May 26, 2010

Tempest and Video

This year's art show went great. I think that Tempest was one of the best out of the three art shows that I've seen so far, but next year will most certainly be the very best. The short films were awesome this year, and very interesting, the streeters videos were funny, and the mockumentaries were HILARIOUS.

TEMPEST, the theme of this year's art show.

I had doubts about getting my streeters shown during the art show because honestly, I thought it was the worst out of them all, but when I was in the audience when my streeters screened, the audience actually enjoyed it (sort of, haha) and then I thought, eh, it's not as bad as I thought. One thing's for sure though, I'm gonna make something way better than that out my next year in film!

Short films this year were the greatest! I particularly liked 'Plug In Baby' and 'A Strange Arrangement', because they used unique film techniques to make a spectacular sequence of events. For example, the way the camera suddenly tilted up from the side to the right side up when Alyssa got up from the couch in 'Plug In Baby' was a very interesting play on the camera angle, or when Darryl and Chesca were walking down the path in 'A Strange Arrangement',Chesca just disappears when they walk past a tree, and I thought that was cool. The story of the films were also interesting, especially the surprise at the end of 'Plug In Baby'. Maybe next year, I'll make an epic film that can stand with these two films.

May 25, 2010

Movies and CG Imaging

Many of the movies we are seeing on the big screens are using computer generated images and 3D visual effects to produce an exciting and sensual movie experience. Computer generated imaging has advanced to the point where it allows us to create spectacular movie sequences, and can also emulate human like movements with computer generated human images.

The process involved in emulating these human like movements for use in a unique species is immensely time consuming and complex. There are human performers who are wearing special equipment that track their actions and record it on specialized computers, and they act out their actions and script in a large, white room. The computers record the movement and action of the performers. After doing so, computer specialists integrate these movements to computer generated models. Basically, they are giving life to computer models by giving them human like movements and actions.


Never seen it, but it looks cool.

This is actually a very positive contribution to the cinema, because a majority of the people watch movies for their special effects. Of course, there are always films that do not use that many special effects at all and are still successful, but the stories that the other movies tell are greatly enhanced by the use of special effects, especially CGI effects. Basically, the more computer generated effects and special effects are in a movie, the more popular it is, with Avatar being a prime example.

'09 Video Mashup

2009 produced a lot of big screen hits, most of which were a box office hit while some others were forgotten the next day they came out. Some of the highest grossing films include Avatar, the second Transformers movie, 2012, Up, and Twilight, as well as several others. I didn't really watch many movies in theatres during 2009, or 2010. Actually, I saw Zombieland in 2009 with my friends, but that was it. There were some movies that caught my attention and I watched over the Internet.

Rule Number Twenty Nine: The Buddy System

The films that I recognized from the Video Mashup were: Terminator Salvation, Watchmen, Star Trek, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, 2012, New Moon, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, The Dark Knight, Public Enemies, 500 Days of Summer, The Hurt Locker, Inglorious Basterds, G.I. Joe, The Taking of Pelham 123, Avatar, Zombieland, Law Abiding Citizen, X Men Origins, Armored, The Informant, and Invictus. Many of these films I haven't seen yet (all nighter's watching some of 'em just for the blog!), but I recognized them because of the actors who play them (like Matt Damon from 'The Informant', or Morgan Freeman from 'Invictus'), the action scenes that I see in the trailers or snips of the film (like the battle scenes from 'Transformers: RotF', or the explosion in 'The Hurt Locker'), and even some of the memorable or the funniest scenes that stick out in my head from the movies that I have watched (like when a main character shoots a zombie charging out of a store in 'Zombieland', or when Dr. Manhattan transforms in 'Watchmen').

How I loved this movie (Y)

A movie that I particularly liked from 2009 was '500 Days of Summer', because it was a movie that explored the concept of love in today's society, and it also explored what happens in a relationship, and then what happens after it. It showed one man and one woman's point of view about love, and how the two main characters ended up influencing each other's view about love and relationships as a result of their own romance. It was a movie that actually got me thinking about things like girls, love, relationships, and stuff like that, something that not many movies can do to their viewers.