Stop-Motion Animation

When someone mentions animation, the first ideas that come to mind are works by famous companies such as Pixar and DreamWorks. Movies like How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek, and Finding Nemo have illustrated the power of graphical animation by developing complicated and concise fictional worlds. But, animation doesn't just stop with cartoon movies. Stop-Motion Animation provides an alternative approach to animation that utilizes all forms of media to create a polished project: still images, sound, video, clay figures (actors), set modeling, and the story-boarding process. One of my favorite stop-motion films, as a child, was Aardman Animations' Wallace and Gromit. Not only did the British stop-motion comedy consist of four short films, but it also included one feature-length film. The academy-nominated relationship, of the two main characters, grows over the course of the series as Wallace's new ideas are constantly met with Gromit's "unimpressed" body language and humorous facial expressions.

                 

This stop-motion graphics artist (below) decided to take the "Wallace and Gromit approach" a step further. With the recent release of Warner Brothers' The Lego Movie, YouTube user, "cheesybricks," takes a stab at his own version of stop-motion animation with the Lego theme in mind. In this short video, watch as the artist "paints with lego."

                     Video Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxy1fkrXmCI#t=85

This video really opened my mind to the possibilities that one can achieve in animation as a field of study. Perhaps, it will be something that I will pursue in the future. But for now, I'm just going to enjoy its prestige!

First Blog

Before I talk about a video I found, I would like to talk about how amazing the video we watched in class was. It is so fascinating to see such great artwork be done and how realistic it appears. The work looked almost too perfect and to say that it was all done by hand is amazing. That is true talent.

Video made with after effects

This is a cool video I found that was made in adobe after effects. Literally everything except the characters and the birds were made in AE. Luis Aguirre who is the creator of the video used lots of great textures, transitions and animations. Luis also had a nice color scheme that played well with the story. I'm excited to learn so much in adobe AE but I know that to get to this level of greatness it will take lots of practice and lots of time spent in the program. In his description of his video he mentions that this piece took months and months to perfect. You can definitely see the time that has been put into this video with the level of details includes and the story of the video. The music also adds a very nice touch to this story and brings it all together.

Name Animation

This week I began to concentrate on what I wanted my name to look like for my reel. I stared with my favorite animated title sequence. "The Art of Flight" is a 12 million dollar snowboard movie sponsored by Red Bull and created by Brain Farm Cinema. The title sequence really stands out because of how well they blend the animation into the live action. Originally I wanted to emulate one cut where a piece of wax splatters revealing the Red Bull Brand. 

Art of Flight - Intro Title Sequence from Helio Collective on Vimeo.

After some research I found the company that was hired to to the sequence called Helio Collective. After watching their reel found here, I found a piece done for Dakine which I though would look a lot cooler. 

So this is my goal:



Dakine animated logo from Helio Collective on Vimeo.

New Challenges

I'm running into some exciting and daunting new challenges in life. The other night after class I had a discussion with Professor Sinclair on what it takes to be a part of the games industry, to help refocus myself and my goals. I expected his answer, but I have yet to get a grip on my reaction. In other words, I am both excited and intimidated and once again do not know which career path within the industry to pursue.

One area we specifically talked about that got me really excited was in 3D modelling, using a program called Maya. I have had some trouble downloading the program, but once I do I plan to really play around with it and see what it can do. I started looking up videos of what people have done with such a program and I was blown away... here is one example I found on youtube:

Yah... nuts. So it looks like this is a combination of several programs; Photoshop, 3Ds Max (similar in power to Maya), Mudbox (?), Brazil (for rendering I believe) and After Effects. These are the programs that I am just starting to scratch the surface of... I have a long way to go before I can pull something off like what this guy has done. My goals for this summer are to find an internship when I go to LA, (I'm looking at both Blizzard and Doublefine!) and I believe knowledge of this program will greatly help my chances. Hopefully by the end of this semester I will be able to post something that has some kind of 3D modelling in it, but nothing close to what this guy has done! If you are somewhere out there, Nareg Kalenderian...TEACH ME YOUR WAYS