Week 37 Comments

This week was pretty busy. I finally got all the filming done for my main actors in my fictional short. I have to some additional filming and also do the special effects for it though. It's pretty special effect heavy so hopefully I'll get a decent cut of it done by wednesday. What frustrated me this week was the editing tutorials probably. The Wall Cut took me forever to figure out but once I got it, it seemed so obvious to me that I felt pretty dumb. The rest of the them came out fine honestly. What made me happy this week was starting the next project. I'm working on it with Jack and it's going to be a 2D/3D hybrid type thing. I think Jack and I are equally happy to work on it which is good. It will be interesting to divvy up who does who. I'm looking forward to finishing my Fictional short and starting the next project currently. Personally life is ok right now. I started playing Pokemon Red as I want to prepare myself for the new game at the end of the year. I decided I want to play a game from each generation so I have a decent amount of high level pokemon when I start the Pokemon Moon/Sun. Pokemon, Zelda and Metroid are the Nintendo games I've never been that into, and I intend to change that by the end of 2016. Call it a belated New Years Resolution or something. Also Better Call Saul has been really good this season so far, so all of you go out and watch it! But anyways onto the link of interest.

Speaking of Better Call Saul, my link of interest this week contains an actor from it. Mark Proksch use to do a thing were he would pretend to be K-Strass the Yo-Yo guy. He would go to news stations and present himself as such and show off his "skills". But really he would just talk about his characters awful life and couldn't yo-yo to save his life. It's really funny stuff and just hilarious to watch the news people squirm as they don't know how to react. But anyways that's it for this week.

Left or Right

This article/video was about the concept of "Left or Right" in film. They discuss how the different movements in film can express different feelings. Moving towards the camera shows assertiveness and dominance, while moving away shows weakness. Also characters being looked down upon seem weak while characters being looked up upon feel more dominant. But lateral movement is a lot less obvious. Movement going left to right often shows the progression of time, as we read left to right and in 2D video games, characters often move from left to right. An example of this would be in full metal jacket where the characters move from left to right in one shot and then right to left in the next. Stanley Kubrick deliberately did this to make it seem like the soldiers where moving around aimlessly. Another example is where soldiers moving into the war move left to right, while soldiers injured are moved from right to left as it seems they are going back home. Scientists even tested this by making a study group who perceived the same exact clip of going left to right more positively than the right to left. Even characters on the right side of the screen can be perceived more positively than the ones on the left.
I liked this article a lot. Staging in film is very fascinating to me. From what I've seen the director that does this best is Akra Kurosawa. I find it interesting to see what an viewer assumes by just looking at the screen. I will try to remember these when I work on my next project for sure.

Regretful art student

This article is by a game developer and what he's learned throughout his career, and what he wish he had known when he started. He talks about how he was shocked how when he first started his job of how many people didn't go to college. He found out quickly that having skill was basically it's own form of educational expeirence. He also says how getting into games is easier than ever with programs like Unity and the Unreal Engine being so accessible. He also talks about how he wished he had learned more about art foundations like drawing and sculpting and less on the programs. He explains that while programs features will change constantally, art foundations will always stay the same. He also talks about how you shouldn't worry about being the absolute best possible but try to improve your current self as much as you can. He also quotes Neil Gaiman by saying "Make good art, make it on bad days, make it on good ones too." He closes on saying how you never really stop improving as an artist and not to worry about not being as good as you wish you we're, but instead focus on improving.
I thought this article was very inspiring and insightful for younger artists, such as myself. It's very useful information for me, as I want to pursue a career in games as well.

Week 36 Comments

This week full of work, per usual. What made me happy is that I finished my competition project and I think it came out very good. I'm really excited to start my fictional short as I have very ambitious ideas for it and I think it could possibly be my best work in this class. I'm probably going to do a 2 day shoot for it. One day with most the actors and the next day for more practical shots I don't need everyone there for. What frustrated me this week was being a little late on turning in my storyboard and script for the fictional short. This week I'm probably going to me doing the camera exercises and more prepping for the fictional short.

This video was originally going to be one of my vlogs this week but I discovered that longs videos with jump cuts aren't very appreciated. So enjoy my one and only vlog that I'll probably ever make.

Van Gogh's teachings

This article is about the teachings of Van Gogh and why he's an example to us all. In the fast paced world we live in today, we expect success to our work right away, but that's not how the world works. Van Gogh is a perfect example of this. He was late into the art game and didn't start until he was 27. He had a teacher for awhile, but the teacher thought he sucked and kicked him to the curb. At this point Van Gogh was broke, hungry and homeless. He was forced into moving back in with his parents. His parents didn't think much of his art and thought it was a waste of his life. He worked for a long time on faces from this point out, and never gave up. His first masterpiece in his opinion was called "The Potato Eaters". His brother was less than impressed though. It's really hard to go through life and only have one person to judge it, but Van Gogh did just that. He was a very Autotelic guy as the author points out. This mean he made art for himself and self improvement. He then studied color for awhile as he found it to be so much fun that he couldn't stop if he tried. Then finally his brother delivered him the great news that one of his paintings had finally been sold! But Van Gogh told his brother in the form of a weird metaphor that many people have a goal in life but ultimately don't know what they really want
I thought this article was very interesting and that is great advice for not only everyone but myself as well. I struggle with not wanting to create because I have no audience, but the philosophy that you should create for yourself and improvement is very important.

How to not destroy your vertabrae

This article/video was about the importance of good posture, how bad posture can be awful for your health and good precautions to lead to a healthy life of desk work. As of the recent years, most people who work do it mostly by sitting down. Even at home we are mostly sitting when we watch tv, play video games or write mundane blog assignments. This can be detrimental to your health and it has been shown that people with sitting jobs have twice the chance to get cardiovascular disease than sitting workers.Even if you spend a lot of time doing physical stuff outside of work, sitting and working is far worse than that is better. Keeping up with your posture is the best way to prevent your back from snapping into two. It's important to sit in an upright position if you are in an inactive chair. Make sure you don't cross your legs. Leaning to far forward and backward can also be bad for you, so again sitting up straight is best. Rocking back and forth in your chair helps not only your back, but your ability to concentration as well. Even just two hours of active sitting can help you burn calories. You should interrupt your sitting at least once every thirty minutes. Doing some simple lunges with this can help you a lot.
This article is helpful but I don't think is as big a problem as its making out. But if all of this is true than I think we should follow it's advice! Lets all of us rock and forth back in our chairs to improve our posture. The chairs will make a annoying sound sure but that's just the sound of us burning calories! This way we can show Ms. Licata that we are actively showing our improved posture.