Film Review #36: The Final Cut (DM Show) Preview

     It's the end of the year, and what better way to wrap it up by reviewing the preview of our upcoming show? And what incredible stuff there was. From the awesome visual effect heavy bumpers, to Ingemar's absolutely AWESOME animation, to funny videos like James' Invadepurrs, and Schorl's tense Hooked. It's really great to see all these things wrapped up and completed, but also a bit weird. It's over. This is kind of an unusual review, blame the fact that I was editing three different videos for the Earth Science final. I'm really excited to see all of our awesome films on the big screen in full HD. It's been a great (half) year for me at Digital Media.

Film Review #35 - Telltale's The Wolf Among Us (Episodes 1-3)

     Oh boy, Telltale just loves to show off how good they are at making gripping story focused video games. The Wolf Among Us is based of the comic series Fables, in which fairy tale and folklore characters, who refer to themselves as Fables, have fled the Homelands and formed a clandestine community in our world, in New York City. The game takes place before the events in the comics, where we play as Bigby Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf himself, as he tries to solve an unfathomable crime: the murder of a Fable. The story so far has been an incredible ride, with twists and turns and tense moments. It's similar to Telltale's The Walking Dead in the sense that you select what the character will say and you get to make choices, but it feels different. Maybe it's the atmosphere, an incredible atmosphere by the way. The art style is the same, but their use of shadows and colors remind me of a noir film. The soundtrack also heavily reinforces that feeling. A welcome improvement to the formula is the combat. In The Wolf Among Us, combat scenarios feel a lot more engaging and offer you more control over what happens. You click a directional key when prompted to avoid an attack for example, and in general everything is more fast paced and feels more fluid. It's definitely very satisfying. Now I can't say what's going to happen in "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" and in "Cry Wolf", the two remaining episodes, but what they've set up in Episode 3 "A Crooked Mile" and how they ended it makes me very excited to see the conclusion.

Film Review #34 - Telltale's The Walking Dead Game: Season 1

     Telltale's The Walking Dead Game Season 1 is definitely one of the best examples of how games and interactive media can benefit storytelling. Based off Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead comics, the game stars Lee Everett, a man on the way to prison for murder. When the zombie apocalypse hits he meets Clementine, a young girl who comes along with him as they try to survive in this awful new world. The game is divided in 5 episodes, with one downloadable bonus episode (but doesn't have the same characters as the main story), and is one hell of an emotional roller coaster. A big part of that is achieved through the interactivity that you get with a video game. You're actually selecting what you want to say to people. You're fighting through the "walkers" (aka Zombies) and you're literally making your character run to help a person in danger. It makes the connection to the story and the characters even more effective. This being a point-and-click adventure game means that it doesn't have to focus on gameplay that much and more on the writing, which is good but can get a bit boring to play at times. For 25 dollars the game is a steal though, it'll make you laugh, cry, and horrify you, but the experience will be memorable. It's so good that they managed to get deals to make a Game of Thrones game, a Borderlands game, and are currently doing The Wolf Among Us (based on the Fables comics) and The Walking Dead Game Season 2. I'm looking forward to playing all of these.

Film Review #33 - The Amazing Spider-Man 2

     Spider-Man, Spider-Man, radioactive Spider-Man... The Amazing Spider-Man 2 comes two years after a reboot that received mixed reception. The sequel goes for a bigger and better approach, and mostly succeeds at it: Andrew Garfield's performance as Peter Parker/Spider-Man is great and closely resembles the web crawler from the comics, and his chemistry with Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy are the highlights of the film. I thought they managed the time distribution for the three villains fairly well, though I felt that the Green Goblin was shoehorned in for the climax of the film (an incredible, and emotional climax that was probably one of the best scenes in the film franchise so far). The movie was obviously trying to cram in a lot of different plot lines to set up future movies, especially  the Sinister Six movie coming up soon, but overall it made good use of it's near 3 hour runtime. I'm really excited to see what Sony has next for the future of this franchise.

Final Film Idea

I'm thinking about a short film about what it means to be human, or inspiration. Narrated over shots of main character doing things that relate to the narration. Opening shot would be a close up of an apple being thrown into the air and fall back into the MC's hand as the title of the movie fades in. I want night time balcony shots with city lights, shots of MC doing stuff in town, walking in the forest, playing video games, etc... Shot with heart shaped paper that's been torn and crumpled in focus, with MC walking away in the background, unfocused (narration about moving on and using those experiences as lessons).

Film Review #32 - The Wolf of Wall Street

     The Wolf of Wall Street. I don't know what I was expecting going in. Crazy stuff sure, but to this extent? Hell no. And I LOVED it. Leonardo DiCaprio kills it as Jordan Belfort, and his journey from struggling middle-class worker to "The Wolf of Wall Street" is engaging, laugh out loud funny at times, but also oftentimes dramatic. An interesting technique used in the film is when Jordan talks directly to the camera, explaining to us what's going to happen next (before cutting himself short, saying 'but no one gives a shit about that, the point is...'). Breaking the fourth wall is a bold move, but it works great in this movie. The shots are beautiful, the editing is great, the performances from the multiple different actors are amazing... There's just a lot to say about Martin Scorsese's talents as a director. I wasn't bored for one minute during the 3 hours (!) run time. I highly recommend the movie.

Film Review #31 - Captain America: The Winter Soldier

     After a bit disappointing Thor sequel, Captain America makes his return on the big screen in the post Avengers era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in The Winter Soldier, which is one of Marvel's best films to date. Now I haven't seen The First Avenger, but The Winter Solider is more of a standalone film, with the references being explained through flashbacks. The story itself is insane, and in a good way. The risks it takes with the MCU is surprising, and the events will surely have dramatic consequences on the future Marvel movies (in fact it's already affected ABC's Agents of SHIELD, a TV show based in the same universe). It's gripping, exciting, and well written, and allows for some fantastic set pieces visually impressive moments. A minor gripe I have is that the actual "Winter Solider" isn't really present in the movie that much. He shows up, causes trouble, and leaves. Rinse and repeat. It's only after his identity is revealed that he appears more often, but he's still not involved enough in the plot for the movie to be subtitled after him.
     I don't know how Marvel's going to top this one off. They've got plenty in store - plans for movies up to 2020 if I remember correctly - but I hope it's as good or better than this. I'm definitely excited for the future of these movies.

Film Review #30 - Kingdom Hearts: Re:Chain of Memories HD (PS3)

     

      An HD remastering of a remake of a Gameboy Advance game. At this point, Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories has been on three platforms: the original GBA game, the PS2 remake, and the HD remastering included in the 1.5 HD ReMIX collection on PS3! The game was a significant departure from the original game back when it was originally released. Instead of an action game with some RPG elements, the combat system was based around cards. The system definitely has a learning curve, but once you learn it's intricacies and how to build a good deck, you'll be having a lot of fun during the 20-30 hours it takes to beat Sora's campaign. Once you beat it, another campaign unlocks: Reverse / Rebirth, where you play as Riku and get to see his side of the story. This campaign lasts from about 6-8 hours and is fairly similar to Sora's campaign. You go through all the same worlds, fight the same bosses and go through the same rooms as you always do thanks to the map cards. These worlds are shorter though, due mostly to the fact that the Disney side-stories in these worlds have been cut. The combat is also more action oriented, you're forced to use a premade deck that doesn't include any magic spells, and you don't have any sleights (combinations of cards that activate a special move) but this is offset by the awesome "Dark Mode" version of Riku, and the Duels.

     Story-wise, it's very much a Kingdom Hearts game. It's nonsensical and crazy, but effectively tugs at your heartstrings during it's emotional moments. It also ties Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts 2 perfectly, making the convoluted story easier to understand when you boot up the sequel. It's a beautiful looking game with a great soundtrack, a good story, and a robust battle system that changes up the formula. It's definitely worth checking out, though probably only if you've played the first Kingdom Hearts game.

Processing Assignment: Interactive Application

     "Synergy" is a simple interactive application: if you press the mouse button, white and cyan lines draw across the black background according to the (X, Y) and (Y, X) position (respectively) of your cursor. Text is printed at the bottom telling that if you press a button, the screen clears.

Film Review #29 - How I Met Your Mother Season 9

     Nine years after How I Met Your Mother graced our TV screens, the comedy series comes to a long overdue close. So how was the final season overall? To put it in one word: disappointing. You have to commend the writers for trying out a new style of storytelling for sitcoms (that is, cramming an entire weekend into one season) but it mostly fails to stay relevant to the overall plot. So many episodes are just filler episodes and aren't even that funny. When the episodes are relevant to the plot however, it really reminds me of the early seasons of the show. In the end though, the season is invalidated by the first 10 minutes of the finale.
     Let's talk about the final episode. Since it's aired, fans have taken to Twitter to either say how much they loved it or hated it. I believe the finale was very good and satisfying, the main problems coming from the structure and content of the final season itself rather than the final episode. So much happens in that final episode that you could make an entire season about it, which is what they should have done instead of focusing the entire season on an event that takes about 48 hours.
     How I Met Your Mother will be missed, but it was about time that the show ended. Kudos to the writers for sticking with the ending they planned 9 years ago, and I hope the spinoff "How I Met Your Dad" isn't terrible. Will have to keep an open mind about it.

Film Review #28 - American Hustle

     American Hustle is an crime comedy-drama movie directed by David O. Russell that was nominated for 10 Oscars during the 2014 Academy Awards. I was naturally drawn to the film thanks to the great actors and actresses casted in the film such as Christian Bale and Jennifer Lawrence, and I really enjoyed it. The beginning was a bit slow and there was some weird editing but the events leading up to the ending more than made up for it. The way the characters spoke made quite a few lines in the film a bit hard to understand and so I got confused about what was happening multiple times in the movie. There were some great shots, great choice of music in appropriate scenes and incredible acting. The movie is well worth a watch.

Protest Art

I chose the issue of violence against children in Syria that is currently ongoing because I believe that not only is it wrong to use violence, but every human being should be treated fairly and equally. These children aren't getting the help that they deserve so something must be done.
Banksy, a graffiti artist, political activist, film director and painter based in the U.K. recently drew a picture to protest against this issue and to show his support for the Syrian children.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/12/banksy-syria_n_4948562.html

Film Review #27 - Thor: The Dark World

     Thor: The Dark World is the second "Phase 2" film in the multimillion dollar Marvel Cinematic Universe and acts as a sequel to both Thor and The Avengers. In this film, Thor fights all around the Nine Realms to bring peace back. However the return of the Dark Elves threatens the Universe itself and forces Thor to ally himself with his brother Loki, imprisoned after the events that occurred in The Avengers.
The Dark World is a visually impressive film with great CGI and good-looking action scenes but I found myself uninterested in the plot and not invested with any of the characters, which is a shame because the first Thor really captivated me. It's only towards the end of the film when events were reaching their climax that I was actually fully looking at the screen. Overall, I can't imagine anyone other than superhero film fans or comic book fans in general watching this film.

Film Review #26: Breaking Bad S3E10 "Fly"

     The 10th episode in Season 3 of Breaking Bad comes in after blood pumping moments and tense scenes so naturally it'll be amped up as we get closer to the end of the Season right? Wrong. "Fly" is a really curious episode. It's almost entirely self contained and takes place primarily in one location, the plot being Walt and Jesse trying to get rid of a single fly in the meth lab but it really only serves as a backdrop for a lot of dialogue and character development. As the episode got closer to the end the conversation between Walt and Jesse became more and more emotional and it was really helped by Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul's consistently amazing performances as the two leads.
     There were some great shots and a tasteful use of symbolism with the actual fly that I really enjoyed. This episode may have been divisive when it originally aired, but I personally loved it.

Film Review #25: The World's End

     The World's End is a 2013 British sci-fi comedy directed by Edgar Wright, written by Wright and Simon Pegg who also stars in the movie alongside Nick Frost as the main character. It's the third film in the Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy that contains the amazing Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz.
The first twenty minutes or so of the movie makes it appear very normal. It's from there that things get really weird, in a good way.
     The movie was funny thanks to the great humor and the excellent cast that did a great job. The story was weird and that's what made it great (with an even weirder ending!) It's a shame this trilogy is coming to it's close, but I'm looking forward to what the brains behind this movie do next.

Film Review #24: Star Trek Into Darkness

     Star Trek Into Darkness is the sequel to 2009's excellent Star Trek "reboot". I was highly anticipating this sequel and I was not disappointed. It was visually stunning, thrilling and Benedict Cumberbatch killed it as the villain in the movie. It also payed homage to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, perhaps more than it should have though. A few key scenes in the movie are lifted from Wrath of Khan but with roles reversed but I can't say more than that without spoiling.

     It was definitely worth the wait but with J.J. Abrams now working on Star Wars Episode VII I wonder who will take over the reigns as director for the third film. In any case I hope it's good.

Film Review #23: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

     Smaug was a BEAST. Seriously, that's the first thing that I thought of coming out of the movie theater. But let's not get ahead of ourselves: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug is the second movie in Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy. Ugh, TRILOGY. Can we talk about that for a moment? It's relevant to the movie anyway. 

    

     You see, when they announced that they were making a movie adaptation of the Hobbit I was really happy. I love the Lord of the Rings movies and book (I refer to it as ONE book, not three) so I couldn't wait to see what Peter Jackson would do. Then it became two movies which I thought was fair enough, they were adding extra content from the Appendices. But then they turned it into a trilogy, and so many of the problems with the first Hobbit movie are in The Desolation of Smaug as well: it's been stretched way too much. There's just so much stuff happening in the movie that doesn't advance the main plot which could have been significantly shortened. There were also some weird story segments which I won't go into for spoiler reasons but one scene seems to cause canonical issues with the LOTR Trilogy. Maybe it'll be fixed in the next movie, we'll see. The movie also ends on an exciting but frustrating cliffhanger but at least it'll give us the opening scene of the next movie to look forward to.

     On the technical side the movie looks great. I could sort of see the green screen in a couple of scenes and the CGI Goblins really sadden me (it's more expensive than the makeup they used in LOTR but looks worse, what's up with that?) but the rest of the movie looked great and Smaug was amazing. He is massive, incredibly detailed and looks just plain phenomenal. Benedict Cumberbatch's voice fits Smaug very well. They showed a few bits of the dragon in the trailers but trust me you have not *actually* seen him. 

    All in all, The Desolation of Smaug was a great movie but I'm still a bit disappointed with how much they're stretching the whole plot. I hope they can wrap things up neatly in There and Back Again.

Film Review #22: From Up on Poppy Hill

     From Up on Poppy Hill is a Studio Ghibli film directed by Goro Miyazaki and the screenplay was written by the legendary Hayao Miyazaki, his father.

     I hadn't heard of this film so I was really excited to watch it. The art style and animation are incredible, as expected of a Ghibli film but unlike Hayao's films which have elements of old Japanese legends and supernatural this one is an entirely realistic movie.
     The setting is post World War 2 and the story follows a young girl meeting a boy writing for the high school paper. We get to see their relationship blossom as events happen around them and one major twist that really changes the way we see their relationship.

     Other than that, the movie isn't really about anything. It's similar to Lost in Translation in that fashion: it draws you in and keeps you glued to the screen even though nothing really major happens. I really enjoyed the movie and I'm really looking forward to The Wind Rises, releasing later this month.

Documentary Brainstorm Part 2

"Life in Space" Documentary:

Why should this story be told: The future of humankind might depend on moving to outer space in the future and I think more people knowing about the possibilities and risks is a good thing.

I want people to know more and care more about the possibility of life in space when they're finished watching the documentary.

Question 1) Where can we live in space?
Question 2) Has there been a place where humankind could live?
Question 3) Why should we research life in space?
Question 4) What are the risks of life in space?
Question 5) When should we consider pursuing this?

"Why Gaming is Popular" Documentary:

Lots of misconceptions about gaming (leads towards aggressive behavior, addiction, etc...) that I want to clear up by showing hard facts that tell us that not only does it not necessarily lead to aggressive behavior, it can actually be beneficial to the people playing the games.

What I want people to take away from this documentary is new knowledge about this form of entertainment and to clear misconceptions.

Question 1) Why do you play video games?
Question 2) Does it inspire you in your art?
Question 3) How/Why not?
4) Show how video games can have a positive influence on players
5) Why do people make games?

Lieber Productions

I've been making short movies ever since I was really young. A friend and I would think of a cool premise for a story, we'd pick up the camera and off we'd go. When I got my own laptop I tinkered with stop motion animation. Now I feel like I have a great visual mind: when I think of a story I think of how it will play out as a film with specific details on clothing, dialogue and camera shots.
Ultimately my goals are to gain skills that will allow me to become a great storyteller and filmmaker and be able to work in the film or gaming industry.

Documentary Idea Brainstorm

• The creative process behind our films or artwork in the style of "The Making of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion".
• What we do in Digital Media
• Potential of life in Space
• OSA Artist profiling
• Dreams 
• Why people like gaming

Lieber Productions' Almost Final Logos

     I have logos done already, wanted to get an opinion on them before uploading them to the Drive. Couldn't really choose between the two. 

     (Lower the title, write bio, skills and goals)

As a little extra, I made a movie poster based on the second logo. I think it looks pretty cool.

Film Review #21: Sherlock Series 3

#SherlockLives

Two years after the end of Series 2 we were left with an important question we just couldn't wait to get an answer for: how did Sherlock Holmes survive his seemingly deadly fall? And what happens next? We finally get an answer to these questions in Series (Season) 3 of BBC's Sherlock, and boy is this new Series good.

Something I noticed when watching the first episode was the difference in style: the show wasn't the same as it was in the first Series. Instead of focusing on the mysteries that need to be solved, Series 3 focuses on Sherlock's relationship and growth as a character which thought was an excellent choice and was made possible thanks to Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman's brilliant performances as Sherlock Holmes and John Watson respectively.

The three episodes' production quality were outstanding and the episodes never bored you during their hour and a half run time. The final episode really made me excited as to where the show will go next and hopefully  this time it won't be too long until we get to see Sherlock again.

Logo Redesign Versions 2

Pictures for Yearbook Inspiration

Logo Redesign Sketch

YouTube is rebranded as... Google Video! The shading on the Google logo (redrawn, not just a copy from the web) is pretty much done. The  "Video" part needs more work.

I also felt like the YouTube one above was a bit too easy considering I was using Google's usual logo, so I made another redesign:

Most of the work on this is complete as well, I'll have to increase text size and maybe change the text itself but otherwise that's pretty much it. A subway train sandwich.

Film Review #20: Lost in Translation

After having heard this movie being praised by my dad and by the Digital Media class I finally sat down and watched...

    And I regret not watching it earlier. The movie is absolutely great as an audiovisual experience: there are beautiful shots of Japanese parks and the city of Tokyo (the opening scene where Murray's character is in a taxi and is mesmerized by the city is really well done), the soundtrack is incredible and fitting, but the film also was incredible in the storytelling department. They made you care for Murray and Johansson's characters' personal stories and their search for who they are and what they want to do. A good variety of people can relate to both characters who are very different: one is an older man in a midlife crisis while the other is a young college graduate in an unhappy marriage. The film explores the themes of loneliness, insomnia and culture shock among others which hit close to home for a lot of viewers and makes them (and me) more emotionally connected to the film. It was great getting to see parts of the Japanese culture in the movie as well considering my interest in it.
    Though I did feel like some of the jumps from one scene to another were a bit rough and confusing, I understood why it was like that, the film is almost two hours long and couldn't have every scene completely fleshed out.

   Overall Lost in Translation was an excellent film that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys great personal stories and relationships. Now I have to rewatch clips on YouTube and listen to the soundtrack.

Drawings and Images that Inspire Me

Sleek, black and white and good lighting. It's just what I like about logos.

I absolutely love space. The vast expanse of unknown with incredible new sights to see greatly inspire me. I feel like concept art like this one capture that feeling very well.

The color, scale and lighting in this piece really catch my eye. Source: http://mrmikedraws.com/

Great painting. The reflection of the sun in the air and water around was very well done, and similarly to space, the vast expanse of ocean with islands and wildlife is an attractive place to go.

Same as above, there's a sense of exploration when seeing paintings and drawings of underwater locations like this one. Source: http://pumax001.deviantart.com/art/Matte-painting-Underwater-Concept-Art-396925797

Logos

The first thing that comes to my mind when seeing this logo is the Battlefield game series. Digital Illusions CE (abbreviated to DICE) is a video game company now owned by EA. The company was founded in 1992 in Sweden and their original logo was very different (it was red and had a spiral in the middle and "dice" written at the bottom) They developed a few games and Electronic Arts took an interest into them. They published Battlefield 1942 and it's sequels which were big successes. They slowly purchased parts of the company throughout the years until 2006 when they fully acquired DICE and the new DICE logo reflects the modern and sleek games they create these days. I connect to it because I love their games.

The first thing that comes to my mind when seeing this logo is Twitter and the insane amount of news and useless information you can find on it. Twitter is a social networking company based in San Francisco founded in 2006. They slowly grew in popularity and it's use spiked when major world or entertainment events were taking place. As of September 2013 the company's data showed that 200 million users send over 400 million tweets daily. Their logo is a bird which fits with the name of the posts that you write on Twitter ("tweets"). It's a simple and good looking logo that is now known throughout the world, and I connect to it from personal use (also I like the color blue).

The first thing that comes to my mind is the amount of time that I've spent watching videos on YouTube. YouTube was founded in 2005 as a video sharing website and the company is currently based in San Bruno, California. The website was and still is a huge success, with users uploading and watching an incredible amount of footage. They were acquired by Google in 2006. The newest YouTube logo, a "play" button, has been simplified to look like the logos of the Google line of services and products. I connect with it because of the amount of time I've spent on the website, though their recent decisions and policy changes have been quite frustrating (sorry Google!).