West Wing opening Credits and Thoughts

For my post this week I wanted to talk about the opening credits to The West Wing because they have always sort of fascinated me for their seeming simplicity on the surface but complex compositing underneath. On the surface it seems like, well, any other television opening sequence. "Make sure to get everyone in with scenes from the show" seems to me the M.O. for many TV shows, particularly during the 90's and early 2000's. However what makes this memorable for me is how many flash frames, extra assets, and compositing is going on between each shot. The sequence flows so well that you barely notice them the first few times you watch without a keen eye, but as you watch you can pick out more and more. I watched the entire run of the show years ago, and it still took a long time to be able to see. One in particular i'd like to bring your attention to is that as the sequence goes on the black and white pictures stop covering the screen and become more like pictures on a desktop being moved around.

 For me this gives the piece a much more alive feel, like someone was going through a stack of historical photographs. The thoughtfulness of the photographs themselves are also interesting to me, in the last 5 seconds there are several of these shown, but the one ended on is the shot of the president facing away from the camera.

 Even though the show is really about adding personality and character to political figures, the title sequence ends on this, showing Aaron Sorkin's awe of the "majesty" of government, a thought that definitely comes through in his writing of the show

Retro NBC NBA Finals intro

With my last post I found some retro graphical intros for various production companies, and with my latest post, I'm continuing with that trend. This video is the 1998 NBA finals intro for NBC but what I really like is how such a short simple graphic can become so iconic. What might have taken ages to render in 1998 can easily be done on any Macbook Pro now with programs like after effects. The entire sequence was made of simple titles and shapes in order to make the logo, and graphics. There were even simple particle effects when the basketball enters the scene, I enjoy watching video's like this as they are much easier to break down when compared to modern graphics. Anyway I hope you watch this video and enjoy the simple sequence that draws so many memories for many people who were watching this iconic game.

Chuck TV Series Opening Sequence

So as things are winding down into Thanksgiving break I've come to the realization that I'm just about creatively tapped. I don't know about you guys, but this past month or so, I've been running around non-stop. This break is about to be so wonderful for my sanity.

ANYWAYS. My point is that I've spent the last hour sitting here trying to think of something interesting to post about- and I've got nothing.

All I have for you this week is the rather interesting opening sequence to one of my favorite NBC shows, Chuck. Sadly, Chuck was cancelled last year after five years on the air, but it was a great show, and the intro credits are kind of cool (as is the Cake song...)

SO. Enjoy some Chuck. Enjoy your turkey (or tofurkey, if that's what you're into) and I'll see you later!

Never.no and Vizrt to be partners

Over the past two years and especially during the current presidential race there has been a growing trend of integrating social media into live television. Viewers can tweet everything from questions for a political debate to comments about a live broadcast with the chance of it showing up on television screens across the nation. I'm sure a few of you, like myself have wondered exactly how this is done. As it turns out the system is much more complex than I first thought. Apparently television channels like the BBC and NBC out source this function to a variety of companies offering various options for creating an interactive environment for viewers by integrating  social media and mobile phone applications with live television. On top of the company who develops the technology to make this happen an entirely separate group of companies are hired to design the real time 3-D graphics you see on the screen. According to braodcastnewsroom.com two of the leading companies on both ends of this new technology have just announced a partnership that will not only be lucrative for them, but also has potential to make getting access to this technology a lot easier for clients. The website quotes the CEO of never.no (one of the companies involved in the partnership) as saying "Vizrt is the world leader in real-time 3D graphics, and never.no is the world leader in social TV solutions. Together we bring to the market an unmatched end-to-end solution to connect the audience directly to the action on TV." So, will we be seeing more and more social media on our television screens over the next couple of years? My guess it yes. Let's at least hope they come up with some good looking graphics to go with it!

Academy Awards

As you may have noticed, I personally like to post about graphics / animation in relation to what is going on in the TV world. As we all know, the Oscars are Sunday night and two of the categories are directly related to our class -- best animated feature film and best visual effects. Although posting clips of each nominee and analysing them would be great, but it would such a long and tedious post // and I am tired and do not want to stay in much longer

Ironically, when I began searching for "oscars graphics" -- I found so many personal graphics reels from animators, named Oscar. This first one by Oscar Nofre created these animations all via After Effects. At :35. you can see the motion blur effect very present. At 1:47 you can VERY QUICKLY see the mask outline and opacity decrease. Overall, this fast-moving + up-beat + high intensity reel is so cool and it just shows that everyone and anyone can learn motion graphics and greatly develop skills to become this skilled.

Another non-Academy Awards "oscars graphics" reel is one by Oscar Garza. This producer seems to have worked at an NBC affiliate station, KXAN, and created their graphics. It seems like these kinds of images and animations are so simple, with basic vector movements and keyframes -- as if we could make have made something similar the third day of class!

Now onto the actual Academy Awards -- some real Oscar animation. I was slightly surprised when I could not find that many open or close animations. This featured one, from 2010 // the 82nd Awards, is great because it explores many lens flare effects and simple typing text that transitions into a bevy of film titles and numerous layers moving in and out

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TV logo animation

This week, I decided on bringing up live TV After Effects graphics and video. I was watching a hockey game and just watching the commentary (with double boxes, background animation, et al) and various intros / outros, the idea of discussing network animation logos came up!!

There are many different terms for on-screen graphics throughout the news and sports industry -- I am specifically going to talk about intros and logos to major networks. Many images on live TV are created either from video or Chyron, there are so many different aspects of animation and digital non-video pieces we watch while viewing network news or sports.

The below CBS animation was created on Maya and the other two (I assume were AE) ... The reason why I am posting is because although today's animation and 3D images are crazy intensive and glamorous. Yet when we look at these intros, the simplest of vectors and colors are being used on national network broadcasts. We must really think, with all the hype of intense and crazy 3D animation -- why do the major tv channels still rely on basic vectors and and colors for their logos and backgrounds

recent CBS logo animation

recent NBC logo animation

1957 NBC logo animation

ESPN logo animation

Conan O'Brien & Others

I was looking through some Motion Graphics websites and I came across a compilation labeled "25 Amazing Motion Graphics Animations", and I came across a really fascinating and well-done video created to Conan O'Brien's farewell to NBC. Unfortunately, I am unable to embed the video, but it can be viewed here.

The entire compilation (25 Amazing Motion Graphics Animations) is full of not only amazing videos, but stuff that after a few months of class, I think I have at least a mild understanding of how they possibly executed some of these, if using AfterEffects. All of the videos are complete with screen shots and the video themselves, you should all check them out for some inspiration!

This video in particular had some pretty cool use of particles:

Behind the Scenes of "Heroes"

After completing the first project, the opening title sequence of a tv show, I decided to research a little more into the television show I chose, Heroes. I watched the first two seasons of Heroes when it originally aired a few years back and I must say, it was one of the most visually stunning television shows I have seen. Every episode felt like a mini movie with all of the high quality special effects. In the first season alone, the show utilized over 1000 visual effects. I found this article that describes a lot of the visual effects used in the pilot episode (which if you haven't seen it, I definitely recommend checking it out just for the visual effects alone!)

I also found this video that goes into great detail about the special effects used in the show. It interviews the visual effects crew and they go into depth about how they create the stunning images seen in the show. It is amazing that they are able to create all of these effects for a show that airs every week.