Weekly Blog Assignment #6

PERSONAL INSPIRATION

Sometimes the things that inspire us are the things that have always been there but we didn't take heed of previously. This week I noticed the sunset is different in the winter, notably a lot shorter and even a bit more captivating. Standing on my patio the other day I noticed the sky was orange and pink from the sunset and part of the colours reflected in the snow. It’d be cheesy to say that I had some kind of dramatic realization at that moment but I was captivated by the colours and softness of the light. After about 15 minutes I was also interested by the brevity of the scene, the sky got darker and the colours changed in what seemed like a blink of the eye. Sometimes it's the simple things that affect us, little things like how the colours of a sunset blend together can be the inspiration we needed.

I have two quick pictures with my phone of the two different sunset colours. The quality isn't great...I guess it's a you had to be there kind of moment.

I'll add the photos Monday when I get on the computer

Weekly Blog Post 5

My ARTISTIC INSPIRATION this week is Hayao Miyazaki, co-founder of the renown Ghibli Studios. Hayao Miyazaki was a film director, animator, screen writer and critically acclaimed manga artist. I decided to make Hayao Miyazaki my artistic inspiration for the week because the other day I was doodling a little creature on some scrap paper and when it was done I realized how similar it was to some of Miyazaki’s creatures. I grew up watching Miyazaki films and they stuck with me just as much as Disney movies or classical films, I thought because Miyazaki had influenced me through his films that he was certainly a suitable choice for my artistic inspiration. Hayao Miyazaki is a worthy artistic inspiration of the week because he was highly accomplished in his field(s) and he was known for a beautiful style which has been credited as inspiration for many of the new generation of animators, artists and directors. Ghibli Studios has often been referred to as “the other Disney” by many young North Americans. Miyazaki continued working well into his senior years, finally declaring retirement for the final time in 2013. Miyazaki was also known for his surprising lack of "evil" or definite villains. Miyazaki’s films tended to place protagonists on difficult situations with problems and people to overcome but there is hardly ever someone who is actually evil, instead the antagonist is usually just someone with a different goal or belief. Miyazaki was an inspiration to thousands of other artists, he was accomplished in his many fields, he was a brilliant artist and he got to see many of his works come to life which is why he is my artistic inspiration this week.

Movie Trailer Parody Assignment

Sherlock Holmes is one of my favourite movies and I chose it because I've seen it a bunch of times and already had a few ideas about how to mix it up. The assignment was to drastically change the theme of the movie and since Sherlock Holmes is an action/comedy film I decided to make it a romance/comedy by playing up the relationship between the main characters and using certain lines I remembered out of context. My main goal was to imply a “bromance” or homosexual relationship between the lead characters. (Originally I had intended to just build on an actual relationship from the film but there wasn't enough clips to pull it off smoothly enough.)

To help change the mood I added a new underlying soundtrack (Falling For You by Colbie Caillat) which was much more suited to a romance than an action film. The song is a love song and I chose it because it had a beat that had similar "lifts" to the original soundtrack, which made it easier to sync up with some of the clips. I chose to avoid sound effects as the ones in the movie were too harsh to fit my new theme and the available substitutes in iMovie were a bit too cheesy for my liking and didn't add anything to the video.

My aim was to change an action movie trailer into a romance movie trailer and I think reviewing the end result the trailer definitely doesn't feel like an action film any longer. The music and the clips help to mimic the feeling of a quirky but loving relationship full of adventures and albeit plenty of bickering. To me the trailer seems to have really changed thematically and despite the fact that most of the clips are from one or two trailers of the movie being portrayed as an action flick they can still convey the idea of a romantic comedy when you mix them up and change the music.

You can view the original trailer here:

Weekly Blog Assignment #4

http://princess-phoenix.deviantart.com/art/Gimp-Animation-Mini-Tutorial-130151649

I chose this tutorial because I am a complete amateur at animation. Aside from fooling around once or twice on an animation app my friend has, I have never animated before. While animating isn't my greatest interest I think it would still be something handy to know how to do at least a little bit.

The program in the tutorial is GIMP, where Photoshop is the main thing employers in digital technology fields are looking for GIMP is a completely free program available for online download and it is compatible with both Mac and PC computers. GIMP is similar to Photoshop in its elements and tools, making it a great way to learn the tools and skills even if Photoshop is unavailable to you.

This particular tutorial appealed to me because it had a lot more images than most of the tutorials I came across. I find that extremely helpful as I'm self-taught with computer and don't know a lot of the technical lingo, the images make it easier to understand what is being discussed.

After reading this tutorial I still don't completely grasp the idea but I think that if I were to get a chance to practice with it then the idea would be a lot better explained than if I were to just try and work it out for myself.

Tips and Tricks

Weekly Blog Assignment #2

For my second blog assignment I decided to do the DailyCreate challenge.
The challenge for that day (Oct.1) was to do a picture depicting a map of routes from one place to another. The to-and-from I chose was my house to the bus station that I catch the bus/streetcar from whenever I need to take public transit to school. On my map I showed the five different routes I take to get there. To differentiate between routes I used different coloured arrows.

EDIT: I finally got the picture to upload properly

The Daily Create

Weekly Blog Assignment #1

My artist inspiration for this week is: Lilyas of DeviantART http://lilyas.deviantart.com/
Her website is available here: http://www.lilyas.de/

I chose to select Lilyas as my artistic inspiration this week because her artwork was a separate style AND media than what I am usually interested in, and yet I still find most of the pieces to be really beautiful.

Lilyas is a graphic artist who specializes in photography, photo-manipulation, fractal art, vector art and wallpaper art. Lilyas is a senior member of deviant and is listed as being from southern Germany.

I find Lilyas’ work to be inspirational because it is very vibrant and eye-catching. Something about it draws my attention even though its not only not the style of art I usually do myself or a style I usually look at. All the works are very colourful and lively which is something I tend to lack in many of my pieces because I often stop at a sketch or outline stage. The pattern and  flow of the works is also really intriguing, most of her works would make lovely backgrounds for things. The photo-manipulation roses are my favourite part, they really bring out the beauty of nature through colour and clarity. Some of my favourite pieces of hers are http://lilyas.deviantart.com/art/Summer-Day-85865647 and  http://lilyas.deviantart.com/art/Luxury-89432405 . They’re my favourites because the first is very lively and the colours are marvellous whereas the second is really classy and regal.

Artistic Inspiration 

Sound Design Assignment

What I've Learned-Sound Design

I’ve always been interested in sound design even if I've never been apart of it before, because I love music and I feel like sound can make or break a performance so there were a few things I already knew about sound design. For starters as a graphic artist I’m used to working with layers, it makes sense to me that in the same way you can layer prints and colors to form an image that you could layer sound to form a cohesive soundtrack.
One thing I knew of but had never seen done in any detail was foley work. Of course there are an endless amount of sounds out there and to make a scene really come alive there are a lot of different elements needed to keep the scene from feeling staged.
Something really interesting in sound design I learned was that even for large scale movies, the sound editing team is usually pretty small and works for a long time rather than a large team over a short span. I find it really interesting that quality and unity rank as more important than efficiency or speed. I mean they should...but they dont usually.
'ADR' was something that I'd never really heard of before. I guess it's because I never really thought about it before but the fact that in real life something would be much harder to hear than it appears in movies just didnt come up...I guess it's just something you skim over as part of "movie magic", like how noone ever has to use the bathroom in movies. While ADR isn't exactly exciting, it is interesting to know how they deal with overly noisy sets when the dialogue needs to be clear.
I didnt realize how much work went into just the sound aspect of creating a movie, that was probably the biggest surprise.


Sound Indentifying Assignment (AnikanxObiWan Battle Scene)

Music underscore (present through entirety) [Music]
Anikan talking [Dialogue/Speech]
Wind [Sound effect]
ObiWan talking [Dialogue/Speech]
Belt click [Sound effect]
Button click [Sound effect]
Anikan talking [Dialogue/Speech]
Lightsaber on [Sound effect]
Lightsaber on [Sound effect]
Anikan grunt [Dialogue/Speech]
Lightsaber hit [Sound effect]
Anikan grunt [Dialogue/Speech]
Repetitive lightsaber hits [Sound effect]
Underlying footsteps [Sound effect]
ObiWan grunt [Dialogue/Speech]
More lightsaber hits [Sound effect]
Long lightsaber hits (sound is different) [Sound effect]
Hollow thump (Anikan kicks ObiWan in chest) [Sound effect]
ObiWan grunt [Dialogue/Speech]
Small thump (When ObiWan lands) [Sound effect]
Smack [Sound effect]
ObiWan grunt [Dialogue/Speech]
Hiss [Sound effect]
More/Louder hissing [Sound effect]
Grunting [Dialogue/Speech]
ObiWan gurgling “ahhhhhh” [Dialogue/Speech]
Thump [Sound effect]
Hissing [Sound effect]
Hollow thump (enough chest kicks, Anikan!) [Sound effect]
Big crackle [Sound effect]
Thump (ObiWan kicks back) [Sound effect]
Whack (Body hitting the ground) [Sound effect]
Vortex-y vacuum noise (ObiWan getting the lightsaber) [Sound effect]
Lightsaber on [Sound effect]
Lightsaber hit [Sound effect]
More saber hits [Sound effect]
Whir of wind [Sound effect]
Lightsaber hit-hold [Sound effect]
ObiWan grunting [Dialogue/Speech]
Whoosh (They both go flying) [Sound effect]
Smack [Sound effect]
Hollow step (mid-jump-run by Anikan) [Sound effect]
Lightsaber hit [Sound effect]
Weeee-weeee-woooo-weeebbbbbbeeeeeweeeebbb  computer-y noise beep-whir thing (when the computer thing turns on) [Sound effect]

New To Blogging

So this is my new blog, made for cyberARTs! Blogging is something I've never done before and it's certainly going to be a learning experience but I'm ready to give it a try!
Hopefully I'll only need this account to comment on my teachers blog because this is ridiculously over-complicated and unattractive...so much harder to use than tumblr...

~Roo