Week 33 Comments

This week was pretty good. I'm really glad shadowing is done for awhile because I got super sick of that fast and was frustrating that that was taking time away from work. What made me happy this week was the other day finding out that I had been accepted into the animation program at Villa Maria! I'm very happy about this as it was one of my favorite colleges I've seen. I'm still applying to a few other colleges though just so I have options and to see what I get into. I'm looking forward to finishing my Typeography and starting other projects like my documentary. Now the link of interest.

This is a cool assembly video of the Steam Controller. They even used portal music which is a neat touch.  It's just pretty interesting to see the process it goes through. I think it's pretty well shot. Also it seems that it's entirely built by machines. The first pair of human hands to touch it seem to be the consumer themself! But anyways, that's all for now.

You may not be good enough

These videos where about the struggles of  keeping you're projects up to your own standards. In the first video Simon explains how the toughest part of the film-making process is the different emotions you feel through out development. While filming you might think it sucks, but throughout the editing you might start to like it, but then later go back on your feelings. Many filmmakers never like their own work after a while, and focus on trying to get better and better from project to project. Their are also some directors who think their work is perfectly fine but don't have much improvement. But the ideal director to be is someone who sees the good and bad in their own work and decides how to move forward but still appreciate the work they have done. But its important to get through you're own low points. A good way to think outside the box is to think how you're work will effect other people and not just yourself. Simon challenges you to make a film for a specific person or purpose and it might just inspire you again. The second video is a visualization of the same message of how most creative people have good taste but because of this no when their projects aren't good because we compare it to the things we love. But the most important thing is to not quit and to make yourself work constantly and set deadlines for yourself to improve.
I really liked these two videos a lot. I can relate to this issue very well as I feel that probably my biggest character flaw I have is that I always get super ambitious about creating something and then completely lose all interest and stop before finishing anything. These videos gave some great advice about not being selfish and trying to do stuff to impress other people besides yourself.

Lessons to learn from traditional animation

This article was about Jay Jackson's lessons you can learn from traditional animation. Jay was trained under Eric Larson who was one of Disney's Nine Old Men, the big time animators at Disney. Jay learned that when he first started animating, just how important the posture of bodies are. He was dissapointed at first when he saw Eric's crude drawings, but after seeing them in motion he discovered just how important these key poses are. Jay also learned how important of trying every possible conceivable pose is. It's important to get across to the audience the mood and motion of the character, so everything must be tested. Jay finishes by saying how important it is to spend half of you're time thumb nailing and planning and the other half animating. The more time you spend planning, the better you're animation will be.
I thought this article had some very useful information in it. But I thought there would be a few more points in it honestly. Most of the article is describing how he was critiqued and not a bunch of juicy tips. But still the information in here is very useful.

Week 32 Comments

This week was quite busy. We didn't have a lot of time to work because we started doing shadowing this past week. I found it fun at first but it does get quite tire sum the more people we get. What frustrated me this week was probably not getting to work on projects as much as I could have. My Typography project is going smooth so far but I'm going to need to step up the work if I want to meet  the deadline on time, I think I'll be good though. What made me happy this week was getting the hang of After Effects more. The more I use after effects the more I like it. It's one of those programs I can imagine myself using a lot in the future for everything. I'm going to try and do as much as I can with it going forward as well. I also finally settled on a documentary to do. I don't want to spoil it, but I wanted to do something kind of weird but interesting, but you'll see. I'm looking forward to working more on my typography and starting the documentary. My personal life is going ok right now. I got scheduled for a lot of work this week though so....yay. But anyways onto the link of interest. 

Here's a very interesting interview between Todd Howard from Bethesda and Notch the creator of Minecraft. It's a really good listen to hear them talk about the video game industry. I'm personally into that kind of stuff but I'm sure everyone will enjoy listening to this. But that's all for this week.

Keys to creating complex transitions

This article/video was about how the video "Playground, Italy" was about to create such nice transitions. The creator Matty Brown (nice rapper name huh?) explains how transitions are important because they carry the video from A to B. He explains how it looks nice when similar looking shots are parred together in a row, and how its a challenge to par different looking shots together. It's important to judge transitions as an art form so they can elevate the story. One way to make transitions go together better is to make sure they line up and have similar lighting. This helps with continuity and is less strenuous on the viewers eyes. While editing in post, it's important to remember what shots line up with what. So when you move them around you can see what matches what best. Often times the motion is what helps the most with transitions. Sound is also very, very important. Even if your footage is bad, good sound can make all the difference in the world, tugging at your viewers heart strings. A very important thing to keep in mind is making sure the right sound goes with the right clip and not being lazy. If you just think the transistion is good enough your video can seem not complete and rushed.
I enjoyed this video quite a bit. I can relate to this a lot though because my PSA project was about almost precisely this technique. I tried to make almost all the shots match up with each other. I thought the information in this video was very helpful for anyone wanting to achieve a similar effect as well.

5 ways mythic structure will help your writing

This article was about how the structure of Myths can help you write better stories. The first point made was on Patterns. Life and Nature are full of patterns everywhere. In the Beginning of the Lion King, we see all sorts of different animals but all of them move in the same way mostly, once we see Simba we understand his place in the world. The next point was about how epic myths have epic impact. This one is pretty self explanatory. The bigger the tale is, the more crazy huge events will happen as the story unfolds. The next point was how everybody always wants something. All characters in stories are almost always driven by something that they want. In "Crossing the Threshold" we relate to the characters motivation because we want to see him succeed in his quest. The next point is on how we can't always win. This can be used to help us empathize with our hero because we relate to their failures because all of us have messed up or where not good enough for something at least a few times. And the last point is the take away lesson. This is similar to the moral of stories where it is what we ultimately take away from a story. This is shown in movies like The Wrestler where the main character accept his fate on how people will only care about him in the ring.
I thought this article was very interesting. It's interesting to see how some story telling elements never change. I'll definitely keep these in mind the more I write this year.