Video Copilot's New Saber Plugin

A few days ago, Video Copilot released a new After Effects plugin called Saber. Video Copilot founder Andrew Kramer recently finished working on the visual effects team for Star Wars VII, and although he didn’t do any work on the actual lightsabers, he was inspired to create an After Effects plugin to make the process easy. Saber is an effect that can be applied to a color solid in order to create a beam of light. The beam has a core and an outer glow, each with a whole host of controls that allow you to tweak each part however you like. It can also be set to match mask shapes, which makes it incredibly easy to work with. There are over 50 different presets that come with Saber, each with a unique look/feel. I’m currently messing around with Saber in my name project, hoping to learn more about it for future use. Some animations I’ve found on Reddit that use Saber include this portal that resembles the Portal video game series, this Diet Coke bottle, and this neon text. Saber is available for a free on Video Copilot’s website.

Jar-Jar and the Phantom Menace

Let's talk Star Wars for a sec. Yes everyone is talking about Star Wars these days because of the new re-boot, but  what makes a sic-fi like Star Wars interesting if not ground breaking? I believe it is the special effects in the films.
The first trilogy without a doubt made stop motion seem flawless in space and on the frigid plains of Hoth. The second trilogy however, didn't waste time with stop animation but used computer animated graphics instead. This, at the time (1999), was a monumental task and a daring undertaking. I grew up watching the prequels and to me I grew up with the expectation of CGI creatures like Jar-Jar Binks. Which brings me painstakingly to my next point, Jar-Jar Binks. Jar-Jar was the first fully animated creature when Phantom Menace came out. Jar-Jar was played by Ahmed Best, who wore a suit that resembled the creature, this suit at first did not have tracking devices, it was only in post production that animators realized that to better convey actions they would need to track Best's movements. The animators then could have their way with the expressions. Overall the reaction to Jar-Jar as a character is that it could have been done without, but I still think that without Jar-Jar, the path for other movies like I, Robot that rely heavily on CGI would have been difficult. Above is a special on making the film and gives a more in-depth look at creating the the special effects.

Star Wars II CGI

With the upcoming release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I've been looking back over clips from the prequels, interested in what went so wrong. One major factor which everyone attributes the prequels for mistakingly doing, is overusing CGI.

While I can appreciate more CGI than others (a strong bias which stems from wanting to work in the VFX industry), I can certainly only withstand a certain amount. And I agree the prequels and subsequent re-releases of the original trilogy went overboard. I came across the following featurette on how digital characters were used in replace of puppets.

It is an hour in length, I'm about 3/4's of the way though, but if you have some time I'd recommend giving it a watch. Understandably though you probably don't have time, so just check out the scene from around 8:47. It's interesting to see George Lucas' bias towards CGI and how he approaches it. I found it fascinating how the whole featurette feels slightly dull and lifeless, like the heart of filmmaking is missing.

Overall I think it's worth a watch, an interesting look into Lucas' mind.

History of Pixar

Pixar Studio, originally a step child of Geourge Lucas has been popping up in conversations around me recently, so I decided I might look into the history of the creation of this animation studio.
Lucas Arts, an American film and television production company, was focused on innovative special effects since it was founded in 1971. Working on major motion pictures like Labyrinth (1986), Indiana Jones(1981), and the Star Wars Trilogy (1977-1983) Lucas film had a reputation as one of the most advanced special effects houses in all of Hollywood.

Lucas saw special effects as something to paint your films with. The technologies we had were the colors, and the effects were only the parts that added flourish to the story lines. Lucas had found himself always looking for ways to make his effects better, and cheaper.

Although Lucas was never "interested in computers" his company was one of the first to try using this new color in filmmaking.

At the time, in order to do any kind of digital image processing, you needed to find a way to get your image into the computer. Lucas was trying to solve the issue: "How do you get in and out of the Computer." digital Image processing was the promised land for filmmakers because not only would film scanned-in and manipulated in the computer be free from any generational loss (Negative Quality) but mistakes in the original photography (such as lighting on a blue-screen element that was inconsistent with its background plate) could be corrected without the costs and time delays of reshooting.

Lucas approached Ed Catmull in 1979 and asked him to head up a group to bring computer graphics, video editing, and digital audio into the entertainment field. With funds dwindling from Dick Shoup, a millionaire in New York (The majority of his money from starting the New York Institute of Technology) Catmull was looking for a way to incorporate, and continue research in 3D modeling. Remember at the time 3D was very basic, and thinks like texture mapping, lighting, and polygon manipulation were almost nonexistent. In 1979 Catmull became the Vice President at the seminal Industrial Light & Magic computer graphics division at Lucasfilm.

A few years later (1984) John Lasseter, also joined the Pixar team at LucasFilms after working on Tron (1982). 3D is a very expensive animation style, and at the time George Lucas was in the process of splitting funds with he recently divorced wife, so he was forced to cut funding to the Pixar group.

As Lucas's assets were being disseminated, Steve Jobs stepped in. Jobs had already turned down a position with the pixar team in 1984, and seized this opportunity to acquire the division instead. With new funding, Pixar found itself back on it's feet and became it's own company.

For more information, and a more in-depth timeline see: The Pixar Story

Shared Universes Across Media

Although brands often synergize in order to reach the widest audience, it is not often that those media exist in the same universe. For example, there have been many iterations of Avengers cartoons over the past few years, but none have actually been included in the actual canon in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Although the characters are the same, their stories exist in completely different spaces; if something happens in a cartoon, it won't affect the events that occur in the movies.

However, there has been a recent call to consolidate the varies forms of media into one collective storyline and canon. The biggest industry to do this is the superhero industry. Two of the largest organizations to do this are Disney's Star Wars and the DC Television Universe. Back in the eighties, there were a number of Star Wars comics that were released by Marvel. Although they contained numerous adventures of Luke and the gang, they were never considered to be part of the actual Star Wars canon. Now, Marvel has decided to change that.

The company has decided to release a series of comic titles, including Darth Vader and Princess Leia, that tell the tale of what happened between the events of episodes IV and V. This is the official story and will be considered part of the official canon, even though they occur in a completely different medium than the films.

Likewise, DC Television is doing something similar. The group has received great critical acclaim for the shows Arrow and The Flash, which both air on the CW. Now, they have announced a cartoon titled Vixen, which will exist in the same universe as the live action shows. Both Flash and the Arrow will make an appearance in the show (in cartoon form) and will have the same exact story line as before.

I think this is a really cool way to integrate various forms of media with each other.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

As you all all ready know the newest installment of the critically acclaimed Star Wars series is set to release at the end of this year. A couple of months ago, a very short preview for the film was released and gave the world a glimpse of the kinds of animations that were going to be used throughout the film. Here is the teaser to get you all excited for the movie, and the rest of this post.

Now the most obvious use of animation is with the newest lightsaber form. This shows something about a lightsaber that has never been seen before, a hand guard. Also unlike most lightsabers, the actual light being emitted is not solid and more unstable. The animators must have had to make the edges of the saber rougher to create the effect of being more unstable than a regular lightsaber. Another instance of animation used in this teaser is the entire star ship chase towards the ends. This must have been incredibly difficult because of the sheer volume of the shoot. With the camera movements and the vehicles moving through space a lot needs to be taken into account. Starting with the lasers being shot from the enemies, to the backgrounds, and finally to simply having the spacecrafts fly by and look as good as they did. The animations used in the original Star Wars trilogy were extremely cutting edge for the time they were produced, and Episode 7 appears to be continuing to hold the graphics to a very high standard.

Fan Created Superhero Media

I'm a big fan of the superhero genre. I watch all the films, I read the comics, and I binge all the superhero TV shows. As I often peruse comic book websites, a big thing that they feature is fan created videos. Most of these are videos are mashups of various movies, cut to look like two characters exist in the same universe and, usually, fight each other. Although they're never spectacularly well-made, they can certainly be entertaining.

Every once in a while, there some really brilliant videos that play on the superhero genre and have some really decent animation and visual effects. The effects are cool and are fairly easy to do, I've found upon looking up various how-to videos. These videos just go to show how the market is drastically expanding, and how anyone can be a content creator. Here's my favorite one: It's Batman vs. Darth Vader.

The Star Wars Crawl....

Hi there!

Flashback to 1977, before After Effects, before Maya, before working on a computer! It was certainly a different life back then. Movie sequences lacked the glitz and prowess that years of advanced technology and technique could give.

Still though, some movie sequences were able to stand the test of time, and a few were even able to become a part of history and popular culture. One of these is the Star Wars Crawl. Take a look at it below.

Even if you have never seen a Star Wars film, you are familiar with the crawl. It is apart of popular culture and has been emulated beyond belief.

This really shows us that sometimes simplicity is key. It makes me question, who needs crazy graphics and animations, when you can solidify a sport in animation history with such a simple design.?

Ryan vs. Dorkman - Your Everyday Lightsaber Battle

Ryan vs. Dorkman, created by Ryan Wieber and Michael Scott, two effects artists who had a friendly rivalry on a Star Wars forum, leads the two friends into an intense lightsaber battle complete with, of course, lightsabers, but in addition, invisible wires, "the force", and lots of good camera work.

It's a fairly old example, but is an interesting look into what exactly was possible 7 or 8 years ago. We've come so far in such a short time, and it's amazing what was considered 'amazing' back then is now commonplace today. There's also a sequel!

The sequel not only incorporates better lightsaber effects, but introduces film-quality camera work and better pacing! The addition of better music and sound effects placement only makes this sequel better, and the production values certainly do show.

Star Wars Lava Planet Sequence

So shooting in studio this week got me thinking about how major companies do it, and so my post this week is a featurette from Star Wars Episode 3.  It's primarily about building the effects for the Mustafar sequence, a fight scene on a lava planet. While it is mostly an ego stroking for Lucasfilm and Industrial light and Magic, there are a lot of cool tidbits in here. There is a lot of cool stuff about the compositors and matte artists. The matte artists build the background for mustafar, which is a space hilariously based around a gravel parking lot, but obviously with a ton of assets and art. The assets that are involved in the sequence itself, because they are a giant mix of different sources. Some of the lava is from a shot of an actual volcano, some if it is built with particle effects. The use of models along with CG is also really interesting to me. ILM puts a lot of emphasis on making real rocks and setpeices because it can be easily manipulated in a real scene. So what comes down is what parts of the scene need to be real models and what can be made in CG, and someone sitting down to composite the two. The same went for the lava, a lot of it is done with real shots in a miniature set. Lighting and real effects like smoke are key, and then they just film it as their overall wide shot.

Clearly there is a ridiculous amount of elements here, but I just find it really cool how they all come together.

Extensive FX Test

This video was made by a guy named David Paplia, under the YouTube username, Nephuxs. This features the use of many special effects from VideoCopilot.

On the description, it says "Background removal, motion tracking, 3D models, I did it all based on the tutorials provided by VideoCopilot. Also used Optical Flares, Action Essentials 2, and some other goodies".

It also shows the "Before" clip used at the 0:13 mark. It seems that adding sound effects, 3D ships, and other stuff from Star Wars, especially the Wilhelm scream, makes a difference in a video.

Star Wars meets Dragon Ball Z

So growing up, some my favorites movies were the original Star Wars Triology and one my favorite TV shows was Dragon Ball Z.  So why not combine them.  What other way to do this than with After Effects right?



I think that they did a pretty good job with the graphics, but like most instances where two good things are combined, the story line suffers (there is no story). Here is a perfect example of two cool things combining to suck:


Not only does the story line suck in this one but the graphics do as well.  For everyone who just watched this I am sorry.  Chances are your IQ just dropped 10 points.

Holy Green Screens, Batman!

When George Lucas set out to make the Star Wars prequels in 1999, he used green screens to help bring his vision to life. He simply put his actors in an entirely green environment and had his VFX team create alien worlds such as Kamino and Mustafar.

We all know that green screens and chroma keying is a common practice to for all sci-fi and fantasy films. How else could’ve Lucas created a planet covered entirely in ocean, or make two Jedi go floating down a river of lava? (Well, he could have done it practically, but CGI makes sense here). But did you know that even the simplest scenes, like two guys sitting on some steps of a building in NYC, are green screened?

Check out the video below, it is fascinatingly eye-opening.

In class on Thursday we learned HOW to key things out, but I never knew the emphasis some productions put on keying. It's quite remarkable.

Meet some friends of mine

One of my favorite animated shows of all time is South Park. I mean, who doesn't love South Park? And ever since I've been watching it, I wondered how they were able to create an episode in such a short amount of time. They always keep up to date on current issues and always satirize them in their most recent episode. Take this week's episode for example where they poked fun at the election results and Disney buying the rights to Star Wars. I found a video that explains how they are able to do it. The job is "easier" due to advances in technology, but the way they go about their business has been relatively unchanged over the last 15 years.

This is the link. The video is part of an article

Stop Motion with Legos

So I was wandering around the internet this weekend while I was on duty and I found this little production group called Brotherhood Workshop that makes fantasy story videos. The use A LOT of stop motion and I am not complaining about it. The first video I watched was this one where they took one of the new Lord of the Rings Lego sets and made the funny video below. They even edited in sparkling candle flames and torch flames! (Keep an eye out for Gollum and for a Star Wars cameo)

                 

Here's an image from the behind the scenes of my favorite video called "Orcs" featuring two orcs, one chilling on a laptop and the other enjoying a mug of joe.

Each video seems to based on different Lord of the Rings lego sets but have a variety of other LOTR sets included in them. Watching these videos reminded me of when I was younger when my dad, brother, and I would sit around for hours making stop motion videos with the Legos my brother and I owned and then my dad helping us with recording the audio later. I would have included an example clip but those videos have been lost for many a year.

The New iPhone and iPad Look Pretty Sweet

So have you heard about the new iPhone 5's features? Some say that it will boost the economy while others say it will revolutionize technology. All of these rumors sounded too good to be true so I decided to look up videos and they are all true! The site I found even had the new features for the next iPad as well. Here, watch these links:



I have three words for you: OH EMM GEE. I cannot wait to drive an hour to Syracuse to get in the long line to wait for hours to have both of these beautiful products so that I can live forever in peace and joy until the upgraded products come out and then I have to repeat the process all over again.

Alrighty, lets get serious though. These videos were made by Aatma, an animation and digital content studio specializing in the production of imagery for television, film, advertising and interactive media. Aatma has worked on a number of projects including a joint-campaign for Brisk and Star Wars Episode 1 when it came back to theaters, as well as a handful of viral videos mostly using computer graphics. I remember watching the iPad 3 Concept video a few months ago and thinking that Apple most likely has these planned in the next 7 years or so. I recently rediscovered this video and decided to watch more videos from this studio which are just as equally as cool as these two clips. Aatma has a unique ability to make videos that look so realistic that they're believable and its all very cleverly shot and perfectly edited. I'm looking forward to future videos from them.

History of the Green Screen

Since this week we're all planning to shoot on a green screen I thought I would look up things about its history. I found this cool video that briefly goes through the developments in special effects technology. It's a pretty interesting history. For example, the very first compositing was done with double exposure techniques back in the 30s.

Another cool piece of information in the video was why the industry switched from using a blue screen to green. It accompanied the switch from film to video. The clip says that blue screens work better with film and green with video. One reason is because in video cameras, there's more information in the green channel than the blue.

For any Star Wars fans, there's a section starting at 3:06 on special effects in the movies. In particular, The Empire Strikes Back used new techniques that made the final film look much more realistic.

Green Screen Ideas

I'm currently out in Utica NY helping out on a thesis shoot. Luckily the nice Hotel Utica has wireless internet and I'm able to write this post right now. Unfortunately I might miss class Monday but I've been thinking about what I want to do for the green screen project. I keep getting ideas but then wonder about costumes and camera movement and things like that. Originally I thought it would be cool to place someone in Apocolypto during the sacrifice scene on top of the temple but the costumes are way too extreme. Right now I'm leaning more towards Star Wars. there are many examples of star wars fan green screen video on YouTube like this one.



But I may end up scouring archive footage and just doing something with that. I hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Star Wars Uncut

My friend recently showed me this video; it's a complete remake of Star Wars: A New Hope in 15 second intervals by fans. It was directed by Casey Pugh and even won a Primetime Emmy for interactive Media. In 2009 she called out for fans of the franchise to send in a 15 second shot or animation of the favorite scenes and she pieced them all together. The fan-made video, 2 years in the making, recreated the movie through live action, flash, stop motion, 3D animation, video game graphics, Lego's and more. As it gained popularity, it came under scrutiny for copy-right infringement, but it's loyal fans have claimed it just enhances the value of the film by showing how much it really means to people.

I haven't watched the whole thing (over 2 hours) but just skipping around you can see how the film is able to almost seamlessly transition between animation and live action by staying true to the story line. Each section, especially the animation and stop motion intervals, show people's interpretations of both the movie and of media. The video ranges from kids with paper beards taped to their faces to some really impressive animation and effects.

CGI add ons to Star Wars

So I found the exercise with the red bull we did in class to be very interesting. I thought the posts about the entourage and the pacific openings were very interesting. So I tried to think of examples of movies that had blatant or known additions. After a few minutes of thought it hit me that Star Wars obviously had been through the most. Growing up watching the movies I had seen slight changes throughout the movies. Especially from seeing one of the films on VHS and then buying a DVD copy of the movie years later and seeing CGI aliens added in the background of certain scenes. However the scene that stuck out to me was one in Star Wars: New Hope, the first movie. The movie was on television a week ago or so and I watched several minutes, including a scene where Han Solo is talking to Jabba the Hutt. I didn’t remember the scene very well since I hadn’t seen the movie since I was little, watching it on VHS. I did some research and it turns out that originally the scene was shot with a person acting as “Jabba” in 1977, but it was then left out. Later they added a CGI addition of “Jabba” in 1997, this is the same CGI Jabba from all the future star wars movies. It turns out that they then went back in and “sharpened” and changed the CGI version of Jabba in 2004. I just thought it was interesting that the scene went from having a person in it, to then adding a CGI creature over that person. Even more so they then added details to that creature.

Here is the first deleted scene from 1977..

Here is the video with the addition of a CGI Jabba

Here is a video comparing the CGI addition of Jabba from 1997 and 2004. It is a little disorientating but shows the differences quite well.