Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides Filming In Hawaii This Summer
It first came through the twitter feed...
...then through various blogs I follow.
And according to screencrave.com
According to a recent statement released by Governor Linda Lingle, Hawaii has been chosen as the place of production for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. More specifically Disney President and CEO Bob Iger met with Governor Lingle on Friday to share the news that the islands of Kaua’i and O’ahu will be sites for the production of the feature film.
This may very well be the one of several big breaks I've found in the coming few years. I'm still regretting not skipping classes to see Paul Thomas Anderson. That's a mistake I'm not going to make again. For me at least, this is even a "Take a break from college" level opportunity.
So with that, I'm going to focus on putting myself out there to be an assistant producer or even a PA to one. Following that, the onset VFX crew PAs. I'm so excited! This could be the most amazing, life changing summer EVER!
If anyone has any sweet hookups, I would be forever grateful.
Sound Design Project
This semester I am embarking on a rather ambitious concept idea. Emphasis on concept because I will not have the time or budget to actually create the instillation piece because it's something that would take up 100% of my time (and kill off any other projects I'm working on)
Besides, I think it's cool, but I'm too commercial for this artsy stuff.
That said here's my plan...
Take an augmented reality setup using either the square block method (seen on the walls in the video) or just have 1 single on in the center of the room and have projectors too. The objective of this is not to have a mobile setup like the one seen, although that would be fun to do too, but to have it so your friend can walk through the sculpture as you view it on the walls or on a screen.
Spatial Sound Sculpture Doku from Daniel Franke on Vimeo.
Furthermore, put a workstation or netbook on location where people can input gallery viewers own musical track live.
That incoming audio track will be the data used for a sound based 3d animation that plays live on 4 projectors in the gallery as well as on the Augmented reality device.
For example of the audio-to-animation:
One Minute Soundsculpture from Daniel Franke on Vimeo.
Yup, so that's about it. I'll be working on the concept and plans to have live rendering of 3d shapes/objects manipulated by either an input MP3 or microphone. It will be based off an existing engine, code and software because I'm just one person. I'm not crazy, I just want to put all the open source stuff together to make something cool.
Gabriel Yanagihara
Been doing a lot of productive thinking while on Maui. No more than usual, but the quality of thought has been much better as of late.
I've finally got my ideas on paper: Here's a brief distillation of about 20 pages of thoughts.
Discover Myself and my goals:
What is the greatest I think I can achieve?
- Producing Lower budget, High yield creative films like District 9.
- New Paramount division with 100k budget films.
- VFX intensive Commercials. (or creative shorts)
- If I get started now, by the time I'm 30, I can say I've been doing this for 10 years.
Why isn't that goal higher?
- I've never had money to work with and my state of mind concerning financing matches the creative problem solving of indie filmmakers.
- Current lack of experience and knowledge limits my potential for visualizing a wider ranger of opportunities.
- Emotional immaturity, being 20, messes with my priorities and goals.
- An underlying problem of less than stellar self-confidence and an over analytical mind makes me wonder why anyone would give me a multi-million dollar budget.
What obstacles do I need to overcome?
- Education and Experience. I need to find another way to learn besides ACM because it's just not going to cut it.
- Being in Hawaii.
- Social and Networking skills.
- Remembering Names and connections. (I'm designing an iphone app to help me with this. It's kinda awesome.)
Discover Others:
Who do I know that wants to help me grow and see me make it?
- Me
- Certain individuals in Hawaii (wants to see more talent come from Hawaii)
- ACM (a few more success stories would be great)
Where can I go to find mentors and like minded people?
- My Professors
- Vancouver, LA, anywhere where talent converges.
- Masters Degree Program (according to Joel Moffett, but is it worth the price?)
- Film Festivals
- Siggraph 2010
- Burning Man 2010 (documentary? Podcast? Web-series special?)
- The internet (If I'm willing to work with someone who shows talent online, there's someone out there willing to do the same with me.)
Myself as an Individual
The Good...
- Ambitious. I may not be more passionate about producing than others out there, but I'll still do a better job than them once I learn the trade. There's no way in hell I'm going to be stuck doing small jobs.
- Creativity and enabler of creativity. I do my best work and come up with my best ideas while engaged with others. I love ideas, even bad ideas will eventually be fodder for new ideas. Creativity in business as well as art.
- "Smart intelligence." I've always been in Honors and AP classes throughout my educational career. I don't see myself as naturally smarter, I just don't invest time learning stuff I don't need so I am on par overall with lots more free time. I can't , but give me 10 minutes and I can show you how it can be done.
- Internal Organization: I went through my life so far not using a planner or schedule book because I just remembered stuff. Keeping track of budgets, deadlines, projections and schedules shouldn't be hard at all.
- Logic and Emotions. I never get that emotional (angry or sad or ecstatic) so my decisions are always pretty well ground in reality and the facts on the table.
The Bad...
- Took me long enough... Up until recently I always assumed everyone else had their shit together and I was the only one grasping at straws figuring out who I was and what my role in life would be. I need to unearth why I had such a distorted view of reality I have catching up to do with confidence.
- Social Interaction: I need to learn how to network, how to overcome shyness and make friends with people I don't know. My conversational skills need work. (emotional/professional maturity needs to advance 10 years)
- External Organization: I need to get in the habit of expressing my internal organization externally so that others can view it. Get a planner or use google calendar.
- Value of Self and Time: I've spent quite a lot of my time being the supporter of others' projects. Putting others' goals before my own can be an inefficient use of my energy if they throw away opportunities and there's really nothing to show for it. It's hard because I really like helping others, but it's time I allocated more time for me and make sure to make it clear that I can only help other projects when I'm free. Maybe limit it to 3 other projects this year.
- Recreation: I've already quit playing MMOs since this break and I only play consoles when my friends play, but I need to find some physical activities. This is a work in progress because I hate competitive sports and working out is more of a chore. Hopefully I'll think of something.
Even with all I've come up with, there's so much more to take into consideration. But one thing I do know is that I have some big changes ahead of me.
More than anything, I want to learn from those more experienced than me. I want to find out what it takes to be the greatest producer and fashion myself to fit that profile with the guidance of strong mentors I find.
11. Some kink is good – nuff said.
Presentation
Internet Resources Gabriel Yanagihara
Everything technical you learned in ACM, you could have learned online, free. And should have, because when you graduate and everything we learned here becomes outdated, you will have to learn how to teach yourself. You can learn anything, from making a Steadycam for $30 that works just as well as a $500 Glidecam, to a guide of how to turn your film into a 3D movie in post.
As a disclaimer, (and quoting Professor Joel Moffett) you don't go to film school to learn how to film, you go to film school to make connections and find future, lifelong business partners. So no matter how effective and easy internet learning is, it will never adequately replace a working environment where you learn and collaborate with peers. Approaching the topic of internet learning and resources from that standpoint makes it more of a tool towards becoming a filmmaker or new media artist.
Since the majority of ACM are production students, I shall start there. Film resources on the web include podcasts, or short audio or video segments released and range from general topic discussion to free workshops and lessons in different fields. There also exists tutorial videos as well as more entertaining TV series. For example, Film Riot, is a internet TV series that teaches tricks and tips to film making. http://revision3.com/filmriot Every week they go over something new, whether it be how to make a steadycam, to how to do simple, yet effective visual effects for storytelling purposes.
With the transition to Digital, there are many programs out there for film makers to use. Each of those has hours and hours of FREE instructional video and tutorials. In addition, there are video lessons that you can pay for each lesson. (or pay a fee to get access to all of them for a set amount of time)
For the online instructional institutions, they teach it as a structured lesson plan based on the path you choose and there are even live sessions with teachers. Many of these schools offer both live sessions as well as a library of video resources. For example, if I want to be a sound designer/editor I would pay a tuition like a regular college, but instead of classes I have video lectuers and tutorials that teach me the skills and software. These schools and resources are great for technical skills, but technical alone does not make you a good artist or film maker.
To deal with this issue, those who self-teach themselves join online communities. There are major communities for every type of job. These are places where you can give and receive critique, share tips and techniques and resources. A very good example of this is conceptart.org a community of professional concept artists and illustrators who are very hostile and unyielding to new artists, but if you can take the harsh critique and spend a year or two posting your work daily for feedback, you will become good.
A very useful resource of these sites are a community daily(or weekly) challenge. You compete each day with a new topic or theme. For example, a weekly short film challenge about a random topic, or a daily sketch about a theme. The community votes on the best one and there are awards given. You can tell who the upcoming artists are by who has a lot of small awards, and you can tell who the big, industry players are because they usually win the big contests that give the big titles and awards.
The strength of these digital institutions is also their weakness. They give you a wealth of information and instruction as well as a community that can help you improve. However, even though you get to personally know all these people, you never really meet them face to face and the chances of finding work through them is unlikely. Although it does happen online, real world connections are much more effective in forming professional connections and partners.
Digital resources can be a very valuable asset in learning and supplementing students and professionals alike. I would go so far as to say that I could find the answers to any technical question within 10 minutes if someone has asked the question before, or within a day or two if no one has come across the problem before.
Film Riot – self budget
http://revision3.com/filmriot
Tutorialized
http://www.tutorialized.com/
Feeds
http://tutsplus.com/
specific feeds
http://cg.tutsplus.com/
http://ae.tutsplus.com/
http://audio.tutsplus.com/
http://www.izbrush.com/
Unity3d
http://answers.unity3d.com/
Online Schools who offer paid for resources.
http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/subscription/
http://gnomonology.com/
http://www.digitaltutors.com/09/index.php
and many others
Mechwarrior 5 legal problems
My thoughts on AVATAR
Avatar, the film that supposed to change the way we see films, is getting a lot of hype.
Regardless of how it does, I had a few things to comment on design and vfx wise. I'll start from the beginning.
First VFX scene is the space dock, Love the models, lighting is great and I noticed a freaking HUGE hurricane on the planet surface. I wonder if that was generated in Realflow or painted...
Second scene of interest is the flyover of the jungle, which I believe used sprites/2d flat panels with fog/clouds. I'm not sure what the actual name of the technique is, but it's a series of matte paintings set up in a 3d environment. Looks great.
I also noticed a tree or two rotate perspective. This means it might have been mixed in with actual stock footage or 3d trees.
The unloading ship scene was what first excited me. I love robots, love them to death. VFX wise, a very good greenscreen with a cgi background. Love the people, USA finally caught up with Japan.
And here's the first epic mattepainting. Oh my god I want that job! How cool is that!
Oh man this film is going to be so cool! I can't wait! THIS IS AWE-
...is that Papyrus?
Who the hell uses Papyrus! I live in Hawaii folks, so my contempt for this font exceeds the average designer's. It's overused so much here to be exotic and tropical and almost ALWAYS at the persistence on clients, rather than artists. /end rant
This makes me wonder how much of the rest of the film is influences by the person who decided to use Papyrus...
Skipping the first alien scene till I we get a better look at em later and onto the GUI display. Always a fun thing to make, VFX here is good, tracking is flawless and it just looks cool. I really hope we have this type of technology before I die, even though it's sorta impractical... Kinda like how our parents imagined hover cars and rocket cars.
Much more likely to develop LCD contact lenses with Augmented Reality. We've already got so much tech in AR with the iphone and such in testing. *off topic, yet again*
Following that we have an inside view of what I assume were those Darkfiber or fiberoptic cords. However good the VFX was and experimental mentalray shaders (an educated guess), the first thing I could think of was...the internet is a series of tubes.
Also, 90's VHS tapes that attempt to explain the information super highway and how all the cool kids know how to "surf" it.
Ah, the alien humanoid thing. Ambient lighting conditions in a indoor setting. I'd be terrified, but they pulled it off. It's realistic enough and he doesn't look too CG...
Props to the guy who did the displacement maps and textures for the soles of his feet and veins. Someone should buy that guy a beer.
That said, after a few passes I noticed that the techs aren't looking at his face. They're looking up and behind him. Though, no one but a VFX person LOOKING for stuff would notice. They're facing in the general direction. Definitely not an issue big enough to go back and reanimate and rerender.
Landing scene looked cool. I love the animations for the creatures.
The large predator he faces is everything the red ice monster from Star Trek was not. Done well with a proper choice of shaders and materials for the skin.
I cannot wait to see how this film does. District 9 blew people away with amazing VFX for a 30 mil budget. If this big budget film is equally successful, I will be overjoyed for the industry. It means we can't go wrong!
And now is the perfect time for this film. A VFX professor pointed out to me that film VFX lags behind commercials a bit due to the much higher cost-per-second given to commercial budgets. Which, I had thought was just a coincidence until that was pointed out to me. Makes sense to me.
We're at a sweet spot where films can afford the good VFX. And it can only get better.
Quick request for anyone reading, I CANNOT find out how they add the exhaust distortion and mirage-like effects of jet engines like the ones under the fans of these gunships. Anyone know?
So, in closing, Avatar will be the next natural step in VFX. Taking the photorealistic renderings of car commercials and fluid effects and adapting them to film. Looks like it'll be a blast!
‘District 9’s’ Neill Blomkamp does more with less — latimes.com
'District 9's' Neill Blomkamp does more with less -- latimes.com
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Very good article on ‘District 9′
I was reading this article after watching 'District 9' and realized it was written by someone named Chris Lee. I wonder if it's our Chris Lee here at ACM.
But that's a side note I'll try and find out later one. District 9 is the topic of today.
Here is the article
In short, District 9 has created a great film with a 30 million dollar budget. I don't know how they did it, but I hope that this film sets the precedent for a new way to make feature films.
From the article, I understand they did away with Research and Development and big-name movie actors. (which in my opinion take away from the story of any film because it brings in a pre-ordained stigma as to what the character will be like.)
As for renting equipment, as the cost of VFX goes down, even LESS equipment will need to be rented. Aside from the 2 or 3 vehicles needed for actor interaction, any fly-bys or non-crucial vehicles can be CGI. I'm sure there's also lots of ways to do stuff amongst friends and colleagues.
CCP reveals new EVE console MMO: DUST 514
Regardless of what you think of EVE or Dust, the concepts and ideas CCP is coming up with in terms of game mechanics, social experimentation and how to make gaming interconnected is mind boggling.
To have a single server massively successful MMO connect with other games to create multi-game corporations, alliances and interaction just blows my mind. It's so...brave.
It's a risk, but if it pays off, we could see a whole new genre in gaming. Well, not so much a new genre, but more a layer on top genres.
For you WoW players, imagine if there were NPC cities and continents with endgame dungeons that were Horde or Alliance or NPC controlled based on Warcraft 3 (or maybe a new game, 4) tournaments?
A RTS that has consequences in an MMO. Not sure how they'd switch it back, but you get the idea.
