure, explaining brief, explaining answers with use of quotes and charts. Identifying problems in advance and how they overcame them.

Team Meeting - Tuesday 14th Jan 2014

Here are the notes I wrote down during our team meeting:

Production roles

Lilly = Director, Storyboard, Animatic, Script Writer, Character Animation, (Rigging)

Kirti = Production Manager, (Directing 2^nd version of film – Animatic), 3D Generalist – Modelling, Rendering, Compositing, Editing (incl. Sound & Soundtrack)

Sheng = Character Design, 2D artist – Backgrounds, Texturing, Lighting

George = Character Rigging, 3D Generalist, Post Production

Currently working on: Sheng – Character Designs, Kirti – Kitchen 3D model (for 3D Animatic), Lilly – Storyboarding, George – Rigging, ALL – discussing story beats.

The film needs a title? Only name I was using before was ‘Tug of Biscuit’.

List of to-do’s

Script

Storyboards

Animatics

Characters (Bird, Dog, Human) – Designed, Modelled, Textured, Rigged, Animated.

Backgrounds (Kitchen, Garden – Autumn/Winter) – Drawn, Coloured, Camera moves?

Lighting

Dynamics (Leaves)

Sound (temp. for animatics, final for final)

Soundtrack

Post Production – Semester 3 (Rendering, Compositing, Editing, Credits/Title Sequence)

Production Schedule

Animatic for the film to be final by middle of Semester Two – 14^th February?

Animatic for 2^nd version of the film to be finished by the end of Semester Two.

Aim to have a finished still and a few seconds of movie by the end of semester 2, to be used as reference for the rest of the film. It also locks down final look and rendering and compositing pipeline.

Look of the film: Concept artwork needs to be created, reference and inspirational photos and footage gathered. Thinking of retro style designs for the characters?...

Story Discussion

Young/new dog whose objective is to put biscuit into his kennel outside/save biscuit for later/eat biscuit.

Bird’s objective is hungry, wants food, therefore wants the dog’s biscuit because it’s Autumn/Winter and there is lack of food for birds.

Why would the dog not eat the biscuit straight away? – Dog behaviour, saving it for later?

Owner could throw the biscuit out into the garden, but the bird gets to it before the dog.

Dog gets distracted by a ball being kicked over the fence by the neighbours, by the time dog gets back to the biscuit, the bird got it instead.

Dog is busy digging a hole for biscuit so the bird snatches up the biscuit.

Dog tries to run after bird and runs into pile of leaves that owner has swept up.

Each time dog’s biscuit is taken, goes back to owner to ask (dog beg) for another. Owner is busy doing chores in the kitchen so throws out another biscuit to keep dog occupied. (Happens all in one day)

Or does each scenario happen across different days?

Last scenario, bird and dog have a ‘ninja fight’ over the biscuit (scenes changes, more stylistic/imaginative) Cut back to reality and what’s actually happening, dog and bird in tug of war with biscuit. Owner spots this happening from kitchen window and goes racing outside to stop the fight.

Owner now realizes what’s been happening, bird looks sad and hungry.

Owner puts a new bird feeder in the garden, as dog happily munches on biscuit.

Lip sync? Maybe a couple of words here and there by the owner if the story needs it.

1 – 2 mins long – simple short film.

Story Rough Script

Owner gives dog a biscuit, dog takes it out into the garden and is just about to eat it when suddenly the neighbour’s kids kick a ball over the fence. Dog focuses on ball and runs after it. Dog goes back to where the biscuit was with the ball in its mouth, but the biscuit is gone! Looks around and spots a bird on the fence eating it.

Dog goes back to owner to ask for another biscuit. Busy with chores in the kitchen, owner gives dog another biscuit to take into the garden. Dog decides to keep this one safe and dig a hole for it. However whilst digging, bird swoops in and snatches up the biscuit. Dog notices, goes running and barking after the bird and runs straight into a pile of leaves.

Dog begs owner for another biscuit, annoying owner who is busy in kitchen, she throws another biscuit out into the garden. Dog and bird spot the biscuit at the same time and both go racing for it. Ninja fight!

Owner washing dishes at kitchen window looks up and spots dog and bird in tug of war with the biscuit! Owner runs outside towards them and scares off bird, breaking up the fight. Bird looks sad and stomach rumbles back on the fence. Owner realises what’s been happening. Owner puts a new bird feeder in the garden; bird happily nibbles away and dog finally eats his biscuit.

Reflection On The Week (15): Starting Monday 6th January

Week Summary
So I didn't really have the Christmas holiday I had looked forward to... and I wasn't expecting to miss the first week back at uni for Semester Two either! A very bad case of fever and tonsillitis for 3 weeks is something I would very much like to never experience again! :(

Having not been able to even put pen to paper, my main film project for the Advanced Production module took a bit of a hit. Pre-production really needs sprint forwards from here to catch-up, since the film idea was developed later part of last Semester.

I kept in the loop with my peers about anything I was missing. One lecture I missed was the first Reflection On Practice Lecture. I had a read over the PowerPoint presentation online; which looked over how to reflect on our own work, to help improve what we do and be able to discuss our work critically.

'Use the past to inform the future' (Schön, 1983)

• Recall, 
• Relive, 
• Re-interpret, 
• Respond.

(Reflecting On Experience - the 4Rs, after Mackenzie, n.d)

Rolfe's 3 questions to ask yourself:

Anaylse the description of the situation and then determine what you have learnt from it.
By doing this, areas of improvement could be highlighted.

Through this blog I will reflect on my practice, with weekly blog posts that summarize my week's work on each module. This will help me to highlight areas where improvement is needed and help to keep track of my personal schedule of work.