I stumbled on this short film called "what's in the box" made by Tim Smit, a dutch student who recorded all the footage himself and edited it in his bedroom. He used after Effects and 3DS MAX for the special effects and only spent 150 euros for the entire production.

LEGO Animations

The holidays got me to thinking about what my favorite toys were growing up, and LEGOs came to mind. Not surprisingly, I wasn't the only person on the Internet looking to see informationa bout LEGO animations and how some could be done.

I actually got redirected to a Video Copilot forum in which some people were discussing different ways in which you could animate LEGOs, and most people came to the conclusion that you could either do very limited animation work using something like After Effects, or just use stop motion to animate. I'll give examples of both that I found on the forum.

This first example is one in which a guy put together a pretty basic video using some LEGOs and a green sheet in which he keyed in random desert images and changed the position of the LEGOs to give the pretty basic illusion of movement.

The stop motion versions of LEGO use are obviously more tedious but much more rewarding. The best example I found was this music video by The White Stripes:

Cyber Monday Deals

With all the hype over Black Friday and Cyber Monday I thought I would see if there were any software deals. There are!

Check these out on Facebook.

Here is another site for After Effects coupon codes.

Or CS4 if you're interested!

Disney Animations

So I was researching the techniques of the old Christmas animation classics like Rudolf the Red nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, and the Year Without a Santa Claus when I discovered a behind-the-scenes look at Disney's old animated classics.

The video above starts around the 2:00 minute mark but what really impressed me is that it took the animators and designers 4 years to draw, animate, and paint the scenes for Beauty and the Beast. The artists put pictures up on the wall of lions, gorillas, buffalo, and bears in order to inspire different parts of the Beast's image. They then created 3-D clay models in order to truly visualize the Beast in every dimension before drawing him in the 2-D frames. In the next video Don Hahn, the Producer of Beauty and The Beast, goes into detail of the hand-drawn animation process.

In order to make the filming of the hand drawn frames more dimensional, Walt Disney's MultiPlane camera was often used for the classics. But if we think of all the work that went into animating and then filming these Disney movies, the idea of creating a new animation with the computer graphics and animation techniques available is astounding. I often complain about how long it takes for an animation to render or how quickly time seems to go by when animating. But when I take a step back and look at the process of creating my favorite Disney Animated Movie, I realize that I would have started the project my Freshman year in college only to finish it during graduation.

Disney's Beauty and the Beast may have been taken from a long line of French folktales, but the animation process and finished product are something that I can't help but admire.

Stop Motion Pumpkin Pie

I'm sure this Thanksgiving, many of us enjoyed a delicious homemade pumpkin pie-some of us may have even made one ourselves. However, I'm guessing none of us took the time to make our pumpkin pie in the form of a stop motion animation! Since I was feeling in the holiday spirit and have been having fun looking up interesting stop motion videos lately I thought I would try to find a stop motion that related to Thanksgiving.

UK photographer Rob Ambrose and Naomi Kershaw decided to show the entire process of making a pumpkin pie from whole pumpkin to fully eaten pie! As you can see in the vide posted below, this video is a simple idea but was quite well executed as a stop motion. (and very holiday appropriate!). This video clearly has a lot of effort put into it and probably took awhile to make. The shots where the alt shaker is in the air and the spoon is stirring seem like they were somewhat difficult to execute smoothly...do you think they used some sort of green screen hand or something similar to that? It seems as though they must have done something because things don't just stay in the air by themselves!

I am always amazed by stop motion animations. They must take so much patience and attention to detail-one slip of the hand could mess up an entire sequence! They also seem extremely time consuming especially the more complicated ones (like the jelly bean ex that I posted that took two years to complete!) I think it would be fun to try making my own stop motion animation sometime!

All We Ever Wanted Was Everything

I recently came across this music video "All We Ever Wanted Was Everything' by Late Night Tales and I really like the unfolding effect that was used throughout the video. It is very simple, slow, and detailed and yet there is what seems like a complexity to it that makes it impossible to glance away.


The creator of the music video's visual effect is Ned Wenlock. He details how he came up with the idea for the music video in his blog. Ned discusses that the unfolding technique started with a layering technique he had previously used in one of his shorts called Bedbugs Odyssey (below) while casting lights on the layers to create shadows.
I think using the write-on effect for my project is time consuming, I can only imagine how long it took to create such an elaborate video!

An Animation Thanksgiving

I have found a new love for anything animated. One of my all-time favorite shows has always been Family Guy, but I have taken this love to movies now. I spend a considerable amount of time watching new shows and movies on my parents new TV. I was able to plug an HDMI cord right into their laptop and watch anything on Netflix in full HD. Before my friends got back into town I spent my first night home watching one of the best animated movies I've ever seen, Tangled.
After watching this movie, I was amazed that the transition from 2D animated classics, like Aladdin and the Lion King, to what is now 3D animation like Tangled. The colors and life-like motions within the world of this movie were very realistic. This is because the Director, Byron Howard, and Head of Story, Nathan Greno, wanted to take the classic Disney movie look and put an entirely new twist on it.

Art Director of the film, David Goetz, states that, “When you look at old [Disney] movies, you can see that they’re consistent about using these shapes to compose with. That gives the shows a visual continuity, a grace and flow. So, we tried to leverage off that.”

He is referring to what they took from the classic 2D animated Disney movies. They wanted to use the elegance of the classics and but the most realistic touch in the new 3D world. That involved making grass and wood look like real grass and wood. The main challenge was Rapunzel's hair. She uses her hair in this movie like a second pair of hands. This was a challenge for the producers to make the hair flow in a realistic way when she is whipping it all around fighting off enemies and transporting herself around her tower.



Overall I was blown away at the realism and work that was done for this movie. With the use of 40 different animators and even more in higher ranks than that. So far this is tied for my favorite animated movie with the new film Rio. I suggest to watch these back to back because the new advances in 3D animation and the use of CGI with literally blow your mind. My next animated movies to watch are Gnomeo and Juliet, Bolt, and Up.

Disney's A Christmas Carol

Over Thanksgiving break I watched the movie, Disney's A Christmas Carol, for the first time. I thought is was very interesting how they took real actors like Jim Carrey and turned him into animation. This process is called Motion Capture or MoCap. I wanted to learn more on how they made these actors look so animated but real at the same time. Plus Jim Carrey plays multiple characters and you can't even tell when you watch it. This is a very fascinating process. It must be challenging for the actors to act this way because MoCap has each actor wear multiple dots on their face to get the motion and you're not in the real setting. I posted a few videos below with a little inside scoop on how this movie was made.





I also read this article on the movie about the making of the animation and it had a video that went along with it. You can click on the link above to go to the page and watch the video.

Bicycle Zoetrope

I just saw this on The Daily What and it reminded me a lot of the Monty Python spinning thing (yep, that's the technical term for it) that they used for the Flying Circus opening. These guys did something similar with their bike wheels, and it turned out pretty cool.

Apparently they wanted to see if they could film animation in real-time. After watching the video, I'm kinda wondering what exactly they made the gears out of. They look like paper, but I feel like regular paper would just rip when attached to a bike wheel. I also wonder how they came up with the gear idea in the first place and knew that it would look like that when attached to a bike wheel. I mean, either way, it looks pretty awesome.

Game of Thrones Opening Title Sequence

So I know I'm behind the times and most people have already discovered the awesomeness which is HBO's series Game of Thrones, but I just started it tonight and it'd majorly epic. An aspect of this series that I really enjoy is the title sequence.



The creator behind this opening is Angus Wall of the company Elastic. Wall's other credits include the title sequences of Big Love and Rome, as well as editing in the Social Network. According to an interview in The Hollywood Reporter, Wall says that the show's creators wanted something that resembled the map at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings books. Wall goes on to say We wanted to do something different from the standard tropes for fantasy maps,""So we came up with the idea of a world inside a sphere."



The sphere idea was derived from a 1960s' sci-fy space station with terrain inside. However, it had to appear non-futuristic and reflective of the Middle Earth that is present in the book series the show is based on. According to Wall they referenced Leonardo da Vinci's machines and "wanted it to look like a real place photographed with a real camera."

Spending Time With Sheep!

Since I’ve been home I have spent so much time with my Mom and her sheep…looking at the new baby lambs, putting up fence, getting new guard dogs, etc that I almost forgot to post on the blog this week! Thus, I figured it would be appropriate to find something sheep related to post.

As I was searching for sheep related animations, I stumbled upon a video series called "The Pen". "The Pen" consists of shot 1-3 minute videos of two claymation sheep discussing life and everyday activities. It sounds strange but some of them are quite funny, especially if you know a little about sheep. Also it turns out that they were made by Guy Capper and Jemaine Clement who are also known from the band and TV show "Flight of the Concords". After finding that out I understood why the sheep in the videos had New Zealand accents and a strange, dry sense of humor. If you are interested in this strange but funny web series about sheep I have posted one of the clips below.

Amazon Studios

Amazon Studios is a new easy way for amazon users to make and share their own movies and write scripts. This offers user the opportunity to win money, get noticed and get their movie made. Amazon Studios will give out a total of 2.7 million dollars in it's first year of monthly and annual contests for the best movies and scripts. In addition to cash prizes the work of the writers and filmmakers will be shared with a global community that can give valuable feedback through revisions and advice. The overall goal of this company is to work along with Hollywood to make the best projects into feature films.

The main reasons behind the creation of Amazon Studios are to give consumers the chance to give their feedback about film and script entries. This will give amazon studios employees the opportunity to figure out what is and is not working. Another reason for Amazon Studios is for people to evaluate test movies instead of simply written script. Amazon Studios will also be a place where users can experiment and collaborate.

So how exactly does a person start a project with Amazon Studios? In order to do this a person must first upload an original script or movie. This product must be completely new to Amazon Studios and free from any preexisting elements already on this website.

A main component of Amazon Studios is the test movie. A test movie is a typically inexpensive, full-length film that lets the viewer know the entire story of the script in an interesting way, has solid acting and sound but does not have to be perfect. The main goal of Amazon Studios is to discover test movies that have potential to be made into feature length films. This company believes that the script alone is not a true indication of a piece's potential success; it should also be accompanied by a test movie.

There is a full list of Resources and Faqs available on the Amazon Studio website.

Michael Lewis, Roy Price (Amazon Studios Chief), Alex Greenfield (Amazon Studios Winner) of Amazon Studios at Comic Con:

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon

Transformers has always been one of my favorite series of movies, even when they were cartoons during my childhood. However the new movie trilogy has taken it above and beyond. The special effects were mind boggling and the effort put into this film was also just as shocking.

Industrial Light and Magic is the special effects company that created most of the effects for the movies and are known for their work in Iron Man 2, War of the Worlds, and Star Trek. If you visit their website you will understand what specific pieces they specialize in and how this company has made some of the best special effects in the industry lately.

The most amazing fact that I uncovered while researching was that ILM has a giant rendering farm for super complex effects like those in Transformers 3 and that is a great thing because without the ability to render large files, the amount of time it would take would be counterproductive. It was said that when the movie was in its final week of post-production that ILM completely shut down their rendering farm specifically to finish the film. Whats amazing is that this allowed for 200,000 hours of rending time which is equivalent to 23 days of render time in 24 hours.



I found myself continually in awe at the superb and intricate details and time that was spent to make every scene look extrememly realistic and making the robots look and move just like we would expect it to. The plot to the movie was terrible and the movie carried on for about 45 minutes longer than it needed to, but the special effects were so above and beyond that I was fine with it carrying on. All I could think was what was the next mind blowing stunts they were going to pull and create. A++++++ for ILM.

Peter Szewczyk - Dark Clouds

Peter Szewczyk, a man whose name I hope I never have to type out again, has done remarkable visual effects work for over 15 different titles, including but not limited to: Avatar, 2012, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix, and Shrek 2. Clearly he is a very gifted visual effects artist in the movie business.

With quite the workload with movies the past few years, I was surprised to find out that Szewczyk had any time to work on anything else, but I did see that he posted on Vimeo a short film he did with visual effects entitled "Dark Clouds". It really is a remarkable piece, it's beautiful to look at and only about a minute and a half long. I will post the video below, but just in case it doesn't work, you can find the video here.

Dark Clouds | Short Film from Peter Szewczyk on Vimeo.

Physics Simulation

A physics engine is a computer software that provides a simulation of certain physical systems such as rigid body dynamics (including collision detection), soft body dynamics, and fluid dynamics.
This being said, each physics engine usually falls into one of two categories: real-time (uses simple calculations and decreased accuracy to compute in time for the game to respond at an appropriate rate for game play, usually used in video games and other forms of interactive computing)


and high-precision (calculate very precise physics used by scientists and computer animated movies, require more processing power).



There are limitations to a simulation involving physics. Physics engine realism is the precision of numbers representing the position of and forces acting upon objects. When precision is too low, rounding errors effect results and small fluctuations not modeled in the simulation can drastically change the predicted results, simulated objects can behave unexpectedly or arrive at the wrong location.

Done correctly however, the physics engine can yield amazing results. Below the creator applied the physics engine to the blender effect to cause the buildings to collapse.

Buckminster Fuller

R. Buckminster Fuller dabbled in philosophy, design, architecture, art, engineering, entrepreneurship, writing, mathematics, teaching and inventing.

As a designer who was motivated by the idea that the consumer should get "more for less," R. Buckminster Fuller worked on plans to modernize houses, boats, cars and geodesic designs. Although the exact plans different from item to item, Fuller designed each with the intent of being mass-produced utilizing the most simplistic and sustainable means available. This designer's main focus was in the fields of building and transportation. He became most prominent worldwide in the 1950's with the creation of his large-scale, multifunctional geodesic domes. However, it wasn't until after Fuller's death that the significance of his discoveries, proposals and inventions were recognized as proof that the world's resources are not endless and should be taken with cautious economy and thought.


Fuller was born in 1895 to a wealthy New England family. To their horror, Fuller failed to graduate from Harvard University. As a result, the soon-to-be designer entered the US Navy, a decision that would greatly affect his future life and work through expanding his scientific understanding. After leaving the navy in 1922 and gaining a new appreciation for discovery due to his sea travel, Fuller co-founded the Stockade Building Company which created lightweight building materials.

After the loss of his job in 1927, Fuller contemplated suicide. Instead of ending his life, Fuller made the decision to devote the remainder of his life to "an experiment to discover what the little, penniless, unknown individual might be able to do effectively on behalf of all humanity." In order to make this plan a reality this individual narrowed his focus to construction and made his first patent application for the 4D tower. This building was proposed as a lightweight, prefabricated, multi-story, apartment tower that could be brought anywhere by airship. After the delivery occurred the towers would be capable of generating their own light and heat with an independent sewage and waste disposal system. Fuller poured his entire being into making this idea a reality. His ideas were cohesive in that they suggested the most modern methods of transport.


In 1929 Fuller began his invention of the Dymaxion House. This shelter was displayed at the Marshall Field department store and was derived from lightweight steel, duraluminium and plastic which was suspended from a centralized mast from where the rooms were radiated in a hexagonal plane. This idea was conceived as a temporary, transportable space that could be rented, as opposed to a permanent, private residence.


In 1933 Fuller made a proposal for a three-wheeled Dymaxion Car which entailed rear steering and front-wheel drive powered by a Ford engine. The car's aerodynamic shape was closely connected to high-performance yachts. Unfortunately the first three prototypes were rammed and overturned killing a driver directly outside of the Chicago World's Fair. Regardless of this major setback, Fuller powered through and continued to work on his experiments and began to gain an international reputation for his work in lightweight and quickly constructed housing.


In 1940 Fuller was asked to create an emergency shelter for the British War relief Organization. In this effort, Fuller collaborated with the Butler Company of Kansas City, a company which manufactured grain silos of curved galvanized steel in order to build a self-supporting infrastructure in a circular shape to supply the best relationship between circumference and interior space. Although the British Government did not take advantage of this invention the US utilized these units as emergency accommodation for the air force during World War II. The war effort also prompted Fuller to create the Dymaxion World Map because he believed that the relations between the superpowers varied during war and thus there was a need to develop a global map so that the entire world could be viewed at one time.

Once the war ended Fuller returned to his passion of creating standardized, lightweight and affordable housing. This came in the form of the Dymaxion Dwelling Machine, otherwise known as the Wichita House. This shelter was invented in collaboration with the Beech Aircraft Company of Wichita, Kansas. The original prototype featured a house for a full-size family and weighed four tons. Although the company received thousands of orders for this home design, Fuller wanted to wait to sell until he was fully content with his invention. Needless to say this upset many investors who in turn withdrew their support. Ultimately a Wichita man bought the prototype for the design and lived in the house with his six kids until his death.

Fuller's main focus was on geodesic domes which were designed to cover the maximum space possible without needing to use internal supports. The idea behind this creation was the bigger the dome was, the lighter and stronger it would become. By 1954 Fuller had created two domes at the Milan Triennale exhibition made from six pieces of corrugated cardboard. By 1957, Fuller had redefined the design so that a geodesic dome was assembled in twenty-two hours in Honolulu. Since this time, hundreds of thousands geodesic designs have been created worldwide, often in extreme conditions such as to house homeless families in Africa.


By the time of his death, the contributions of Buckminster Fuller included 25 US patents, 28 written books, traveling the world 57 times and the recipient of 47 doctrines and a 1969 nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Motion Graphic Studios

I found a great website that shows demo reels from some of the top motion graphic studios. These videos are worth watching as they include what the studios believe are some of their best pieces of work. Many of the videos you can view right from the site others take you to the studios links. Some of the studios have internship possibilities in LA this Fall. From reading many of the descriptions it appears you would need quite the reel to obtain one of those positions.

Here is Umeric's Demo:

Umeric 'Until Now' 2010. from Umeric on Vimeo.

Hydraulx Visual Effects has an easily navigable site where you can see all the work they have been associated with. Here is a link to their feature demo reel it is 20 minutes long but includes cut ins showing some background information of how the effects where created or different versions before getting the final. Around 14 minutes in is the making of some of the battle scenes to 300.

After Effects Twitter

After Effects has a Twitter? YES!

I've noticed that they answer questions, redirect newcomers, and promote with the newest tutorials and videos to watch. @AdobeAE

Follow @CreativeCow too for the latest motion graphics tweets!

And there is also a @AfterEffectsHelp Twitter which is not associated with Adobe, but is still willing to help with any of your urgent questions!

http://twitter.com/#!/AdobeAE

The Hunger Games

Coming to theaters on March 23, 2012, The Hunger Games is one movie I'm sure will be chock full of wonderful effects. Based on the trilogy written by Suzanne Collins, this film will follow Jennifer Lawrence in her portrayal of Katniss Everdeen, a 16 year old girl sent into an arena with 23 other children to fight to the death. However, there is much more to this story than gory battles scenes.

The Hunger Games is also a book about politics within the 12 districts of Panem (what used to be the United States). In this warped world, the children chosen to fight are dressed up and taken on tour as celebrities. With Lionsgate's $80 million budget, I'm hoping that the scenes featuring the contestants in their absurd costumes as well as the sets for the Capital (where the Panem officials live) are over the top.

There are a slew of people listed on IMDB for use of special effects/visual effects which makes me think that a good portion of the budget was spent on visual effects (that plus the fact that there seem to be few well-known actors in the film, as the plot is centered around children). The title that appears at the end of the trailer, also raises my expectations for some really awesome visual effects incorporated in this movie.

A quote taken from a website reviewing the trailer reads:

"The visual style is amazing. We went from the gritty District 12 to the glossy and futuristic Capitol . Everything on offer was impressive, from the effortless special effects to the stylish and elaborate wardrobe." I know this is a movie I will be watching on March 23 to see all that they do with this futuristic world.

Mikromedia

I was just searching various animation and production companies and came across one that really stuck out to me, Mikromedia. Mikromedia is a full service digital multimedia and video production company based in South Africa. They specialize in digital marketing at an affordable cost. Their website alone is amazing from an animation and design standpoint. Under the "Video Marketing" they outline all the different stuff they can do, including training videos, how to do videos, and something called a virtual anchor. Mikromedia uses a virtual anchor on their website and it is basically a person virtually guiding you through the website so it is easier to get the information you need. They based this idea on the statistic that today, 90% of online users would rather watch a video than read a lengthy document. They cater to this data by creating visual worlds to grab people's attention. Under the "Theatre" tab on the main page, they have laid out various examples of their work. The interesting thing is all of their information is displayed through video. I definitely recommend you explore this website because it is extremely unique. I've attached a video of theirs explaining motion tracking and its affordability but you should check out the rest of their stuff as well.