Kickstarter and Animation

Something I've been noticing recently is that more and more people are choosing to use websites like Kickstarter to fund their films. Several of these in the past year have been animated films. The problem with this is that if the project doesn't get funded it usually fades away, but if it does it tends to bring a moderate amount of success.

One example of this was earlier this year Don Bluth and Gary Goldman attempted to raise money for a Dragon's Lair film. These animators have made some beautiful films in the past including An American Tale and Anastasia. They also were responsible for the Dragon's Lair video game. However their campaign wasn't funded in time and since then I have seen little to no news about it.

A successful example that happened quite recently was a Kickstarter for an animated TV series based on the Wingfeather books. I had never heard of these books, but I am excited to see where the animated series will lead. It was also amazing to see how in a short period of time they raised over $250,000.

The use of the online community is something that I think will become much more prevalent in the future, than using loans or some other way of generating cash inflow. It is also an amazing way for the fans to become apart of the process. The incentives they give away are usually very fun, and the more money you give the better the incentives. For the Wingfeather if you donated enough you could be visited by various members of the production team.

The use of Kickstarter and other internet funding websites is incredibly intriguing and I can not wait to see how people use its power in the future to create films that they want to make.

Brick Like Me

So on one fateful day last may, two of the worlds greats came together to create one of the most absolutely spectacular half hours of television ever created. These two greats are The Simpsons, and LEGO, and they bestowed upon us the masterpiece that is "Brick Like Me". This is the LEGO episode and the 550th episode of The Simpsons.

The episode is set in the idealistic and basically perfect world that is the LEGO universe. All is well until Homer starts to see visions of his other life back in the Springfield that we all know and love. Throughout the episode more and more of his old life leaks into his new one in the LEGO world, and in the end, he must decide to stay in this new near perfect brick world, or to return to his old 2D classic world.

This episode took two year to get on air, and took over twice as long as a normal episode would to make. I would say that it was definitely well worth the wait! This episode is so beautifully crafted it almost hurts. The LEGO version of Springfield is so bright and brilliant, but still has the hilarious vibe of the Springfield we've know for over 500 episodes. It also added some new comedy to the show when dealing with things that only LEGO people have to deal with; like the water,

and being able to mix the two kinds of animation that LEGO and The Simpsons both are giants in.

From animation, to story, this episode is absolutely brilliant, and I loved watching it on its premiere last summer, as well as over and over again after that. 10/10 would recommend

Toy Story 4

I know I'm pretty late to this, but I recently discovered that they are making a fourth Toy Story movie. It is slated to come out on June 16, 2017 and still retain Tom Hanks and Tim Allen as Woody and Buzz Lightyear. The first Toy Story movie is probably my favorite childhood movie of all time, which brings back crazy feelings of nostalgia whenever it happens to be on TV. As a child, one of my favorite things about the movie was the animation and graphics. For whatever reason I always loved the way the characters interacted with each other. It seemed so seamless and realistic; most of the time it felt like I was watching a live-action movie. Anyway, I'm super pumped for this next iteration in the Toy Story franchise. Pixar films will always hold a special place in my heart, as I grew up watching many of the classics.

Attack On Titan

Attack on Titian is a is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hajime Isayama. It was created back in 2009 in Japan and shortly after its realize became very popular. It even became popular enough in western culture that they decided to dub over the audio so that subtitles were no longer necessary.

 What is Manga? Manga is a style of Japanese comic books and graphic novels, typically aimed at adults as well as children. These are commonly turned into television series now days.

This particular story is aimed at older audiences because it is extremely graphic and also deep. The story contains many characters with very complex pasts. The show also likes to keep the audience in the dark to keep the story suspenseful. 

The premise of the show is that humanity has been pushed to the brink of extinction and the only place they are safe is within the walls of a huge castle divided into 3 sections. The antagonists are huge humanoid creatures that are very hard to kill. 

I personally find the show to be a little to graphic at points. It is extremely violent and oftentimes as soon as you become attached to a character they get killed off. The story is written extremely well and the animation is beautiful. I often don't like watching these shows because the action is too slow for me but this show has a very fast pace and great fight scenes. 

I would recommend that people looking for an in-depth story give Attack on Titan a chance even if "you don't like anime".  

It surprised me. 

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

I recently noticed on Netflix that the ABC show Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was available on Instant Watch so I figured I'd give it a go and jumped in. Aside from some funny Joss Whedon dialogue and cool comic book story lines, what really impressed me with this show were the visual effects. Having been a lover of Science Fiction movies and TV shows my whole life, I've gotten used to campy special effects and have learned to ignore how low-budget it looks (here's looking at you every movie SyFy channel has ever produced). In the case of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. the visual aesthetics really do justice to the super-powers and weird alien technologies they are demonstrating. After looking more in depth about the show when I decided to write this blog post about it, I was pleased to learn that the show was nominated for an Oustanding Visual Effects Emmy. Similarly, I was pretty pumped to find a Youtube show that dedicates an episodes focus to different behind the scenes aspects of the show and luckily they rightfully reserved an episode for the Visual Effects department and here that video is.

PEACE OUT
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THANKSGIVING

Weeds

For my first blog post of the semester, I wanted to talk a little about the intro to the Showtime show, Weeds. Weeds was created by Jenji Kohan and it has been a personal favorite of mine ever since I started watching it. I wanted to talk about this intro for my first post because this intro is the reason why I started watching the show. Instead of talking about the intro, I'll let you see it for yourself:

For those of you not familiar with the show, it is about a white, middle/upper-class, family from the suburbs of California that has been thrown a curveball when the father dies unexpectedly. To deal with this hardship, Nancy (the main character and mother of two) turns to selling weed to her community in order to keep her "white picket fence" image.

Why I like this intro in particular is the fact that it depicts the nature of suburbia perfectly. And, the use of animation only amplifies the feelings of rapid growth and homogeneity of the suburban life.

The show also throws in some fun animations in the intro that are specific to the feelings of the episode or what is going down in the episode to follow. The use of animation in for these hints at the episode make watching the show intro fun because they change by episode. All in all, I think this intro and the animation used in it creatively set the scene for the television program and it really makes the show special.

Fibonacci's Sequence and The Golden Ratio

95% of the time, I hate anything involved with math. Like most TVR majors, it's never really been my thing; and that's perfectly ok. I realize that almost everything I use in my day-to-day life involves math in one form or another, but I kind of just don't care.  However, every once in a great while, I have to admit that math does something that really, truly impresses me. This is one of those moments.

A few weeks ago, Arturo talked about something called the Golden Ratio. I'd heard of it before, maybe in a middle school math class or something, but I decided to a little more research on it to see what I could find. I wasn't disappointed. In a nutshell, the ratio is based off of the Fibonacci Sequence (each number being the sum of the two numbers that come before it) where any two adjacent numbers in the sequence, if divided, form a ratio of 1.618. This ratio had been proven to be the most pleasing ration to the human eye. TVs used to come in a ratio of 16:10 (now they're most common in 16:9, which is still pretty close), as do credit cards, and even older iPhones and Ipod Touches. This isn't a coincidence.

What I find to be really strange, however, is how often this seemingly random pattern appears in nature. A great article on io9 points out how the Fibonacci sequence shows up on everything from flower petals to seashells to hurricane formations: even spiral galaxies, an unfathomable amount of distance away from Earth, have this shape, this ratio. It's unexplainable. If you search for this on YouTube, there'll be plenty of scientists and mathematicians trying to explain what's going here, but there will also be lots of crazy people trying to make some connections that just aren't there. It's crazy, and I just think it's so so cool.

So there you go. It doesn't have a whole lot to do with animation or motion graphics, and I understand it about as much as I understand how to use After Effects, but it's something to always keep in mind. If you want to make something look good; like, really good; use the magic, golden ratio. Everything else in the world does, so why shouldn't you.

Here's the link to one last article from the Guardian.

Inspiring

After our attempts to animate our names in class, I felt good about what I had done. It was exciting. Then, I saw a few advertisements on TV that inspired me to look up some real motion graphics designing. I came across this website that showed 25 different motion graphics animations and was completely blown away by what I saw. It made my name look like a drawing done by a two-year-old child. So much for feeling good about getting my name to write itself across the screen. I know there is a lot to learn, probably more than we could ever possibly learn in this class, but it is inspiring to see the complexity and beauty of professional work in the industry.

I just want to share a couple that really caught my eye out of these 25:

The end of this video blew my mind. It had been completely designed with the entire speech written out  in different ways, but all on one "canvas." Then to match the pacing of the talk and incorporate not only camera motion over the words, but zooms in and out and different twists for emphasis, must have taken quite a while. The animation added to some of the comedic tone and phrases and made the viewer actually read the most important parts of the speech. It really made the whole video come alive.

Speaking of which, this one was my next favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnKirux5EPA

Unfortunately, the video wouldn't load on the blog, but I encourage you to check it out. It is a commercial for Clear Water and Unicef. The animated water was fantastic and it was interesting how even the water bubbles seemed to have child-like shapes and spirits to their movements. In this we also see the importance of sound, even in animation. Without the sound, I would never have been as drawn into what was happening. This was created in a way that made me feel like a child again. I'm still smiling from watching it.

Finally, there is a third lesson learned from watching these examples:

Motion graphics is not just about adding cool explosions or aspects to a video or film. It is about telling a complete story. Just like any other medium, we can use motion graphics to pull an audience in, tell a story, and reveal a conclusion. Only with this medium, we can do really, really, really cool, shocking and amazing things! I encourage everyone to go and watch some of the videos on this website:

http://creativeoverflow.net/25-amazing-motion-graphics-animationsvideos/
(written by Harry Jay Clement)

Even the examples that aren't ads seem to tell a story through the motion graphics and the sound. They are inspiring. I hope that the next time I animate my name, maybe a lot later in the semester after we have learned more, I can make it seem more like a story and less bland.

by Amber Capogrossi

Sherlock Title Sequence

This is the titles for series 2 of Sherlock, from the BBC. The thing I want to draw your attention to is the elegance at which the title sequence flows, but the sheer amount of assets used as well. The more complicated the sequence, you would think the more confusing and complicated the video would seem to be. However, I couldn't talk up the slickness of the compositing in this sequence. Each piece of video flows into the next, and so the whole thing flows incredibly well. I want to draw your attention to a couple of incredible edits in this piece. First, there is a transition with a flashlight that really impressed me. The flashlight at :18 flashes in front of the camera, and transitions to a shot of the front of Sherlock's apartment. In the shot of the apartment door there is a light bloom effect to give the transition more effect. There is also some incredible compositing between :5 and :15, each giving depth and a sense of character for Sherlock and Watson. And of course, Arturo has been talking a lot about the importance music in graphics, and this sequence masterfully matches the audio, making for just a superb piece.