Goal of a Designer

The ultimate goal of Instructional Design is to quickly and effectively teach people a new skill, or system of thinking. Elliot Masie, editor of TechLearn Trends, suggests â€Å"all training is about behavioral stimulation that changes human beings on some level.† (Masie, 1998, p. 14) This is a tall order â€Å"to change human beings†, and therefore, any professional instructor that accepts this challenge must ask plenty of fundamental questions first. These essential questions are part of a process known as Needs Assessment. An instructor needs this information to choose tools for the program; the more you know your audience, both customer and learners, the more successful the program will be. There are several need assessment models to follow, but I will use â€Å"The Zemke-Kramlinger Model of the Major Human and Organizational Factors that Affect People Performance in an Organization†. Their model asks hard questions in three different categories: Without this information, the designer is only guessing. Once a designer is confident the needs assessment has provided a solid foundation to start building a program, different tools, or media, should be considered. The variety of tools ranges from simple (print) to high tech (satellite dish communication). The American Society for Training and Development has published a book that outlines an eight-step process for assisting in selection of the proper tools. The steps are as follows: 1. Understand all the training tools available with the benefits and drawbacks of their use. 2. List the media delivery that will work for your audience at their capability level. 3. Evaluate your media list with the goals of training, and level of audience in mind. 5. Synthesize findings and establish â€Å"core media†. 6. Consider auxiliary media that would augment your â€Å"core media†. 7. Identify any implementation issues, organizational requirements, or technical limitations which could prevent successful use of your â€Å"core media†. 8. Prepare your conclusion in a formal report for management. With all the preparation out of the way, just what tools are we talking about? Here is a list of possibilities: With information on the objectives, learners, the company, budget, constraints etc., a program can be designed that is tailored for customer and learner. In an article titled â€Å"Crank Up Your Coolness Quotient† , designers are warned of the dangers in making a program to flashy, or cool, using multimedia and sacrificing the learning. The pull is understandable. Using a multimedia program, an instructor can challenge the student to read, watch, listen, guess, explore, try and fail. This much interaction gives the material more time to assimilate in the students experience. For all the pluses, there are just as many negatives. The drawback that stops many programs from developing in multimedia is the cost. The bells and whistles are very expensive; yet, depending on the situation, the cost may be justified. On the other hand, is the technology over the student capability? What about losing the learning in the technology? Does the client have the equipment that will run advanced programming? The instructor that has performed all the necessary front-end research does not worry about these questions; the answers are in the report handed to management.

Internship Report on Zong Pakistan Essay

Groups individuals according to the occasions when they purchase, use or think of buying a product. 2. Benefits Sought : Groups individuals according to the benefits they seek from the product. 3. Usage Rate : Groups individuals according to the level of usage they make of the product, be it Heavy, Medium or Light usage. 4. User Status : Groups individuals according to whether they are non-users, potential users, first-time users, regular users, or ex-users of a product Loyalty Status : Groups individuals according to their level of loyalty to the product. ‘Hard core loyals’ always purchase the product / brand in question. Whilst ‘Soft core loyals’ will sometimes purchase another brand, and ‘Switchers’ will not specifically seek out a particular brand, but rather purchase the brand available to them at time of need, or that which was on sale. 6. Buyer Readiness Stage : Groups individuals according to their readiness to purchase the product. This segmentation model is particularly useful in formulating and monitoring the marketing communication strategies employed to move consumers towards purchase of a product or brand. Role of Segmentation: Segmentation is the first step towards customer understanding, which allows organisations to build healthy relationships with their customers. â€Å"Money is made by keeping customers, and the whole idea of segmenting customers in order to build customer relationships is to turn it into a mutually satisfying relationship,† says Ovum analyst (David Bradshaw, 2000).

Continuum of Care: Home Health Care

This paper will explain the components of the Home Health Care delivery system of continuum. The reader will be able to understand some of the services provided by the home health care system and how they fit into the continuum of care. It will give details on how the entity does or does not contribute to the overall management of healthcare resources. In conclusion, it will examine the future trends of health care and discuss how the home health services will be impacted or have a need to change to meet future trends.The continuum of home health care pertains to the diversity of health care services rendered for the existence of a person’s life. Home health care organizations offer nursing services or therapy to persons in their homes that do not require hospital confinement but are in need of specialized care. There will be services provided by experienced and qualified nurses, knowledgeable pharmacists, encouraging therapist, concerned social workers, competent nutritionist and compassionate aides to assist wherever needed.Some home health agencies are eligible to offer on-site home infusion pharmacy; an intravenous administration of medication to patients in their own homes (UVA, 2008). Continuum of care also offers nutritional products, prescribed medication and any type of infusion equipment needed at home by the patient. The Federal Law states, home health patients has the freedom to choose the agency that will provide the best home care service that fits their needs. Section 1802 of The Social Security Act â€Å"seeks to ensure that free choice is guaranteed to all Medicare patients†.The law states: ‘Any individual entitled to insurance benefits under this title [i. e. , Medicare] may obtain health services from any institution, agency or any person qualified to participate under this title if such person, agency or institutional undertakes to provide him/her such services(UVA,2008). This statement grants patients the ability and rig ht to choose who they want to provide them services after a hospital stay. All staff members, including nurses go through a thorough hiring process and are monitored and assessed on a regular basis to ensure updated comprehension and proficiency.Each staff member should display a high echelon of outstanding care due to their impressionable experience levels and infinite amount of training. The majority of them will have advanced credentials in specialty areas. The nurses and other staff members emphasize family and patient education to increase the possibility of independence. The Clinical Staff Executive Committee provides clinical supervision and ensures the staff works hard to keep up the excellent reputation and provide patients superb quality of care.This is accomplished by supporting and encouraging staff to engage in continuing education and ongoing in – service programs. Continuum of care staff uses national therapy standards and guidelines to help the patient manage specific diseases. The program should be able to instruct patients and their caregivers how to self manage their diseases. The goal of the Continuum of care is to avoid unnecessary hospitalization. Most agencies are focused on Heart Failure, Diabetes, Incontinence, COPD, rehabilitation, psychiatric nursing, wound care and after surgery care.Continuum of care therapy program is designed to improve self care, problems with mobility, communication, pain and even swallowing management. Eligibility and coverage of continuum home health care services is based upon who is paying for the services; Managed Care, self pay Medicare or Medicaid. On average, the patient has to be homebound where he or she infrequently leaves home for no more than health reasons and when done it requires a lot of effort and assistance from someone. The patient must not require around the clock care and it must be ordered by a physician.Most importantly, care must be medically required The entity contributes to va rious specialty areas in healthcare. Continuum home health care has been in existence for many years but certainly not by that name. Decades ago, physicians made house calls out of necessity and caregivers consisted of family members and friends. More options are given today based on the needs on the individual. There have been changes in health care in regards to reduced hospital stays and elderly populations which are both reasons for home health, hospice and skilled nursing facilities a part of today’s growing health outlook.All of these approaches to health care serve a special yet significant role in the development of contemporary health care. Continuum of home health includes many services for various types of patients. Included but not limited to any age of disabled people, elderly, the chronically ill and persons recuperating from severe illnesses. Continuum of home health care could be in conjunction with home-meal delivery. This service provides the qualifying pati ent with two meals per day. These services will guarantee the patient has a balanced lunch and inner to keep them nourished. Most critically ill patients and elderly patients go on with their day with out eating breakfast or any other meal, basically because they can’t remember when they last ate a meal or don’t have the energy fix something to est. There are outreach laboratories that provide home bound patients with phlebotomy services for blood and other specimen collections. This service is convenient to people that have transportation issues or have family and friends unavailable to provide for their needs.Continuum of home health care can be provided by various kinds of agencies, organizations, private individuals. A great deal of research should be done before choosing a service. The most important thing to remember is to decide on what best fits you and your families needs. Most services have a 24 hour and 7day week availability. They assume responsibility for their personnel and liability for all care. According to the National Association for home Health; Approximately 7. 6 million peoples in the United States need some type of home health.As of January, 2007, there are over 20,000 home health care providers. Roughly two-thirds of home health recipients are over 65 years old and almost two-thirds are women. Approximately 38. 3 billion dollars were estimated to have been spent on home health care in 2003. Medicare is the leading single payer in home health services. The expenditure for Medicare services in 200 was estimated at 31 percent. The Continuum of care home health services has proven to be very rewarding and useful in the past years (NAHC, 2008). No one knows what the future holds but, the needs of people change on a daily basis.More people’s bodies are riddled with illness and diseases and all manner of sickness. Insurances are dictating what can and can not be allowed when utilizing your services. With health care issues on the rise, the need for recovery will grow more rapidly. Hospital stay is drastically reducing which is opening the door for more home health agencies. More diseases and drug therapy could be administered via continuum home health care. There are a limited amount of dialysis patients taught along with family members to administer treatment in the comfort of their homes.Dialysis is a very uncomfortable and unpleasant treatment to experience and any new or improved idea to make the patients more comfortable would be welcomed. Chemotherapy for cancer patients is another treatment to be researched for a better procedure to ensure more comfort. Medicine is changing rapidly everyday and procedures are becoming less complicated and less time consuming. The Continuum of Home Health will have the opportunity to broaden their areas of health care to include a larger range of ill patients.Most of all, with proper training, it could help the economy by making more jobs available in the indus try. It takes a special person to work in the home health care industry. You have to love people, helping people and most of all care about what you do. Every case and how you treat it is a reflection on you. First impressions are lasting and remember the â€Å"Golden Rule† of life. The patients are sick and want to be treated with respect and care. You never know when or if you or a family member will ever need care.

Organisms from the Treasures of BC Coast Coursework

Organisms from the Treasures of BC Coast - Coursework Example The movement of the rockfish points to the fact that it consumes living organisms. This is based on sudden speed bursts followed with moving jaws. Additionally, unlike other types of fish that seem to swim near the surface of the water, rockfish thrives near the bottom and among the rocks. This can be interpreted as a security measure to hide from larger predators (Vancouver Aquarium, n.p). The adapting features of the rockfish according to its build and body structure include the mouth and the gills that help the fish to breathe at very deep ends of a water body. The mouth allows water through while the gills arrest the very least of oxygen available within the water. This points to the enlarged gills and ever open mouth. The British Columbia Corals are branch-like sea organisms that survive by manufacturing their own food with the aid of light. The natural source of light, in this case, is the sun whose rays are converted to potential energy to enable the plant to survive within the water (Vancouver Aquarium, n.p). The adaptation of the corals comprises the numerous branches that enlarge the surface area to absorb as much light as possible. From appearance, it looks like the number of branches determines its stability based on the total consumption of light. If the branches were fewer, most of the light rays would be hitting the surface of the water body rather than the organism. Hence, the abundance of the branches shows that the plant requires as much light as possible to survive the low temperature of sea/waterbody bottom. The red anemone has a confusing look and behavior. The organism appears like multiple cylinders filled with filaments like those of a flower. These filament-like ribbons strike from the cylinders and protrude outside.  

Law of Torts Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Law of Torts - Essay Example I would advise Mr. Andy that his accident occurred in the type of area commonly known for producing similar types of vehicle mishaps, and it will not be necessary for him to prove any type of vicarious liability. It is the duty of the owner to make the property safe. . in the case of McWilliams V. Sir William Arroll 1962, the ‘but for’ test is applicable on the premise that he (Mr. Andy) would not have sustained the injury but for the breach of the (property owner) defendant. Moreover as in Anns V Merton (1977), Lord Wilberforce proposed a two-staged test†¦once neighborhood was established, there is a prima facie duty of care, which can only be rebutted on policy ground. (Boone) I would also caution Mr. Andy that his contributory negligence in not wearing a seat belt as requested by Suzie, may be just cause for his compensation to be reduced. The defendant might introduce the Contributory Negligence Act of 1945, which in part states: Where any person suffers damage as a result partly of his own fault and partly of the fault of any other person or persons, a claim in respect to that damage shall not be defeated by reason of the fault of the person suffering the damage, but the damages recoverable in respect thereof shall be reduced to such extent as the court thinks just and equitable having regard the claimants share in the responsibility for the damage. (Act 1945) ... Andy on the prospect of two additional potential claims. Where vicarious liability is obvious in one and not so clear in the other. While he was in fact a passenger in a vehicle driven by Suzie, she is not personally liable for his injury. To illustrate this I will use the chain of causation as the example and it works thusly: A caused B, B caused C, then A Caused C. In other words, A (kid blindly exiting from vacant lot) caused B (Suzie to make an abrupt emergency stop when she slammed on her car brakes), caused C (Mr. Andy to break his nose). Which in the strict sense of the law represents an additional claim of negligence for Mr. Andy. Under English Law, David's mother is obliged to know where her non-adult children are at all times. She has specific responsibilities concerning their behaviour. The parent is liable for any harm or damage which the child might cause, as a consequence of being unsupervised.However, I would think that Mr. Andy would in all probability in this instance, be willing to exhibit some compassion, and this case would be a moot point, since David is now deceased and his sibling was badly burned in a fire on the vacant lot. Also, since Mr. Andy was the passenger in the vehicle driven by Suzie, where he encountered an accident, he is at liberty to file a claim against her car insurance company. But, I would advise Mr. Andy against filing the latter claim for a number of reasons: (1) Suzie requested that he wear the passenger seat belt on the passenger side of the car. Either due to the comfort level (given the fact that he is overweight), or simply due to his recalcitrance, he rebuked her request. His refusal of her common sense suggestion was a contributor to the

Thinkpiece Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Thinkpiece - Essay Example It does not matter who exactly who would plan the PR for as long as the person who will do the PR plan knows that he or she is doing and that it is responsive to the customer’s needs. The person who could plan the PR plan could be the PR manager or marketing manager. He or she probably has the best qualification for the job because PR after all is either a function of marketing or corporate communication. Or, if such department does not exist (PR department), the company can appoint someone who is going to do job. It is important to note that just because a PR department does not exist, a PR person that will address the customer will also be ignored. It is important to respond and address customer’s concern once they talk back. It is important because customers are the lifeblood of the company, without them, the company will also not exist. Of course one would become curious to ask about the person who would be appointed if a PR department does not exist. It is important to underscore here that customers can talk and when they talk back, it means they have something important to say. The PR function is not just to communicate, but also as a customer function. It comes to us then that the person who would be appointed to plan PR when customers can talk back should have a customer service background in addition to being a great communicator both in written and oral language. If possible, the person should be a customer service manager or supervisor who has years of experience so that the appointed person has both the training and experience to adequately plan the PR plan for the customer. We have to cite caution here that if an unqualified and untrained person will be appointed to plan the PR plan when customers talk back just for the sake of having a PR person, it would become disastrous to the company. It is disastrous to the company because instead of responding adequately to the customer that they will be satisfied,

Forrest Gumps and Michael Herrs Depictions of the Vietnam War Essay

Forrest Gumps and Michael Herrs Depictions of the Vietnam War - Essay Example Forrest Grump and Michael Herr depict the Vietnam War in more or less the same way although the former portrays the events more lightly. Michael Herr who was a writer in his twenties was a correspondent for the Esquire Magazine. The two major operations covered in the book are the siege of KheSahn and recapture of Hue that was the old capital of Vietnam. He happens to meet many soldiers and other correspondents in the process of gathering information about their experiences. Herr favors field work over tasks at Saigon that is relatively safer but the reality of the matter is that all Vietnam is unsafe. The enemy dominates the atmosphere with sounds of explosions and mortar attacks and bombs that go off all over the city (Knopf para. 1). The Vietnam War reaches the peak during the Tet offensive that started in January 30th, 1968 and from which it was named. A short time before Tet, the operation of seizing KheSahn begins on 21st January and ends in April 1968. Herr got to Khe Sahn by mode of a helicopter which is the primary transportation mode in the time of war. Here he encounters two marines with whom he shares a bunker. The two are Mayhew and Day Tripper along with others. The author gives a description of how the North Vietnamese Army besieges the base and digs ditches in preparation for a big operation. Everybody expects them to make a huge assault after they probe the fence regularly at night and marines shoot flares that are mortar-fired. The NVA, however, surprises by leaving the area quickly after the airstrikes take a bigger toll than anticipated (Knopf para. 2). Herr tells stories of the marines some of which are bizarre and others very touching. He portrays a deep sense of admiration for the troops that are fighting a dangerous war in a dangerous country. He also portrays the propaganda happening in the country but this time with less admiration.

PQI Management of Suppliers Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

PQI Management of Suppliers - Article Example Therefore, Tier 1 suppliers should maintain the relationship with PQI. Tier 2 suppliers have the capability to maintain stable supply in the region. It also has strong technical support, and production management ability. Due to this, PQI should continue working with Tier 2 to supply its products in the region. Tier 3 suppliers have low competitive prices, and less ability to produce quality products. PQI should issue warning to Tier 3 suppliers. If the numbers of local customers continue to reduce, PQI should cease working with Tier 3 suppliers and pursue new suppliers. It should share the assessment results because this will enable the suppliers to realize their weakness and improve. This will also enable PQI to keep close relationship with all the suppliers because it wants to take advantage of any technology that might arise. Further, it will be able to minimize on production costs. For instance, maintaining close working relationship with Tier 3 implied that production of die products by a skilled company would play a vital role in assisting PQI to bring new products to the market at a low production cost. 4- The purchasing manager has narrowed its choice of potential supplier for the rush order from the new customer to A, B, and C. If you were Wang, which supplier would you recommend that the purchasing manager place the order with? Explain

Promoting Family Involvement and Providing Program Management Assignment

Promoting Family Involvement and Providing Program Management - Assignment Example They can talk about what works and what does not work. Teachers working collaboratively will make preschool an enjoyable teaching and learning experience for both the children and the teachers. They are more organized and better prepared for parents, visitors, and other people who may enter the school. They are also better prepared for any emergencies that may arise. Teachers work as social workers when they deal with various ethical dilemmas. Some of the ethical problems teachers need to work through are as follows: 1. Teachers must know and be able to keep confidentiality. The provider must keep what the parents tell them in confidence. They must be trusted to listen and to help, and not to tell others. This could be a problem when dealing with possible child abuse. 2. What are your beliefs for the child and the adult. This means do you always agree with how each of you will handle different problems that arise. 3. Showing respect is one way to get reasonable behavior from people, adults and children and this is a way to make them feel they are capable of reason, of thought. 4. Listening and paying attention and showing how they decide what to report if danger could be around the corner. 5. They have to know that there are limits to being helpful. 6. Teachers have to learn about different views, values and beliefs to make a child’s life richer. 7. They also must know how much information to give pertaining to the child and the family to be able to care for them. The three of them that could pertain to children are to make sure that they listen and pay attention to what goes on around them and you. They also need to learn about showing respect for the people around them. The three that pertains to teachers could be the ones dealing with the information and knowing how much to tell when problems arise with the child or the family. Teachers need to know how to gain the confidence of the parents and must have the ability to keep

The National School Lunch Program Essay Example for Free

The National School Lunch Program Essay The National School Lunch Program is a meal and nutritional program funded by the United States government, for the benefit of children in school all over the country. The program provides balanced and nutritious foods prepared and sold for reasonable amount money or given free to children in public and private schools, and other institutions of childcare. The eligibility of children that are included in the program is dependent on the average income of the household and capacity to sustain the dietary and nutritional needs of their children. The program is managed both in the federal and state level of the country, where the federal level is handled by the staff of the Food and Nutrition Service, and on the other hand, the state level is handled by the educational agencies and organizations of the state. The preparation of food and its contents are based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. It must also provide minerals and vitamins guided by the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA). In addition to this, the staff of educational institutions is also trained to prepare for high-quality balanced and nutritional meals for the children. The U. S Department of Agriculture (USDA) supports the program by giving out cash subsidies and donations of supplies and merchandises to participating educational institutions, as long as they follow the guidelines for the balanced and nutritional needs of children. (USDA, 2007a) The USDA usually gives cash subsidies to educational institutions for the program and spends the following amount of money for each meal: $3. 15 for a free lunch and snack, $2. 41 for reduced prices of a lunch and snack, and $0. 9 for a paid lunch and snack. (USDA, 2007a) The amount of reimbursements given to each educational institution varies every year based on the changes and adjustments guided by the increase or decrease rates of the Consumer Price Index provided by the Bureau Labor of Statistics. (USDA, 2007b) Aside from the cash reimbursements, educational institutions also receive goods and food merchandises amounting to 16. 75 cents per meal. In 2006 alone, the total sum of money spent for the program amounted to $8. 2 billion. (USDA, 2007a) The National Lunch Program harbors effects to the well-being of children and the behavior and attitude of the family towards it. A recent study revealed that there is little or no effect generated from the implementation of the program such that children do not actually need to follow the program because they are already receiving balanced and nutritional meals outside the premises of the educational institution. In addition to this, the family members might not be motivated to prepare additional meals for their children because they know the educational institution is providing this for them. The program serves as a replacement for the food they are preparing for the children, and because of this, the family members will not look for other alternatives to suffice for the nutritional needs of their children. (Dunifon Kowaleski-Jones, 2004) According to the program assessment conducted by the U. S. Government, the program was rated as â€Å"moderately effective. † Owing to the fact that the program was able to reduce the calorie and fat content of food prepared in educational institutions for children by five percent. In addition to this, the target population of children to whom the budget of the program, has also increased. This means that more children have been provided balanced and nutritional meals from the program despite the set target number of children. Moreover, the government has also plans of improving the program by implementing a method of monitoring and updating the nutritional content of the foods prepared. Aside from this, the issue about equity in terms of financial matters will also be addressed, as the government is working to provide an accurate and dependable estimate of payments or expenses starting this year. (ExpectMore, 2007)

The Marginalisation of Women in Animation Roles

The Marginalisation of Women in Animation Roles The relationship between modes of production, and individual practice in women’s independent animation. Feminist film critics such as Laura Mulvey have suggested that classical film narration has always had a male perspective and positioned the viewer as male. Her 1975 essay â€Å"Cinema Visual Pleasure and Narrative, is a key work in feminist film theory and a turning point in the understanding of the representation of women in film and animation. She highlighted the lack of female filmmakers, writers and protagonists in Hollywood films. She contends that a female voice is sorely absent from mainstream cinema. Thus the depictions of women and the female identity in film are always a male interpretation. Further more she suggests that the language of film itself is masculine. The essay asserts claims that classical film narration assumes that the audience is male through objectifying female subjects within the frame. She contests that a position of power is almost always given to the male subject through a series of looks. The male characters are in possession of the ‘look,’ while the females are looked at. They are often objectified by focusing on specific parts of the anatomy. The woman is thereby idealised and sexualised into a male fantasy or marginalized into a stereotype or narrative function. This marginalisation of women is evident in Animation from the same period with figures such as Minnie Mouse, who dutifully played house wife to Mickey. The overtly sexual, (and disturbingly child-like,) Betty Boop. Or the extremely curvaceous Red Hot Riding Hood, who was a prototype for Jessica Rabbit. The identification of this imbalance provoked an immediate reaction to address it. â€Å"At this point the main demand was to replace on female role model by another, stronger and more independent. Or to find images of women that were realistic and relevant to women’s real life experience.† (Mulvey, 1978, p204) After WW2 16mm equipment that had been used to make newsreels, became available cheaply, and progress in sound technology in the sixties made synchronised sound recording much easier. The end result was to give people outside the commercial arena the ability to make films. This independent scene emerged at a highly politicised time and gave people the opportunity to make politicised films which addressed issues of the time such as the women’s movement. Not only feminist filmmakers emerged, but feminist readings of unconsciously feminist art. As Sharon Couzin’s definition demonstrates, the defining parameters are very broad. â€Å"Feminist art is which acknowledges that difference of being a women – i.e. what it is to be a woman – and then integrates that consciousness into the art.† (Law, 1997, p 67) Mulvey points to the avant-garde as genre through which feminist filmmakers and animators could express their concerns free from classical Hollywood representation. In her own words; â€Å"the avant-garde poses certain questions which consciously confront traditional practice, often with a political motivation, working on ways to alter modes of representation and expectations in consumption.† (Mulvey, 1978, p200) By breaking away from traditional and accepted systems of narration, the audience is forced to decipher the meaning of the films from the films aesthetics and semiotic signifiers, thus foregrounding the films intended message in the minds of the spectators. Animation has a lot in common with the avant-garde in as much as it is a largely abstract form of representation and expression. That is that unlike live action cinematography, which tends towards mimesis (the desire to accurately reproduce the ‘real’ world,) animation is usually concerned with the suggestion of concepts and the representation of ideas. The processes of animation allow Mulvey’s concerns to be addressed directly. The flexibility of the medium for using different drawing styles, colour schemes, animation techniques lend animation an immense imaginative potential that is only limited by the imaginations of the animators themselves. Animators can use these techniques to challenge dominant modes of narration and aesthetic expression. Secondly animation has been described as an auteurist medium. The vast degree of collaboration necessary to make a photographic film is greatly reduced in an animated medium. Indeed it is possible for animators to create completely individually and in doing so, create art with an entirely subjective perspective and articulate feminist concerns unfettered. A fine example of both these principles in action is Karen Watson’s Daddy’s Little Piece of Dresden China. In the film Watson marries scratch animation, line drawings, collage and puppetry to tell a deeply subjective story about domestic abuse. The different puppets are made from different materials to symbolise their characters. The father is metallic with a razor blade mouth and glass head. He is drunk, cold, dangerous and extremely harmful. The mother is made of a wooden spoon and dried flowers; this shows her domestic role and her bygone fertility. The daughter is bandaged and has a china head. She is damaged, though not yet broken but extremely delicate. The use of puppets removes the spectator from full identification with the characters, leaving them to quietly ruminate on the effects of domestic abuse on real people. Although the film is essentially one extremely powerful account of one woman’s own unspeakable domestic problems, the use of collage places the events in a wider social context and makes the spectator wonder about the greater extent of such problems. Alison de Vere’s film The Black Dog is devoid of any dialogue, and is entirely reliant on aesthetic symbolism and visual narration. The flexibility of the medium allows visual shifts in landscape which invite comparisons with stream-of-consciousness narration. The spectator is invited to come along with the protagonist’s through the wilderness on a journey of spiritual death and rebirth. Her walk through the desolate wilderness is apparently ended when an oasis appears in the form of the complex fata, a small complex comprising of boutique, a club and a restaurant. In the boutique she is dressed and adorned to make her ‘beautiful’ before going to the club. It is her where she becomes the object of desire for a room full of lecherous men. She catches sight of her self in a mirror, and decides to reject her designated engendered role, and false identity of seductress within the microcosm of the complex. At this point she finds that the price she pays for leaving of staying is her brain, her heart and her hands. The implication is that a woman must betray her own intelligence, desires and abilities to conform to the engendered roles that society expects of her. Death becomes a recurring motif of the complex such as the butchering of animals in the kitchens; the use of animal furs in the boutique; and drunken brawls that escalate into murder in the night club. All these images paint a portrait of a brutal and uncaring society and also serve as a visual motif that matches the protagonists fall from innocence and brief loss of individual identity. She flees the complex by diving into a river and being rescued by the eponymous Black Dog. The imagery here suggests a loss of innocence and an attempt of cleansing through water. The malleability of the medium is often explored through metamorphosis of characters of objects from one thing to another. In his book Understanding Animation (1998) Paul Wells argues that the use of metamorphosis is a ‘particular device which is unique to the animated form, and some would argue is the constituent core of animation itself.’ (Wells, 1998, p69) However computer animation techniques have been blended with ‘real’ footage to achieve the same effect in ‘live-action’ cinema, blurring the distinction between the two art forms. Meaning is derived from the fluid change of one form to another in the same way that Eisenstein creates meaning from editing one photographed image with another. ‘Metamorphosis also legitimizes the process of connecting apparently unrelated images, forging original relationships between lines, objects, and disrupting established notions of classical story-telling.’ (Wells, 1998, p69) It is a way of connecting abstract ideas into a narrative form. Joanna Quinn’s films Girls Night Out and Body Beautiful use metamorphosis to directly confront the issue of the sexualized female aesthetic, and reclaim the female form as something to be appreciated in all shapes and sizes. However it does so by using the method within the confines of a traditional narrative structure. The protagonist of both films is a large, working class woman called Beryl, who is completely at odds with the Betty Boop and Red Hot Riding Hood figures. Quinn uses line drawings with immense kinetic energy. The lines are dynamic allowing them to fluidly change shape. The fluid movement of the lines of Beryl’s body extenuates her generous curves, and the wobble of her breasts is particularly prominent as an expression of femininity. In this way her shape and size are celebrated through the animation process. In contrast her husband is completely static, bored, uninterested and uninteresting, a completely unsympathetic character. In Body Beautiful the dynamic lines are used to completely morph Beryl’s shape into symbolic expressions of her subjective experience. These metamorphoses are determined by her own perception of her self. When looking at the models in a fashion magazine she disappears into thin air, as a representation of her marginalization. She does not conform to societies given values of female beauty and as such feels negated. In a scene where Vince is commenting on her appearance she transforms into a pig. She is publicly humiliated and made to feel ashamed of herself, and as such reluctantly accepts the ‘fat pig’ mantle that is forced upon her. The film resolves itself with Beryl learning to appreciate her own figure on her own terms, during a rap song she lists a multitude of body types and transforms into them one by one. She rejects all of them and literally steps out of them as an affirmation of her own femininity. Beryl is representing all the women who do not have the perfect hour-glass figure and as such she is a figure to be identified with as opposed to one who is objectified. She is a celebration of the female body as opposed to a fetishist examination. She is desexualised as a male fantasy of female perfection, but re-sexualised in terms of her gender and defined by her feminine figure. In contrast to Joanna Quinn’s kinetic line, Candy Guard uses a simple, economical and direct aesthetic style in her animated films such as Wishful Thinking and What about me? In both these films two women ask each other questions about their, own appearance, but are never satisfied by the answers they are given and continue to worry and obsess over the matter, to the point of near torture. The figures themselves are comprised of a handful of black lines, they are largely shapeless and aesthetically at least, virtually androgynous. The characters are identified as female through voice and dialogue. In the mouth of Bernard manning jokes about women worrying about clothes or hair may come across as sexist, offensive and dismissive of women. But Guard is showing us how these women are torturing themselves in their attempts to conform to the modes of conduct and appearance that society enforces upon them. The women themselves are complicit in their own torture by their attempts to conform to preset notions of beauty. They never challenge the expectations put upon them and as such they are doomed to forever be enslaved by their own attempts to conform. Guard breaks from narrative tradition by having no resolution to her films. The women of the film will continue to worry about their appearance, just as the female spectators of the film have felt pressure to look their best. It is here where the realism lost aesthetically is regained, as the realism resonates emotionally. The uber-simplistic 2d line drawing style is also thematically fitting, by attempting to conform to societies given notions of female beauty the women are caricaturing themselves. The films discussed in detail here all offer different perspectives on issues of female identity, and engendered roles within society but they all â€Å"explore, through their use of imagery, the existence of the female form as something that is malleable and whose femaleness can be enhanced or reduced. They illustrate that femininity, as it is traditionally represented, something that can be put on and taken off at will.† (Furniss, 1978, p243) This demonstrates that despite differences in subjective experience all the animators discussed were expressing the need to break away from the rigid definitions enforced by classical film narration. We can see clearly that the various modes of practice available to animators have allowed female practitioners a platform on which to address feminist concerns of cinematic representation, as well as commenting upon the lager problems facing women within a modern patriarchal society. Paul Wells has neatly summarized the properties of Animation that have made it an ideal medium with which to redress the balance. â€Å"Animation has the capability of rendering the body in a way which blurs traditional notions of gender, species and indigenous identity further complicating debates concerning the primary political agendas of men and women, and enabling revisionist readings which use the ambivalence and ambiguity of the animated form to support the view that traditional orthodoxies in society itself must be necessarily challenged.† (Wells, 1998, p188) Of course an all encompassing feminist definition of ‘women’s experience’ or femininity is impossible and any attempt to do so is every bit as false as the fantasy representation offered by classical Hollywood. As Maureen Furniss explains in her own theories on representation. â€Å"One can argue that the media is dominated by images representing the priorities of a white male culture, but how does one go about depicting an alternative? How does one define ‘women’s experience’? And, even if it were possible to come up with a definition, could it encompass the realities of women across the world?† (Furniss, 1998 p 243) What these animators have been able to do is break the masculine bias of film narration and spectatorship, and contribute to the woman’s movement by creating a feminine aesthetic based upon individual subjective experience as opposed to tired patriarchal stereotypes. Bibliography Furniss, Maureen. Isuues of Representation(Chapter 12), in: Art in Motion. Animation Aesthetics. London: John Libbey, 1998, pgs.231-249 Law, Sandra. Putting Themselves in the Pictures. Images of Women in the Work of Joanna Quinn, Candy Guard and Alison De Vere, in: Pilling, Jayne(ed.) A Reader in Animation Studies. London: John Libbey, 1997, pgs. 49-70 Mulvey, Laura: â€Å"Cinema Visual Pleasure and Narrative† 1975 in Penley, C. Feminisim and film theory. London: BFI 1988, pgs, 57-68. Mulvey, Laura: Film, Feminism and the Avant-Garde, in OPray Michael. The British AvantGarde Film 1926-1995. Luton: Luton University John Libbey Press, pgs. 199-21 Wells, Paul. Understanding Animation. London: Routledge, 1998. Films Black Dog, The. (Alison de Vere, 1987) Body Beautiful. (Joanna Quinn, 1989) Daddy’s little bit of Dresden China (Karen Watson, 1987) Girls Night Out (Joanna Quinn, 1986) Red hot riding hood (Tex Avery, 1943) What about me? (Candy Guard) Whishful Thinking (Candy Guard) Who framed Roger Rabit? (Robert Zemeckis, 1989)