RWBY "RED" Trailer

RWBY is a new animated web series by Roosterteeth. This is the first trailer promoting the series and has received positive acclaim on the web. The aesthetic at first glance appears to be in the 2D anime style but in reality is rendered in three dimensions giving it a videogame-like quality. Roosterteeth is best known for their decade old machinima series Red vs. Blue and has since then become more and more action oriented in their productions. Also, GUN SCYTHES.

Dragon Baby

The thing that impressed me the most about this piece is the fact that even though the viewer knows it is fake, it is nearly impossible to catch any flaws in the animation.  This looks soo real and and so well done that its production personal must have an extremely experienced background.  It is one thing to fight on the green screen and then make it look like they are in a miniature environment.  But the fact that they were able to put the child’s head on the actor with such an apparently flawless execution is absolutely stunning.  They were even able to achieve all the head movements and various expressions necessary from the baby with the correct orientation of his head.  The editing that must have gone into this must be remarkable.  I realize that this level of animation mostly likely won’t be able to be achieved from just this class alone, but it would be very interesting to know how they did this.  I am in awe.  

Lyric Videos and Motion Graphics

I've noticed that lately a lot of musicians are releasing "lyric videos"of their new songs. Sometimes they're interesting and set to footage of the band, and sometimes they're simply lyrics of the song on the screen set to the music.

I found one lyric video recently that used the same kind of pop-up style we saw in one of Arturo's films in class. The video is by Taylor Swift for her new single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" and it came out a week before the actual music video. While the song isn't one of my favorites, I really like the animation of the lyrics and how they're constantly moving and changing. The transitions are really cool, and they're something I aspire to learn this semester in class.

Another lyrics video that I like and think is really interesting in terms of graphics is by a band called All Time Low. The song is called "For Baltimore" and it's from their new album, Don't Panic that's going to be released in early October. This lyric video combines footage of the band with animation, which I thought was really cool, especially how I recognized some of the expressions from After Effects (the wiggling letters!).

With lyric videos becoming more and more popular, I think they'll present a good example for us as we endeavor to learn After Effects. After watching both of these I kind of want to try and make my own lyric video for one of my favorite songs, and hopefully sometime soon I'll have enough free time to give it a try.