The Home Stretch

Well, we're nearing the end guys, but I've still got my weekly comments as usual. Let's kick it in. 

Working with voice acting off a script is a new experience for me, and I love it. I think I'm going to have to do more of this in my future with animating. 

I don't know what I did to deserve it, but for some reason my Mac thought it would be a great time to force update when I was in the middle of lip syncing. Lost a bit of important stuff, but nothing too valuable wasted. 

I learned more about being conservative in my art. There's just not enough time to be detailed, and I'm finally maximizing output with visual appeal. 

I'd like to learn some more advanced mouth movements in lip sync that involve the facial shape and jaw. It'd really give that extra punch in the animation I think. 

Short Film Cliches or What I'd like to see less of from stupid "artsy" directors

Short films don't give you a lot of time to develop your setting and characters, which leads to the movie makers going for easy to understand bases and ideas. Unfortunately this gives us a lot of similar ideas as a result, which means a lot of repetitiveness and eventual disinterest.

-Lets get down to drama. Quick, we need to get a gripping tale started and addressed as soon as possible. What do we do?! Did you say post-apocalypse setting? Well if I was making a short film you'd be fired (yes my current animation has that setting too. No I'm not going to apologize.) Going for a dramatic setting is one thing, but if you're going to rely on a cliched environment it's likely you've got some elements that are lacking beyond setting.

-Lets go retro! For some reason people think it's cool to try silent films and black and white because of the unique vibe the give. They are cool, but nonetheless still overplayed. It's in many cases an example that the crew is lacking in something and using these ideas as filler. Don't do that. Use retro concepts with moderation.

-Mind blowing. Ha, more like money blowing. Because I blew my money on the ticket to... ahh screw it. Look, it's understandable people want to make a movie that makes you think. Honestly I don't think we have enough intellectual movies out these days, but good lord will you please not take ordinary ideas and people and try to explode them into something deeper than they are? It's like a biology major writing an essay in his first semester. A lot of it is just overblown words for simple stuff.

Cliches aren't necessarily bad, but overuse certainly isn't good. I love many of these concepts that have become cliche, and wish for the sake of future directors that people try to have other ideas first.

Many people take themselves all too seriously, and as a result will often produce this kind of stuff. Don't ever take yourself too serious in your work. If you can't have fun with it, you'll have tons of trouble being creative with it.

Will these cliches change over time? I feel some will, but there's no telling really. Let's hope for all our sake.

Wait, they're making different styles of 3D now?

3D animation is of course kind of limited in the sense of artistic freedom and expression you really have. Not to say you have to abide by specific rules, but do you really see much variation in how Pixar and Dreamworks present their films? Sure you can be a bit different with how you render. Vector style 3D is one of my favorites, and you can get creative with texturing, but what else is there you can really do? Well Pixar has addressed this and is now developing ways to really let the ideas flow into polygons through different base styles.

-Putting in the personal touch. They're setting it up to where an artist can employ their own individual style into a 3D model and environment. Different linework, paint strokes, you name it. This is all overlain the polygonal structures and presented as the outer skin. On top of that, with just a few frames manually done, the computer can then replicate that style for the remainder of the frames automatically. Convenient.

-Photorealism isn't a style. When we watch cartoons, it's easy to tell each apart by art style. It's incredibly easy to pick apart a Hanna Barbara work from a Warner Brothers production. You see specific nuances and accents that the other guys don't use. In 3D? Not exactly. Sure you can render in different engines and softwares, but there's not too much that differentiates 3D filmmakers in terms of appearance. This is why people constantly think Pixar did Frozen. Now with these new ideas being employed, we may be able to see these same differences in style and execution come to fruition again, and really make movies and shows stand out among the rest.

-Is it really an advancement? In terms of what we're doing with our technology, not exactly. It's kind of an unspoken rule in 3D that it's more superior tech if the output is more representational of reality. When you go to hand-drawn styles, it's kind of going backwards considering the less realistic you get, the more differences in interpretation there are. In the end though, it's certainly a step out there.

I'm really happy to hear about this development and think it's awesome Pixar is doing a push towards the unique abilities of individual artists in comparison to simply trying to look more advanced. We'll be seeing more unique works, and likely be more motivated to see them.

I feel 3D animation has especially stagnated as of late when you really look at all the movies launched. Sure, there's difference in style, but it's not as significant as back in the 2 dimensional days.

My only question is how long will it take until we see this stuff at the movies? I can't wait!

This Week's Recap: The Gauntlet

No but really, it totally feels like a gauntlet running through one project after another. I've never worked this hard in a year!

I liked getting to chose my own project this time. The Independent study has really allowed me to break more boundaries and try ideas I couldn't have done before.

Many problems have punched through of course. Just lots of obligations and mounting stress. And the microreciever on my gamepad is broke! Gah, the injustice!

I learned that there really needs to be a good balance between quality and efficiency in animation, and I think I've finally gotten close to mine working on the independent study. Hope it keeps that way.

I'd really like to learn how to better clean up my art and motions in flash. I'm sure I'll get better over time, but I'm sure there's some kind of method involved to help at least.

So I went to the movies last night and saw Noah. When I first heard about it, I was entirely skeptic about any success and the whole idea sounded like a failure waiting to happen, but lo and behold, what came of it was actually a very entertaining movie with some very lasting visuals. Most notably: The Watchers. These guys were my favorite part. I think they were animated in some kind of CG stop-motion combo, but I'm still not sure. Either way, it's cool as hell.

Unfortunately I can't find any video of them just yet, so you all will have to stay tight, but the film did feature some excellent animation effects nonetheless.

More Pro Level Advice: Pixar Version

The webpage won't load in it's standard formatting for me, and it's making me angry, but I'm determined not to let my grade drop for some minor inconvenience!
So, Pixar. Really, what do I need to say? It's all been covered and there's nothing I can add that will do much a difference for their reputation. So it's a good thing we're covering things to learn from the heads instead.

-Prepare or die. Usually something doesn't go best on its first run. As a musician that's an extremely truthful proverb. Animating isn't something to just waddle into. You've got to have an idea of what you're doing before you actually go and pull it off. If you got a complex scene ahead of you, do not go straight to the final rendition. Develop it! Practice! And make it easy for yourself with smaller loads. You'll thank yourself when the outcome is better.

-Always refer back to your basic knowledge. You need to have your settings at your ideal. Keep paced and don't lay back or go too fast. You'll either get poor quality or nothing done at all. Remember that while the animator is responsible for the majority of the work, your software has quite a few ways to help you out. Don't be afraid to use them.

-The animator is a scavenger and a predator. Use anything that will help you in your work. Walk cycles, anatomical structures, and even models alone are within your reasonable reach to use. Just be kind and don't totally rip off and steal what you please. That's just being a bad artist. Be picky with how the project looks. Something doesn't look right? Pluck it out. Don't look back. It's your work.

Animating for the pros really isn't too different from what we as students do. It's all about good time management and using your skills to their best. What you learn will stick. It's a very odd environment for an artist to be in, but the smart ones are rewarded.

While it's a great idea to pick up tricks and ideas from others (with respect and permission of course), I personally prefer to do everything myself. It's not an elitist stance or anything, I just feel I can better learn and develop my skills by doing it all from my head. It's a good challenge for an animator and really gets you thinking and problem solving. Good ideas come from an engaged mind.

So we've gotten tips from 2D and 3D animators. While we haven't done it, stop motion still interests me to some degree. Are there any pros in that field with advice to give?

Budgeted Fliming: Garage Studios

Even though I have a job, as a teen I can't be expected to afford much anything to help me produce a film. Especially not the studio itself. Thus many film on location. But it seems you can always work with what you've got, even out of your own garage, and Joey Shanks shows how. 

-Thrift shoppin. Yep. You can find a good amount of stuff you need at your local Salvation Army or Goodwill. Be sure to look for cables (preferably loose and right angled) and ankle weights so you can better hold down objects and set pieces. 

-Let there be light. And by light we mean color. (Sorry Kevin.) Get yourself a Philips HUE wireless bulb, and smash that sucker open. The end result gives you color control over your stage that will blend in with the lights. That way you can have cool, color oriented scenes, like the green tint in The Matrix, or that orange/brown in many westerns.

-Control your environment. You may not have a whole building to command, but you can still exert some amount of influence over your stage. First off, get unwanted light out of the picture and block whatever windows you need to. Weather can be a bit of a problem too, but if you have a big enough garage (and clean enough for that matter) you can always just move your project inside. 

I personally really enjoy learning all these life hacks of independent filming. I don't know if I'll ever reach that point in my studies, but if I do, at least there'll be some cool tricks I'll know to employ. 

While a lot of this stuff seems kind of obvious, I think many still forget about these ideas and can't think realistically when trying to film or set up a stage. When people get a project going, we often forget the big problems until we run into them. It's a good idea to address everything head on. 

So a garage can be a great idea, but what about a basement? Sure storage is the same, but are there even more tricks you can pull off in one comparatively? 

Welcome back to Spring, kind of

The last thing I needed to see what one more snowfall this weekend, but as it melts away, I'm glad to see this winter pass us. Good lord was it bad.

I really liked lip syncing and the theory behind specific mouth movements for words and phrases. Without the jar app it'd likely take me another week to get close to done.

I'm not happy with lacking the proper off time to have gotten more work done out of class. Usually I can at least get something significant done with, but not for this week I suppose.

Learning timing certainly helped me. When you get down to the individual frames of audio that Flash divides, sometimes you gotta make a change.

At this point I just want to learn how to more efficiently draw in Flash. It gets tedious when I need to whip out the brush for every new scene, and they usually take more time than the actual animation.

So, time again for some good old video goodies.
Something that involves lip sync, AND references Ghostbusters? Double score.

What're the Specs on your Eyeballs?

The human eye is infinitely fascinating considering it allows us to see light, darkness, color, depth, shape, and texture. But our eyes are really just tools that feed the message to our brains. Like a camera to our own eyes. So we've done some studies, and it turns out, the eye isn't all too different from how a camera works, but also completely different. It's just organic and automatic.

-Shutter speed? Nah. Video cameras work by taking many pictures over time and then replaying them at a high enough speed to trick our eyes into thinking it's real time. Comparatively, the human eye has a true constant feed. What we see can not be divided into separate units. It's one continuous flow of multiple images combined to produce our vision. On top of that, the way we see things isn't necessarily how they really are.

-Speaking of seeing things in our own way, eyes are definitely unlike cameras in that respect. Still images are not a real time stare. A picture is one moment in time, however our eyes see through time, and if it were to stop, we'd basically be blind. We are always experiencing changes, even when we can't see them. A picture can't change, but because our eyes don't see through multiple pictures, everything is always changing.

-Resolution usually comes factory preset. Computers and cameras have limited resolutions, that's a given of course. However, we do too. The whole vision grading scale with the best being 20/20 and color testing determine your eye quality. "Joel we know this, why are you being redundant?" Because even though a person's vision may be worse comparatively to another's, we still see incredibly complex details. A screen or camera resolution will always be mathematically limited, but due to our eyes being of organic structure, we can see beyond pixels.

Eyes are the most incredible part of the body to me. Their ability to sense kind of pales every other sense we have when you think about it. We do kind of take seeing for granted, and definitely color.

It would be pretty cool if we could figure out how to make cameras function like human eyes, but at that point we'd reach the surreal zone, and probably lose sight of what's real.

Will we ever reach a point of tech where we can have camera resolutions parallel eyes? It doesn't sound very possible to me, but humans are pretty stubborn animals when it comes to making things.

Words From a Master: Making a good film

As far as animators go, I'm pretty unfamiliar with the anime scene. I've watched a few of the notable works, like Ghost in the Shell, Akira, and Berserk, but the name Hayao Miyazaki is foreign to me... Okay I guess literally too. 

A little studying though, and it turns out this guy is quite the name in the field of animation, and is responsible for a good number of the most popular anime films known today. Considering every big movie he's done has scored beyond seven starts with IMDb, I guess he knows a thing or two about how to put out quality work. 

-Give a message with deeper meaning, and practice in film making what you preach. Miyazaki has some strong opinions on society, and through his works they can be understood to variable degrees. His general idea is right: When you make a statement, make one that really means something. Not constricted by our current culture and habits and technology. Something that can transcend ages of understanding. And once you have that statement, be sure to make it present in your story. It doesn't need to be the main focus. In fact a hinted undertone is all you really need. 

-Don't do what you can't do. Simple enough right? If you're not comfortable with playing guitar in front of a live audience, playing an entire show will likely not turn out pretty. Same with movies. Every artist has their limits and ultimate points to where their skillsets can take them. Animation isn't exactly a forgiving medium, and won't become any easier as you get older. This is why teamwork is also an important element to focus on. If you can't work with others, good luck trying to get any animation out within a reasonable amount of time, let alone look good. 

-Old methods don't go away. We love using the latest of anything. It's our nature. If something is better and improved, it's time to toss away the old. Not so in making movies. This kind of art requires a balance of understanding if you want to make some good work. Now, hand drawing and coloring every single frame is probably not the most efficient task, so use of software and tools to help the process is of course a helpful alternative. However, it's not a good idea to entirely rely on new tech as a crutch. When you have skill in either method, your work will benefit from it, and a good blend can produce incredibly attractive results. 

I find all of Miyazaki's points agreeable more or less, although I personally don't find a strong message lying under the main plot as important as stressed. Just my way of thinking though, I always like to focus on what's going on at the moment. 

Once again though, we've got more testimony here that animation is one serious medium of film, and really does deserve a bit more attention and respect, which is seriously lacking in the United States. Hopefully we'll see some change in that. 

So, are there any other big name animators to hear from in their experience? I'm sure there's quite a few more tips to learn. 

Weekly Ramblings

Ah geez, another week gone? March is already halfway done. I can't wait till I'm 18 already!

This week was pretty great to say in the least. I've really enjoyed animating in 3D, and it's far, far more easy to move on in compared to Flash.

I have had quite a few technical issues with fingers rotating when they should be curling, but nothing a more key frames couldn't solve. Just wish I knew a better fix!

I learned quite a bit with better managing my decisions in Maya, and how to be more efficient when working with a limited time frame.

This is really out there, but I would love to learn how to hook a rig up to a motion capture system.

So, want to see some really freaking cool real world animation effects? I found this short film a few days back and was just plain impressed with what they pulled off. Kind of creepy, but nothing explicit. I'd also recommend stopping at 6:45 because the story really goes bad afterwards.

Stare into the Abyss

This is important stuff for me since I'm gonna be working on making music videos with my band in the very near future. Backgrounds are one of the most annoying things to get right in media, but luckily we have cool people to give us cheap alternatives.

-Get something black. You know, black black. Dark. Like a good backing. Now you don't need something professional either, some fabric at your local crafts store will do just fine.

-Get that stuff on the wall. You need to make it large enough to fit the camera's frame. Otherwise, well, it's not so infinite anymore, and you lose a lot of the cool factor.

-Lighting lighting lighting. This is pretty hard to do well, but fear not! You don't have to break the bank to make it look good. Although you will have to experiment on where to place your lights and what to do about natural light sources. You'll get it right eventually.

More filming effects to know are always fun, and it really motivates me to do some film making. I feel inspired by these little life hacks.

It's always a good idea to be prepared to spend some money though. It's not like any of this can get done well for dirt cheap. But if you're making a cool music video a short movie, chances are the end product will be well worth the value.

So does this technique work as well with white?

Creativity Personified

Creative people are hard to pinpoint. Granted we're all creative to some degree, but some just more than others. Significantly so for that matter. And here's where we see that they're set a bit apart from the average, kind-of creative person. 

-Different thought processes, different perceptions. Creative people have some seriously active imaginations, which is kind of a given in that regard, which would probably cause you to say "of course Joel, what do you think only idiots read your blog", to which I'd say, "no, but that is my target audience." Anyways, we've got daydreaming. You know daydreaming can accomplish? According to many, nothing, but this is a good root where creativity flows from. Daydreams are simply very advanced stages of thought, involving the emulation of ideas in some kind of world based environment. That's like straight up rendering creativity there!

-Sound body, sound mind. Creative people don't just daydream all day of course. They tend to be very aware of their surroundings and other people, and objects, and everything else. Analyzing what's around you and picking up actions and behaviors from other people is important in developing creations of your own. Not making the connection? How about when people attempt to create convincing, yet unique characters in various  mediums. What, you think people like Jack Sparrow just come out of nowhere? Sure, Johnny Depp does the role well, but he must have had influential experiences with others beforehand to develop the mannerisms and behaviors. 

-The hard road is usually better. You will always get more experience from trying something different, and doing it first hand. Sure, the easy way saves mileage and fuel, but that's nothing compared to what you yourself can learn. New experiences and exposures are needed to be creative. If you live the exact same experience every single day, nothing will change. Breaking boundaries is vital, and creative people just happen to understand that. 

How we understand it, I don't think people are all simply born naturally creative or not. Anyone is really capable of it with the proper actions being taken place. Sure some may have a different thought process that doesn't employ as much originality, but that won't stop a person if they can do the other steps right. 

Another deal is that I believe creativity isn't inherent only from originality. Especially considering most technologies we use today are simply modified and improved versions of very old designs. It's all about making something different, even if it's like something before it. 

So what exactly are the defining characteristics of uncreative people? 

The Oscars: Where Hopes In Cinema Go to Die

I never watch award shows. Not the Emmy's, Oscars, and especially not the Grammy's (really, when the hell do they ever have musicians people haven't seen there the previous five years in a row?).
For animation, the Oscars originally hired a panel of chimpanzees to vote on which animated feature they enjoyed. Unfortunately due to not being able to determine which were voted for (and the high amount of thrown feces), they decided to go a peg down and use Academy members.

-"I know nothing about animated movies, yet am somehow in the position to judge movies in general." There were 7 total academy members who were in position to vote. Three voted, four abstained. There's another topic from this I'll cover next, but let's focus on the voters first. A big excuse was that the voter simply did not watch all the nominees. Why is it then that they have the time to watch every live action nominee for their respective genres? Do they believe that animated features are not up to their maturity levels, or simply lacking in complexities that you'd get in a traditional film? I obviously can't analyze the mentality of these anonymous voters, but it certainly makes one wonder as to what divides the two mediums in one's head.

-Vote for the popular one! What does one do when you can't decide on what's the best? Just chose which has gained most popularity and best track record! Take Disney for example, they never really do poorly in the animation world. Sure a movie may not stack up, but box office earnings don't care. So here we have the three that voted, and all for Frozen. Why? Well I wouldn't say Frozen was a bad movie, not by a long shot. However it also happens to be the most popular of animated features released last year. That kind of gives hint of a connection, doesn't it?

-Excuses excuses. I can't say much for this other than that they were short. Nothing of true justification came down to it. More of "I just didn't watch them all", or "seen it before" resounded. It's a shame really, and likely due to visual reasons over story and acting.

It hurts a lot to see animation thrown down like this. People put enormous amounts of work into their craft, and with worldwide exposure at the Oscars, they're just stepped on, because no one really cares. That's a painful thing to know as an animator, and really makes me think about where I want to aim with my work.

I think the biggest problem is that this problem won't change. Animation is just too different for these people. Maybe a separate awards show will solve something, I don't know. But what I do know is that minds won't change much at this point.

Will animation ever really be accepted as an equal to classic film making? I don't bank on it, but let's hope so.

Game Tech in Movies: Makes More Sense Than You Think

I'm one of those people who like's their games nice and saturated with some good characterization and plot. Snappy, sophisticated dialogue, long lasting impact, and leaves you sitting there mesmerized. Essentially playable movies in a sense.
Minecraft and the Sims do not do this for me. They're not my types of games, and don't really have elements that I find enjoyable for long periods. But hey, just because I have an opinion doesn't mean the games have no value.

-Generating worlds is much less a hassle now. You know that movie James Cameron made using blue cat people in place of Native Americans? Something about a kid who could control the elements too I think, but anyway, that movie had some serious natural features and landscape to be built, and you really can't bang that stuff out in a small time frame. Enter the technology behind Minecraft, in which the game generates a randomized environment for you to explore. Features like rivers, lakes, mountains, valleys, grasslands, all there in a randomized fashion. Granted the basic information like what trees look like and how physics work is programmed in, you've got a world. They basically did that with Avatar. But hard mode, with lots of hand designed trees, but the end result followed the same principle, and well, the audiences bought it.

-Large crowd generators. Let's be real here, who is gonna be able to motion capture 300 odd people at once in spandex and dots on their faces all doing some odd thing? Yeah it's not gonna happen. So we have game engine techniques to push us forward. With this method, you can generate a mass of characters and give them simple collective AI controls. You have the crowd taken care of, and the main guys focused on. Cool deal!

-Virtual reality is useful for once! Working with computer generated stuff is great and all, and makes production far easier, but what about the actors who have to deal with things that aren't there. How do you react to a object or organism that you know isn't real? Virtual reality can help with that. The Oclulus Rift, a device you wear on your eyes, brings the fictional into reality. That terrifying monster you were pretending back away from? Well now you've got a bit more encouragement with it being in front of your eyes.

Considering how movie-like video games have started to become, I'm not all too surprised we've started adopting ideas from the medium into making movies. Motion capture alone is used highly with both movies and games, so that says a lot about where we may be headed in the future. I think the barrier might merge at some point.

The thing is, more technology doesn't exactly mean better output. Sometimes it is better to stick to older techniques and harder methods for a more appealing final product, but hopefully we'll take our usage of upcoming tech in some moderation. Hopefully.

Really though, how much further do we go before the line between movies and video games has been totally blurred? It looks like it won't be too long.

Your Weekly Comments: Delivered

This week has been really testing my might in 3D, but I'm starting to really meld well with this new concept of art and animation.

I really enjoyed learning to use inverse kinematics. Makes so many jobs much easier in the long run, and animations smoother and easier to produce.

It's disappointing to know how difficult and how long it takes to make a humanoid model. But with Maya in my possession for another 3 years, at least I'll have time to master it.

What I learned most importantly is the relative style that Maya is built on. There's many different paths to reach the same conclusion which makes the software great for all kinds of animators.

I don't know whether I'll do 2D or 3D, but I'm definitely looking forward to learning how to lip synch.

I wrote my essay on Nick Park, and as a treat, I found a good excerpt from his student film A Grand Day Out featuring some of the best animation effects I've ever seen in stop motion. Seriously, they're really good!

It Only Takes a Few: Hooking the Audience

I am a cinemaphile at heart, and as such I do take my time to understand what goes into making a successful piece of film or animation. Here we'll be covering arguably the most crucial: The opening sequence. Chances are, the majority of your favorite movies have a strong, memorable beginning that really pulls you in and exposes you to the world on screen. The best movies are able to do this in a matter of seconds, and those first seconds are important in determining if an audience will get right into what they're watching, or lose interest over time and even stop watching.

-Preaching to the choir. Your production is gonna be aimed at some group of people, and no matter what that group is, you will always have to have elements that will specifically entertain them. This applies just as much to multi-aged audiences. Do you have sophisticated and thought provoking dialogue, comedic characters, or an intoxicating world? Well hold up now, because you still have to make sure your interpretation of anything you make has its own identity and personality. Star Trek and Star Wars are of the same genre and have similar ideas in many aspects, but they've both got their own unique characters and interactions, and situations to roll with. Don't fall into a pit of clones over an already well known and "superior" film.

-Look for the connection. People like relatable material and stories that can reflect some piece of their life, so make sure to get them invested in that as soon as you can. If you wait too long and just stick with focusing on secondary issues or unimportant events in your animation, you've just about lost whatever link you had. You need to expose a bit at first to give the audience a big enough taste to sit the rest of the time.

-Be unpredictable. The more you do that isn't expected is usually for the better. The best visual gags tend to be something that an audience would never see coming, and plot twists are extremely useful in the event of a drying continuation.

The deal with animation compared to tradition filmmaking is the fact that you have far more flexibility in what you can do with characters and environment. Because of that, I feel one needs to be most aware of the smallest details in making an animated feature, even more so that a real world piece.

Catering to your audience doesn't mean bending to their will. Remember, what you make is still yours. What happens is up to you and what you are happy with is what really matters. It's very important to have appealing features that many can enjoy, but your audience should not dictate your choices.

What caused us to focus more on these important movie elements in animation anyway?

New Ideas Through Old Ideas: Analyzing the Lego Movie

Let me first say that I still have yet to see The Lego Movie as of yet, and haven't been in a theater for months now, but from the trailers and critical responses, I can at least pick off some important information to discuss. With The Lego Movie, I'm seeing all kinds of great stuff from the perspective of an animator. Namely the use of stop motion and Lego bricks. For some reason they seem to work really well in that medium. So what has the movie presented to us?

-It's a ghost in the shell. No, not like the anime, but like the phrase, that we have the organic concept of using Lego bricks put into cinema, but done so through a large amount of digital 3D animation believe it or not! I do mean large part rather than entirely of course as smaller sets and elements do use real bricks to give that uncanny vibe we always have with stop motion. It's a cool concept that I haven't seen executed in anything before.

-Not too far down the uncanny valley there now. Yes it's done heavily with digital soft/hardware, but don't think the filmmakers haven't made sure the movie sticks true to our image of Legos. A "digital perfection" as they put it just doesn't seem right, so the inclusion of real bricks was important to show the real-world worn and well-played with look of real life Lego bricks. When you see the reflections and tiny dents or scratches in the bricks, it brings you to a more familiar, comfortable place. A good choice if you ask me.

-Great minds don't think all that much alike. People who are really really good at building with Legos tend to have very different methods from each-other, and with those different methods becomes a nightmare of conflicting efforts in making a movie composed entirely of Legos. This was proven as the team attempted to build a submarine collaboratively, but ultimately came out with a colossus of some kind of submarine mountain star destroyer war machine.

As someone who actually used to fool around with Legos daily, I'm still amazed at what the filmmakers did with this movie, and I still haven't even seen it. Combining 3D with other elements in animation isn't a very new idea, but with stop motion is certainly uncommon. I think we should see a little more of this in future stop-motion works. It could create a pretty cool experience.

I do feel the flaw of creative differences in building stands pretty tall in creating movies like this, but in the case of animation, this probably isn't a problem that hasn't plagued other efforts before.

Will we see more works done with real life and digital combinations?  I could only hope so.

Week... Ahh I lost coulnt

The year is half over, and I feel like a sort of professional. Kind of.

Working with Maya really is an experience since most kids won't see this program for another 2 years. Granted they're doing animation. Definitely a good point.

I did not enjoy the multiple issues I ran into going from PC to Mac in the competition project, which had me somehow duplicating with the move tool at one point.

I learned that 3D animation is really a completely different animal, although much more tame in many cases.

I'd love to learn how to properly map fur and hair soon.

And now for this week's thing: Remember rotoscoping? Of course you don't want to, but this one is just plain hilarious. Hope you like Double Dragon!

Cloudy 2: Pushing the Bar another 20 Feet or So

Sequels are just... geez, I can't even start out this blog with a good sentence on them. You either love or hate them. Or both I guess. Well, the bottom line is that in animation, it's a completely different process than with live action.

-Updates! Technology has advanced since the first Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, but not enough to invalidate the first movie. Character models and scene elements are recycled and refurbished in the new animation engine with polished textures, hair, and structures. It's always a good idea to recycle.

-Turning the volume to 11. With new tech comes more room to explore, and the animation team does just that. Taxing their machines to their limits, renderings which would be impossible just a few years ago are done with incredible effect. It's good exercise to keep testing your boundaries.

-You can't copy paste all of this stuff of course. Environments and scenes all have to be original and new. That means fresh concept art, and a whole lotta brainstorming and storyboarding.

It's really incredible to see how we do new things with just about every new major animation that comes out. I feel like before this class it was harder to realize the differences in fluidity and clarity in so many movies, but when I compare something like Toy Story 3 to the first movie, it's an incredible difference.

It really is a good habit to reuse what's still useful in future projects. Time and money is saved, and you can still impress and audience with the same stuff in a new situation.

The method into making Cloudy 2 is pretty professional if you ask me. How do other studios go about this?

Introversion Cinema

You know that Briggs-Meyers personality test that determines your behavior characteristics and social behavior? The terms 'introvert' and 'extrovert' have some bit of association, and have become pretty widely known as a result of it. Extroverts being socially outward and confident people, and Introverts being more reserved and laid back. So in our fantastic world of media, wouldn't the more socially outward people have more involvement with things like, I dunno, cinema?

-Introverts tend to have some really complex and well developed minds, not to speak less of the extroverts, but statistically you'll see more creativity and originality come from an introverted mind. When you're more contained to yourself, you tend to have more original ideas, whereas someone who is constantly among others will eventually, sometimes even unknowingly, borrow, or remake the ideas of others.

-Having space helps. Introverts like solidarity to some extent, and this is really good for focusing on work and getting ideas down clear and concise. No distractions, no suppression. The quiet and singular work space is a huge ideal, and it's the introvert's favorite environment.

-Going on and on and on. Introverts are pretty efficient people, and because they waste less energy, they can devote it to getting more stuff done to a higher standard of quality. Whereas the average extrovert may become exhausted from combining long conversations with odd bouts of work, the introvert has no fuel wasted and can work continuously to a better length of time.

It's quite clear in any work situation that we'll have a mix of personalities, and it's inevitable you'll have a combination of introverts and extroverts, which I believe is a good thing. Both types of people have qualities that are detrimental to getting a film done.

The idea of introversion does seem a little overlooked in the business world, likely because of the social emphasis a lot of jobs have. It should be better explained all types of careers with have both types of social behaviors.

So, what kind of help can we get from even more specific personality types? ESTJ? INTP?