Vertov-Kino Pravda

I went to the Tate Modern this week and was very impressed by the exhibition of Rodchenko and Popova. I especially liked the advertising that they did.

Also, there was a video playing by Vertov, with the title sequence by Rodchenko that caught my attention. I have been looking into Vertov's work, since it has such a mysterious quality and vision.

Here is an informational video that I found on youtube:

The Fire

This is a video that I made this weekend. Just editing some old footage that I shot last summer. I want to compile more of my footage to make a larger music video, that is like a video diary of my time in back of a camera.

Final

Here is the final movie that I will be sending into D&AD. I still will want to fix a couple of things in it, but for sake of time I must be sending it off today (if not for my own sanity).

I want to try adding lighting in it, and camera length of focus, as Jon my tutor suggested. Other than that, cool beans, lots of good work. Can't believe I managed, I am pleased with it, and think I made a good use of my time.

My Leader

Here is the leader that I have done. I want a swipe with it, and maybe the colors bars before the numbers. I also liked how there was a flickering of the titles and scribbles before hand, also something that I want to implement.

I think it will give a nice intro into the music video, almost stand as an establishing shot, getting the viewer ready for what they are going to see.

Film Leader

I want to do a film leader for the beginning of the music video, but with chinese numerals. Here is a video for a reference...

More Recent Circles 2

These two represent Monkey trip under the eastern ocean. There he meets the dragon king (the scales on the interior of the second one) and goes to the crystal palace where he gets the Iro rod, his weapon for the length of the opera.
This represents Tripitaka, the monk. There is a Buddhist monk with the beads superimposed over the top. For the colors I looked at a a mini film on what the colors of 2009 are going to be. In a certani part of it, they had a selection of earthy colors, which I thought worked well for Tripitaka. I got a linen material scanned in, with the earthy purple colors and the ying yang.
This is Sandy, who is half pig half human. Ii superimposed a pig's mask on the head of my brother, and the rake is his weapon.

More Recent Circles

Here are the mostly finished images. I have two yet to do, and I want to touch up some of them. Also, they have all been inverted, like the last set. Hmmm, technical stuff.
This one is the part of the play iwth the flesh eating skeletons, what appears to be the blue part is actually red meat...
This one is sandy, the guy has a red beard, like Sandy supposedly does. He wears a necklace of monk's skulls. I chose Damian Hirst's skulls as they bring a modern feel to it. The other blue textures are sand.
This is the mountain of friut and flowers, where monkey is born. There is clouds and the 'falling rock sign' with flowers and fruit.
This is monkey being born. He was born from a rock that had an egg inside of it. So on the outer layer, there is the rock with a mokey silhouette in it, then a layer of egg shells, and a chinese monkey mask in the centre.
This is representing the scene with Buddha's hand closing around Monkey for 500 years. There is Buddah on the outside, with Buddhist hand signals. Then there is a monkey jumping, like monkey did in the play, and Buddha's fist. Lastly there is the 'D' in the middle, which is 500 in roman numerals, representing the five hundred years that monnkey has to stay in the stone.



More coming soonnnnnn

This Week

So, dum dee dum dum. This week has been a week of mnay ideas, with nothing really sticking. I got out a projector on Wednesday, tried to do some body projections, and ended up with two very sore eyes. The look was not what I wanted and if I was to get the right effect it would mean managing many people and lots of face paint, so I decided it wasn't for this project.

I finally settled on the idea of zooming through the various scnes of the Opera, with a combination of Buddhist imagery. I did some scans last week of chinese japanese and indian patterns, and in going through the chinese ones I found many that were circular, elborate but linear (meaning that I could fill in the various cavities with my own images and patterns). After doing a couple of them I remembered in doing a tutorial on how to earth zoom about parenting the layers all together, so that if you scaled the one on top up, all the others would get larger and it would appear to be sooming thorugh (instead of key framing each ofht elayers to go together). I am now working on filling in the circular things with images of the opera. It is going to be the patterns like in many of the enlightenment videos I saw on you tube, but with images telling the story of it.

I am still establishing what kind of style they will be. I like the combination of modern day items with story (east meets west). I need to make sure that the speed of it is correct, very nice transition sin the music, so I need to make sure all of the images are well timed...

water test

This is a test to see different video with illustration over it. I am not entirely pleased with it on its own, but with other elements in the shot, it could be very efective.

lotus opening

Here is a test I did last night, to see how I can make a lotus flower look like it is blooming. Although bad image and not perfectly done, the motion looks fine and works.

Truearmy's videos on youtube

The first 'year of the rat' is by this truearmy fellow. I like his work, would be a lot of fun doing interesting animation with the images.











I love the tap with money coming out


Here is one by a different artist:

More Chinese animtions

I have fondness in my heart for bad graphics. I really like the pixelation and the bright colors. It is not taking things too seriously. Just doing.

Great intro

Nice transition into painting and then into story. Powerful and coolio

Cool Chinese CG Animation

Lotus

Today I have been researching key images for chinese and buddhist art. I found some great images and symbols for the piece. I found the lotus to be a key element in buddhism, which also lends itself to the music quite well. The harpsicord, or whatever that noise is, seems like a flower opening.

Here are some time lapse videos of how a lotus flower opens:



For lack of videos here are some other flowers blooming:

Transitions that I like

Here are some transitions that I like:




The picnic basket makes an easy transition on the eyes. I have always liked that part.



I'm sure I have already put this up, but this video has amazing transitions between scenes. Something that I tried to emulate in one of my last projects, but did not have the time to do. Hopefully it will prove to be fruitful for this one!

I am still on the look out...

Inspiring

Been a couple of days since my last post. To be honest I was having a hard time rapping my head around the brief, the music, and what I really wanted to get out of this project.

I have been doodling in my sketchbook, trying to figure out what I would want to spend my time doing. Looked at a bunch of music videos, read some stuff on 'enlightenment', trying to get a feel of the undertone of the book and character motivation at this point in the story. It is a very strange song, even translated it does not give much insight into the characters. I went to waterstones to buy 'Monkey' the book, sat down and tried to find the right point of the book so that I could read that and the previous chapters, to try and get a feel of the setting, but it didn't have it. I looked on every page! At least I read it in the store and didn't buy it (although it will be a nice read one day).

I looked at enlightenment images and music videos, found some pretty funky stuff, very low budget, but I like that grungy quality. I have been on motionographer a billion times, and found nothing that really caught my eye, in terms of inspiration. Just went on, however, and found this sight:http://www.sant.at/mtv/SantaMotion_AcessoMTV.mov. Really really cool. I like the transitions, I like the abstractions, and I think this is the direction that I am going to head in for my piece. I was thinking of doing a half animation half real time, but I was not feeling it. It all seemed very bait and predictable. I tried to work out how it could be done subtley but I really can't get my head round it.

I think this type of style offers mystery, and the non-linear narrative shows that it is not only a journey that the charcters were on, but a mental journey, one that is not bound to one direction. Wow, that sounds so deep. I am going to explore how I can make this work....

Did I mention that I downloaded the "Forbidden Kingdom" with Jackie Chan and Jet Li? """"""""""""""""based""""""""""""""""""" on the story of the monkey king, thought it would help get to understand the story better, and I feel less like a human being now. The movie took a little part of my soul that I am not sure I will get back.