If you are a fan of Wallace & Gromit or Chicken Run, ohh and you are interested in saving the planet…then check out these cute, fun and informative shorts created by Aardman Animation, for the Animal Planet.
www.AnimalsSavThePlanet.com
I’ve been listening a lot to a podcast, that looks like it’s been around for awhile, but I’m just discovering it now…
It’s podcasts related to the Tribeca Film Festival 2008…
Apple and Indie Wire Magazine put on a series of talks from filmmakers, talking about their movies and how they got into the field…
It’s worth checking out…
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?i=15725296&id=202224986
Has everyone in the world gotten a chance to see Iron Man yet?
I saw it on opening weekend, and I enjoyed it…and seeing all the special effects. It has some of the cleanest and coolest effects I’ve seen in awhile…and it’s worth checking out for that reason alone. ..
I read an article talking about how the visual effects were done, they were created by Industrial Light and Magic which was started, or owned or something…by George Lucas. And they are considered to be the best of the best when it comes to visual effects…(along with Weta, who did the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and is connected with Peter Jackson). The article was pretty interesting, it went into talking about how they created the visual effects for Iron Man, doing the suit, making it fly, incorporating the actor Robert Downey Jr. into the suit. And even how they did the smoke effects, and how they did the on screen displays within the suit.
The article is from the AWN website (Animation World Network)…that site is great, it has a lot of interesting information and articles on how things are done with respect to animation and visual effects, and now they have a site called AWN television, and it’s basically YouTube run by AWN and it contains nothing but animation of all genres, and all skill levels…it’s pretty great.
Here’s the article I mentioned above…
http://vfxworld.com/?atype=articles&id=3632&page=1
And for the Animation World Network
http://www.AWN.com
And for AWN Television
http://www.AWNtv.com/
WZEN.org is a great example of using the power of the internet and the power of podcasting out there for people who want to listen to it…
As you might guess, the website, and subsequent podcasts are related to Zen Buddhist teachings. These are lectures and teachings by John Daido Loori, Rooshi who is the Abbott of the Zen Mountain Monastary in New York, he records a weekly podcast or semi weekly…on different Dharmic talks…
These talks are broadcast through podcasts, and it’s a great way, and a great example of getting the message out there using the tools and technology made available today…and you can find it on iTunes.
This is a great podcast for anyone interested in Buddhism…
I heard from a friend of mine, that the new film Speed Racer was shot with a new, revolutionary camera, that focused the foreground, and the background at the same time…giving a flattened “Cartoonish” look…
And apparently the camera is so new…it came with guards to protect it’s secrecy…
Here’s an article that further explains this…
http://www.collider.com/entertainment/news/article.asp/aid/5290/tcid/1
So, I recently heard about a protest that went bad in Edinboro, Pennsylvania which is where I attended college…The protest broke out into a fight between Anti-War Protester, and Pro-Military Protesters…
And apparently this made national news…
Now my point about YouTube is this…
At this fight there were three people video taping, from three different angles…If you go to YouTube and look this up, the first thing you might see is a video with Bill o’Reilly talking to someone who was at the fight (on the pro-military side)…and of course the Bill O’Reilly Fox News video is only 10 seconds long…but in the related videos you can watch all three camera angles and decide for yourself what actually happened, and who started the protest.
Maybe YouTube will become a better way to learn the truth about situations and matters…
I won’t provide any links to the videos…it was just an example, and there are many more similar to that one out there…
I havent’ had the chance to recognize or say something about this before…but I wanted to remember Ollie Johnston, who died last tuesday at 95 years old. Ollie Johnston was the last of the “9 Old Men” who were a core team of animators who worked for Disney as far back as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs…As an animator myself, who has learned a lot from Ollie Johnston and his friend and fellow animator Frank Thomas…I have to take the time to thank Ollie for what he has giving me as far as knowledge and skills are concerned, and how to bring inanimate objects, and drawings to life…
So thank you Ollie Johnston for all you have done…
I just read that they…being Apple…released a new update to Final Cut Pro, this would be Final Cut Pro 6.0.3, and some of the updates include:
Better Leopard Support,
Exporting Still with the correct Aspect Ratio,
There is also an update to Compressor….Compressor 3.0.3 with a whole bunch of new updates…
Anyone using FCP 6 might wanna look into updating…
New Podcast worth checking out for all those interested in video…
Larry Jordan, Final Cut Pro Guru, is doing a really well one video podcast called Digital Production Buzz HD Video Podcast…and he just gives a lot of cool tips and tricks for anyone working in video…
Another good an informative tool from Larry Jordan…
Interesting tid bit that I just learned from one of these podcasts…
Never, run audio lines near power cables…beacuse when they run parallel the electromagnetic force created by the AC current leaks into your audio, which then causes hum…and if they do need to cross…cross them at right angles…
I actually didn’t know that…but now I do…Thanks Larry Jordan.
I just read a blog, which was featured on IMDB.com…
Interesting blog, a guy is making a film using numbers…each number is submitted by different people, artists and non artists a like…and he says that it can be of any medium, and anything you want, it can be as simple as a number written on a piece of paper with a crayon…and he’s going to be collecting these numbers for 1 year…and see how many people contribute…
He gives a email address for how you can contribute, so I sent him an email and hopefully I’ll get a number that will then be included in the film…who knows…
Check out this blog for more info…
Help him out if you can…it’s a great way to get involved in a really neat project.
http://counthigh.com/?page_id=9