My roommate Alex does a lot of stop-motion animation, and for the past couple weeks or so he's been working on this clay-mation of a penguin character he created. He posted the video he made in its semi-completed state on YouTube, and I thought that even though it isn't done yet it still looks amazing and is really cool.
I'm posting the link to his video on his YouTube account, so give it a watch if you want! And if you're interested in this kind of motion graphics and animation, subscribe to his channel, he has a lot of really cool animation videos that are related to things we learn in class.
Have a great weekend, and see you all Tuesday!
I just wanted to share something I ran across on Vimeo. It's more like an advertising video. But I think the way it animates the words and objects in the video just flows really smoothly together. There are so many cool videos like this if you go to the Vimeo website and look under staff picks. However, the Vimeo media player as we all know has some technical difficulties.
So I was wandering around the internet this weekend while I was on duty and I found this little production group called Brotherhood Workshop that makes fantasy story videos. The use A LOT of stop motion and I am not complaining about it. The first video I watched was this one where they took one of the new Lord of the Rings Lego sets and made the funny video below. They even edited in sparkling candle flames and torch flames! (Keep an eye out for Gollum and for a Star Wars cameo)
Here's an image from the behind the scenes of my favorite video called "Orcs" featuring two orcs, one chilling on a laptop and the other enjoying a mug of joe.
Each video seems to based on different Lord of the Rings lego sets but have a variety of other LOTR sets included in them. Watching these videos reminded me of when I was younger when my dad, brother, and I would sit around for hours making stop motion videos with the Legos my brother and I owned and then my dad helping us with recording the audio later. I would have included an example clip but those videos have been lost for many a year.
First off, I'd just like to point out how incredible of a show the Walking Dead is... if you haven't started watching it, you're doing yourself a disservice. It is an incredible story of survival from the viewpoints of many diverse characters. Nearly every episode someone is faced with an incredibly difficult situation or mind crippling decision. It causes you to think about life and humanity, and what those high-concepts truly mean. I just finished season 2 and the finale was nothing short of a masterpiece. It begins with everyone's life in jeopardy as a horde of Walkers (the shows pet name for zombies) breaks through the defenses of the farm which the survivors have taken refuge in. From that point; the onslaught begins. The survivors desperately hold down their position, using cars as their cavalry and the farm as their castle. During these gruesome scenes it is easy to see that After Effects was used to simulate the gunshots and the bloody display of projectile brains. Beyond the makeup and acting ability, it seemed relatively simple to replicate using the tools we've learned (i.e. motion tracking, masking, and utilizing layers). The effects were incredibly realistic and made for some really brutal and horrific shots. During the course of the episode, many beloved characters are lost, either to the zombies or separated from the group, and the feeling of desperation skyrockets for the viewer. To add to the drama, some of the characters begin to change their dispositions; from friendly, heroic and righteous to borderline evil. The show definitely makes use of filters through After Effects. In several scenes they use fire to destroy zombies, and in another they sit around a campfire and and discuss their plans. In both scenes you can tell that the actors are not actually in front of fires, but rather they are using filters in After Effects to give the viewer the impression that it is night, and they use special lighting and glow effects to enhance the illusion. In reality, fires would cause too much brightness and would ruin the shot due to the intensity of the light. The closing shot of the episode reveals a fortress in the distance, foreshadowing the plot of the next season. It too appears to have been created using After Effects by superimposing it onto the final frames of the shot; leaving us viewers with a wild cliffhanger. I am incredibly excited to begin the next season, and follow it each week. For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, the first two seasons are on Netflix and I highly recommend them to anyone who claims to be an avid fan of sci-fi, drama, action, or horror.
The first time I saw a trailer for Inception I was pretty excited. Aside from the fact that it was being made by Christopher Nolan who directed The Dark Knight (a movie that I also really liked a lot), and that the ensemble cast was amazing, the trailer just looked really really cool. Since there wasn't a lot of plot points shown in the trailer, the things that got me excited were the special effects. Inception used special effects really well to help create the atmosphere and help explain the story. It also used those effects very realistically considering how out of the box some of them were. I like that there was a mixture of complex and simple effects. Some things I feel like I could do now (like slow motion shots) but other effects seem very complicated. At one point the city seems to fold on top of itself and it doesn't look fake, it looks like the world is just changing. The scope of some of these effects is super large too. Like in the dream world, there are establishing shots of a city that is literally crumbling. And of course there are some really cool zero gravity scenes that look awesome. I would love to learn about how they managed to do all of the special effects in this film.
As we all know, fall break came and went much too quickly. I know many people went home, but if you're like me and live too far away, you just stayed here. And if you stayed here, you know how boring it was. Well, I was bored out of my mind and decided to give the show "The Walking Dead" a try. Many of my friends rant and rave over it and I decided I would see for myself what the fuss was about. I must say, the premise of the show really sucks. I've never been one for zombies and all that jazz. But I do find the story lines and characters to be quite intriguing and enjoyable. But this isn't a critique. This clip is from season one when the main characters arrive at the CDC hoping to find a cure for whatever disease is turning the dead into zombies. The lone scientist at the CDC knows there's no hope and rigs the building to explode. I found the explosion to be pretty cool. You can tell that it is CG, but I like how the building collapses and how there are also subsequent explosions and how you can faintly see a shock wave at the 1:01 mark. This is something I would like to learn how to do in After Effects- explosion, building collapse, shock wave, everything. The clip has been edited by the person who uploaded to video to YouTube, so this isn't the actual scene that was shown on TV. Some stuff has been added. The explosion starts at the 46 second mark in the video. The one thing the uploader did that I agree with is adding a song by Evanescence. They're pretty darn good. Sorry, I digressed again...
One of my previous posts was about a tutorial I had found that I really liked and implemented in my music video. Today I am back again with another effective tutorial with a fairly simple application.
I am sure you have seen the famous Vertigo effect (aka dolly zoom), which originated from famous Alfred Hitchcock movie, Vertigo. Interestingly enough, Hitchcock gets all the credit when in fact it was one of his cameramen who figured it out. It works by having the camera dollied forwards while the camera zooms out. If done at the correct pace for both, the z-axis is expanded upon thanks to zooming out while the object stays in the same place. This interesting shot is effective for showing a moment of intense calamity for a character, like seen in this scene from Jaws.
The tutorial explains how this can be made possible in After Effects and it takes advantage of a tool we seldom use, but I now know its true power. This small tool is none other than the ruler. You can expose the ruler with Command-R on your keyboard. I had known of its existence just by accidentally hitting Command-R in the past but I did not know you can make guidelines to use on your screen by clicking and dragging away from the ruler while you are hovered over them. In my music video I am using the dolly zoom with a camera based in After Effects in combination with a photo on stage, but the science still works the same. Maybe you can find a neat application of the dolly zoom in your future works.
In honor of Halloween, I thought I would post about a zombie movie. This movie is called ParaNorman.
This summer I was an intern at VideoLink in Newton, MA. Cassie Affleck came in the office one day to promote his new movie, ParaNorman. He played the voice of Mitch Downe. For several hours I rolled the ParaNorman trailor so the organizations interviewing him could throw in clips of the movie. Besides pushing play and record buttons, I learned a lot about how the movie was made, and it fascinated me. The makers of Coraline made this 3D- stop motion movie. It was also the first stop motion film to use a 3D color printer to create each character's face. It is the second stop motion film to be shot in 3D. The film was in production for about 3 years with the animating stage of production lasting 2 years. So pushing buttons had its benefits that day. I got to meet Casey AND learn about the production process.
It is amazing how "life like" this movie is. The 3D effects don't distract the audience, but rather give the stop motion another dimension. This kind of convergence of stop motion, 3D, and animation is what makes me so excited for the future of films.
Something I have been waiting for a long time is finally going to happen next week. No not Halloween (but if you liked Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom, look for me), on November 2nd, The Man with the Iron Fists comes out in theaters! This film is directed by, co-written by, co-composed by, and starring RZA who developed the soundtrack for the film, so essentially this film is his baby and will hopefully be his big breakout in film. The setting of the film is nineteenth century China where a blacksmith, simply named The Blacksmith (RZA), is forced to make elaborate weapons of death for a small village. When a traitor threatens to destroy the village, he joins both warriors and assassins to protect their community. The film also starsRussell Crowe, Cung Le, Lucy Liu, Byron Mann, Rick Yune, David Bautista, and Jamie Chung, is also written by Eli Roth and is presented by Quentin Tarantino.
I know what you're thinking: "Cody, how does this relate to Motion Graphics and Animation?" Well I'm glad you asked! In the past few days, a promo video for the film recently emerged featuring a very stylized motion comic with narration by RZA himself. Its essentially a prequel to the upcoming film and it was all done in....... AFTER EFFECTS! That's right! It was made in After Effects by Manabu 'Gaku' Inada and Trevor Von Klueg, with assistance by Moises Jimenez, and Eric Calderon was the Animation Director. The video is a composition of sound, art, and effects, where the use of layers and opacity are emphasized by close-ups of drawn profiles, scrolling text, and a grainy, misty presence looming in the background of most shots. This video is sure to get you psyched up for the film's release next week.
Just thought this would be a really cool video to watch. I always thought time lapse was so cool to watch in any form. This adds some art to the time lapse accompanied by some real creepy music.
So I thought this summer for the most part was pretty disappointing when it came to new movies. I was looking forward to Prometheus for a very long time and Scott's return to the sci-fi genre. Turns out the movie was mediocre, but the special effects were amazing. The very beginning sequence shows an alien called an Engineer drinking some black soup which disintegrates his body. His DNA is the building blocks for life on Earth. This sequence is just stunning. Check it out.
It's really interesting to see that the visual effects artists went into so much detail as to create a skeleton for the character, even though only the skin is shown. The coolest part about this video is the explanation of the practical effects for the DNA being destroyed. The artists physically made the DNA out of silicon and shot it, which opens my mind for so many possibilities in visual effects. Pretty cool stuff.
I know I post about animated films a lot, but I really can't help it. But, I went to the movies over the weekend and I saw the trailer for Wreck-it Ralph, and I really just can't wait to see this film.
Wreck-it Ralph is the story about video game characters after the game ends. Ralph, tired with his reputation as a bad guy, goes on a quest to become a hero. Personally, I think this concept is a great idea. It will definitely appeal to a lot of people both because it is a Disney film, but also because it centers around a lot of classic video games that I think we're all familiar with- while also introducing some new characters. Sonic the hedge hog, Bowser, Super Mario, and Luigi are among some of the classic characters featured in the film, and I think it'll be really interesting to see how Disney incorporated them into the storyline of a new and different character.
I am just brainstorming some ideas on some of the things I want to do with my projects for class. I wanted to do a sports oriented introduction preferably for football. In that project I want to use still pictures of football players and layer them. After I layer the pictures I want to add a moving background of like a field or something like that. I also want to add some 3D animation to the piece by going through the different layers of players in a cool way. For my other project I wanted to use the tracking lesson we learned in class and use it for the nature footage we shot last week.
Literally just finished watching this movie tonight and Tim Burton has somehow done it again! I just am absolutely obsessed with everything he does, how he can make such dark subjects so absolutely BEAUTIFUL is beyond me. Frankenweenie is about a young boy who finds a way to bring his pup back to life and the adventures they face together. Tim actually gained the inspiration for this movie from his own childhood dog which is unusual for Burton bc most of his characters are usually completely fictional. The entire movie is black and white which was a very unusal stylist choice (especially for an animation) but if anything i think it added to the movie. I LOVED this movie and highly recommend it.
During one of my web surf sessions I noticed this ad for the Walking Dead. It caught my attention because I noticed that it definitely utilized the puppet pin tool we learned about in class. In the ad, the screen flashes with images of zombies to scare the viewer and grab their attention. Once the flashing stops, the main character displayed in the image, Rick, fires his weapon. To animate the still image, the ad designers pulled his elbow down and his forearm back, which warped the image ever so slightly, revealing the use of the puppet pin tool. To add to the effect, the end of the gun flashes in sync with the arms reaction. To finish off the feeling that the still image was alive, the makers of the ad put a flock of birds in the background, just as we did in that early project. With all of these different elements in place the still image really came to life, and pulled the viewer in. It felt really good to know that I could recreate all of the elements of such a professional product as this. I wish I could find a working .gif of the ad to post but unfortunately I don't think it would work! I can try again in class next week to find it if people are interested.
So this week is midterms here at Ithaca College. Studying, papers, long nights, and most especially: hunger. Since this week has started, I decided that after midterms on my way home I would reward myself with a delicious, succulent Chipotle Burrito. Oh dear, typing that even made my mouth water. Anyways, this video was made by Nexus Productions and directed by Johnny Kelly, who has worked on ads for Google, Bacardi, and Adobe. This video was done completely in beautiful stop motion and took over 4 weeks to make. It features the farm-loving Willie Nelson covering Coldplay's "The Scientist" which can be purchased on iTunes with 60 cents from every purchase going to the Chipotle Cultivate Foundation.
...I loved Wallace and Gromit! My family owned A Grand Day Out, The Wrong Trousers, and A Close Shave in a VHS boxed set (I know, pretty shnazzy.) My favorite was A Grand Day Out because I loved the story- the idea of building a rocket ship in your house, traveling to the moon just to get a bit of cheese to go with some crackers, and encountering an old robot that loves to ski.
For those of you who might not know what the Wallace and Gromit movies are, they are a Claymation series of short films produced by Aardman Animations which is a British animation studio. There are two main characters: Wallace who is an inventor, but a little less than intelligent at times, and Gromit who is Wallace's pet dog. I envy the skills it took to create this because working with clay for animated movies must be one of the most tedious and challenging forms of stop-motion. If you haven't seen Wallace and Gromit before, it's definitely worth watching!
Hey everybody. I was just browsing through After Effects tests on YouTube and I found this one. I think it's pretty neat.
I've always been fascinated by space and the beauty of the universe. It's pretty cool if you go on NASA's website, you can look at pictures of nebulas and other crazy cosmic stuff that the Hubble Telescope has taken. You can even download some super high quality photos for use. These tests of realistic nebulas looks pretty simple. It looks like the creator downloaded some photos then used 3d cameras to give the illusion of flying in space. I'm definitely going to try and make a scene like this in After Effects, just because the universe is so amazing.
I just thought this video was cool. It doesn't use any hi-tech programs, just simple sidewalk chalk, a camera, and a talented artist. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups just surpassed 10 million fans on Facebook and this was their way to thank them. The video reminds of the Blu video we watched in class a few weeks back. The design is far simpler and there is no motion to the art. It's simply a 3-d drawing on a 2-d surface. It took 37 hours, 27 pieces of chalk and 3700 photographs to create this piece. I enjoyed the video. You probably will too.
