weekly comments #14

1. I learned what my problem with the PSA was, though I learned it much too late... turns out I hit a different button than I was supposed to and that glitches all my footage in After Effects.

2. I think I hit the limit of stuff I want to learn. Maybe I'll just try to learn how to do what I already know how to do better and quicker.

3. Anger with school stuff, same old issues. Nothing really bothered me in class.

4. So unbelievably happy that I handed in the competition in time. Not exactly in love with it, some problems that I wish I had destroyed earlier, but I handed it in, it's a grade, and so I'll accept it and move on to the next thing.

Running out of ideas for links of interest that are actually in some way pertaining to our class, at this rate I might just start sharing cat videos. Here's a tutorial for a lava effect in after effects
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YjNetDZRxAQ

response to faking a crowd article

A filmmaker may find out that they want/need a large crowd of people for their shots. Sometimes you won't have the money to get a storm of extras in your scene, so you gotta do the next best thing. Grab just a couple people and fake it. It's easier to make these crowds in post production. Here's the four steps to fake crowds before you start editing them. 1. Group your extras close together. 2. Shoot with a long lens. This creates depth and makes it feel like there are more people than shown. 3. Place your subjects on a different plane of field than your extras. This adds depth as well and adds to the illusion that there are tons of people walking around. 4. Get close-ups of each of your extras. It's harder to distinguish just the back of someone's head, so you can show it repeatedly at times and it wouldn't seem to be the same person over and over.

It's always nice to have some tips and tricks for video production, especially when they save you money. I've known that you can fake crowds with good camera angles and placement of people, but not exactly how. So this is good to know. I most likely wouldn't have thought to place my subjects on a different plane of field than the extras. I'd like to think that I'm good enough in after effects to do this stuff easily, but that would be a pretty big lie, so thanks for the tips!

response to super bowl ad article

Oscar Stromberg, director of Maleficent, made a super bowl commercial for the new Mercedes-AMG GT S. The commercial featured a comical retelling of the classic story, The Tortoise and the Hare. This is his first time directing a commercial. The most difficult part of making the commercial was creating the diversity of animals along with giving them all human characteristics and appear to have personalities. Each character started as a drawing, was then put into Photoshop to be adjusted, then rendered, and finally made into a 3d model in Maya. The commercial ended up as a success and was even turned into a game for contestants to win the car.

I thought the commercial was very cute when i saw it, The Tortoise and the Hare was one of the first fairy tales I'd ever read and was one of my favorites. I think it's interesting, the amount of work put into not only making the animals but giving them personality and life as well. Very cool that the director made such a good commercial when he never directed one before. Though, he is an Oscar winning art director so I suppose it's not too surprising.