...will he ever win?
January 25, 2012
http://johnkdesign.blogspot.com/Hey folksI am putting together a new blog site just for my design work - mostly from commercials and short spots.That image above is a layout from Rex Hackelberg's fancy designs.Take a gander if you are interested...
January 25, 2012 09:58 PM
January 20, 2012
MORE ABOUT THE PRECIOUS TALES OF CHILDHOOD INNOCENCE
January 20, 2012 08:03 PM
January 18, 2012
Everybody loves a beautiful face, but be honest...don't you love pretty faces (above) more?
Pretty isn't quite as mathematically perfect as beautiful, and it may be a bit nerdy, but it's more likely to include friendliness and character.
Beautiful is for magazine covers and the movies. Pretty is accessible. It's what you find in the real world if you're lucky.
Some women (above) straddle the line between pretty and beautiful. That's okay, I'll accept them as honorary pretty types.
Pretty entitles the possessor to giggle and be fun to be with.
Of course pretty women can have flaws just like anyone else. I'll bet the pretty girl above has a depressive disorder.
Here's (above) a pretty woman that strikes me as positively dangerous. Men would be well advised to walk the other way, but it would take an exceptional man to do that.
January 18, 2012 04:23 PM
January 16, 2012
Thinking about the opening back shot in "Miracle on 34th Street" (see the previous post) got me thinking about the subject of back shots in general. I'm a big fan of back shots (actually back
acting, not just isolated poses) in live action, but you don't see them much in animation. That's a shame. Back shots are funny. Where would "The people of Walmart" site be without back shots like the one above?
I understand why animation people avoid them. You can't easily study yourself in a mirror when you're drawing the back. You could draw somebody else's back, but they're not likely to act the scene right. I guess you could act it out yourself in front of a digital camera and play it back.
I wonder how the dancers in the video above did it. How did they know how their dance would look to us? That's a nice dance, isn't it? 'Very effective from behind.
I can't find any ready-made clips of good animated back acting, which is what I meant to discuss. I can't even find any good live action reference for it, apart from Chaplin. I'll return to this subject later when I have better visuals.
Back acting is different than front acting. It's not just a question of making good silhouettes...back acting is more about timing and context. You have to make the audience delight in imagining what the face they can't see is thinking and doing.
Oh well, I have plenty of back-of-the-head reference. I'll talk about that. For me, back of the head means big ears (above), whether the person has them in front or not.
For the purpose of drawing, the small-eared girl in the upper right (above) should look like the girl in the lower left when she turns her head.
I call your attention to the wispy little neck hairs in the picture. I thought only guys had neck hair! I wonder if girls shave it. Maybe they just let it grow. Imagine what a girl would look like if she cut off all her normal hair but kept her long neck wisps.
A good back of the head (above) is a thing of beauty, even on a guy. The two dots aren't mine.
I love over-the-shoulder shots, especially when the actor facing front has an extended acting scene. Laying bare your emotions to an impassive lump of hair and tweed in the foreground strikes me as funny. I tried it out in this video from a couple of years ago.
BTW, The best acting moments here come close to what I would have put into similar scenes if I'd been an animator working on an animated film. I really need to assemble a small reel of rough animation showing how I would animate characters using my own style of acting.
January 16, 2012 10:35 PM
January 15, 2012
Gee, I couldn't finish this post (above) about date rape before it was time to rush off to Steve's place to meet...
in person...a wonderful screenwriter, George Clayton Johnson. It was a terrific night! I'll tell you all about it after I get some sleep, I'm just too... sleepy......to..........write..................
January 15, 2012 05:37 PM
January 14, 2012
I created this brief demo on how the Posebook app works on the smaller smart phone devices. works on iPhone, iPad, android, kindle fire and itouch.
January 14, 2012 08:13 PM
January 12, 2012
OUCH! I scratched my lip on the French Press I was holding, and the computer wouldn't let me retake the shot. Oh, well. The girl in the background is my assistant chef, Magnolia.
Anyway....
GOOD MORNING!!! I don't know about you, but I'm going to have a cup of coffee...a faux cafe latte, actually...made The Theory Corner way. What way is that? Read on!
The Theory Corner way uses a French Press, a milk frother and a bean grinder. None of this stuff costs very much, and pressed coffee doesn't take long to make.
Okay, you put the water on to boil. Lots of people use hippie water (bottled water) but I use filtered tap water. Nobody in LA needs to use bottled water in the winter months, because our water in that time of year comes from the High Sierras, and is top quality. During the Summer we buy water from Nevada, and that's murky, so if you're from Southern California and you feel you must buy bottled water, then that's the time to do it.
Anyway, while the water's boiling you grind your coffee beans in one of those little counter top grinders like the one pictured above. I like Starbucks coffee, French Roast Bold, Whole Bean. You can get Starbucks brand coffee at the supermarket. Grind the beans "coarse," which takes about 9 seconds.
The water hasn't come to a boil yet, so you can get started on the milk froth. I recommend buying a frother (pictured above, on the right...on the left is the French Press) but if you don't have one, just put some milk in a jar, shake it vigorously, and put it in the microwave for about a minute. Now you have milk froth.
Put the milk aside, and add the ground coffee to the French Press, along with a tiny pinch of salt, some sugar, and maybe a drop of vanilla extract. Pour in the boiling water. At the 1/5 mark stop and stir the coffee and water. [Magnolia's doing it wrong here...the idea is to stir only when the level is very low]. Never stir it again after this. Pour in the rest of the boiling water and let it all steep for four minutes: no more, no less. At exactly four minutes, press the plunger down slowly...about thirty seconds for the whole plunge.
Now you're ready to pour the coffee into a cup. I put a little froth on the bottom, beneath the coffee, and the rest on top. A lot of people prefer to have all the froth on top. Add some whipped cream and cinnamon or nutmeg and you're done. Maybe eat a piece of banana bread with it. Delicious...but it doesn't stay warm very long.
A video to help you get started:
Alton Brown uses a burr grinder. One of these days I might get one, but my humble little blade grinder works so well that I see no reason to change.
January 12, 2012 04:29 PM
This (above) is Rocinba, a slum on a mountain in Rio de Janeiro. I got interested in the place because it was the locale for an action film I just saw on DVD, called "Fast Five." Yeah, it's a Vin Diesel film. I'm not a fan of the man, but this one worked for me (well, sort of...you have to forgive a lot). It made me want to visit Rocinba for real. Geez, I'd probably get killed there.
The thing about Rocinba is that it succeeds in being somewhat beautiful, even though it's a slum. How many slums can you say that about?
Parts of Rocinba remind me of Montreal's "Habitat (above)." Both make high density living seem appealing, at least from a distance.
Back to Rocinba: here Von Deisel (above) tries to elude the police by taking a shortcut through what may be the community's drainage. Do you see what I mean about the place being good looking? Sure, it's toxic and decrepit, but if you had to live in absolute squalor, you could do worse.
Imagine what it's like to climb these hills every day if you don't have a car. Come to think of it, it couldn't be that easy even if you do have a car. I think a lot of people have motorcycles.
In real life the place (above) is run by drug lords who provide some electricity and water in exchange for loyalty from the people who live here. Every once in a while the drug people hold big late-night block parties which attract the rowdiest people around. They fight with each other and lots of people end up getting killed.
It looks like some of the buildings (above) have been given a paint job. Rio is trying to clean up the slums in time for The Olympics and the world soccer championships.
In November there were pitched battles between the drug gangs and the cops.
The people who lived there, including some of the children, were so used to violence that they casually went about their business, oblivious to the machine gun fire and exploding grenades all around them.
What a city of contrasts! Beauty and ugliness side by side!
A YouTube video claims that there are 50,000 murders a year in Brazil! No wonder that country wins so many of the UFC martial arts championships!
Here (above) a couple runs along the rooftops, trying to evade the police.
They have no choice but to jump down onto a distant roof of corrugated tin fragments. What a view!
January 12, 2012 04:11 PM
Which do you prefer: the old 1947 version of "Miracle on 34th Street," or the newer 1994 version? It's not a fair comparison because the older version had a bigger budget and some of the best stars and technicians of the day. Good writing, too. Even so, comparison is still possible.
I maintain that the biggest advantage the old version had was a philosophical one. People in those days had a more interesting way of seeing the world. We see things through a depressing Post Modern filter, or at least we did back in 1994 when the remake was made.
Let's take a look at some examples.....
Here's the start of the 1947 version: the titles are superimposed over a traveling backshot of Santa walking along Manhattan streets. Introducing a robust, confident character with a backshot is a great way to create suspense, and the immersion in the life of the city alerts us to the film's subtext, which is that the modern world (and specifically New York) is a wonderful place to live.
The titles finish and Santa, who we'd only seen from the back til now, rounds a corner and stops to kibbitz when a shopkeeper goofs up his reindeer display. The back and forth between the two men establish Santa's personality. It works fine.
Now here's (above) the 1994 version. It starts with a frontal shot of Santa walking down a single street. The shot is made with a long lens, which flattens the background and robs it of its character. No reveal, no subtext, and no color. Why is everything brown? I understand that it's cheaper to shoot this way, but is this really the best the director could do? What went wrong?
What went wrong is that the producer handed off a sentimental 40s story to an unsentimental Post Modern director. Unlike Woody Allen, the director just couldn't bring himself to cast New York in a positive light.
In the newer film Santa's character (above) is established by having him react to an astonished kid who recognizes him. It's not a bad way to go, but the handling was unimaginative. Too many close-ups, too long lenses, too few extras and pedestrian dialogue. And that's not all.
Also at fault is the flat, deliberately deadening Post Modern way of staging. Like atonal music, it's a bleak style that's deliberately meant to be flat and unsettling. Flat anesthetizes the senses. It's a style that fights the sentimental story it's trying to tell. It's a shame because you can tell that Richard Attenburough (Santa) had real enthusiasm for the role.
Here's the old version again. Santa (unseen here) discovers that the parade Santa is drunk , and storms off to report the problem to the coordinator, Maureen O'Hara, pictured above. It's all staged perfectly and there's plenty of extras. Everybody's looking at O'Hara...she's the center of attention, which is a good way to introduce a star.
Here's (above) how the Post Modern version introduces its star. She's in a dark media truck loaded with video monitors. What gives? The parade coordinator is our star, and we can hardly see her.
Okay, it's a cheap way to shoot, but it also fits with the Post Modern, Phillip Glass, trance rhythm of the film. The Post Modern style looks for broad patterns, and resists the notion of making scenes stand out. That's an odd style to choose for a classy story that begs for virtuoso scenes.
I'll add that video monitors are a Post Modern symbol of alienation. How depressing!
Here's (above) the old version showing Natalie Wood and John Payne watching the parade from O'Hara's apartment. Seeing the parade reminds us of the exuberance and grandeur of the city. What the characters say has extra weight because the visuals connect them to the grand adventure below.
Here's (above) a similar shot in the new version. No grand adventure here. Why is everything so dark and flat? And why is the parade reduced to shapes passing by the window? Couldn't the filmmaker afford to rent some stock parade footage?
The bleak graphic treatment makes me feel that the parade is either menacing or uninteresting, and that the foreground figures are hiding out to avoid it. How odd for a film that's supposed to be glorifying Christmas. You get the feeling that the director doesn't really care much about the holiday or about the city. What was the studio thinking?
Do you agree? Rent both versions from Netflix and make the comparison yourself.
January 12, 2012 03:46 PM
