Lighting and Animation

I stumbled across an interesting Ted Talk about how lighting plays a very crucial role within animation. In the Ted Talk, Danielle Feinberg discusses her career at Pixar and how her work at Pixar has made her dream of having art as a career possible. She speaks in depth about how lighting has the potential to drastically change the feeling of the film as well as bring a scene or character to life. Lighting is such an important characteristic to not only cinema but animation as well and I suggest you all take a peek at this Ted Talk, it is around 12 minutes but I promise it is very interesting!

Crafts and Animation

So for my last blog post I found another Parabella commercial for "Belgian National Lottery". This one minute animation tells the story of a snowman who wishes to go somewhere tropical and is transported there by his woodland friends. I adore the cartoonish design of all the animals and the snowman, and the clean detailed layout of the forest. But what's great about this commercial isn't just the video itself...


Belgian National Lottery from Blink on Vimeo.

It's the "How it's made" that came with it!


Belgian Lottery - Making Of from Blink on Vimeo.

I think animation has taught me that it is a large part of our visual consumption. I used to think that it was solely used for cartoons or animation movies, but now see that this skill is applied for commercial bases as well! So many big companies are using animation as a means of telling their story or representing their ideas because, let's face it, there is nothing impossible when it comes to art.

Pistol Shrimps on YouTube

With talks of our third project, it has reminded me of some of my favourite YouTube videos. With a large viewer base, PistolShrimps have made quite a name for themselves through their "Harry Potter and the Outcasts of Hogwarts" series.

In these videos, the Pistol Shrimps duo appear alongside the cast of Harry Potter, in which they rework the meaning of many scenes. Edited together like a trailer, the two have green screened themselves into the well know films.

The first of their series

While the video above was clever, the actual placement looks alright. However in later videos, they really stepped up the quality, and quite convincingly put themselves into the world of Harry Potter.

One of their best Harry Potter videos

It seems the biggest improvement is in their lighting. I'd say they worked in a studio, and set up lights similar to what would've been used in the film. Lighting I think is one of the biggest keys to a successful chroma key, as it's extremely hard to mimic realistic shadows on a face in post. Here's a link to the full Harry Potter and the Outcasts of Hogwarts series.

Their latest video is also well worth a watch - some extremely talented compositing.

Putting yourself in a scene, and Rotoscoping

One of our new projects for class is to insert ourselves into a movie scene using green screening. This effect was something that was actually done on my favorite YouTube Show about filmmaking: Film Riot.

Film Riot is an awesome show that teaches you "the effects and techniques that go into some of your favorite Hollywood films." So everything from pre-pro to production and post production, they cover most everything that it takes to become a filmmaker. And from time to time, they teach you how to how to do some cool VFX using After Effects. One in particular is how to insert yourself into the scene of a film, or in their case the trailer for the first Avengers movie. Its a really fun tutorial, and the technique is almost exactly what we talked about in class, which covered lighting, placement, and motion. If you need another reference for how to do this effect, this is definitely worth watching!

Also, earlier this week, I found a really great article that talks about the history of Rotoscoping. IT goes from when the technique was first invented in 1915 by Max Fleischer when he created Out of The Inkwell to what we use it for now. I love using this technique to make lightsabers and other fun laser sci fi-based effects. If you want to check out the article follow this link here: https://www.rocketstock.com/blog/rotoscoping-from-early-animation-to-blockbuster-vfx/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_content=Rotoscoping:-From-Early-Animation-to-Blockbuster-VFX&utm_campaign=09-2015-facebook-posts

Mr. Hublot

I noticed on the Maya help page that they had a picture of the winning animated short film of the 2014 Academy Awards known as Mr.Hublot.

I did a little research and found out that the film was made on maya. This didn't come as a suprise to me as the film is visually stunning for animation. The lighting especially is fantastic. This was a grew example of exactly what can be created with Maya under the correct creative mindset.

Studio AKA: #FeelingNuts

This is a mainly animated video, that varies in format. This video does an amazing job transitioning between different worlds of animation. This video uses lighting, black and white, 3D, shadows, and even green screen.

It's very impressive how they manage to keep these 2 characters consistent throughout such different settings with really just 2 eyes and a mouth to define them. The 3D is especially exceptional and high end as their couch form is very stunning.

I do think this video is a good example of some really cool things you can do even outside of the 3D world in After Effects.

Wolfenstein - Animation in Games

This week I chose to talk about animation in video games.  These days video games are having more and more "cut scenes" where the player has little to no control over the character's actions and just watches a scene unfold.  These scenes are powered by animation and in most cases are much more realistic than the actual gameplay.  In the video below, you can see both cinematic cut scenes and gameplay, which shows the difference in animation style and visual impact.  *WARNING* the video is extremely graphic, showing gruesome, violent scenes.

I think the animation here is highly sophisticated, using different camera angles and lighting techniques that make the characters come to life.  For contrast, I'm putting the original Wolfenstein game below - Wolfenstein 3D.

The Paperman

Many of you probably saw this animation already. It premiered in front of "Wreck-it-Ralph" in theaters. It also won an oscar for best animated short.

The Paperman does an amazing job of telling a story animating objects. That's actually all it uses to tell the story as this film has no dialogue. The way this film displays inanimate objects in an animate way is beyond impressive.

It makes sense that this short won an academy award because the attention to detail seems amazing. One thing that greatly stands out to me in this short is the lighting. As this animation is in black and white, lighting becomes more important to differentiate objects in the 2D field.

I felt that this was a prime example of how inanimate objects can be a huge deal in a film, and how animation alone can create a heartwarming story.

Teach Me How To Green Screen.

As we start another project, I have been compiling a lot of tutorials to help me figure out what I want to do and how to accomplish that look.  This video is all about how to set up and use a green screen.  This video will help you avoid the common mistakes newbies make when first using a green screen.  If I learned anything from this video, it is that to have a successful green screen, you need great lighting.  So for those of you that haven't lit anything since that first production class, I suggest brushing up on those skills.

Anchorman! And green screen

So I hope you guys are all as excited as I am for Anchorman 2!

But for something actually pertaining to class, let's talk green screen. Forrest Gump was the example Arturo used in class of putting yourself into old footage. For my project I am inserting myself into an old Three Stooges cartoon so it is similar in the style with black and white footage. The thing that makes the integration realistic in Forrest Gump is the grainy feel. Forrest fits right in the scene, the lighting on him is the same as the other characters and Forrest even casts a shadow on JFK as he shakes his hand. Paying attention to those little details in the scene is what makes the integration look realistic. I hope mine looks this good!

Green Screen

So for our next project we are placing ourselves in a movie or video that we get to choose.  I found this guy on youtube and i thought these videos were pretty cool.  In the first one, most of the images are static and you can see how he cut the picture into layers to place himself inside the city.  The first video also has him waling through a field of butterflies, and you can tell he created all the shadows to look real.

After watching the second video you can tell how much better he has gotten from doing tutorials.  He did an excellent job with the lighting.  Without the lighting, i do not think the meteor scene would look real.

keep watching and reading tutorials and in no time, you'll be a pro.

Different Ways to Work with Particles

While I was researching different tutorials for After Effects I found a new way to use the particle animation that we talked about in class. Someone actually posted the tutorial that we saw in class on this blog, but just for those who didn't see it, its from VideoCopilot and it demonstrates how to create particle animation.

Well, on Greymachine there is a tutorial on fairytale lighting that illustrates a whole other way to create particle animation. Rather than using the Particle World effect, go to "Effect" then "Trapcode" and select "Particular." It allows for a whole new usage and control of particle animation. Now I wasn't able to figure out whether or not the tutorial was done on CS4 or CS5 but I still found it to be an informative tutorial in terms of lighting.


Red Giant QuickTip #39: Fairytale Lighting in After Effects from Red Giant on Vimeo.

There is also a new Trapcode Form 2 which is seen in this tutorial that would be really interesting to work with for different projects. It allows for a different format of particles that Harry Frank goes on to explore during the tutorial.



Getting Started with Trapcode Form 2 from Red Giant on Vimeo.