CAT385 — Visual Effects

Michel Gondry / White Stripes — Hardest Button to Button

2012-02-12T18:52:00.000-08:00

More brilliant multiplicity from Gondry. Yes, he had a budget for 32 drum kits!

And here's a bit of behind-the-scenes:

Japanese Photo Prank

2011-04-13T10:45:00.000-07:00

Japanese Talent Show — Bunraku Comedy

2011-03-24T13:03:00.001-07:00

Nifty Chaplin Camera Trick

2011-02-16T18:22:00.000-08:00

Copy Shop

2010-09-24T19:14:00.000-07:00

Copy Shop is a 12-minute, dialogue-free visually stunning experimental film by director Virgil Widrich about a guy inadvertently duplicating himself over and over. During his morning test of the machine, he accidentally copies his hand; while he's looking at that copy, the machine starts churning out scenes from earlier that morning. Spooked by this, he closes up early and goes home. Soon, it seems, he's part of a society in which everyone looks like him and wears a checkered vest. Can he get things back to normal?

The editing and post-production of Copy Shop took 8 months to complete, pretty astounding for a 12-minute film. After shooting on mini-DV, Widrich printed and photocopied all 18,000 frames of the film, manipulated them for jarring visual effects, and then shot them with a 35mm camera to put together the final cut.

And here's a behind-the-scenes look:

And here'a an interview with director Virgil Widrich:

And if that weren't enough, check out the same director's short, Fast Film:

Virgil Widrich's extraordinary, award-winning animation is a technical masterpiece. Hundreds of great movie moments are distilled into 14 minutes of animated magic by the director's clever use of technology (and a photocopier).

On the surface, Fast Film tells a simple story. A woman is kidnapped and a man sets off to save her, embarking on a dramatic rescue mission full of wild chase scenes.

What makes Fast Film unique is that all its scenes were taken from 300 different feature films. Director Virgil Widrich captured stills from the 300 movies, and made over 65,000 photocopies of these, then folded them into a variety of shapes and animated them. The result is a completely fresh look at Hollywood - a tour of movie history at breakneck speed.

Fast Film has rightly been showered with praise and awards around the world, most notably winning the prize for Best Animated Short at the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto.

— channel4.com review

Two Ghostly Doubles

2010-09-24T11:56:00.000-07:00

The first is from the beginning of Buster Keaton's Sherlock, Jr. — named one of the best 100 movies of all time by Time magazine. As Keaton's character splits into two, the characters in the movie he is projecting transform into characters from his personal life. Right after this scene he jumps through the screen and joins them. Great movie, check it out!

The second clip is from Woody Allen's Annie Hall, co-starring Diane Keaton, and winner of four Academy Awards.

Buster Keaton's Multiple Selves in "The Playhouse"

2010-09-24T09:06:00.000-07:00

Not to be confused with Michael Keaton's clones in the movie Multiplicity (1996). By the way, Michael Keaton is not in any way related to Buster Keaton; in fact, his real name is Michael Douglas, and he took Keaton as a stage name because the other Michael Douglas was already famous.

So how did Buster Keaton do this back in the early days of film (1921)? According to our good friend, Wikipedia:

"Keaton's portrayal of nine members of a minstrel show required the use of a special camera shutter. It had nine exactingly-machined strips of metal which could be moved up and down independently of each other. Elgin Lessley, Keaton's cameraman, shot the far-left Keaton with the first shutter up, and the others down. He then rewound the film, opened the second segment, and re-filmed the next Keaton in sequence. This continued for each of the remaining seven Keatons. The camera was hand-wound, so that Lessley's hand had to be absolutely steady, with no variation in its speed. Keaton had to move meticulously in each of his appearances, so he relied on a metronome to guide him, not a problem in a silent film. It was decades before Keaton, who masterminded this, revealed his technique to other filmmakers."

Das Doppelganger: the Doubles Theme

2010-09-06T09:31:00.000-07:00

The theme of the doppelganger — an individual's tangible or spirit double or alter ego — appears throughout the history of literature and film, and especially in comedy. Facebook even had a doppelganger day where members were urged to post a photo of their double. Here's mine:

Below are two interesting examples of the use of visual effects to create multiple selves from the inspired imagination of Michel Gondry. Click on video to go to YouTube page.

First up is his brilliant, kaleidoscopic music video of the Chemical Brothers' Let Forever Be:

And here's his equally wild take on Kylie Minogue's Come Into My World:

I've got a lot more examples for class. but for some reason Blogger's not letting me post them right now. Hmmm...

Stop-Action Substitution — Georges Méliès' "The Black Imp" (1905)

2009-01-29T08:03:00.000-08:00

Before making films, Georges Méliès (1861-1938) was a stage magician at the Theatre Robert-Houdin. He was very innovative in the use of special effects. He accidentally discovered the stop trick, or substitution, in 1896, and was one of the first filmmakers to use multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted colour in his films. Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality with the cinematography, Méliès is sometimes referred to as the "Cinemagician." —Wikipedia

Click here to read the whole article.

"Art of Motion" Stop-Action Video

2009-01-23T16:17:00.000-08:00

This is the one we viewed in class. It's by Russell Wyner, who writes: "This is entirely stopmotion. No digital compositing. The hard part was doing all the math to make the frames match the music."

Buster Keaton Stop-Action Sequence

2009-01-23T16:13:00.000-08:00

This is from near the beginning of his feature film, Sherlock Jr. (1924). Instead of merely substituting an object, Keaton changes the entire environment.

How to Use a Flip Camera

2009-01-19T16:40:00.000-08:00

Flip camera home page.

How to use Flip camera: frequently asked questions.

David Pogue NY Times review or original Flip camera.

David Pogue NY Times review of new HD Flip camera.

Video showing how to use the Flip camera:

First Movie Visual Effect Ever?!

2009-01-16T16:48:00.000-08:00

Here it is, stop-action substitution, from the Edison Studios just down the road from us. The year is 1895.

3 Graphics Designers Recreate Omaha Beach

2009-01-16T13:57:00.000-08:00

Here's there attempt at duplicating Saving Private Ryan.

The Importance of Invisible Effects

2009-01-14T19:00:00.000-08:00

Let's start our blog off with a really interesting article by Steve Wright, author of the highly recommended Compositing Visual Effects. When we talk about visual effects, we tend to think about explosions and space aliens, but in reality most visual effects are not noticed by the average viewer. That's because these effects are invisible, and as often as not are used to save money or to improve the cinematography, rather than to dazzle. Invisible effects are what make it financially possible for you to be an independent filmmaker.

The article, with pictures, is found on the CreativeCow.net web site, a great resource for everything we do:

http://magazine.creativecow.net/article/the-importance-of-invisible-effects