falling art

This has everything a short should be, very inspirational. good work guys

design

This little short here have an awesome art style to it. I thought this would be a great way to create the short I was coming up with about the guy trying to get to sleep. By playing with the saturation of colours really helps with enhancing the mood of each scene. Also coming up with a character brief helps to create a more interesting character and this leads to a more believable story. I feel by having a strong character and character arc your story will be more interesting even if the story is cliche.

8BITS_hd720 from 8BCREW on Vimeo.

story test continuation from the story below

The music stops. The guy comes running back inside slamming the door behind him, and locking the door as fast as he can. He takes a breath in and walks calmly back to his bedroom. Relaxing back and snuggling back in to his bed closing his eyes and nodes off BANG BANG BANG!!!!! He jumps out of bed from the loud banging next minute there is 3 gun shots the door gets kicked in and a big man bends down to fit through the door looks at the room and walks to the bed room and yells " YOU EVER KNOCK ON MY DOOR AGAIN WITH A GUN ILL STICK THIS RIGHT UP." The guy in the bed just looks at him and the guy walks out. 5 minutes later the music starts back up again but twice as loud.

All as the boy can think is that he has a job interview tomorrow. He tosses and turns in his bed then jumping out and throwing his pillow. running toward the spare room with clutter every where he creates a contraption that looks like 2 big pillows tired up with headphones and a alcohol dripper. he walks back to his room and slips this contraption over his head and starts sucking on the alcohol dripping through.

Waking up with the sun on his eyes he looks out his window to see the guy from next door on a billboard pointing a wrench towards him with a caption "are you ready"  the guys mouth drops and notices that the job he moved states for the manager is the guy from next door.

The long night

The other night I was having trouble getting to sleep and it got me thinking about the idea I came up earlier so I started to build a little more on it so here it is.

looking up towards the big heavy stainless steel fridge door with the calendar with tomorrows date circled many times over in a big red texta.  Running over towards the door from a mouses point of view going in to the room climbing the bed side table and looking over at the glass of milk left half drunk a boy lies there with his eyes wide open with one eye twitching. All of a sudden there starts up a really loud song form the neighbours room. the boy in bed rolls over with his pillow under his head. gets up grabs his gun from the top draw and goes to the door of the apartment. Forcefully opening the door that hard it swings open then closes and hits him on the ass on as he stomps out the room.

That is all I have so far.

Tying it all together

I have been critiquing a lot of short films in the first few blog posts that I have done. To me this has been a great way to learn and build some better story ideas and what not to do. The things that I seem to have noticed time and time again was the relationship with the characters in the shorts. This could be one or two things that is happening when the shorts are being developed, either they have not paid much attention to the character design and the way the character have changed throughout the story, or that they have tried to make the film shorter and leaving important character growths and arcs. 

Late night drive

I came up with this idea as I was driving home late the other night and I was falling asleep at the wheel.

A Truck driver named John driving down a country freeway at 3am in the morning. Doing his double shift to help pay for his rehab. With only 2 hours of driving to go on his shift he is finding it very hard to stay awake. Looking over at a snap lock packet of small pieces of speed, in the shape of small bits of broken glass, a brown hazed up crack pipe from heavy use, moving back and forth taping on the packet making a slight sound making john look over and having greater temptation of shooting up.

As john looks back from the tapping of the crack pipe he looks up and over to his revision mirror where a big blue token hangs with the number 30 in cased in gold, this resembles that he has been clean from drugs for over 30 days.

From it being an icy cold night John has his heater on but he is starting to get sleepy and his eyes are getting slower and slower with his blinks every blink he does is staying shut for longer and longer. Jolting to stay awake he shakes his head from side to side mumbling “only 2 more hours” Turning on the air conditioner on to try keep him awake.

chef

Watching My Kitchen Rules the other night and this gave me an idea on a little short that could be quite interesting.  having a guy trying to make a perfect meal for his girlfriend. he has already made the entree and mains. Working on the dessert he is having problems  getting the toppings done right he looks at the cake and it is moving underneath him. he is not sure what is going on he looks down to the cake only to realise the his dog is on the other side licking off the icing.  he gets very angry and picking up the dog throwing it out the window. he starts to make a moose instead the kitchen getting dirtier and dirtier. As he dishes up the mouse in nice little acapulco glass he notices that there  is a massive .........

Descendants

This short is awesome. it is very inspirational because it creates a great story from a simple thing as putting a mind on a plant that cannot move like a real plant. The style that is used in this short is something that I would like to create and I feel that it is very aesthetically pleasing. Having this art style really helps create an environment that you would like to be a part of or in. This also helps with the story I feel it makes it becoming more believable and also intriguing and creating a more believable story.


Descendants from Goro Fujita on Vimeo.

questions

What is it about movies and shorts that bring you in at the start and not just stop watching in the first minute? I feel that curiosity is one of the most important things for the view to have when watching a short so how do we create a short or movie that is interesting and make your audience have curiosity in your film? Opening scene you get a look at the environment where movie takes you in to the world of disbelief. Come in to your character, as the audience views they think, OK who is that? What are they doing? Why are they there? Is this the evil character? As you can see the audience is smashed in the face with all these questions when they start watching your film.  

It is inspirational because when creating a film if you do this well you make your characters your world believed by others make your audience feel something great from your film and that is a magnificent feeling to have.

Tooth Fairy Affair

This is something you do not see very much any more.  A good short with good hand drawn animation, this short is very intriguing. The way that the kid tries to get extra money by stealing his grandmothers false teeth and how it back fires on him badly. You create great empathy for this character and want him to get what he wants because, he puts such great effort in to how he goes about it and shows great dedication. In the end you know the character cannot succeed and must perish because what he has done is wrong. It is interesting that the way he is shown a lesson about stealing is by having something stolen from him. 

Tooth Fairy Affair from Izabela Melamed on Vimeo.

The Artist

This is a good little short. It interesting that the way it misleads you in the ending and the outcome is completely different. when I was watching this short I felt that the meaning behind the story was going to be about how the art of today's society has changed to what it has become, in the way that they get bigger and bigger canvases to show up each other. The way they use the different techniques to paint form one brush to six brush's to a hole paint bucket. The way it ended was inspirational because they both create the same master peace that joins their work together to show that they are not so different.


The Artists from Giant Animation Studios on Vimeo.

Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones

My Dad started watching it and I was watching it with him. How is this so good? This is the third time I have watched them, I am still sucked in like I have never watched it. I feel that the reason the show is so addictive is due to a few simple rules. They don’t have anything on the screen as you watch that is not there to push the story forward. Also the characters inside the world of game of thrones all have empathy or you build great anger and hatred.  Another thing they also at the moment they keep everything very surreal and believable even though the story has dragons and other mythical creatures. They still hold seem to make the story believable and know their boundaries.

A Family Portrait

This style is quiet interesting for this short it worked really well.  The way they use the style to enhance the awkward moment when get your family photo taken. They also use the style to push the story in an aesthetically pleasing way. The way the father is meant to or is cheating on his wife, by pulling out his tie instead of having they are just lingerie but using the style to help the change of him thinking it would be a tie and it being the lingerie of what the wife was thinking makes the story work well with the style.  

A Family Portrait from Joseph Pierce on Vimeo.

Ormie

This short is a good laugh. Watching this short reminds me of when I was a little boy when mum went out to do some shopping, the first thing that we used to do was go straight for the food we were not allowed to have. This short is interesting because it shows you that you can create a short story from anything. By just putting a spin on a simple memory like this can make something like this  good, by pushing the reality to a little fat pig and warping the perspective of the fridge makes it new and more entreating . Having great empathy towards the end of the short. The only really thing that I would change is that I would have something on the wall a bit more than a splash of paint on it. They could have made a small kitchen or something to help fill up the scene.









Ormie from Ormie Pig on Vimeo.

One more beer

The choice of the title creates a miss direction in the story which is very clever. For those people that have worked in a bar know what this is like, having a big guy come in to your bar and demands a drink and it is the complete opposite of what you were thinking he would order. By pushing the extremes of this and changing it to a cocktail for a Viking set back in the day and age of only having beer or wine it creates a good laugh out of this short film. The animation is good, the only thing I noticed was that the waiters hand freezes in time and does not move on the hold. The art style is good and the use of lights creates a great focal point on the main character. The staging could have been a little better, having the main character off to the right a little more. This would allow a little more room for the waiters hand on screen and draw your eyes to him a little more. 

One More Beer! from pedro conti on Vimeo.

Without story

Is a story needed to make a short unforgotten and for it to be rewatchable? This short has no story and can you watch it more than once? No, not really. Nothing really happens that makes you want to watch it again and again. So why do good stories make you want to watch them over and over again and again. There are many movies out there that have great story like The Sound of Music. Why is this movie great? This movie has breath taking scenery, and the voice of Julie Andrews. Also you create great empathy for the character Maria, and the children.  This Story also has many plot points throughout the movie and keeps you sucked in till the very end. Many people say that you have to create something new to make it stand out, but in this time there is not a lot that has not been done before whether it is in shorts, feature films or TV shows. I feel that you can revamp an old story as long as you can change it up a little in the style and give it a new twist, but the theme behind the story can be the same. This is what a lot of Disney films have done and they do it very well. Could this short have been better if it had a memorable storyline that created empathy for the character or object and good plot points?

SCINTILLATION from Xavier Chassaing on Vimeo.

cipher

Here is a great short I felt empathy for the character and got sucked in to the story right till the very end. The only thing that I felt was that some points in the short could have been done a little quicker and not made such a long short. But it was still a great little short. Visually I feel they could of used some of the colours in the lighten to help change the mood when the character did. This subtle light changing could bring you closer to the character. Also with the visual side of things I did not feel overly about the style but did give it a good twist to the mix of the cipher he was trying to do and related and pushed that side of the story. 

The Thomas Beale Cipher from Andrew S Allen on Vimeo.

Not putting a good spin on a cliche topic

OK this looks insane visually awesome and the physics on this short were incredible and the textures were also great. There were some points in the short where the animation lacked of quality and also some shots looked not as well lighted and did not sit into the scene of the environment as well as it could have. Also the sound of the characters was really hard to understand and listen too. All and all this looks really great but the story, well can we call it cliché the classic terminator with a small twist, of an alien or creature instead of the human raise evolving and being overrun of the computers trying to wipe out the raise for the future of being independent for the machines. One thing I am actually noticing that is coming up with a few shorts I have been watching lately is there is no relation to the main character or you don’t even feel empathy for the character either. There were also a few things in the main part of the story that I was waiting for to be shown. Like how did he get caught and how did he escape so easy in that particular moment. 

R´ha [short movie] from Kaleb Lechowski on Vime\

Mac 'n' Cheese

This short has an amazing concept art style to the finish on the textures, and gives off a warm fast feeling with the colours they have used enhancing what is happening in this short. The use of cameras has been used well and the way they use cutting from scene to scene. This is an interesting animation. I am not sure if I like the theme, though, the way the story has been told is good. I do not know if it’s me or the lack of drug use. I did not relate to the characters and that broke my credibility to the video. The way the short starts draws you in and you start making questions and make you keep watching. The way this has been directed, I feel it has been done very well apart from relating to the character or feeling empathy. The way the short ended was interesting on how the way the addict spaces out from reality.



Mac 'n' Cheese from Mac 'N' Cheese on Vimeo.

First of many

We have to start with creating some ideas no don’t we so let’s start brain storming up some ideas so how the hell do we come up with ideas?

Some studies show that a good story comes from the theme or a meaning behind the story.

Suggestive triggers can also help like character, ending, something that is happening in the world (news) also can come from a time in your life where you have had to make a massive decision in your life. Or something that annoys you and you feel that the viewer of your short will be able to connect.