Archive for the ‘film’ Category
My animated short film, Manifestations got me selected as the Featured Filmmaker and Film of the Week on mtvU Bestfilmoncampus.com this week.
Thanks ever so much to Eleni Crush of mtvU Digital Media :)
Above is my first iPhone/iTouch wallpaper, which was created from my animated music video ‘Dead All Along.’ I’ve added a wallpaper section to my website so that I can add more free wallpapers for download.
The following is an easy tutorial on how to render out stills from your After Effects film and create great looking wallpapers for an iPhone or iTouch, by taking advantage of the iPhone and iTouch native resolution.
An iPhone and iTouch both have display sizes of 320×480px, at 2:3 aspect ratio and a resolution of 163ppi. After Effects renders out stills at 72ppi. So to ensure that the film frames look as good as possible on the small iPhone and iTouch screens we simply have to render out a larger still image from After effects at a 2:3 aspect ratio and then resize in Photoshop. The larger After Effect image needs to be 2.26388889 times (163 divided by 72) larger than the iPhone/iTouch display and use a composition size of 724 x 1086.
1. With your scene selected in After Effects, change the Composition Settings (composition–>settings) so that the width and height are 724 by 1086 (see screenshot below)
2. Move the camera, and possibly props/characters to ensure the composition is still good
3. Render out the single frame as a PNG sequence
4. Open the png render in Photoshop and resize the image’s Resolution setting (Image–>Image Size) to 163 making sure to deselect the ‘Resample Image:’ check box (see screen shot below)
5. Save the image
6. Lastly, two optional steps you can perform to increase the quality of your image are to increase the Saturation (Image–>Adjustments–>Hue/Saturation) and apply an Unsharp Mask (Filter–>Sharpen–>Unsharp Mask). The amount is dependent upon the image so you will probably have to fiddle and test the results.
The above is a still from one of the animated sequences I illustrated and animated for Jeffrey Blitz’s new documentary, Lucky. Lucky premiered at Sundance 2010. I was fortunate to work again as an animator and illustrator with Bill Barminski from Walter Robot on this production and it was also great working with Jeffrey Blitz. I found Jeffrey to be a very intelligent and challenging director. The sequences were animated in After Effects, with the illustrations drawn and colored/textured in photoshop.
The reviews of Lucky have been positive and it seems people also liked the animated sequences, as this review from Scott Weinberg testifies “with nifty animated interstitials full of interesting jackpot stats.” You can read Scott’s full review here:
http://www.cinematical.com/2010/01/27/sundance-review-lucky/
I’m excited to see the full film. Please leave a comment if you’ve seen the film and let me know what you thought, thanks.
Thanks to Peter Halim for my interview on ‘Something We Like.’ You can check out the interview here:
http://www.somethingwelike.com/inspirational/creating-worlds-images-stories
Manifestations is screening at the Anchorage International Film Festival.
Thanks ever so much to Teresa Scott :)
Another cool shout-out for my animated music video, ‘Dead All Along’ and work in general. I was featured as “an emerging filmmaker to watch” as part of Film News Briefs November Filmmakers to Watch newsletter. The archive of the newsletter is here: Film News Briefs: November Filmmakers to Watch
Big thanks to Jessica Kantor :)
I was really excited and honored to be the Featured Graduate Student Accomplishment in the UCLA Graduate Quarterly. My work on my animated music video, ‘Dead All Along,’ was the featured accomplishment in the Fall 2009 Issue, Volume 19, Number 1. You can download a pdf copy of the issue here: UCLA Graduate Quarterly, fall 2009
Many, many thanks to Mary Watkins at UCLA :)
Manifestations is screening agian this coming weekend at the 18th Annual St. Louis International Film Festival. Here are the details for the second screening.
Where: Tivoli Theatre, Animated Shorts Program 1
When: Sunday, Nov. 22, 9:30 p.m.
Link: http://www.cinemastlouis.org/2009/short_programs.html#sp10
Manifestations was created within the UCLA Animation Workshop at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
Music by Ceri Frost
Manifestations is screening twice at the 18th Annual St. Louis International Film Festival. Here are the details for the first screening.
Where: Plaza Frontenac Cinema, Animated Shorts Program 1
When: Saturday, Nov. 14, 5 p.m
Link: http://www.cinemastlouis.org/2009/short_programs.html#sp10
Manifestations was created within the UCLA Animation Workshop at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.
My animated music video, ‘Dead All Along’, performed by Ceri Frost, is featured this week on Channel Frederator on their Frederator Show along with an interview on the Frederator Blog.
Channel Frederator YouTube Feature: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiLMnSFHY0k
Channel Frederator Show Feature: http://www.channelfrederator.com/frederator/episode/CFR_20091110
Frederator Blog Interview: http://frederatorblogs.com/channel_frederator/2009/11/12/giles-timms-dead-all-along/
Channel Frederator is the ‘cartoon central on the internet and features original cartoons.’
Thanks ever so much to Bailee DesRocher and Bobby Miller :)
