Analysis on Sam Bisbee's - "You Are Here" [IDD 301]

I decided to take a look at Sam Bisbee's music video for "You Are Here." This video is quite different from the other videos and animations I have been analyzing. This video looks like it wasn't necessarily made in Macromedia's Flash. It could have been made in any number of animation programs.

The video incorporates a couple different techniques in it. The majority of the video is a 'frame by frame' animation. They use this technique in a very interesting way. A series of several photographs are placed on top of each other to create motion within the photographs. The video also has full motion video as transitions. One of the transitions a hand comes into view and grabs all of the photographs and takes them off of the table so more photographs can be stacked again.

The frame rate of the 'frame by frame' photograph sequences are also in sequence with the beat of the music. This helped tie the two together.

The technique with the photographs was incorporated well into the video, however, I think that if this were any longer it would have soon lost my interest. The different transitions different camera angles within the photographs kept my interest. Without the variation the technique would lose its effect quickly. The director managed to keep a descent balance of everything throughout the video.

Interact here [IDD 250]

Interaction is all around us. You could say I'm interacting with you (the reader) right now. Of course, you think to yourself, "Yeah right." So just click here. Or here. Or here. Now I have you interacting with my blog and you can choose which 'here' you would like to click.

Analysis of Hitch Hiker Part 2 [IDD 301]

First off, I'd like to complain about how long it took me to do this due to the simple fact I spent 70% of my time waiting for each page and Flash video to load because the network here at Quinnipiac University is the equivalent to my old 33.6kb Dial-up Modem at the moment. I'd go as far as saying its the equivalent of an old 14.4kb dial-up modem, but its not that bad. For those of you on campus, you will understand what I mean. If not, I'm sure you remember our previous class waiting desperately for each video to load. With that said, I can go on to do what I'm supposed to.

For this week I chose the Flash Forward Film Festival NYC 2003 winner from the Cartoon category, Hitch Hiker Part 2. It is a two part series and I'm only going to talk about the second part.

It starts off with a young boy and older man with lots of hair and beard who looks like a typical scary hitch hiker. He states that his motorcycle is broken and that they have a better chance of getting a lift if they stick together. The hitch hiker has a unique way of attempting to get a vehicle to stop for them. The technique unsuccessfully uses through the film is to run out into the middle of the road, yelling and screaming with his arms in the air. When they are unsuccessful they keep on walking.

Every so often the boy has a vision of the hitch hiker hurting him in some way. His first vision involves the hitch hiker grabbing his face with his hand. The next one comes after they setup camp for the night and the hitch hiker puts his knife out. The boy dreams about the hitch hiker coming over and stabbing him to death in the middle of the night. The boy who is very scared packs his things and gets ready to leave.

As he is packing his things the hitch hiker wakes up. After he wakes up the boy starts running down the road in fear. The hitch hiker grabs his knife and starts running after him. When the hitch hiker finally gets to him and grabs him, the hitch hiker has a concerned look on his face and asks him who or what was there to scare him away. This is where the film ends. It seems that the hitch hiker is just trying to look out for the boy's safety.

This film is a little more complex and uses some techniques that I don't fully understand yet but plan to as the course progresses. One of the first things I noticed is the use of 3D vehicles and camera shots. To do some of these shots by hand would take a long time. Fortunately, there are a few links on the page that tell what the author used to create the 3D camera shots and animation. The author also has a link to the 3D models of the vehicles he uses. The use of the Swift 3D plug-in for Flash that the author uses greatly helps in the 3D techniques in this film.

Within this film contains a lot of one-point perspective shots. Each of these shots represent the time of day and the loneliness of the open road. The shots always have the two walking off into the distance or walking towards you from afar.

The colors in this film are very representative of the time of day (or night). Another interesting color trait I noticed was the color of the boy's eyes. The eyes were all green. Does this color suggest fear? Or perhaps the boy's insecurity?

These are just a handful of the things I noticed compared to the simpler animations I have previously talked about and are on a completely different skill level as far as the animation process is considered.

Narrative what? [IDD 250]

Narrative? Narrator? Interactive Narrative? What is a narrative? Well I take a stab at explaining what it is and where they can be found. Here is a simple web page describing it.

Analysis of 'Whoop Demo' [IDD 301]

For my second analysis I chose the "Whoop Beverage" animation because it is relative in length to the animation we have to create.

The story of the short starts off with a young boy guzzling a can of this special soda. When he finishes the soda something happens in his eyes and he jumps up and starts to glow. After he glows he is able to fly and has super powers. Next the animation cuts to a monster destroying a city and the young boy flies in to beat the monster. With a swing of his fist he destroys the monster. Then the word "WHOOP" appears across the screen as he hits the monster.

The sound track is just a few continuous loops. There are also a few simple sound effects for the few major actions such as the punch and the transformation to the super status.

In the beginning the animation pans up along a static image with the head shaking to give the impression of swallowing the soda and short continuous loop of the soda pouring out of the can. The arm then swings all the way down and disappears off screen to show that the boy is done with the can of soda.

The camera then zooms on his eye and then probably the eye changes color and rings orbit around the eye until it has finished its color change. The eye then blinks and cuts to him jumping up in the air.

To achieve the effect of jumping the camera pans out from the boy and the background has lines that spin around the center. The silhouette of the boy changes to a complete yellow with a white outline. The silhouette is then squished or transformed into a narrow shape and pulled off screen very quickly. While the boy is flying he starts in the lower left hand of the screen and his legs are now a yellow beam of energy there are action lines continuously moving to show that he is flying very fast.

The next scene shows a monster terrorizing a city. The monster's body is static and his arms move up and down and the monster's lower lip is moving up and down to show that he is growling. To show the boy flying in there is a motion trail left behind from the energy beam.

Next he comes face to face with the monster and the boy is floating in the air. When the boy is floating in the air he is a static image and is rotating slightly back and forth. The monster's only movement is his eye that blinks. As he swings for the punch there is one image to show the wind up and then another to show the swing, followed by the word "WHOOP." Each of the letters shake and then disappear. That ends the animation short.

Interested in 3D Animation?

I'm sure that this information is given out while taking the 3D animation course, but I figured that some of you are probably intersted in 3D animation now, and if you can find any spare time I'm sure you would want to check this out. Alias provides the Maya Personal Learning Edition for free. So if you want a head start on that class, I'd recommend taking a look at that.

If you are geared more towards open-source software there is also a descent alternative that I heard is similar to 3D Studio Max. It is called Blender 3D and is also available for free.

There are tutorial guides available for both programs on their respective websites and both of these are legal.

Interactive Narrative & Perspective [IDD 250]

A lot of my following entries to this blog will be in response to the book Pause & Effect by Mark Stephen Meadows (How much did you pay?)

I would have to say that the best way to describe (and my personal favorite) an interactive narrative would be video/computer games. They combine story telling with art (the awesome graphics we see and rave about) and interactivity. The best part about interactive narratives is the users ability to change what might happen.

As you play the character Mario attempting to save the Princess from the evil Bowser who has taken her away from her kingdom you fail to make that giant leap across burning hot lava pit and fall to your doom. You die and the Princess is gone forever, had you made that leap you would have had a chance to save the Princess from the evil claws of Bowser. Interactivity at its finest! With your characters death so ends the narrative.

Along with narratives there are different perspectives available or other points of view. They can be emotional (or cognitive) and dimensional (or visual) perspectives. Each of these perspectives can be intertwined. An example of this a camera shot looking up at a gigantic monster making it look larger than life. This would give the viewer a sense of fear and that the monster is very powerful and dominating. Now what if we reversed the camera angle so that it was looking down on this monster, as if we were as tall as the Empire State building? The monster would appear small and puny like just a toy action figure. We wouldn't fear it or even think of it as this powerful creature.

One of my classmates brings to our attention other very common forms of perspective that we see on a day-to-day basis. Valerie talks about the different perspectives that the media offers us like the tabloids and newspapers. She also relates to her own perspective and the difference she sees and feels just by putting on a pair of shoes to simulate a perspective of someone who is significantly taller than her. This shows that we each interpret perspectives differently as well. We always wonder what it would be like to look through the eyes of a dog, a cat, Shaq, Mr. President, and even our own parents so we can see what they see, however, all we can do is interpret and analyze it the best we can.

Analysis of Trick or Treat [IDD 301]

I decided to take a look at some animations by Todd Gallina to see if I could notice any of his techniques about the way he animates. I chose to watch 'Trick or Treat' a million times to see what I could notice.

In the beginning of the short three characters are shown walking outside at night on Halloween. I notice first off that the last character is a static character and 'appears' to be walking by moving up and down and sliding to the left. The middle character has his arms changing positions and has his head tilt back as he slides across the screen. The first character has his arm move ever so slightly back and forth to give the impression that he is walking although we never see their legs until the first character "hops" onto the stairs. There are also only two scenes in this animation and a variation of the second one. There is one variation with the door open and the owner of the house along with a close up of the first character in red while he knocks on the door with a simple back and forth movement of his arm.

When they start throwing the toilet paper onto the house each character has a simple launch and release movement to make it appear like they are throwing toilet paper. The toilet paper is also repeated several times and mirrored back and forth to give the allusion of it flying upwards.

When the owner pops out it is just a static image other than the tentacles on the Medusa head moving back and forth with screams as background noise. When the three characters deposit something into their pants they each have the same animation just with a variation in color to match the costumes.

Each character is then redrawn appropriately and given a simple animation to reach for the much needed toilet paper that they threw all over the house. The motion of reaching is repeated several times for each character until they end stop, each with a different ending.

The sound effects in this animation add the feeling of movement so the animation doesn't seem static.

My Attempt at Sketching/Drawing [IDD 301]

It was recommended that we have the ability draw (or be able to 'wing-it') for the animation class. It had been a long, long time since I had actually just taken the time to sit down and draw something. The last sketchbook I used was in elementary school. That's if you don't count every single notebook for each one of my classes throughout high school. So I said to myself, "I'm going to sit down and draw whatever is closest." It just happened to be a teddy bear I had given my girlfriend for Valentine's Day. This wasn't exactly my cup of tea, but its good to draw things you might not necessarily obsess about. This was drawn on a piece of computer paper with a .7mm Bic mechanical pencil. If you ask why the bear's foot is cut off, that's because I ran out of paper! If you want to see what the teddy bear really looks like, you can click here and see a photo of it.



Attempted Sketch to see if I can really draw.

Blogging, The World, and the Guy Writing this [IDD 250]

If you were to ask me what a 'Blog' was a couple of weeks ago my response to you would have been, "I dunno, another internet thing with a cult-like following." It was clearly something I didn't know about or follow in any detail.

Now if you ask me what a Blog is, I could tell you several things about what it is. Since I'm new to blogging, I'll take a stab at where I think the word was derived from. To me...it sounds like "Web Log" and people being the way they are, shortened it just like everything else. Either that or someone misunderstood what someone was saying and thought they said 'blog.' In short, a blog appears to be an online log (of any kind). Blogs usually also have software available to the authors that make it easier to make a log. This way the average computer user can easily use and maintain their own blog without the hassle of learning a lot of HTML and/or programming.

I would go as far to call a blog a message board, a forum, a journal, a diary, or a news page. Essentially, a blog is just another way to publish thoughts, announcements, information, or just about anything else that can be communicated. My local news web site I would consider a blog, just with the Comments feature turned off. I'm sure some of you would say, "No...thats not a blog" but why not? The only argument against it that I can see would be that it doesn't give information out on a more personal level. After reading a few blogs I noticed that authors often write at a more personal level than your average newspaper.

I think the term 'blog' has developed into more of a specific term. We can all look at a site and recognize that it is a site that has been blogged. Right now, they all have a general look and feel about them. We can also look at another website and clearly identify that it is a forum. However you look at it, blogs, forums, news pages, etc, are all places that we read, gain knowledge, and discuss topics at or about. Just another form of online logging of information...or should I say style? Or form?

Edit: With all that said...This 'Blog' should probably be called, "Gol Bew -- (Interactive Digital Design Web Log)," right?