The 'Auteur'

With an origin in the 1920's, but flourishing 1960 - 65 in where film directors started adding an individual style and taking complete control over all elements of their film production.
Having this creative control added a unique stamp and made this period in time an iconic season for the film industry.
Authors like Hitchcock manage to control the audience emotions (either european and american) by creating a surrealism, suspense and expressionism defined his style and made films like Psyco (1960), Vertigo (1958) and The Lodger (1927).

Now a days I find the director and producer Guillermo del Toro an inspiring and with some similar aspects that make films in which he has been involve iconic to mainstream audience; and also the fact that he's a world wide renowned director that comes from my city (Guadalajara, Mexico) makes it even more appealing to me. He worked on the Hellboy saga, Pan's Labyrinth and the coming The Hobbit, nothing more iconic than that (there is...but can't think of another mexican one) 

+ Legacy in the sky +

Having the releases of games as renamed as skyrim or assassin's creed: Revelations makes other games not to look as attractive, specially when they lack of publicity.
I got really excited to get my special edition of The legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword specially for being a big fan of the series.

After playing it for several hours you realised how impressive this game is.  Knowing the graphic limitations of the Wii platform, the nintendo crew in charge of the develop clearly aimed to something not too ambitious for the system making a merge graphic style between the cartoonish wind waker and and the obscure twilight princess. The whole game and the cinematics creates a really colourful story telling experience that doesn't even include voice dialogs.

The gameplay is increased thanks to the motion control and now the enemies react to your decisions, making them more complicated and taking it off the just pressing A button battle system.

The maps are constantly challenging being transforming it into a really refresh approach to the series.
Knowing that not only is me (and Sarah) who think is an awesome game, but also it was qualified by IGN as 10/10 Masterpiece makes it even a better game.

Graphics don't make a game, so this is an invitation to all the sceptical to try the game and erase the idea of nintendo being repetitive and childish.

Wii Games - E3 2012 - The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Stop Action

Stop motion is one of the topics that has always been attractive to me, although I've always been really scared to try it because of the amount of dedication it requires to make decent pieces of animation.
Films like Nightmare before Christmas and the Corpse Bride from Tim Burton or Coraline by Henry Selick are some of the proves that animations out of the range of 2D and 3D animation are just as strong and beautiful.

A quick gif showing the process in animating Coraline.

The kind of skills the artist have to have for this animations is what makes it more appealing, since computers is in most cases are only used for editing, but the rest of the works has to be handmade. 

The videos below show some adverbs directed by Jamie Caliri and the artist behind it made every single part in paper: 

Heart 

United Airlines, Dragon 

It is a beautiful way to appreciate the traditional art that teams like this ones produce, because it's impressive how  they don't seem limited by the lack of infinite canvas and the idea of not being able to correct mistakes as easy as a digital artist can.

I'd like to try this sort of animation one day, but I assume that finding an appropriate team to work with most be the most difficult part since there doesn't seem to be many groups that focus on this way of animation.

Zombie lad

I found this animation on my Tumblr dashboard and thought I might share it here.
I like the concept and the whole idea seems original.
The expressions of the characters are very well achieved and it reminded me of my old times watching shows like Ren & Stimpy where the characters contained expressions more grotesque and obscure that probably puts the animation/cartoon outside the range of kids allowed programs.
I'd like to have a zombie myself ♥

My Bloody Lad - Dead Walter - WIZZprod° from WIZZprod° on Vimeo.

This is the concept art for the zombie :)

Street Art ~ Graffiti!

graffiti: : usu. unauthorized writing or drawing on a public surface

That's the definition of the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and several other dictionaries refer to the definition with synonyms of vandalism. 

Even though it could be considered to have its origin on cave's walls from the Paleolithic like the oldest one discovered in 1940 at Lascaux in France where there where starches made with animal bones and other natural paints. After that there are some other forms in Ancient Rome (Pompeii) and could be because of that the word itself comes from the word graffiato ("scratched") in italian.
Obviously the biggest wave of graffiti expresion started in the 1970's in New York having as a main feature the spay can graffiti that evolved along side the hip hop culture.

It was a way of announcing a presence, either a group or personal, but it was always a way to say 'we will not be ignored'. This was ended up making the language of the streets visible to other social groups.

From what I can relate to graffiti involved into my field, the first thing that comes to my mind is the video game Jet Set Radio for Dream Cast published by Sega, which is a game that describes the basics of life in Tokyo for a "rudie", a term used to refer to young people who roam the streets spraying and skating, as a means of self expression. The game was fantastic, but now that I think back, you where always being chased by a police officer and some other gangs... but the game play and the massive scenarios where fantastic! Also it had a unique artwork and an catchy soundtrack.

 

Also, there is this film-documentary called 'Exit Through the Gift Shop', filmed by the frenchman Thierry Guetta and featuring artist like Banksy, Shephard Fairey, Invader and many other of the world's most infamous graffiti artists at work. In here you can see the way that many contemporary street artist work, but most important, what they think and the reasons that pushes them to do what they do.

Despite the style and manifestation of graffiti, there are many artist that manage to express the main message through their work, but there's always the counter part of vandalism. It might be worth less making a piece of art while invading some else's property.

There are plenty ways in which now a days graffiti artists manage to express themselves without having to damage or concur to illegal procedures, like one of my favourite artist David Walker, who 'paints' on abandon vans and always creates beautiful pieces like the one underneath: 

Postmodernism ...

12th Oct 2011

It was a long time ago, but on that lecture/seminar we discussed about Postmodernism.

As a contrast of what modernism represents, the exhaustion, feeling of pluralism, the pessimism in society and the disillusionment with the idea of absolute knowledge were the main subjects in a postmodern mind.

Having its origin in the early 1917 with the german writer Rudolph Pannwitz when he made a reference of the "an-normal, post modern man".

From there, the term of 'postmodern' was used to represent the after modernity, contra modernism, 'late capitalism', artistic and stylistic eclecticism or the 'global village' idea of Globalisation.

After the end of Modernism (15 of July at 3:32pm, to be more precise, when the Demolition of the Pruitt-Igoe project took place - according to Charles Jencks), people started to develop an attitude as a reaction to modernism rules, and basically ended up having the no rules as the only rule (paradoxical...)

At some point it was celebrating what might otherwise be termed as Kitch and it also became against totalising the belief systems (metanarratives) such as religion as people developed a condition of incredulity.

Image of the fifth element showing the 'speed' of society and the unadaptable character to the environment.

As for art, the aesthetics became chaotic, and the complexity increased along with the mixing of materials and styles. Pin-up style and the re-using images as part of a parody became a common way of artistic expression.

This relationship between the city landscape and the artist was reflected in a crisis in confidence but that at the same time started to evoke ideas of freedom, of new possibilities and more important, to question old limitations.

Even though it's is a very vague term, it's clear that it caused a multiplicity of styles and approaches that still have effect in the aesthetics from now a days. Examples of it can be found in some animations like Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo (1988) or the film 'the 5th element' by Luc Besson (1997) where even when they express futuristic ideas, they keep having that idea of a Dystopian society where the image of police states or cities where technology has progressed far more rapidly than humanity's spiritual evolution and the government (or control source) has unlimited power over the citizens.

Notes!:

 

“Corporate Cannibal" - a frightening pulse

"... I'm a man-eating machine

you won't hear me laughing, as I terminate your day

you can't trace my footsteps, as I walk the other way..."

Those are parts of the lyrics coming out of a stretching, sinister silhouette that kept shifting from on an empty background.

As I was looking at the video from Grace Jones called "Corporate Cannibal" on the first seminar we had of Context of Practice all that came across my mind was "disturbing". That must have been because I had no clue what to expect and didn't had any knowledge of what context or purpose that video was made.

After analysing and watching it several times, it was still a bit disturbing, but paying attention to the lyrics you realize that this music video was not only made with the purpose to promote an artist; but it was a way to express a feeling, of at that time was starting to experience the feeling of globalization. It seems like a simple video at first sight; a white background and a woman being deformed by a computer effect, but once you analyise it, all those aspects seem to go a bit further and things start to make sense.

The woman is a human representation of 'technology' it self. As technology is based on an electric and algorithmic plane, the background takes a place an blank or empty space, yet infinite, where the contrast with the woman being black (and not as in a racial aspect) gives a bigger impact to the image creating a minimalist effect.

" my rules, you fools"

By doing the distortion of her body the whole body and most of the time in a vertical way, it gives an effect of constant movement and instability which is a particular characteristic of electricity; as if she was a modulating signal.

At some point, getting lost in the lyrics, it made you feel like you have no scape to the 'prophecy' she's singing; a no way back no matter what.

The sinister way of singing and the multiple expressions she performs during the video are apparently part of the tendency Grace Jones has; although most of the times she sings in some kind of feminist wave. This time she has mixed an aggressive style of fashion and a genuine concern among many contemporary sociologists and that is the near future effect of globalization in a network society.

This could be a perfect example of how there's no need to represent a song's lyrics in a literal and cinematic way, and instead making it a call for the mass to realize how corporations have no limit in their greediness.

"... I'll consume my consumers, with no sense of humour

I'll give you a uniform, chloroform

sanatize, homogenize, vaporize...you..."