Week 28 Comments

Work, Demos, Work, Demos can probably best describe this week. I was a little frustrated with the premiere demos a little bit. It's not hard to do what they are asking, but it can be confusing the way they word things. I was able to finish 3 of the 4 we have received though, and I'll try to finish the last one this weekend. Something that made me happy this week was getting two new puppies yesterday! They're Springer Spaniels and are a boy and girl. We kinda settled on the name Riley for the girl, but my family wants to name the boy Bruno, which I am strongly campaigning against. If any one can think of a name, shoot me out a suggestion. Here's pictures of them if you guys are interested. I'm looking forward to the fact that we're almost done with premiere demos and are getting started with After Effects soon.
And now, the link of interest... This is probably one of the funniest things I've ever seen. I think it's best to watch it blind, but it's just amazing the lengths this guy goes through to help out the small buisness. Anyways, that's all for now.

Habits of people with great ideas

This article is about how people who thought of great ideas go about their life to get these. The first thing is that they look for inspiration in unexpected places. It's easy to look into your own area of study to look at what other people have done. But sometimes inspiration can come from completely different areas of career. For instance car designers may get inspiration from furniture designers. Another thing is making slow decisions. If you rush yourself to think of everything, your mind probably won't think of much at all. Smart people pace themselves so they can have all their ideas form naturally. Another thing is that they find Internal Motivation. People best work when they're doing creative work for themselves, and not getting pushed by a company or something. It's important to do what you love, and not push other foreign things onto yourself. Another thing is starting from scratch. It's very easy to take an already cool thing and try to improve upon it. But what works better is going back to basics and pretending that thing doesn't exist, and ask yourself what would be the best version of this possible. Another thing is taking risks. It's easy to stick to what works, but sometimes new and different is so much better. If you get caught in doing the same thing, over and over then it can become formulaic. Another thing is finding connections between experiences. Often times, creativity comes from connecting different things together. A lot of the times creative people feel guilty when explaining how they came up with something, because they really just merged a few established things into a more convenient package. And the last thing is being open to magic. Sometimes ideas don't have to form but are just waiting to be made. It's all about conjuring them up to fit the standard of reality.
I thought this article was informative and very relatable. It can be really challenging to think of new ideas in today's competitive market, but It's all about thinking outside the box when it really comes down to it.

Cool Marvel Titles

This Article was about how the titles for Marvel Movies are made. They are primarily made by Fede Ponce, who is a freelance artist. He also answered a few questions about his job. He first got started with this career with working on the Hitman movie for FOX. It was one of the first times a movie wanted to do a heavy CG trailer campaign. It was very popular at the time and started to become a new standard for film trailers. He also had quite a lot of time to work on these because sense movies take time, he would work on them 2 or 3 years before the movie came out. He would have to think through a lot of things though when making them. For instance different TV sizes and even phone screens. They also use software like Zbrush and Maya for making the titles, and then Maya again, Houdini and NUKE for Animating and Compostiting. For Thor: the Dark World, He had to design many different type interfaces for Marvel until they could design one that worked on multiple devices and Marvel liked. The Iron Man 3 title had similar requirements with it having it be red with the quality of metal. When they started working on it, they didn't have reference to go off of, so they had to design their own. But sometimes the titles don't see the light of day, as they had a cool Avengers title that had metal flowing together to form the logo. But they ended up going with a different one.
I thought this article was very interesting. You never really think about how much work goes into the titles of the movies, but It's definitely a lot. This article also got me more interested in CG as well.

Week 27 Comments

This week we had a few work days to finish up the audio stories, and we finally started premiere demos. A lot of people are upset about us having to do premiere demos, but I am actually learning a lot of stuff I didn't know already, so I'm fine with it. What's frustrating to me though is the exercise we have to do. It's not tough to do the stuff but understanding what it's asking for you to do can be challenging. Like how my timeline looks different than how it should even though I followed all of the steps. But I'm sure I'll figure it out this week, so I'm not too worried. What made me happy this week was finishing my audio demo. It's pretty good in my opinion, but I didn't realize until I was turning it in of how long it is. It's about 4 minutes long, so hopefully it isn't too big of a deal, but I still think it came out good. I don't have that much of a doubt you guys will have a hard time figuring out the story though... Anyways, I'm looking forward to learning more about premiere and eventually learning After Effects soon. Now Link of Interest...

I know this is kinda self promotion and shameless but whatever. I'm not sure how many of you guys know this but me and Joe D have a podcast where we discuss Video Games and Movies. We've been a little short on content recently but we hope to get back on track soon. We mostly do it for fun sense we have next to no viewers. But you guys should check it out! In this one we discuss Metal Gear Solid V and Birdman. (Be warned there is some swearing) But anyways, that's all for now. Ta-tah.

Using music to make dynamic films

This article was about how music can really push your films have a lot more emotion and depth. The video explains several examples in film where this is apparent. The first example is Forrest Gump, and how a lot of films incorporate Scores made specifically for the movie and other songs that fit the mood. Another few examples would be how in Pyscho, the famous shower scene is way less frightening without the score. And how in Pirates of the Caribbean, how the mood of Jack Sparrow overlooking the island from the ship can be changed with different music. Ways music effects movies has been around sense the silent age of film. Piano accompaniments had been part of theaters to make sure the theater wasn't silent and sometimes the pianists would even receive sheet music for the film. Minor chords sound unnerving which would be used for evil characters. Heroes get uplifting anthems, chase scenes have a fast tempo and sad scenes have slow music. While films have gotten bigger and bigger along with the music, the general music cues have remained the same. Sometimes certain instrument sounds we can associate with emotion. Like how in Psycho the screeching of the violin, we associate with stress and danger. Music can also create anticipation, like how in Jaws we hear the famous music before the shark even shows up. There are certain specific ways scores help a scene though. The first way is the music in the film having a theme for the setting. An example would be how in Westerns the music has a very specific sound. Another way is how certain dangers get reinforced through music. We may not see the danger, but the music reminds us its there. Another way is continuity. If a series of shots has the same music, we relate the shots together in our head. A good example of this would be training montages, like in Rocky. Another way is Cues, like in Citizen Kane certain music means a flash back is coming. And the last way is to fill silence. This is the hardest to do because the audience shouldn't notice it. It's usually ambient like music that fits the theme of the scene. And sometimes, no music can all can work just as well. Like in Saving Private Ryan, all we hear is the sounds of gun shots and explosions.
This was a very informative article. I am also a strong believer in music and sound effects helping film. In fact it's almost more important than you're visuals, because it's what people take in first. Very good article, and I hope to use it's advice soon.

Disney Sketch to 3D

This article is about technology Disney is developing for kids. It's a Coloring book with an app component where what you draw on the paper, textures onto a 3D model in real-time. A few tests with older people showed it improved people's motivation to color more. Robert W. Sumner says that it is great that new technology like this can improves people's attitude to be more creative. To make this technology, 3D Artists had to first make custom models, and then create a way for the paper to be translated to the model. There are a few problems though. Some parts of the character simply can not be seen due to angles. Therefore the computer had to analyze what colors the person is using on other parts of the character and generate what it should look like there as well. I thought this article was very interesting. I wouldn't have that much of a use for this myself, but I can see younger kids enjoying this in the future. It's great that technology is really pushing creativity these days. The later you're born, the more cool options technology will give you to make art.

Week 26 Comments

This past week was mostly a work week, which is more than accepted. I'm honestly really ready to start working on the film stuff though, which seems to be coming up soon. Something that frustrated me this week was figuring out a few things in Photoshop but nothing too bad. Something that made me happy this week was seeing everyone's Photoshop creations on the wall. We really got some really good ones all around this year in my opinion, and I'm glad a lot of you liked my stuff. And like I said I'm looking forward to the film stuff. Personally though, I've been pretty busy in my life recently. When I'm not at school I'm probably at my Job or an after school thing. I barely have time to even play games anymore! But alas, as Jim Carey once said "That's the way the cookie crumbles". Now the link of interest.

This is the first video in Cinemassacre's Annual Monster Madness. Every October they do a Horror movie review each day leading up to Halloween. They do great reviews and discussions on the movies, and I found a lot of cool movies through the reviews throughout the years. But anyways, that's all for now. A fine October to everyone.

Bad vs Good Action Scenes

This video was by Corridor Digital's Sam and Niko. They discuss the things that make a good action scene, and a bad one. Bad action scenes typical add nothing to the story, don't show a lot of the action with quick cuts and isn't well thought out. One thing that makes a GOOD action scene is showing all of the action. Another thing is showing all the action with wider shots that let you see what's happening, longer movement which adds to a scene without making it confusing. Another one is clear sense of space, which helps you understand why the character would make a decision given their surroundings. Another big one is showing the action and reaction in the same shot. All of these techniques cost time and money which is why you see them less and less, but they add so much to the scenes. Bad action scenes will resort to shaky cam, not showing the action, obscure movement, quick cuts. Although, implying movement isn't always bad. A nice effect in this would be in Saving Private Ryan, where we see only one of the characters view of a huge battle, where we can infer that even more violence is happening that we can't see. The best action scenes show an emotional arc for the character. Meaning we see how their reacting to a scene emotionally and see what the pay off is at the end. A good example of this is the last scene in The Matrix. Neo is told the whole film that he is the savior of humanity, but is starting to question that by this point. In this scene Neo needs to prove himself by getting some confidence. This is great because it gives us a reason to root for him during the scene. But with all this, it doesn't mean a huge spectacle of a scene can't be awesome. It just needs to balanced out with all of this. But without an emotional attachment to the characters, it means nothing.
I really enjoyed this video. I've always thought this exact thing myself as a movie-goer in recent years. Which is why when a movie with GREAT action scenes comes around like Mad Max Fury Road or Kingsman: The Secret Service, we all praise it. But the fact is most movies will always resort to the cheap tricks because of money. I really want to put all these awesome tricks into my own stuff this year, and hopefully I'll be able to pull it off half as well as some of the great action scenes of Film.

Virtual Reality Films

This article was about how Virtual Reality can change films forever. Beyza Boyacioglu recalls her experience at the sundance with this. It begins with you watching Mongolian Yak herders while in the virtual reality environment. In the next scene, you can see the yak super up close. Then in the next scene was in a house where you can see a family eating a meal. This Virtual Reality film can also be viewed in an Oculus Rift, Samsung Galaxy Gear or other VR headsets. This is relatively new technology so while their isn't any off the shelf tech you can buy for capturing 360 degree 3D video, it's being developed right now. Such a layout requires multiple cameras covering all angles. So theirs no-one behind the camera, meaning the actors are by themselves. The videos are then "stitched" together making the 360 effect. Their is also multiple audio recorders on the device, so wherever you point your head you'll hear the correct audio. As of now though, the viewer is only limited to sight not movement so you can only stay in one spot. The point of these films is to immerse the viewer into the scene, making you feel like you're part of the movie. The author noted that the experience was great but we are yet to see if the potential of this technology is just a fad or not.
I liked this article, but I didn't like reading through the whole description of what the viewer experienced in the film. But never the less, I was very interested in all the Virtual Reality stuff. But while I think Virtual Reality movies are cool, I think it belongs mostly to games. Just because they are way more interactive and immerses the viewer even more into the virtual world. I personally don't think Virtual Reality is just a fad, I think it will be around for a long time and will be one of the biggest new inventions of the 21st Century. We haven't really had the technology until now, and as soon as some big name consumer products come out, it's going to explode in popularity. My personal favorite VR Experience right now would have to be Valve and HTC's Vive.