Issues within new media such as face book. The WE media generation and development of web 2.0 has lead to leading communities in the online age, such as facebook and youtube. Obviously with these communities issues are raised with bullying and ‘predator’ behavior.
Digital media advancements have created a media consumption up rise. The new technologies and improvement in digital media such as Sky+, PS3 and faster broadband and have allowed from an increase in the average media consumption.
Spending on magazines and news papers has dropped 20% whilst digital media has almost halved. People are expecting free consumption and therefor spending less, but yet they are getting free media so consumption is rising.
Today was the third filming session we have had, things are going well and i am pleased with the styles and the shots we are coming out with. We are planning every shot with careful detail and making sure the dance and movement flows. One thing we have stick to since the beginning is to make sure we have more than needed images, we have over shot making sure each sequence and shot is fully prepared to remove excess images other than need images to put in.
The main issue we have encountered during filming is lighting, we knew this was going to be a major issue because from the start we knew that it would have been hard to acquire the right form of lighting. We were always looking for a soft style lighting, more ‘mood lighting’. We didn’t want to use studio lights as this would cause a very harsh effect, we decided to to chance it and use natural lighting arranging the blinds to to opt for the right angles in the light. After some adjustments we felt that we had a nice exposure to our photographs, this was good for the day, we soon realized that when we came to shoot on a another day the lighting may not be the same as it was last time. This is the main problem we have encountered, maintaining an even exposure.
The other small problem we encounter was movement, keeping a continuous motion and making it flow through out the this will be something we shall look further into when editing.
Today’s lesson consisted of some of the final touches to the layout of the film review page, i was studying a magazine closely as i made it but i wanted to keep a fair away from the design to challenge conventions mostly. I kept to the style and layout to make it seem more realistic, i am pleased with the outcome so far i still have some text to put in but the basic idea is finished.
I gave the colours a lot of thought realizing that the pink was a good option to go with, i kept the rest of it basic using mainly black and white to stay with the theme of the photograph. The pink has a connotation of love and passion, relating to the narrative. The black and white is also connected to the characters, the colours can be seen as connotations of male and female which is a good impression to create with the narrative
Today i took my research into the next step, i have started looking at film posters and how they are used to attract and engage an audience. It has been interesting and a new step into the media industry for me, film posters are interesting in that they have such power in normally and average size. The examples i looked at used a few different techniques to attract it’s audience, The Dark Knight poster used the idea of fear to bring it’s audience together. The poster had a strong relation to terror which has a strong meaning in the US, it’s a strange and very controversial. One thing i shall remember when creating my poster is mode of address, I’ve always been under the impression that you should use a direct mode of address but when looking at posters and pictures with this in use you tend to get a very unnerving picture. I’ve learnt today that keeping an indirect mode of address for your primary image will avoid this, but with secondary subjects it will add more effect to use a direct stance.
Camera angle and stance can create massive connotations for the poster, If the subject leans in it can create the impression of anger and action. It’s very evoking and makes the subject look as though they are having a fight. A camera that is angled up will make the subject look bigger more powerful and important.
I feel i have made a good start to my research and shall follow it up with more extensive in look when i come to making the the poster.
But you were a lone animator in a world of programmers.
Yeah, the computer animation world at that time was primarily in university research labs. It was mostly TV commercials and mostly quite awful.
Everything was made of stone and glass and very reflective and all that, because most of the stuff being done was by people who’d created the software. I thought to myself, ‘You know what? I can make an object move around and give it personality and emotion through pure movement.’
I thought our powers were complementary, that I wasn’t gonna learn what they can do. I’d just sit next to them and co-operate! That became, I think, the single things that set Lucasfilm and Pixar apart: the idea of making tools for filmmakers to use.
Because there’s no software solution for entertainment; it comes from people, from the artists who uses it. So from the very, very beginning I really viewed the computer as just a tool for artists to use.
That logic presumably fuelled your first project, The Adventures Of André And Wally B?
Yeah. It became the first real animation that the computer had ever done – there were some attempts before by other people – but Andre & Wally was very cartoony, and people loved that.
I remember one guy, who worked with a computer graphics company, coming up to me after a screening to ask what software I used to get the humour in!
It really brought home to me how much it was seen as science at the time. No one realised that there were these animation principles that had been developed for like 50 years and I became something of an evangelist, speaking at animation festivals and at computer animation conferences on how computers are just tools you can use to entertain an audience.
This small extract from an interview with John Lasseter details the very start in Computer Generated Imagery, there was obviously examples of CGI in previous films but nothing had every been created purely using CGI. The animation was made in 1984 and to my knowledge was the first short film made using entirely CGI. It was made by Lassester for boy and although the film scared his son, it became revolutionary in the way the film industry viewed computers, technology and it’s potential uses in films. This is a perfect example for my project and my research, this is the proof that John Lassester changed animation, creating a new style. Lassester never stopped dreaming and always pushed with the idea of making a feature length animation.
In my opinion this was one of the main stepping stones in the development of CGI and how it was viewed. A development that was under main control and inspired by Lassester with the help from the team at Lucas film. This is a key aspect to the reason i believe that Lassester is an Auteur.
Key Details:
The idea and direction was done by Alvy Ray Smith Animation was done by John Lassester
Tom Duff contributed in the technical lead. This was the man who designed the animation program ‘MD’ Motion Doctor
This Short film was groundbreaking at the time, it was the first film to use CG motion blur, creating a more realistic look for motion in animation. And at the time is was the recognized for it’s complex 3D backgrounds. According to Wikipedia Lasseter was known to push the envelope and asked for manipulated shapes able to achieve the squash and stretch style. This was a new angle seen as earlier CG models were basic stable geometric shapes, that were rigid and and constricted.
It was rendered on a Cray X-MP/48 supercomputer and ten VAX-11/750 super minicomputers from Project Athena.
This site gave me an amazing insight to the world of CGI and it’s history. Knowing where it all began is an important thing to understand, CGI has been around for more time than what people may think. Animation started in ’71 with a short example ‘Andromeda Strain’ according to the web site it is arguably the first example of ‘Computer Generated Imagery’.
The main part of this history that caught my attention was its relevance to Lassester and how he may have been influenced. In 1977 The well known movie ‘Star Wars’ was released and this was one of the first films to use CGI, the film was directed by Gorge Lucas who had already had his taste in special effects. What intrigues me is that this was one of the first companies and institutions to this and also then go onto creating CGI for other other films (Young Sherlock Holmes 1985). At this stage John Lassester was now a part of Lucasfilm and contributed to this animation creation, getting his first taste for CGI. You can that this environment, being around the technology helped adapt and develop he’s creative mind edging him slightly closer to he’s revolutionary change in animation, giving the world a new niche.
Looking into the film studies course work i have strongly considered many different options and angles i can approach my auteur study. I have looked into Directors, actors, institutions and many other aspects of the film industry.
My main interests lye in the animation sector, mostly with Disney and Pixar. 2 amazing companies with a brilliant history and brilliant minds, with ambition, creation and a drive for creating something new to entertain. I think my studies will be controlled around Pixar John Lasseter and his team. I shall look into the creative minds of the following and relate studies to the company as an institution and how these minds have revolutionized film and animation…
Today we looked at our ideas for the different stop motion movies. Our main main idea consists of a dinner table which is set in a romantic setting with mood lighting and candles. The plan is that we aim to use stop motion to make it appear as though all the different things on the table are coming to life and moving around, this then creating a romantic setting.
For example the 2 salt shakers that are shaped to hug will dance around the table avoiding all the obstacles on the table. it will be accompanied by music. The music we want to use is something along the lines of Frank Sinatra and the 50’s style music scene.
There’s a few other things that will happen in the video, which will involve movement in many different objects and creating the same srot of effect. the romance in a dinner setting.
Posted by Elliott 
Elliott Steel 