Scene Deconstruction: District B13's Intro

The theme of this movie is the explanation and examination of the different tiers of life within a city's organized crime group. This theme is achieved with the use an active method because the cinematic take the viewer through each group on a guided tour at the beginning. This gives an overview of what will be further broken down as the movie goes on and leaves this interpretation up to the viewer's mind.

To help make this use of theme more effective the use of “lines” and “movement” are greatly utilized. For starters, the use of movement is incredibly evident because the director and editors did their best to make it seem like one long continuous shot. In doing so, it makes it easy to direct the viewers awareness of where they should be looking while also creating less obvious meanings. With this specific use of movement it allowed the cinematic to move to higher floors of the building without any confusion, also helping to support the idea of the theme and the different tiers within the organization. All of this movement helps creates tension within the scene because it isn't common to have a shot going for such length of time and therefore adds to the sense of evil that is supposed to be portrayed. As if this use of movement wasn't efficient enough, the director continued to improve on the shots from there by using lines to guide the viewers eyes as well. Amongst each floor and area the camera explores there is a great deal of affinity and contrast throughout the objects. The use of contrast, however, is the key point. By putting objects such as a flaming oil drum/trashcan it draws instant attention to the area in question because the flames create such a contrast of lines in the shot. The use of affinity amongst the lines is important, as well. If it wasn't for the less subtle lines used along the walls of the shots to help move along the movement it would make the seamless shot seem less smooth and a lot harder on the eyes.

Animation Deconstruction

9 vs. $9.99

"9"

$9.99

For my comparing and contrasting animations I chose to use the movies "9" and "$9.99", 2 movies that used totally different styles of animation. To start I will discuss their uses of color. $9.99 took a bit of a bland approach on its hue using a lot more neutral colors causing them to almost blend together, whereas 9's colors were more defined and stuck out among the other colors in the scene. While it's not fully apparent through the screen shots above, “9” uses a darker brightness than “$9.99” due to the fact that the world in “9” is completely overthrown by robots and “$9.99” paints the picture of a 'normal' world. The saturation/intensity of colors are greater in “9” than in “$9.99” due to the fact that “$9.99” was created through the use of clay limiting the creators to less vibrant colors than the colors the CGI was capable of using.

Next the comparison of each film's lighting. The world portrayed in “9” lays mostly in shadows, whereas the world in “$9.99” had more variety by the creators trying to slightly exaggerate the lighting we see in our everyday world. While it is not exactly the same use of shadows, both methods create the same symbolic messages that there is evil afoot and causing trouble. The constant darkness in “9” creates a mood of suspense where the viewer expects there to always be some sort of physical and emotional action at almost all times. “$9.99”, on the other hand, has a mood with it's natural light that allows breaks in the action triggering the audience to have a neutral mood/mindset.

Lastly their differences/similarities in terms of movement. Since “$9.99” was created through claymation it had a lot more limitations in terms of its animation compared to “9”. Being computer generated “9's” animations were a lot more parallel and natural with their movements than those of “$9.99”. Even though “9's” foreground and background were more complex than that of “$9.99”, they both had a great deal of animations going on at all times, hence the use of overlapping movements in both films. Both films also successfully conveyed a realistic presentation of weight in their artificially created worlds.

Storyboard Imitation

Based on previous "It's All Gone Pete Tong" blog...

The Use of Correct Camera Perspectives

While filming the selected scene from “It's All Gone Pete Tong”, the director did a good job staying true to the rules. First, I'll address the rule of thirds, a rule the director utilized perfectly. To start off he tilts the angle of the girl's face and makes it so that her mouth (the focus point) is in the left third of the screen. This shot is followed up by a close-up shot of the man's eyes, his face is slightly off-centered and his eyes are looking to the left intentionally in order to line up his eyes both the left and right rule of thirds. After that is cuts to the restaurant scene where the band is located in the background on the left third and the dancer is moving around waving her dress excessively causing her to cross both of the thirds and keeping constant attention on her. The close-up of her shoes is also a bit off centered to the left and slowly zooming in causing her tap motions to cross the left rule of thirds more each movement. Secondly comes the 30 rule. The main character is sitting close to the girl whose lips are being focused on and therefore when the cut goes from her lips to his face it is approximately 30 degrees away. When it goes to the close-ups of her shoes it enlarges it more than 30 degrees, but because it is the focus of action it makes it an exception to the rule. Lastly, the 180 line rule. From the first perspective, the camera's line of 180 is taken in front of both of the characters and keeps the same orientation during the close-ups of their faces rather than a shot of the back of their heads. The same occurs once inside the restaurant. A line of 180 is drawn from the viewer's perspective, directly in front of the action, and when the camera zooms in to the dancer's heels the camera remains directly in front of them keeps the same orientation.

Song Deconstruction: Midnight City

Original by M83

LISTENING PHASE 1 (Rhythm)

Tempo [slow, medium, fast]

medium

Source [where is the rhythm coming from?]

synth-like vocals and the drums (mainly the kick and snare)

Groove [describe how the personality of the rhythm]

Dragged out yet driving

LISTENING PHASE 2 (Arrangement)

Instrumentation [which instruments drive the song?]

Drum set, synths, voice, and saxophone

Structure/Organization [how is the song built? Order, patterns, etc.]

Intro->Chorus->Verse 1->Chorus->Verse 2->Chorus/Outro

Emotional Architecture [Draw how the song build and drop?]

LISTENING PHASE 3 (Sound Quality)

Balance

- Height [high and low of frequency]

High

- Width [stereo panning left/right]

Some less subtle

- Depth [layers of instruments - via loudness]

Deep

Cover of "Midnighty City" by The Knocks

LISTENING PHASE 1 (Rhythm)

Tempo [slow, medium, fast]

medium

Source [where is the rhythm coming from?]

synth-like vocals to start and then taken over by the kick drum

Groove [describe how the personality of the rhythm]

uplifting and driving

LISTENING PHASE 2 (Arrangement)

Instrumentation [which instruments drive the song?]

drum pad, synths, and voice

Structure/Organization [how is the song built? Order, patterns, etc.]

Intro->Chorus->Verse 1->Chorus->Verse 2->Chorus/Outro

Emotional Architecture [Draw how the song build and drop?]

LISTENING PHASE 3 (Sound Quality)

Balance

- Height [high and low of frequency]

High

- Width [stereo panning left/right]

Some less subtle

- Depth [layers of instruments - via loudness]

Not as deep as M83's but still deep

Essay

When M83 originally released “Midnight City” not too long ago, many were blown away by it's excellence and a cover of it was simply unheard of. As usual, however, The Knocks did the unheard of and covered “Midnight City” and did so beautifully. When M83 did their recording of the lyrics they used a male vocalist and heavily effected the sound to make it fit in he sounds deep layered sound. The Knocks, on the other hand, used a female vocalist to do their lyrics and made her voice more subtle sounding. They both kept the same medium tempo/speed, but used different ways of instrumentation to keep the beat driving. They both used their vox-style synths and drums, but the Knocks version relied more on their kick drum to do most of the driving than M83 chose to do. The Knocks cover keeps true to M83's original melody just give it a little spin of their own to give it a brighter feel. The achieved this by using a slightly different instrumentation and by not adding as many effects to their layers to achieve a thinner sound than M83's (but still deep nonetheless). M83 used voice, drum set, synths, and a saxophone. The Knocks took a more simple route and used voice, synths (with different settings), and a drum pad. They both have a very intense feel to them, but M83's is darker sounding while The Knock's is uplifting. Both versions of the song follow the same organization, whereas they both start off with the intro that leads into the chorus, which is followed by a verse, which is followed by another chorus, another verse, and ends with a chorus. Each chorus has small elements added to add to their complexity and intensity. In terms of elements of sound, both had a complex tonal timbre to them and a loud intensity, Regarding pitch, M83's took a lower sound to it while The Knocks was higher.

If I had to pick my favorite, it was a very hard choice, but I would have to pick M83's version because it was their unique idea in the first place and if they would have never made their song The Knocks would have never been able to do their cover version of it.

Reflections on Sound Design: It's All Gone Pete Tong

(click to enlarge scrips)

The whole movie “It's All Gone Pete Tong” is a wonderful example of all sorts of sounds. It follows the journey of a DJ who bursts his eardrums and is forced to learn how to feel the music through their vibrations in order to save his life. This scene in particular shows the point in time where Frankie Wild, the DJ, begins to discover how he can sense the vibrations if he focuses. To do this the sound designers put a lot of time in trying to make you feel like you were within his head and hear what he hears. Two examples of this can be found through their use of “Listening Modes” and “Time”. In terms of “Listening Modes”, during the scene within the restaurant the casual sound you hear is all of the musicians playing and the lady's shoes off the floor. In the Semantic sense, though, as it combines with the audio and is filtered some you can tell it represents the vibrations Frankie is feeling within his body. In terms of “Time”, as Frankie focuses more intently on specific things the “speed and loudness” begin to change. The tempo of the music begins to slow and different aspects of the song are made louder as others are taken down in volume. It also uses “recognition” by taking the way we normally hear/recognize the sound of music/audio in general and then transforms it into a very different sound to create the idea that we are within a deaf person's mind, something we aren't used to or able to recognize which catches our attention.

Brainwashed

http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/66.01.Brainwashed

Acknowledging the Lizard – Acknowledging the Lizard is the part of our brain that fears negative criticism towards our work more than anything else. Upon being told it's “wrong”, it can cause us to just give up.

Fail – Failing is the ability to accept that what you did was total crap and being able to move onto the next project with our heads still held high regardless.

Connect – Connecting is the ability to share our thoughts and feelings with a wide range of people at simply the press of a button rather than the limitations innovators had in the past.

Accurate...? Somewhat.

While I didn't agree with all 7 of Seth Godin's tips, I do agree with the 3 I chose to summarize. To start, I'll talk about “Acknowledging the Lizard”. The concept of this is incredibly correct, and I know this from experience. There are numerous accounts of times when I've spent a lot of time on some sort of project and gotten it to a point where I find it to be acceptable, yet when I show it off to others they proceed to tear it apart. A lot of the time you will find yourself fighting back against their honest opinions and telling them “No, you're wrong.” simply because you yourself doesn't want to be wrong. Following that, upon enough negative criticism, I'll even give up on projects that could have easily been salvageable because of how discouraged the comments made me. This luckily isn't a problem when it comes to our blogging. We're given the ability to speak our minds, where no matter if we're for or against the subject, we will still receive credit for doing it. This is very important in improving as creative individuals because we don't have to fear being told what we've done was incorrect as long as we've followed the broad guidelines. Next comes “Failing”, a word I fear greatly. There is nothing worse than the feeling of knowing all of your hard work spent on something has been a total waste. Recovering from this and allowing yourself to continue to give your everything on the projects to come is a hard task to do, but yet a necessity. Allowing yourself to shortchange your creativity so you just end up doing the bear-minimal to meet a projects specific guidelines is horrible. Luckily, these blogs have incredibly broad rubrics, which allow for us to express ourselves without having to worry about losing large amounts of points all over the place and hence failing that assignment. The third of the terms I chose was “Connecting”, a term that applies perfectly to these blogs because that is entirely what they are. We are posting them to an online public blogging site where they are visible/connectable with the whole world with just the press of the button. This offers the ability for users to contribute feedback and opinions to other users instantly. Concepts like this would never have been possible in the past and restricted peers to only the feedback of their teacher, and even that took a great deal of time.

Finding Your Howl

http://changethis.com/manifesto/show/51.01.YourHowl

Summary

As the race of the red wolves approached extinction, actions were taken to remove the remaining ones from their habitat in order to protect them and save their race. Unfortunately, in doing so, once there were enough red wolves to be released once again into the while they had lost some of their sense of independence. They no longer knew how to howl and begin to live their lives in fear. One wolf, however, Mumon has an encounter/vision with a deer, a raven, and an angry farmer that brings dignity back to their pack. Through this he is able to open his eyes and ears to the big picture and regain his howl and reunite his pack and make them the feared predators they once were. The lesson of this is, sometimes all you have to do to achieve what you want is by opening yourself up to the big picture.

Some of my favorite lyrics that spark creativity.

Dan Deacon - Snookered

"Been round this road so many times,

Feel like its skin is part of mine,

This taste of milk is almost gone,

Still got no shame, but not for long!

Been wrong so many times before,

But never quite like this."

I find a big source of my creativity through music. Each and everyday people are trying new things with music and create new unique styles and techniques. Half of which the time you see them and wonder just where in the world they ever thought of trying that. Well it comes through creativity, and in seeing this it inspires me to keep trying new things until I make something work that I'm proud of. This is why, for my inspirational quote, I chose the lyrics from one of my favorite creative musicians, Dan Deacon. In particular his song “Snookered”. It is a mostly instrumental song, but the few lyrics in it are powerful to me. They start off by saying “Been around this road so many times before”, which is saying how he's fallen into a routine where he finds himself starting to do the same things over and over again. He continues with “Feel like this its skin is part of mine, this taste of milk is almost gone” which explains how he feels he's almost relinquishing his sense of freedoms and fallen into the routine permanently. “Still got no shame, but not for long” explains how he's okay with still doing the same thing over and over again, but if he doesn't change it soon it's going to be too late. Then to close out the stanza he says “ Been wrong so many times before, but never quite like this.” symbolizing how he has made plenty of mistakes during his life, but allowing himself to fall into a repetitive pattern each and every day would be the worst mistake he could ever make. The reason this inspires me is because I feel this is a mistake so much of today's society has been unable to avoid. I think there's a ton of people out there in a field that allow for endless boundaries of creativity that fail to take advantage of this. They limit themselves to just follow the norm because it's proven that the norm and mainstream route is successful. So many movies, films, songs, etc. anymore are just so similar that it blows my mind. Sure there are minor subtle changes, but the basic format of them all are almost identical. I hope to not fall into this same thought process. I constantly search around for new things and ideas to keep my brain working and experiencing new things, just like experimental music for example. In doing so, I hope to increase my creativity level to a degree that allows me to create things people are unfamiliar with, but are able to embrace regardless. By doing this I will break free of the mainstream thought and won't allow myself to slide into a repetitive never ending rut. This will enable my creativity to never cease growing, and I will be able to learn and think of new approaches to situations with each and every every engagement and project I face. I just hope others are able to open their eyes and follow in the same path I plan on taking.

Deconstructing a Character

Color: Red and White

Just like many other superheroes, his color scheme contains red, white, and blue. His initial costume consists of primarily red and white, but whenever he is seen posing in any of his heroic poses a blue background is always present. These colors represent the justice he strives to achieve in each book/episode. As for his primary colors, the red of his cape represents his power, passion, and strength he has. His other color, white, found on his underwear represents his innocence due to the fact that he is unaware of what he is doing while he fights crime and evil.



Lighting: Blinding

For his lighting, I felt “blinding” was the only choice of adjectives that could work. As he runs around fighting evil, all he wears to protect his body is a cape and a pair of underpants, leaving his pasty white skin on display for the world around him. This represents multiple things. For one, it shows anybody can go above and beyond to save the world or in essence help make the world a better place. It also represents how regardless of how dark the situation may be, light/good will always prevail to make the best out of the situation.



Shape: Russian Nesting Doll

In order to describe my superheroes shape, I chose the shape of Russian Nesting Dolls. His head is on the smaller side and as you work your way down his body it hits it's peak around the hip area, just as the dolls do. Once the dolls have hit their largest point they slim done once more, my hero does this as well for his legs. While it may not be the most muscular of statures, this shape still grants him a big and intimidating size. This shows opponents how he's going to be difficult to take down and most importantly difficult to get around.



Who is it? Captain Underpants

All of these traits and motifs explain the one, the only, Captain Underpants. Principal Krupp by day, unknowingly Captain Underpants by night, he protects the world from all sorts of danger he, his students, and his school may face in just his brilliant red cape and freshly white underwear. Even though a lot of these dangerous encounters are caused by the same two that are responsible for his super powers, George and Harold, he manages to defeat them one-by-one without even breaking a sweat. Captain Underpants is also easily the most noble of all superheroes due to the fact that he is completely unaware of any of his heroic journeys and endeavors.



The Antagonist



Color: Purple and Blue

The main colors of Captain Underpants's antagonist are purple and blue. The purple represents the mystery about her origins and motives. Purple also is known to be very popular among children, which acts in her benefit because they are the targets she hopes to attack and her color helps to lure them in to make this easier. Her other color, blue, represents her evil wisdom in which she uses to come up with evil plots in which to overthrow the world. It also represents a sense of calm, another factor that helps deceive her enemies and make them easier targets.



Lighting: In Shadow

Like most villains, this antagonist consistently has a lighting that casts her into a shadow. This shows how she is evil and how she tends lurks in the shadows before making her attack. The shadow also represents how she separates herself from normal civilization just as shadow separates light from dark. Just as her color purple shows off a sense of mystery, the shadow shows a sense of the unknown and the lack of knowledge people have about her. By lurking shadows, it also increases he ability of getting away with her wrongdoings and making it easier for her to escape from the situation quickly if she needs to.



Shape: Medusa

The shape of the antagonist, is that of Medusa. Just like Medusa's hair consisted of snakes back in mythological times, she has serpent like hair to give the same appearance. The sight of Medusa was known to be such a sight everybody towered in fear of her and avoided her/looking at her at all costs. This was also due to the fact that looking into her face was known to turn you instantly into stone. What could be more evil than that? By giving this antagonist the same hairstyle instantly gives her the same vibe Medusa gave off, creating fear in anyone who may be at risk of running into her. It is also said that looking into her eyes would cause her to give you one mighty big and painful wedgie.



Who is it? Wedgie Woman

The name of Captain Underpants's antagonist is the evil Wedgie Woman. The perfect enemy of a hero that wears nothing but his skivvies due to the fact of how easy it would be to give him an atomic wedgie. On top of her diabolical self, she also has a minion of robots that help her out as well. These, along with the serpents in his hair, combine forces with her hands allowing her to gives numerous wedgies all at once. All of these aspects on the offensive make it hard for Captain Underpants to keep track of them all at once without allowing at least one to sneak past his defenses and reach his waistband.