Blog Post 7 – Restructuring

After having spent some time off after a busy fifth semester it’s now time for me to take the whole master’s thesis thing seriously. 2024, albeit mostly filled with meeting deadlines for our short movie and the exhibition, already presented me with two very interesting meetings, one with Roman Pürcher, followed closely with a meeting with Ursula Lagger.

Both meetings gave me valuable input on my thesis and I’ve more or less summarised them in my last blog post so I won’t go into detail here. Coming back after my time off and looking at the state of my thesis, I noticed that my exposé, even the revised one from early January, was very outdated and confused about the focus of the thesis, especially its preliminary structure.

This is what I want to update today – I want to restructure everything based on my last two meetings, my last blog post and what I really want to create and say with the thesis. Following that, I want to do a quick literature research to see what I can find about which topic and maybe adjust the structure accordingly.

Revised structure as of 17.02.24

1. Introduction
   1. 1.1. Applications of AI in graphic and motion design
   2. 1.2. Introduction to Generative Models

2. Methodology
   1. 2.1.Creative Methodology & Storytelling
      1. 2.1.1. Examples with a focus on Anime and Manga
         1. 2.1.1.1. Traditional
         2. 2.1.1.2. AI-Assisted
      2. 2.1.2. My approach
   2. 2.2.Technical Methodology
      1. 2.2.1. Examples
         1. 2.2.1.1. Traditional
         2. 2.2.1.2. AI-Assisted
      2. 2.2.2. My approach

3. Practical Implementation: Short Anime Movie
   1. 3.1. Preproduction
      1. 3.1.1. Concept
      2. 3.1.2. Script
      3. 3.1.3. Storyboard
   2. 3.2. Production
      1. 3.2.1. Text-To-Image
      2. 3.2.2. AI-Animation
   3. 3.3. Post Production
      1. 3.3.1. Editing
      2. 3.3.2. Sound Design

4. Results and Discussion
   1. 4.1. Analysis of the Short Anime Movie
   2. 4.2. Comparisons to aforementioned Examples
      1. 4.2.1. Technically
      2. 4.2.2. Creatively
   3. 4.3. Potential Impacts of AI on the Creative Industry (?)

5. Conclusion

6. Bibliography

7. Appendix, Images and Interviews

Thoughts

I feel like this structure is much more streamlined and feels more focused. However, I could not find a way to comfortably and purposefully work in my proposed theoretical part on paradigm shifts in the past vs. now, since I believe that is what we are experiencing with AI at the moment. I feel like I could write an entire paper about just that but that would probably mean omitting a practical part and would essentially be a cultural / historical paper which is not what my master is about.

So what do I include? Speculation about AI in the creative industries? Maybe; nobody can prove me wrong there and I’m sure I will be able to use my experiences and findings to make some claims. However, Ursula Lagger has also stated that a speculative section necessitates a proper historical and cultural part to back my claims up, which is missing the point again.

It looks like the theoretical approach will focus more on the comparisons I will draw between traditional anime production as well as other contemporary AI-assisted approaches and my own work. Again, this feels like a much more streamlined direction for the paper and more appropriate for my master’s thesis. I hope I can find enough literature for this part, too. Unlike my bachelor’s thesis, I want to focus more on the creative process rather than the technical part, but that will have to be included in some capacity too, I guess I’ll see. 

I also spoke to Ursula Lagger about potential expert interviews and she suggested conducting one with a futurologist to get more insight on the current developments of AI with someone who has a good understanding of the past, but now that seems inappropriate. I think it would be much more valuable to interview a contemporary artist that uses AI in a similar way to me, ideally someone who also has traditional experience. I’ll see who I can find, I may want to go big on this one and try to shoot many big artists messages about email interviews, which are of course not as good as actual talks but are less work for the artists, which may increase my odds of one of them actually panning out.

All in all, while this structure is objectively better, I’m not sure if its theoretical and scientific contents are enough for a master’s thesis. But that’s something I can and will talk about with my supervisor.