Kibi's blog

Traditions and Locations Research

2012-03-22T05:47:00.000-07:00

For my Traditions and locations essay I will be exploring three of the top animation companies currently - Dreamworks, Pixar and Disney. Their individual styles, how they go about creating their movies, particular animators work and how they have influenced the industry and eachother.

I will use this blog to bring together research articles and links/references for the essay.

I will use search terms such as

Pixar/Disney/Dreamworks process
Pixar/Disney/Dreamworks influence
Style of Pixar/Disney/Dreamworks
Disney principles of animation
Glen Keane
Top Dreamworks/Disney/Pixar characters
Top Dreamworks/Disney/Pixar movies
Dreamworks/Disney/Pixar goals
How to train your dragon artwork/style
Toy Story creative process

I will look for interviews, news articles, concept art, movies, animators work, inspirations. My main media for finding sources will be internet searches and watching behind the scenes of any DVD movies I own from these companies. Also the disney book "The Illusion of Life".

Broken colour vs pure colour

2011-11-08T04:59:00.000-08:00

Broken colour can also be described as damaged or diminished, it is essentially a colour that emerges when two colours mix and "fight" with eachother. The hue that emerges has lost strength and vitality from the incompatible elements in the mix. This can be both a pleasant and unpleasant result depending on the mix. It is a process also known as subtractive mixing.

In theory any two primaries combined should create a secondary colour however broken colour involves two complimentaries, one colour which is primary and one that is secondary, opposing eachother on the wheel. Red and green, blue and orange and purple and yellow.

Broken colours can however be made pleasing if eachother a lot of one colour is added or a little amount to create more of a balance in the mix. Broken colours are often dull on their own, however they mix well with other colours as they are essentially "cousins" of many other colours.

Broken colours create an overall dull feeling to a composition whereas pure colours are a lot brighter and therfore influence the overall feel of the composition with this. An example of this would be painting autumn and spring, autumn is a much more subdued season, the leaves are changing colour and falling and the weather is a bit colder with gentle oranges, yellows and reds. Whereas spring would be much more bright yellows and greens and blues to create that feel of spring.

Using colours to set a mood

2011-11-08T04:39:00.000-08:00

The feel of colours is used in compositions to set a particular mood. For example blue is a relaxing colour, whereas red is a more alert and dangerous colour.

However if these rules are known they can also be broken effectively. Blue can reflect a calm and serene scene, but used in the right way can also reflect a dark and more menacing scene. Similarly with red is more often used to danger, however it can also be used as a warm colour, such as a sunset or love.

http://www.wdvl.com/Graphics/Color/color3.html uses a good example of the same scene in different colours and asks which is more inviting to you? It can depend on your mood.

This technique extends to all areas of art - photography, painting, movies etc will all use these techniques to influence and manipulate how the audience will perceive the image, how they will relate to it. It even extends to interior/exterior design as seen in this colour wheel.
http://www.landscapingnetwork.com/landscape-design/color-wheel.pdf
A great example of different moods and feelings set by different colours.

Impressionist broken colour theory

2011-11-08T04:22:00.000-08:00

The theory of painting with broken colour was invented by the impressionists, by Claude Monet (1840 - 1926), as a way to give energy to a painting. It is a technique that is supposed to achieve the actual sensation of light itself. However it is a technique that can easily become empty and appear as more of just dabs of colour.

Another approch to broken colour is not to just give energy to the image but to also obscure the edges of the paintings allowing the mind to sense that the contours are there.

This way of painting broke how painters had been painting for many years Traditionally the colours would be mixed on a palette creating one single colour to work with, rather than mixing on the painting itself by dabbing the separate colours alongside eachother, to mix in our eyes from a distance.

This technique has never been a popular one and continues to be forgotten and not used. More often people are impressed with more photo-realistic type paintings.

They used a variety of methods in order to achieve this feel:

Colour washing - a translucent paint over a colour background to allow textures and patterns to be created on the thin layer.
Shading - Different shades to create an illusion of a transition from light to dark and vice versa.
Sponging - A cloudy soft appearance to the composition, there is sponging on (applying) and sponging off (removing)
Dry brushing/dragging - Dragging a dry brush through a wet glaze before it dries. This gives the illusion of wood or other woven surfaces.
Combing/Stippling - Similar to dragging except done with a comb.
Spattering - This involves striking a paintbrush with a piece of wood.
Ragging and rag rolling - A colour glaze painted over a different colour which is then distressed using a rag or cloth.

Overall the impressionists managed to create a fresh and original feeling to paintings.

Johannes Itten's colour contrast

2011-10-28T04:58:00.000-07:00

Johannes Itten is known as one of the first people to identify colour strategies and can be used to invoke a reaction. He in particular would focus on colour harmony, he wrote in his primer book of colours "certain combinations of colours are pleasing, other displeasing or indifferent.". His research devised seven methods for colour co-ordination and utilizing hue's contrasting properties.

The contrast of saturation

A contrast of saturation refers to the difference of purity quality in colours.
From http://www.shutterchronicle.com/2009/03/johannes-itten-on-contrast/
"To darken colour with black deprives them, to different degrees, of their brilliance. Adding gray, or intermittingly black and white, to a colour, will lessen its intensity. Finally, mixing complementary colours will eventually produce a gray hue."

Contrast of light and dark

The opposition of black and white and the colours between them the spectrum known as chromatic colours.

The contrast of extension

He devised, expanding on Goethe's work, a systematical ratio of colour values e.g

yellow | orange | red | violet | blue | green
9 : 8 : 6 : 3 : 4 : 6
The porportions for compimentary pairs are:

Yellow: violet = 9:3 = 3:1 = 3/4 : 1/4
Orange: Blue = 8:4 = 2:1 = 2/3 : 1/3
Red: Green = 6:6 = 1: 1 = 1/2 : 1/2

The contrast of compliments

Simultaneous contrast

The contrast of hue

The contrast of warm and cool

Colour Proportion

2011-10-26T16:30:00.000-07:00

When colours are put alongaise eachother in a composition our eyes will perceive a visual mix. This mix will vary depending on a variety of factors.

Dominant colour - This is the colour that covers the largest amount of the composition, the main overall colour.
Sub- dominant colour - The next in line is the sub-dominant colour which also covers much of the composition but not as much as the dominant.
Accent colour - This is a small amount of colour however it adds a contrast to the overall hue of the composition and so draws our eye towards it.

These colours can alternate between intensity aswell as proportion to create a variety of mixes.

In Goethe's colour theory he stated that white and warm hues have greather strength than black and cool hues. In particular he spoke on complimentary colours and how our minds constantly seek balance. Seeing complimentary colours in a composition satisfies this need.

Similarly contrast can determine the overall impact of a composition, this is known as dominant elements of design.

A composition where neighbouring colors have an overall moderate contrast and hue will overall create a moderately contrasted composition. This is the same for colour values in a composition. A composition made up of tints will create an overall light value to the composition and vice versa. An understanding of this can impact your control of the emotion or feeling you wish to reflect in a composition.

Colour in motion

2011-10-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

Found a fantastic interactive website that teaches about 'colour in motion' through a series of short movies. Definately a good site for any artists to check out.

Each small movie goes through each colour and displays in animation how these colours are used in motion and what each they can potentially represent. In addition to this there is the interactive lab which has three projects. The first project challenges you to set up a scene to represent a word using the colours and props available. The second challenges you to select appropriate scenes for colours and the third allows you to have fun with colours in a kaleidascope!

Here is the website below, check it out!

http://www.mariaclaudiacortes.com/colors/Colors.html

Colour Theory

2011-10-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

Colour theory in basic consists of how to use colour properly and recognising the property of colours on their own and in relation to others. So I've set out to find and read a variety of articles on colour theory and put them into one place.

The basics of colour theory
Colour Theory on landscape photography by Michael Reichmann
Basic colour schemes - Contains a more in-depth look into colour harmony.
Colour theory for designers by Cameron Chapman
Colour theory for artists from ImagineFX
In-depth website on colour by David Briggs
A good colour theory wheel

Purple

2011-10-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

Even a purple frog!

I dedicate this post to my favourite colour purple!

There are several interesting facts about this colour. Such as during the times of Elizabethan clothing the people that were allowed to wear the colour purple was dictated by English law known as sumptuary law. Colours that people wore would inform others of their status, not just in wealth but also their social standing.

Where does the name and colour of purple originate?
It comes from a dye made from the mucus glands of a tropical sea snail. This discovery is associated with the legend of the God Heracles, a guardian deity. It is said that his dog bit the
snail and immediately its mouth turned purple. His companion a nymph named Tyrus, demanded that he dye her clothes this colour otherwise she would not sleep with him. And so the Tyrian purple dye was created.

Purple LandThe Greeks even went on to refer to the land of Tyre as "purple land" . It required 250,000 shellfish to produce one ounce of purple. In time it came to be worth more than gold.

Purple is associated with royalty, wealth and power, but why?
This can be traced back as far as the Greeks and Romans. Triumphant generals would wear robes of purple and gold whilst senators and consuls would wear togas with bands of purple. By the 4th century only the emporer was allowed to wear the best purple. They particularly liked a dark shade of purple which they described as "clotted blood".

In 1909 an austrian chemist assessed the chemical properties of the dye and realized it was almost the same as blue indigo extracted from an Indian plant called Indigofera tinctoria.

Even more surprising is that in 2007 a team of researchers concluded that early life may have been purple as plants used to use a different form of photosynthesis however the modern way prevailed, hence the reason that plants are now green instead of purple. This was more efficient.

How does 3D work?

2011-10-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

With the recent buzz of 3D in cinemas I am curious to how it all works.

The illusion of 3D is quite a simple one and is only possible because we have two eyes, if we close one the illusion is broken. Our eyes are slightly apart and so they see from a slightly different angle each and because of this our eyes are able to create a sense of distance and depth which prevents us from seeing the world in 2D. Each eye sees 2D which is combined to create a 3D view.

The red and blue glasses use a kind of filtering system to our eyes. The screen displays two images and the glasses allow only one to enter each eye. Red/blue and red/green are the mainstream colours used for this effect. However this created bad image quality and so polarized is often preferred as it allows for colour images.

Polarization uses two projections of the same image with different polarization and the glasses only allow one projection into each eye.

As great as 3D can be I don't see what the whole sudden fuss about it is....like it's something new? It's been around for a long time but only now is it hyped about. So much so that the lion king has now been re-released as 3D in cinemas (not that I'm complaining as it was one of my favourite Disney films!). In my mind 4D should try and be incorporated into cinemas.....really get the audience into the movie by appealing to the other senses would be a big step forward in my opinion.

http://www.worldtvpc.com/blog/4d-technology-hits-south-korea/
This article gave me hope :D

The colour spectrum

2011-10-12T19:58:00.000-07:00

The visible spectrum is the electromagnetic portion of the spectrum that is visible to the human eye. These colours are made up of different wavelengths and frequencies....so what is the rest of the spectrum that we don't see?

Some of the other lights that we don't see are infrared, radio waves, ultraviolet etc. The BBC recently did an interesting documentary highlighting this called Out of sight along with other interesting documentaries revealing that what we see can actually be very different from what is there.

A good example of how things can be different in different lighting is the honeybees. Honeybees have ultraviolet vision and so the world around them looks very different to our own. As a result of this flowers purposely have patterns that show through ultraviolet lighting in order to attract the bees to pollenate.In addition to this we also learnt through infrared that bees have a very specific set up within the hive. What initially looks like a scrambled mess is actually an organized process to raise the young. Under infrared light specific bees are shown to be warmer than others and these bees are keeping the young warm. Other bees will bring honey to feed and keep the energy levels of these bees up in order to stay warm. Something that would never be known without looking through infrared.

Apparently if all the invisible waves that we cant see were aligned along eachother they would go so far as to reach all the way to the sun! That's a lot of wave lengths! All around us are constant waves that we don't see, in particular radio waves as everyone these days have mobile phones.

Imagine all the light along this rainbow that we can't see....

Debate of colour in modern movies

2011-10-11T08:05:00.000-07:00

In my search for research on colour in movies in modern times I've encountered an interesting debate and opinion that colour quality in movies has become worse. This was quite surprising as I was expecting that quality would have improved with recent technology, but as I read the articles I began to see the point and this is largely due to modern techniques of colour grading to create a specific feel to a movie.

http://theabyssgazes.blogspot.com/2010/03/teal-and-orange-hollywood-please-stop.html

This article in particular debates that hollywood movies now all consist of overall orange and blue tints compared to the bright colours of older movies. This apparently began in 2000 with the first scanned movie "Oh brother, Where art thou?" as seen above.

It began being used and introduced as teal and blue are complimentary colours and so this made the characters "pop" on screen.

http://www.slashfilm.com/orangeblue-contrast-in-movie-posters/

This article takes this view even further showing many examples. I've noticed a feeling of movies all being the same recently but would never have put it down to something as simple as the colours used! This really surprised me and I'm sure I will now notice it everywhere.....unfortunately. However I'm sure this doesn't apply to absolutely all movies. Maybe this is another phase of Hollywood and another will soon come along.

This also reminds me of a similar thing I saw about modern music all being the same:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I

Denver Riddle responded with a blog post explaining the use of these colours
http://www.digitalcinemafoundry.com/2010/04/02/why-the-so-called-blockbuster-look-color-grading-explained/

Although it makes sense that these colours create a more appealing image, does it need to be so overused?

Colour in early movies

2011-10-11T06:41:00.000-07:00

It is not known when the first full colour movie was created or which movie it was but it's known it was first introduced when hand cranked cine cameras were used.

Many methods were used since the introduction of three strip full colour in 1934 however colour in movies has been found to go back even as far as 1899, as seen to the left. From the image it is known that the camera used did not expose all the colours simultaneously as the moving people have artifacts whereas the ladders do not. This is why the early technicolor systems were so successful as the lenses manage to expose simultaneously.

There were a variety of methods such as:

Hand Coloured films - This involved painting each individual frame, tinting film stock, toning black and white emulsion etc.
Natural Colour films - Additive Colour - This method meant that the film did have its original colour whilst being filmed however being additive the colours were on a separate film and combined/overlapped with the original.
Natural Colour Films - Subtractive Colour - This method has complimentary colours dyed into the emulsion, this way emits more light than additive.

As well as many other methods and types of film combinations used however technicolour and kinemacolour processes became the most popular.

Colour Therapy

2011-10-07T11:17:00.000-07:00

Many ancient cultures used colour in practise as a therapy form, to heal, and some is even still used today as a holistic or alternative therapy. It is known as chromotherapy and sometimes referred to as light therapy or colorology.

In this treatment different colours were used to create different reactions:

Red - Stimulate body and mind.
Yellow - Stimate nerves and purify the body.
Orange - Heal lungs and increase energy levels.
Blue - Soothe illnesses and treat pain.
Indigo - Was thought to help skin problems.

However most psychologists believe that the impact of colour is exaggerated and will have different meanings in all different cultures. Research has been carried out that has proved that the effects of colour are only temporary to the initial exposure of the colour and that overtime the effect can become neutral overtime or even reversed.

Further studies have also shown that colours can have an impact on performance. For example students exposed to the colour red before exams can have a negative impact on performance, however red has shown to increase reactions and speed which may be useful for athletes. Similarly interesting impacts of colour is the colour blue that causes loss of appetite and blue plates are now recommended as a part of diet plans.

The psychology of colour

2011-10-07T10:55:00.000-07:00

It is known by artists and designers that colour can dramatically affect moods and a powerful communication tool. However this is not exactly the same for everyone. People's feelings on colour can be deeply personal and rooted in different experiences or culture. An example of this is the colour white, in Western culture is symbolises purity, whereas in Eastern countries it is often a symbol of mourning.

There are colours that seem to have a universal meaning such as the warm colours (reds, yellows and oranges) that can create a range of feelings from warmth and comfort up to anger and hostile. On the flip side are the cool colours (blues, purples and greens) that are calm but also can represent sadness or insecurity.

Each of your favourite colour's are seen to represent something:

Black - A symbol of mourning in many cultures
- Absorbs the light of the other spectrums
- Can be used as a symbol of menace or evil but also power
- Represented life and rebirth in Egypt
- Slimming quality in fashion/ black is used in language (black belt, black tie, black cat, blackout, black list, black market)
White - Purity or innocence.
- Bright and creates a sense of space or adds highlights.
- Cold, bland, sterile
- Rooms painted completely white can be spacious but also unfriendly.
Red - Bright and invokes strong emotions.
- Love, warmth and comfort
- Intense and angry colour
- Red in language: redneck, red-hot, red-handed, paint the town red, seeing red.
Blue - A favourite of many people - most preferred by men
- Calmness and serenity,
- Sadness
- Encourages productiveness
- Not appetizing - diet plans recommend eating off a blue plate as you will want to eat less! Humans natural instinct is to avoid food that is poisonous and often blue is a sign of food spoiled or poison.
- Lower pulse rate and temperature.
Blue in language: blue moon, blue Monday, blue blood, the blues
Green - Nature
- Tranquility, health and good luck
- Researches have found that it improves reading ability.
- Symbol of fertility.
- Calming
- Relieve stress
Yellow - Cheery and warm
- most fatiguing to the eye
- can create frustation and anger
- increase metabolism
- most attention grabbing colour
Purple - Symbol of royalty and wealth
- Wisdom and spirituality
- Does not often occur in nature and so can be exotic or atificial.
Brown - A natural colour that invokes strength.
- Sadness and isolation
- Warmth, comfort and security
- Sophisticated
Orange - Energetic colour
- Excitement, enthusiasm and warmth.
- Often used to draw attention.
Pink - Love and romance
- Calming effect
- Researchers have found the calming effect is only during initial exposure and that overtime it can cause agitation.

Movie Bar Codes

2011-10-04T11:21:00.000-07:00

Back to University and the Digital Cinematography classes have begun and so does the research.

We were introduced to colour scripts and it was discussed how colour is used within films, very specific colours to show specific emotions and an overall feel to a movie.

This class reminded me of something I had seen before called Movie Bar Codes on tumblr. The "bar codes" consist of all frames of a film compressed to create an image similar to a barcode. By looking at these images you can easily see the overall colours used in either the film or in specific sections of the film.

Bambi (1942)

Aladdin (1992)

Already between these two Disney movies there is a large difference between the overall colours used in the films. Bambi is largely consisting of more natural colours of gentle browns, greens and blues, reflecting the nature of the film itself. Whereas in Aladdin the colours have far more contrast in them, much more vivid and bright blues, reds and purples. Such a large contrast creates a big difference between the overall feel of the movies.

Inception (2010)

Jaws (1975)

Here are two examples of films that clearly have a very specific tone to the entire film, both consisting of mainly dark brown and grey colours and slight blue.

These are all found, and many more at: Movie Bar Code Tumblr

let yourself feel. from Esteban Diácono

2011-01-28T04:04:00.000-08:00

let yourself feel. from Esteban Diácono on Vimeo.

University 3D works so far

2011-01-12T15:21:00.000-08:00

3D City Street Project

3D Car Project Mazda RX-8

First University Project - Podracer

My first organic model - 3D animal project

Non-linear history and Nature in Animation

2010-12-12T13:15:00.000-08:00

Bill outlined some history of animation and how the process of modern animation came to be, such as the start of Pixar marked the invention of motion-blur, bending characters/forms and particle systems for animation led by John Lasseter. Further on from this was realism coming into play as they were able to create characters with personalities and the pixar lamp marked a huge step forward in realism that can be achieved in animation.

I was reminded of Finding Nemo which John Lasseter also worked on at Pixar and remembered when I watched the making of Finding Nemo which had an interview with him and other animators. During part of this behind the scene footage John Lasseter discussed the issue they had in creating water for the movie. How they were going to make it look in and above the water. He said that they looked at a clip of a whale surfacing and they attempted to recreate it, which they did. However they looked at it and they had made it too real and too exact to this real clip so they had to find the balance of how to make the water look to make it believable but not too realistic that it doesn't fit with the movie.

He moved on to talk about how nature is represented in 2D animation and showed us clips from Bambi, one of many Disney classics. He said that we grow up with an idea of synthetic nature from movies.

Bambi had a very unique style for the natural environment and was a step forward in animation with multi planing camera which gave a sense of depth to the animation.

One of the most interesting parts of the lecture was when he spoke about ideology being transferred in movies and that it has led to ideological paranoia. Some people even debate and believe that disney purposely put in parts of movies to influence the children watching them. Some even go as far as to say there are sexual subliminal messages in disney and seek out frame by frame where it might be spelt in the trees etc.

As someone who has grown up with disney movies I highly doubt that there are purposeful subliminal messages in disney. I think it is purely because these movies are aimed for children that people become so paranoid and obsessive over keeping the movies 'pure'.

However I will agree that disney can sometimes be daring in what they produce especially many years ago when there wasn't such obsession over content. The most daring movie Disney has probably ever produced was the hunchback of notre dame, as his mother was killed, he was outcast for his looks, the mans lust for esmerelda etc. However this is a movie I watched as a child and a lot of these things I didnt particularly pick up on too much, I was only bothered about the story of the main characters. Quasimodo wanting to venture out and be accepted, befriending Esmerelda and saving her etc. The negative and dark aspects of the movie did not stick in my mind, only when I was older looking back did I realize quite how grim the story is.

Animation

2010-12-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately again not exactly sure what was the main point of the lecture :)

But a good point I really liked was about 2D animation frame by frame, that each frame is an artistic choice and each a unique opportunity to do something with the character. The animator can extend/exaggerate the movements or expressions. This gives a great sense of life to the character and the animation and particular character and personality. Also another interesting point was about hand-drawn animation that the expressions and movements of hand-drawn characters are never the same! Which is very true thinking about it unlike with software we are able to just copy and repeat movements where necessary to make the process easier/quicker and as a result losing the expression of hand-drawn animation.

This in particular made me think of Disney animation and the 12 principles of animation that they created such as the squash and stretch etc which gave the original life to animation. The core principles that are now always used even in contemporary animation.

Disney continues to be my favourite animation that I grew up with, however only the classic Disney which I believe was up to around 1998 or 1999 when Tarzan was released was the last classic. Further animations released onwards have lost the "spirit" of Disney movies in my opinion. Although a recent release of the 'princess and the frog' in my opinion mostly succeeded to bring back that disney spirit. Not perfectly but almost! :) Parts of the movie felt rushed but they managed to create loveable and memorable characters in my opinion. For this movie they went back to hand-drawn basics which can show the difference between software and hand drawn.

I also liked the quote from Chuck Jomes Bill told us which was a really nice way to look at animation :) that his two characters bugs bunny and daffy duck are two projections of himself. Daffy is how he is and bugs bunny is how he would like to be.

Although I love disney animation and think hand drawn animation gives more life to animation I do also love 3D and dont disagree with the use of software. In particular I think pixar are incredibly successful with movies, especially when teamed up with disney. The biggest example of this would be the popular trilogy toy story. Another movie I grew up with and a third wasnt made for 10 years after the second! But worth the wait :D I dont know anyone that didnt cry at the end of the third one :p

I love animation and movies in the sense that they take you to another world. The Lion King takes you to a world where lions talk! Toy Story takes people to a world where toys come to life. It appeals to the sense of imagination and allows us to do literally anything with it! See stories and characters come to life on screen that we can't experience in the real world.

Bill talked in particular about Warner Bros who have also produced many great animations aswell such as looney toons but I have not so much watched them and so this part of the lecture did not appeal to me quite so much unfortunately.

On-screen violence

2010-11-27T23:44:00.000-08:00

Ugh another lecture on something I'm not a fan of in movies particularly......well when it's graphic anyway :) and no I didnt complain :)

The first point was the audience reaction to the violent clip Bill showed to us and during parts people laughed and Bill responded to this the debate that people can become de-sensitized. In other words by seeing violence or being exposed to it a lot people may no longer feel any shock or reaction to what they are viewing and even maybe enjoy it. This could be he result of movies or games etc.

In the game industry first person shooter games are becoming increasingly popular and in these games headshots are even encouraged as they are the quickest and 'best' way to kill. This industry has not only expanded worldwide but also is now playable online with players worldwide. These games are highly criticised and many demand for restrictions to be placed on these games.

It is very much a double edged sword debate as on the one hand people get enjoyment from these games and playing with their friends, can be used as a stress relief, a safe way to take out anger or just as general gameplay enjoyment. However it can also become a dangerous obsession to some. An example of this that Bill told to us was the Columbine shooting, an incident I have studied during school. A horrific random shooting act influenced by the game doom and the movie natural born killers. The shooter's diaries were found and displayed his obsession with doom and killing and his anger against the world. Out of curiosity I read some of the diaries and was shocked at his pure anger and pure want to kill. Even more interesting was that he kept insisting that it wasnt media, games, his family or anything else that influenced him just himself. He asked that no charges are placed or laws changed as a result of what he does that it wont ever happen again after him....Furthermore he always referred to himself and 'V', a character of some sort he made his plans with. A very disturbing but fascincating read into the mind of the killer.

Oddly despite the criticisms the games have still managed to develop overtime and games that used to be seen as really violent and scary are now laughable in contemporary times! Odd! As someone who has grown up with this graphic level quality in games I can't understand how the games Bill showed us were considered as violent back then, kinda funny really :) I guess they'd really get damn petrified if the people back then saw the games and movies we have now!

An argument against media violence is used in an analogy of cigarette smoking, that the affects are not apparent until later, however this analogy does not take interpretation into consideration. I studied these type of theories also during sociology at college about the effect of the media on society such as the hyperdermic syringe theory(that information is injected into society).

It is also argued that people interpret the media in there own way and react according to that interpretation.

I personally feel that it is a bit of both.....the media is everywhere and always thrown at us and overtime I think we all begin to think in the way that the media imposes on us. Such as fashion trends, popular music etc. However also people are capable of interpreting media messages on there own, people are not mindless (mostly...=P)

Violence is now even parodied such as in cartoons e.g itchy and scratchy of the simpsons aswell as roadrunner which began as a parody but became popular.

Liutenant Grossman(sp?) is a big speaker against video game violence, he argues that techniques used by the American Army to train armies to kill are used in games and the typical hero is diminishing. A hero that dives infront of others to protect them from danger. Which thinking about it is kind of true, the main character are more getting back stories or are rebels etc.

In movies we passively receive information which was seen as really dangerous until games came along which has overtaken this as you are now interact and are doing the violence in the games. The game industry has overtaken the movie industry.

Science Fiction and a bit of extra semiotics

2010-11-19T09:51:00.000-08:00

Bill began talking about semiotics and photography which he hadn't managed to finish from last week....

Basically he told us Ivan lied to us....or didnt tell us everything :) that infact there aren't two types but THREE!

1. Symbol - arbitary - linguistic
2. Icon - a likeness or resemblance
3. Index - existentially linked e.g where there is smoke there is fire

He informed us of the 'father figure' of cinema Andre Bazan (sp?) and that the first full length feature film was made in America and was about Ned Kelly. Learn something new everyday :)

Theeen a bit on photography that analogue has been replaced by digital, is this a good or a bad thing? Kind of interesting to think about.

I see the point that because of digital and that we can take as many photos as we want and manipulate any that go wrong there can be as a result not much heart and thought put into taking photographs anymore and has resulted in some of the silly photographic images of today. (but some of these can be funny I'm not complaining =D)

On the other hand digital manipulation has also allowed some gorgeous images aswell with the manipulation further enhancing the photo and photographers that still take into consideration composition, lighting etc.

My favourite photographer at the moment would have to be Elena Kalis
http://www.elenakalisphoto.com/

Although she largely does water images they are all beautiful and display soft movements of water.

After these statements were made he moved onto 'Science fiction'....kind of. He seemed to more talk about genre in general than science fiction.

A good point he made was that movies are never one specific genre anymore, they have multiple genres. The example of men in black was used that it is not only science fiction but also comedy.

Stephen Neale - difference is absolutely essential to the economy of genre.

He spoke about how it is not really possible to trace a definate path of a history of a particular genre you can only follow one route and discover patterns. A fair statement as there are millions of movies created now it is impossible all with different inspirations and creators that have worked on them.

The last fact I got from the lecture was about the popular theme of sci-fi. The idea of humans serving computers aswell as special effects, futuristic environments and controlled worlds. This seems to be true however I am not a science fiction movie fan myself(I often get told off for having not seen Star Trek or Star Wars :) ) so I wouldnt really know and probably didnt connect with the ideas of this lecture as much as a result.

Medium.....Specificity? Specicity?

2010-11-13T21:07:00.000-08:00

Another lecture and another lecture..rer, Bill! An Australian, awesome! :)

Unfortunately he went off on too many tangents for me to keep up with and I'm not sure specifically what the lecture was about or the main point of it? He got into a flow at the end talking about games and film but the beginning I was a bit confused.

I was surprised at his opinion on the Truman show as I studied this show as part of GCSE and liked the movie :) although fair enough it has a kind of grim back story to it that this person's life is completely being controlled around them and using fear to not let him escape etc.

Picked up on other things he explained such as tromploy(sp?) which is a trick of the eye such as special effects or illusions and that modern superheroes no longer just have their power they have to upgrade themselves such as ironman.

I think one of the main points of the lecture was the revolution of movie making over time from perspective being discovered(during renaissance which was interesting to discover aswell as that it started the drive towards realism in painting which was then liberated my photography) to mastering the technique of editing as it didn't use to exist! Same scenes were repeated twice to show from different angles! Shocking to me! :) I'm used to modern big movies of course.

Directing action at camera led to interactivity, cross-cutting introduced, closeups introduced, two lines of action introduced which eventually converges(still used in big movies such as Inception).

An interesting ending debate he presented was about games, if they can master the narrative and gameplay. Something I've never considered particularly, well, yes I have noticed if a game lacks story or the gameplay is crap but never considered them as conflicting things. He gave the examples of space invaders as a strictly gameplay game and dragon's lair as narrative.

As he spoke of these I thought to my favourite series of Final Fantasy games, such as Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy VII both with big stories and popular games, however he also began to tell that cutscenes were introduced and act as a separate thing. The gameplay now gets in the way which thinking about it is true as I played through these games to complete the story mainly. But that is what I play an RPG for :) a good story and a good game.

Optional actions was then introduced so people could optionally choose and be more interactive about the story to improve the gameplay and interactivity. He used the example of heavy rain which allows u to enter commands during cutscenes. I'm surprised he didn't mention Fable as a side part of this as how u play influences ur character and the story which is interlinking gameplay and the story.

Even more so when he spoke of cutscenes I thought of half-life and how they merge gameplay and story really well. Although.....I can't say that from much experience as the game creeped me out and never played it! :D Played counter strike instead :D But! in half-life there are no cutscenes, instead the characters start talking to you and the story progresses around you. Such as I remember a scene in a room the character asks you to go into the teleporter and carries on chatting to you as you go in and they start to fire up the machine, then things start going wrong around you. It's all happening like a cutscene but you stay in the first person mode and then continue on with the gameplay.

A very interesting conflict to consider when playing games :)

Game makers main goal recently seems to be interactivity with games such as singstar, guitar hero, nintendo wii, all requiring movement to influence the game.

Bill finished (prematurely as he had gone overtime! :P) with statements on the power of film and the power of games.

Power of film - There is nothing we can do about it, what happens, happens!
Power of game - Interactivity, busy and your influence.

Mathieu Gérard: Steel Life

2010-11-09T06:01:00.000-08:00

An amazing video to just watch and not think about, with stunning visual and beautiful music to back it up by Mathieu Gerard :) Enjoy!

Essay Research

2010-11-06T14:59:00.000-07:00

I've decided to answer the question on realism as it has been the main lecture of them all to really get me thinking and interested.

So currently looking around at any interesting articles or opinions of people on the realism in animation, these are what I have discovered so far :)

http://www.cinephobia.com/realism1.htm - Introduction
http://www.cinephobia.com/realism2.htm - Visual realism
http://www.cinephobia.com/realism3.html - Realism in animation
http://www.cinephobia.com/realism4.html - Realism of Motion
There are more parts to this book however I dont feel the rest is necessary to my essay. These were written by Stephen Rowley who goes very in depth about realism in animation and refers many times to Paul Wells.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=G6IUoo_haJEC&oi=fnd&pg=PR8&dq=paul+wells+understanding+animation&ots=DWnMbVRHYi&sig=dKBlHWtuzly14oGUVQpr2jgxjAY#v=onepage&q&f=false
Of course cant do this essay without reading from Paul Wells book :).....damn its a long book to read though O.o

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2x0RAQAAMAAJ&dq=illusion+of+life&hl=en&ei=Z8_VTM-eF8y4hAfoltSdBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA
I will also look through this book which I own myself which goes through the history of disney animation :)

I will use these links to get started on research, however these are all disney related and so i should look next more into the 3D side of animation and hyperreal stuff