Movie Season brief.

We've been given a new brief to look at over Christmas in terms of research and getting ideas together. I have chosen the Movie Season brief, I have to create 5 10 second idents promoting a season of movies romf any given genre, i.e. Horror, 80's Teen Movies etc. I initially thought about doing 80's teen movies because I find the characters and dialogue from that genre quite fascinating and an attractive prospect to play with. However, I think I might turn this into 80's cult classics so I can include movies such as Ghostbusters, Gremlins and the Goonies.... The material is so vast, I need to look at what imagery and quotations I'd be most interested in playing with.

Here's some, but I'm not sure I agree with all of the ones on this video. Films I think of when I think of the 80's and cult films:
Ghostbusters
Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Fast Times at Richmond High
The Goonies
Breakfast Club
Gremlins
The Karate Kid
Stand By Me
Weird Science
Spinal Tap
Sixteen Candles
Porky's
The Princess Bride etc.



However, the more I think about it, the films in this list that I am most attracted to are the John Hughes movies: 16 Candles, Breakfast Club etc. which I guess brings me back to 80's teen movies, however, given that John Hughes has recently dies, I think it would be quite current to do a series of Idents for a John Hughes movie season. Here's some movie quotes form his movies that I can utilize:

Pretty in Pink Quotes

Andie: You know your talking like that just because I'm going out with Blane
Duckie: His name is Blane? Oh! That's a major appliance, that's not a name!

Weird Science Quotes

"Well, Dino, I guess she just likes malaccas."

"He pukes, you die."

"How 'bout a nice greasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray?"

Breakfast Club Quotes

Andrew: Why do you have to insult everybody?
Bender: I'm being honest, asshole. I would expect you to know the difference.


Allison: Your middle name is Ralph, as in puke, your birth date's March 12th, you're 5'9 and a half, you weigh 130 pounds and your social security number is 049380913.
Andrew Clark: Wow. Are you psychic?
Allison Reynolds: No.
Brian Johnson: Well, would you mind telling me how you know all this about me?
Allison Reynolds: I stole your wallet.

Sixteen Candles Quotes

Grandma Helen: Oh Sam, let me take a look at you. Fred, she's gotten her boobies.
Grandpa Fred: I better get my magnifying glass. Ha Ha Ha.
Grandma Helen: Oh, and they are so PERKY.
[reaches to cup them]
Grandma Helen: [cut to:]
Samantha: I can't believe my grandmother actually felt me up.

The Geek: Can I borrow your underpants for 10 minutes?

The Geek: Relax, would you? We have seventy dollars and a pair of girls underpants. We're safe as kittens.

Planes Train & Automobiles Quotes

"Those aren't pillows!"

Ferris Bueller Quotes

Economics Teacher: Bueller?... Bueller?... Bueller?

Grace: Oh, he's very popular Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads - they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude.

Cameron: Okay Ferris, can we just let it go, please?
Sloane: Ferris, please. You've gone to far. We're going to get busted.

Ferris: A: You can never go too far. B: If I'm gonna get busted, it is *not* gonna be by a guy like *that*.

Cameron: The 1961 Ferrari 250GT California. Less than a hundred were made. My father spent three years restoring this car. It is his love, it is his passion.

Ferris: It is his fault he didn't lock the garage.

Ferris: That's right, I'm Abe Froman." "The Sausage King of Chicago?"

"Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

Over the next few days I'll look a imagery I can utilize.

Some dvd menu sequences

I just thought I'd have a quick look at other places animation can be employed. DVD menus allow little touches and flourishes to be added to the introduction of a movie, with little quirky animations that can really improve the customer's interaction and connection with a film, a lot of the time they use after effects or software similar to after effects.
Now I really enjoyed this one, aesthetically the style is appealing, the movement of the thing is nice and professional looking too. The transitions are well done and it avoids ever getting clunky or employing unnatural/jerky motion.

Now this one, I thought was awful. The way it moved was too fast for such a lot of information to be taken in, there was really no time to take in anything before being assaulted by another motion. I fear that the deisgner of this has overcoked his animation. The presentation of the flat images against a 3D setting was also quite jarring.

This is a highly professional looking one, the motion in it as well as the visual aesthetic is well employed. The timing of the animation and the movement it emplys is also nicely executed.

Storyboarding

Here there are some storyboards to demonstrate the way they normally work. They tend to show key frames or frames where sometihng changes i.e. a new shot of something or an event in the timeline, for example in the second storyboard down, the western one, when the Cowboy is thrown out of the saloon, arrows suggest camera motion and there is a keyframe for every shot, i.e. a frame ot show the saloon door before anything happens, a frame to show the cowboy is thrown out of it and a frame to demonstrate a shot change to looking from behind the cowboy outward. It is important when I make my own storyboards to remember that I need only highlight these key changes rather than creating a ridiculously painstaking storyboard that highlights every little movement. This would defeat the point of a storyboard as Fred suggests, and I would be closer to making a stop frame than I would a story board sequence.











Often like in a few of the examples here, the storyboard is annotated, this can be with the motion the camera takes, for example if it pans out, without polluting the effect of the image with ridicuously elaborate drawings over the storyboard frame to elaborate on the way the camera works. Other elements such as relevant dialogue can be added underneath to give a greater idea of where the image comes in the sequence.

Some more animation work....

Heres some aniamtion that I thin is particularly beautiful. I don't know for sure if it uses after effects but it seems like it does, I can see similarities in the way the animation pans and the objects move, to the way kinetic type works in after effects.

Digital Media.

Here are some kinetic type examples, they're extremely useful because currently we're doing typography based animation. Ultimately it'sa project where we learn the ropes of after effects, a complicated and powerful software. All the examples below use after effects to create the animations and it gives me an idea of where I could be with it in a few weeks/months time if I knuckle down. Some of them will be impossible for a good while, but nevermind.

I hate the film, however I think the transitions and timings in this one are excellent.

I think in time this speech and Ledger's performance will become Iconic. I really like the typographical choices in this one, however it does bug me that it adds the word 'son' on the end of 'why so serious?' when it's just him pronouncing serious oddly.

I think this one is particularly slick, it just looks of a qauilty that I'd like to achieve, the way it flows is really interesting too, and it does unexpected twists and turns that retain my interest in it.