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This thing really took forever....

50 greatest movie FX shots

So i was browsing around and found a cool list of the--------> top 50 VFX movie shots. It is not based on they're iconicness but rather they're diffuculty and perfection at the time. Each shot comes with a short little description about how it was done and why it was so great for it's time. I'm sure everyone has seen most of the shots on here so to read about how they were done is pretty neat.

Animation Mistakes

I was reading some previous posts on this site, and a lot people were posting things about best animation movies or best opening sequences, and it gave me an idea to search for mistakes in animation movies. We always notice when the boom gets in the shot or when there is a continuity in a regular movie or TV show, but what about cartoon or CGI films? I searched for it and found this site.

Some of them are interesting and from movies we've all seen. For example, Beauty & the Beast is listed to have the most mistakes, kind of surprising for such a big movie, and many people have probably never noticed any of them. Check it out!

pure data live music visualizations

I really want to do something like this at my recital next year. If I can find/design my own simple visualizer I'm going to give it a try this weekend to a few movements of Bach Cello suite 2. Most of the work I find in this style uses recorded music or live performance of computer generated music to trigger the visualizations. What I'd like to do, and what this example demonstrates, is using microphones and acoustic instruments as the triggers. The program will analyze different pitch classes and dynamic ranges to control the animation.
From the link....
"Pianist Hugh Sung demonstrates the use of Pure Data/GEM as a method for computers to react to live audio input and generate responsive visualizations. In this clip, Hugh performs selections from Charles B. Griffin's "Vernacular Dances". This performance took place on Sept. 30, 2008 at Wallenstein Castle in Prague, Czech Republic, presented by Music Bridges International"

Film Burns

The title is a bit of a misnomer but that is what many people call them. And we've been looking for some of these effects recently, haven't we? These types of "film burns" are actually the ends and bits of film that get overly exposed when you load or unload a roll of film or you get a light leak in your camera. But the film does not actually "burn". You can download a good collection on the link at the end of this post (yeah, make sure you read the post!)

Where it does burn, well, or it used to years ago, is when the film got stuck in the projector gate and due to the extreme heat of the carbon arc lamps that old projectors used, the film would simply melt to the horror of the projectionist and dismay of the audience who then had to wait until the film was spliced back again. I loved it as a kid when it happened because it was such a cool image and everybody shouted. The invention of carbon arc devices goes back to the early 19th century!

Their history is quite fascinating and many great names like Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison and many others come up frequently as a result of patent wars.

Some of the early movie lights (called Klieg Lights) were so intense and emitted such high ultraviolet radiation that actors needed to wear sunglasses on the set. Now you know where all those Hollywood sun-glassed crazies come from!.

Today, if you have gone to see an IMAX movie you have seen it thanks to powerful Xenon arc lamps that are in use in most large theater projection systems. These lamps are under such high pressure (25 atmospheres!) that projectionists are required to use body armor when they change them.

This video is a test by Brent Pierce who makes te "burn effects" available for free in his Pierce Productions blog, thanks Brent.

"Hell Shore" intro

Here's the rough cut of the "Hell Shore" intro.

Game of Thrones intro

Don't know if any of you have watched it but HBO just launched a new series that premiered last week called Game of Thrones. One of the best parts of the show... the intro. ITS AWESOME so please watch!!

It Gets Better from IC on ABC World News

Hey y'all. Anna and I found saw this last night, it's about the Tyler Clementi case. He was the Rutgers student who committed suicide last September. His roommate is being charged with a hate crime. Anyway, during the story, in the background are a bunch of people from IC's "It Gets Better" video. (give it a view here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dat9bEHqGos) Just thought it was an interesting thing:

NSAC Commercials

The National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC) is a student-run organization that
gives students from around the country the opportunity to develop an entire advertising campaign for a real world client. Beginning with a case study released by that year’s client, students have the chance to research, plan, and create a new advertising campaign for the company.

How the NSAC Works

Each year a corporate sponsor provides a case study outlining the history of its product and current advertising situation. The case study always reflects a real world situation. Students must research the product and its competition, identify potential problem areas and devise an integrated communications campaign for the client. Each student team then "pitches" its campaign to a panel of judges.

The winning team in each district and one wild card team then advances to compete on the national level at the AAF National Conference in June.

These are examples of tv spots from other schools in an advertising competition that you can compete in.

CGI

Here is a comical take on the powers of CGI posted by "The Onion."

Hawley Studio Title

My family has had a photography studio in Syracuse since 1947, so I thought it fitting to put a picture of my grandfather Harold in the background. Sadly he passed away shortly after I made this comp. The audio was produced in Sound Track Pro, the countdown was downloaded from YouTube with Miro and the project started from a Video Copilot tutorial.

Pat O'Neill

If you happen to be in LA, one of the things you should check out is the calendar of events of the Academy. After all what else is there in LA?

For example, in a couple of days Pat O'Neill, an experimental filmmaker and optical effects artist whose first 35mm feature, "Water and Power," won a Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival in 1990 will screen a restored print and hold an onstage conversation.

O'Neill, a graduate of UCLA (and later a teacher at CalArts), makes extensive use of optical printing, time lapse, motion control and other techniques, interweaving these materials into complex, sometimes humorous and surrealist montages.

He has worked extensively in the feature film industry, on such films as "The Empire Strikes Back" (1980), "Dragonslayer" (1981), "Return of the Jedi" (1983), "RoboCop" (1987), "Dances With Wolves" (1990), "Tank Girl" (1995) and "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" (1997) as an optical effects artist/technician.

This is a snippet of "Water and Power," which was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2008. Remember it is an optical print process, pre-digital.

30 Unforgettable

I found a 30 Unforgettable movie openings on this website.

If you have time you should take a look :)

30 UNFORGETTABLE

The difference of animation

I wanted to be able to see the difference in what animators have been able to do over the years. So I went to google and checked out two pictures from over the years. This picture on the left is a newer animation that I found. The animation on the right, is an older animation that I found. Would anyone be able to go back to watching these old animations since we have become so advanced? Or do you prefer the newer age in animation?

Name Reel

I was wondering what cool graphics and different types of pre-sets that people used to make their name reels. I like mine, but I would like to make it more exciting, let me know! :)

Graphics

a cool gallery about and on different motion graphic projects

Ocean

I was looking at a lot of random animations on YouTube to get some ideas flowing for things I want to learn how to do on After Effects and I came across this clip. It's short and you can tell it is CGI but with the sound effects it looks pretty cool and it's way different from things I was brainstorming to do. I think the thing that caught my eye was that it is a POV shot and makes you feel like you are in the middle of those waves. The site says it was done with a plugin called "Tsunami."

PS I am trying to upload the animation I just completed in class but it's too big so I have to reduce the file size!

Loose Change

Yesterday, I watched the film "Loose Change." It is a documentary about the potential that 9/11 is a conspiracy by the US government. Although on the whole the film wasn't that great, the animations were very impressive! The recreations of the plane simulations and the graphics that showed where in the country the attacks were happening were very well done and helped the audience to fully understand the errors in the explanations of 9/11. A trailer to the film is attached.

Motion tracking, deer and dubstep

This video is awesome. The director was obviously passionate about venison and dubstep. It's funny how well the footage and graphics compliment the music. here is the link: http://vimeo.com/20800127

Is there a way I can embed vimeo videos into my post?

Freddiew

I'm not sure but we might have mention freddiew before in class. For those of you who don't know who he is he makes some REALLY REALLY cool stuff. Mainly shorts with a lot of action, guns, and flashy effects. The stuff he does is amazing. Freddie has two channels on youtube. The first one is freddiew, this channel has all of the work he's done including a 3D mario video he just did and a short action movie titled claymores that he released last week. The claymores video was done with the help of a professional stunt team so you can imagine the finished product looks pretty sweet. His second channel is freddiew2. This channel is the cool one because he has behind the scenes and how to videos for almost all the videos found on the other channel. So, if your watching his stuff and wondering how he did it, you can just hop over to the other channel and watch the behind the scenes stuff. It's really interesting and really cool so if you haven't already watch every video he has ever made.

Team Rocket

Last week I made a pokeball in class, and over the weekend i got bored and added to it. watch pikachu closely i used the puppet tool to make him move. hope you like it!

Peach is a Whore

My fiction field group finally finished our golden doorknob. For a lot of the effects we used After Effects or Motion.

Here's the final product: Peach is a Whore

College Television Awards

This past weekend I was in Los Angeles for the College Television Awards. My documentary from video workshop, "Bound By Hope" one Family's Story," won third place in the documentary category.

The award show was amazing! Besides the celebrity presenters, the quality of work in all categories was amazing. The first place winner in my category was done by a graduate student who spent two years shooting her film in Senegal. It was an honor to be a winner in such a distinguished competition.

The animation winners were also very impressive. We were only shown trailers of the winners, but the main component that seemed to set the winners apart, besides the animation itself, was the music composition. These were the animation winners:

1 Place
Ting Chian Tey
Bridge
Academy of Art University

2nd Place
Nicholas William Allred
The Girl and the Fox
Savannah College of Art and Design

3rd Place
Tyler Carter
DreamGiver
Brigham Young University
Center for Animation

If anyone is interested in viewing my documentary, it can be found HERE

Here's an old fashioned looking filmstrip leader that I used deep in the background of my "Real Underworld" comp. I found it searching on youtube and then downloaded it using a program called Miro, that link will take you to their download page. Miro will search youtube for videos that use your key word or search string, then allow you to download them to your hard drive. To avoid copyright infringement the downloaded material often expires and is auto-deleted from your drive in 5-7 days, but renaming the video files keeps them from being deleted. I've found it to be quite a helpful resource for gathering footage.

Doorknob

So I'm almost done with all the vfx on my greenscreen footage. I've placed background and added a layer of fog and masks over all the shots to give it the feel of being in a meat freezer. Last step is to go back and add frost breath and match it to the dialogue. Once everything is complete and back in final cut I'll make sure to render out a quicktime file and upload it so you guys can check it out.

Also if you don't check Video Copilot regularly he just released a tutorial for crumbling text. Also he's been working on a short movie that he should post soon. It looks like it's going to be pretty insane so check back soon to see if it's up.

Miwa Matreyek

Motion graphics and performance. An entire world of dreams and ideas.

Student Work

This is an advanced student project. I thought it was cool the things they did with the words!

Check it outt

Student Work

Animated Graphics

This website gives great loops that can be used for different projects! Some are free and some cost money, but they are really cool and very good! I thought that some of us might be interested in using this for our projects :)

Animated Graphics

DIY movies are fun!

I really like these guys' solution to frozen-time to go!

The Real Underworld

This is a template for the character introductions in our Real Underworld intro. It still needs some more text motion and an old film stock leader overlay but it's coming together. The comp will be reused with different video footage for each character.

Frost Breath

This is a frost breath test I did for my Golden Doorknob today in class. I managed to get my hands on the plug-in that Kramer uses in the tutorial so the result is similar. The character in this scene is in a meat freezer. No audio on the vid.

Frost Breath Test from Luke Snyder on Vimeo.

After Effects Tutorials

I was searching for tutorials and I found a couple really good websites.

http://ae.tutsplus.com/

This site has a lot of tutorials, including recreating movie titles like Inception and Prince of Persia. They have a lot of text and title sequence tutorials.

http://www.creativecow.net/

This site has a bunch of tutorials for after effects and flash among many other things. They have a variety of tutorials, videos, text, etc. And they even have podcasts that you can listen to.

underworld update

here is the updated version- just a simple color change.

please let us know which one you prefer

jersey shore goes underworld

Anna and I have been working on the title page for the replica of the jersey shore piece. The name of the show is "The Real Underworld" and is supposed to have a similar look to The Jersey Shore.

This is the title page so far...any suggestions? All are welcome!