Emotion Video (Joy)
Thursday, September 24, 2015
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Emotion - (Joy)
What can I say, other than I find sentimental value in almost everything I see. Let's leave the grossness out of it. I find animals adorable, flowers beautiful, and sunrises/sunsets are awesome with the radiance they tend to give off. Only thing to top it is the ambiance of rushing water or best of all, rain falling and rolling thunder.
When my surroundings are less than pleasurable, count on me to drown them out with music.
Video games. One of the best methods of wasting time and simultaneously being productive.
Always be prepared.
Tuesday, September 8, 2015
Music Video Analysis (Take On Me)
Music Video Analysis
Above is one of my favorite music videos of the 80s (or rather it's debatable to be my favorite of all time) entitled Take On Me by A-Ha, featuring a action/romance narrative between singer Morten Harket and a young woman. This music video hosts rotoscope animation, tedious-as-all-hell form of art. It's a style whereas certain elements of a live-action sequence are 'painted' or 'sketched' over in a pre-chosen medium and coexist between our own reality and its own. What really knocks me out and impresses others who watch it with me is the camera panning to the right, showing us both sides of the magical looking glass, which filters reality with the comic book sketch animation.
The lyrics combine both his romantic interest in the actress (Bunty Bailey, btw) and the recurring plot line that is he's being chased by two jealous thugs who want him dead all because he beat them in a motorcycle race briefly scene in comic form at the very beginning. In the meantime that's put off to have pulled the young woman into his 'world', the comic she was reading in ours, in a diner. While all this is going on the waitress crushes the comic because, well, the girl vanished without paying for coffee. The animation is very fluid and seeing our lead actors have a good time gives a cheery vibe, that is until the thugs catch up to Harket and Bailey then proceed to chase them through a labyrinth of crumpled paper. There are a ton of angled shots, primarily in sketched form to show the intensity of the situation they're in however while singing the camera's usually static with a few moving parts. Every now and then we'd get a cutaway to live action band members playing keyboard/drums/etc.
When Harket and Bailey are cornered and there's no way out he 'rips' a page open so she can escape into the real world so she proceeds to grab the comic from the waste basket, run home and finish reading it to find out what happened to the hero. For those (and previous) shots the camera moves from one panel to the next as we would read something. In the very beginning it's a combination of static panels and animated ones. Lack of consistency? Not really because in the end, Bailey beats against the panel walls and dissolves from the comic entirely and eventually materializes in the real world where they both hug. The song has been parodied a few times, most notably in an early episode of Family Guy (as seen here). It's always good to see a rotoscoped piece, as it is very uncommon to see. This one's been reported to have taken artists 16 painstaking weeks to render ~3,000 frames.
The lyrics combine both his romantic interest in the actress (Bunty Bailey, btw) and the recurring plot line that is he's being chased by two jealous thugs who want him dead all because he beat them in a motorcycle race briefly scene in comic form at the very beginning. In the meantime that's put off to have pulled the young woman into his 'world', the comic she was reading in ours, in a diner. While all this is going on the waitress crushes the comic because, well, the girl vanished without paying for coffee. The animation is very fluid and seeing our lead actors have a good time gives a cheery vibe, that is until the thugs catch up to Harket and Bailey then proceed to chase them through a labyrinth of crumpled paper. There are a ton of angled shots, primarily in sketched form to show the intensity of the situation they're in however while singing the camera's usually static with a few moving parts. Every now and then we'd get a cutaway to live action band members playing keyboard/drums/etc.
When Harket and Bailey are cornered and there's no way out he 'rips' a page open so she can escape into the real world so she proceeds to grab the comic from the waste basket, run home and finish reading it to find out what happened to the hero. For those (and previous) shots the camera moves from one panel to the next as we would read something. In the very beginning it's a combination of static panels and animated ones. Lack of consistency? Not really because in the end, Bailey beats against the panel walls and dissolves from the comic entirely and eventually materializes in the real world where they both hug. The song has been parodied a few times, most notably in an early episode of Family Guy (as seen here). It's always good to see a rotoscoped piece, as it is very uncommon to see. This one's been reported to have taken artists 16 painstaking weeks to render ~3,000 frames.
Tuesday, September 1, 2015
T-273 Class Intro
le Self-Portrait & Biography
My real name is Travis, currently a student at Indiana University of South Bend. I'm that one person we all know who stays shut indoors, mainly on a computer or working on something. This I am because I'm eager to learn new things, so I'm constantly reading or watching information, a pseudo jack-of-all-trades person and it's very interesting. My greatest and most favorite talents are cooking, rebuilding broken automobiles and electronics, and photography. Another hobby of mine that yet has to really take off is being a movie critic. I have quite a taste for well-made movies and outstanding audio, and the former being the reason most hours of the day I'll have ear buds plugged in and doing school things, auto work, or electrocuting myself.
Out of the 510+ movies I own, the ones I like the most are the Croods, Tron: Legacy, Cars, and most of Jackie Chan flicks. You'll find some of my critiques a tad unorthodox every so often. What I look for in any story (whether it's a play, musical, animation, live action movie, etc) is obviously good acting, accurate casting, character development, plot and its adherance to titles, and my favorite: a great musical score. My favorite score is that of the aforementioned Tron: Legacy, composed entirely by Daft Punk, with the exception of 2 nostalgic 80s songs, a homage to the movie's 1982 prequel. After another couple of years as a New Media Student (minoring in Photography) I plan to launch my film critiques, as it is a time consuming hobby and at the moment college is the priority. Film and photography are very fun because there are practically no rules except those we decent people ought to abide by and must also we wary of copy-written material.
Humans are intensely visual creatures and learners. Photos immortalize the best moments in our lives and video makes the delivery of information (if done right) quick, easy, and enjoyable. I'm fairly decent in both departments and am always striving to get better because I firmly believe there's always room for improvement.
Out of the 510+ movies I own, the ones I like the most are the Croods, Tron: Legacy, Cars, and most of Jackie Chan flicks. You'll find some of my critiques a tad unorthodox every so often. What I look for in any story (whether it's a play, musical, animation, live action movie, etc) is obviously good acting, accurate casting, character development, plot and its adherance to titles, and my favorite: a great musical score. My favorite score is that of the aforementioned Tron: Legacy, composed entirely by Daft Punk, with the exception of 2 nostalgic 80s songs, a homage to the movie's 1982 prequel. After another couple of years as a New Media Student (minoring in Photography) I plan to launch my film critiques, as it is a time consuming hobby and at the moment college is the priority. Film and photography are very fun because there are practically no rules except those we decent people ought to abide by and must also we wary of copy-written material.
Humans are intensely visual creatures and learners. Photos immortalize the best moments in our lives and video makes the delivery of information (if done right) quick, easy, and enjoyable. I'm fairly decent in both departments and am always striving to get better because I firmly believe there's always room for improvement.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)