Welcome to Film Riot

Ever wonder how movies did all their fancy After Effects effects? Of course you did! We all do, and that's what Film Riot's here for! Created by a group of film makers who love what they do, Film Riot teaches viewers how to do a wide arrange of things that the pros do. From pre-production to post, Film Riot encourages people to learn all the techniques.

Along with step-by-step tutorials in After Effects, Film Riot also has great Do It Yourself videos, to help you make the best cheap gear you can get. Film Riot can show you the ways of making cheap light stands, shoulder mounts, sliders, and more! While I haven't used all the DIY gear, I have used the slider, and I must say it is great! For less than $20, the DIY slider flows beautifully, and was a great tool to work with in many shoots.

Don't feel like learning, but feel like making instead? Great! Film Riots encourages viewers to not only watch their videos, but to go out and shoot their own films. Offering weekly video challenges, Film Riot wants you to go and make stuff! It makes sense when you think about it, the best way to learn the techniques they teach is to go out and actually do it!

So that's Film Riot! If you're interested in becoming a film-maker, or just want to learn more cool techniques, I highly recommend checking these guys out.

Bead Game / Afterlife

Here's some early pioneering stop motion animation from Ishu Patel, who worked for the National Film Board of Canada for over twenty-five years producing and directing animated short films while also working as an educator. He developed many animation techniques, including one that allowed thousands of tiny beads to move under a continuously zooming camera (which can be seen in Bead Game). He is known for his experimental style and focus on deep philosophical issues.

Bead Game (1977) was nominated for an Academy Award in 1978. He used beads as a medium and transformed them continuously, offering his vision of evolution from the smallest forms of ancient life to modern man.

Afterlife received an Outstanding Achievement Award at the London Film Festival in 1979. He placed clay shapes on top of glass and lit the animation from below, producing what you see here. This particular animation is considered one of his greatest.

While these videos are both pretty old, it's still important to understand how far we've come and how these animations have inspired artists today.

Motion Imaging Journal

I work in the back office space at the library on campus and one of my tasks is to check in the new periodicals. It's one of my more fun tasks because I get to read the cool magazines like People, Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, etc. But there are also a bunch of educational periodicals- which greatly outnumber the entertainment news. One of the periodicals that would pertain to our class is the SMPTE (which stands for Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers) Motion Imaging Journal. Their website sums up the publication concisely, "Each issue covers a special topic including file-based workflow, compression, 3D, audio, distribution formats, advances in lighting, sustainability, digital cinema and much more." The journal is published eight times a year and every article is peer reviewed by a great board of editors. Some of the editors are affiliated with groups such as 20th Century Fox, HBO, Avid Technology Inc., and many more big names. If you are curious to look at the Motion Imaging Journal in the library the call number is 'Per TR845.S6' and it's up on the 4th floor. Found right beside the Motion Imaging Journal in the stacks is The American Cinematographer which discusses major motion pictures in theaters and the technical production for each one. I have found skimming through these is very interesting too!