Fever Ray

Fever Ray is a Scandinavian music artist. After watching her music videos I wanted to mention it. One video that really stood out to me was for 'If I had a heart' that I first heard through the television show 'vikings'.

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I like how the music's Scandinavian roots are reflected in a way with the boats and the fore torches. I also like the chopping and changing  there is an element of randomness to it but it's not so random its jarring, it still fits the mood and feel of the song.

I think music videos can be a great way of looking at the use of film because they are constructed around a piece of music rather than a narrative.

Session 11- Maya

I think Maya is a great piece f software and i hope to be able to go further with it in future.

In class I was able to Create a bouncing ball. I did this by setting key frames on a time line of 200 frames. A 3rd of the way through the time line I placed the full height it should reach in the sequence. Another third in I out the ball on the 'floor' and I also manipulated the shape so it looked squashed. Then at the end of the time line I had the ball be the same size and shape as at the beginning. I think the effect was for a first time quite a good one.

I also created a rolling cube using the technique of moving the objects a specific key frames. I then gave it a marble surface.

I also played with some of the different textures you can create I used some of the different fur options on a basic sphere to see what they'd look like. It was interesting finding out about the different textures are created on 3d modelling.

All in all I think from this session I have taken away a basic of understanding of what the software can do and what it can be used for. 

Something interesting

I came across this odd little short ilm and thought it was quite an interesting creative fusion of ideas. I think there is actually quite a lot of thought put into the locations.
I like the idea of the mixture of the traditional and the modern. I think this is reflected in the choice of location. For example there is an irish coastline which is opposed by the industrial back drop of a warehouse.

I think this a quirky little video that is a bit of fun while still very creative.


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Proposal brief mood board

Costume Design

One Area I am very interested in is Costume Design and in particular the costume design in film based in Historical settings. I love the idea of bringing something back to th enow that has been lost to history.

One television show at the moment that has drawn my attention is 'Vikings'. It has a broad range of costumes designs from the poor to the very wealthy.

Costume Designer Joan Bergin said "I took everything that I thought they would [have been able to] get their hands on, the linens, the wools, the weaving, because they were remarkably sophisticated,” said Bergin. “Paganism has this beautiful imagery and great craftsmanship. They took great pride in [what they made], much like American Indians. I could justify elements like pink fur, because they could have dyed it using berries. As it went on, I got braver.”

I think it is important when creating costumes to take into account who the charaqcters are and their surroundings. It wouldn't make sense to put someone in a piece of clothing that would be unavailavle to them. ALso I think the character has to be taken into account. A modest and unasuming character would not make sense to be wearing bright colourful and expensive designs or fabric. 

Overall I think Vikings costume design is really well thoght out and researched.

It also made me think about costume design for my proposal. It is set in the Regency, in the early 19th Century. There are three Characters and they all have very different costumes.

Firstly there is the man/creature. For him I am envisioning a vagabond type character. However I want him to be dressed in clothes that were one fine. S the fabrics will be luxurious but distressed. I think costume is a big part of a character. If I was to dress this character in poorer fabrics there wouldn't be a sense of the dilapidation that the character had endured before the film starts. It's an interesting idea to be able to give a character a deeper depth even before you've been able to introduce them properly. 

In terms of the other two characters in the sequence. As these are characters who need to represent wealth. and they are only on screen for barley 5 minutes, they need to be shown as this through their attire.

Overall this is a subject I am interested in and I like the idea of a character being reflected in the clothes and how well thought out and effective this can be.

session 10 after effects

In this session I was pleasantly surprised by how I managed to grasp all of what we were taught on (for me) complicated software.

it was interesting using the motion tracking and I now understand more how  this works in big budget film. although this was rather crude it does basically the same job. Then adding layers on top of this to add to more to the image. I was able to add different eyes to the image and make them move with the base image to a certain extent. given more time I would have I think been able to make it stick for the whole clip.

This for me was also an exercise in understanding how the software works so I am able to go further and use tutorials more effectively 

Session 9 adobe premiere and slow computers

 I found this session interesting even if the computers were grindingly slow. It was interesting using a different form of editing software. In this I took some of the footage of me crawling backwards and reversed it to create a weird forward motion.

Also in after effects I took out the green screen and put the footage on a background on the bleeding walls shot that I duplicated to create the corridor.

Over all this lesson was useful in teaching me basic skills on new software. Also I now am able to easily find tutorials to further my knowledge of the software should I need it.

Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy tv series 1981

Having recentley re watched the 1980's BBC 'Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy' Series I was interested about the use of prosthetics in the show.

The most obvious of which is I think, Zaphod's (mark Wind-davies) second head. In the radio series it is not that well described apart from that he has two heads side by side. This with out the modern advanced is special and visual effects would prove quite a challenge.




To today's eyes this seems rather crude and not at all realistic but on a BBC budget in 1981 it is quite remarkable I think. Especially id you take into account the Vogons which Personally I think were just as good as the movie ones that were made in the 2000s.




This production also used techniques to create the idea of infinity in the sets with set pieces painted on glass. by a bored Frenchman.  This technique had been used before production decided to do the reverse to create even more of a look of infinity in the small BBC sound stages.

Something else that they used in the film was a lot of miniature work in the scenes where something is flying through space. For this they used animation. First drawing the designs on clear ascitate and then turning this negative. Then They used colored paper to reveal individual letters of pictures.

So Hitchhikers managed to create outer space and Alien races on a minor BBC budget but even though to todays eyes it does look rather crude some of it still stands up today sich  as the animation.

Group Project Mood Board

500 word Proposal brief REVISED

Tagline: Something more sinister than a rogue Highway man lurks in the depths of the Georgian countryside.

Logline: Among the faint beginnings of the Agricultural revolution some thing is lurking among the freshly threshed corn. Against the backdrop of a modernising nation an ancient nightmare or folklore is coming back to haunt the people of rural Regency England.

This is from the opening of this film, 'The Creature' makes it's first attack, launching the story by creating the fist victims. 

At a crossroads a man sits alone leaning against the decrepit signpost. A long clay pipe hangs from his mouth; plumes of clean, white smoke encompass his shaggy head. Long Black hair surrounds his features. His teeth, green and broken are exposed by thin grimacing lips. His eyes glow a strange yellow from his beneath his greasy tresses. He is a vagabond, his long coat, once the finest velvet is now tattered worn thin by years of wind and rain. His top hat is distorted and like his coat worn too thin for the cold and wet. Around him the sound of the countryside is prominent, birds singing and a distant river. The countryside and its beauty make this man appear even more grotesque.

In the distance there is the sound of wheels and hooves along the road. The man looks towards the sound where a large cloud of dust precedes a sleek black carriage, drawn by two chestnut heavy horses. Their hooves kick up great lumps of dirt. The man grins and stands, slowly on rickety bones. The carriage draws ever closer, he flags it down.

As the carriage draws to a halt the man hobbles towards the window. The Carriage is driven by a portly man, whose smart tailcoat is stretched by his bulging gut. His jowls and vacant drooping eyes give him the look of a bloodhound. His top hat is perched precariously on his bulbous head.

The window on the carriage creeps down and a gun is thrust from it. A flintlock pistol, beautiful and ornate. A woman hold it, her fine lace gloves and bonnet betray her high class.

The man grins, his eyes which had stopped there gentle glow now shine, a grotesque, sickly orange. The woman is horrified. At her gasp the driver turns from his perch. He begins to climb down his pot bellied frame making it a struggle.

The man, eyes still glowing reaches and grabs the driver round his thick neck. Hoisting him in the air and throwing him several feet in the other direction. The woman fires the pistol. It sparks as the lead shot is released and a puff of smoke bellows from the mechanism. The shot travels straight through the man. He grins, reaches out and intertwines his fingers with the smoke seeping from the barrel.

Tendrils of smoke twist round his dirty fingernails and up his forearm. His flesh begins to disintegrate and meld with the smoke. The transformation travels up his arms, through his body down to his feet. As it travels through him the white smoke becomes thicker and any sign of flesh disappears.

The woman is frozen in horror, the Pistol clatters to the floor. The smoke like figure now twists and contorts. It becomes figureless, a cloud, poised. It darts, through the carriage, passing through the woman's body. The smoke appears again the other side of the carriage. It reforms into a figure, then collapses on itself, vanishing.

The woman lays dead, her eyes glassy and skin translucent. She appears cold although she is only a few seconds’ dead.