Cloudy with a Chance of Meatbawls (and a month long of tweaking)

• They had to go through a lot of scaling during the simulations because the strawberry was larger than a regular strawberry, but was still smaller compared to the objects made huge like the rivers of syrups and oceans of milk. So everything was sized up 20 times larger.
• The fluids simulations relied on physics and the animators had to deal with trying animations that didn't abide the laws of physics, which confused the simulations. 
• They have to run a lot simulations until they get the perfect shot, sometimes when they aren't able to they have to try a different idea. 

3D animation is a lot more complicated than I thought. If something doesn't work you have to work meticulously at it bc you can't just ignore it. But I think making something work and completing a good shot is a great feeling that makes me want to keep doing it.

It's amazing what they can accomplish now with animation. Most of the things in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 were not possible to do a couple years ago. 

My question is, because of all the tweaking and editing is that why cloudy 2 didn't come out earlier?

The work behind special effects

• A quicker way to do makeups and concepts is 3D printing, instead of spending time doing drafts they can do that on a computer program and then print it out. But Coulier still prefers sculpting by hand, I agree because there's some things that you may not end up with that you like that you won't get on the computer program.
• High definition film has made special effects a bigger challenge since the camera can pick up every wrinkle and imperfection in makeup so they need to make them look more authentic.
• The film World War Z had about 5,000 makeups. They did makeup for nearly every zombie in that movie! Not really, but that kind of work takes some real dedication. Even if the audience was just going to glance at that zombie.

I really liked how they used nylon socks covered with silicon to give Daniel Radcliffe webbed fingers, they didn't have to get too technological with this one.

Coulier says that in the end what matters most in the movie is a good script. So true! It wouldn't be a great movie if all they had was good special effects. But I agree, the script comes first before anything else when it comes to films.

This article is making me think about horror films and how I haven't seems a good horror movie in years. Which is why i switched my favorite movie genre to fantasy/action movies. Bonus points if Charlie Day is cast in the movie for any reason. When will there be a new, good scary movie be released?

Weekly comments 10/25 blah

Halloween is literally next week. This is all happening too fast, halloween I don't think I'm ready for you yet. I think it's been like 7 weeks already I lost count but yeah here's another installment of my interesting blog

things learned:

• Another work week and I'm sooo tired and crazy from rotoscoping (still not done by the way). Hopefully by some miracle I can finish this weekend. I guess I did learn some stuff from this project anyway like how to use adobe premiere. I did use it for a little while but I'm not much of a film person anymore. Another lesson learned is make schoolwork my top priority because most of the time I'm making sleeping/drawing/videogames my top priority and yeah just don't do that

things I want 2 lern:

• I'm really excited to do an animation short and I already have an idea in mind and since I've been practicing with flash at home it's becoming easier to do things. I guess I'd like to learn different ways to make animation look more authentic and less robotic. Even if my character in my 2D short is a robot ha ha yeah.

something that made me happy:

• Uhhhhhhh I guess getting a good grade on my trig test and thats kind of a huge deal in my family, which is really sad. But I'm happy about it

maaaaad:

• okay this wasn't a good week but whatever. Probably thinking about all the homework I have to do is making me annoyed. Also why are we required to swim at school okay do you know how hard it is to get dressed after being completely wet???? And Lou Reed died?!! He influenced a lot of bands that I love and without him they wouldn't have made music, so thank you Lou.

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cool thing of the week:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lzgXlDggpo

okay this is SUPERRRRR AMAZING. It's a CG animated short, it's about 3 minutes, that took 3 years to make! It was directed by an animation teacher, Li Jin. It's basically a dream martial arts fight between Donnie Yen and Bruce Lee. The signature moves and the likeness of both men are incredibly spot on I'm not even kidding. My favorite part is the ending, it ends with a picture of Bruce Lee's calligraphy "Walk on". 

"Downside" of animation

I learned stuff:

• Originally there were more women in the movie The Snow Queen but a lot were removed and were replaced by a male character for the movie Frozen.
• Some think old stereotypes still exist where women are expected to be more emotional and while men are thought to be less expressive. But I completely agree with Brenda chapman, the men most animated movies are lively and goofy
• Even though there were women leading in the movie Frozen they said they still felt it was run by a "boys club"

My opinion

• I wish gender inequality still wasn't an issue in this day and age but sadly it is. Women in the animation industry work as hard as men do but the article says its still harder for them to rise in the ranks. But anyways not going to let a silly article make me want to change my career. 
• I get that animating women is hard but its the same for men too. Except when animating women they said they have to look out for certain things like making sure they look pretty going through ranges of emotions and making sure their breasts and butts are the right size. But seriously do girls in real life look completely flawless when we're going through different emotions?  Its completely unrelatable.

My question is are the same things expected of women in animation, expected in men as well 

Mmmmm Brains

Things I learned:

• The very first zombie movie was called White Zombie and it was released in 1932.
• people's obsession with zombies may have a lot to do with the fact that people are afraid of what technology is capable of. And they're probably fascinated by living in a post apocalyptic world where technology doesn't exist anymore
• zombies represent consumerism  in our culture because we want nice things and all the money ever the same way zombies want brains

My opinion:

• I agree the consumerism theory about zombies because black friday shoppers are truly amazing. People wait in lines overnight and huge crowds trample people and injure them so they can buy things. 
• Living in a post apocalyptic world seems awesome it's a huge break from sitting behind a computer screen for hours or at the dinner table with stacks of homework. That stuff won't even matter cause all you need to worry about is clubbing zombies to death and surviving and if that doesn't sound cool as heck then get out of my face

A question I have from the video. Since vampires are romanticized in our culture and no longer viewed as extremely terrifying creatures of the night, then is he implying that we're going to do the same with zombies?

Weekly commentys 10/18

I was barely at school this week and all the work missed makes me want to fall down and shake ;_; This week I learned just try reeeeal hard not to miss school. Another valuable lesson is don't save projects directly to your flash drive cause thats really stupid bc you could lose that teeny flash drive in your messy bedroom so don't do that!! Everything sucked about this week but anywaaaay I'll get to other things now

Something I'd like to know is how to math. seriously what is that stuff. I would also like to know a couple ways to make my rotoball clip longer since I want to cut certain things out. 

Something that made me really happy was seeing Pearl jam!!!1 I've patiently waited to see them since July when I woke up at 9:30am to purchase the tickets online, also had to wait in a 'virtual line' since the site was crowded I guess but that's cool. I didn't even get them until 2 hours later btw. I sat pretty close to the front and had a nice view of the back of their heads. But there's no such thing bad seats at a Pearl Jam concert. A bad seat would be sitting outside on the sidewalk asking if people are selling tickets.

Something that made me mad this week was definitely not getting food poisoning and missing 2 days of school but missing practically a week of work. Cause that doesn't make me mad at all I feel so great about it ah yes just look at this wonderful stack of homework to do over the weekend. 

will post a cool thingy later

Breaking Bad has us rooting for a ruthless drug dealer

Things I learned:

• This point of view sequence has been used for a long time. It's used to convey a character's feelings and help the audience understand what they are feeling and why
• Point of view sequence is used a lot in Breaking Bad, from the first season when Walt first found out he had lung cancer, and in the last season when Skylar was speaking to the lawyers about Walt's crimes and how she was involved. We knew she was feeling the same kind of emotions Walt was feeling in the first season.  
• Facial expressions is a huge contributor in expressing a character's emotion. 

My opinion:

• Vince Gilligan and all the others who helped write Breaking Bad are extremely talented writers. Because they showed the point of view of Walt so many times, the audience understood his actions. In the second season Walt was supposed to kill Jane himself but instead left her to die, the audience already knew that she was a bad influence on Jesse that they let it slide.
• I was NOT rooting for Walt in the second half of season 5,  he even admitted that he wasn't doing this whole thing for the family, he was only doing it because he finally felt alive in his life and didn't feel like the wimpy chemistry teacher he once was. And he was great at it too. I was so  relieved Jesse escaped from the nazis and sped off in his car, probably to the Need for Speed movie. 

is there a limit to how much a person stands by a character's actions? Or do they stand by them even when they're committing heinous acts

Animated films aren't just for kids!!!

Things I learned:

• A lot of these animated films' humor is directed at children but the moral of the story is meant to entertain adults too, which I can appreciate.
• The author says that when they say there were too many animated films this summer, they really meant there were too many animated films for children. For example, Turbo, The Smurfs, and Planes.
• Animation offers a possibilities for different kinds of movies but is limited to a genre for movies aimed at younger audiences 

My opinion:

• I really like the author addressed the fact that film makers have the power to change the genre of animated movies, they don't have to be a children's movie, they can be an adult movie but still be animated! It would be a lot cheaper to make an animated version of some films like Superman or The Avengers if they were animated. 
• Animated films for now, is just a genre for kids entertainment. 

My question is, since they were throwing around the topic of making animated films primarily for adults, what kind of movie would Pacific Rim be if it was animated? As long is Charlie Day is still casted as Dr Newt Geiszler then I'd still love the movie the same. 

Weekly comments 10/4 hehuehhe

Things I learned:

I spend most of the week trying to finish my flash practices and learned things, A LOT of things. I learned things like frame by frame animation, shape hints which I couldn't get to work properly, using symbols, learning a little more about Tweens. There was so much info to take in from that packet so I'm thinking about getting this program at home to practice cause now I kind of feel like someone threw a box of tools at me and told me to build a house

Things I would like to know:

I guess I'd like to learn how to use a tablet it would probably make my project a lot easier to do. 

Something that frustrated me:

I missed school Friday which was not cool cause I had like 3 tests and one of them was a trig quiz and now I have to do it Monday. Ew. Also I did one of the flash examples over at least 5 times cause I thought I made a mistake but I didn't and now I feel pretty dumb 

Something that made me happy:

I'm seeing Pearl Jam in exactly a week :))))))))))))))))))))))) chins intensifying. It almost feels like it's not happening, I've wanted to see them for 2 years!! Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag comes out soon, the 29th I think, anyways I'm excited because I've been waiting for pirates since the dawn of when I first played assassin's creed. 

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This is an animated short called "Brain Divided" and I think it's pretty cool cause a lot of CG animated anything is aimed at children but a lot of people would say this is like Pixar for adults.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuyB7NO0EYY