Friday, May 9, 2014

That's a Wrap

So I am going to make this post short and sweet, but I want to say how much I have learned in this class. The information and skills that I have gained, I know I will be able to use in the future. Whether it be for a job or just because I am bored and want to have some fun. I know that I will be able to use after effects to help.

The projects that we made for this class were all a lot of fun and helped to expand out knowledge on each section of after effects. Making these reels from scratch though was the most fun because we can say that we created these things from nothing. And that is what I am the most proud of.

Thank you, Arturo, for making this class enjoyable and knowledgeable because I never would have been able to learn it otherwise.

Saturday, May 3, 2014

There's My Chippy

Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job! is perfectly representative of everything that I see funny in a television program. In my opinion I'm sure at least 9/10 of the general public will pass off the show as garbage but to me, it appeals to my sense of humor. It does not, for the most part, use expensive and complicated special effects; it uses simplistic and juvenile techniques and confusing writing/dialogue to create a unique and non-sensical product. Its heavy use of green screen and basic me-level of After Effects is laughable. It does, however, probably take a lot of skill to produce because while the humor is nonsense and confusing, it is still captivating and there is still a very faint plot to each episode. The simplicity is still gone about artistically. The eleven minutes flies by because you're both captivated and confused the entire time.



Friday, May 2, 2014

All My Favorites!

Because all of my post have been amazing I really just wanted to go out with a bang. So I figured I would share my top five favorite animation stuff. These can range from movies to clips. Lets get ready to rumble!!

5
Paperman (styled as paperman) is a 2012 black-and-white 3D hand-drawn/computer animatedromantic comedy short film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and directed by John Kahrs. The short blends traditional animation and computer animation. 

4
Wreck-It Ralph is a 2012 American computer-animated family-comedy film[4] produced byWalt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures.[5] It is the 52nd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series.

3
Up is a 2009 American 3D computer-animated comedy-adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. By tying thousands of balloons to his home, 78-year-old Carl sets out to fulfill his lifelong dream to see the wilds of South America and to complete a promise made to his lifelong love. 
2
Tangled is a 2010 American computer animated musical fantasy-comedy film produced byWalt Disney Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Loosely based on theGerman fairy tale "Rapunzel" in the collection of folk tales published by the Brothers Grimm, it is the 50th animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series.

1
I honestly could not pick which of the Toy Story movies I liked best so I picked all of them! Toy Story is a CGI animated film series and Disney media franchise that began with the original 1995 film, Toy Story, produced by Pixar and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The franchise focuses on a group of toys that secretly come to life and end up unexpectedly embarking on life-changing adventures.


Superman GoPro

     Ever wonder what it's like to be Superman. Well a crew named Corridor Digital have created something that may be closest you'll ever get to that experience. They created a video that shows Superman in an attempt to return a young mans GoPro camera by wearing it directly to him. Along the way Superman has to deal with some measly gunmen and a burning building.



     The video is created by combining the footage from the actors head mounted GoPro with footage captured on a remote control drone from Dronefly.

 


Final Post: More of My Favorite Animation

Well folks it's the end of the year. Our screenings start next week and most of our projects are done…I hope.

For the posts I've researched this semester, I've finally had the chance to find out how some of my favorite pieces in animation were made. A lot of the other posts that I've seen on here have shown me some motion graphics and animated topics I wasn't aware of.

      The Master of Sex (Never heard of this show but found it really surpassing)
      Twitch Plays Pokemon (Really wanted to get in on this)

I want to end my entry time here with some of my favorite forms in animation I've come to to love over the years. 

You Are a Pirate
Fred Perry
Gold Digger Time Raft 
(Hand-Drawn Animated Style)

The Boondocks
Adult Swim
(Japanese Animation Style)

Robot Chicken
(Stop Motion Animation)

The Mask 
(CGI)

This last video has been one of my favorite animated transformations. I've been looking around to find what programs they used for getting the mask on Jim Carrey, but my research has yet to yield results. 


As for its sequel Son of the Mask….


….I like to think of it more as a weird phase Loki was going through before he returned in Thor and The Avengers.

Maybe that round with the Hulk brought him to his seneses
While I don't think I'll be pursuing a career in animation to the degree of Toy Story, I'm glad I was able to get the experience of learning some of the basics of using after effects.

Commericals using Animation

As the end of the semester rolls around, final papers, projects and exam suck up all my time. This week post contains more interesting content than my own words.
I remember seeing these individual videos online or on tv one time or another and I thought they really nailed there purpose.
As with my usual posts here are a number of videos as examples for how corporations and various companies are utilizing various types of motion graphics and animation in advertising.

Love this one


I'd have to say this one is probably my favorite. It is simple, but complex at the same time. It doesn't take outrageous effects, but what it does use it is clean and stylized. I think this use of effects are my favorite kind. Subtle, effective and entertaining.

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Trans-media storytelling vs. Traditional storytelling




It’s interesting to watch the change in how stories are being told. Traditional story telling tends to be boring while trans-media storytelling tends to be more entertaining. Today we tell stories across multiple means of media because a single for of media is not as entertaining. People enjoy being able to read a book, watch the movie on it as well as play their games.  With technology being so prominent in our society people are going to fish for content all over the Internet. Hoping to find games to match the books and/or movies they’ve read and/or seen.

Here’s a chart of franchise trans-media.  This chart shows you how multiple platforms create a collection of individual experiences:





This is another image of traditional storytelling vs. trans-media storytelling:



Gifs as art

Since this is my last post and since I've been putting off doing other work ever since I finished Arturo's three projects, I figured that I'd write about something (a little too) near and dear to my heart. Gifs.

I don't care how you pronounce it (although if you say it with a soft G you'll really jet on my nerves) or which ones are your favorites; everyone who has used the internet in the last five years has some sort of appreciation for gifs. This led me to think that maybe, just maybe, gifs will one day get the appreciation and attention that they truly deserve. Turns out, they already are.

Recently, Google Plus held a competition dedicated to finding gifs (which some are beginning to call 'motion photography') that can really be considered as art. They got over 4,000 submissions from "artists" in countries all over the world.  Most of them are really awesome, too; beautifully framed, well shot, crisp, and continuous loops. Professional gifs, if you will.

However, as Joseph Flaherty mentions in his article on the subject of gifs, the competition didn't really capture the general...well....point of gifs. Culturally, they're not used to be beautiful. They're used as witty responses in Facebook comment threads, or as come-backs via texts, or to make blog posts *cough cough* look more interesting. In that regard, gifs continue to just be reposted ad nauseam on Tumblr and in the Cracked/Working Title Facebook groups.

As Flaherty also pointed out, Graffiti was largely considered pointless and not treated as art by the general masses until Bansky made it cool a few years back. Gifs, as far as I'm concerned, are just another form of self-expression. Sometimes I can't quite put my feelings into words, and that's where gifs come in. Sometimes I just want to make somebody laugh. And sometimes I just want to see Joe Biden fondling a hot dog.

This doesn't have anything to do with After Effects or Greenscreens or Mike Levien's title sequence, but I'll be damned if it's not related to motion graphics and or animation. Maybe I'm just trying to justify my procrastination by calling gifs art, or maybe I genuinely think that they are. We may never know. Until then, here's what google tells me is the best gif ever. Enjoy.