Final Essay- FACTORY

FACTORY ESSAY

Miwa Matreyek is a well-known Multimedia Artist who has created many brilliant and meaningful animations over the years. In 2004 Miwa Matreyek made an animation by the name of Factory. This animation has been viewed by many people around the world today and is known for its complexity and detail. One of the messages that can be gained from this animation is the realisation of how much machines and factories do today and how much we rely on them to live our everyday life. When the viewer realises this they have the feelings of sadness and regret running through their mind. The audience would not have received these emotions and realised the message of the animation if it weren’t for Matreyek’s detail in the lines, textures in the tones and complexity and persistence with the shape throughout the animation. Factory is an animation, which makes people today realise what is happening in this modern world and brings them back to reality.

Detail of the lines in Miwa Matreyek’s animation, Factory, is the first way the audience realises the true message of the animation.  Throughout the animation the lines play a very large part in drawing the attention of the audience to the focus or dominant object in the scene. For example as shown in scene one of the animation, there are men walking through the door into the factory. The lines that are bringing your attention to this are the two parallel lines on the sides of the opening into the factory as they lead to the walking men and the line on the roof of the building in the bottom right corner of the screen. The line on the roof on the bottom right corner of the screen also brings your attention to the focus of the scene as it leads to the men walking in. Please refer to screen shot 1 for more evidence of this. Through line is the first way Miwa Matreyek conveys the message of this animation to the audience as shown above. But she also does this through the texture in the tones of the animation.

The tones in the animation Factory are another way Miwa Matreyek uses to convey the message of realising how little humans do in society today. Factory is a black and white animation that is contrasted in between with many shades of grey. As shown in screen shot 3 of the animation, which is from scene 3, all the white things in the shot are machinery and are things that do work. This machinery in white can all work by itself and is programmed to do things without the help of manpower. All the black things in this particular shot of the animation are things, which do not do anything and require manpower to work. For example the white machinery that is moving by itself and the black keyboard on an old fashioned computer. The keyboard requires a human to operate it but the white machinery does not. A large difference in tone is another way Miwa Matreyek effectively helps the audience realise how little humans do in society today and another element of art, which corroborates this, is shape.

The complexity and persistence Miwa Matreyek had with shape while making the animation Factory takes a very large part in giving the audience the true message of the short film. The shape in this animation is very geometric and symmetric. By it being very geometric and symmetric it makes the viewer realise how perfect everything is and realise that its all been made by machinery and in factories. An example of this is in screen shot 1, scene 1 of the animation where you can see in the shape of the factory building the men are walking into. You can see how there is not one bit of the shed that is not symmetric or geometric. You can also see this persistence and detail in the shape of the factories in the background. Even though these shapes aren’t rectangular or square they are shapes that are all symmetric and pretty much perfect. Through complexity and persistence in shape of the animation Factory, is another way Miwa Matreyek gives the audience the feelings of regret and sadness and helps them realise how much society today relies on machinery, factories and technology.

Miwa Matreyek’s animation Factory is a short film that gives its audience the realisation of how much today’s society relies on factories, machines and technology. She does this through the detail in the lines, textures in the tones and complexity and persistence with the shape. All of these three elements of art contribute to the viewers getting the feelings of sadness and regret, which also leads to them receiving the main message. Miwa Matreyek’s animation Factory is a very meaningful and brilliant animation that society should be made to watch today.

Appendix

Screen Shot 1:

Screen Shot 2: