Introduction:
In this week’s blog post, I’ll be discussing why I decided to change my research topic, highlighting the issues I had with my original topic, and what influenced me to choose my current subject. Secondly, I’ll be explaining my thought process when it came down to structuring my literature review, speaking about the specific areas I’m looking to conduct research into, as well as the personal work-frame I gave myself. Lastly, I’ll be listing down the personal objectives I gave myself to complete by the end of next week.
This Week’s Task:
Research Topic Changes:
Throughout my summer break, I had thought about my original research topic quite a bit, thinking about the specific sections I could potentially write about. My original research topic was:
Is there a place for animated Horror within the movie industry in the Western Hemisphere?
I really liked this research topic, and it is a question that I would like to know the answer to; however, I didn’t think would enjoy the research aspect much into this topic, as well as, it had little relationship to the type of work I would like to get into after finishing university, in comparison to my current research topic. Whilst thinking of the specific areas I would need to research into for my literature review, I saw myself comparing westernised horror animations to Japanese horror anime, understanding why one is more successful than the other. Simultaneously, I wasn’t sure if this was the right approach to take for my thesis, causing me to experience self-doubt. Therefore, I took a step back and went back to the drawing board to see what else I can do for my research topic.
At this point, I knew I wanted to relate my research topic to the horror atmosphere, understanding what key elements actually create a horrifying atmosphere. Furthermore, I wanted to know if an animation was capable of producing a horrifying atmosphere because I’ve never really seen an animation portray the same level of horror in comparison to live-action horror films. However; saying this, I knew a part of this was due to the lack of horror animations made in comparison to the other big genres. Therefore, I now knew one part of my next research topic was:
Is Animation capable of producing true horror content?
Once I reached this stage, I emailed one of my lecturers to see if they could suggest any good ideas to help me finalise my final research topic question. Fortunately for me, he got back to me fairly fast and suggested a few good ideas, followed by an analysis video on what makes a horror video game scary. Whilst watching this video, I was able to take specific elements from the video, and apply them to my thesis research.
My lecturer also mentioned in the email that I could base my research topic on the environment itself, highlighting how I could animate the environment to create that horrifying atmosphere. This suggestion struck me as it seemed like a subject that I would enjoy researching. Moreover, it would benefit my final artefact as it would further extend my knowledge on how to create an animated horror, making it portray more frightening. Due to this, I was able to finalise my aim which is:
To identify and analyse the key elements used to convey horror in an environment in animated horror, using the case studies of …
At this point, I haven’t fully decided on the case studies I wanted to use; however, I know I want to include a minimum of two for sure. Secondly, I decided to re-visit the research topic title later on in this project, as I wanted to make a start on my literature review and explore the specific topics to research into.
How I Broke Down My Literature Review:
Before breaking down my literature review, I had to solidify my personal objectives before getting started. This was fairly easy for me as I knew I wanted to cover one objective throughout my literature review, one objective throughout my case studies, and cover the last objective through my final artefact and evaluation. My finalised objectives are as followed:
- To outline the key elements used to construct a horror environment, examining why these are effective. – Literature Review
- To dissect the aforementioned elements in horror animations that successfully convey horror in their environments. – Case Studies
- To create and evaluate a short, animated horror story that utilises the methods identified from the research. – Final Artefact & Evaluation
When deciding on the subjects I wanted to research for my literature review, I tried to imagine myself within a horrifying environment that I’d seen in a movie or show before. For instance, an abandoned school or a haunted house. I was able to outline three key elements which were:
- Emptiness
- Lighting
- Sound
I did further secondary research into what makes an environment scary, and nearly all web articles and videos mentioned lighting and sound. I couldn’t find many sources that highlighted “Emptiness”; however, a lot of those sources spoke about Liminal Space – which is related to the emptiness of environments. Therefore, I did further research specifically into Liminal Space, mainly watching videos on this subject, and decided to choose it as an area of research for my literature review.
At this point, I had three main topics to cover throughout my literature review. There were a couple of other topics I considered including, but I wanted to make sure that i was specific, meaning I wanted to conduct deep research into the chosen topics. In other words, the more topics I chose, the less deep I can get. This was due to the framework I gave myself, which was 2000 words dedicated to my literature review.
I had now finalised my literature review structure at this stage, meaning I was able to start my in-depth research and set up my bibliography and reference list. My literature review structure is as followed:
- Introduction (250 words)
- Liminal Space (500-600 words)
- Lighting (500-600 words)
- Sound (500-600 words)
The word count may vary depending on the amount of information I gather from the research. However, this is the word count I’ll attempt to work towards.
Next Week’s Objectives:
- Research and write about Liminal Space.
- Come up with the narrative for my final artefact.
- Create the storyboard Animatic.