Media specificity...

Medium = material or technic means of artistic expression.
Media = plural of medium.

The communication media is the product of our sad inability to communicate directly from mind to mind (sad indeed).
On the Phaedrus Socrates said that 'the alphabet created forgetfulness', and in some aspects it does make sense since now a days we use technology as an extension of our memory.
Humans have developed tools to use as extensions of our existing faculties and it has expanded in every single direction. In retrospective we could say that animation started because of the need of filling and artistic part that film couldn't do at the moment in time, just like film started by the urge of photographers of taking still images to the next level. The whole idea of innovation it's only a way of humanity to keep exploring and evolving and exploring new boundaries of different fields.

'Animation is not the art of drawings that move, but rather the art ofmovements that are drawn', noting 'what happens between each frame is more important than what happens on each frame'                                                                  Solomon 1987

Because of this happening at an alarming speed, we can say that now a days it's really easy to find same products or brands that are using as many media as possible to expand their creative range and at the same time to get as much public as possible.
Medium specificity is the view that the media evaluates a work o f art, design, etc using the media in the best way possible and in order for a medium to have characteristic qualities it must be grounded in a tradition that has established these qualities as intrinsic properties.

"An artwork, in order to be successful, needs to adhere to the specific stylistic properties of its own medium"                           Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1776

World of Pokemon

This is my practical response to our transmedia project. I decided to go for Pokemon as my example since it's one of the biggest video games franchise (and because I still play the games).
For those who haven't play the game boy games, I suggest you do since I based this project on the intro of the original games.
Sorry about the million of spinning images, but I found myself in the middle of the project whit an overload of stuff to put on and not enough time.

A History of Type

Having a little bit of a graphic design background I found the lecture on typography very interesting (11th of January).
Quite enjoyed the history bit behind it since it now brings a good reference to the different types of classifications:

- Humanist: imitating human handwritten and easy to read.
- Old style: rationalisation of the fonts.
- Transitional: scientific and mathematical order of the font (18th century)
- Modern: high contrast and ordered.
- Slab-serif (Egyptian): gets attention.
- Sans serif: simple and just to communicate.

Typography in animation and games is usually used to give an introduction or a 'feeling' of what the actual piece is going to be about. The using of title sequences is become an incredible useful part of any type of animation, and even now some games are using it as a type of trailer.

Some good example I've seen for 2D animation are openings for japanese animations (anime) and some of the biggest studios in that industry actually put good effort on them, since you get to see them on the beginning of every episode, having sometimes as a result, an opening with much better quality than the rest of the series.

Tank is the theme song for the opening credits of Cowboy Bebop composed by Yoko Kono. It has a mix of jazz and electric music and the text that appears moves and jumps according to the bases, and it also carries with the execution of the rest of the visuals.
Uses a basic palet of colours and it gives you a good introduction of the main characters focusing on the good design of the silhouettes.

Coraline is another good example of a good opening title sequence, because it not only gives you an idea with the font that it is a creepy type of story, but it actually set up some premises that are art of the story later on.
As a stop motion animation based on craft doll making, bottoms and thread are part of the titles and typography.

“Be careful what you wish for.”

With a descending doll all expectation is set aside at the start of author Neil Gaiman and director Henry Selick’s Coraline. Her punch-and-cut deconstruction is distressing; at her inversion you may feel a gastric tug. You may also dream of submissive needlepoint only to awake with new eyes.

To paraphrase the film’s series of alphabet posters, “‘C’ is for Coraline – brave little girl. Who unlocks the door to a whole different world.”

An evaluation?

         Evaluation: ends in what to do to improve. Assessing the strengths and weakness of programs, products or people to improve the performance. 

An evaluation will always involves asking questions and answering not just in a way to sound clever, but instead to make an analysis, reflect the capacity and judging the evidence.
The purposes of this comparison making, landmark talking and measures is whit the whole purpose to make a change, to do something, to act.

Keeping in mind this points will certainly help myself to constantly improve my projects, but I just hope that while measuring my abilities with profesionals I dont get stuck in the comparison that could bring my hopes down. Also this is constructive way to give and revive feedback.

Longway North

Sasha, a young Russian aristocratic girl at the end of the 19th century, dreams of the Great North and languishes over Oloukine, her grandfather, a renowned scientist and Arctic explorer, who has not returned  from his last expedition to conquer the North Pole.
He transmitted his vocation to Sasha which is far from satisfying her parents as they have already arranged for their daughter to marry.
She revolts against this destiny, glees and is resolved to going to join Oloukine a long way north. 

Video made by Sacrebleu Productions, a studio that started on 1999 in Paris, France.
My knowledge of french is almost none, so it's hard for me to understand their website, but something I did understand is that this animated film was presented to the Cartoon Movie festival in Lyon 7- 9 of march 2012.

Jabberwocky - Game Cinematic

This was a game cinematic for the game Jabberwocky by Blur Studio. I found it by coincidence when I was looking for the famous Lewis Carroll's poem that appeared on trhough the Looking-Glass, and what Alice found there  (turns out the game was relate to it).

The animation seems stylised in a cartoonish way, and the colours are my main inspiration for my game scene.
I tend to find non realistic, but well made styles like this one really attractive since it gives you the freedom to be more creative in a fantasy world.

The design was made by Todd Harris and the animation supervisor, layout artist and animator for some scenes, Leo Santos. Unfortunately his is an unreleased game, which is a shame because I could see a lot of potential with this quality of work.

L'Odyssée de Cartier

L'Odyssée de Cartier is the new Cartier film (advert ) which takes you to a journey between dreams and reality. This is the very first time that Cartier has decided to create a cinema epic focusing on its history, its values and inspiration, its artistic and universal scope.

It was directed by Bruno Aveillan, and certainly it's a fascinating piece of film.  It effectively transmits the elegance and design that the company always focus on.

Kara

I found this video of a concept that Quantic Dream Studio (creators of Heavy Rain)  made just to test the idea, but it's not currently a developing project.
It's really sad, because the mechanics that they used where made on a really good quality basis for any PS3 game. The graphics and sound are stonishin astonishing, but it's the plot that really captivate me. In such a short clip you get a really good gesture of the hard work on emotion that this studio has, just like I appreciate in the few hours that I played from Heavy Rain.

Do I have power

Do I Have Power (2011) from Carlos De Carvalho on Vimeo.

Found this stunnin music video made for the Timber Timber song 'Do I Have Power' that was created by Carlos de Carvalho.
I wish I had found it when I was working on the 2d animation 'Isolation', but now that I'm doing some 3d this kind of work gives me ideas for other kind of twist I can give to CG styles. This also reminds me of the importance of keeping a constant art style and the possibilities that can occur when you explore and mix some tools and medias.

Check Carlos' website to see more of his work.

Wicked Animatic

Defying Gravity Storyboards from Heidi Jo Gilbert on Vimeo.

This is an animatic I found from Heidi Jo Gilbert, a CalArts artist. In it is a possible representation if the play Wicked was transformed into an animation. The concept is awesome and obviously the songs are fantastic.
I found it interesting because it gave me a good idea of what actual professionals take as storyboarding and animatics and it helps me to race my standards on my own work.
(I did not download this song for my ipod after this... ) 

Some ideas

At the moment I've done some ideas for the scene of my game. continuing with the Mayan idea, I came up with this concepts:
At first, you arrive to an altar with a massive feathered serpent that's dripping water from its mouth. Around it, there will be walls fallen pillars with inscriptions and decorations.

Once you step into the main part of the altar, a secret realm will activate and everything will change. The idea is somehow similar to Zelda's twilight realm or silent realm, where everything is basically the same but the textures will be changed and the snake will be alive. 

It took me a while to decide to make it indoors or outdoors, but at the end I came up with the idea of placing the altar into a secret location, somewhere that makes a special conecction between the character that is the only one to find it and the spirit of the serpent-god. So everything will be based in a Cenote (like an underground lake) where the character is going to fall into.

I'm still working in more ideas, specially cus I'm planning to spend most of my polygon count on modeling a decent snake, so if anyone has any ideas for a cool snake-god-type then I would appreciate it. 

José Alves de Silva

Jose Alves da Silva is a Portuguese 3d artist that has had loads of appearences in magazines like 3dtotal and 3dcreative.
Appart form loving his over stylised way of working, I found very interesting to find a some images of the same final product, but in the different phases of it's making. Like the one below, you can see the turn around of the character on actual clay, a final 3d model and the final product with textures and post production. Also de fact that he started his current 3d passion by doing a degree of architecture kind of game me a little bit of hope of being someone in the industry.
Check out his website and portafolio:

http://www.artofjose.com/
http://josealvessilva.daportfolio.com