Category: 1.2 Design for Animation, Narrative Structures & Film Language

Week 2 focused on the elements of art and formal visual analysis, including line, colour, space, form, texture and value. Through the lecture Animation, Art and Cinema, animation was positioned within avant-garde and experimental traditions, where form itself becomes a carrier of meaning. This shifted my attention from narrative content to visual language.

I began to understand that emotional responses are often triggered before a story unfolds, through visual atmosphere and compositional choices. Soft colour palettes, spatial openness, and rhythmic movement can all subtly regulate emotions. This perspective became highly relevant to my developing research interest in emotional healing within games.

During this week, I started observing cooperative games from a visual design perspective. I noticed that many emotionally driven games employ warm colours, stylised environments and gentle animation rhythms to reduce player tension. This helped me realise that emotional healing is not only embedded in narrative or mechanics, but also deeply connected to visual and animation design.

This week contributed to my research by providing a formal analytical framework that I later applied to visual atmosphere and animation language in my essay.

In the first week of this unit, the course introduced the overall framework of Design for Animation, Narrative Structures and Film Language. The lectures emphasized that animation, games and moving image should not be understood purely as entertainment products, but as cultural forms capable of conveying meaning, emotion and ideology. This perspective immediately shaped my approach to the unit, as it encouraged me to think critically about how design decisions influence audience or player experience.

At this early stage, my research interest was still broad. I was particularly drawn to the idea that interactive media, especially games, can influence emotional states and interpersonal relationships. I began to consider how collaboration, narrative and visual design might contribute to emotional engagement rather than focusing solely on technical or aesthetic aspects.

This week marked the beginning of my research journey. I started exploring the idea that emotional experience in games is not accidental, but designed. This initial reflection laid the foundation for my later focus on cooperative games and emotional healing, which gradually became the central theme of my research.