Unit 4: Greenhouse Influence Map

There are many types of greenhouses so I can pick and mix any style I want but general rule of thumb is support pillars and lots of windows.

Unit 4: Prop and Extra Evironment Influence Map

Along with my greenhouse I'm adding an igloo as part of the scene for the eskimo's home. Nowadays eskimos don't normally build ice igloo's but I wanted him to be like a stereotypical eskimo.
For the vacuum cleaner I went with an old box looking style because he wouldn't really have a new age hoover.

Unit 4: Eskimo Influence Map

My main points of interest for my designs center around features which would generally suggest an eskimo. That's why even though I got a greenhouse as my environment I didn't want to take him away from the cold surroundings so he wouldn't end up dressed differently, as he would in a warm environment.
I focused on the fluffy hood, narrow eyes (even though this isn't neccessarily a feature to all eskimo's the ones in Siberia slightly have them), big mittens, and large coats.

Unit 4: Just a little inspirational research

Emma pointed this video out to me. Just goes to show how simple it can look but still appealing in terms of layout. Only an igloo, a fishing hole and a fireplace (although the fireplace would be replaced by a fishing rack in my animation) would suffice for exterior set design.


The Eskimo from Bryan Blumenschein on Vimeo.

Unit 4: Eskimo Character

Some final ideas for the eskimo. Turnarounds will be uploaded soon and storyboards are on their way.

Maya: Rotating Ball with Centered Pivot

Learning to Cook Script

Learning to Cook Script

Revised Story - Learning to Cook: Lesson #7 Smoked Salmon

Learning to Cook Logline v3

Maya: Bowling Ball

Maya: Centered-Pivot Ball Bounce

Maya: Off-Center Pivot Ball Bounce

In this tutorial we learned the basics of keyframes but also how to smooth out the animation by adding in manual keyframes. Also keyframing the size parameters to give it physics of squashing.

Unit 4 OGR: Presentation 2 14/02/12

Unit 4 Sketches OGR


Unit 4 Essay Intro


Scribd is acting weird for the sketches presentation so here it is in jpegs:

Unit 4 OGR: Presentation 1 13/02/12

Premise, Logline, Step Outline

OGR Dinner Nightmare Logline v2

Script

OGR Dinner Nightmare Script

Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope Review (1948)

Fig. 1. Rope Poster

 

Rope presents itself as a guinea pig of films in Alfred Hitchcock’s arsenal. The story revolves around two men who try to commit the perfect murder; the movie opens up with the pair strangling their school classmate as an act to prove their superiority and look down on the inferiors. There are underlying hints of the main pair’s homosexuality which was controversial at the time and their motives revolve around the Nietzsche philosophy, combining this with the almost foolish hiding place of the body and the single camera view of the flat the film offers much suspense and uneasy tension at times.
Hitchcock, who a few years earlier produced Shadow of a Doubt, Notorious and many others, wanted to create a film that was composed of one continuous shot or long take. He described it as a stunt in his is career adventure, “Hitchcock was interested in seeing whether he could find a cinematic equivalent to the play, which takes place in the actual length of time of the story.” (Canby, 1984)

 

Fig. 2. Murder

Unfortunately at the time cameras could only hold 1000 feet of film resulting in shots limited to 10 minutes each. This is where the editing comes into it and yet at the same time remains secluded; this film almost had no editing and that was the exact intention of Hitchcock, the only editing used is when the shot segment runs out and has to continue in the next 10 minute segment. With a total of 10 shots the editing is kept to a minimum, cleverly Hitchcock transitioned the shots usually by zooming into a prop or an actor and then resuming by zooming out of the same object keeping the sense of continuity going. Even though some of these transitions are quite evident, starting off from where the last shot ended doesn’t interrupt the sequence and the story continues like a play.

 Fig. 3. Chest

The manner in which the camera seems to not pass the line of action within such a confined space in the flat, the cleverly chosen shots (over the shoulder, three shot, etc.), and the fact that we already know where the body is leads to a great experience in suspense in which Hitchcock is very familiar with in many of his films. Instead of not telling us anything any using surprise he gives us all of the information and lets the characters actions build up the action. The camera work plays on these actions and one example is when all the party is talking off screen there’s just a shot of the chest with the body to the side and the maid is gradually taking off all the things covering it. This leads to a build of suspense because we don’t know if the characters are paying attention to her or not and we don’t know if she’ll open the chest or not. Hitchcock’s varied uses of cinematic techniques combine for an interesting experience, “Far from just ‘recording a play,’ the suffocating long takes enforce ethical contemplation by refusing the relief of a cut (which, in the director's voyeuristic world, would have amounted to looking the other away).” (Croce, 2006)

This forces viewers to become part of the action and in a way almost feel the guilt of what’s to come. Rope really is a guinea pig of innovation and it does a good job of it too, even leading to producers of present times to use long takes to make the viewer’s feel more encapsulated.

Bibliography

Canby, V. (1984) The New York Times At: http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/060384hitch-rope-reflection.html (Accessed on: 09/02/12)

Croce, F. (2006) Slant Magazine At: http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/rope/948 (Accessed on: 09/02/12)

Illustration List

Fig. 1. Alfred Hitchcock (1948) Rope Poster At: http://www.moviegoods.com/movie_poster/rope_1948.htm (Accessed on: 09/02/12)

Fig. 2. Murder (1948) From: Rope Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock [film still] USA: Transatlantic Pictures At: http://www.gonemovies.com/www/Hoofd/A/Detail.php?Keuze=HitchcockStewartRope&Cat=Crime (Accessed on: 09/02/12)

 

Fig. 3. Chest (1948) From: Rope Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock [film still] USA: Transatlantic Pictures At: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi573N7qKcmgw9-ObHHPCIq2W-F0co4SR0befny45u8l-gNuRDfeKcYIGmQ71Curqsfst4L48b49JNyA6h5UY1fp1SvwvRN-1GuA-IGWl5_3SC8qBBis64s72c60vCfEZ2wTIwMYrekqrE/s1600/MovieQuiz_1653-040.JPG (Accessed on: 09/02/12)

Idea No.2

Two eskimos', Itigiaq (weasel) and Naartok (obese) live side by side in the frozen tundra. Naartok builds a greenhouse to grow vegetables that scarcely grow in the cold for his bland dinners. His neighbour is quite mischievous and gets jealous of this new addition to the house so Itigiaq gets his vacuum cleaner and gets to work. He puts the vacuum on reverse and blows snow into the greenhouse freezing all of Naartok's plants. Naartok thinks that the snow just blew in through the window by accident so he just blow dries the plants without giving it a seconds thought. A week later Itigiaq does the same prank again only this time completely filling the greenhouse up to the cieling. Naartok meanwhile sees this act through his igloo window, he waits a few hours till Itigiaq settles back into his house and gets an idea of his own. The camera is just viewing Itigiaq's home from the front when Naartok walks up from the side, gives the side of Itigiaqs house a little kick and the whole thing crumbles down leaving Itigiaq sitting on the toilet with surprised eyes. Naartok walks off screen laughing.

Idea No.1

An eskimo is tired of just eating fish without any vegetables for his dinners so he gets the smart idea of constructing a greenhouse .....in the snow. All of his plants end up freezing over and dying instantly. He gets a lightbulb idea of using a vacuum cleaner to suck the warmth from his house fire and into the greenhouse. This works for a while and he can see the plants starting to grow and as one is about to bear fruit the vacuum cleaner sucks up a piece of wood on fire and blows up the entire greenhouse and his one little fruit. In the end the camera shows him eating fish again for dinner at his table with one tiny burnt vegetable on the side.