Azizi in Space

Azizi Gibson is a rap artist that I have loved for a few years now. He’s an underground artist who gradually became more popular recently. He is very creative when it comes to his style and his image. His music video for “Smoking With The Gods” displays a creative way to incorporate animation into a music video. The animators did a great job of capturing the essence of being in space and creating a story to go along with the song. It is one of my favorite music videos to watch. I hope that in the future I will be able to create videos as intriguing and entertaining as this one. 

We Can't Live Without Cosmos

We Can't Live Without Cosmos, is an animated short-film that is nominated for an Oscar this year along side other shorts such as World of Tomorrow, which I reviewed as part of my first blog post of the semester. It was created by Russian filmmaker Konstantin Bronzit and centers around two life-long friends and aspiring astronauts as they train in hopes of one day venturing into the vastness of space. However, when tragedy strikes midway through the film, the change of tone falters from cheerful to depressing. The short is devoid of dialogue but is able to tell a compelling story nonetheless through clever animation. One of my favorite scenes in particular is when a shot of a starry night sky transitions into snow falling, an effect that illustrates the change of tone perfectly. The animation itself is unique and fun to watch throughout. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the 15-minute film and wish it luck in the upcoming Oscars. You can watch the entire video for free by using the link below:

http://video.newyorker.com/watch/we-can-t-live-without-cosmos

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.

The Most Popular Girls In School

As quotable as Mean Girls and as saucy as South Park--if you're a college student who has to check out The Most Popular Girls in School, I highly recommend you do so immediately. The Most Popular Girls in School is a stop motion animated web series found on YouTube. It chronicles the daily lives of a number of Overland Park High School cheerleaders, their boyfriends, enemies, and the constant battle to stay atop the social ladder. The creators, Mark Cope and Carlo Moss, use various Barbie dolls to depict their funny characters, who curse a lot and occasionally talk about poop. In my opinion, MPGIS is arguably one of the funniest projects on YouTube at the moment. After the reception of the first season, a Kickstarter campaign funded season 2, and an Indiegogo campaign funded seasons 3 and 4. Up until season 3, the show was solely animated and produced by Mark Cope. With enough funding, however, Cope was able to produce season four as a professional animated series at the YouTube Space in Los Angeles. To this day, MPGIS has four seasons and a total of 70 episodes. Interestingly, I just took a look at their YouTube page and found they even have an app now too! Crazy where that one silly idea can take person...

Enjoy episode one, here:

Interstellar: The Making of Tesseract

Today I came across another post about the CGI used in the film Interstellar, however, this time it was showing how surprisingly little CGI was used.

Warning: Spoilers Ahead. 

In the movie when the main character reaches the center of a black hole he finds himself suspended in time, trapped behind a window, gazing into the past. In this scene he is floating with bookcases surrounding him in a infinite-like pattern.

Anyone would be justified to assume the majority of the set was computer generated; it was. But surprisingly, a good amount of it was actually physical. Below are behind-the-scene shots of the actual set. Thanks to TheFilmStage.com 

I love being able to see the behind the scenes shots of sets and thought these were worth sharing. 

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey

Cosmos is definitely one of my favorite shows right now. It's not only educational, but also entertaining and just plain cool. The effects that are used in this show are captivating and extremely impressive.

Neil deGrasse Tyson floats through space as he explains many of our universe's phenomena. In the first episode, there's a really cool representation of how old our universe is in which major events in the past few billion years are squeezed into one calendar year. Neil walks around on the big calendar in the middle of space and shows how insignificant humankind really is in comparison to how long our universe has existed (this can be seen briefly at 2:41 in the trailer).

I also love the opening intro with the word COSMOS spread across a black hole/eyeball. The amount of time and work that went into creating this show certainly paid off.

Gravity

I recently saw Alfonso Cuarón's "Gravity" at the Ithaca cinema and I have mixed emotions about the film. The title sequence was quite simple. The screen reads "Gravity" as the camera dollies in and an intense, loud synth noise turns into a shot of the earth from space and complete silence. The beginning of the movie is extremely intense and one is easily distracted and annoyed by any small rustlings of candy or popcorn in the theater. Throughout the movie, one can imagine what space is like and the audience is watching the movie from space. The lack of sound is beautiful and forces the audience to become bewildered with the though of space exploration. The sounds, or lack of sound, is unlike many space movies and are realistic because in space, sound cannot travel. The shadows and lighting are great and I would like to see a behind-the-scenes video of how "Gravity" was filmed. The animation of the satellites and spaceships were very intricate and realistic. The complexity of the earth shots and movement of the astronauts was extremely realistic and was truly groundbreaking for space movies. 

The only problem I had with the movie was the script and Sandra Bullock. Clooney's performance was amazing and his character was genuine. Bullock, however, lacked knowledge of her role and had many cliche one-liners. I think, visually speaking, the movie was amazing but Bullock could've easily been replaced by a more worthy actress. Cuarón didn't seem to offer much direction and Bullock seemed awkward during long takes and unnatural. The ending was quite farfetched as well. Apparently, it's pretty easy to navigate top of the line space technology with little to no training. I suggest everyone sees the movie and formulates their own opinion.

The Basics of Motion Design

Motion design is the most intricate and dynamic field of design. This video from the Hochschute für Künste (University of the Arts) Bremen introduces viewers to the many different aspects of motion design.

Ranging from color to sound, timing to physics, the video gives a vocabulary for discussing the art of motion. Taken by itself, the video covers so much in 23 minutes that it is worth taking notes on.

Electromagnetic Spectrum: Radio Waves

This video doesn’t really talk about any animation itself.  Rather, I find the animations in it (used to talk about radio waves) quite impressive.  Although they don’t blow the viewer away with their quality and whatnot, I can really appreciate all the time, effort, and work that went into making this video.  There are some very impressive graphics that use everything from particle generators, to various camera movements.  There are also graphics boards that are animated.  This video is put together very well and allows the viewer to understand what they are talking about.  

Space Nebulas

Hey everybody. I was just browsing through After Effects tests on YouTube and I found this one. I think it's pretty neat. 

I've always been fascinated by space and the beauty of the universe. It's pretty cool if you go on NASA's website, you can look at pictures of nebulas and other crazy cosmic stuff that the Hubble Telescope has taken. You can even download some super high quality photos for use. These tests of realistic nebulas looks pretty simple. It looks like the creator downloaded some photos then used 3d cameras to give the illusion of flying in space. I'm definitely going to try and make a scene like this in After Effects, just because the universe is so amazing.

Miniatures On The Moon

Hello everybody,

I have always found it fascinating how special effects have progressed throughout history. It's fascinating that these artists can trick the mind of a person into truly believing that what in front of them on the screen is "real." I came across some behind the scenes of the sci-fi film Moon (2009) the other day that really intrigued me. Here's the link: http://www.modelminiatures.co.uk/moonbase.htm . "Moon" takes place, you guessed it, on the Moon in a base. In order to create the actual base, the filmmakers choose to build a physical miniature instead of using digital effects. The detail and the effort put into the base amazes me and I believe it really works.

You can see that there are other computer generated graphics in this clip, so it's interesting to see that both physical and virtual elements are used to create this film. I would think it's be pretty neat to film a miniature then animate it in after effects. You could add some unique textures or some exaggerated movement. If you haven't seen Moon, I highly recommend it. A really well done sci-fi film.