Blog Research BSA206

German Expressionism

After world war one:

Germany, new democratic system known unofficially as Weimar republic

Expressionism was a broad artistic movement

Opposite of impressionism

Using artificial set design, elaborate and unnatural

Bold contrasts (film noir)

Distorted and exaggerated settings

Protagonists experience extreme psychological states

The Cabinet of Dr. Galigari (1920)

Story of fantasy and horror told by a mad man

Sharply angled, one of the most famous expressionist films

Became evident in psychological dramas and horrors

First Vampire Film

Nosferatu, A symphony of Horror (1922)

Low camera, makeup, costume create eerie mis-en-scene

Metropolis

Fritz Lang

Most influential science fiction movies of all time

Vast sets, extras and special effects

Almost bankrupt UFA film company

Influenced, Blade runner (1982), Tim Burton’s Batman 

Faust (1926)

Faust is a German Expressionist film from the late 20's, it uses a combination of stark contrasts and bold stage makeup to stand out against western film conventions of its time. Film genres most influenced by German expressionist film are psychological dramas, horrors and thrillers. 

The Crow (1994)

Director Alex Proyas

The Crow is a contemporary film influenced by German expressionist films. Alex Proyas had a very similar style to Tim Burton, with links being drawn to Batman, Edward Scissor hands and Sweeney Todd through Brandon Lee's character in The Crow.

The Dark City, another Alex Proyas film

Citations:

Images from:

Faust

The Crow

The Dark City

Information:

Alex Proyas

Hans Kyser

2D Animatic

my 2D animatic for this years 3D animation, sounds included but not finalized yet

Maya Tutorial Boiler Room

Adding Textures using Photoshop

-Right click -> Material Attributes

alt. use Hypershade

Create PSD Network to use Photoshop:

Make sure rendering view is selected

Texturing -> Create PSD Network 

Node view in hyper shade:

This displays both the colour and bump layer which gives the floor its texture

 Final Views:

BSA225 Storyboards

                                                             

BSA225 Treatment

Title: Zoic

By Madilyn Davidson

Logline:  A lonely cave boy discovers his world is a lot smaller then it seems.

Zoic is the story about a young cave boy named Oogie who wakes up one day and emerges from his cave into stark daylight. The sun in the distance is high and bright, Oogie is curious and decides to head towards the sun, he starts off down the slope on his small but meaningful adventure.

Oogie comes across a creek with water gushing through, he jumps from rock to rock and makes it across the creek safely, the boy continues merrily on his journey, following the path of the creek towards the big bright sun.

As Oogie pushes aside the large leaves covering his path he is stopped suddenly by a mysterious force barring his way. Puzzled, the small boy raises his hand to feel the cool hard surface in front of him. Oogie’s world rotates to reveal on the other side of the glass an identical hand. The hand belongs to a small boy who is looking in at Oogie through the window of a museum exhibit.

BDM 206 Soviet Montage

Sergei Eisenstein

Five different types of Montages

- Metric
- Rythmic
-Tonal
-Over tonal
- Intellectual

Movie Examples

Strike (1925)
The Battleship Potemkin (1925)

"Eisenstein believed that film montage could create ideas or have an impact beyond the individual images"
- Retrieved from: Montage Theory

Eisenstein's use of montages allowed him to show the audience a progression of time. The Odessa Steps scene in 'The Battleship Potemkin" is a good example of this as Eisenstein is able to stretch an event that in reality would have taken a few seconds into an eight minute long sequence that depicts the confusion and horror experienced by the characters during the massacre. His in-continuous cuts accurately portray  the mess and disarray on screen.

  
  

Dziga Vertov

A Newsreel cameraman invented the terminology Kino Eye (Film Eye)
Dziga strived to create a unique cinema free of theatrical performance. In doing so he created the movie "Man with the movie camera" (1929) which depicted everyday life, with the use of montages to show a monotonous laborer working everyday to produce a product.
Dziga was greatly influenced by Eisenstein and Kuleshov who took the first step into film editing.

Vsevolod Pudovkin 


Vsevolod firmly believed that it is not the actors that creates the emotional connection with his audience, but rather the context that he puts these actors into onscreen. He also was influenced greatly by Kuleshov and his original stance on montages, where the images before and after affect the way we as an audience read the actors emotions. Pudovkin believed that the "lens of the camera replaces the eye of the observer". Pudovkin's 5 editing techniques are: contrast, parallelism, symbolism, simultaneity, and leit motif, he influenced directors and filmmakers well into the 20th century Hollywood era. Hitchcock himself has been heard to explain his theories as a very important part of the cinematic process.

Citations:

Johnson, G. (2003). MDIA-ENG 451, Hitchcock. Retrieved from: http://faculty.cua.edu/johnsong/hitchcock/index.html

Richards, E. (October, 2013). Pudovkin's Montage: 5 editing techniques that speak louder than words. Retrieved from: http://nofilmschool.com/2013/10/pudovkin-montage-5-editing-techniques

Maya Tutorial, Plane

Today we modeled a 3D plane in Maya, i came across a few issues while modelling the plane, however, didn't manage to get any snaps of it, the issues I came across were multiple faces on one object, causing the plane to render out badly. Also I made the mistake of deleting edges in my model which caused floating vertices, these caused an issue the resulted in me having to redo the tail end of the plane.