Alex Dowie

Opening scene

2012-02-27T16:15:00.002-08:00

I have started to look at films that open up with a voice over. The first movie i looked at was the movie

"21." The film is a fact-based story about six MIT students who were trained to become experts in card counting and subsequently took Vegas casinos for millions in winnings. However it is the opening scene that i am most instrested in, the movie opens with a voice over of the main character before fading out into music and the opening credits.

The film American Beauty also uses a voice over at the start of the film, however this voice over is rather different, as it is narrated by the main character, who reveals that he is dead at the start of the film, i thought doing this was very risky, as you would think that telling somebody the end to a story at the start would ruin the film for them, however this dosnt, it makes you want to watch it more to find out what happened and what events led up to the main characters death.

Train Spotting is one of my favourite films of all time, it is about a character called Renton who is deeply immersed in the Edinburgh drug scene and tries to clean up and get out, despite the allure of the drugs and influences of friends. This voice over gives us a really good idea about Rentons personality and his attitude towards life and drugs, so while we havnt even seen more than 2 minutes of the film, we almost feel like we know Renton.

Rocknrolla has a another similar voice over to train spotting, again this film is about a young man who enjoys many taboos and this opening voice over helps give us an idea what he is like.

Opening Scenes

2012-02-20T13:00:00.001-08:00

So i have started my DP2 film project.
A good beginning credit sequence is really all it takes for me to like a movie. That seems like a really stupid thing to say – but when you think about it, while not all good movies have creative credits, almost all creative credits belong to good movies. It shows that the filmmakers actually cared enough to do something meaningful with their title sequence as opposed to just throwing out some stock effect… After all, the beginning credits are the opening number to a film – the handshake – and if it doesn’t make you excited about what you’re about to watch then there really isn’t a point is there?
So i have decided to post my personal favorite opening credit sequences..

The first film that comes to mind if Vertigo, while not one of my favorite films, the opening sequence to this film is instantly recognisable.

You know you’re about to watch a suspenseful film when the opening title takes like a minute to fully appear. What I love about it is that we all know what the title is, we knew it when we decided to watch the movie – and yet it still teases us line by line. I know this is silly, but every time I see it I forget about the last two lines that appear in the E and the A – it surprises me every time because to me the title seems complete enough for my satisfaction, and also I have the memory of a tin can. I wanted to remind people of this title sequence mostly because it’s showed up again pretty recently in the trailer for Prometheus, Ridley Scott’s sort-of-not-really-but-close prequel to Alien. I think it was the inclusion of this title effect that really, really set me over the edge when I first saw that trailer.

Final Animation Movie

2012-02-20T13:00:00.000-08:00

Evaluation of my animation.

2012-02-08T15:11:00.000-08:00

I didn’t know what to expect when I looked at the brief for the first time, but I instantly knew that I would want to design the lair of a super hero rather than a super villain, super villains always tend to be a lot more exciting and are always very controversial, the fact that a super villain does not have any rules or regulations, means that they can do much more than a super hero, I thought this would also mean they might have a more exciting lair, as they may have things in the lair that a super hero might not, such as weapons to a certain degree.

So I knew I wanted a super villain, and after watching hell boy recently I loved the idea of having a Nazi scientist that was part machine in the present day, so hell boy was a massive influence on me, however I found the actual characteristic of the villain in hell boy rather dull, he just looked like a normal member of the SS with a grey mask on, which wasn’t for me, I wanted my villain to literally scream ‘evil’ so I began looking around for more influences, probably one of my favourite character designs of all time was to be general grievous from star wars, he was also one a man, or some sort of living creature, that’s life was now been supported by machine, however I felt his design was not right for this project, he looked to futuristic, and to ‘droid’ like, so then I finally came across some batman animation from 1992, and I loved the design that mr freeze had, and I knew I wanted my super villain to look like this version of mr freeze.

As for my lair, I knew I wanted this to be set in the present day, or near future, so that I could incorporate modern technology, such as the submarine and helicopter, however this wouldn’t tie in to my Nazi scientist if it were any normal lair, so I decided to have my lair built deep underground with access only by helicopter via the helicopter pad, or the submarine dock inside the lair. I had many great and wild plans for my lair, however I have never used 3ds max before, and when I actually came down to start making my lair, I was finding it extremely difficult to even make a wall, so I soon realised some of my ideas weren’t going to be possible at this stage of my course, however now that I have finished dp2, I can look back at my initial ideas and think how I could perhaps do some of them now that I have a moderate understanding of the huge program. I was finding it very difficult to learn the program at first, and was getting extremely frustrated as I knew what I wanted my lair to look like, but I just didn’t know how to get there, however using the tutorials on the NOW and on YouTube, they helped me understand the basics of the program and I am now able to carry myself thru the program and start to learn it at a more in-depth level.

Animation DP2 first Rooms

2012-02-01T14:00:00.000-08:00

Today i started to create the room for the submarine section of my base, i am yet to design the submarine its self, however the idea is that the room is underground, with a water section leading to the sea, in which the submarine can get to and from the base. i created the water illusion by applying animated noise to my glass texture.

Super Hero Lair Ideas

2012-01-11T11:43:00.000-08:00

Here are a few inspiring examples of super hero/villan lairs that i have looked at for background research into my animation project.

For my lair, i am fond of the idea of it been underground, i also like the idea of having a part of the lair on the surface, designed as something ese, such as a house.

Super Hero ideas

2012-01-11T10:45:00.000-08:00

For my second Design Practise project we have been tasked with creating a super hero, or villain and their lair here are a few images that have started to influence me on my Hero/Villan and their lair.

Hero;
For my hero i am looking at having a character that is part human part machine, or perhaps it has to have a mechanical lie support system supporting it, here are a few examples.

Animation DP2 Water Effect

2012-01-11T08:52:00.000-08:00

This is a little water effect that i created today for my animation work.

Shoe Done It

2011-11-21T12:47:00.000-08:00

This is close to the final edit of my short film, i may make some small changes over the next few weeks, and perhaps add some music to the film.

Femme Fatale

2011-11-11T06:27:00.000-08:00

One of the main characters in our film is a 'Female Fatale.'

A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations.

During the film noir era of the 1940s and 1950s, the femme fatale flourished in American cinema. Examples include the overly possessive and narcissistic wife Ellen Brent Harland, portrayed by Gene Tierney, in Leave Her to Heaven which was released in 1945, who will stop at nothing to

keep her husband's affections.

A more modern example of a female fatale can be seen in the movie 'Basic Instinct.' The film centers on police detective Nick Curran, who is investigating the brutal murder of a wealthy rock star. During the investigation Curran becomes involved in a torrid and intense relationship with the prime suspect, the beautiful, mysterious Catherine Tramell who is the female fatale of this film.

However my personal favorite, and in my opinion the most stereotypical femme fatale has to be 'Jessica' from who framed Rodger rabbit.
Jessica Rabbit is without doubt the most lush and the femme fatale of the cartoons female characters. The wife of Roger Rabbit noted for her wide hips, his gait and his voluptuous white heat.
Jessica is considered the sexiest female character in the history of animation, ahead of Betty Boop.

Her figure is based on previous femmes fatales of cinema: Veronica Late, Rita Hayworth and Lauren Bacall. Considered a landmark in the world of animation and an erotic myth for many, Jessica simply says: "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way"

Film Noir

2011-11-10T06:55:00.000-08:00

Today we pitched our ideas to the group, my original idea was based around a girl that had passed out in a local park in the early hours of the morning after a night out in the city, the girl would them have her own version of events that she would tell people to avoid embarrasment of what really happened. however we decided to go with another member of our groups idea.

This plot that we decided to go with was based around a diamond robbery.

For this project we have decided to do a modern take on Film noir, Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s.

We will be using the Panasonic 151 Film camera through out this project.

Sound in Film.

2011-11-09T08:50:00.000-08:00

In our film making project we were all given different roles, i chose to be in charge of sound, this ment it was down to me to make sure that the sound was of the best quality and there were no interference, it was also down to me to consider which locations might not be viable due to background noise, for instance if we were doing a film set in the 1920's, we couldn't film next to a road with modern cars going past.

Although many people consider film to be a essentially visual experience, we really cannot afford to underestimate the importance of film sound. A meaningful sound track is often as complicated as the

image on the screen. The entire sound track is comprised of three essential ingredients:

the human voice
sound effects
music

Final Animation

2011-11-07T08:32:00.000-08:00

This is my final animation, i am very pleased how it turned out, considering i have never used After Effects before in my life.
This is my third video, i had produced 2 videos before this both 30 seconds long. after creating two 30 second videos i decided i would create my final animation, this ended up turning out a lot better then my previous two, such as this one has a background that when moving, gives the impression that the subjects are moving, or flying in this case.
I have also used the scale, rotation and blur tools in this animation to help create movement and depth.

Some amazing after effects work!

2011-10-12T19:02:00.000-07:00

Today i was looking around at work of other animators that used Adobe after effects, and one video really stood out from the crowed, created and directed by Pierre Michel it really is an amazing sort animation! Although i have only been using the software for 2 weeks now, i am able to start to notice how these animators animate these films, even when it is only small things like blurring out a woman's eye in the back ground.
But this is a must see animation!

Alex.

More creative stop motion.

2011-10-12T18:43:00.000-07:00

We have all seen the stop motion videos on youtube with the coloured post it notes or with pieces or lego, and while they are entertaining, when watching them they didn't seem 'fresh' the idea's seemed to have been used over and over again, so i tried to see how much original stop motions videos are out there.

This first video i found hilarious, anybody from the Corpes Bride animation team will tell you how hard it is to make small clay figures look so realistic in stop motion, while this animation is incredibly entertaining it is also very professional, i found my self thinking "how the hell did he manage that?" for example one part of the video the two clay men start throwing clay balls at each other, really impressive stuff, really inspiring.

While i feel this stop motion film was alot easier to achieve than the previous, i think is is a lot more original than any other stop motion film i have seen so far, also very inspiring stuff.

Alex.

Tim Burton and the Corpes Bride Animation team - Design Process.

2011-10-12T18:31:00.000-07:00

To make a short film using stop motion animation, it takes an awful lot of time, including a lot of wasted time. To do a full length film is stop motion animation is truly amazing, after doing some research on Tim Burton's films 'A nightmare before christmas' and a 'Corpes Bride' in particular, i came across this video, which shows part of the Design Process for the team of animators working on the film 'Corpes Bride'
Really inspiring stuff.

Alex.

My Design Process

2011-10-12T13:36:00.000-07:00

The last design project i did was the last unit of my Photography A level.
The subject i chose for my last unit was Abstract images.

After looking up the definition of what an Abstract image was i reached the following definition, An abstract image may be difficult to understand and create ambiguity.

After doing a little bit more researching I understood that I wanted to create images for this project contain ambiguity, I wanted to create image where the person viewing them would not be able to recognise what they are looking at instantly, I wanted to make the person looking at my art wonder what the image could be, this was my starting point for my project.

Now that i knew what to look for in a photograph, i went to a local library to find books on my favorite photographers that i thought might have doing some work with abstract photography.

In the end it turned out there were two clear photographers that would be my starting point.

The first Photographer was a man called Paul Strand who was born in the 1800's, Paul Strand helped turn early photography into an art form. In particular is was his work in the 1920's which influenced me in this project, he photographed many images with very harsh shadows, which would almost feel like your eye was playing tricks on you when looking at it, his photographs were also very tightly cropped, making it even harder to figure out what we were actually looking at.

To the left i have placed an example photograph of his work.

The second photographer that i started my project on was, unsurprisingly Mario Tesino, a photographer that has seem to have done everything and could accomplish anything. However is was his book titled 'Alive' which he published in 2001, that helped me a lot with this project, he did some really interesting and intriguing work with fireworks and slow shutter speed, this created amazing streaks of fire across a black sky, this then inspired me to do a section of work on slow shutter speeds and the manipulation of light, this also lead me onto photographers such as; Michael Bosanko, Eric Staller and Valentin Gavan.

After doing all of this research i would end up taking hundrads and hundrads of photographs, trying to use the insperation that all of the previous artis and Photographers gave me. These would then be edited in photograph editing software, my personal favorite programs were Adobe Photoshop CS5 and HDR Darkroom Pro. I have placed a few of the many images that i took below.

Alex.

First Practical lesson.

2011-10-11T09:46:00.001-07:00

In our first practical group session we created our own Pin hole cameras from scratch, we created these cameras witha 500ml drinks can.

A pinhole camera is a simple camera without a lens and with a single small aperture, which in this case as a 500ml drinks can with a small hole in one side.
Light from a scene passes through this single point and projects an inverted image on the opposite side of the can and onto the blank film paper that i placed inside the can.

To the right is the finished image.
The large dark area was due to it been a really bright day and the light focusing on this area alone, if i were to redo this project, i would try and find an area where the light is evenly dispersed so avoid part of the image been over concentrated with light.

Alex.

So, my journey starts here..

2011-10-11T09:22:00.000-07:00

So my journey into Multimedia at Nottingham Trent University starts now.

While looking through the journals of older students that studied here i came across some very interesting people, such as Alex Luong, James Woods and Ryan Boyle.
The image to the left was a piece of work created by Alex Luong.

I hope that in a few years after i have graduated i will be able to see my name on the very same wall, but until then i have three years of hard work ahead of me..

Lets do this.

Alex.