Animated Films

Personally i feel as though animated films are far too often lumped together under the sense that they are simply all animated. People have a tendency to overlook the actual content of a film and judge it based off of the way it appears to them. For example, Shane Acker and Tim Burton's, "9" had the ability to appeal to a generally older audience but did not entirely fail in the area of being entertaining for young ages.

Point of View

Point of view offers a large variety of emotional and visual effects that can be passed from the character to the audience in the sense of feeling exactly what they do as they see things. Along with the P.O.V. technique another in depth effect is reading a character's facial expressions and ticks to grasp a more vast and detailed idea of the who they really are or how they are feeling.

Week 3 Comments

A generally productive week over working on the self portrait progress along with an additional one for extra credit and brushing up on formatting. Something that really came in handy after the animal hybrid project was the eraser tool. This tool immediately became my best friend once i discovered the advantages of the settings it possessed. A common question i had heard this week was stuff along the lines of "How do i blend without getting the opacity percentage involved?" This may help...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN0PUdWcPKs

Article Response Walt Disney and Jim Henson

Both of these iconic minds changed the entertainment industry in such a huge way. These two names may never be forgotten as time goes on. Walt took a simple mouse which one day scurried across the floor of his studio and transformed the simple thought of the rodent into a worldwide icon known by everyone today. Henson's idea for the muppets is a classic that still brings entertainment to people today as does the work of Walt.

Article Response Storyboarding

I am familiar with story boarding as well as it's importance in film making but i actually picked up a few helpful hints from this article that i had overlooked in the past. The grid idea is something i am definitely going to remember to incorporate into any upcoming storyboards i have to create. This article really stresses the importance of angles and depth of your shots and expressing the overall idea of how you intend for the shot to play out. Not every person working the cameras know the ideal way you would like a scene to be filmed and storyboarding really assists in that field. Depending on how much you choose to express through the images in your storyboard conveys anything from the emotions of a character to the mood or the intensity of your scene.

Week 2 Comments

This past week has been mostly the final stages of our Photoshop note and exercises as well as a notebook/binder check. I feel as though is was familiar with most of the material. However i had picked up a few new colorizing techniques along with the necessary steps of masking. Didn't do too well on the notebook check :/
I'm glad this course offers more exercises on the material rather than throwing the students straight into constant projects. I feel as though this really helps people get a good understanding of the ways in which photoshop is set up.

Honestly i just cannot wait to get my hands on a camera that isn't that of an iPhone's...

Article Response 2 - Advertising Mistakes

Far too often do we see advertisements unintentionally overselling the products of their competitors rather than their own which the commercial was originally designed to promote. While some advertisements steer clear of allowing this to happen they may run a high risk of angering the public or possibly engaging the public due to a considerable amount of hype from the media. Caution is sometimes highly recommended in marketing ploys and techniques such as these if you do not wish to unintentionally slander a competitor's product.

[Blog still in progress]

Article Response - Sounds/Music

Sound effects and musical scores can be highly influential towards a film's ability to grasp the emotions of it's audience as well as their attention. Since the first time i watched Paranormal Activity i had always hated the use of the low frequency sound effects it used right before a common jump scare. Though i hated enduring this effect i admired it greatly and still do. This effect is one i plan to use in future films of my own and hopefully enhance rather than just re-use. More classic films especially horror have always grabbed my attention more when they are able to produce a soundtrack that leaves me or anyone watching with an unnerved or trapped feeling to the point where they wish to just their eyes or walk away but cannot seem to push themselves to do so.

Two scores which i have always admired were the themes of Michael Myers in John Carpenter's "Halloween" as well as the theme of Jason Vorhees in "Friday the Thirteenth."

Though these emotionally changing scores may be able to grasp your audience in an unbelievable way they always have the power to ruin an entire film. Audiences do not want to walk into a movie with heightened expectations only to be handed a great film but supplied with a poor or annoying soundtrack which accompanies it.

Artice Response2

Anythin from visual effects to illusions formed by forced perspective or other methods used to deceive the eye of the audience  can be used in a powerful way if executed correctly in a low budget film. For the sake of reducing production costs uses of small scale models of generally large objects can be a huge money saver. Personally i have always thought the use of replicas or models was such an ingenious tactic in movie making! Location requirements may sometimes benefit your film greater than some may assume.

Article Response1

Animated films today seem to have quite an ability to constantly be raising the bar for those to come weather it be in terms of animation quality, story line, entertainment value, or all of the above. Depending on the time many are released they may gross a sizable income. Many new releases such as Turbo are released around the same time as sequels to classic or better known films such as Despicable Me 2. In this case the more well known films are likely to be more over hyped than the more unpopular releases making for poor turn outs.

Weekly Comments

This past week we've worked at a reasonably moderate pace. Much of the material i seem to have been comfortable or familiar with as it seemed quite similar the tools, effects, and techniques i have seen using programs such as Paint.net or SAI paint tool. As for the quizzes we had i did pretty well on. The concept of layering is definitely more complex in Photoshop than the other programs i have used which is proving to be quite useful in some aspects as well as the copious amount of enhancement tools provided.

Definitely looking forward to the projects to come in the future.

Photoshop enhancement tutorial-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE9QxtJ0cE4

Test Post

Simply a test post for my digital media course.

This previous week we discussed safety, the handbook, and the code of conduct.