Practical Brief: Social Networking Typography

On this brief we were asked to present a practical version of what we learnt during the contextual studies module. I chose to present a short visual case study that identifies some examples of social networking and media platforms using typography animation. I achieved the animation using the Adobe After Effects software, the animation took me a considerable amount of time to do considering it only lasts 1 minute and 40 seconds in duration. I'm happy with the final outcome of the animation. During the process of making it, I learnt a lot of techniques by using After Effects and also gained new knowledge though research. I did thorough research before adding in the information on screen and I also referred to my notes from one of the lectures I attended.


The video is below and I hope you enjoy it:

Environment Concept Art

My concept art hasn't got much colour nor detail to it but it gives me and the viewer a clear idea of what i'm going for. The textures i'm wanting to incorporate are simple solid rough rock with moss and other residue around and the scaling may change towards the final idea of the environment, depending on how it looks on a 3D world.
I had a think about how the enchanted forest would fit into a floating rock and how the game player would know that their environment was floating. The answer to this is they wouldn't be able to tell as they would be a small person in a big environment, kind of like an average human cannot tell that the earth is floating. So there fore to give the illusion that the place is floating is just by placing the other rocks directly above and around the main environment.
the concept art below shows the stage i'm at: 

Game Environment Ideas

The look I am going for on my game is an enchanted forest. I want it to look natural, down to earth and yet have a fairy-tale feel to it, so I decided to add floating rocks. The floating rock will make it seem like the world is in a different dimension with the physics all different. Below are some images i gathered to help me archive my aim. 


Below are the ideas of the forest look I want to go for, as you can see it contains a lot of greenery in trees and grass:

I then began researching on floating rocks and how  could incorporate them into my scene, here are a few examples of high poly rocks: 

High Culture/Low Culture

"Avant-garde is a term is used in English as a noun or adjective to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics. Avant-garde represents a pushing of the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the status quo, primarily in the cultural realm. The notion of the existence of the avant-garde is considered by some to be a hallmark of modernism, as distinct from postmodernism. Many artists have aligned themselves with the avant-garde movement and still continue to do so, tracing a history from Dada through the Situationists to postmodern artists such as the Language poets around 1981". Wikipedia 

To be avante garde means you basically push the limits of what is considered traditional, usually in the fields of politics, art or music.  In French it means "vanguard" or "advance guard". A perfect example of a modern avante garde piece of art by Damien Hirst and it is title 'For the Love of God'.  It consists of a platinum cast of a human skull encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds, costing £14million to make and £50million to sell.

Kitsch is something of cheap or poor quality design, appearance, or content created to appeal to popular taste. Something that fails to have the qualities of true art. Repainted masterpieces are examples of Kitsch. Below is an example of kitsch art

Notes written during the lecture

Moving Image Analysis: Grace Jones

Grace Jones music video 'Corporate Cannibal' was directed by photographer and director Nick Hooker. The song was released as a first single to her 2008 album 'Hurricane'.


The content of the video features Grace herself stood against a simple white backdrop and only her upper body and face is shown on the frame, thus making the camera angle medium close up. It is very interesting the way the director chose the video to be manipulated in post production, it's almost as if they do not want us to have a good look at the real figure of Grace. 


Grace's body seems to be distorting and morphing digitally in all kinds of forms and angles, the video was stripped off of its colour and was made to appear black and white, all the mid tones of the image were reduced to increase the saturation and make Grace's skin tone appear darker. The video is very strange and unusual, the distortion of her body felt alien like but I must say the relationship between the video and the song worked well in conjunction to each other. 


The entire 6 minutes of the song show the audience the same image of Grace Jones, one might think that is a boring concept for a music video, but somehow it's enticing to watch the effect of her body unnaturally stretching.


The reception from the audience was neutral, real Grace Jones fans had a positive outlook towards the video, where as other viewers compared the music video to Lady Gaga style type of videos. Some argued mentioning that Gaga is a huge fan of Jones therefore there would be some influence in style.
In my opinion the video is art.


Here's the video below: 

Social Networking & Media Platforms

We now live in a society where information is passed around in seconds, thanks to the new digital age, internet and social networking and media platforms. 


'Linked in' is a platform used for businesses and professionals, its like a directory but with testimonials and recommendations to other people's work. Most businesses and individuals discover each other through linked in. LinkedIn reported to have more than 135 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories.


'Flickr' is a media platform for image storage, one may ask what the point in this is, when they can upload all their images on facebbok for example. Flickr offers users to upload their images in they're original quality in a way the photographer intended them to be. It offers multiple ways to upload photos through the web, mobile devices, email or photo applications. In 2011 Flickr had a total of 51 million registered members and 80 million unique visitors.


'Slideshare' is a media platform for hosting and sharing presentations, podcasts (slidecasts), the website is considered to be similar to YouTube, but for slide-shows. File formats such as PowerPoint, PDF, Keynote or Open Office presentations can be uploaded to the site. Notable users like the The White House and NASA use Slideshare for their presentations therefore making it a very important professional and/or educational tool.


Successful Blogging is to be social, visit other blogs, respond to comment, be generous, subscribe by email, share, know what you have posted about yourself, assume everything is permanent, be a conduit, be original, create a news feed, credit your sources, use keywords, interview somebody, beware widgets, left align your writing, post frequently, do not copy and pate from MS word, stick with your blog and keep it updated frequently. 

Essay Notes: Auteur In Film-Making

Before proceeding with writing my 1500 word essay, I compiled all my thoughts and research together and brainstormed the ideas. I found this extremely helpful as I was writing the actual essay itself, when I had difficulties or when I got stuck during the composition of the essay, I simply referred back to my notes.

Modernism/Post Modernism

"Postmodernism describes a range of conceptual frameworks and ideologies that are defined in opposition to those commonly attributed to modernism and modernist notions of knowledge and science, such as, materialism, realism positivism,formalism, structuralism, dogmatism and reductionism. Postmodernist approaches are critical of the possibility of objective knowledge of the real world, and consider the ways in which social dynamics such as power and hierarchy affect human conceptualizations of the world to have important effects on the way knowledge is constructed and used. In contrast to the modernist paradigm, postmodernist thought often emphasize idealism, constructivism, relativism, pluralism and scepticism in its approaches to knowledge and understanding." Wikipedia

The term 'postmodernism' has become so over-used during the past 50 years that it is now difficult to take seriously as a respectable philosophical or sociological concept. In the 1960s it was the beginning of Postmodernism, 10 years later during the 70s it was established, in the 80s it was a recognizable concept, in the 90s it was dominant but today it seems to be a tired and simmering concept. However, despite the difficulty many people seem to have in making sense of it, it's very presences everywhere can be taken as an indication it fulfills a very useful role in the way people think about the changes that society has undergone during its period.


Charles Alexander Jencks, an American architectural theorist and also a Harvard graduate has wrote books on the history and criticism  of Modernism and Postmodernism. His books have been widely read in architectural circles and beyond. On July 15th 1972, 3:32pm that was when modernism died according to Jencks. 


Postmodernism is also in film, a perfect example would be 'Fellini 8½' it's a 1963 Italian comedy-drama film directed by Federico Fellini. Here's is it's original Italian trailer 

Moodboards

Before my first crit, I had to gather up images together to create a mood board. It consisted of all the ideas I brainstormed prior to the crit session. A mood board helps me grasp an idea of what I'm going for. 


Below is the mood board for the environment

Below is the mood board for the tree-house

Bradford Animation Festival

In November of 2011 we made a series of trips to the National Media Museum in Bradford, UK. BAF 2011 takes place each November and it is the UK's longest running festival, it features screen-talks, retrospectives, workshops and a competition strand which recognises the very best in new animation from around the world.


I attended screen-talk such as 
Image Metrics: Face-ware 3.0 with Jay Grenier

Game programming

Hand circus with Simon Oliver

Lecture on Unity3D which happens to be a software we're going to have to use at some point on our project.

3D scanning for games and VFX

4D capture

Blitz games

Team Bondi

All these lectures from professionals gave us great advice on the do's and don'ts in the future. I was given such advice as if you are to work as a freelance games developer, it is important to get a proper job to keep a roof over your head until the game you're working on makes enough money, then you can work on yourself full time. 

Draw inspiration from everywhere.

Don't try to do like the big guys who have tones of budget and teams. 

I learnt about the different types of scanners used for 3D games and VFX.

• Body and head scanner, it uses laser.
• Structural scanner, scans using lines and it has a good resolution.
• Optical/Photogrammetry, its used within the games industry and scanning for visual effects.

Kick-stater and Indie-go go are sites that help with funding for independent developers.

Unity Tutorial

Unity Web Player | Web Version Tutorial

« created with Unity »

Italian Vernacular Cinema

Rory Doona: Graphic Designer/Illustrator

Rory Doona trained as a graphic designer and started working for a local authority council designing their corporate literature and communications. After learning about the business side of the creative industry he became increasingly interested in traditional drawing and animation largely inspired by the designs of Studio Ghibli. He has created artwork for Manga Entertainment and Tokyopop, he has also created artwork for digital entertainment companies and creative marketing agencies.

What inspired me about his work is that I immediately felt connected to the story his art told. His environment designs are what i'm trying to capture into my fairy-tail setting environment, such objects as the floating mountains and the tree-house on top of the mountain. The way he drew the wooden Manga style house on top of the mountain is very captivating, he made the state of the structure deteriorate into the edge of the cliff, the way he composed the lighting into the environment certainly gave it the look fairy-tale look I thrive. On the background of the environment, to create the atmosphere Rory drew Cumulonimbus Clouds, which suggest that the mountain that the characters are in is very large and therefore very high. Cumulonimbus Clouds are towering vertical clouds that are very tall, dense, and involved in thunderstorms and other inclement weather. So what Rory portrays in his art is that even if the atmosphere maybe cool, calm and peaceful, it is also not stable. The time of day seems to set at dawn.

Below is the art that has inspired me on further develop my idea of my environment: 

On the artwork above, Rory created cubical stones that are piling onto each other, they seem worn out, with crass, moss and plants growing around them, this has inspired me to model something similar for my environment.

Here's the link to his website : sorasabi.com

Contextual Studies: Typography

"Typography is the art and technique of arranging type in order to make language visible. In modern times, typography has been put into motion—in film, television and online broadcasts—to add emotion to mass communication". Wikipedia

Dedone fonts are fonts used for high class media like the font of Vogue magazine, where as Helvetica is a morden font used in Airports and Subways. Typography is a stylized visual communication tool and it works perfectly in motion for film. 
The film Metropolis was one of the first films to have animated title sequences, they were so good that people actually enjoyed watching them as if they were the actual film. The titles featured animated architecture along side with the titles. Here's a link to the video below : 

A recent film that capture my attention with very interesting title sequences is 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' by David Fincher. Fincher is known for having interesting sequences in his films, the film 'Se7en' being a perfect example. You can almost say the sequences are a mini movie with a perfect score behind it. 
'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' titles where created by a CGI company called 'Blur Studios' with Tim Miller as the design leader working closely with David Fincher. David had spoken to Tim requesting an opening sequence animation that had abstract imagery that felt like a fever dream. Though I felt the titles did not reference anything that was in the film, they were very well animated and high quality rendered. They featured 3 dimensional models (lead characters) covered completely in what appears to be flowing black liquid that looks like oil, there's also fire and animated multimedia components, aswel as a dragon. It also features a crow engulfed in flames sort of like they're trying to portray a phoenix rising. They complimented this footage by adding a score of music called 'Immigrant Song' by Karen O, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross. Fincher mentioned that this song is what sparked the idea. 


Their choice of typography was excellent as it went well with the atmosphere of the film, the main font they used is called 'GDT Gothic' Below is their font set they created:

Here's the final main title design : 

Here are the sequence titles for the cast and crew : 

Below are the aesthetics of the lead characters in render mode :

And finally here's the video of the complete and final title sequence:

Paul Morricone (Director/Editor) Freelance

Paul Morricone has been working for 10 years as an Editor and an in house Director in the UK film industry, 2 of those years as a freelance. He's worked in commercials, virals, web-films, music videos and corporate films. He can use any post production package from Avid to Final Cut Pro to Adobe Premier. It is important for any Editor nowadays to be familiar with any post production package as more and more companies are leaving all the workload on one individual. It is also good for a CV and it easily gets attention of the people hiring.
Paul mentioned that it is important to make a showreel of all the work you have done as a quick visual representation of your lifetime's work, showreels are not only interesting to watch but they provide vital information of what type of projects an individual's been involved in and their style of work.
He also mentioned that it is very important to specialise into a certain aspect in whatever you do, to insure that you know your area of work very well, specialising is what we're going to be focusing on in third year. 
He mentioned that it is important to own your own equipment other than relying on borrowing or renting, most clients do not provide any production equipment. Choosing the right location is also vital, filming in London is tough and very expensive, smaller and less busy cities are a wiser choice.
"The most important out of all is to go to networking events and get yourself known". It does not always guarantee any contacts or clients but its important to find out what other people are doing and the best way to approach a person is ask about them instead of talking about yourself.


Paul was a very inspirational speaker and also gave us plenty chances to ask him questions, below is a link to his website that includes his work and a way to contact him

Paul Morricone

Joint Chains

On this tutorial by Matt I learnt to place joints on a geometry in order to animate separate joints, in this instance we were modelling a simple leg with three joints, the hip, the knee and the ankle.
I simply started by modeling a polygon cylinder and scaling it to roughly a size of a leg that can fit three joints. Placing the joints had to be done on orthographic view not on perspective, otherwise the joints wouldn't line up perfectly.
Working on the 'Animation menu' I had to bind the skin of the model with the joints and by this I went on 'Skin > Bind Skin >Smooth Bind > Smooth Bind Options'.
Under 'Bind Method' I chose 'Closest in Hierarchy' and under 'Skinning Method' I chose 'Dual Quaternion'. 
The other options were fine on default.
After attaching the skin, I began painting in the weights, this helped influence the white, black or the grey on the joint.
To avoid pinching on the knee I smooth painted the geometry using the brush from the tool settings.
What I learnt on this tutorial was to rig joint chains to geometry in order to animate certain aspect of your model e.g a flapping flag or a walk cycle.