Black Eyed Peas: Infectious Flash Mob Performance on Oprah's Season Premiere

This week, I saw this and felt that it was one of the most incredible things I have seen in a long time. I am a dude, and don't usually watch the Oprah Show, but if you're like me, your significant other is into Oprah. So, once in a while, you have to watch it. For the most part, her shows are positive and full of great helpful information that even a guy like me would like.

Oprah's season opener featured performances from popular groups, but there was one in particular that I though was very special. During the The Black Eyed Peas performance of the song "I Got a Feelin" there was an incredible Flash Mob performance. For those of you who don't know, a Flash Mob is a large scale choreographed performance involving hundreds, even thousands of people. The cool thing about this Flash Mob, is that I don't think anyone knew about it, including Oprah. When I saw it, I thought it was incredible, the energy was infectious and left me feeling really happy.

If anyone out there was part of that Oprah Flash Mob, and happened to stumble upon this blog, feel free to chime in and let us know what it was like. I'll bet that you'll never forget that day. I wish I was there, but in all honesty, the energy could be felt from far away - it was truly amazing. I could only imagine some of the bystanders who were attended but were not part of the originating group, I'm sure you couldn't help but join in either.

The Flash Mob portion of the clip begins at about :58, and after the performance, you'll see a segment about how the entire stunt was planned, organized and executed. The incredible thing is that the word got out through the use of Facebook and Twitter. Way to go guys on pulling off an incredible memorable event.

The original instance of the Flash Mob can be seen in this clip below, filmed in Antwerp Belgium approaching 11 million hits.

and more recently in Mexico, over 13,000 people perform Michael Jackson's Thriller, I think that's a new Guiness Book World Record.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Fire it Up!

Randolf

Naldz Graphics: 3D Typoography

In my advanced animation classes, as everyone progresses towards the creation of their final demo reel, comes the subject of typography. No, we aren't graphic designers working with typographic layouts on a regular basis, nevertheless the subject is important. Its important because its directly related to marketing, and marketing is what you have to keep in mind when designing your portfolio, website and demo reel. As an animator, you may be called upon to create animated text via CG or After Effects and you definitely have to create animated text to spice up your demo reel.

Your animation demo reel will work fine without animated text, but since you are "the animator", you want to show that you can animate anything. Doing so, shows people that you pay attention to detail, the overall package, and it showcases another marketable skill that Art Directors might want to use.

Naldz Graphics is a site that showcases great examples of integrating CG text in design. When you look at these examples, pay attention to the camera angle, the diagonals create interesting compositions and if you are animator, take it a step further and ask yourself how these designs can be animated. One other benefit in creating text in CG is the ability to create materials, notice how the text in the example I've included has a shiny reflective plastic material. This ability also creates unique textures, gradients and values that unique only to CG.

So if you are a modeler, texturer or animator, use those CG skills to create interesting typographic compositions and spice up your portfolio. Have fun and fire it up!

R.

Rising Sun Pictures: Visual Effects Coming From Down Under

Rising Sun Pictures is a visual effects company based out of Australia, and for most of you, are pretty familiar with their work, you just haven't heard about them. They've created some pretty impressive effects for some of the top movies which premiered this year such as Wolverine, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, Terminator Salvation and Superman Returns. The reel below showcases the work they completed for the last Harry Potter film.

http://www.rsp.com.au/portfolio/flv/hp6Flv.htm

For my animation students, be sure to check the link to get a nice sampling of what's possible with the applications that we are learning. You'll see great examples of animation, compositing, lighting and texturing, motion tracking, digital matte painting, and moving animated textures. The reel is impressive and should get you inspired and pumped up for what we do.

Jerry - Thanks for the heads up and the link.

Fire it up and enjoy!

Randolf

Dean Zulich: Photography Website

Today, we were visited by former Art Institute of Seattle graduate Dean Zulich. A native of Bosnia and Herzogovina, Dean is a commercial photographer focusing on conceptual fashion, advertisement and celebrity photography and is most famous for his success as the runner up on Vh1 reality television show "The Shot".

In a short amount of time, Dean garnered success from his engaging photography. His compositions and subject matter are interesting and thoughtful, and we were very fortunate to have him share his road to success with us. His talk was quite inspiring.

What struck me about his talk today, was his feeling on the importance of continuing personal projects. Doing this "keeps the fire alive" and its what keeps him going, and he said that, I realized how much I missed that feeling, and will be putting together a personal project soon. Doing personal projects is an easy way to enhance your demo reel and or digital portfolio. Viewers will be able to sense your enjoyment in personal projects and they usually get more attention.

To learn more about Dean, visit his website, http://www.deanzulich.com His website is nice and clean and features his different portfolios (books).

Hey Dean, thanks again for your visit, for sharing and for inspiring. Keep up the outstanding work and best of luck in all you do.

Fire it Up!

Randolf

RWE Energy Giant

Oh how nice it would be to a Giant, all the world's energy problems would be solved. The hard part...is the funding. I think the Giant would want to get paid don't you think?

Very nice animation with a great message.

Randolf

Rockstar Games SIGGRAPH 09 Interview

So what does it take to make it in the gaming industry? Recorded from SIGGRAPH 2009, listen to what the managers of Rockstar Games have to stay. They touch on the aspects of your portfolio, examples that you should have, highlighting your strengths, programming advice and even the type of attitude you should have when entering such a competitive market.

This is a great interview that will surely keep us going. Thanks to the Art Institutes and Rockstar for putting this interview together and posting.

Fire it up!

Alex Huguet: Metamesh 3D

Alex Huguet's modeling reel is outstanding. He's got great attention to detail which probably stems from his advanced knowledge of anatomy and lighting. Be sure you check out all of his models. He is based out of Spain works primarily in 3DS Max and ZBrush.

Great work Alex. If you see this message, thanks for posting your work, its pretty inspiring.
Check out Alex's website by visiting metamesh3d.com

Fire it up!

- Randolf

SIGGRAPH 2009 Computer Animation Preview

SIGGRAPH 2009 took place in New Orleans and is considered to be the Mecca for CG Animation of all styles and Visual Effects. If you are in the industry or have dreams of someday rubbing elbows with professionals in the industry, then this place is where you need to be. Next year, it will be in Southern California, it may be a few hours drive for some of you near the coast, but its worth it. The following year, it traditionally goes to the East Coast.

For those of you who attended, it is an awesome experience is it no? This clip features the previews of pieces featured at SIGGRAPH's annual Computer Animation Competition where animations from the best and brightest, including ones from the large studios like Dreamworks, Blue Sky and Pixar come to share what they've been working on the past year.

Hopefully the clip inspires you to attend and its also an excellent place to get feedback on your work.

Keep animating and Fire It Up!

- Randolf

The Importance of Storyboarding

In my animation classes, before undertaking an involved project, students are required to create a storyboard. I have students draw these out, and or design them in Photoshop, include a short description, panel/sequence number, and lastly, I have them submit the storyboard as a jpg or pdf. This is so that a client such as an art director or animation supervisor, can approve the work easily on the computer. It is crucial that the concept being displayed in these storyboards are clear, because the approving individuals are business minded and it is not unusual to review these storyboards within a large board room meeting with lots of people...it happens all the time. The storyboard, and the concept presented in it, becomes the center of the discussion.

Its an essential planning tool, not only in animation, but also in visual effects in order to plan out a shot, and to see how much work is actually involved in a particular scene. The storyboard you see above was created for Harrah's Entertainment when I was hired to create a series of Flash presentations for each of their properties, at the time, they totaled twenty (lots of work). As you'll see, each panel is clear and labeled with descriptions so that anyone involved in the approval process can understand it and make suggestions.

The project was fun and because of the storyboard examples, it was easy to manage the expectations and suggestions of over twenty approving parties.

Make your storyboards clear and present them well, it will pay off in dividends, not only will things smoothly, but they will trust you, and you will also make a good impression on them by appearing sharp and well prepared. The next step in the storyboarding process is to create a working animatic to help you adjust for timing, sound, dialogue, scene duration and planning.

Check out the the storyboards used for TV and film from Storyboards and Animatics.

Make those storyboards great! Fire it up!
- Randolf

Shaolin Form: Da Hong Quan

I'm posting this video as many of us are big fans of fight scenes. The movements in this clip are from an impressive young Shaolin master. As I watched this clip, my knees began to hurt...Ouch!

Check out his vertical movement as he completes the form. Well done.

Enjoy and Fire it Up.

Tron 2 Trailer : Premiering 2010

In my animation classes this week, we couldn't get enough of the above Tron 2 trailer. As a person who remembers watching the original Tron in 1982 in the theatres, all I have to say is, "Its about time". With so many great movies embedded into my brain, the first Tron movie was pushed to the back of the line. I'm glad however, that its being resurrected, because the new look and feel is simply awesome...definately an upgrade. This is going be fun.

For those of us who weren't born before the movie's premiere (as most of my students are), Tron premiered in 1982 and starred Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner and David Warner and was about a computer hacker who somehow got trapped into the digital world of the computer. With a great story and impressive visual effects, its was the first movie to give us a view into what the world inside of a computer would look like. You could compare it to The Matrix (1999), both movies presented stunning visuals and ideas of what the abstract complex world inside the computer could be. As a 5th grader, watching it for the first time, I was carried away. The feeling was similar to the first time I saw Toy Story, Star Wars or the Matrix. I realized that I saw and experienced something completely new.

When Tron 2 Legacy premieres in 2010, its going to be interesting to see, not only a new visual interpretation of how a computer world would look like, but also, the aspects of our technology and computing in our current day and age. What are they going to put into the movie. So much has changed since 1982, prior to the premiere of the first movie, technology (at the time) seemed advanced, but in hindsight was limited to Commodore 64's, large servers, floppy disks, green and black monitor text, dot matrix printers, and the first video game arcades. In that time (since 1982), think about how things have changed: The Internet (for everyone) was developed, smaller PCs, websites, CD's, DVD's, email, Youtube, laptops, online gaming, xbox, Playstation I, II and III, iphones and let's not forget social networking sites (not necessarily in that order - but you get what I mean), the list goes on and on. Are these ideas going to be interpreted in the film?

So we'll be on the lookout for more clips of Tron 2. In the meantime, enjoy the trailer above, and for added interest, I've also included the Lightcycle clip from the first Tron and the original 1982 Tron Movie Trailer. Both are interesting to watch. For some of you who remember Tron in the movie theatres, I hope this brings back fond memories.

Cel Phone In Microwave

This piece shows what happens you put cel phones in microwave ovens - nothing more. Just watch and enjoy. Good job to whoever created this creepy piece of work.

Thanks to Curt and Mike for the link. Be well and fire it up.

- Randolf

VJ Robson Victor: Demo Reel

One in a while, I'll browse through various video sites to check out the latest and greatest of demo reels. This one, by VJ Robson caught my eye initially because of the Wolverine image before it plays.

What a nice surprise. When I saw his reel, I was immediately impressed. He's got a good sense of design, color, layout and knows how to animate elements in a way that is engaging. He's got great timing and shows a lot of variety in his work. I think VJ has been around. The students in my classes are often very expert in drawing, painting and are very good at creating vector style graphics, but need to see more examples of how movement can make their pieces better. This demo reel is a great example of that and its a trait that comes with years of observation, practice and taking risks.

Hey VJ, well done. Thanks for inspiring us. If you happen to see this post, feel free to post a response and by all means, keep up the awesomeness!

Fire it up!

Randolf

Michael Jackson's Arcade: Virtual Tour & Scavenger Hunt

Like many people, I too grew up to Michael Jackson's music, was enamored by his lifestyle and like many, am saddened to experience his loss. There really is nobody who can measure up to his singing, dancing, versatility and shear creativity. I think about all the times growing up I would watch his videos and listen to his music, everything had universal appeal and I found myself listening to him over and over again. He spanned many generations, but the Michael I am most fond of was the "Off the Wall" era, and right before that, the twenty year old Jackson 5's, sporting the big afros, heels and disco beats. That was an awesome time, and although its very sad to see him go, its been a joy exploring and revisiting all of the Jackson music again.

Today, we came across a virtual tour of Michael Jackson's famous arcade. Growing up, we always heard about it and its nice to be able to finally check it out. Exploring the arcade, for me, became an nostalgic look at many of the arcade structures I grew up with, like Karate Champ and the Terminator 2 pinball machine. See you if you can find these in his arcade.

While you are at it, see if you can also locate the following "old skool" items as well. A life size Boba Fett figure, Superman and Batman figure, the stand up Karate Champ arcade game, lifesize Spiderman, Lego Darth Vader, C3P0 and ET the Extra Terrestrial (Remember when Michael recorded a song and narrated the story for a ET children's book)?

The navigation to the arcade is at the bottom of the screen, but is a bit quirky. You'll notice that the camera moves on it its own and is a bit hard to control. Just use the arrows at the bottom of the screen and you'll be okay. Once you get used to it however, it's lots of fun.

Enjoy!

Click here to check it out.

More Evian Breakdancing Babies

The creative team responsible for animating the dancing babies for Evian have done it again. This time, these pretoddlers are on "Old School" roller skates. For those of you who remember these roller skating moves from way back when...you'll be impressed with with what you see.

Its entertaining watching these babies skating to the funky beat...Happy 4th of July and

Fire It Up!