A Cool Tutorial and A Cool Website

I might be catching you off guard with this one, but - I found something cool on reddit! This week it was a tutorial I found on /r/VFX on how to create the HUD (heads-up display) from Iron man, aka the cool hologram stuff you see when Tony Stark puts his helmet on. While the tutorial was pretty fast moving and involved a lot of things I had never seen before, I liked the light humor throughout it and it kept me engaged. Engaged enough to make it to the 5:45 mark that is, when the maker of the tutorial shows off his website. I went over to productioncrate.com to check it out and I found some pretty cool stuff there. They have lots of cool video FX and royalty free audio you can download, as well as some tutorials (although I haven’t yet looked at any of the tutorials besides this one). To download things you need to make an account, but a free account can still give you access to download some pretty cool stuff. I’ll definitely come back soon to check out exactly what I can get with a free account and see whether a pro account is worth it. Because in the grand scheme of things, $40 per year for a full-access account can save me a lot of time and help make some things a lot cooler.

Playing with the Eyes and Ears

It is basic human nature to associate certain sounds to certain actions or objects. For instance when you hear a loud bang with a sharp metallic ting to it, you can assume it was some metal object hitting concrete or some other hard surface. However through animation, we have the ability to broaden the possibilities of said actions and objects. PES's film "Fresh Guacamole" is what I like to call an audio-visual palette cleanser, because it makes you rethink how to apply sounds to actions.

Simply by re-associating cooking sounds to random objects, you get an interesting short that is much more appealing to the viewer, rather than animating actual avocados and chips.

Playing with the eyes and ears can also lead to better story telling. In the short "Out of Sight", a blind girl must find her seeing eye dog solely through touch and sound. Due to her young age many of the objects like cars, planes, or people, are reimagined into fish-cars, or whale-planes.

One of my favorite parts of this animation is when we encounter the cat. Initially it is just a blob, it rolls around until it meows, which then unravels into a cat. It's interesting to see the world building process because you become immersed in the video.  

Voice Acting With Spongebob

One of the things we never really talked about in this class is what goes behind the scenes in animation (acting wise). It's understandable, since this isn't an audio class or acting class. However, it is interesting to see how the actors become immersed into their roles when they are never even seen on screen. Many voice actors really get into the role during the recording, such as making extreme facial and physical gestures in order to really get the feel of the characters.

Here is a short clip of how some of the actors for Spongebob preparing to get into their roles. Pretty cool!

Blank Canvas...

Since we are all braining storming on our title sequence projects, I came across once again another video that is both a beautiful title sequence and inspirational. Blank Canvas is a show that features artists and their passions and dedication to their respectful craft. The color is phenomenal, and the graphics are great as well. The placement and timing of the video with respect to the audio is all well done, and is a lesson to all of us that a title sequence is much more than just an introduction. It is a representation of what the audience is about to witness, a representation of the show or film. A great title sequence makes way for a great show/film. 

             

                   Blank Canvas from Ayhan Cebe on Vimeo.

With respect to the title sequence,  Blank Canvas, with your knowledge of the film/ show that you all are thinking of erase the old title sequence and create a new one on a blank canvas. 

Till next time,
Krystal

Beyond motion graphics, or is it?

To give you an idea as to the power of some of the tools available to us, coming from the OS (Open Source) community I would like to share two very different videos. They are simply some of the thousands of projects created with PD (PureData) a free open source program mentioned in my comment to Jenna's post below.

Although originally a program designed to control and manipulate music, it has evolved, thanks to the OS community into one of the most used real-time graphical/auditory, performance programs in the world. The program however is capable of controlling absolutely anything you can somehow connect to a computer (including wireless of course), including robots, projectors, cameras, phones etc. etc. No limit but your imagination.






In this video that was shown at TED's "Full Spectrum" auditions,  Onyx Ashanti demonstrates "beatjazz", music created with two handheld controllers, an iPhone and a mouthpiece, and played with the entire body. The software is Pd controlling three Arduinos which are open source hardware controllers.