Game Of Thrones Is Back!

Game of Thrones is back! That also means we get to see the opening credits again of the kingdoms of the various places in the series. This title sequence started as a concept to help people figure out where everything was since it can be confusing otherwise. It was then pushed to the opening credits and involved an intensive process. Through practical models and eventual CGI Maya models, the structures came alive. It is also interesting to see that the models resemble Leonardo DiVinci  concept designs. Art of the Title interviewed Angus Wall who is the creative director at Elastic on the project. The one thing that proved difficult at first was what was beyond the map as the  camera moves along. This was solved by making the sun that is seen at the end of the title sequence. If you haven't watched the opening already, I highly recommended it.

Opening Credit Animations - Game of Thrones

In recent television shows, opening credits are becoming more and more animated rather than sequences clipped together of the actors and such. TV shows like Mad Men, Jessica Jones, and House, are well known animated opening sequences. One of my favorite animated opening sequences is Game of Thrones. The opening is two minutes long, in which it is shot from a raven's-eye view, scanning the map of the fictional land (Westeros) in which the show takes place. As the title sequence unfolds, it shows a 3D model of the cities rise from the ground. Portraying the buildings made from thousands of gears instead of brick and stone, like a clock had emptied itself and started to build a city with its pieces. The credit is runned by Angus Wall, and his company The Rock Paper Scissors, Group. What makes the opening sequence so incredible, is that it is always changing. The credit follow the storyline in the show, in which the map is always changing revealing what is going on with the war, reflecting the twisting plot. I thought this idea was genius when I first heard of it. The amount of time and effort that goes into just the opening theme is impeccable. If you have no yet seen Game of Thrones, I highly recommend checking it out, and pay close attention to the opening sequence, it reveals much more then you realize. 

Opening Credits - Game Of Thrones

While trying to come up with the title sequence I wanted to recreate, I had a lot of ideas and options to choose from. After watching multiple opening credits, I decided I wanted to recreate the Game of Thrones title sequence. It is personally my favorite show and one of my favorite opening credits, I think the animation of the maps and realms in the opening sequence is fantastically done. This is the show opener for the first season:

 So instead of trying to recreate the animation of the maps and realms, I would like to do a title sequence showing the characters and scenes from the actual show. I would also like to play around with effects such as fire and ice since they have significant meaning to the show. I think the special effects and a dark and contrasted color palette would really make a good show opener. I would base my opening credits on this fan made version I found. The opening credits would also be for Season 1.
This is the fan made version:

Game of Thrones Opening Sequence

Last weekend, I saw the last two episodes of season four of Game of Thrones in IMAX, with an exclusive preview of the next season. Clearly, I'm a big fan. The second the title sequence came on, I became filled with excitement (even though I've seen the episodes already). The opening sequence is so captivating and beautiful that, in that IMAX, I honestly would've been content watching it on loop for two hours.

The opening grabs the audience and educates viewers. It's a huge map of the entire world of Game of Thrones, and moves from place to place.

The creative director, Angus Wall at Elastic, wanted to keep the opening sequence feel very true to the world of the books and show. Since it's an unsophisticated place, everything is made out of natural materials. Dealing with the problem of maps being flat and a camera moving around this flat space, they decided to make the world a sphere. In an interview, Wall says, "I quickly realized we were still going to shoot off the map. So the next thought was, what happens when you put two bowls together? You have a sphere. Next question was “how is it lit?” And obviously, If you have a whole world inside a sphere, what would be in the middle of that sphere? The sun! Or whatever the light source of this world is."

Once the shape of the world was figured out, they started with concept art. The details are astounding.

"If you’re going to create a world, in order for it to feel legit, you have to have this fractal sense of detail. There are dust motes in the air when you’re passing through, and all the cogs have a logic to them."


They then planned out the sequence and blocked the big moves. Once they had their final concept art and everything planned, they gave it to the model makers working in Maya.


I'll leave you with some inspirational words from Wall: "But you can’t be afraid. You can’t be afraid to start over if you have to start over. At the beginning of every job you’re starting over. You’re facing failure every time you go out. But you can’t live in the place where you’re saying, I better not try this because I might fail. Because then you’re not going to succeed either."

Game of Thrones Green Screen

One of the shows that has won a bunch of recent Emmys for Visual Effects is of course Game Of Thrones. With such a vast, virtual, and magical world it's very important to have believable graphics.

Most of the structures in the show are computer generated, even though they shoot in exotic locations like New Zealand. The video below is a highlight real of some before & after effects consistently found in the show.

One of the things that amazed me was their ability to duplicate extras in the show. Many times they took a small platoon of soldiers and turned them into an army of thousands. It is so amazing how they can do this and create such a realistic army. I also loved the use of green screen curtains to eliminate certain pieces of unwanted terrain that were in the way of the shot. I had never thought about using green screen to get rid of things before.

Rodeo, the company in charge of the visual effects does a fantastic job of creating fantastical and amazing skylines, with crazy mountains, lights, and castles. It truly is a visually stunning show.

Winter is Coming

Following in my friend Sam's footsteps, I too shall be writing about one of my favorite shows and how exactly visual effects have made the show possible. Game of Thrones, a particularly violent show with enormous sets and countless extras, it has always seemed to baffle me how exactly a show of this style would possibly be shot. Well, it turns out that quite a bit of this medieval drama isn't actually shot on camera, but is added in postproduction.

Game of Thrones - SSVFX Breakdowns from Ed Bruce on Vimeo.

Tez (Terance) Palmer, the senior special effects technician on the show, is one of the driving forces behind the show having become the great success it is. Having been a special effects technician on X-Men: First Class (it wasn't the greatest film, but the VFX were pretty dope), I have a high level of respect for this man. This is most definitely a larger project for him to take on, but he has done a spectacular job with it so far.

What fascinates me is just how much of this wonderful show is done using animation. From making a couple dozen soldiers into an army to turning a boy climbing a few feet off the ground into a 100-foot drop, the animation in the show is endless. In order to make it appear as a man is getting beheaded, the actor wore a chroma green mask to blend his actual head in with the background. It's so simple and yet I would never think to do it.

As far as I know, every time a spear, arrow, or sword impales an actor, animation is what makes the death come to life. Clearly, you can't kill an actor for a television show (as far as I know). Maybe there's a loophole in their contracts or something. Assuming there isn't, however, every weapon causing every death is not actually shot on camera. It's all added in postproduction. I was honestly never quite sure how something like that would be shot. The reason for that is, it probably can't be. I just never thought that so much time would be spent on something like that (there are quite a few deaths in Game of Thrones for those of you who have never watched).

There are so many reasons to watch Game of Thrones. Swords. Spears. Blood. Death. Animation.

Game of thrones Title sequence

Since i'm doing my title sequence on "Game of Thrones" on HBO, I thought I would talk a little bit about the real one for my blog this week, which is probably one of my favorite title sequences in television or film. The best thing I think this sequence does use perspective to carry the viewer around the world of the show. Because the show is so spread out over wintery wilderness, to deserts, to cities, this title sequence also has a lot of utility in the story, allowing the viewer to take in the sheer scope of the world. This effect starts immediately, with the pan down from the sun over to the map of the world, establishing immediately that the sequence will be traveling. The sequence then travels between every major location in the episode of the show (with this changing each time). The effect that really grabs you though is that the world "builds itself" from out of the map. Here is what the creative director on the project, Angus Wall had to say from an interview with Art of the Title here

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/game-of-thrones/


"Our goal was to try to replicate something that looks and acts like a physical object. Art Director Rob Feng referenced  Leonardo's Machines which have a timeless sense of design. We wanted the title sequence to be rooted in world of the show, which is a technically unsophisticated place, but to also have a complexity that gives it life"

(Final Render of the Sun/Astrolabe)

There was clearly a lot of thought and work that went into this title sequence and I think it really shines in terms of design and production value as an amazing piece. 

Winter is Coming

Game of Thrones, the medieval HBO series, has captures television fans attention with it intense story line, bloody narrative, and brutal fight scenes. SpinVFX brings Westeros to life by building the castles, birthing the creatures, and multiplying the soldiers to make the series grander than any other production in television.

 The Creation of a Giant

The Making of an Army

The Building of a Kingdom

Forming of an Adventure

The usage of green screen is highly valuable for the magical kingdom because the amount of visual HBO would like would not be possible without this illusion. In September 2013, the company won an Emmy for their work they did for Game of Thrones. SpinVFX has done work for many visually thrilling productions, such as Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter, the ABC television series Titanic, Battle: Los Angeles, and After Earth. 

Game of Thrones - Visual Effects from Season 1

Don't know how many of you watch Game of Thrones but I came across this pretty cool short video that shows scenes from the show before & after the use of VFX.  You can see them using green screen on a number of occasions.   Also, I found a pretty interesting Cracked.com article.  These days, its relatively safe to assume that many outrageous stunts or effects shown in movies are accomplished with computer graphics.  However, the article lists several films that have "amazing special effects" you would think are CGI.

7 Amazing Movie Special Effects You Won't Believe Aren't CGI

Title Sequence Spoofs

I was watching Around the Horn on ESPN earlier today and they were doing some stuff to spoof Mad Men with the show coming back for its 6th season on Sunday. To open the show, they created their own version of the Mad Men open that was more tailored towards their panelists and sponsors, and it was actually pretty well done. Here's a link to the video.

In addition, the show did something extremely similar when Game of Thrones premiered. They also created a spoof of the title sequence tailored towards their show, and that video can be seen here.

Game Of Thrones: Opening Sequence

One of the more impressive opening sequences that I've seen is the opening to Game of Thrones on HBO. I've seen other people post the opening video but here it is again for people that haven't seen it.

The opening goes through the map of the world. The producer of the opening sequence said they wanted everything to look organic and full of nature. But they also wanted to mirror the complexity of the world and the show. Here is a video about the making of the video.

A Few Things I Find Interesting...

I'm finally getting around to posting my first blog- ever! This is a really neat requirement for the class; I like the idea of sharing our thoughts and opinions through here as opposed to solely class discussions. I want to admit that the first few days have been a little intimidating. I say this for a couple reasons- first off I think I'm the youngest student in the class as only being a sophomore and I haven't taken many production classes yet and while I am fascinated by motion graphics I don't have a clue what I'm doing yet! The program After Effects that we will be using is so sophisticated and intriguing I really want to play around and learn more. I wasn't sure before the class began if I would want to invest in the software, but after this past week I had to get my hands on it. No better way to learn than having access 24/7 without worrying about reserving a space in one of the labs. (By the way if anyone else is considering purchasing AE do it through the campus bookstore! As a student you can get a bundle of 9+ Adobe programs including AE for $350- way better than purchasing it online.)

Next, I have to say watching the interviews, videos, and title sequence clips in class has really made me think about all of the possibilities that can be produced. And as Arturo stated on the first day, "There isn't anything that can be imagined which can't be created." I stopped to think about this and it's very impressive. We can create apocalypses and travel to far away universes, just an infinite number of ideas that you can make happen with motion graphics and animation. My two favorite websites that we have been introduced to so far are videocopilot.net and watchthetitles.com! When I was sitting in class I instantly thought of the HBO series Game of Thrones title sequence because it's probably the most impressive one that I've seen recently. (I just started watching Game of Thrones over the summer.) If any of you haven't seen the title sequence check it out on YouTube because apparently my embed code didn't want to work. I'll try to get this taken care of.

That about concludes my first blog posting. :-) I can't wait to work with my classmates and learn all sorts of amazing things! I'm off to try to do our homework assignment- animating our name. See you guys soon!

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."

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!!