Natural lighting

Natural light is one of the most is one of the most helpful and hurtful thing one can do when filming. I personally have had some bad experces with lighting when it came to the rotoball project and tips on how to do something better is all ways appreciated. The article had all kinds of good tips, so I am going to try to sum it up quickly because we all have stuff to do.
First of all the article recommends coming prepared with the correct lenses, camera, and any other accessories that might be important for light filtering, contrast, or any other effects that are necessary for filming(this is going to require planning on the directors part). The next part is when and where to film this included tips like having the sun at your back in order to keep shadows from interfering with the shot. Another was shooting during sun down and sun up when the lighting is at its best and prettiest. The last tip that the article gave was about prep work necessary to get the perfect shot. first chose the location in advance many films have flopped because the director got lazy and just filmed any where. The next is rehearsing a head of time in order to make better use of the time of day that has good day light. Lastly have some one stage the seen in order to portray the mood furniture arrangement is key to portraying a scenario all of these tips can be used to create a great natural lighting seen.
I can see where these tips can be helpful for creating the best natural lighting wile filming and why natural lighting can just be something you do on a whim. I can see now why the rotoball project was so bad from a video stand point, where was no planning involved at all and it was with one camera
my question is "will we be doing this next year?"

psychedelc and grotesque

Reading the article was hard enough with out the constant loop of the animations that looked like some 60's tv show. the article was about some one who was able to purchase, animated, and uploaded to the internet. the article stressed the importance of  preserving the past in order to look to the future, or at least that's my impression.
The article contuse to talk about the phenakistoscope and the zonetrope witch we already covered in class what I did find interesting was is hoe the person got it onto the computer. according to the article he converted his already existing files and converted them into GIF format the posted them on Tumblr account. The article goes on to say how artists really value the use of these old-timey effects and how an artist began 2 years ago posting the animated GIFs every week till now. He did this by photographing each picture in the sequence and then sequencing them in Photoshop. "The most difficult part" Duffy says "is the timing" he of corse is referring to the 24 frames per second standard and how if its to fast it looks blurry and to slow and it doesn't work.
I thought the devil picture was cool it reminded me of the devil's tutorial in Bioshock and the old-timey feel to it. Lastly I agree with the article on the idea that the creator was on drugs when he made this, no sober person make something that weird.
My question "we don't have to do those do we?" 
    

week post 6

This week marks the end of rotoball  and I couldn't be happier. Although the end result is cool the project took a lot of time and effort and I'm glad it is over. I did enjoy creating the motion tweens but I had didn't like having to animate every frame. I still can't weight for the 3D animation and lastly
I'm still worried about the 2D short. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVbOlAHdasA this is zero punitions newest video and its funny with mildly good animations

cloudy with a chance of meatballs

I'll be the first one to say I didn't like the original cloudy with a chance of meatballs  I thought it was  little to boring   and not as funny as it could have been but, it was a kids movie after all. But that being said the animation to the movie looked smooth and I did like the typing Flin dose on the keyboard. It looks really fake mind you, but it works with the whole theme of the movie. All that being said cloudy 2 is coming out and it has come to my attention that a lot of work went into making all of the visual effects.   I found out that all the liquids in the movie had to be individual calibrated due to their individual density's and thickness. Another thing that was the simulations they created witch relied on physics had to cope with animations that didn't follow that laws of physics(a nightmare to deal with I'm sure). This caused the physics engine to explode 90% of the time  and the animators had to run multiple simulations in order to fix it. The article used the example of moving through syrup and how the extreme acceleration cause the syrup to fly all over the place. What would happen if the simulations didn't work right? Well the effects animators would change the physics settings and run it again by the seventh or eighth failure they would call the story animators and ask for a change, this goes on till they find that "happy medium".
      After reading I have a new found prospective of what it takes to make a animated movie. One is dealing with frustrating things like physics, another is being able to cope with failure and lastly working with other people. I also thought it was funny how the animator refer to the giant strawberry as larger than life.
My last question is " will we be working with physics engines this year?"

CGI movie effects

If you have ever watched "Face off" you know that a lot of work goes into making the monster effects we all love so much and its no surprise that the effects are still used to day. But when I read that these same effects were used to replace CGI animation that surprised me.
   what I find to be most impressive is the creative use of materials in order to create effects most believed to be CGI. The best example is in Harry Potter film when Harry grows fins and webbed hands was done with a stocking, stuffing, and some silicon. Another thing I found interesting was the use of 3D printers in the movie business. I've always liked the ides of 3D printing and I know it was being used in the sculpture business. It came as a shock that  some films use 3D printing is being used to make parts for monsters.  The article 3D printing will end up becoming the norm in the film business and I agree but I think it will the printing will go far past monster heads and go full body. Lastly I like that people are still using the old methods of getting CGI effects with real models and masks rather than computer effects, you know what they say if its not broke don't fix it.
 My final question is" will we ever be creating those kind of effects next year?"          

weekly post 5

I believe it is safe to say the week comments are the hardest part of the blog. This week was spent doing nothing but rotoscoping so I didn't learn anything except this project is boring and time consuming. I expect the end result is going to be worth it but you never know. I still want to learn about 3D animation and can't wait till around Christmas when we learn it. The time it takes to make a full rotoscope is starting to frustrate me and I'm worried I won't finish on time. On the bright side I enjoyed the full work week uninterrupted work time is nice considering I get very little where I live.   
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cizlx6ODhuE its a link to my favorite robot chicken schech and its all done in stop motion but you know that enjoy.

Female characters

As a guy I don't get worked up over things like sexist remarks because lets face it some of them are pretty actuate, they don't fit every situations but some of them are pretty funny. The remarks made by Lino Disalvo really don't affect me on a personal bases but it did an interesting conversation about what the difference between animating male and female characters.
    For one thing women's emotions are harder to portray because as Disalvo so elegantly put it you have to make them emotional and still look pretty witch can come off as quite a challenge. The creative director of Brave got around this by making the charters mouth expand as far as they could in order to create more believable expressions. Lastly I found out that when Disney used the character  Merida for marketing the creative director when straight  to the CEO and proclaimed it sexist among other things.
        Like I said I 'm a dude so sexist remarks don't bother me, but as an animator knowing that one gender is harder to animate than another is a more than a little intimidating. I don't know a lot about animating but from some of the demos I watched animating a female character was said to be more difficult  than male characters especially in the face region. I only hope they were exaggerating. On a side note I do think its good that people stand up for what they believe in, if said person is offended by something  or thinks its difficult they should say so and these people did, I can respect that.    
 my only question would be "Is it really that difficult to animate female characters." 

zombies

This article about zombies and its connection and pop culture is apparent to anyone who owns turns on the television. With games, movies and an extreme internet following, zombies are this generations horror theme in the 60's it was Godzilla, in the 80's and 90's it was Jason, and now it's zombies. Under normal circumstances I would be all over the whole phycology angle and how people were wasting there time trying to tell us thing we really don't need to know but this article was written by people who don't have fancy degrees and probably to much time on their hands so for them it was this or get a real job and I guess we know witch one they picked.
I'm not going to say that finding out why humans fear certain things isn't interesting I'm making the argument that its just not practical(kind of like Math). But unlike math knowing why people created zombies as a fear is not going to cost you your job. With out further to do it is widely believed that zombies are a reference to technology and its ability to take over a persons life and cause them to act without purpose (no wonder pop culture and zombies go together so well there both references). another commonly believed theme for zombies is they are a symbol of capitalism and the over spending of consumers. Since zombies are compelled to consume it only made since that the greed of consumers and mob mentality would be referenced somewhere in an undead flick.     
     lastly I fell the reason people identify so well with a zombie apocalypse is the lack of help and the felling of being generally alone. With not technology to connect us and no way to communicate with others and having to relie on makeshift clubs and swords is all parts exciting and scary, not to mention its that second chance to break out of the pack and set of on your own destiny most only dream about.
I don't want you to think I have an unfair byest when talking about a zombie apocalypse, I like all kind of apocalypses simply because they tell the best stories. One of my favorite games of all time takes place in a nuclear ravaged future and the story is a blast. To reiterate my opinion on any apocalypse, it is interpreted as a time of rebirth and renewal, a chance to forge hero and great new nations
  My final questions is "are we doing a zombie themed lesion any time soon?"   

animated fims in america

I feel like I'm writing to much in theses blog assignments so I am going to attempt to keep this one as short as possible.
the article is about animated movies and how they have become more of a genera rather than a medium to which the story is told. The article points out that movies do make an effort to branch out and appeal to adults, but they are still primarily directed at one age group, children. This fact alone can could be what makes animation classify as a genera not a medium. What happens to movies that don't take the classical route and try to become an action movie? Well they usually die at the box office, losing out to what ever movie that did take the usual route because that seems to be where the money is made. The last thing the article pointed out was that animation is a lot cheaper than live action and since most movies use animated rendering to create some of their more impressive moments it only makes sense that there should be a more serous movie that is animated.
I can only speculated that after seeing the beginning of halo 4 there one day be a fully animated movie for adults the computer technology is getting there and if some people from the game industry made a fully animated movie I guarantee it would make a lot of money. Lastly I do agree its time to make an animated movie for adults I'm tired of these kid movies, I want a protagonist who can say the F word or bleed or event comment on at a pretty girl, something to make these movies about more about entertaining the masses not the masses children.
my only question is "why not?"         

breaking bad point of view

I'm not going to lie, the more Walter White is portrayed the more he sounds like a guy that deserves to be ten feet under in a pine box.(dead was the analogy I was going for) and when the creator is still puzzled as to why people are sympathizing with the character it should be an obvious hint that you shouldn't be.  Never the less this upset of human morality was then researched by a shrink (or philologist if your being pretentious) who was able to take time off from his busy schedule of finding out why "the color blue makes us sad" to tell us why we still care about a guy who's a top contender for worlds biggest jerk.
Fact one; the writers used a few tricks to "get us in Walters corner" as the article put it, one of witch is creating a plot filled with reasons for making us feel sorry for him.(simply put they rune the guys life and give him only one way out sell drugs)in this way my people can see and justify why he dose the things he dose.
Fact two; the method of getting people to identify was invented by a Russian filmmaker by the name of Lev Klueshov witch shows a close up of the actors face and what they are looking at causing you brain to identify what he's thinking(they used a candy bar and the emotion hungry for an example).
Fact three; the creators took advantage of the brains instinct to pick up on emotion and to portray these emotions as well. This instinctive response can be why people tend to get angry at the same pointless things at the same time (like the bills for example)
Putting my personal felling into prospective can see both sides arguing about the true moral character of Mr. White. On one side you have the perspective view, where you argue that he dose it for his kids and cause he's dying and if he dies then then what happens to his family? On the other end of the spectrum he's now that drug lord of two continents and has killed tons of people to get there making him a pretty scummy guy. The article made some good points like stressing the importance of point of view and how it can make the embodiment of human garbage look like a good guy.
My questions is "Why haven't I started watching Breaking Bad yet?"