Weekly Comments #9

This week was great and overall very productive. First of all I finished all of my dialogue for my 2-D short and finally finished my cutout animation, which I really like. We also learned about special effects which was cool and just adds to what cool things to experiment with in the program. That being said nothing really frustrated me this week. I am now starting to look forward to 3-D more now that we are almost done with 2-D.

Here's the link of the week!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjh35bEZLLc&list=UUsn6cjffsvyOZCZxvGoJxGg
This is a cool video showing a top down perspective and this is what I want to learn next year in film. I also reminds me a bit of Hotline Miami.

Thanks for reading! Peace!

Serious Time #17 Foley

Sounds are crucial in movies they make a scene feel alive and vivid, but half of them don't actually take place not in the scene there actually in but in post-production. There are three types of sound; ambiance, library effects, and foley. Ambiance is the sound in the background like birds chirping or a restaurant bustling, these are usually recorded in the same location but not on scene. Library effects are pre-recorded sounds that you can get with or without purchase, these are typically used with sounds like gunshots, explosions, or glass. Foley is the sounds specifically assigned to the character such as footsteps, cloth movement, and prop noise. Vodville is the source of these effects which is where the rimshot came from. Vodville began to die out so it was then replaced by radio broadcasts and talking pictures. Radio especially making their own sound effects from everyday objects. Music can also in some ways be considered a sound effect setting the mood with what is happening or what the character is thinking. Sound duties are mixed into 3 different categories; dialogue mixer, music mixer, and sound effects mixer. All of these people get together with the director and watch the film to see what goes where with their specific job. Now there are plenty of props to make sounds with an example being celery being used as bones breaking. Sound is an important part of any film and is a necessity too.

I thought that the video was good but it was I feel way to long. I don't need to know Jack Foley's life story I'm watching the video for sound not a biography. Other then that the video was great, I especially liked when they showed the old process of radio broadcasts. Radio broadcasts must have been very stressful with so much going on at once and the pressure of being live. I learned about some the items they use for sounds which is cool too, like saran rap as fire. Overall this was a very factual video with a lot of great info at hand.          

Serious Time #16 References

Animators use references all of the time. They use them for guidance and help in visual aid, and even connect the dots for us every once in a while. Animators use them for techniques such as rotoscoping. The article goes through references of photography and how it shows the realistic form of movement. How a golf ball squashes and stretches all the way to a baseball photography is a great resource for reference. The article then goes into a means of reference I have never thought of using, comics. He goes on to say how great it is for seeing poses because of how many there are in comic books, he also mentions films are a great source of reference too. The next thing is a reference library, making reference videos yourself are great if your looking for a certain specificity for reference. This is especially useful when working with characters and dialogue. The article then states that when working with references you should study them and also to never copy. Remember animation is an art, not math.

I for one found this article particularly interesting. Sure I already knew some of it, but the article still delivered it in a way that wasn't boring or in other words short and sweet. I also learned about how good comic books are for references. I never noticed how many poses there were in a comic book I guess I never thought about it when reading one. Other then that I believe the article was very straight forward. This is relevant to both the animation and the film aspect of Digital Media. Overall solid article.    

Serious Time #15 Baymax's Potential in The Future

Baymax is a robot in Big Hero Six. He is not your typical metal heavy robot though, instead a big and soft robot. He is basically a balloon and was inspired by a robot arm made through soft robotics at CMU. This shows how close Baymax can actually be real. The only thing holding this back is the fact that we don't have the tech. yet or any full versions of a soft body robot. If one was made though it would probably be used for medical purposes because of the fragile type of environment. But hey maybe in a few decades this will be possible.

This was a pretty good article. I've noticed that the articles this week were all about things in movies becoming a reality. Coincidence? I think not! But its cool because these articles were very interesting, this one especially. I really think this is a cool idea that has a lot of potential for the future and is a lot more convenient then a big hulking piece of metal. I didn't even know this was a thing till today. But this was overall a great article more relevant to the animation side of Digital Media.

Thanks for reading piece!

Serious Time #14 The Wonderful World of Science Fiction!

This article was a about the actual possibilities of means of survival if we are placed in the situation of the movie Interstellar. Interstellar is a movie based on the idea of earth becoming to a point where it is uninhabitable and we have to find a place to live outside of our solar system. The threat to earth in the movie is this dust that kills crops, this means no food. This could actually happen if Ug99 gets out of control. To ensure the survival of the human race we would have to try to find a home outside of the solar system or go Interstellar. The only way this could be possible is if we could somehow make or find and go into a wormhole, which is basically a shortcut through space. But, this is only theoretical no one will know for sure what will happen. The article also showed how they made a black hole in the movie, the cool thing about it is that that is what a real black hole is supposed to look like. They figured out this from Einsteins theories, which I don't understand.

All right, all right, all right, come on someone had to say it for peed sake its Matthew McConaughey! But seriously I heard this is a good movie so I am definitely looking forward to seeing it especially after reading this article. First of all the black hole thing that they did was one of the coolest things I have ever seen in visual effects, this was the highlight of the article. The other thing that was cool about this article is that it showed me all the possibilities that this movie shines light on which is interesting, we haven't had a realistic apocalypse movie in a while. This really makes me wonder how accurate this movie would be if we were actually under the same circumstances.This is more relevant to the video side of Digital Media.

Thanks for reading peace!    

Weekly Comments #8

This week we didn't really learn much, it was pretty much a work week. That being said we did a lot of work. We had to work on our storyboards for final project and a cutout animation (which I am still working on). Getting my storyboard finally done made me happy though. I am really looking forward to going to Daemon College next week. Nothing really frustrated me this week.

Some cool links!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuaNuBp09Gk&list=UUWXCrItCF6ZgXrdozUS-Idw
This a new show on youtube that is being released weekly, it has some good animation and style, enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pMUWNSvFrQ&list=UUOfQ6AvnnfzjyBYJihTuzgQ
This is just a genius video that I thought had to be shared, genius!

Thanks for reading! Peace!

Serious Time #13 Great tips for storyboarding from Dreamworks

Dreamworks gives some great tips on storyboarding. The first is avoid flat staging unless necessary, this makes for an uninteresting storyboard. Set a grid and use different grounds to keep the character grounded and to create depth. Logically group characters to make shots a lot easier. More of these include using different shots to show height, dialogue, and reactions. Last but not least motivate your cuts, without motivation your cuts are uninteresting and bland. Motivation also gives a lot more light in your characters and animation. Storyboards are a very important step in animation.

This article was great it gave a lot of good and important tips on storyboarding. I especially like the last tip about motivation which is also the most important in animation especially. I learned a lot of new things more importantly how to group characters to make shots easier. One thing that I am wondering is if they do storyboards for non- animated films. This is relevant to the animation side of digital media.