Jar-Jar and the Phantom Menace

Let's talk Star Wars for a sec. Yes everyone is talking about Star Wars these days because of the new re-boot, but  what makes a sic-fi like Star Wars interesting if not ground breaking? I believe it is the special effects in the films.
The first trilogy without a doubt made stop motion seem flawless in space and on the frigid plains of Hoth. The second trilogy however, didn't waste time with stop animation but used computer animated graphics instead. This, at the time (1999), was a monumental task and a daring undertaking. I grew up watching the prequels and to me I grew up with the expectation of CGI creatures like Jar-Jar Binks. Which brings me painstakingly to my next point, Jar-Jar Binks. Jar-Jar was the first fully animated creature when Phantom Menace came out. Jar-Jar was played by Ahmed Best, who wore a suit that resembled the creature, this suit at first did not have tracking devices, it was only in post production that animators realized that to better convey actions they would need to track Best's movements. The animators then could have their way with the expressions. Overall the reaction to Jar-Jar as a character is that it could have been done without, but I still think that without Jar-Jar, the path for other movies like I, Robot that rely heavily on CGI would have been difficult. Above is a special on making the film and gives a more in-depth look at creating the the special effects.

The Nightmare Before Christmas

One of my favorite animated movies has always been The Nightmare Before Christmas which is a stop motion Disney film. In typical Tim Burton fashion, it is a creepy, cynical, and humorous film that has it's quirky songs and lines throughout the film. The film is extremely impressive because it was filmed in 24 frames per second which means every character was moved 24 times per second in every scene, which made just one minute of the film take a whole week to make. The three years that went into creating The Nightmare Before Christmas was well worth it. The beautiful animation has created for some iconic still photos and characters that people still rave about to this day.

There are probably over 60 characters in this movie, which makes it more impressive that the animators had to use the technique of stop motion with them for three years straight (and there was only 4 of them!!! what!!!!!) Overall, this movie is amazing watch, but even more fun to research and look into. Stop motion is something that has always intrigued me, and I believe that this movie might be what started that interest.

The Making of "Pacific Rim" Motion Graphics

One thing about motion graphics that is fascinating to me is how the initial drawings and ideas become the end product. After surfing the internet on things related to our class I stumbled upon this one which I found to be pretty interesting, although it is short I do think it's helpful for someone like me, with little experience in graphics, to see a general work flow from ideas to the final product. In this video the audience is shown in a non specific way how the artists idea's translate to the screen in the movie "Pacific Rim". Although this is not a tutorial or a breakdown of how the graphics were created, I think it gives good incite into how the artist has to prepare to combine what they are planning to create with what the director has envisioned and shot.

Title Sequence Madness

So while this Title sequence project is the bane of my existence and is the hardest project I have done in this class, it is still definitely my favorite project that I have done this semester.

This project is a very long and hard process that I am still not completely finished with even as I write this post. But I have kind of loved every minute of it. And that isn't even because I love animating in After Effects that much (I mean I like it, but it is not my favorite activity). But I am very excited about how it is going to turn out.

So I started out this project thinking I was going to remake the title sequence for To Kill A Mockingbird, however after really thinking about my skill level, I decided that was totally not going to work. So instead I decided to go with my own new version of the Avengers end title sequence. And while yes, I know, the Marvel titles are all really cool and super 3D and crazy complicated, mine is not like that at all. I know that mine is a very simple 2D small scale kind of thing, but I really like how it looks and I am excited to finish it. I also think it looks pretty good for my skill level.

Gravity BTS

Gravity is definitely one of the most Visually stunning films ever made. It's one of those movies where you feel like you are actually there in the moment and it just seems so real.

And yet 95% of the movie was CG. Almost everything you see was generated in post production using advance 3D software. The only things that were practically shot in production were the actors. But everything else from Space suits to ships to satellites and more were CG elements.

This behind the scenes look at Gravity explains the process of what it was like to make this movie, knowing that majority of it was going to be CG.

More Rotoscoping

While considering what movie to place myself in, I've watched a number of YouTube videos of examples and tutorials of others doing so. Here I've found a short tutorial by Tara Arts Entertainment--though quite corky, it is informative and effective.

The man who makes the tutorials on this channel I find to be funny, knowledgeable and easy to follow. All things that make a difference when learning an extensive program like After Effects. The video above covers everything we talked about in class including the green screen, keylight (chroma key effect), in addition to other helpful how-tos like color matching.

Also, I found this quick little video to be something of interest. Here the artist takes a video of himself, then uses rotoscoping to create the outline for his desired animation.

History of Titles

On Monday, our name title is doing. I was doing research to figure out what I wanted my brand to be and I came across this video about the history of movie titles. I found it very interesting and I thought I should share it with you all since we will have a project where we have to change a title. Take a look:

I find it so cool to see the progression of technology from the early 1900's to today. We went from still slides to actual cool animations. And just from the few classes that we've had so far I'm blown away what After Effects can do and we've barely touched it. As someone who has no artistic ability, it's cool to see that there are so many possibilities I can do with a program, even if I don't have the talent for it.

Bad CGI Effects

While CGI is certainly a cool technique to use in the movie industry, it is also easy to make it look terrible too. I believe we tend to overlook some of the cheesy effects used in motion graphics and just assume they are cool and innovative. This video takes a look at some of the worst CGI movie effects in a handful of different movies. Enjoy!!

Trans-media storytelling vs. Traditional storytelling

It’s interesting to watch the change in how stories are being told. Traditional story telling tends to be boring while trans-media storytelling tends to be more entertaining. Today we tell stories across multiple means of media because a single for of media is not as entertaining. People enjoy being able to read a book, watch the movie on it as well as play their games.  With technology being so prominent in our society people are going to fish for content all over the Internet. Hoping to find games to match the books and/or movies they’ve read and/or seen.

Here’s a chart of franchise trans-media.  This chart shows you how multiple platforms create a collection of individual experiences:

This is another image of traditional storytelling vs. trans-media storytelling:

Imagine your favorite movie without special effects...you'd see a lot of green screens, 3d models, plain backgrounds and etc. Your favorite movie would most likely not be profitable. I found a YouTube clip of movies with and without effects.
Though I already knew adding an effect to a clip makes it look much better it still baffles me how much detail goes in to special effects as well as, how much time goes into it.




So much detail also goes in to how clips are shot as well. Technical issues like a wire showing can cause massive amounts of problems in post production. Close attention must be paid to the placement of actors. If an actors arm reaches outside of the green background that can lead to hours of rotoscoping.
It's small details like that, that make me appreciate movies a lot more. (Even if it has a crappy story.)

How about some 3D

So I was scrolling through Facebook and I came across something that we were discussing in class. The basketball team, the Cavaliers, had taken the 3D effect idea that is usually used on buildings.

The effect was actually really cool. Now don't get me wrong I have always liked this kind of stuff. Making an immovable object look like it's moving and being morphed into something else. The effects that they had used truly blew my mind.

I have always wanted to learn how to do something like this. Even if it is just super simple, I have always wanted to do it. It would make for a cool party or concert intro.

This use of 3D effect you see in a lot of movies today. For example, a movie that I saw recently had used this: Now You See Me. It fit nicely into the movie because the movie was about Magicians and to make a scene like that, just fits well.

It takes a lot of work to create something like this. It requires projectors as and a lot of graphic movements in order to make the building actually look like it is being moved around and transformed. In this case, the basketball court was the object that was being transformed on. The breaking effect, the cubing effect, all of this is done with projectors and just calibration onto the basketball court. Absolutely amazing.

Since the video is on Vimeo I can't post the video like a normal YouTube video but if you click HERE, you can watch it.

How much of what we watch is real?

Through many hours of YouTube scouring and fact searching, I can confidently state one thing: so much less of what we think is real in movies actually is. My mind has been sufficiently blown by the countless examples of where visual effects have replaced what I truly though had been shot on-set. Usually, one can tell what can be realistically recorded on a camera and what is produced by a computer. Well, as it turns out, that's not entirely true.

Take The Avengers for example. Now, clearly very much of the film is computer-generated. It's obvious. Unless there was actually an alien invasion that recently happened in New York City that I wasn't aware of, I think it's safe to say that the large majority of this invasion was created through the use of visual effects. What I had no idea, though, was the fact that pretty much the entire city itself was also created after the original shooting of the film. Seriously, take a look:

It's unbelievable to think that some of the only real-life things in that entire video are a couple actors in front of tiny green screens. You'd think at least some of the city landscapes would be shot on-scene, but nope! Not at all!

The Lone Ranger is another prime example of this sort of visual effects use. Now, personally speaking, I feel like the large-scale use of effects is much more noticeable in this film, even though the animators did an excellent job with it. I'm really not quite sure how to explain why I feel this way, but there's just a feeling you get when you watch the film. Here's a highlight reel of The Lone Ranger:

I had another video that was a much better example, but it decided that it didn't want to be posted. Anyway, you can see in this video that, in many scenes, the only real things are the actors themselves. Sets seem to be becoming obsolete when they can be replaced by green screens and special effects.

Here's the link to the actual video I want you to watch.

NOW you can see how ridiculous The Lone Ranger is when it comes to special effects. While the effects aren't necessarily the most realistic-looking you've ever seen, you've gotta hand it to the animators. Led by VFX Supervisor, Gary Brozenich, the visual effects company MPC created over 550 individual shots for the film. These include anything from CGI canyons and forests to horses and scorpions.

It's crazy just how much of a film can be attributed to the countless animators who you've never heard of and exactly how much of what you're seeing on screen was actually shot on-set.

"John Carter "

The first time my friend told me about "John Carter" I didn't believe that it was going to be a good film but the story line of extraterritorial life and a human visiting this planet while there is a civil war going on between two very different societies.  John Carter is a sci-fi fantasy film, directed and co-written by Andrew Stanton.

Patrick Giusiano a animator designer was able to work on "John Carter"working under Pixar's artistic supervision team. His work done for the movie is shown in the link below. 

http://vimeo.com/45045241

John Carter of Mars books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Animation director Bob Clampett shows the original test reel for the studio. 

http://www.erbzine.com/mag21/2175.html

Catch me if you can opening titles

Below I have attached a link to the opening titles of the movie catch me if you can. I really liked the opening credits to this movie as they were simplistic but still very appealing to the viewer. The titles themselves played a out a simple narrative of their own which helped introduce the story to viewer. Aside from the meaning of the titles, the titles themselves were exceptionally well done. The interesting ways to shape letters through shapes and different patterns was very interesting. I can see that the basics that were using in class through after effects can be applied to make titles similar to these. While watching, I was able to see the possibilities of how it was created through various effects that we have seen in class. I hope that people watch this and enjoy it, as it is very entertaining in itself. 

 

Opening title sequences

Last class was great being able to see many different opening title sequences. I liked being able to hear from the creators themselves. It helps to know what the creators were thinking when creating these pieces. I was shocked how powerful this program really is. I did the simplest thing in After Effects. For instance just make a square and add some key frames to it. Then at the end of the class was told that is how simple some opening sequences really are with After Effects. It was really neat just making a shape with the shape or pen tool.

Evan Seitz

Below is a short 30 second video made by motionographer Evan Seitz that takes 13 famous lines from movies and incorporated them into short animations. I could only figure out about half of these movies, how many can you guys get?

After watching this unique video, I checked out Seitz's page on Vimeo. There is definitely a very distinct style in his work. It pairs together the act of motion graphics with a storybook feel to it. When watching his reel, you can see that a lot of the projects look like a paper stop motion, or a comic book. Throughout the reel, it is interesting to see how peoples skills can vary and how much your style will change depending on the client and the message you are trying to emit. Especially how it differs from an educational or informative animation to one based off of a television show. Animation allows you to easily access different feelings and reaction from your audience that just videography might not allow you to.

History of Title Design

I noticed a lot of people in our class are doing projects inspired by titles they've seen in movies. Good titles are really memorable so it's a really good thing to learn how to do well. I'm also interested in titles and I came across this video that shows the history of titles in the media.

One thing that's cool about this video is that you can see how certain titles influenced others. Saul Bass' influence is noticeable as well as the Se7en titles. Towards the end the variety in titles and the creativity is  incredible.

It's worth watching if you're interested in title design.


A Brief History of Title Design from Ian Albinson on Vimeo.

Titanic: Animation on a Grand Scale

Titanic was on TV the other day (Honestly, when is it not?) and it got me wondering how much of what I saw was actually real and how much was animation technology and visual effects. I found this website that breaks down and analyzes a lot of the effects used in the film. One thing I found particularly interesting is that in a lot of the wide shots, the people on board the ship are actually computer-generated images. These digital extras were created through a combination of motion capture, freehand animation, and roto-capture. Roto-capture is where actors perform the action as a reference, and then animators key-frame CG models using the footage of the actors. It’s amazing to think the time that went into this, and Titanic is full of these scenes.

In the scene where Jack and Rose are running through the corridor away from a wall of water, it is actually stuntmen running. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet filmed the scene without the water, and then their faces were added to the bodies of the stunt people. Just watching this scene, I wouldn't be able to tell it was actually stunt people running with superimposed faces.

So much of the film is visual effects but most are very convincing and seamlessly done. It took hundreds of people to create these effects and the efforts definitely paid off.

Below is a video I found that shows some of the animation and green screen work done on the film. Having seen the movie so many times, it's interesting to see the other side of things!

Super Bowl

Hey Guys,

know that some of you probably watched the Superbowl this Sunday, and some of you watched the ads that were on during the Superbowl. I tried to watch for the animated movies that ran ads during the Super Bowl and I noted 3. They were:

Rango (Nickelodeon Movies and Paramount) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJyyjaAe9O8&feature=player_embedded

Rio (20th Century Fox and Blue Sky Studios) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-A8sWzJT384&feature=player_embedded

Kung Fu Panda 2 (DreamWorks Animation) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ-gGBzBLlw&feature=player_embedded

I have to say that I was a bit surprised by the fact that these seemed to really be geared more towards kids than what one would think of as the 'typical Super Bowl viewer'. Kung Fu Panda did utilize "We Will Rock You"- tying it in to the Superbowl environment, but that was about it.

What do you guys think? Did these ads fit in with the rest of the Super Bowl and the ads being run?