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Visual Arts EE - off topic or not?


Nits

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I'm very interested with Studio Ghibli's works (e.g. Totoro, Nausicaa, Spirited Away, etc.) and I wanted to compare his films with similar animated movies at the time from the Western world (i.e. Disney/Pixar and Dreamworks). I talked to my EE supervisor/art teacher about this and she said it would be fine to write my art EE based on this topic as long as it focused primarily on the artistic aspects of the films such as animation techniques. I've been researching intermittently throughout the summer and I've found very little in terms of what I was looking for, but there's a lot of information on such things as character development, themes, plot analysis and so on.

My question then is, if I changed my topic to something like "In what ways do Studio Ghibli and Disney's films have in common in terms of storyline and themes, and in what ways have the two companies influenced each other?", would it still be acceptable underthe visual arts? My concerns is that for one, I'm comparing animated films which could technically be under Film and not Visual Arts, and secondly, analysis of plot and themes seem more appropriate for Languages.

This is an esoteric question so I don't mind if no one answers, but I'd appreciate it very much if someone tries! =)

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I'm not answering with regard to whether it's relevant to Visual Arts or not, but I can say that the question is rather vague. You'd have to narrow it down to a comparison between a couple of movies at most of each party.

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No, the comparison of storylines and so on is not appropriate for Visual Arts. Visual Arts EE's should focus on things like influence of ____ on _____ , how an artist uses ____ (insert technique/item here, like gold/colour/etching) in his work or the artistic significance of certain items in certain cultures. You can cmpare two artist's works, but there has to be a point of comparison (e.g. similarities in architectural style). A poor research question would simply state "Similarities between ____ and ____". A more developed one would be "Architectural and structural simlarities between ____ and _____".

You may, however, be able to change your question to make it better. If you cut out the storyline part and change it to something like "In what ways have Studio Ghibli and Disney films influenced each other?", that might work. If you could add in an artistic element, such as "In what ways have Studio Ghibli and Disney films influenced each other, specifically with the use of ____ (insert cinematic technique here). There are examples of EE quetsions in the EE guide such as "African influences on Henry Moore" and "To what extent has transcultural experience influenced _____'s work?", so I think you need to add in a cinematic technique in there to make it less vague and more focused. When comparing them, don't talkl about storyline unless it has to do with visual arts (e.g. how the sequence of the storyline is manipulated with frame changes or something similar).

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