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!

Great Graphics

As the course goes on, I've become less intimidated by the program After Effects. Coming into the class with zero previous knowledge, I imagined I would forever be hopeless. But it turns out, AE is just like any other program/medium. It takes time and effort to really learn the craft and use it to its full potential. I'm loving the entire interface and it truly is a beautifully designed program.

I recently just bought a new VCR for 10 bucks at Ithaca Reuse (if you haven't been there before, check it out. Tons of awesome/cheap stuff) and brought all my old VHS tapes back from home. It's hilarious to see how many movies I've collected over the years, especially when I was younger. One film that I just watched was Spawn (1997). I use to adore the movie and I still do... Except that I now realized it's a horrible film. Really bad script, a long and boring title sequence, and even worse acting. BUT, some of the graphics are still as awesome as I remember. Check out his cape in some of these scenes. 

I love the way it flows so freely as if it has a mind of its own. The luscious crimson red and shine to it really makes it stand out of the film. I have no clue what kind of programming they used at this time but it really does hold up in my opinion. I would love to try and replicate this in After Effects and see how well it can come out. 

Promotional Graphic

This is a promotional video for a high school football team I did and for the seniors on the team. I am contracted by the high school through my company (Kaneff Productions) to film and produce highlight videos. I figured I would be creative and make this neat promo for the new season. This was created with Apple Motion. I did not feel comfortable enough yet to make the jump to After Effects to create a more sophisticated piece like this. All footage used in this was filmed by me as well.

Community: Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas

One of my favorite comedies is Community on NBC. Aside from the great characters. They have always been able to do great genre specific episodes. One of my favorite episodes was Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas. This christmas themed episode was done in Stop Motion style animation.

The style lent itself to the episode very well, reminding the audience of christmas specials from when they were younger. Since I'm Jewish I didn't really ever watch any of the classic christmas movies and haven't seen stop motion done that often.  It really does add a "child like" feel to the story, despite the story itself being very adult.

One of the coolest things for me was the behind the scenes making of the episode. I learned a lot about stop motion that I didn't know before (not that I knew a lot before.) They started making the episode very early in the season because of how long stop motion animation takes. One of the most interesting things that I learned is that the hardest shots to make are group walking shots. Each time a character is walking, A drill/screw is put into a hole in the character's foot, and is screwed into the stage. This keeps the character standing up and balanced while the other foot is in the air. Than screw is painted over. When the shot is over and it is time to move the other foot in the air, the process is repeated and the place in the stage where the screw used to be is also painted over.  This process can get very annoying and tedious when you have six or seven characters walking at once.  It is probably very tempting to cut corners and make the models walk at the same time or not have the group shots. The fact that no corners were shows how dedicated the team was. The main animator even won an Emmy for his work.

Motion Graphics, easier said then done.

As we dove right into AfterEffects this week, I came to grasp how complex motion graphics actually is.    Before this class, I watched title sequences and would just be able to comment how cool it looked.  Now I am starting to grasp the long hours of hard, tedious work these artist put in.

 Our assignment for next class is to animate our names.  I am excited that we are getting right into AfterEffects, but I hope I can remember how to do it all.  It is one thing to be able to animate your name, it is another thing to animate your name well.  It will be fun to play around in AfterEffects, I just hope I don't get lost in the key frames.

One of the most incredible opening title sequences I have ever seen is the opening of Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  The opening creates this epic, yet disturbing, tone.  I love the dark color schemes and pictures created out of the splashing metal liquid.  This would be a fun (yet extremely difficult) concept for my name animation!

Spirited Away Trailer High Quality

Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away is easily one of the best animated films of all time.  Within the first five minutes you wouldn't exactly understand why its dubbed as such, the graphics are simple and the characters are average looking but as the story goes on the simplicity is what makes the movie so pure and beautiful. Miyazaki purposefully made this artistic choice claiming that he didn't want the animation to "steal the show"and although they had a very vast knowledge of the software necessary to create elaborate animations the animators mostly animated the characters by hand ( the good ole fashion way).  I personally can't imagine the movie any other way. There is something so raw and unadulterated about Miyazaki's style that perfectly fits the theme of the movie: the journey from childhood to adulthood.

This trailer does not do the movie justice in the least bit, but I recommend you watch it if you haven't already. It is an absolutely beautiful story.

just getting started

I must say I am enjoying my first week of working in After Effects. I came into this class with no prior experience in any graphics software, including photoshop. I have had only a minor introduction to Motion but that was it. My desire to learn this program came from watching my roommate last year spend countless hours working on videos and doing AE tutorials from video copilot. I watched with a sense of awe as a 2-D image suddenly became 3-D and animated. When I saw this class was available, I had to seize the opportunity. My first experiences have been good ones. I have learned how to do extremely basic 2-D animation and how to get text to appear as though it is being written by hand using the "stroke" or "write on" commands. I am also becoming familiar with the nuances of the program such as keyframes, editing the timeline to a certain length and how to render only a certain part of the timeline. What seemed to be a daunting task is now becoming a little clearer with every lesson. I look forward to the remainder of the semester and see what I can really do with such a powerful program.

A Few Things I Find Interesting...

I'm finally getting around to posting my first blog- ever! This is a really neat requirement for the class; I like the idea of sharing our thoughts and opinions through here as opposed to solely class discussions. I want to admit that the first few days have been a little intimidating. I say this for a couple reasons- first off I think I'm the youngest student in the class as only being a sophomore and I haven't taken many production classes yet and while I am fascinated by motion graphics I don't have a clue what I'm doing yet! The program After Effects that we will be using is so sophisticated and intriguing I really want to play around and learn more. I wasn't sure before the class began if I would want to invest in the software, but after this past week I had to get my hands on it. No better way to learn than having access 24/7 without worrying about reserving a space in one of the labs. (By the way if anyone else is considering purchasing AE do it through the campus bookstore! As a student you can get a bundle of 9+ Adobe programs including AE for $350- way better than purchasing it online.)

Next, I have to say watching the interviews, videos, and title sequence clips in class has really made me think about all of the possibilities that can be produced. And as Arturo stated on the first day, "There isn't anything that can be imagined which can't be created." I stopped to think about this and it's very impressive. We can create apocalypses and travel to far away universes, just an infinite number of ideas that you can make happen with motion graphics and animation. My two favorite websites that we have been introduced to so far are videocopilot.net and watchthetitles.com! When I was sitting in class I instantly thought of the HBO series Game of Thrones title sequence because it's probably the most impressive one that I've seen recently. (I just started watching Game of Thrones over the summer.) If any of you haven't seen the title sequence check it out on YouTube because apparently my embed code didn't want to work. I'll try to get this taken care of.

That about concludes my first blog posting. :-) I can't wait to work with my classmates and learn all sorts of amazing things! I'm off to try to do our homework assignment- animating our name. See you guys soon!

The Smallest the Biggest and the Best

After watching Rebecca's very cool stop-motion animation, a medium I really love, I though I would post a few samples.

This one is supposedly the tiniest stop motion animation. I am a big fan of stop motion and have worked on many, so I can tell how precise and time consuming it must have been. But it is cool. Enjoy

This one made with Nokia phones as part of a campaign is though to be the biggest stop motion. I think it is an interesting exercise but not as effective as a final film. What do you think?

Finally, of course, we have to always go back to the masters, which in turn learned from other giants of the field.

Some of my favorite stop motion artists are the Brothers Quay. Their films are among the most haunting that I've ever seen. They have a dream like quality that resides permanently in your psyche. Very powerful storytellers. They in turn learned form Ray Harryhausen , Jan Švankmajer  and Jiří Trnka among others all of whom you should seek and know their work. They are history at its best.

Here is a short sample of  Quay's films, you can find their work and that of the others mentioned above at our film library:

I still think...wait, what do I think?

I've been wondering about that for a while now, but I'm pretty sure that I can say with some level of security that I'm learning and creating my future.  At first when I picked up this class, I only did so because I needed it for my major, I knew the professor was great, and I had the free time to do it.  Now, after only two classes, I think I might be hooked...I knew I enjoyed doing animation, but this is way too cool to pass up.

In my Intro to Field Production class my first semester here at Ithaca, I made a five minute long stop motion animation music video for my final project.  My professor warned me of the work it would mean putting in, but I really wasn't worried; I wanted to do this so badly.  After several sleepless nights and a lot of caffeine, I came out with a finished product that I was moderately happy with, and submitted it for grading.  Now, looking back on it, I find so many things that I'd like to fix and redo, but unfortunately all of the materials that I used to create each frame have long since been lost to Ithaca's recycling system, and I don't quite have the time to re-make everything.  This was also before the point in time that I knew that Park had a lab for such work; I instead spent many grueling hours hovering over a piece of white posterboard with my roommate's camera and no tripod, occasionally offloading my camera into Final Cut 7, to get every single shot in the video.

Now that I'm in this class and have just been handed After Effects (which is a thrilling new program for me), doors have been flying open in my head with all sorts of ideas pouring out.  Having this capability at my fingertips is mindblowing, and I plan to utilize it to the full extent.  I've always looked at animation groups like Pixar and been awed by their creations, so it's fantastic to finally start working with similar technology and know that someday, I could be the creator or editor of something that a young girl looks up to just as I did.

First Impressions

Wanna know something funny? The first day I walked into class, I had no idea what After Effects even was. I'm so clueless sometimes it's a bit ridiculous. In any event, now that I know what it is, I'm extremely excited to be part of the class and learn the program. After playing around with it for just the first few days I've been trying to think about the possibilities of the program and what it could mean for my future in game design. I've worked a little with Photoshop and Illustrator, and I'm taking a class this semester that works with Flash. By the end of my time here at IC I would love to be proficient in each program to be able to adapt my drawings and sketches into polished concept art and animations.

The short time I've spent with After Effects has opened my mind up to even more than that. I'm still not decided on exactly what I want to do... I seem to have run the gambit of game design and don't know exactly where my niche is. Art, writing, and production seem to be where I find myself always returning to. But talking about all these intros to movies has made me think critically about them, and the possibility of doing something with movies or television is always in the back of my mind. One of my favorite movies of all time is 300, so when we talked about it and I began to realize that we were working with the very same program that made the special effects possible, I got very excited. I'm a pretty good artist and I really want to use my drawing skills with the After Effects program to create some cool animations like the ones in the credit scene, and I've told some friends that maybe someday I'll be able to create some cool intros for their film projects.

One of the coolest things I've seen done with the After Effects program is people on YouTube making live action, or real-life videos of games, or spoofs on them. Specifically for the game, Skyrim. This is one such video that if I could, I would love to make:

By the end of this class, I hope to have my own Skyrim Badass video on youtube. Cody, I know you're out there, lets do it.

Opening title sequences

Last class was great being able to see many different opening title sequences. I liked being able to hear from the creators themselves. It helps to know what the creators were thinking when creating these pieces. I was shocked how powerful this program really is. I did the simplest thing in After Effects. For instance just make a square and add some key frames to it. Then at the end of the class was told that is how simple some opening sequences really are with After Effects. It was really neat just making a shape with the shape or pen tool.

"Cigarettes, Scotch, and Sex" A Look at the Title Sequence of Mad Men

So I thought long and hard into this and I came up with something I feel like the majority of people have asked themselves from time to time: how deep is the title sequence of Mad Men? Currently, I'm on the third season with only one or two more episodes until I progress to the fourth and every episode I watch furthers my interest in the story, setting, and style of the show. Every episode begins the same way, with a mostly silhouetted business man walking into his office before his world literally falls apart, all to the musical stylings of RJD2. The titles, created by production house Imaginary Forces, pay homage to graphic designer Saul Bass's skyscraper-filled opening titles for Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959) and falling man poster from Vertigo (1958). Every time I start a new episode because it reminds me that although every visual aspect of the show speaks "classy" on a certain level, nothing is perfect and your world could come out from beneath you as easy as dropping your briefcase, as seen in the show. The intro continues by displaying the man falling from what looks like a skyscraper of advertisements with provocatively looking women, the all American family, and alcohol from the 60s, placing the viewer into the world right next to the characters of the show. I remember the first time watching the intro and thinking to myself, "Yes, I'm going to enjoy this show" solely because the intro's animation got me hook-line-and-sinker.

If you haven't seen it yet, Mad Men is a show on AMC that isn't currently airing new episode but can be watched between the hours of 6 am to about 8 or 9 am on Sundays and is also available online through Netflix and a number of streaming sites.

At the Moulin Rouge, You'll Have Fun...

When I was in tenth grade, I decided I really wanted to go into the film industry. I'd always had an interest in film and photography, but it was when I rented Moulin Rouge that I really decided film was something I wanted to do. Even though it's not the most conventional favorite movie, it has been my favorite for years. I think the way it's edited and its use of mise-en-scen is amazing. As an editor, the fast pace and unusual style of the film is something I really admire. And the general appearance, with its use of color and camera movement, there is really no comparison. It’s so unlike every other movie that I appreciate it so much more.  And interestingly enough, Moulin Rouge is a part of a trilogy of films called “The Red Curtain Trilogy” all of which were directed by the incomparable Baz Luhrmann. Spanning over ten years, the Red Curtain Trilogy is composed of Strictly Ballroom (1992), Romeo + Juliet (1996), and Moulin Rouge (2001). While the trilogy is referred to as a trilogy, the films are all independent and do not share a storyline. Baz refers to his first three films as thus because of the similar style in which they were made. They all used a similar fast editing style combined with a vivid use of color, but their individual plots and characters are all dazzlingly unique.
Overall, Moulin Rouge is a fantastic, powerful, and vibrant film that you should most definitely check out.

Zach Snyder

Zach Snyder is definitely one of my all time favorite directors. My love affair with his work all started with his box office hit "300" which still to this day is one of my favorite movies (and no its not because of the half naked men in loin cloths, contrary to popular belief).Everything he does is beautiful and complex. If you are familiar with Snyder's work you know exactly why he is absolutely relevant to the topic of motion graphics and animation. I definitely think that his team is one of the best in the industry right now. Every single one of his movies, (300, Watchmen, Sucker Punch) have some of the cleanest and most outrageous effects out there. To say that I understand the complexity of all these heavily animated scenes would be a lie but I hope this class helps me at least somewhat disect and understand some of the scenes of some of these marvelous movies directed by one of my idols.

Enjoy a small clip from 300...

Blog Post 1: Interest in Animation

In high school I took a computer class where we learned about tons of different adobe programs. We mostly learned about Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash.  Messing around and learning to use Adobe Flash was the coolest thing to me. Getting to make a stick figure come to life, or a car drive off the screen was awesome to 15 year old me.  I convinced my teacher to let me have a copy for home so I could work on school projects and teach myself how to use the program better.

That was my first experience with animation, and even though they were very short and rough around the edges, I was very happy that I found something that I actually really liked to do.  Last semester I took a Flash Animation class and found that I still loved doing homework in that class and would spend much longer than I had to perfecting my animations.  While other people had stick figures that would glide across the screen, mine would walk.  If I cut corners and did the bare minimum, I could have still gotten an A. But I would know that I could have done better.  I wouldn't be proud to show it to anyone if it wasn't the best I could do. That led to a lot of late nights and extra effort that I tended to not put into  my other classes.

I'm not sure if I really like doing animation, or if I just can't stand when it looks bad.  Either way, there is a passion there that I don't have with a lot of other things that I do, and the way I look at it, that is something I need to pursue further. The first day of class I said that I didn't know what I wanted to do yet for my career.  This Motion Graphics and Animation class is the next step for me in narrowing down what I want to do. Since I am a TVR major, I am hoping that one way or another, I will be closer to figuring out what I want be when I grow up.

Welcome to AE

      I must say I am very excited to dig deeper into After Effects!  The first time I used the program was probably around three years ago.  During this time I was really into the video game Call of Duty 4, and I often liked to make videos of gameplay.  This is actually how I ended up wanting to pursue a career in the editing world because of how much fun it was to arrange clips, color correct, and tons more.  To further expand on what I knew of post production, I decided to try out After Effects.  What really appealed to me about After Effects was a plug in for it called Twixtor.  This plug in allows for super slow motion while still being able to retain quality.  You can see an application of it below.

      I also liked After Effects for all the neat text effects and video introductions that it can produce.  I remember one time I took text and made it dissipate into bits of sand.  The ability to produce these otherwise nearly impossible graphics goes to show how powerful After Effects is.  How even an amateur with a tutorial can create things of the caliber of a professional studio is why I think After Effects is perhaps the best Adobe application out today.

Blog 1: Motion Graphics Introduction

Last semester I took a mini-course in After Effects and it really opened my eyes to the limitless possibilities of animation and graphic movement.  I know the very basics of After Effects but I can't wait to make a title sequence with this program.  I have always been in love with the Mad Men opening and would love to create something like that for my new television show on ICTV this semester.  The title sequence always sets the tone for a television show.  It can make or break the number of eyes on your content.  If you can't captivate an audience in the first 30-45 seconds, you're essentially done.  I am looking to hone my skills in After Effects but most importantly I am looking to use these skills to entertain.  You can "know" an editing program, but still lack creativity and captivation.  Below I have attached a link to the Mad Men opening.  In my opinion, it entices the viewer and creates the perfect amount of suspense to see what the show has in store for them.

http://vimeo.com/4877093

Anchor point

I learned in last class just how important anchor points are. I used Adobe After Effects before, but believe it or not, never had to move the anchor point, therefore I never really understood what it was. Now that I do understand what it is I am experimenting with images changing up the anchor point making really cool effects I couldn't have before.

Welcome to Motion Graphics!

"One of my art teachers put me onto trying to find my own art theory. After many morning walks...an idea hit me that seemed like a complete revelation. It was to compose motion, just as musicians compose sound. The idea was to lead me far, far away from wanting to excel in...traditional art."

Len Lye (1901 - 1980) Painter, poet, sculptor, kinetic artist can be considered as one of the hundred great innovators of twentieth century art with artists such as Picasso, Duchamp and Brancusi.

He was one of the first artist to make films without a camera in the 1930's by drawing and scratching directly on celluloid and using Technicolor to extract patterns that expressed kinetic energy and feelings.

He once wrote: "There has never been a great film unless it was created in the spirit of the experimental film-maker. All great films contribute something original in manner or treatment".

He was born in Christchurch , New Zealand in 1901. You can see the influence that the art of the Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand had on his early work. He studied the dance rituals of Polynesia and the Australian Aborigines and became involved with film-making which was an ideal medium to express his ideas about motion.

His first film, Tusalava, (London ,1929), was a semi-abstract animated film influenced not only by modernism, in particular the Futurists that were doing similar experiments but also by the art of Samoa, the Maori and the aboriginal people of Australia where he had spent several years in the early 1920's.

I have not found a copy of the film with the original soundtrack which I believe is a Django Reindhardt tune. In fact I have played the video along with this tune and it is a perfect sync!

As you can see, motion graphics is nothing new!:-)

Look also:

Norman McLaren

Stan Brakhage

Oskar Fischinger

Harry Everett Smith

John Grierson