The Hobbit

It's finally here! The Hobbit an Unexpected Journey is now in theaters for everyone to experience and enjoy. I've been a Lord of the Rings fan since the first movies came out back in 2000, and have read the books twice since then (as well as any other readings that Tolkien and his son have offered). I was one of the few millions who went out and saw it at the midnight release and I can happily say that it does not disappoint. One issue I had was that I saw it in 3D and was forced to sit in the front row due to the theater being packed; so I unfortunately am not a good judge of whether or not the 48 FPS that everyone is talking about is a good or bad thing. The 3D was certainly a cool feature however, and I would like to see it again from a better perspective! The story holds up incredibly well. Peter Jackson does an absolutely faithful representation of the books through his movies, and that still holds true for the Hobbit. It is a little goofier than the original Lord of the Rings were, but that was expected, as the Hobbit is a more kid-friendly story to begin with. The effects are stunning as well. There is more magic this time around and fantastical elements that Jackson seems to rely more on green screen and digital animation. The video above shows how they work in the green screen technology as well as the new RED 3D camera systems. It's really interesting to see how goofy everything looks in real life, but is translated to look gritty and realistic in the film. This is in no way a bad thing either.  The story is now framed as a tale being told to Frodo by Bilbo; which I feel justifies a lot of the more ridiculous and animated moments as exaggerations to the story. An Unexpected Journey is to be followed by two more movies, The Desolation of Smaug and There and Back Again.

Here's a link to the official Blog for the movies:

http://www.thehobbitblog.com/

Please, do yourself a favor and go see this movie,

And good luck everyone with finals and have an awesome break!

Look Around

So my favorite band is the Red Hot Chili Peppers and I was checking out one of the music videos from their newest album. The song is called Look Around. All four members of the band are in different rooms jamming and doing different things and the camera kind of cycles in between them. There is also a lot of movement within the frame, and the band members even go in between the rooms. I thought it was a really interesting concept for the video but I wasn't exactly sure how they pulled it off.

Luckily I also found a behind the scenes clip of how the video was shot to help answer my questions. They used 4 different 5k red cameras so they could get a full 360 degree look. I thought the coolest part was that the cameras were all interconnected so the band members all in separate rooms could perform at the same time and have it be stitched together in post. Also since the Red cameras shoot in 5k, they could zoom into the shots digitally and not lose quality. Really cool stuff. Here's the behind the scenes video too!