Better late than never

Thought I would ease myself back into using this blog with something short and simple, then get myself back into the routine of using it properly.

This is England '86

With the premiere of Shane Meadows new follow on series "This is England '86" based on the characters from his BAFTA award winning film "This is England," this video interviews Shane Meadows about the new mini-series and his debut on TV.

At 6:40 in the video he brings up an interesting topic of how there is a snobbery between film directors about TV and how they think going to TV is a step down from the big screen. He mentions how directors such as Mike Leigh and Stephen Frears made their films for TV, and so while there are some directors who feel that TV is a lower grade medium for their work, others utilise it well.

I personally feel that if a director can create a mini-series that looks just as epic and incredible on TV than it would in the cinema then it is not a step-down, it can be a step-up. What ever story you have to contain in two to two and half hours of film, you can spread out and develop further in a 4 hour mini series. If done correctly, TV can allow a director to broaden his story, delve into the characters and develop everything a lot more than they can in a constrained time limit for film, and at the end of the day this allows for much bigger and better projects being made for TV.

Looking at title sequences

In thinking for the future, I've decided to take a look at some title sequences and how they correlate to the theme of the films or tv programmes. While these examples are of not films, they show the same techniques that film title sequences have.



From the american SHOWTIME programme Dexter. This title sequence is a perfect example of how a title sequence can tell the audience everything they need to know. Without watching it before, some may think this is the daily routine of the eponymous character, but after watching it you'll understand the themes shown. The premise of the show is that Dexter is a serial killer who kills other killers who have escaped the legal system. In knowing this, the audience can see correlations of the title sequence to actions of killers. The cooking and eating of meat as mutilation of bodies, the splattering of ketchup relating to blood, tying shoelaces wrapped tightly around his hands as in strangling. Many of the actions shown in the title sequence would look normal without knowing the programme, but it is a perfect title sequence as it tells the audience everything they need to know about the programme in hindsight.



The next title sequence is from HBO's True Blood. While this title sequence isn't as directly linked to the programme like Dexter's, it definitely gives a feeling and sense of what the programme is about. The title sequence shows a mix of religious images and scenery to tell the audience it's set in a southern state of America. The programme is about vampires being a reality and are revealed to the public and the media, some "mainstreaming" which means becoming an integral part of society, while some are revered as what they are. There is constant friction between the vampires, the media, society and religion. Which is why there's an apparent religious theme, especially set in Louisiana, mixed with sexual images relating to the hedonism of vampires.

Broadening and Surrounding - Jurgen Wolff

Reading up on Jurgen Wolff's thoughts about generating and creating ideas, I took both the broadening and surrounding ideas and decided to try to apply them to future projects. While both area's of Wolff's thoughts may not be exactly connected, they are similar and can be used in conjunction with one another.

An example of what I came up with is using my knowledge of sociology and further broadening my knowledge of theories on ideology, social interactions and social stipulations and associating them with where I live and where I have lived, especially in certain area's which are afflicted by some of the theories of sociology that I know. This could include frictions between middle and working class, downward spiral of poverty and causes of crime. Any sociological theory can be applied to where you live, and can be easily used to tell a story through film detailing a characters life experiencing these afflictions and struggles in life to a climax.

Surroundings and broadened knowledge go hand in hand when making a film, especially if those surroundings are personal to the film maker themselves. The film maker then has an extensive array of emotions, experiences and history to that surrounding to add creativity and uniqueness to the project.

Mood Boards

Mood board for Avatar:


Mood board for Box:

And it came to me light a strike of lightning.

It's funny how the best idea's come to you at the most unlikely of times. For the audiovisual aspect of my identities, I was thinking of what defines me most as a person. And it should be the same for everyone. What defines me the most, are my friends. So my idea is that I will compile footage of my friends, me and me with my friends. It will be a short piece, but it'll be meaningful and sums up me as my identity. So why not? What makes me, me, are my friends.

A massive post of ideas and examples

So it's been a while since my last blog post, and since then we've started the identities module. This is just a post to show some examples of what I'm thinking for both my box and my avatar.

the box I have decided is going to be a rubix cube, because while it is box in shape, it allows for some interesting animation aspects. I could have the user click on either side of the rubix cube to go to each different element of the piece which would allow me to animate it spinning and everything else. However, I dont know how applicable this is. The other option is to have the user click on the top of the rubix cube, and have the lid lift up, and have the user get transported inside the rubix cube to then have options to click the different elements.

Here are some examples of the rubix cube:






The other idea's I had were for my avatar. Due to me not knowing how to model a biped yet or any type of clothing, I'm keeping this idea in the back of my head until I can actually do it, so obviously I have a back up idea for my avatar later. The idea for the biped which unfortunately I can't execute yet, is a rabid version of me kept up in a cage. The idea is to show that everyone has a wild side to themselves, and some let it out to keep themselves from being bored. The only thing I've modeled for this idea is the cage, but i haven't finished the cage yet cause I'm planning on breaking some of the bars and have them jagged too look like the avatar has escaped but stays in the cage. So here is the unbroken cage for the moment:



I'm going to have the cage hang from a chain, which can then be animated to swing from side to side. It's going to look pretty epic cause i'm going to put some camera's from underneath, so when the cage swings, it only illuminates part of the avatar to make it look even creepier to fit the mood of the piece.

The back up idea I had for my avatar was an oldschool robot, you know the ones you get from like tin toys that look absolutely useless as a robot which could cause major devastation. I'm modeling it right now cause it's just composed of basic shapes, animating it might be a problem, but at the moment it's just a back up idea incase the rabid avatar doesn't come to plan. If the rabid avatar does come to plan, then i could save this for an animated piece of work and class it as audio/visual and have it as one of the 5 elements of the identities package. The idea if I did make it into an audio/visual element is the idea of a disastermovie and have the avatar devastate a 3d town. I was thinking of making it humorous and maybe have the town be formed of like giant cardboard cut outs, so instead of the robot knocking down a building, it'll knock down a cardboard cut out of a building.

Here's the beginning of the robot avatar, but being the idiot I am, i forgot to save different stages of the render, so you can imagine how it was looking before this stage, but i'll update it with more renders as i develop it:

3D Lego