This has no relation, but its so funny

1972 - present

The bmw 5 series through the ages, its beautiful.

And yes, this is just an extra post so i have more than josh crooks.

One Shot Film brainstorming session

I met with most of the group the other day, and after a few hours of discussions, and brainstorming, we came up with 2 ideas, a possible short idea for tuesdays session, and a full proper film to be done as the final piece.
I am very happy with what we came up with, although some people may not understand or get it, i know i will enjoy making it and watching it.
unfortunately i wont be telling you the story simply because i don't want too. You will have to wait till its completed before you know, i love the element of surprise.
Its going to be a funny 2 weeks.
Oh yea, and i completed the script for the film today.

Another one shot fight scene?

yes another one shot fight scene, this one taken from the film "the predator"(2005, Prachya Pinkaew).
Tony Jaa runs up a series of flights of stairs whilst fighting and throwing people over the edge, sounds funny, its amazing, you follow him all the way up the stairs, its intense because there is always something happening, no cuts its just a straight journey with him all the way up to the top of pure fighting.

Oldboy - 2003, Park Chan-Wook

this one shot scene is from one of my favorite films of all time, Oldboy. It took 17 takes to perfect it. Not only is this a great scene for its long shot (which is actually two scenes pieced together with clever editing), it is also an incredibly realistic fight scene.  loads of bad guys vs 1 good guy, love it.
And if you haven't seen oldboy, i suggest you do.

when i think one shot, i think Goodfella's

By far one of my favorite movies of all time, and 1 of the greatest scene's of all time, especially using one shot, it works so effectively, the timing, the choreography, you feel just as confused as Karen does, they go all over the place and she's led to believe its normal by Henry (Ray Liotta).
A great scene and an influence for me to create a one shot.

Today we begin... One shot film

I'm excited, I love films, creating a film is always fun, even with little experience. I have had some practise in film studies and media studies A levels, so I like to think I bring some knowledge to the team.
We have been put into groups, but I can't complain, I'm happy with the people I'm with, everyone seems up for it and as eager as I am (even if I don't show it in person). I do feel I speak most out of the group, not in a cocky know it all manner, more because I'm generally talkative and loud, so not that bad, I am the kind of person who ends up taking control to do things my way, so I should learn to hold back a bit and let everyone have equal input. (That's pretty much me warning my team incase I get carried away).
we are now beginning to draft ideas and eventually begin emailing eachother our ideas, which can be developed on, but now its just the 'discovery' phase. Our team is meeting on friday, so until then its generating our own ideas to bring in to eachother.
No full ideas as of yet, but I am starting to find bits in films that I feel I could work with, and I do randomely get ideas in my head, but by friday I should have some solid starter ideas/stories written down.
Thankyou for listening.
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

Essay

Ok now after having some 1 on 1 time I know pretty much understand the essay, talking about design methodologies, not actually talking about 'discovery, development, define and delivery' but about the ways in which you do those, and there are examples such as reverse engineering, prototyping etc. And we choose 3, and discuss what they are, then argue for or against them, using the 4 D's. For example reverse engineering is good for development as your making progress on something that already exists, but its not good for discovery, as its simply taking apart another idea, so you already have a final piece in mind.
I pretty much know what I doing, goodbye
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Family Guy: Something something something DARKSIDE

coming out november 24th (US), should be funny
double click to play, click once to pause

Movie Quiz - Done

I couldn't help myself, I set myself a target last night to do it, and now its done, created from scratch, this gave me a lot of headache, and was by far the hardest of the Flash pieces i've done, this could possibly have taken a full 24 hours to create, i don't know, i didn't time it, i do know i started it at 9-pm last night and had worked straight till 1-am, then from this morning 9-am till 12-pm, so thats... 19 hours straight working on this, all for what... a quiz? something so worthless? something i could have hand drawn or got some website to create easily? no, its the principle, i wanted to make my own flash interactive quiz which tells you your score at the end, and thats exactly what i've done, so I'm happy, see what score you get and let me know.
P.S if your using the uni's patience building internet, then you may have to wait a while for the full interactivity to work, give it a few minutes.
P.P.S I have just seen how it looks on a PC and the questions on the right hand side are a bit on the buttons, this wasnt a problem on my mac but i will fix this soon.

quiz

ok i know it was the first idea in my idea list... which only included this idea, but i spent 4 hours working out the figures and action-script coding to create a 15 question quiz which tells you the score at the end, it hurt my head quite a lot but i got it in the end, now i just need to put the questions in and design the layout.

I have done nothing all day

so im going to write down some ideas now, literally off the top of my head as i type this, new ideas for the interactive narrative, and i will do 1 more before the 9 weeks is over, i may also write down some ideas for a new pixilation piece, we will see.
as i said, im doing this off the top of my head as i type... lets go

interactive narrative - movie quiz, i'll attempt to create an interactive quiz, based on movie trivia, its simple but probably very hard to create, but I'm already figuring out the action-script map in my head so this could be a possibility, its challenging and so i cant say no now.

im going to come back to making more ideas as im know stuck on creating this movie quiz and want to figure out how to actionscript it, i will make it.

'finding inspiration' feedback

I have shown my lamp movie to quite a few different people, and I've generally received good feedback about it, a lot of people have just generally told me its very good etc, but I wanted some criticism and so that's where the tutorial came in. I showed my work to my small tutorial group, and still received good feedback. Before I showed them the film, i asked them a few questions in which they would give me some real critical feedback, such as; "was it long enough?" "Did the animation run smoothly?" "Are you able to tell what the story is?" "does the music fit?" etc.

After showing the film, i feel i got good reactions from the group, i didn't see anybody with a look of disgust, and everybody seemed to give me positive feedback, they felt it went smoothly, the story was clear enough towards the end, they said that the music did fit but i felt like i could have found some sound effects for the character to have. The group did tell me that the ending could have been a bit longer and the character could have shown a bit more excitement once he found the bulb, and i think they agreed with me on the sound effects part too.

Overall I'm happy with the feedback i received off my group and off friends and family, and im happy with myself for what I made because it did take a long time to do and I'm happy it turned out how i wanted, and considering it was my 3rd attempt ever, i think i did quite well. I will be making another 1 before the 9 weeks rotation is over, and hopefully i can make something twice as good.

essay

i have no idea what im doing about the essay, no idea, im confused about the whole thing

using biology to make better animation

This is a talk from Torsten Reil, he talks about the use of biology in animation to create a more realistic approach to animated characters, this talk is from 2003 and this technology is now being used in GTA4, it is definitely a better approach for creating animation and making characters more and more realistic, using artificial intelligence and evolution. Its so real you feel a bit sorry for the character.

Taryn Simon - photographer

This is a speech by Taryn Simon, Taryn Simon exhibits her startling take on photography -- to reveal worlds and people we would never see otherwise. She shares two projects: one documents otherworldly locations typically kept secret from the public, the other involves haunting portraits of men convicted for crimes they did not commit. She doesn't just take photos, she says in the speech that 90% of her process doesn't involve photography, I just think her take on photography was very unique and the way she exhibits her work is very impressive.

LAMP - finished

I have completed the lamp animation titled "finding inspiration". After nearly 5 hours straight taking photo's, on my own, nearly 800 photos later, Im done. the story is about a lamp finding its light-bulb, looking everywhere, the same way Im looking everywhere trying to find inspiration for the stop motion, i'm quite happy with how its turned out, but tomorrow in the seminar Im going to work on it more, getting some effects in the video, making it look crazier, and hopefully better than it is, so here it is, the completed movie, "finding inspiration".
Enjoy.

Test run

i did a small test of the lamp just to see how the lamp moving would look, and how fast i need to move it every frame, so far so good based on the test run so hopefully the full thing will be good.

New idea - light

looking for inspiration in my room, saw my light and thought about how i could use it in an animated way. After some thought I don't know why it came to mind but i thought about hide and seek, so then the idea grew to my light trying to find something in and around my room.

From that i thought, what could a lamp want to find which would make sense? it cant just be anything because then its just a normal video about a game of hide and seek.

THEN IT HIT ME... the lamp can find the light bulb because its missing one, simple.

And thats what I'm going to produce today, and Im setting myself a target of completing the pictures by 10 pm today... target set...GO.

FAILURE no1

My second attempt at pixilation/stop motion, but my first failure. A failure because i needed a lot more photos for it to look more realistic, and it just didn't pan out how i wanted.
solution - plan properly next time, i barely planned this out, i just had the idea and ran with it straight away, rookie mistake but obviously i've now learnt from it.
This really made me quite angry and upset because i wanted this to pull off, i thought it would be quite funny, i don't think i'll do a second version of it, i need a longer script and a more planned out idea, but this is practice, and if i don't fail then i wont learn.
I will post the animation, just so you know what i mean and why its a failure, don't judge my skills based on this, as i have said, it isn't how i wanted it, i don't think its good, this is just practice.

The film was supposed to have sound but as the video was no good i didn't add audio, its basically a prank call, thats the story.

P.S the mushrooms are supposed to be the bum and him farting...

Chad Vangaalen

Chad Vangaalen created and animated this video, i thought it was very interesting and strange, very hypnotizing, especially as its just repeated over and over.

1h50mins to get home, 1h30mins to get back

and this is what i did in that time on the train, no stops, i just kept going till i reached home and back, very productive of me

Assassins creed 2 - Lineage, the film

remember when i said that film and game would eventually combine to create 1 overall media, well i mentioned that Assassins creed 2 had been doing that and has created a film to go side by side with the game as part of the overall experience, the film introduces the game unlike any other game has been introduced before.
I just watched the 3 part film, lasting around 30-40 minutes, which is basically a real film setting the story for the game that you play, they released part 1,2 and 3 at different times but i watched the entire film, which ends with the line 'the rest is in your hands' and leaves the film with the game ready to be played.
Overall as far as films go it was very well directed, Italian actors speaking english wasn't a problem although i personally feel subtitles would have given it a more realistic Italian film, but i guess it is based on an american and UK audience so speaking english would have been prefered. The acting was done well, and the camera shots throughout made it a very enjoyable experience, and with its similarities to the game, you can play the game straight after and know exactly whats going on, especially with the incredible graphics that the game has, you will feel as though you're in the film.
This was afterall a film done by Ubisoft, a games company, and it was their first attempt at making a film, or any other media other than a game really, so for a first attempt they really have set a high standard, and I feel these different media's joining forces to create an overall gaming experience is something very unique and i dont think it will be long before other games decide to do similiar.
The idea behind the film is to combine film and game in 1 experience, and Ubisoft has definetly achieved this, with the film getting millions of hits on youtube in the first day of release, people will be talking about assassins creed as a milestone for the gaming industry, the game to make the first move in changing the gaming experience for the better.
http://www.youtube.com/user/assassinscreedUK

hello sour sally

I found this website http://www.hellosoursally.com/  and its unlike any site i have been to, its interface is very interactive, you can make her walk jump or fly, and you have to fly to the different sections on the website and drop her into the sections.
If you have no patience and want to click straight into things then the website isn't for you, but as far as a very well designed interface goes its very good, its fun just to play with and that playing gets you interested in the actual product, i didn't even think about the product until i played for a while, and then i became interested. I suggest looking at the website, i don't know much about web design but i know enough to understand how complex this website is and how unique it is.

the strangest instruction video i have ever seen

best table of all time

streets of crocodiles - Quay Brothers

a very creepy stop motion film from 1986 by the Quay Brothers

part 1


part 2

human tetris - pixiliation style

watched in our lecture so thought id post it for the world to see

more rabbids

i love ravin rabbids

my first pixilation

This is my first attempt at doing pixilation, gets kinda bad towards the end because im still figuring out premier, il get it in the end, but pay attention to the matrix style glass shot, i enjoyed working on this.
And im sorry the quality isn't very good, i need to do something about the exporting to make it better, the original is much better quality.

a new animation I love

I found this short animation done by a group of French animators/artists, they did this I'm guessing purely for entertainment, to show the hidden secret of penguins. This short animation is called 'Les Pingouins Volent-ils?' which translates to 'Do Penguins Fly?' Directed by Alban Lelièvre with animator Fabrice Senia, and a group of other french artists and designers to help, all of whom call themselves 'planktoon', you can see there website herehttp://www.planktoon.com/#/gallery 
This film is just about an explorer trying to discover the truth about penguins, i love this.

SHYNOLA - coldplay video

Shynola - visual directors/artists that helped coldplay with the video for 'strawberry swing'. Shynola have also done work for orange, playstation, nike, honda, the I.T crowd, and various other bands including Coldplay, queens of the stoneage, blur and radiohead. I wanted to put this on the blog simply because i really enjoyed the coldplay video, not so keen on the actual song, but the stop motion video has been done very well.


Also thought it would be interesting to put an interview with kenny from shynola about the music video, its on the coldplay website... http://www.coldplay.com/newsdetail.php?id=448

Seth Welton

Seth Welton is a 25 year old from michigan, who does animation... obviously. His animations have won awards and have been screened at the SXSW (south by south west) Film Festival and the Ann Arbor Film Festival. I found out about Seth through deviant-art and from seeing this i looked into him a bit more and went on his website, he has done a lot of animation and has won the awards deservedly. This video your definitely about to see, right now, is a trailer for 'the playground' which is going to be an animated series based on a group of youth who run a gang or crime syndicate. Here is the link to the playground website http://playgroundmafia.synthasite.com, it isn't a full series yet but it looks like it should be exciting.



Apart from 'the playground' he has done a lot of other animations as mentioned, and by seeing a lot of his work you can see the style he works by, the cut out characters with the toy objects, it gives a distinctive style to Seth, and even without being told this next video was his, i knew it was just because of the way it has been animated and created, and i really like Seth's style, definitely an approach to animation i wouldn't mind following.

I have to say, this next video is 26 minutes long, so you dont have to watch it, unless you have a lot of time on your hands, or get very bored 1 day and think about me and my blog and think yes i will watch that video today.

Lift

i know i'm not doing the one shot film project yet, but i had to post this, as we were speaking about it in my tutorial, i love this short film, directed by Mark Isaacs in 2001, he stays in a lift and films people who live in that apartment building, and interview's them, it really is an interesting concept which i couldn't stop watching, i was glued even though it was the same shot over throughout the film, and you really get to know some of the characters. just watch it.

umm... ok

This shouldn't really be on my blog, and it shouldn't make me laugh, but its on here, and im laughing, I wont post the whole story, but the kid died in 1909 and this is his tombstone...
ok il post the story, but its a link to a NY times newspaper article from 1909 CRAZY DEATH

Takena Nagao

wow, this guy is sick, by that i mean sick minded, but Takena is an incredible animator, his film "chainsaw maid" was shown in the Short Film Competition of Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2009, he is only young so a lot of talent still to be shown, but from what i have seen of his work, he is incredible.
This is "chainsaw maid"



The mix of plastacine and zombies isn't something you see everyday, but what a combination it proves to be, it looks disgusting but then its still only plastacine so very fun at the same time. And even though there is a seriousness about the film, there is that Shaun of the Dead type humour included, with the crazy killing of the zombies, and some random parts which amused me, for example go to 1:50 or 3:10, i actually laughed out loud and watched it back several times on 3:10 just because you usually would expect that from a real feature film like Shaun of the dead or other spoof films, and i do love spoof films. This isn't a normal animated short film, it stands out a lot, and if you see any of Takena's other films, he doesn't do normal... for example, this is pussycat, another 1 of his twisted animations



in both of these, the use of zooms and panning is incredible considering the circumstances he is working under, it is a lot harder to try camera movement with a stop motion film. The close up's and wide angled shots really do work well, and the music, as eery and creepy as they are match perfectly with the crazy storylines, they are very brutal and gory clay animations, you have to love it.

PESfilm

I had seen his work before, but it really is inspirational and i had to include something about PESfilm on my blog, his animation for 'western Spaghetti' won 2009 Sundance Film Festival Winner, 2009 Audience Award at the Annecy Animation Festival and TIME Magazine voted it 2nd Viral Video of the Year.



an amazing stop motion animation, i love it, very inspirational for me to go on and create my own stop motion piece.

Pixilation - the beginning

ok so the interactive narrative is technically over in the 9 week rotation structure and we have officially started the new 3 week project - Pixilation, which as i learnt today, is different to Pixellation, Pixellation is the effect when you zoom in on a bitmap and you can see the individual pixels, when you zoom in and see the pixels, it means that picture has been pixellated. on a relevant note Pixelization is the effect to deliberately blur something in an image, like in a tv show where they dont want to show the persons face.
ANYWAY... im doing Pixillation, a form of animation using stop motion with photography.

"Pixilation (from pixilated) is a stop motion technique where live actors are used as a frame-by-frame subject in an animated film, by repeatedly posing while one or more frame is taken and changing pose slightly before the next frame or frames. The actor becomes a kind of living stop motionpuppet. This technique is often used as a way to blend live actors with animated ones in a film, such as in The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb by the Bolex Brothers, which used the technique to compelling and eerie effect." 
wikipedia definition.


Any ideas as of yet... not entirely, but i am doing some research as to what i can do, after the group attempt we had (which will be posted soon), it becomes an individual project, and i personally prefer that, as much as i enjoyed working with the group of lovely people, i enjoy working on my own as i feel i get what i want done and can do exactly what i want to do. so at the moment i am researching and CONSTANTLY thinking of what i could do, id prefer not to include people, possibly body parts like hands, but id prefer to make inanimate objects come to life or change entirely, as i said i am researching, but i should have a few ideas posted soon. Pixilation is also something i have never done before, like flash im new to it, so it should be exciting to learn something new, and i do enjoy photography, so im going to enjoy doing this project.

This is a great example of Pixilation, done in the 50's by a man called Norman McLaren, even though it was done in the 50's its still an impressive film, it isn't outdated much apart from the smoking, it could have been done today and looked very similar, we were shown this in the introductory session to pixilation so i guess its worth putting on my blog.





and another piece by Normal Mclaren, but im still watching this wondering exactly how he did it so smoothly.

im sorry but it doesn't get any more beautiful - introducing the M3 GTS... ouch

450bhp, 4.4 litre engine, who needs the environment really...

Design Process - Interactive Narrative

The Design Process consists of 4 main 'categories' (couldn't think of a better word)

• Discovering;

This would be the initial thoughts process, getting the inspiration, getting ideas through research, your own previous projects or other ideas past or present, gaining an insight into the brief and considering all options for something you could/would want to develop further as a final design. Any possible solutions for problems that you could develop, analyzing research and users and seeing what a user would be interested in or would enjoy. This is the first process into developing what you want to develop and you cant really develop anything without having the idea, and an idea doesn't just appear.

• Developing;

This is the next step, once the idea has been finalized you then develop that idea, plan exactly how you want it to be used, grow on the initial idea until you are happy with it and then develop concepts and prototypes to see if it works.

• Defining;

This is the Validation stage, once you have developed the design then there's the acceptance test, show it to users and ask them to give feedback on the design, see if they can use it and if they are actually interested. Once feedback is gained then further development may be needed, refine the design until the user is happy.

• Delivering;

Once the design is finished then there is the evaluation, show the design to the users and look at the effectiveness and the impact it has on them. Any final testing that may be needed before any official 'launch' of the Design. Once any feedback has been covered and the final approvals have been done then the design will be ready for official viewing.

The design process for my interactive narrative began as soon as we got the brief;
"produce an interactive narrative using still images in flash, using a branching structure that forces the user to make a number of decisions as they progress through the narrative"
we were told that narrative was the primary concern in the piece, meaning the interactive piece had to follow some form of story it couldn't just be a random set of images that have no relation with each-other, there had to be some sort of sequential structure which would allow the user to follow the narrative and take part interactively.
I had previously had no experience within flash but i have obviously gone through design processes for graphic design, and i studied film and media studies and within film studies, we created a short film, and that also required going through a design process.

within writing this process, i am going to explain my design process, but for both of my interactive pieces, as i did complete 2 very different interactive narrative's, i would like to share exactly how i went from start to finish with both of these, as they are very different and the thought processes were quite different for both, even if they are both using pretty much the same interactive options.
To make this easier, i will colour code.

"The Car" will be in blue.
"Meet my Flatmates" will be in grey.

I began the process, as i said, when first got the brief, we were asked to jot down some initial ideas and we had around an hour in the lesson to think of something. Because we only had an hour, and they probably weren't going to be the final ideas, this was just a thinking process to get our minds working and to see what we could think of, and if we could think of anything in that hour, then it shouldn't be hard to think of even better ideas later on.
The way i initially think of ideas is to just look at what is around me and expand on a particular product, but only as an initial thought, with that in mind, the first thing i noticed was my mobile phone, and so straight away i thought of how my phone could be used within an interactive narrative, and the idea of dismantling my phone and putting it back together came to mind, and i thought of an interactive piece where the user would have several options to construct a phone and put it back to its original state, and get it working. I think subconsciously i wanted the user to learn how to get something to work, the same way i have to learn how to put something together in flash for the first time, make the user feel my pain.
That was my first idea, and nothing grew past stage 1, I didn't develop that idea past the initial thought process.

Discovering


Once i went home, I was inspired for another idea, pretty much as soon as i walked into my room...

yes i do have a love for cars, and so that was the next major idea i thought of, having lots of car posters in my room, and on my desktop, i was inspired to do something related to cars, and 1 thing i love about cars is the customization of them, and i always like to design things that i personally enjoy, so i thought why not make an interactive piece about customizing a car to suit your own style, i knew i would enjoy that.


For the flat mates flash, i simply thought about a way of introducing my flat mates to people. I'm always with them so the idea just came to mind about a way of using them in my narrative. It just grew from pictures of them > open their doors interactively > see them all in the same pose with a possibility of something interactive in their room.


Developing


I had seen the way car companies do their own versions of the car customizing feature on their websites, so the basic idea was already out their, i just had to make mine my own version and my own layout without copying them. The idea was originally to create a car that has changeable features, the only way i knew how to make each image work was to create every possibility of the car customized through photoshop, so i created a black car with 7 different wheels, then red etc. all together there are 70 different variations of the car, this took a long time but was worth it at the end. I then imported these to Flash and through development i created an initial prototype just to see how it would work and after trial and error i eventually got the first version working.


This only needed 13 images, 12 of which were photographs and 1 was the start page with the graphic doors. So after choosing how i wanted everyone to stand and where to position the laptop (which would be the interactive feature within their rooms) i imported these images to Flash, and created the start page on photoshop. Since I had done the car, it was a lot easier to produce this one as i had got the hang of it and it was basically using the same code.


Defining


After the first prototype and seeing that it worked, i then created the full version with the full interactive capabilities, being able to change the wheels and the colors individually and being able to mix and match. Then once that was working, making the layout a bit nicer, having individual bubbles of colour across the bottom in order to change the colour of the car, and clicking either wheel to change the wheels. At this point i was happy and with positive feedback from some people i felt it was completed.


Because i had done the car, I did this one without a prototype, i literally just made it straight from scratch to finish and considering i completed in within a day, including photo taking, i felt quite proud of this. I also included the laptop's interactive feature, this meaning you can click the screen and go to another page with a description of that person. Again after good feedback from my flat-mates, i felt this was ready for the 3 week deadline.


Delivering


I Posted both of the interactive narratives within a few days of each-other, and both received good feedback, especially considering the short deadline worked under. I do feel like the car could be improved by adding separate buttons for the wheels so you can choose exactly which wheel you want, but i feel the Flat-mates flash needs more work as it looks a bit rushed, I want to include more functions and possibly include a better layout, out of the 2 i would say I'm happier with the car flash.

never be late to a crap lecture...

Gran Turismo 5

The FT-86 Concept is a concept car appearing in the 2009 Tokyo Motor Show. It is an eagerly awaited compact FR planned for release in 2011, powered by a horizontally opposed engine developed in cooperation with Subaru.
Through collaboration with the Toyota Motor Corporation, "Gran Turismo" has already reproduced a ride in this brand new car. I thought this looked really cool, i admire the way gran turismo are miles ahead of any competition, no other real car companies respect a game as much as GT, it is the original and the best, and i can't wait for GT 5 to be released... although with all the delays already i dont know when that is, apparently now due for release in march 2010, so thats my summer holidays gone.



And this is the BEAUTIFUL 458 italia, also in gran turismo 5, i had to post this, the obsessive attention to detail that polyphony go through to make the car pretty much identical to the real thing, really is incredible.

"A model required 180 days," Yamauchi (head of polyphony) said of the game's intesive asset generation. "For comparison: For a car in GT2 needed only one day."



and these screenshots just shows the perfection yet again, i really cant get enough of this.