Week Six: Oh God What Have I Done

I guess the appropriate name would have been Hell Week. But hey, it's over!

What I enjoyed this week it getting some bit of an ease in work. The rotoscoping was indeed tedious, but we didn't have to do anything different! It was pretty great in that aspect!

My dislike stems from not having access to the tablets on Thursday, given I was too stupid to remember to bring mine.

I learned that there's really no shortcut to this kind of work and you just need to shut off your brain and get down to it. Motivating huh?

What I would like to learn is more about the kind of effects you can pull off with this style. I'm creatively drawing blanks as to what I can do.

Capping another solid week off, I've got some funky psychedelic jams from another favorite band of mine, Tame Impala. This video features absolutely trippy hand drawn animations and styles sure to inspire. Have a good night broskis. 

Bigger and Bolder: Complexity in Digital Animation Effects

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2 apparently caught some professional eyes, and it's not just because of its leading box office score.
What we're seeing here is some major leaps in what people can do with digital animation, and if you didn't notice, here are a few to look back at again.

-Nonphysical physics? This sounds like something that could easily kill a robot, computer, or any AI, but somehow Sony did it. The film uses many simulations to gain the effects you see, but these simulations are grounded in real life physics, and the movie? Yeah, not so much. What you have here is in a sense, bending reality. You'd think a person would have to have a degree in quantum engineering to pull that off, but it seems that's not so when you've got the right software!

-Fluid effects that are more technical than they appear. What you see here is animators taking real life water simulations and modifying them to a cartoony style. Real life is far from the style the movie presents, so of course a little breaking of the rules is involved. The crew at Sony established that the highest importance was making the shots look good. From that basis they modified how the water acted and how the gravity functioned. Do it enough, and you've got movie quality gold.

-Multicharacter juggernaut. There's a big scene featured in this film. It involves 1000 frames, and many, many characters all doing their own thing with the world interacting to each individual. Your home computer would have already crashed, and I don't care how many numbers your Nvidia GPU has. In complex acts like these, the animators considered it a nightmare, but with the end result? Totally worth it.

I think pushing the boundaries like this is a must if we are to keep pioneering digital animation. We need to push ourselves and our technology to the limit to learn the most we can. There's always room to improve.

In cases like this though, it's a little disheartening to me how much computer intensive this becomes. Compared to doing something like this in a 2d style animation (I.E. suicide) the 3d seems to take away just a slight amount of the impressiveness of these feats. But just a slight.

That's all I can really say on the topic. Would you suspect the other major studios to be pushing the envelope too? (I have a fear Pixar is starting to ease up.)

Still Relevant: Traditional Special Effects

I unfortunately don't have such a gratuitous amount of time to write tonight, so I'm unfortunately going to have to cut my observations a bit short this week. My apologies, but try to enjoy anyway!

I love me some good old fashioned effects, and while it does seem like the movie world is being killed by CG, you'd be surprised to see how much we still rely on pure talent to make some more-than-believeable faces and monsters. 

-Special effects has been a high tech field for quite some time. Sure back in the black and white days we were a bit limited with what we could do, but the second robotics and prosthetics hit, we turned right to them. These advances have become so widely used in effects that it's very rare to find those who go without. 

-Artists still needed. As high quality renderings are easily cranked out by today's computers, we still need artists to get the true touch. Realistic effects require people with an understanding of applying it. Especially in the third dimension. Thus, artists will never go unneeded. 

-Constant expansion. Like said before, special effects have used advanced materials right when they became available, and as the art evolves, there needs to be a feed on what new tech emerges. Technology goes hand in hand with this field, and without it, you get a very lacking end result.

I haven't stated this much myself, but I absolutely love seeing a good application of traditional effects, and especially in horror films. It makes me feel assured that our artists don't have to sit behind a desktop all day and really get to engage in their work.

I think while it does get a good amount of use in today's film, traditional effects do need to be better understood and appreciated by audiences. It takes a massive amount of work for just one movie, and in what many consider a CG dominated environment, I believe a human touch is required to bring the audience closer. 

Facts and opinions settled, there was one mention in the article that caught my eye. We use high definition cameras as a standard now, but the old lover def cameras worked great in older horror movies to aid in the atmosphere. Why don't we try to use them more?

Week Five: Late Night with Joel Congi

Have I ever mentioned I do these at the nearly last minute? I always seem to perform better under pressure.

Rotoscoping intrigues me to no end. The way it delves into the uncanny valley is something magical. You're making the perfect combination of real life and art. Just plain cool.

What I dislike is the obvious. Repetitiveness and onward droning of drawing individual frames. I think my eyes are turning inside out every hour I stare at the screen. Also that little mistake where I somehow got the final to still be 24 fps. Ah well, at least the quality will show.

I did learn that being a perfectionist really isn't all to necessary if you want a cool product. I tend to keep every other frame smooth, but get a little careless with those between. Really makes the animation breath.

What I'd like to learn is how I can figure this out with something like Autodesk Sketchbook Pro. There's some cool techniques I'd love to employ.

So for a special treat, I'm going to offer a music video from one of my favorite bands, The Features. I had the pleasure of meeting these guys in person last spring. One of the coolest groups no doubt. This video here features an excellent mix different animation techniques over one really catchy tune. Have fun.

The Living Dead in Our Culture

Since Romero successfully broke the concept into the mainstream during the late 60s, zombies have invaded popular culture and have only exponentially increased in popularity. Movies, novels, graphic novels, and yes, even music can't escape from their influence. I myself have never really been all to caught up in the craze, but I can't deny how big of an impact the living dead have had in our culture. Why is that?

-Symbolism! Zombies are more than they physically appear. Take a second to think about their aspects. What groups in society can you apply them to? If you answered anything you're right. Consumerism, communism, world religions, they can be used as a metaphor for many things, and it's effective. Dawn of The Dead wasn't set in a mall just because of the size. In that movie Romero wanted the zombies to stand in as the mindless drones you see shuffling in the mall every day.

-Easy enemies. We always need something to hate. Something to blame. Something to satisfy our violent thoughts and intentions (it's human nature. Don't say you've never had them). Zombies fill that need. In media they're killed in various gruesome manners, they're central enemies. That's a universal filler that's hard to find elsewhere!

-Even more symbolism! Our society under the influence of growing technology is something to marvel at and worry about. We do tend to use tech as a crutch in many aspects, and most commonly, to think for us. And it's accessible to a huge number of us. Sounds like zombies. We have no brain of our own, and come in many numbers. Well, to exaggerate.

If there's one thing I love about zombies, all the the rules of civility are thrown out the window. You can imagine the most horrible thing you can do to another human. But when that human is a zombie, it's perfectly acceptable! Think about it, you're basically judge jury and executioner!

I really doubt we'll see much a decrease in media presence from zombies in the future. There always seems to be at least one zombie film for each year. I don't find this good or bad. It's like romantic comedies. They're just going to be with us forever no matter what we do.

But there's one question I do have. We've thrown a lot of ideas with zombies around, and many are just about the same. Where do we go from here to revolutionize the genre?

The Unshakable Aspect

I've noticed it myself, but I've never thought all too much about it. Female characters in animation are constantly held behind the lens that we call "pretty". Really, this is present in all forms of visual art (most especially video games), but does the point hold water? Well over at Disney it appears there's been quite some controversy started over the matter. It even brought upon a sub-argument on the difficulty of animating women vs men. No matter if the causing statement was misinterpreted or not, here are the facts.

-Animation of male and female figures both pose challenges, but there isn't really a greater or lesser among the two. This is kind of obvious. Yes, men and women will display different mannerisms in movement, but under animation, both exist on nearly the same skeleton. You have the same basics of movement and the same anatomical limits. It's a little ignorant to argue one is harder when both are almost identical by core, and only minor in difference externally. On top of that, these traits aren't necessarily exclusive to either sex.

-Realism should still apply to some degree. No one looks good every single second, but when you're moving a hand drawn and rendered character around, you can pass that rule of reality. But should you? Humans are defined by imperfections, and when you have, so to say, a visually perfect character, it takes away a lot of that humanity. It is feared in the industry that the "pretty" image animators strive for is taken above all which can sacrifice any real human quality a character could possess. 

-Cookie cutter designs. It may be subjective, but the comparisons are uncanny. When you strive to make a very "pretty" character, you'll tend to pull yourself into an ideal image. When it comes to recent Disney animations, a creative GIF can give you all the evidence you need. Without imperfections, you will find yourself having the same features. Facial shapes trend, and eventually it's left to eye color and hair. At that point individuality is nearly lost. 

I found this a tougher article to analyze honestly, but just the same, I do have a couple opinions.

Like the third point, I really do feel we're seeing too little variance in female characters presented in visual arts. I do mostly blame this on the pursuit of attractiveness over individuality. It actually ties into one of my favorite tropes, the Six Faces http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OnlySixFaces

And that issue with the creative duty shift for Brave; I couldn't agree more with the original designer. That update was just cliche. It offended everything that the original established. You had something unique at first, but the update just made it into a product. Something to sell on shelves. And it's sad that we see this all too much. 

I hope we can overcome this creative rut at some point. Why do we stick to these age old ideals anyway? Is an attractive character really going to make us see a good movie any more than we would in the first place? Well, sure there's going to be the shallow few who only care about who the leads are and how they look, but them aside, does it make a difference to the rest of us moviegoers? 

Week Four: Takin' Care of Business

These blogs, so many words! But I can't write enough!

I take it back, I'm starting to love working in Flash. Finishing those tutorials shed a lot of light on the app and I have been enlightened! 

Very sad news though, and I was hit hard by it this week. The legendary writer Tom Clancy has passed on. I became a huge fan of his works two years ago and haven't stopped reading his books since. It hurts to lose the guy who makes what you love.

I learned the difference between motion tweening and shape tweening is pretty darn big. Like, the difference between your animation being technically impressive or a huge acid trip.

What I want to learn is how I'm going to make multiple tweens interact. Like two objects crashing into eachother and then how they individually react. Complex stuff to think about this early, but I'm that kind of guy. 

Alright we'll finish with a favorite producer of mine. Jaltoid! And what do you know, these guys use Flash too! Very relevant with what we're currently doing no doubt. Their videos are pretty funny indirect commentary on common internet instances, on top of just funny nonsensiscal things, like Batmin! Enjoy!

Counter-productivity in The World of Animation

Heheh, Sausage Party. 

In all honesty though, from reading about Seth Rogen's and Evan Goldberg's upcoming "adult" animated comedy, I'm not getting much of a hope for greatness generated. To start out, this is very far from the point I made in the last blog. What these comedy regulars intend to do is produce an animated comedy with tons of raunchy jokes and I can only assume an endless slur of profanity with Danny McBride involved. 

I'm not against it. That's just to clarify, but what I don't like is that they're not improving the image of animation with this idea. Lets analyze the premise here: The main characters a sausages. It's an adult comedy. We can clearly see where this leads. Now what we've discussed before is that animation needs expansion into more mature audiences. But are we talking the same mature here? Some see it as more of an excuse to use elements that would be most unwarranted in polite company, but maturity has a big stem in understanding complexity. And we want more complex animations. Movies with bigger messages. Deeper elements. Does Sausage Party have this? So far it doesn't look that way. Lets face it. What we're seeing here is stuff that your average 12 year old will still be entertained by. There's nothing revealed that would give a second thought, and until there is, I don't have much hope this film will be bringing much expansion of audience to the medium of animation. To say as the title does, counter-productive. 

Those are my cold thoughts on it. Now with who's involved I don't believe this movie is going to be bad per-se, but it certainly doesn't sound forward moving. 

Barriers That Should Not Be

I love movies. I love watching them, I love reviewing them, I love ranting on them, and I'm really not picky on what genre they are as long as they're well written. (Keyword WELL WRITTEN). But there's one thing that I'm definitely not the only person to notice: Animated films are being labeled by their medium rather than their purpose. Or rather, this is how they're being produced. Let's round up some facts!

-A very large majority of animated films play the same role in what they provide. That is, comedy and general entertainment for kids, and maybe a few laughs or the rare deeper message for adults. But think about it; what animated film of the last five, even tens years that you've seen hasn't fallen under this ideal? And the Simpsons Movie doesn't count because we all know it still did the same thing. 

-Film industry categorizes animation into genre more than medium. This banks off the last one a bit too. We've got the kids' comedy with some maturely appreciated tones. But isn't that a genre? As definition dictates, genre is determined by theme. But animated movies seem to all share the same theme. Not the end moral mind you, there's a lot of different ones there, but how that movie works and plays out. Meanwhile, animation really is just another way to make films. Now it is more flexible. You can do more comedy based ideas in the realm of animation and make scenes that would just cost way too much in real life to pull off, but the bottom line remains, it's a filming process. 

-There are in fact animated films that break these boundaries, but not many. Beowulf is one of my favorite examples. Point here being though, there's not a significant amount that can warrant the movie makers to do more with animation. When you only see kid comedies with maturely appreciated undertones under the big screen that overshadow everything else, that's all you're going to see.

Like said earlier, there are films that break the boundaries, but I think we need more to make a point. Did you know the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were like one of the darkest comics imagined? (And I'm talking Watchmen dark.) Not to say where they went today is bad (because TMNT will always be cool as long as Michael Bay doesn't touch it), but there is more room to cover. We need audience expansion!

With this, I think we need animations that push the envelope. Not extreme, but enough to make people realize that "oh man, we can still make a compelling drama with drawings and voice actors!". 

So when will this generalization start to change? I hope soon honestly. Animation is a serious medium if you ask me and needs expansion as soon as possible. 

It's true! TV is brainwashing you!.. Kind of...

So you've got Walter White. Main character of breaking bad. Your first thought is likely "how can anyone side themselves with and promote the escapades of a terminally ill insane man who creates super high quality crystal meth and then runs a super tight business to sell and distribute it?" Well, maybe not with as many big words, but then your second thought may be something like "oh wait, terminally ill? Maybe there's more to this guy than my first uneducated assumption led me to conclude." Once again, probably not as many big words. But that's how they get you! Sympathy through logical and visual means! But how do the bad boys at AMC get it done?

-Point of view in film was pioneered by this Russian film maker and then mastered by Alfred Hitchcock. That's not necessarily important info, but here is some: It gets you into the character's head. Show the character, their face better yet, and show what they're interacting with or examining in that environment. Now cut back to their face and see what their ultimate expression is. That's where it hits. Through a visual reaction you can understand that character's logical thoughts.

Hold on though, we're already in pretty deep. Let's backtrack to a more surfaced reason.

-Initial sympathy. How do you make people feel bad for you, or conversely? Now this question of course has many answers, but pretty much all of them are correct, and that's what's used in film. You've got Walter White, normal guy, chemistry teacher, has a wife, a kid, and another one coming. Typical american household. Nothing special. Hold on, let's have it so he's diagnosed with terminal cancer. Well, that's pretty awful isn't it? Feeling bad for him yet? Let's have his child suffer from cerebral palsy. And now you get it. Backing. A starting point to understand a character's position. Good shows and movies use this all the time.

And to dive into the deep end again-

-Expression. You need good old acting. Lets face it; you can't get anywhere in terms of emotion if the main character can't convey it themselves. Really, how far did you think fancy camera work would get you?

But now for opinions:
I think everything has the hardest impact when it's subtle. If something horrible happens and the character has a predictably acted reaction you've lost all connection. But what if you go deeper? What if you give a more complex reaction? One where they aren't processing all the information, or are just awestruck. Something to study if you ask me.

Along with this, I do think narration of thought doesn't belong a whole lot in drama and more complex film genres. Now that's not to say it's not needed in any. Comedy is an excellent genre to use it in because of the trope status thought narration has gained.

So what about acting? I only touched lightly on that subject, but what does an actor need to specifically do to compliment these techniques? Well, maybe we'll find out if I start studying theater sometime.