VS the World

Other than getting films that try to achieve real life like VFX, I wanted to mention how much I loved Scott Pilgrim VS the World.
As an adaptation of the comic by Bryan Lee O'Malley, Scott Pilgrim became straight away one of my favorite films for integrating all the silliness of a comic and yet making it look EPIC!.

Double negative was the studio behind this, and from making things like Skyfall, a project that has invisible VFX, Scott Pilgrim is a project that had to have this effects purposely visible.
It integrates videogame like effects that are actually acting in integration with the story.

This video is one of the fight scenes that has everything you can ask for: Music, particle monsters, waves, irony and action. Love it ♥
Check their website for more information.

TEAM WORK!

Preparing for filming was not an idea that was inspiring me; I could see everything being messy, lack of organisation and it taking hours to actually get to started on the filming.
I was surprised to see everyone participating and how things went faster than expected; people actually took responsibilities and stook to them making it quite handy.
I volunteered to be an extra, but I tried to help as much as I could in other stuff.

Later on it came helpful when a smaller group of us had to set the green screen, lights and cameras for the personal filming session. It requires a lot of work and planning; later on you regret not setting things properly when keying out.
I usually have bad experiences working with large groups of people where only a couple actually get the stuff done, but I'm glad this was an exception.

 The actual stars of everything!

Back from a long summer...

When I try to think about my summer all that comes to my mind is work, work and more work (but at the restaurant, so it was boring).
Never the less, there where a few highlights on it.
Just at the beginning of it I had the chance to go to the closing gala film of the 66th Edinburgh International Film Festival where I watch the European premier of the newest film from Disney Pixar: Brave.
Not going to lie, not only Edinburgh was beautiful and full of life and events, but the film was absolutely fantastic! A master piece in my opinion. Also, having the opportunity of shake hands with Brenda Chapman, Robbie Coltrane and Kelly MacDonald was just added extra token to it.

After my disappointment when I found out that my skydiving session was moved to the 21st of October, I decided to get creative and started a commission challenge with Sophie, Ryan, Sarah and Lija in which it gave me the chance to practice a bit in some aspects that I find myself lazy to doing on my own.
Created this character, made an expression sheet and started a modelling on 3D on Zbrush (this last one didn't go as well as the rest).
Also I made a background concept, and even though I failed at putting colour, the outcome thought me a lot that will be useful for future projects that require any sort of structural background. This one in particular ended up being too technical, but it only reflects my influence from architecture in which every detail is important. I'd love to try something more lose and sketchy for future projects; something that gets a traditional media feeling.

The last highlight of my summer was to join and attend to the first meeting of All Animated, a new network for animation up north. It was a good opportunity to gather around people who do animation on a professional level, to see where my work stands, to hear some news in the industry, make connections and at the end, to grow some balls and show my work to other people.
It was a good starting point and I believe I will continue to attend to them. Hopefully in the future I manage to get more contacts and possibles collaborations with people in the industry, and also an extra place to show up my uni work and get some feedback from a third party.

Making of Two Worlds

Even thought I believe video games and animation is more of my focus, I still find amazing and extremely interesting to look at some of the good visual effects  that companies like Digital Domain do.
This company is basically one of my favourites in the field, and the portfolio they have is incredibly huge and with the highest standard.

Together with Sony, they made this advert called 'Two Worlds' as part of the promotion for the 3D products. Using the slogan "Don't just watch. Feel" I think that the producers had a really accurate vision of the final product.
The video below show's the process or making of Two worlds, and it's always fascinating to get to see all the people involved and the range of disciplines that have to work together to achieve such unique standards.

Instructional Video

The first part of the module for Digital Film Production we had the assignment of making an instructional video that lasted about 1 min and could be about ANYTHING. While working in a Mexican restaurant for over a year in the UK I've seen so many atrocities on the way people eat mexican street food, so I decided to make a video of it.

The planing was easy: ask my friends from home to describe me their process of eating a taco.

I got load of great ideas, some of them might sound funny or even silly, but I've done them all in more than one occation. 

I always knew mexican food was unique, but never thought that even the way of eating had it's own tradition. 

For the storyboard part I thought I was doing well by showing the gesture that I wanted and having a balance in the sequences between the speaker and the food shots.
This is what I came out with:

While filming I realised many MANY things that I didn't took in consideration:
- timings for each shot and the speed on the speech
- lighting (started filming when the sun was going down, so some shots are brighter than the others)
- scenario (I knew I could use the restaurant but didn't really thought of where exactly)
- audio (it was hard to capture the voice due to loads of noise in the kitchen)
In general, I honestly think I underestimate the planning process behind any project. Lesson learned!
Thankfully, my friend was really kind to help me out and he helped a lot with his patience.
This is the final output of the video:

At the end, my boss absolutely loved it and decided to put it on the restaurant's website (lol) so it will be publicly shown soon at www.pinchepinche.com

Inspiration for 'Isolation'

Some of the inspiration that came to my mind when thinking of a concept for the animation was a to make it simple and monochromatic like the bit of the shadows on the corpse bride song (remains of the day, starts at 0:45... good song though).

Then also remembered the video that appear on the Harry potter and the deadly hollows called The Tale of the Three Brothers.
Even thought that one was made on 3D , the concept of having very strong profiles without colours or detailed expressions push the animator to use techniques more theatrical since all the emotions have to be expressed with the bodies of the characters.

Finally, and because of our lack of experience, I moved to something more easy to animate, but keeping the simplicity concept. That's when Gary mentioned the open sequence of 300 and if resembled of something more closer to what I thought we could achieve.

Again, my experience on animation on After Effects is almost nothing, but thanks to some tutorials online, help from friends and loads of trial-and-error practice I think I got the hang of at least basic stuff and getting really familiar with the interface. 

Weightless

Dance + Architecture + Awesome concept = THIS VIDEO!

This video that a friend of mine whose studying at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance showed me was simply beautiful.
Love the way they  played with the scenario and the whole concept. My favourite part of the scenario is the  'water on the wall'. Couldn't think of a better way to express the concept than 'moving the whole world' just to defy gravity.
Very well planned scenario. Simple yet beautiful.
Sure it helps to think outside the box and imagine different ways to come with a solution.
Also, it really enhanced my desire to get involve in more interdisciplinary project. Sure I'll ask my friend for a collaboration soon :)
Anyone interested?

Italian Vernacular Cinema

film is not the art of scholars, but for illiterates 

Around 1970´s, working class italian used to go to the cinema every night as part of their daily life. Being transform into a habit, it became more of a social space where the convention of watching a film was different and talking, drinking and smoking during the show was common. It was divided according to classes; Prima and seconda visione was always in mayor cities and the audience selected the film to watch, while the terza visione was more of an industrial and rural area and the audience had limited choices and would watch the same films for a while.

This is the time where auteurs like Federico Fellini started introducing his films full of style and sophistication such as La Dolce Vita (1960) and 8 ½  (1963).

Other auteurs from the time that shared their own points of view about modernity, set pieces and eye line shot where pioneers to the new genre called Giallo, a mystery/horror that had place between 1970 and 1975 with films like The bird with the crystal plumage by Dario Argento (1970), The girl who knew too much by Mario Brava (1963) and Death walks on high heels by Luciano Ercoli (1971).

Speaking of the essence of this films and what the auteurs where trying to express, some of the contemporary films that we can find with similar aspects could be Black Swan (2010), Death Proof (2007), Dressed to kill (1980) and Black Christmas (1974)