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in Blog by AndreiSE — June 4, 2010 at 23:31 | 0 comments

I’m currently watching the new Life documentary, from the same team that worked on Planet Earth. Once again, they’ve done a great job at capturing nature in an interesting, and visually stunning way. In some ways it’s somewhat different from Planet Earth (which I think I liked more), which set the expectations pretty high. In my opinion, the storytelling aspect isn’t quite as strong this time around. They seem to rely even more on rare and fantastic footage for impact this time around, sometimes at the cost of illustrating the point of the story. At least, the connection can sometimes be a little bit of a stretch. Nevertheless, the visuals are a real treat, and a real inspiration.

It’s films like these that push me more and more towards the new DSLRs with video capability. I know that something like the D90 has a lot of limitations by comparison with a real video camera, but just the ability to use my own lenses and the image quality at the lower cost make up for it. I can’t wait to get my hands on one and start testing things out for myself.

in Blog by AndreiSE — January 23, 2010 at 17:44 | 0 comments

Have you seen it yet? If not, buy your IMAX 3D tickets right now, and go watch it. This movie provides a visual experience unlike anyting else thus far. Basically, you have to see it to understand what everyone’s been raving all about. It’s very difficult to explain it in words, as it just won’t do it justice.

One word of warning though… do not expect to be entertained by a great story or Academy Award acting, because you might come out disappointed. The story is full of cliches and the acting is patchy, marred by a number of cheesy lines here and there. Personally, I found the 3D character animation to be leaning too far on the cartoony side, clearly detaching itself from the real footage of people. Thankfully though, it wasn’t obtrusive to the point where it became an annoyance that would take away from the overall experience.

Overall, this movie is a great technical achievement, which raises the quality bar quite high for movies that try to create an immersive visual experience. The future looks bright… in 3D.

Check out the CGSociety Feature on Avatar here.

in Blog by AndreiSE — January 20, 2010 at 17:43 | 0 comments

In case you’ve missed it, please check out Alex Roman’s short, titled “The Third and the Seventh”:

http://vimeo.com/7809605

It is an amazing work of art, 3D, and photography all in one. Be sure to watch his “making of” videos as well, as they provide some valuable insight into his process. A lot of it is pretty straight-forward, but the amount of patience, resilience, and artistic talent required to put it all together is astounding.

in Blog by AndreiSE — September 27, 2008 at 18:48 | 0 comments

I am now back from ADAPT2008, with some very good impressions. The conference went rather well, apart from a few glitches here and there. The presentations that I saw were quite inspirational, and it was great to see some of the best artists in the field talk about their work and experiences. I had the 2D Masters only pass, so many of the presentations I saw were painting related. Although I missed Craig Mullins on Tuesday, I did get to see Jason Manley, Andrew Jones, Syd Mead, Nick Oroc, and the guys from Meduzarts.

It was great to see Jason Manley talk about applied colour theory, because there is extremely little documentation on the subject. He described the colour theory as it applies directly to painting, and provided a number of examples from classical and modern painting to illustrate the effects of saturation, tone, and value.

Andrew Jones made his first ever presentation of his Wacoscillator, which was pretty cool. It seems to be a large Wacom tablet with Audio Output, and some Audio controls. It looks like he could map different sounds to different tools in Corel Painter, so that he could generate sound whenever he paints. In addition, he was also able to generate music as he was painting, and have a fair amount of control over it, including the generation of rhythm beats. His use of custom pattern brushes is quite inspirational, as he has a rather unique style of painting. It seems that his freedom in thinking out of the box when it comes to the available tools is part of the reason for his unique style.
Check him out at: www.androidjones.com

Syd Mead, on the other hand, is just pure genius. This was my first time seeing him talk, and there were a few things that he said, which I had to write down as maxims. For example, although it may seem rather obvious, the fact that “things look like the way they’re made” struck me like a bolt of lightning. He also talked about how every new design has to have something recognizable in it, otherwise it risks lacking appeal, and that the new designs inevitably build up on what’s already come before them. It also sounded like a lot of his inspiration in futuristic design came from science articles, which proves why his designs have that added quality about them that seems to make sense… that it could be reality one day.

in Blog by AndreiSE — September 19, 2008 at 18:33 | 0 comments

Over the past couple of days I’ve decided to watch Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth again. I hadn’t seen it in years, and I was a little worried that I wouldn’t be as impressed with it this time around. To my surprise, watching it again now has been just as great an experience as it has been fourteen years ago, if not more so. Although I am not a devout Christian, the reason I enjoy this movie so much is because of it’s amazingly artistic cinematography. Every single scene is like a Renaissance painting. Everything from lighting, to costumes, and composition is well planned and carried out to resemble that particular style. In addition, the acting is also mostly of top quality as well, and the story does not feel overly preachy. It’s been a great inspiration to me artistically, and I highly recommend it regardless of your religious inclinations.