These last few weeks have been disastrous for me. No absolute sleep, just little naps here and there. The very last day of school, i unfortunately lost my ext hard drive, and with losing this, i also lost 250GB of my life. I guess there is a lesson to be learned here..BACK UP YOUR BACKUP! always have backup files, just in case instances like such decide to pop up. I am heartbroken, but i guess something amazing will surface out of this.
With that said, the last day of school our professor who’s originally from Chicago and has impecable taste in music, showed us this short film containing “Eugene” by Andrew Bird. Needless to say the animation, as simplistic as it may be, is pretty amazing.
Although life is mostly comprised of selective calculated choices, a small percentage of our lives belong to a part that is evenly distributed between: limitations, luck and how far we can take the imagination. Essentially, this belief is what my life, and final animation short consists of.
Mostly, I am using lighting and colors instead of textures in my scenes. Reason being, I just don’t have the goddamn time to handle texturing and UV mapping at the moment. I will post my progress as the week goes by. You will see a finished product sometime Tuesday, or wednesday because I will need tuesday night to catch up on this upcoming insomnia-tic week.
As most of you know I have been working on final short for my animation course. I think the amount of work is honestly overwhelming, but i thank Ringling for preparing me conceptually for something like this. I was working on my storyboards and realized how much i enjoy conceptual work. Not because it is easier, but because i enjoy coming up with themes and ideas. The overrall story will be about a minute long. Music will have a huge play in the final product, for I am not using speech to communicate.
The theme of the story centers around a superstitious ideal: ” See a Penny, pick it up , and every day you’ll have good luck”. Of course there is a dark twist….
Nick Park is the creator of Chicken Run and of the infamous Wallace and Gromit characters. It always seems so far away to most of us, to get to the place where he’s made a name for himself. Watching this interview really made me look into what we are all capable of, no matter how shy, simplistic our lives might be. We are ALL capable of making our passions and dreams a day to day reality. I Strongly suggest you watch this interview, it really changed my perspective towards the impossible.
Thanks to this assignment, i now know what i DON’T want to do in 3D…and that’s rigging. This process has given me a total of 6 new grey hairs paired up with a mild case of scoliosis. My character has rather odd physiology, so i had to experiment with the joint placement. I love that i’ve learned to do this, but one time is enough i never want to do this in Maya again (but probably will). I do not understand why they insist on making everything in this program a mathematical equation. Oh and also, Autodesk if you’re reading this you should definitely try to make this process an intuitive one.
Here are some snapshots of my character. I will be applying textures after im done with this rigging nightmare.
Fallen Art is the second animated piece directed by Tomasz Bagińsk. His first piece The Cathedral received numerous awards including an Oscar nomination. This piece follows the same techniques used in The Cathedral, but stylistically it is completely different. There is really not much i can say about the film that hasn’t already been established. In the first 2 minutes you’ll notice you’re in for the equivalent of a technical orgasm. The combining styles of traditional movement and color with 3D and compositing culminates towards the ending scenes. As the story progresses you’ll find that this visually stimulating piece also has an incredible dark concept related to wartime politics and military culture. If you want to read more on the film/sypnosis/making of i attached links to the concept art/motion study below.
I strongly believe there is no need for cohesive story structure when you have enough room for creative/technical freedom. This is exactly the case in a short by Tim Bollinger: Between. Made with a mixture of live action, 3D, and stop motion; director Tim Bollinger describes his amazing piece as “a journey through worlds of the subconscious, allowing us to catch sinister glimpses of the human psyche’s ambivalence.” I could not stop replaying this for a few days and earned a few nightmares doing so at night. Also, the sound design by Michael Fakesch definitely measures up to the deranged visuals. Don’t believe me? Experience it yourself, and leave a comment if you disagree.
I know it has been quite a while since I posted, but the semester is almost over and since i am a semester away from graduating i need to focus on finishing my short . Now that i am done whining, here is an INCREDIBLY well put together video by director Ray Tintori and one of my favorite songs at the moment. This band was initially intended t make music for hunted houses (random) and ended up experimenting enough to put an array of excellent sounds/visuals toguether. You might’ve heard their song Bruises on the new Nano commercials. Neither the song nor the visuals make a whole lot of sense, but it sounds and looks incredible so hey, why not?!
It’s a rare case when we come across something so technically perplexed and convincing, specially coming from a woman in the field of animation. In this short film, Joanna Quinn can really tap into your imagination with her incredible gestural drawings. One of my favorites not because she’s a woman, but because she’s managed to cultivate a genre in animation by simply applying her technique and unique style. She’s done plenty of commercial work, most of you might know her from the Cha Cha Cha, Charmin commercials and whiskas. I also posted below attached to the movie still a very interesting interview I found online about her work and influences.
. Now that i am done whining, here is an INCREDIBLY well put together video by director Ray Tintori and one of my favorite songs at the moment. This band was initially intended t make music for hunted houses (random) and ended up experimenting enough to put an array of excellent sounds/visuals toguether. You might’ve heard their song Bruises on the new Nano commercials. Neither the song nor the visuals make a whole lot of sense, but it sounds and looks incredible so hey, why not?!
