Permanent Flux

Developed, Real City

Developed 3d city

Real world city - developing

images, 3D city - stil developing

Style

So the style I am going for now is one of a backward step if you like. The original design was looking too much towards trying to make my city look real, but by making lots of squares and just mapping them, I think you will agree, not very appealing. So I am now trying to create a handmade look to the 3D model. So it kind of looks real and to match the way I will be creating my real city. The best way to show this is by pictures but picture the Hollywood set of a spaghetti western and your almost there.

Not only that. As I will be animating the real city and its characters in stop motion I have decided to approach the 3d model in this way too. I am quite excited about the end result of the 3d animation as I have never done a stop motion animation before, never mind one in 3d. So I am hoping it will give it a distinguishable style. Also I have never seen an animation created in stop motion from 3d so it could be a first!! But probably not…

style 0.1

Well I have been trying to sort out a look or style for my city (in 3d) and to say the least I had found it hard up until a rather good suggestion. At first my idea was to create this 3D city like any other city with full buildings that had a roof, and four walls. However as you can see from the images below, this dint really look that good, although I still needed mapping to do which would play a big part in the style selection.

even the backdrop still needs proper consideration.

i'm back

Well its been a long long while since I last posted on here. I have just been so caught up in the actually making process etc of the project that I have found it hard to comment on my progress.

Well now is the time I can talk about my progress as iv come on leaps and bounds, but you’ll have to excuse my regret of back tracking during my next few posts.

It has come to that hard yet enjoyable time of handing the work in and I am glad to see what I have produced over so many weeks.

Bit of an animal

Instead of creating and modeling my character for the 3D part of the project, i have took a wierd looking wolf type of animal. this is partly to save time in modelling and because of choice.

With the actual stop motion part of my work i have had a limited choice of what type of models i could use. unless i made one from plasticine it would be very difficult to have a model that was specific to my criteria. that is why i have had to go with a King Kong model, as he wasn't very exspensive and he was easy to get hold of as he is a well known character. many characters out there arent very dissimilar from the norm. with the 3D aspect however, i could pretty much choose whatever character i wanted, and this lyes behind me theory of film architecture. With this also comes the idea of me having a circling helicopter, a scene of my choice and character movement of my choice for example.

3D City - So Far

More buildings are needed but this gives a very accurate idea of what i am looking for with my final 3D piece. the bottom picture is more of the style as it is from a lower angle which will give the sense of a bigger city and the city will look alot busier and full. i have also added the background image to try and bring the scene to life and give some king of perspective.

I plan to create a city scene out of wood for the stop motion animation. I probably want to make about 3 sky scrapers and I’m not sure about smaller buildings. Maybe all of the shots will be to make the model look big so they will be shot from the ground up.

However, I have thought of maybe having some toy cars, maybe for him to crush and because there would be cars in a scene, I might even be able to get a good array of toys, maybe bins and a bin truck etc.

I have already painted the wood ready for my sky scrapers…

…. I have painted them black because I want the scene to be at night so only minimal light will be needed and the black buildings will make the city look even darker. I have yet to build them yet; however, they will only need cutting and tacking, also I want to paint the windows yellow and light grey, light grey when 4 the ones without lights and yellow for those that have lights. My character is roughly 15 cm tall so I think the sky scraper should be at least 4times his height, even though he is a MASSIVE GORILLA.

Already I have done some movement examples of how I want the gorilla to look. I have made the footage black and white and added noise to it to give the impression that it was filmed years ago. Also it hides any quality issues with my building and gorilla movements.

Initially

Initially when I came up with the brief, the development of film architecture my initial thoughts where to look at King Kong and recreate that in stop frame and 3D. This was because I seen the 1933 trailer for it and it says, “it will make you wonder if it’s true, while your eyes tell you it is”. Looking at this clip I can’t believe that anyone could ever believe that it was real, or even be close. As I have stated in my brief, the general audience for films nowadays have come to expect too much from films and CGI in particular. They have learnt to be unimpressed!!

My Brief

- Permanent Flux

- TIC 1018 Intermediate Studio

- The Development of Film Architecture

As viewers of the big screen in the 21st century, we have come to expect far too much from films. So much so, Hollywood film makers find it hard to impress and evolve in innovative ways. However, it wasn’t like this when film began; films had to produce physical architecture and scale models which had to impress the viewers as there was no such thing as blue screen or Computer Generated Imagery (CGI). I am looking to explore the world of set design and how it has changed from the beginning to the present day. Also I am interested in the possible outcomes for the future of films architecture and how the viewers demand for more believable imagery changed how architectures are produced today? From this, I hope to produce a bespoke piece of media that will not only demonstrate ‘Permanent Flux’ but will show the impact of changing architectures within the movie industry and how viewing and film making alike, have evolved to compensate flux.

Stop Motion Animation

Stop motion is a generic general term for an animation technique which makes static objects appear to move. The object is moved by very small amounts between individual frames, producing the effect of motion when the film is played back, as in conventional drawn and painted animation.

A very early example of this is king kong in 1933. we also have recent examples of this such as the recent arrdman production of 'the curse of the wear rabbit'.

Idea - The Development of Film Architecture

Storyboard

Widescreen & Film

Widescreen

As stated before widescreen became popular in the fifties. However, it was proceeded by various attempts in the past, even in the nineteenth century as we have seen before, followed by:

1900 - 75mm Wide Film of Lumière
1900 - 70mm Cinéorama of Raoul Grimoin-Sanson
1914 - 70mm Panoramica (of Filoteo Alberini)
1926 - 63,5mm Natural Vision, R.K.O.
1929 - 70mm Grandeur of Twentieth Century Fox
1930 - 56mm Magnafilm Paramount
1930 - 70mm Realife, M.G.M.
1930 - 65mm Vitascope Warner Bros.

All these ventures did not last for much longer than a year. In the fifties another series of attempts were made to introduce large film sizes for widescreen. To name a few:

1954 - 65mm Todd-AO click for picture of camera
1955 - 55,625mm Cinemascope-55
1956 - 65mm Super Panavision

Frame of 'Oklahoma' in Todd-AO - 65mm wide negative printed onto 70mm color positive.

70 mm film
In the seventies followed IMAX (1970), OMNIMAX (1973), Cinema 180 and others with horizontal position of frames on 65mm negative film. Special theatres were built to accomodate the projectors and ultra wide screen. Specially built projectors were needed because the film could not be pulled through anymore by claw. In the Imax system it is transported by a wave motion. Thanks to the air pressure gate precision, projection on a 180º 100 ft. width screen has become possible.

From the foregoing it is clear that standardization was dictated by the economical power of one or more manufacturers. One result was the universal acceptance and growth of the medium for amusement, information and in some cases as an art form.

Collecting off-gauge movie equipment and films
For the collector hard to find off-gauge equipment/films are a true hunting-ground. In particular the sizes that were never heard of anymore. One may still profit from the relatively low prices as compared with photographica. 8, 16 and 35mm equipment/films are often offered for sale, but it becomes more difficult with 9,5, 17,5, 22, 28mm and all the other sizes mentioned.

From 3 to 75mm
One hundred years of cinema has yielded almost one hundred film gauges from 3mm to 75mm. The smallest of 3mm was developed in 1960 by Eric Berndt for NASA to be used in space flights. It had a centre frameline perforation. The largest was employed by Lumière in 1900 for large screen presentations at the Paris Exposition.

Most of these film sizes have been relegated to oblivion, much to the detriment of its inventors/manufacturers. Each size has its own history.

Film - 100 years

www.xs4all.nl/~wichm/filmsize.html

Struggle for standardization

One hundred years of cinema is also due to acceptance of one standard gauge. Whereas film equipment has undergone drastic changes in the course of a century it is a little miracle that 35mm has remained the universally accepted film size. If film had followed the same course as video, with its continuing change of systems, the development might have been delayed considerably.

Edison

We owe the format to a great extent to Edison - in fact 35mm was called the Edison size before.

In May 1889 Thomas Edison had ordered a Kodak camera from the Eastman Company and was apparently fascinated by the 70mm roll of film used. Thereupon W.K.L.Dickson of his laboratory ordered a roll of film of 1 3/8"(ca. 35 mm) width from Eastman. This was half the film size used in Eastman Kodak cameras. It was to be used in a new type of Kinetoscope for moving images on a strip of celluloid film, which could be viewed by one person at the time.

Lumière film

The Lumière brothers introduced in March 1895 their Cinématographe for 35mm film, which was also used at their first public show of 28 December of that year. Their strip of film had only one round hole per image, whereas Edison used four rectangular perforations per frame.

Even at that time there was already a variety of widths:

54mm (2 1/8") (Friese-Greene in 1887)
54mm paperfilm (2 1/8") (Le Prince, 1888),
54mm (Skladanowsky, 1895 ), see also Skladanowsky filmclip Skladanowski film
60mm(Prestwich, Demeney, 1893-96)
Demeny Phonoscope 1893
Gaumont-Demeny Chronophotographe, 1896
38mm (Casimir Sivan/E.Dalphin, Geneva, 1896);
Lee & Turner colour film, 1901
63mm (Veriscope, 1897).
65mm (Hughes Moto-Photoscope, 1897)Also for 3" wide film
68mm (Biograph 1897 camera)
70mm unperforated experimental film, Birt Acres 1894

Changes in my life time

When I very first received this brief I didn’t really have an initial idea, and I kind of struggled with this idea of ‘permanent flux’. However the more I thought about it the more I realised it isn’t as challenging as once thought.

I initially thought of general things that where flux, with the weather being the most obvious as it constantly (permanently) changes from day to day and even hour to hour. This however was too literal really and probably thought of by everyone else. So I carried on trying to think of change, even jus in my life and it is amazing what around u is actually changing.

Even in my life time I have seen stuff come and go. For example the mini disk, this is the major one for me as I used to use it and believed that it was going to be the future, it was small, virtually unbreakable and reliable but the CD was just too strong, or people don’t like change!? I suppose other examples of products that come and go can be the Playstation and n64 for example but the mini disk is the only real product that I have seen come and go.

Something’s I have seen come but have yet to go yet or have witnessed the end of a product (mostly technology as it is moving so fast).

Come:

Widescreen
Channel 5
Free View
The Internet
Mini Disk
I pod
High-Definition (in the home)
Digital Cameras/TV/Music (mp3)
First Space Tourist

Gone:

Cassette Tapes (very nearly)
Music Tapes

Not only have I witnessed changes on a technological level but also where I live and where I used to play as a child has changed in a very short space of time. Where I used to play as a kid on a day to day basis was a field. I had many very happy memories there from playing ‘man hunt’ to having bonfires there on bonfire night; I suppose you could say most of my playing childhood was based around this field. Now the field has been changed into a new development with houses ranging well above £300,000. If I’m ever explaining this to anybody, I always think it is such an old person thing to say. ‘When I was a lad, it was all fields’. I feel that it should have taken a long time for such a big part of my life to change, however it is changing so unbelievably fast, its hard to notice. Even where we used to go on holiday in Wales has changed since I was a lad. I have seen Anglesey get more developed and more Scouser’s go there as it’s a cracking holiday destination under two hours away with crystal clear sea water, believe it or not. Not only has the popularity increased because more people are discovering it but it is also due to leisure boat users. Since the speed limit was introduced at Windermere in the Lake District, water skiers have had to find other places to use there boats, Anglesey being one of them places for its outstanding natural beauty. Even things that I don’t think about very often but see every now and again surprise me. For example as a family we would sometimes go down to the river Mersey for a day out, maybe on a Sunday and have a walk around the docks. Recently I went with my girlfriend and it has totally changed, they have developed new buildings there and converted all of the old maritime buildings, turning them into multi-million pound flat over looking the Mersey. Not only that, since the new city of culture aspect has arisen, they are having a stadium built on the water front which will be used, I believe to have concerts in there and should most defiantly be ready by 08. This has had an impact too as it was possible to park up the car and watch the sea, right on the front. However the new stadium has done away with that and stands out as a mass of man made metal spoiling the view and its accessibility.

100 Years

This Video represents one womans view of 100 years in the world. Watching the video just shows how much has gone on at various stages throughout the 20th centry. althought the chronology isnt correct it still shows some fantastic iamges from the past 100years, most of which have probably been forgotten.

Permanent Flux

This animation is a brief example of Permanent Flux. It uses the idea of the weather to convey the brief as it is always in a state of change. from one minute to the next the temperature, wind speed, visibility and moisture are constantly at a rate of change. Even the rate they change at is in permant flux too...

The Internet - 15 Years

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5243862.stm

The link above takes you on a 15 year journey through the history of the internet. From Aug 1991 to the present day the internet has been a fasinating and resourcful place. Not only that, it is constantly changing, growing and being updated every second of every day.

Kevin Kelly on Science - 100 yr prediciton

1) There will be more change in the next 50 years of science than in the last 400 years.

2) This will be a century of biology. It is the domain with the most scientists, the most new results, the most economic value, the most ethical importance, and the most to learn.

3) Computers will keep leading to new ways of science. Information is growing by 66% per year while physical production grows by only 7% per year. The data volume is growing to such levels of "zillionics" that we can expect science to compile vast combinatorial libraries, to run combinatorial sweeps through possibility space (as Stephen Wolfram has done with cellular automata), and to run multiple competing hypotheses in a matrix. Deep real time simulations and hypothesis search will drive data collection in the real world.

4) New ways of knowing will emerge. "Wikiscience" is leading to perpetually refined papers with a thousand authors. Distributed instrumentation and experiment, thanks to miniscule transaction cost, will yield smart-mob, hive-mind science operating "fast, cheap, & out of control." Negative results will have positive value (there is already a "Journal of Negative Results in Biomedicine"). Triple-blind experiments will emerge through massive non-invasive statistical data collection--- no one, not the subjects or the experimenters, will realize an experiment was going on until later. (In the Q&A, one questioner predicted the coming of the zero-author paper, generated wholly by computers.)

5) Science will create new levels of meaning. The Internet already is made of one quintillion transistors, a trillion links, a million emails per second, 20 exabytes of memory. It is approaching the level of the human brain and is doubling every year, while the brain is not. It is all becoming effectively one machine. And we are the machine.

"Science is the way we surprise God," said Kelly. "That's what we're here for." Our moral obligation is to generate possibilities, to discover the infinite ways, however complex and high-dimension, to play the infinite game. It will take all possible species of intelligence in order for the universe to understand itself. Science, in this way, is holy. It is a divine trip.

Temperature Change - Past 100 Years

The following diagram shows observed temperature changes during the twentieth century measured at various monitoring stations around the world. Climate models can reproduce observed global average temperatures quite well, indicating a good but as yet incomplete understanding of the processes resulting in these changes.

Melissa Maerz, in her farewell article in City Pages:

An interesting quote:

"The truth is, you can't choose your own endings. If there's one thing I've learned from reviewing albums, it's that actual time doesn't work like a pop song. There's no intro or outro to anything, just an endless procession of minutes that segue into other minutes..."

One Man and his Changes

The man in this photo, could have fought in the Civil. The changes he witnessed in his lifetime included the change from manpower and horsepower to mechanical engines fuelled by oil and steam. He saw transportation evolve from horse-drawn wagons to vehicles powered by gasoline, and the beginnings of air travel. He never saw computers or rocket ships. More than likely he harvested wood for home heating, raised his own vegetables, meat, and dairy products. He most probably never enjoyed the convenience of electricity.

He would have voted for or against the thirteenth through possibly the nineteenth amendments.

The twentieth century produced more innovation and change than all of the other years in recorded history together.

Permanent Flux

Permanent: continuing or enduring without marked change in status or condition or place; "permanent secretary to the president"; "permanent address"; "literature of permanent value"

Flux: a constant(change).

Permanent Flux

Monday, May 14, 2007

Developed, Real City

Developed 3d city

Real world city - developing

images, 3D city - stil developing

Style

style 0.1

i'm back

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Bit of an animal

3D City - So Far

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Initially

My Brief

Stop Motion Animation

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Idea - The Development of Film Architecture

Widescreen & Film

Film - 100 years

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Changes in my life time

Monday, January 22, 2007

The Internet - 15 Years

Kevin Kelly on Science - 100 yr prediciton

Temperature Change - Past 100 Years

Melissa Maerz, in her farewell article in City Pages:

One Man and his Changes

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Permanent Flux

About Me

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