Tag: animation

CGI

Posted on by Big City

CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) in film has been used for decades in the film industry. It started getting to the point of realism in the early 2000s. From large space battles to generating an entire person – it can get a little bit crazy. CGI is a good thing in general. It can add on and enhance film a lot. Nowadays most films can have a large portion of the film completely computer generated. A lot of the films we see today follow that trend. Sometimes actors are only needed for an in-studio shoot for a couple of days, then the rest of the film will be completed on computers for the next couple of months.

 

Sometimes studio can over do CGI to the point where it is almost confusing to the viewers. CGI can sometimes take over 90% of the shot with the actor’s faces added onto a generated body. We’ve advanced a lot with how CGI looks and feels but its not always going to be perfect. Back then, lousy CGI was considered the norm as it was a brand new tool being used and hasn’t been mastered completely. Studios would often use a large amount of their budget on set design and costumes to help replicate what CGI cannot. A good example is The Lord of The Rings film series which were produced in the 2000s during the sprawl of CGI. A lot of the film was done in CGI with large amounts of detail and large scale environments. Although a large amount of the film series was done with CGI they still kept practical and smart ideas with them. For example, some characters in the film are supposed to be around 3 feet tall while the actors are above 5 feet. The directors and set co-ordinators made two separate sets and filmed each different actor in their corresponding set based on height. Once both sides were filmed, they were combined together into one shot. This is a good example of how filmmakers can still use practical and creative ideas to enhance the film without using too many effects.

 

Sometimes little is a lot and thats what some films excel in with the usage of CGI. A one on one conversation sometimes doesn’t need a lot of visual effects to make it a spectacular shot. Although recent films have made that statement a little less true. ———- Some films do not follow that suit, they may have a focused shot on a conversation with too many background events happening. Visually the eye can focus only on so much, having all these background details can be disorientating for viewers and can leave a negative impact on the mind. Simplicity can sometimes be better for the eyes. A gunfight with multiple explosions and things swinging by might be too disorientating. This can be great for post-editing as it allows the team to focus on key details than leaving some out. An example of simple filmmaking in action movies is the John Wick series. In the films, most of the action scenes were recorded with one camera in a smooth and slow pan effect. The video below shows the difference in filmmaking between two action movies.

 

 

Stop Motion Animation

Posted on by Carlos Jochico

First of all, what is stop motion?

Stop motion is another way of creating film, but instead you’re using a bunch of photos of and playing them at a high speed to give the illusion that it’s moving.

For example: the movie ‘Wallace and Gromit The Curse of The Were Rabbit’, the characters were made out of clay. Which is called claymation (clay animation) How it works, is they use clay to sculpt their subject like Wallace, then place him into a set. Then they take a picture of him, and depending on what they want him to do, they slightly move a part of him then proceed to take another picture. After multiple pictures later, it’ll look like that the character is moving on it’s own. Clay isn’t the only way to create stop motion films, other people use Legos as well. The main idea of stop motion is just to create the effect that an inanimate object can move on it’s own.

stop motion, behind the scenes stop motion, behind the scenes

When creating your own stop motion, you’ll need a few things. First a camera, it doesn’t matter what kind of camera, as long as you can import it’s images into your computer. Which is for post production (editing). You’ll also need lighting, preferably indoor lighting. If you use outdoor lighting (the sun) then the stop motion will look funny. Why? well because stop motion takes time, and as you may be shooting outside, the sun might be blocked by clouds and affect your scene. Another thing that is very crucial for stop motion animation, is a tripod. Having a tripod is the most important thing in creating stop motion. You can still do it without a tripod, but your creation will look very shaky. Once you have these, all you need now is your subject.

Stop motion isn’t always necessarily about making inanimate objects come to life, you can also achieve cool effects with just a person. For example: have a friend jump in place, and while mid-air take a photo, have him/her repeat this and after every jump, have them move up one step. If done correctly, it will look like your friend is flying in the air.