Archive for July, 2007

Five Things To Remember If You Are a Character in Transformers:The Movie

Saturday, July 7th, 2007

imthekingoftheworld.jpg

  1. If you are a robot of African-American decent, make sure everyone can tell by giving yourself a name with cultural connotations like Jazz. For added clarity make sure you talk “street” and throw in a few breakdancing moves. WARNING!! Once you have revealed your heritage, it is now certain you will be killed later in the film.
  2. If you see an object the size and mass of a skyscraper collapse in on itself like a brown dwarf, do not be alarmed. The resulting object (about the size of a shoebox) will magically shed 99.999976% of its mass. This will allow you to carry it under your arm heisman trophy style while you jump from rooftop to rooftop.
  3. If you want to be a computer “Hacker” make sure you stare at the screen blankly and rapidly type random characters on your keyboard. This will allow you enter any computer system no matter how advanced. TIP! It also makes you more intellegent if you are extremely dorky and have a very hot female friend. This is ofter referred to as the “Inverse Law of Attractiveness” or “Bay’s Paradox”.
  4. If you are an pretty young lady hankering for a stroll through downtown Los Angeles, you should dress for the occasion. Preferably in a lowcut sun dress, one like you might wear at the beach. If you happen to come across several large alien robots fighting for the fate of the human race, make your move to the middle of the street and sit relatively motionless on a pile of rubble. That way a robot can step over you in slow motion while you look up aghast.
  5. If you need to start a vehicle that you don’t have the keys for in order to save the future of the planet Earth, DON’T PANIC. Just follow these simple instructions. First, make sure that your father is a car thief, you will need to power of irony for this to work. The rest is easy. Break the driver’s side window with your elbow, then reach inside and open the door. You will see two dangling wires, one red, one blue. They will be pre-exposed for your convenience. Last but not least, touch the wires together. After a bright blue spark the vehicle will start right up!
Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • Technorati
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • N4G
  • Tumblr

Ratatouille Synesthesia Sequences by Michel Gagné

Friday, July 6th, 2007

Ratatouille Synesthesia

OK, so a big summer animated blockbuster doesn’t really fall into “hack” territory I’ll admit. But, as a fan of the fantastic graphic novel series Flight, I was freaking out at Gagné’s super detailed explanation of how he visualized taste for Brad Bird’s instant classic. All the animations started out hand drawn and then were scanned and comped using a combination of Animo and Photoshop. Michel’s website includes a ton of great media including the soundtrack he used for inspiration and the full frame abstract animations without the CG rat on top.

LINK to Michel Gagné’s web site

and if you haven’t checked out Flight do your eyeballs a favor

LINK to the Flight Blog

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • Technorati
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • N4G
  • Tumblr

Sprint Comercial Uses Pixelation/Flashlights

Tuesday, July 3rd, 2007

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW_9SYaWAQg[/youtube]

I got the inside dope on this spot from a friend of mine that ran the prop department. There were a couple of these spots shot in the wee hours at MacArthur Park here in Los Angeles all directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Feris (of Little Miss Sunshine Fame). All of the VFX are in-camera and created by a team of animators using a variety of gelled flashlights shot with extra long exposures. My buddy sez that for some of the more complicated scenes (the flowers bloomming for instance) the prop dept. created wire armatures of the final shapes so that the light painters could trace over them without losing their place. However it was done, the end effect is pretty cool.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • Technorati
  • Google Bookmarks
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • N4G
  • Tumblr