Dragon Baby

The thing that impressed me the most about this piece is the fact that even though the viewer knows it is fake, it is nearly impossible to catch any flaws in the animation.  This looks soo real and and so well done that its production personal must have an extremely experienced background.  It is one thing to fight on the green screen and then make it look like they are in a miniature environment.  But the fact that they were able to put the child’s head on the actor with such an apparently flawless execution is absolutely stunning.  They were even able to achieve all the head movements and various expressions necessary from the baby with the correct orientation of his head.  The editing that must have gone into this must be remarkable.  I realize that this level of animation mostly likely won’t be able to be achieved from just this class alone, but it would be very interesting to know how they did this.  I am in awe.  

Casino Royale

      My favorite movie franchise of all time is Albert Broccoli and Eon Production's depiction of James Bond.  Strangely enough, both Mr. Broccoli and I share the nickname "Cubby!"  Back on topic though, I find it impressive that the Bond series stays fresh and enjoyable despite having more than twenty movies.  Sure it may be the same spy premise every time, but if it's not broken, why change it?  Aside from how entertaining the films are, I also love the title sequences.
      Everyone knows the gun barrel sequence, which may be perhaps the most recognizable aspect of the series aside from the theme music.  What I like more than the famous gun barrel sequence is the intro credits.  They all follow some sort of theme from the movie.  Of all the intros, I like Casino Royale's the best.  The theme it follows is playing cards, which constitutes the latter half of the film.

      There are so many subtle aspects of this intro that get often overlooked.  For example, at about 1:36 when the crosshair passes over the queen's face, it reveals the face of the lead actress.  At the end of the sequence, there are cards flying around but over time they change into British pounds if you look closely.  What I would like to replicate or learn how it was done would be at 2:16 when the gun fires and streaks fly out in different directions.  It makes me wonder if it was done with an expression or perhaps when they assembled it they set it to random and it just happened to create that design.  A better question might be how many people did it take to put this together!

Gundam Fight

Today I came across this really cool stop motion video and I thought I would share it with the rest of the class. In it there are some shooting effects and also explosion effects. These effects are not stop motion like the rest of the film so it gives them a distinct look. The one effect that I thought worked the best was when he knocks down the bad guy and the dusk gets shot up everywhere. It lingers onscreen and gives it a nice fluidity even though the characters and moving choppy from frame to frame. It always amazes me to see the lengths that some people will go to when it comes to making these types of films. It says that the movie is over 3000 frames and done within 30 days. It is consistently lighted the same and the it seems to flow flawlessly. For some reason Blogger won't let me insert the video into the post so you will just have to copy the link.  

http://vitamincr.com/2012/05/3000-photos-30-days-lots-of-love-epic-stop-motion-gundam-battle/