Sky Star Wars Promo

So I was surfing the net, as I am to do from time to time, and I stumbled upon this promo the UK cable service SKY put together to advertise their upcoming star wars marathon.

Besides being the coolest thing I've ever seen, this promo incorporated a lot of the techniques and skills we've learned over the semester, albeit with gorgeous execution.

Aside from the double exposure effects, there are a lot of cool 3D space camera moves, rotoscoping, and even some very slight puppet animation. It's rare to see a piece of content made independently from it's creators that really captures the feel of the original content, butt I believe this promo does an absolutely stunning job. I've watched it about 8 times now and each time I've noticed something new. I really don't have anything else to say regarding this piece. I just thought it did a really awesome of capturing the feel of the Star Wars Franchise! Hope you guys enjoy!

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.

Before Modern Graphics

Stop motion is a well known form of animation that is used today in many shorts and feature films.  The process involves taking still images of characters and moving them slightly between shots to give the illusion of movement.  There is a draw back however, since the image is taken while the object s still there is no motion blur, and things look unrealistic.   That had to be over come for the technique to be used in a very well known and technically advanced film, Star Wars.  They wanted to film the TaunTauns, but wanted them to have motion blur.  So a new technique was invented by Phil Tippett and ILM, Go Motion.  This involves hooking the puppets up to computer driven rods that will move the puppet as the picture is taken creating the motion blur necessary for a realistic shot.  The technique is incredibly complicated, difficult and is not really used now since adding motion blur in post is much easier.  Older technology like this is incredibly interesting and makes one appreciate how easy effects today truly are.