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.