Evolution of Earth's History

I found this cool animation of the evolution of time. I'm kind of a geek and I find history to be awesome so when I found this video I thought it would be appropriate for this class. I don't think people understand truly how long humans have been around compared to Earth's history. This animation puts it into a more visual understanding. You can watch the video here

DRAW MY LIFE - Zach King

I really enjoyed this video.  I have seen many other videos from this user, but I though this one was cool for a few reasons.  To start, he talks about his life an how he got into making all of his videos and his inspiration.  The other part that makes this really cool, is the animation that he does.  The theme is that of a pop-up book with all the animations drawn.  He brings this into a whole other realm by having them interact in 3D space.  When you look closely, you can see points that he made on both the horizontal and vertical planes for tracking purposes.  On the horizontal paper, there are “x”s and on the chairs, there are pieces of blue tape.  I assume these are tracking points because they are out of place and I have seen him use this type of method before.  Over all, the video is quite inspirational and well done.  I would also like to thank you Arturo for a great semester.  I learned a Lot in this class, so thank you!

Real Life Speeder Bike

This video is fantastic!  Not only because if how well its made, but also because at the end they give you the behind the scenes video, how to, and project files!  Even though the bike they made isn’t all that impressive looking, the way that they pulled everything together in editing and after effects is very well done.  When I can find some time, I am going to try to replicate the effects that they did in this video as well.  I am very impressed with the level of professionalism from this college student.  

Mark Twain Claymation

Before you watch this video, just know that this is some really creepy claymation. I personally find it really interesting but some people might get kind of bugged out from it. This 5 minute claymation is based off of Mark Twain’s Mysterious Stranger. It’s the story of three characters who meet a strange creature (satan?) who basically points out the flaws of human nature and our society in general. It’s a very dark piece but the animation is amazing. I can’t imagine how long this video took to make. I saw this video one night on adult swim really late at night once, and thought I was dreaming. “Life itself is only a vision, a dream, nothing exists  save empty space and you” is the closing line in this video and directly out of Mark Twains story. Check it out if you're into satan or claymation 

Life of Pi

     I recently saw the Oscar nominated film Life of Pi.  The CGI in this film is amazing and incredibly difficult, since the CGI of a tiger on a boat had to be cross cut with shots of a real tiger.


     The company that created the CGI graphics, Rhythm & Hues, composed 690 shots of the 960 shots in the film, this includes 85 percent of the shots that involve one of the main characters, the adult Bengal tiger, Richard Parker.  over 600 artists in three countries worked on bringing the scenes to life, including 15 people on hair alone to place and comb all 10 million hairs on Richard Parker.  This company is not new to the art form however, they also did all of the animation on The Chronicles of Narnia and The Golden Compass, so they have a pretty good idea of how animals should move.  The animation is incredible, and the most impressive thing is that while you are watching the movie, you rarely think that the animals are computer generated.