Animation Essay | milk

I love animation, I have a whole blog only focused in this theme, but I never actually create something. There are so many animation techniques and so many ways to tell a story that I don’t know how to begin. So I started to think about short movies that inspired me, and I have this idea to mix two different things that I really like in this piece: music and videogames.

So I did a continuation of the Blur “Coffee and TV” videoclip, where instead of looking for the missing guitarist, “milk” is searching for his missing girlfriend. And who is more qualified for rescue a girl than Mario? The guy is doing this for years, trying to rescue the Princess.

I used papertoys to build the whole scenario and had so much fun with them (i love toyart, action figures and stuff).

Enjoy!

Tags: Animation

Photo Essay | Fire Walk With Me

I came to New York in March and was almost the end of the Winter. The city was grey, the trees, empty. The streets empty too. I’m Brazilian and it was a very different scene for me. During the Spring, the city started to get her color back. The trees were awesome and the people happier. Now the Summer arrived, and I really want to capture this moment.

I have the Winter image very clear on my mind, and I want to make the Summer so special like the Winter was for me. I want to capture the colors, the flowers and trees, the sensations, the different presence of the water (on the Winter, we were running to hide from the water), shadows, and how people react to all these changes. Their faces, acts, energy and clothes. The little and special things of the hot days that unconsciously makes we wake up and spend the day in a different way.

A different culture and a different way to enjoy the Summer. I want to memorize how New York reacts to the Sun.

*****************************************************************************

Check here the hotsite with the final photo essay.

*****************************************************************************

Photographers references:

* Renata Chebel: is a young brazilian photographer who I really enjoy the work. She used to take pictures of the São Paulo’s urban night life, concerts, photos for magazines, and fashion events. But she also like to portray her friends in a very particular nostalgic and beautiful way that I want to try to do in my photo essay.

* Annie Leibovitz: is an american portrait photographer has an incredible and recognized work. She became even more famous because of her way to portray famous people, as musicians and actors. She is inspiring for me because of her sense of humor, that she pass through her pictures, her way to portray human life and capture real moments in a beautiful form. Also, she is very creative in her pictures and knows exactly what she wants from her characters, in the same way that movie directors.

* Leon Levinstein: is an american considered a master of street photography. I went to his exposition in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and it really inspired me because is the same kind of work that we are trying to do with our photo essays. Capture the moment, be in the right time, in the right place, with the right angle to take the best shot. His photos are basically black-and-white figure studies made in New York City neighborhoods, as Times Square, Lower East Side, and Coney Island.

Soundscape Project | Morning Routine

Working with sound, I wanted to portray the morning routine through sound. My main reference was the opening sequence from the TV Show “Dexter”, but instead of showing the little pieces of the daily morning with a close visual zoom in, I used sound. In contrast from Dexter’s opening sequence, I wanted to create a routine that almost everyone can relate to, regardless of their country of origin or occupation.

Through this piece, I also wanted to show what I learned using the equipment. I was able to capture different sounds and mix them with music that I think worked perfectly with the rest of the audios, with the main idea and could work with a music from a composer that I really love: the song Later Monday, from Jon Brion.

During the composition process of the piece I had some ideas that I have incorporated on the final result. Since the beginning, I really wanted to use a song in the background, because I think it gives more personality to the piece (like in the Dexter opening, the song gives another tone to the narrative), but I didn’t know how to put it together with the other sounds until the edition process. But then, thinking how to mix everything I had this idea to mix dream and reality, song and real noises, and my project started to change naturally and I really liked the final result.

After I figured out how to match the music with the audio, playing with dreams (music) and reality (sounds of the morning) my project was born. So, mixing both and playing with the volume of each layer, I could make a morning person leaving her dreams away, slowly, and waking up to the dark and the boredom of the reality. The daily reality, in a mechanical morning routine guided by her own body while she is still keeping the dream on. A fighting of subconscious versus conscious.

*****************************************************************************

This is the final result: listen here!

Animation Concept

I still can’t decide what I’m going to do in my animation project. I love animation, I have a whole blog only focused in this theme, but I never actually create something. There are so many animation techniques and so many ways to tell a story that I don’t know how to begin. And the deadline is so short. So I started to think about short movies that maybe I can be inspired, and I have 3 ideas but I’m still trying to decide which one I’m going to chose.

1) A continuation of the Blur “Coffee and TV” videoclip: this is one of the cutest animation videoclips that I ever see, and I really like Blur songs. So that’s one option that really attracts me.

2) An experimental short movie with kaleidoscope style using M&Ms: I’m totally addicted to chocolate and I was thinking in create an animation using chocolate as material. And because of the many options of colors and the shape of the M&M, I believe it would be fun and interesting doing an animation with it.

3) A typography animation with the Moulin Rouge song: I just downloaded after effects and I have no idea how to start to make it. But I think it would be really cool an animation in the same style of the Pulp Fiction line “What does Marcellus Wallace look like?”. The

Tags: Animation, Concept, Dana, Final Project

Documentary | How people $$$ buy $$$ clothes

Who is the intended audience?

All people interested in understand the human behavior about shopping, fashion & style.

What is the goal or intended purpose(s) of the film?

Rationalize and understand the human feelings about their clothing style and shopping habits. Understand the relationship between humans and their clothes, and how do they express themselves through their style.

What is the historical background or context of the story? Tell us WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN and HOW you plan to shoot. Be very explicit about each of these 5 elements.

Our lives are made by choices. Since the day that we were born, and every single morning. We chose where to go, the way to take, who is going to be our friends, who are we going to call in a bad moment, what to eat. And what to wear. But how do we decide things things? How do we chose to wear this rather than that? To buy this, instead of that? Is it rationally, emotionally, or even by impulse? And what is our relationship with these elements of the daily routine? Do they have some sort of meaning for us, bring back good memories or they are just disposable things?

Who: Different stereotypes of people in New York City, doing shopping or just hanging out with a trendy and different outfit or accessory.
What: Interviews with those people in the streets of the New York, and b-roll shots of clothing stores and people walking on the sidewalks.
Where: Brooklyn, Upper East Side and Times Square (Midtown).
When: Weekend, when people are more available to spend money and do shopping.
How: We want to capture the streets and sidewalks as catwalks, make a parallel between models and real people. The sidewalks are the real catwalks because they show what people really wear. For that we are going to try to mimic the angles and lines seen in catwalks, transforming real people in models. Real people with style, who start trends and not just follow them. They are what they wear, their style says a lot about their personality and they influence their friends and people around them.

Has any media work already been produced on this subject? Show us examples of these references and explain what is new, different, interesting, engaging about your approach?

Our main inspiration will be street style blogs, like The Sartorialist, that showcase the fashion of urban areas. In contrast to fashion magazine and fashion show that very rarely present a realistic view of the clothing world.

Style? (Any key stylistic elements in shooting, audio, editing, etc.)

We want to try to shoot everything in vertical to emphasize the person, her clothes and style, and to make the parallel with the fashion blogs and clothes catalogs.

Sound?

With the images, we want to use voice over of the interviews and show the stores and clothes. We also want to use a lot of pop music, eletronic music and hype-trendy music to remind of the fashion world, always making the parallel of remind to show the contrast on the content. And also songs that talk about consume, like the Cake song “Long Jacket”.

Who is working on the project and what will the role of each person be?

Bruna and Julia are working on the project and will share all roles.

*****************************************************************************

SHOT PLAN:

List the ideal shots you hope to achieve during your shoot. This list will serve as a device to help make your shooting more thorough and aesthetically supportive of the story you wish to tell. Be explit and include the following descriptive elements for each shot:

(1) the photographic aspects of the shot (ie. lighting, depth of field, color)

Like said before, we are going to try to transform the sidewalks of the streets of New York in runways of real people, for that we are going to try to mimic the angles and lines seen in catwalks. We are going to capture shoots making use of perspective and lines of the street, and also bluring the background a little, emphasizing the people and their clothes. Use of natural lighting and street lights.

(2) the framing of the shot (for dramatic effect- everything is purposeful)

Like said before, we want to experiment shoot the documentary in vertical to emphasize the person, her clothes and style, and to make the parallel with the fashion blogs, clothes catalogs and fashion magazines. We also want to portray the expressions of the person while she/he talks about her/his clothes and style, and for that we are going to use close ups of face and details (like hands gestures).

(3) the duration of the shot (psychological effects of speed)

We are going to alternate between fast cuts of the streets of New York and people doing shopping, with longer shoots of people being interviewed. The fast cuts making the parallel with the crazy life of the fashion world. And the longer shoots will make the viewers stop and think that there is a meaning behind that whole crazy thing and real people, with their own lives, and that these people from the streets are using that fashion designs presented in the runways in their own way.

Tags: Documentary, Fashion, Final Project, Style

Streetwise, by Martin Bell

How are the subjects in this film represented? From whose POV is the story told?

The subjects are really young people who left their parents house (or/and have troubles at home) and their are trying to make their life in the streets. They are 14 – 16 years old acting like adults, “working” on the streets. The story is told by their own point of view, sharing with the audience and with their “friends” of the streets what do they think about their life, how do they ended living like this and what do they do to survive.

What do you think the relationship was between the filmmaker and subjects? What was the primary role of the filmmaker during production in order to gather and tell the story?

I think that before the filmmaker started to shot the documentary he became pretty close of the subjects, understanding how they live and what they do what they do.  He earned their confidence so he could capture the most natural expressions and behaviors of the subjects. I think that the first primary role of the filmmaker during the production was try to ear the subject confidence and understand that environment so he could document the most realistic portray in his movie.

How is the narrative of the film structured? What re-occurring themes are explored? How does the story unfold? What sense of conclusion, message or inquiry are we left with at the end?

The narrative of the film is structured in different manners. First we are introduced to the characters with a spectator point of view (far from what’s going on), seeing things like a person walking on the streets could see. Then, during the film, we get closer and closer of the subjects, entering in their life, where they introduce their “family” (or what do they call of family – the people that live with them), showing the relationship that they have with these second characters in a very natural way. And after we really enter in their lives, after we start to know these people and the people that live with them (or where they are from), after they share their thoughts about their life and their secrets, we realize that they all had some kind of trouble with their family (non stable family) or they still have.

Examine the effectiveness of technical devices that were used both in production and post-production. (shooting techniques, camera angles, framing, duration of the shots, editing choices, voice over, etc.)

I liked the way that the filmmaker chose to shot the film, approaching us of the characters in a slowly way, first with pan shots, then getting close of their conversation with closes cameras, making the spectator participate of the conversation. It was like we were there, sitting with these funky characters, talking with them, being one of them, feeling what they wanted us to feel. The voice over of these characters sharing thoughts about their lives and introducing themselves to us while the camera showed us another things to look and pay attention, exemplifying what they were saying was a very nice was to conduce the audience through the documentary. Different points of views of different characters of the streets (young woman working as prostitutes, little men trying to make it, gays, homeless). Another cool thing that I liked was the way that the filmmaker chose to put the soundtrack on his piece. He chose to keep the streets environment sound, but not only with the audio sounds, but also with the music. This way to put music in the documentary way with natural music sound of the streets, as a guy playing drums, or another guy holding a radio.

Tags: Amy, Documentary

Soundscape Project | Morning Routine

Like I said in my previous post, I wanted to portray the morning routine through sound. My main reference was the opening sequence from the TV Show “Dexter”, but instead of showing the little pieces of the daily morning with a close visual zoom in, I used sound.  In contrast from Dexter’s opening sequence, I wanted to create a routine that almost everyone can relate to, regardless of their country of origin or occupation.

Through this piece, I also wanted to show what I learned using the equipment.  I was able to capture different sounds and mix them with music that I think worked perfectly with the rest of the audios, with the main idea and could work with a music from a composer that I really love: the song Later Monday, from Jon Brion.

During the composition process of the piece I had some ideas that I have incorporated on the final result. Since the beginning, I really wanted to use a song in the background, because I think it gives more personality to the piece (like in the Dexter opening, the song gives another tone to the narrative), but I didn’t know how to put it together with the other sounds until the edition process. But then, thinking how to mix everything I had this idea to mix dream and reality, song and real noises, and my project started to change naturally and I really liked the final result.

After I figured out how to match the music with the audio, playing with dreams (music) and reality (sounds of the morning) my project was born. So, mixing both and playing with the volume of each layer, I could make a morning person leaving her dreams away, slowly, and waking up to the dark and the boredom of the reality. The daily reality, in a mechanical morning routine guided by her own body while she is still keeping the dream on. A fighting of subconscious versus conscious.

This is the final result: listen here!

Tags: Final Project, Sound

Editing Sound in Final Cut Pro

Starting to work with sound:

1) Organization

2) Every files in one new folder – Create a new folder

3) Tip: Work in the external HD -> better speed (or the HD that has more space)

4) Organizing files: Create 2 files: “fcp_files” and “raw_sound_files”

*****************************************************************************

Editing Sound in Final Cut Pro:

Starting: Creating Folders and Importing Files

- When it opens: select the file “fcp_files” to save the project inside the new file

- Window > Arrange > Audio Mixing

- Save as… > select the file “fcp_files” > name “date_sound”

- On the southest corner have the “sequences”. To add another new sequence go to: File > New > Sequence. Rename the sequences so you don’t get lost.

- Create a Bin (“Archive”) – you can use File > New > Bin or Command+B

- Rename the Bin: “raw_sound_files_day_x” – different bins for different days – ORGANIZE!

- Import your sound to your project in Final Cut Pro: click with the right button on “Import” > Files > Select the files

Timeline:

- A1, A2, A3, A4: Audio Timeline

- Stereo sounds use 2 channel – like A1 and A2

- Select and drag to the timeline to start to work

- Double click to see the waves on the northeast corner

- Delete spaces: click on the empty space and press “delete”

- Editing the sound > the short cut buttons – arrows move the track back or forward; razor – cut things (b); single arrow – select (a); selection tool (n)

- Mono to Stereo: 1) duplicate the layer sound and put in the other layer above (Ex: A1 and A2); 2) double click to open the waves, drag all the “Pan” of the first layer to the “left” side; then do the same thing with the second layer, drag all the “Pan” to the right side; 3) select both layers sound, click in Modify > Stereo pair

- Transitions between sounds: to add a cross fade you can go to “Effects” > “Audio Transitions” > “Cross Fade” or click with the right button in the middle of the transition and then “Add Transition Cross Fade”

- Adding Keyframes: Pen tool (Option on the Pink line or P) > Select where do you want to put the keyframe in the pink line and then move the pink to fade in or fade out or change the volume.

Tags: Amy, Audio, Final Cut, How to, Sound

Sound Reference

I’m very interested in animation and since the first announcements of Wall-e, I knew that a great piece of art was coming. So I was paying attention a every single detail about this animation movie, including his sound effects. After the movie came in DVD, I was pretty excited about the extras, and this small documentary talking about the sound process in Wall-E and the main guy behind of all this, Ben Burtt, got all my attention.

See the whole video here, it’s really amazing!

And the post in my blog about this inspiring video.

Tags: References, Sound

Sound Essay Concept | Early Morning

My inspiration for this project was the opening sequence of the TV Serie “Dexter”. In my opinion, this opening is a real art work, filled with an awesome photography and harmonic and realistic sound edition.

In my project, I want to capture the early morning sounds. In the opening, they show the Dexter Morgan morning routine – and a very common routine for a serial killer, showing us, since the beginning that we have so much in common. The difference is only on the subtle details, on the interlines.

Highlighting the little details through an exaggerated zoom, the Dexter’s opening give to the watcher a new way to look Dexter’s daily morning routine, and as a consequence, his own routine.

In my project, I want to reproduce this experience, although using only sound. Making the listener stop for a minute to notice the little details of every early morning.

Tags: Dana, Essay, Homework, References, Sound