Professional Article Review: Doctor Strange's "Strange Effects"

Purpose of the Article:

The article discusses the laboring process of making the strange effects of the magic within Doctor Strange. The author also explains the inspirations behind the effects behind bending and twisting reality in the movie were similar effects used in Inception, and that the process of making, creating, and implementing the methods to create Doctor Strange. They use the evidence of both speaking to the VFX production supervisor, having watched the movie, and the supervisor explaining what they did on previous projects that helped create Doctor Strange's world. The strengths of this article is the feeling that this person who wrote it is generally interested in how Doctor Strange's animation was created, and having some evidence to back it up. But that is also is a weakness, as the author only really has one reliable source for his article so there's nothing else really backing up his claims. The author seems to conclude with saying that the impressive animation was created by the tenacity of the people involved, who worked with similar deadlines in Guardians of the Galaxy. 

My Own Conclusions:

Generally, my critique of the article is that even with the only resource being that supervisor, I found the article sound and informative. It is interesting to see the time and effort and thought that went into scenes of Doctor Strange like the final battle with Dormamu. It is significant due to the need to show others how exactly the movie was as spectacular as it was. The argument stands up on its own to display the work that went into the movie and the methods used to achieve the effects. The evidence is convincing as well if one of the main head honchos behind the effects agrees with it. I believe these effects inspire me as an animator to see what others can achieve in deadlines like 6 months. I honestly understand most of the article, as the author took the time to explain what each difficult term meant and the reasoning behind his writing. So all in all, it is a well written work attributing the credit for the animation to the people who deserve it. Well done Disney, yet again!

Read the Article for yourself! Link

Professional Project Review: Shelter

The Project:

Shelter was a collaborative piece from an American music producer, a French Music Producer, Japanese animators, and distributed by CrunchyRoll. This was made as a music video for Porter Robinson and Madeon's song "Shelter", which was released on August 11th, 2016. It was then announced that both the producers had been working for over a year to create a music video with a story and plot to accompany the music. So it was released on October 18th of the same year to large success, as the deep, emotional story connected with the music as if both were made for each other. The hand-drawn animation looks beautiful, as the backgrounds and environments created are gorgeous and inviting.

The Story:

The story follows a 17 year old girl (named Rin in the description) who lives alone in a simulated reality, which she controls by drawing on a tablet to shift the reality on what she wants. She then discovers scenes that she didn't make and discovers (through flashbacks, newspaper articles, and past memories) she was once a child in Tokyo who lived with her father. But Earth was about to be in collision with an object the size of the moon. So her father, while still being loving towards her, built her a ship with life-support system for Rin to escape the doomed Earth. So she has been in space for the past 7 years, waiting for someone to make contact with her. At the end, a message comes up as Rin vows to make her father's sacrifice worth it.

My Thoughts:

I honestly love the animation to bits, as it was gorgeous to follow the story. I would want to apply the interactions of the environments to my own work, as it looked fluid and clean to me. I believe the shifting backgrounds and different angles for camera shots are applied well to this piece (which I've done before). The creators did well to have an animation serve the story and song justice so it was explained well, but they could improve upon maybe the ending. The ending was a bit confusing and left up to interpretation on how Rin will handle the message received at the end. But overall, I loved it. It was so beautiful and nearly had me in tears at the end of it. I recommend anyone to watch the differences between American and Japanese animation, as well of the power of collaboration between all these different people.

Semester One: Done!

Magical Mischief: The Project Summary

The semester project that I've been working on had finally concluded in a timely manner. My animation, the sound effects, the music, and even credits were done in the past week and I feel proud. I believe my quality of animation has improved since Midnight Flight, and I added a story element previously missing from the previous animations beforehand. I followed the storyboards more than my previous venture, added as well as subtracted scenes that would either hinder or help the animation win the coveted Pixel at eMagine that I desire. I observed various different animation styles over the course of the semester, such as the scene of the boy's toy flying through the desk utilizing the ability to put in 3D elements in a 2D animation. I enhanced my hand-drawn elements by adding a hand-drawn background painted in photoshop, so it has more definition in both characters and backgrounds. I pt more detail into my characters as well due to the comments from last year that my characters were not that detailed or visually interesting.

What to go from here:

I hope to make another project to implement more 2D elements for another fun project like this (probably if anyone knows me, involving dragons again), maybe another short story animation. Perhaps even adding more complicated elements into it to maybe get two Pixels at the same time (like my goal I set for this year). Hopefully I can get another decent idea to try and attempt before this year ends and I can start ASAP.  The Story-Boards below are sections of what I did to animate for my project.

 My animation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcFPttYzfIE