Nina

Persepolis (2007) is a French-Iranian animated film that depicts the life of a young Iranian woman who grew up during the Iranian revolution. It was directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud. The film is based on a comic book series by Marjane Satrapi, and the animation follows the graphic novel-esk style. Seeing as the plot is told amidst the backdrop of the Iranian revolution, the obvious themes of war are present. Themes of oppression, revolution and the danger of death remain throughout the film. Even when the main character leaves Iran for France, these themes seem to follow her. She becomes friends with french students who entertain notions of revolution with their refusal to conform. When she becomes homeless, the threat of death remains very real for the character despite being in a country that is seen as much safer than Iran. There are also themes of religion and, by extension, religious oppression towards women, non-believers or simply anyone who the seem...

I learned how to edit green screen shots in AfterEffects. Then we made two buildings go on fire. I struggled with making the second fire that was filmed without camera depth look realistic, but the other building looked ok. I also thought my green screen looked attempt looked ok too. I also learned how to add snow and rain which was fun.

Week 6  I was put into the sub-committees for Promotion and Evaluation. I was made the leader of the Evaluation sub-committee. We discussed what we were going to be doing in class in each of the committees. Sam asked me if I would be able to deal with the entry queries that people might have once we begin to organise entries, which I said I could do. Vy agreed that she would be able to take photos for when it comes to the evaluation at the end. In the promotion sub-committee we agreed that we would wait for the poster and all of the details before we would go around classes to let people know about the event and begin promoting things on Facebook and other media. Week 7 I set up a bunch of folders on the temp drive each of the sub-committees for them to drop their notes from their own meetings and any other things that are relevant in. I am currently organising a time for the Evaluation committee to meet weekly, I'm just waiting for a time from the visual arts students in the g...

A Scanner Darkly is a 2006 film, directed by Richard Linklater, based on Philip K. Dick's novel of the same name. It is about an undercover cop who becomes an addict to a dangerous drug known as "substance D". The film is shot in entirely rotoscope, which I think adds to, and elevates, the overall mood of the movie. I think that the subject matter makes the use of rotoscoping quite fitting because the whole story revolves around a guy who doesn't quite feel himself as a result of falling into the trap of addiction, along with this, many characters throughout the story aren't who they say they are. Rotoscoping makes the characters not quite real, but not cartoons either. We recognise the actors faces, making them seem more human and accessible, but they aren't quite themselves at the same time as a result of the rotoscoping and this gives the audience a feeling that everything is not quite right. This feeling continues throughout as the plot evolves, before co...

Week 4:  I spent this week working with Daisy to get the proposal ready. We got most of the writing and research part written up in class time and I stayed back a little after class just to finish it all off and do some referencing. I just used a basic Photoshop template and saved it in Daisy's temp storage so we could both access it and therefore all the pdf pages will look the same style. Over the next week I intend to have the storyboards drawn up, with collaboration between Daisy and I so I am drawing the right things from the right angles. Week 5:  I finished drawing the VFX boards up and gave them to Daisy to fill in the writing. I then started on the Concept piece. To do this I modeled the mountains in Maya and messed around with Toon Shader until I had colours that I liked. Then I took a photo of Connor (the actor) in a pose as if he was a bit unbalanced and on a moving mountain. I took the photo into photoshop and rotoscoped over it. After that I messed around wi...