Serious Time #55 8 Habits of People Who Always Have Great Ideas

Do you ever wonder how people come up with great ideas? Well then this might help. Here are 8 habits of people who always have great ideas. The first habit is that they look for inspiration in different places, this means that they try to look places others haven't in order to get a unique and original idea. The second habit is that they make slow decisions, this means that they try to process each decision and make the best one of the two, try to make decisions prematurely and go with your gut. The third habit is finding internal motivation, motivation pushes you forward and stops you from procrastination. The fifth habit is you have to start from scratch in order to make something different, you can't just improve on someone else that isn't the same. The rest of the habits explain and got into creativity like taking risks, trying new things, find connections, and be more open. All of these in some shape or form are all connected with the same idea, be creative, be different.

This article was okay. It was just very obvious in my opinion and kept repeating itself in different ways, I feel like the article could've been cut in half. I also felt that a lot of the points were super obvious and most of everybody knows this as common sense, but hey that's just me. I felt that the article was straight forward and obvious leaving me with no questions. I feel that this is more closely related to both sides of digital media. Overall pretty meh article.

Serious Time#54 Marvel Titles Amazing?

Marvel titles look great, who knew? They have a process though. Fxg had the chance to delve into the minds of one of the people behind the trailers. He says that it started with the movie Hitman with a CG title logo. He said after that they just wanted to do more. He also said that it takes about 2 years to see the entire project ahead. This includes typefaces, how it looks on other screens, etc. He also mentions that they use Houdini for the effects and Nuke for compositing. He also mentions their process for both the Iron Man 3 trailer and the Thor 2 trailer. He said that they used specific patterns form Thor's hammer and for Iron Man 3 they had to use a more basic look because of Iron Mans 3 core colors. Then he said that they also made the Avengers logo before it was even a thing just for a teaser in the future.

This article was okay I guess. It just seems like such a waste for an article because honestly who cares? I could've went through my entire life without knowing this and I would've been fine. It was just so boring to read something like this. I don't have any questions either about this article because it just wasn't interesting enough for me to wonder anything else. In other words the article was straight forward and to the point. This relates more to animation side of Digital Media. Overall not a great article.

Weekly Comments #28

So this week was pretty cool! I got to relax basically the entire week because of there being no play which was pretty nice. I also finally got a controller for my computer for Skullgirls and other types of games which are really hard to play without one. With my spare time I have also been streaming on twitch which has been a pretty fun experience and am glad I have started doing it. I've even been working on a secret project of mine which I hope everyone will enjoy! But enough about that! Let's talk about BOCES. It was a pretty frustrating week mainly because of the tutorials. They were just really pointless and convoluted in my opinion but at least they are done now, I am looking forward to the after effects ones in the hopes I will learn more about the program. The amount of demos was also insane! But I'd rather get them over with now then later.

Here Is The Link Of The Week:

This week I'm posting a rather strange/scary video. It's basically a messed up version of sesame street. The video has a really cool puppet thing that's going on that goes really well with the animation. I wish this show was on when I was younger.

Weekly Comments #27

This week was pretty good. I didn't learn a whole lot this week due to the fact that most of the days were work days. I am still very much looking forward to learning after effects to lengthen my knowledge on the subject. One thing that got to me this week was the fact that audition kept crashing while I was working on my sound story, forcing me to hand it in a day late. The school play that I was in also premiered this week and it was pretty great! Really nothing went wrong and everything went to plan for the most part. I am honestly looking forward to this break though now because it now frees up my schedule again for the most part.


Here's the Link of the Week:

In my opinion this is one of the greatest video game promotions I have ever seen. It's basically what would happen if there was ever a rock band 4 band, that only played the game live. It's hilarious in my opinion. I'm not going to spoil anything else for you though so enjoy the video!

Serious Time #52 Music and Your Mind!

There are many things that a movie needs in my opinion to be successful, one of those things is atmosphere. Atmosphere is super important in a movie, and what goes great with atmosphere? Music! Music is a lot of times the thing that can make an atmosphere feel real, an example of this would be the movie Psycho. In the famous shower scene in psycho there is this sound of music that is constantly and routinely played, it's also unique and hard to describe this sound. When the scene is played with out the music it is insignificantly less scary, this is because the music has such a presence in that scene that it removes much of the tension. This is also why in westerns there is a certain style of music to make the time period more believable. Music is also used to convey a certain mood or feeling, this can include eeriness, triumph, comical, etc. Another way music is used is in a sense of continuity. This method is usually used in montages to show that all of the clips are related somehow over time. Music can also give a sense of finality, this is usually at the end of the movie where the conflict has been overcame or resolved in which they will play a triumphant song too convey the mood of victory. Music can just be silence filler as well just so the scene doesn't feel awkward. Music is one of the most important things in a movie.

This article was good. The article explains a lot in how music really contributes to a movie and how important it is and I fully support that claim. The thing about this particular article though was that I already knew most if not all of the things mentioned in the article, that being said I didn't learn much. This article is more relevant to the video side of digital media. Overall nice article.

Serious Time #51 A Reason to Color?

Hello, and have you ever had an issue with not feeling the need to color? Me too, but don't fret because Disney has an answer to this problem as usual! Behold the Disney Research App! An application that allows you to not scratch out your eyes while coloring! Let me explain, this app can actually track where you color and transforms the drawing into a fully colored 3-D model. It does this through a tablets camera, this is more commonly known as augmented reality. The 3-D model isn't static though, it moves as if it has actually come to life. Disney's goal with the product is to enhance creative play. One of the issues brought up by a developer was determining how to actually apply the color. Since they were faced with the conflict of not being able to use mirrored coloring they had to use a method called continuous coloring to avoid seams between visible and occluded areas. To fix this issue they created a lookup map which matches pixels in the occluded parts with corresponding pixels in the portion visible to the user. Since they have first started testing this new product they have received promising results on the user's experience and the technical as well.


This article was interesting to say the least. It's cool that people are creating something like this but if you don't know this already I hate to color, I can't stand it. To me it is just monotonous and overall boring. I have this opinion because I like when a drawing makes one particular piece of the art stand out using a color, this is usually what I will do when I color. It's not just my personal preference that makes me not like this product it's the fact that it doesn't do anything that crazy and it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. That being said this product seems just really idiotic to me, useless and a waste of money, but hey that's just my opinion. Despite what I think this article was very well put together and was easy to understand. This pertained more to the animation side of digital media. Overall okay article.  

Serious Time #50 Virtual Reality on the Big Screen

Virtual Reality is cool. Why? Because now it's used in movies! Well not all movies just a few, but it still seems really cool. According to people who have used this new device is that it allows to view everything in a 360 radius. What stinks is that the viewing point is static which means you can't move in the actual 3-D space, but only turn. This is still a very neat thing though. The headset immerses you into the scene, you are in the movie. They do this by trying to make you apart of the virtual environment. Another neat thing that this device can bring to movies is the fact that this can bring a whole new type of transition, sound. A sound transition would make it so you would hear something and then you would look at it. Virtual Reality is coming whether you like it or not.

I really enjoyed this article. It was very cool to hear this persons experience with Virtual Reality. I personally would love to try it out, I think it would be awesome to experience. I never even knew this specific device existed, I have only known of the video game specific ones. I just want to know how close people are to making it so you can move in a virtual scene in a movie sense, that is something I would buy. This is relevant to the video side of digital media. Overall awesome article!

Serious Time #49 ACTION!!!

Action scenes have been a part of movies forever, but some are worse then others, why? Well let's find out! Most action scenes focus on a lot of implied shots, which is bad. This is bad because your'e not actually seeing the action yourself, you are just getting a mumbo jumbo sequence of shots. You want to show your audience wide angles and longer movements so they actually see what is happening, this will make the scene more memorable. Another thing action scenes do wrong is their purpose. A lot of people *cough Michael Bay cough* don't know how to tell a story and think action will save them, but their almost always wrong. You need to tell a story with your fights or give the characters a purpose for them, story can be everything in a movie don't think just because it's an action scene that it gives you an excuse of not having any purpose behind it. A good example of this is the star wars light saber battles, each one is a fight of emotion and heart not just a fight with implied shots and no dialogue or story. So why do action scenes suck? They're hard to do! You need a great team working on set and the budget to pull it off. All of these things take patience, practice, and persistence.

This was a really cool video. I never really thought about certain details and things that make action scenes good. That being said I learned a lot from this video. One big thing I didn't ever take notice of was when and action scene has a purpose or not. I also agree with all of the points brought up in this video. I don't have any questions on the topic because the video was pretty straight forward. This is more relevant to the film side of digital media. Overall cool video.

Weekly Comments #26

This week was pretty good as well as stressful. I got to watch a movie I have never seen before this week and I had no homework except blogs, easy right? Wrong. The school talent show is this week and I don't have anything new yet so I'm going to see what I can do today, hopefully I'll find something. At the same time of this I have to memorize my lines for my school play by tomorrow, yay! So yea it has been pretty stressful. We got to see the movie Hugo this week and I thought it was good, but I definitely wouldn't put it in one of my favorite movies, it just wasn't my style of movie. That's about it though, so yea.

I couldn't figure out how to put the text under the videos so now it's up here, tada! These two links are songs from a anime I have just recently finished called Tokyo Ghoul, it's really good and I would highly recommend it! The first link is an amazing piano only version of the song which is inane! The second link is the actual theme song for the show to compare. I hope you all enjoy and have a good week.

Here's the Link of the Week: