How to shoot two pistols - Video

This is the 1 minute video i made for the individual film production project.

Well, here is my finished 1 minute instructional video, i dont think i have evaluated it yet so here are a few things i think about making a video for the first time. I really enjoyed the filming side of it even though it was a freezing cold day and i was very tired the experience was fun, if i have learned anything it would be that the storyboard is a massive part of preparing a film (i learned this from the other films we made too) , the post production was surprisingly easy to do as well, i was putting it off because i am not an expert in final cut pro and didnt want the stress of not knowing how to do what i want it to do, but in the end it only took an hour or 2 to get the film how i wanted it and am really happy with the end result as it is funny and thats what i wanted to make, a funny clip. 

'Dying is easy, comedy is hard'

Lecture - Making connections

We had a lecture a while ago about the importance of having connections in all aspects of life and how it will benefit you as a person. I found it interesting how may websites where people connect and contact each other about things i didnt even know about, i even started using skype as a result of this lecture and it has helped me endlessly not only in keeping contacts with people but with work and play and keeping track of things as it is a good meeting place to discuss anything as a group, better than any one to one phone call or texting could be.

Here are my notes on the lecture.

Digital film production - Storyboard

For the Digital film production module i am in a group with Chris, Phil and Adam and we decided on our group film production name being called  In The Middle Productions, we have been grouped together because we each wanted to focus on different parts of the film production process. My role in the group is Storyboard artist and so far it has been alot more demanding than i at first thought, i have been late on 2 deadlines but managed to make up the time well, i will watch out for this in the future.

Here are a couple of the shots and angles i created for the storyboard.

I think i found this more of a challenge than usual because when we discussed the story and narrative as a group we didnt really fully decide on everything that was going to happen or where all the shots would be placed/timed, so when drawing the storyboards in a bit of a rush i had to also think of camera shots/angles/timings/placement which with it having a filming aspect which i have never done before made it again a little harder than i had anticipated.

Summary - Alfred Hitchcock - Film Lecture

This was a task set to us by Gary Barker, the task was to review Alfred Hitchcock and to describe my understanding of the Auteur. Here is a short summary i did on Hitchcock during the lecture.

Even though i personally do not think Hitchcock to be the amazing person other picture him to be i can appreciate how much he has influenced the film industry as it is today and how he is the generic idea of the Auteur. 

Animation - Storyboard

I have scrapped the initial idea i had of having big and small being wooden human posing models having a dance off on a desk, firstly because it is very hard to do as i have been told by matt but also because i like my second idea better.

My second idea was about having a car drive around a narrow track with people believing that this is just a real sized track because why wouldn't it be, and after it has driven over a few ramps and around corners the camera will be fixed to the front of the car with the reflection of the track ahead being reflected in the windshield, the camera will then be fixed very zoomed out showing the car which is actually a micro machine (tiny car) drive off the end of its toy track and off the kitchen table into a bin where the animation will end.

Here is the storyboard i have done showing and narrating the story.

I have also whacked up google and put a pic of some micro machines up just so everyone has a better idea of them :)

Animation - Study - James Cameron

One of my favourite directors simply because i read that he waited when making the film Avatar as when he had the idea for the film, the technology for making the film the way he wanted it was not available yet, so instead of being about the money and sales he waited years until the technology was available then made his masterpiece which is why it worked so well and which is also why i along with many others respect him as a director for waiting to make his film.

A little backstory on him which i found pretty amazing -


James Francis Cameron^[1] (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor.^[2][3][4][5] His writing and directing work includes Piranha II: The Spawning (1981), The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), True Lies (1994), Titanic (1997), andDark Angel (2000–2002). In the time between making Titanic and his return to feature films with Avatar (2009), Cameron spent several years creating many documentary films (specifically underwater documentaries), and also co-developed the digital 3D Fusion Camera System. Described by a biographer as part-scientist and part-artist,^[6] Cameron has also contributed to underwater filming and remote vehicle technologies.^[4][5][7]

He has been nominated for six Academy Awards overall, and received half of them, three Oscars for Titanic. In total, Cameron's directorial efforts have grossed approximately US$2 billion in North America and US$6 billion worldwide.^[8] Without adjusting for inflation, Cameron's Titanic and Avatar are the two highest-grossing films of all time at $1.84 billion and $2.78 billion respectively.^[9] In March 2011 he was named Hollywood's top earner by Vanity Fair, with estimated 2010 earnings of $257 million.^[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_cameron

This one person alone is probably around 80% why Avatar is such a good film and why all of his films are good, i think the fact that he is intelligent as well as being called a part-scientist part-artist is the best  thing a director should be and strive to be. Researching Camerons history it is obvious why he has influenced so many and reading this (same page as referenced above) - After dropping out of Sonora High School, he went to further his secondary education at Brea Olinda High School. After graduating, he worked several jobs such as truck driving and wrote when he had time. - he is an influence to me and should inspire anyone who has dropped out of school or who feels they can not achieve, which is how i have felt in the past and now reading his story feel i can do and achieve more than id thought.

Animation - Study - Weta Digital

As part of the criteria for this project i am required to look at an animation studio, Pixar is probably the first thing that comes to anybodys mind when 'Animation' is said but i have decided to see who the animators behind the film Avatar are (my favorate Animated film of all time).

How much of Avatar is CGI and how much is live-action? In reading an article at Gawker recounting a Hollywood Reporter article it says, "When completed, Cameron expects Avatar to be about 60% CG animation, based on characters created using a newly developed performance capture-based process, and 40% live action, with a lot of VFX in the imagery." That works for me considering there's most likely no real way to tell for sure.

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/should-avatar-be-considered-for-best-animated-oscar/

I think you know when a combined animated and real footage film is successful when comments in reviews are 'there's most likely no real way to tell for sure' - referring to how to tell the 60% CGI in the film compared to the 40% real footage.


Weta Digital is  the company i found that underwent the task of creating Avatars digital effects, this must have been a huge task so only a very top ranking animation studio could have worked on the film, here is a portion of information on the studio from wikipidea.

Weta Digital is a digital visual effects company based in Wellington, New Zealand. It was founded by Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, and Jamie Selkirk in 1993 to produce the digital special effects for Heavenly Creatures. In 2007 Weta Digital’s Senior Visual Effects Supervisor, Joe Letteri, was also appointed as a Director of the company. Weta Digital has won several Academy Awards and BAFTAs.
Weta Digital is part of a number of Peter Jackson co-owned companies in Wellington which includes Weta Workshop, Weta Productions, Weta Collectibles and Park Road Post Production.
Weta Digital is named after the weta. Weta are some of the largest insects in the world, prevalent in New Zealand.

Because this is a film that used both animation and a film production studio i have decided to include the film studio in this study also.

Lightstorm Entertainment is the film company founded by James Cameron and the film maker Larry Casanoff in 1990, best known for the films Terminator 2, Titanic and Avatar. I could go on for pages about the animation for Terminator 2 or for Titanic for that matter which says something about how good i think it is but may save them for another post.

Animation - Study

What is animation? In my own words i would say that animation is a sequence of still images played quickly to create the illusion of movement.

 'Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways. The most common method of presenting animation is as a motion picture or video program, although there are other methods.' 

This is the wikipedia explaination of animation.

The first trype of animation that comes to mind is stop motion animation mainly because i have tried it in the past but also because it is accessable to almost anyone to try and takes little resources (as little as a mobile phone) even though it can be very time consuming.

Animation - Study - Starwars

Starwars is obviously one of the biggest film series of all time and the CGI and animation (if you have seen all the films) has clearly improved throughout the series but the particular part i am interested in related to animation history is how the animation of the deathstar plans scene was done in the oldest Starwars film Episode IV A New Hope. Here is a video explaining and enlightening me on the processes used to create the CGI.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMeSw00n3Ac&feature=player_embedded

Matt showed us this video in one of the Animation lessons and from what he explained to us and from what the video shows i understand that it must have taken a huge amount of time to do anything even slightly animated in the time when Star wars was created. They even used turning knobs to move the pointer around on the digitally animated interface, it also looks as if the person operating the system needs to have a very specialised skill to use it.

Digital Film Production - Notes

These are the first notes and ideas i had on the poem i was given to work on.

I have progressed and written more and drawn a lot more than id have ever thought id have to about the ideas written here. The turning point in my understanding of this poem was when i realised that it was about a love/abuse story instead of the initial thought i had had about it being a poem about autumn and the time of year. This sparked all the ideas about a dream world and a girl being the main character and her being isolated in her apartment and all the rest of it which i will elaborate on in later posts.

Animation - Study - Jurassic Park

I have decided to study the animation techniques used in the 1993 film Jurassic Park, i remember this as being one of the first films i can remember as a child and it will be interesting to see how it was made and the illusion of the realistic creatures created at the time. This film has been landmarked as the first film with photorealistic creatures, which particularly shows in the scene with the way the dinosaurs move and how their muscles work. Shown in this video.



Knowing how much time and effort it took to create these photorealistic dinosaurs (especially at the time it was made 1993) i dont know if ill ever be able to match the level of quality the creators of Jurassic Park achieved but if i get anywhere near ill be happy. With that in mind i think i will stick to solid objects when it comes to creating my animation in Maya as things with muscles and too many moving parts have been flagged as a no go by Matt who is pretty much an expert in Maya.

BAF Game

Getting a free bag and T-shirt from Bradford Animation Festival was a good start to the event at Bradfords National Media Museum which included lectures from developers from big hitting gams like Halo:Reach, Red Dead Redemption, Disneyland Adventures and Animals the Kinect game. The event kicked off for our group when we got through the door and right inside were machines with all the old arcade games on them like pong and asteroids, which we all had goes on, then not long after the first lectures started then the most impressive part of the whole event in my opinion started up, a facial software developer (Jay) from america who uses and developed the program faceware from Image Metrics gave his talk and demonstration on how the program works, i was amazed at how much he got done and how he did it using this new software and especially how easy it looked to be. Other events on day 1 were; a lecture on the program Unity, Carlton Reeve: Play with Learning and The Animal Kingdom and the Magical Kingdom all of which were interesting and different.

Other talks at BAF were on ipad games and how they became successful, how hard the little things are in the game Disney Land and also how lucky a small company can get by having a chance to work with Disney Studios, also how employees work and behave in the workplace, all very interesting stuff but i was still mostly impressed by the facial capture and manipulation software from faceware because they have had their work featured in many of the games i have played and thus makes it more personal to me as i have had my life changed by the stories and characters in these games and when i get to meet a member of a team of people who have influenced my life in such a big way i think instantly they have an advantage in my personal opinion.

I was at the midnight launch for Call of Duty Modern Warefare 3 the day which BAF game was on, i was extremely tired on the trip day but still managed to enjoy and take in a lot of information presented at the lectures. This nay have contributed to me not feeling well enough to go to BAF day 2 as well as the massive cold i had just caught, i heard from other people who went to it that BAF day 2 was really good too and am sorry to have missed it. There were things like motion capture workshops, panorama, student films and panel discussions on day 2 of BAF which all from what i have read on the website and other peoples blogs sound good.

Tutorial Video Storyboard

For the digital film part of this course we have been started off with making a 1 min instructional video of whatever we wanted as long as it explains and teaches someone how to do what you are showing them to do. I went for comedy immediately because i have always been told and thought that making a film sequence is easy but making something funny now thats hard. I decided to call my 1 min video 'How to shoot two pistols while jumping through the air' and i bet you cant guess what it teaches you to do... anyway i was surprised to find that this is a project which i thought i would enjoy the least but actually enjoyed probably the most in terms of creating the imagery for the piece, this is because i did exactly what i wanted to do and had a lot of fun learning how to work a camera and manage time, write a storyboard, find  actors and all the other things that come with managing a produced digital film.

This is the initial storyboard i drew as i thought about what my film might look like when it is finished.

COD Midnight Launch

As a personal interest i went to the midnight launch for the game Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, i have begun more and more attending midnight launches because firstly it gives a unique and interesting experience, secondly there are behind the scenes exclusive content which may even contribute to my understanding in the game arts and developers techniques so i consider it a win win to go to midnight launches not only for the fun of it, the fun of the games, but also for the things i may learn at these as well.

The book that came with the special edition of the game (also a great thing to buy as suggested by mike) is one of the best things about special edition sets as you again get behind the scenes and extra content that is useful to understanding the behind the scenes work we as a DFGA course are trying to get into.

The book which came with this special edition game contained a lot of the concept artwork for the game and also different styles of drawing and sketching that make the book have a very personalized feel to it. It was designed to look like a journal as well as serving as concept artwork for the game and then in itself becomes a piece of artwork, which is an interesting concept.

Skyrim analysis

The cover to the EDGE magazine i read in the library is artwork from the upcoming freeroam RP game Skyrim, i will be reading about features/new elements to the game and will critically agree/disagree and voice my own opinion on these topics.

After reading the review and playing the game first hand myself for over 50+ hours i think i can safely give my input on the game, i also presented this blog post to my class and discussed the topics mentioned here, firstly i found that the way the review makes out like the constant gloom and rain in the weather is a bad thing is off a little bit since in games like bioshock i wouldnt complain about the lack of sunlight or in fallout the ugly scenery just the same as in skyrim i wouldnt complain about there being a little snow or rain or clouds. I also found that the review was right when it said sometimes the characters in Skyrim can talk over each other and it gets a little bit confusing and brings away from the illusion of the world a little bit which yes i do agree on. The biggest point of all however is the remark about how Skyrim like its predecessor Oblivion would or is riddled with bugs/glitches/errors but the magazine says these are what makes Bethesdas company Bethesdas, which while it can be annoying is always worth the laugh when a giant one hits you so hard you literally touch the sky by hitting the roof of the game, so yes the review the game has many glitches but i think and agree with them when they say this is what makes the game as well as all the cool awsome other stuff in it.

And finally the few notes i made before i presented this blog post to the class in a PPP crit session.

Moving Image Analysis

Corporate Cannibal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgMn2OJmx3w

My Corporate Cannibal first impression was... what the hell, like most other people in the lesson watching the video i was confused. To me this video/style is aimed towards creating shock in the viewer to further emphasise the point the artist is trying to make, that point being that corporations are cannibals and they simply try to each eat other in a figurative way. I think it succeeds in creating a kind of confusion and fear in its viewers but i dont think the video really explains or shows what the lyrics are trying to say. The use of the image being distorted and stretched has some effect and adds to the song in the way that it makes a strange song stranger but again i dont think it is clear what the song as a whole is trying to say.

Shaviro, S. (2009) Post-Cinematic Affect: On Grace Jones, Boarding Gate and Southland Tales Film-Philosophy, North America, 14, Dec. Available at: <http://www.film-philosophy.com/index.php/f-p/article/view/220/173>. Date accessed: 02 Aug. 2011.

I also took notes from the review of the music video in the book listed above. Here is a scan.

Artist Study - Akihiko Yoshida

Akihiko Yoshida is going back to when i did studies on another of Final Fantasys artists Tetsuya Nomura, FF has always been a major part of my life and i am happy to go back to studying some of the games main concept artists, here is some of FF12s artwork done by Akihiko Yoshida and some i just found online probably originating from Akihiko Yoshida also.

This kind of work is good for me to study because i want to learn how to show how metal armour and materials look and reflect in different light, it also shows body proportions, perspective and good use of colour, the amount of detail in these images is mind blowing and simply amazing, but i do like the way the light reacts with the characters as my main point of focus in these images.

Artist Study - Jinx

I found some really cool images on DeviantArt showing body proportion and took a few images to post on this blog as study, they are useful to me because i am always trying to better myself when it comes to body and hunan proportions and the way the artist has done it in their own work is good in my opinion. Also the simplicity and elegance of colours in the second image is something i would like to try and capture in my own work and this picture is a good source of reference to me. The only problem is that i tried the link i had taken to get more information on the artist but it doesnt seem to work and i tried looking for the artist again on DeviantArt but couldnt seem to find them again, this is their work though and i like it :P.

                                                                     jinx-star.webloc

Graffiti art lecture

Here are the notes i took in the graffiti art lecture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPWbnuNXqD0&feature=player_embedded

This is the Corsa ad shown in the lecture showing how graffiti art has been modernised and used in popular society and to market products. I cant post the actual video here so there is the link to youtube.

The main points of the lecture for me are taken in the notes i did at the time.

The most notable part of the lecture for me was when the game Jetset Radio came up in the context of graffiti being used in games. I remember when i used to play the game that the graffiti had a very unique and loud style about it, i also knew that because it is a game that the source of art and graffiti used within the game must have been taken for another source namely real life. This as a point made me start to think that some graffiti is cool and that like in the game the police which try to stop you from expressing yourself with graffiti were bad and thinking back it is quite surprising how a game and its artwork can have such an impact of the players view of things.



Here is a little bit of game art of Jetset Radio, instantly looking at the colours used and the style of drawing you can see the kind of graffiti look coming out.

Graffiti art to me has always been a double edged blade when thinking about 'is it good or not?' because when it is used by an intelligent individual like Banksy rather than a gang of kids then yes of corse it is because it has meaning and a message to people, but when it is used for gangs to mark their turf or to vandalise bus stops then no because what use or gain is it to anyone. So to me Graffiti art will always be a style i can respect as being technically challenging but only when used in the correct context.

A3 Rendered Perspective Background

This is one of my most recent photoshop illustrations, i had very limited time when producing this so i am not as happy with the result as i could have been. With more time though i am confident i could have produced a more detailed more colour balanced image using the skills i have learned over the create module.

Characters Face and Additional Poses

I was told after my presentation crit that i didnt have any work on my characters face, i suddenly realised wait i dont have any work on my characters face. Faces have always been a problem for me to draw unless i plain copy them so i decided to take the 25 facial expressions test, well 5 or 6 of them at least, this is what i produced. I also based my character around the facial features of Sean Bean as he has always been one of my favourite actors and characters in films. This also ties in with my Artist study on Game of Thrones as Sean Bean plays Lord Eddard Stark a king in the series and he has the elements and lives in the cold environment which i think my character could easily relate to.

I have also put up a few of my extra sketches which may add to the feel of the character in the way he stands or kneels, they are very basic as i have not worked any further on them than pencil and scanning in.

Artist study - Game of thrones

After my presentation crit i was told that my concept artwork with my character in his background reminded someone of the prison from the series game of thrones, i thought about it and yes it is much like it so i decided to post a few pictures which are artwork from the series and fit in well with the feel of my characters world and environment. I also based my characters facial features on the main character in the series Eddard Stark (Sean Bean) 

A good depiction of the character in a cold environment, would have been good to produce some work with my character in the same position/situation.

A landscape picture that can be seen to be like the work i have done on landscape for my characters environment.

Some very good line art that i would like to have a go at doing with my own environment. It was done by the production company: Elastic and the Director of the animation at the start of the series episodes Angus Wall. This is a link to the amazing digital introduction to Game of Thrones.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7L2PVdrb_8

Some artwork of the prison from one of the episodes, this is much like my character and environment i have done in my final piece, i like that it is coincidentally similar as i am a fan of Game of Thrones and would enjoy transitioning into creating art from the series to do with work i am producing for my Uni modules.