DesignAssignments313

Psycho Animated Movie Poster

By mbransons in Digital Storytelling 7 Comments Tags: , , , , , ,

Phew! This poster is done!

It was harder to make than the previous four Hitchcock posters to date, but the real problem was that other efforts became a distraction over the past few weeks (good stuff honestly). But I was able to lock in over the past couple of days and I spent most of it studying Janet Leigh’s facial expressions trying to find a way to make something for the main image of her in this poster. I think it’s interesting to think about this in the context of Leigh’s description of her working with Hitchcock while filming Psycho. She described how Hitchcock made clear that his camera was ‘the focal point,’ and she was to move with it. She mentioned how other actors might have been constrained by his blocking, but she took it as a challenge. And she does make the most of it, working the camera with her fabulous expressions throughout the film.

The original poster makes room for John Gavin, but I felt that the house over looking the Bates Motel deserved better treatment. And be sure to look closely, I think mother is watching!

Reorienting My Compass, North by Northwest?

By mbransons in Digital Storytelling, Old Artwork, Personal 10 Comments Tags: , , , , , , ,

It’s been over a year since I first discovered ds106 and it’s amazing to me how much creative energy I’ve discovered since then – I’ve made more work in the past year than I have in the previous ten, seriously.

Ok this isn’t exactly true, I’ve made many things over the past decade, but they’ve principally been of the industrial sort – client work mostly. There’s a lot I’m proud of, particularly media materials for my wife’s non-profit Row New York (videos like Monique and Because I Row (with Daniel Phelps) as well as photography and design).

But in the last year I’ve begun to make work that reminds me of the work I used to make. Back then I made lots of stuff, all sorts of stuff, but when I made it, I was just creating, and creating and never reflecting. Despite that fact that I was in an MFA program, I was prickly about critiques, always evasive about why I made this or that. And it wasn’t because I thought ‘my art should speak for itself,’ it was because I didn’t have any confidence or sense of how or why to describe what the heck I was doing.

So probably more important than the creative energy that I’ve rediscovered is the feeling that I can and should describe my work. I falter at this effort (it’s taken two weeks to write this post and only a few hours to make Cary Grant into a track star), but it’s one I realize I need and want to work on. I want to be more confident and comfortable describing my work, not just making it.

This summer I’m hoping to focus my energy toward a bigger project. One that’s inspired by the ds106 mashup, pop culture, ‘make art dammit‘ mantra. Above is an animated movie poster for Alfred Hitchcock’s classic North by Northwest. I previously created one  for Rear Window, and I love making these. So I’m thinking I should commit to a series, six? A dozen? I’m not sure.

But I’m also thinking about something else. Earlier this semester I read an article in the New Yorker about Christain Marclay’s mashup masterpiece ‘The Clock.‘ Marclay assembled thousands of clips from films that referenced time into a 24 hour mashup movie, that when viewed it would reference the present moment in time. So if you happened to start watching at 11AM, the clips you’d see would reflect that time.

How crazy is that? A T-W-E-N-T-Y F-O-U-R H-O-U-R movie, about time. It apparently took Marclay 2 years of slaving over his computer to create it. And its supposed to be amazing. You can only see it in galleries or museums. And I’m dying to see it, here’s a BBC story about the piece to give you some sense of it.

So besides animated GIFs I’m thinking about something else – it’s not a 24hr movie – I could never. But it’s a mashup that would require help. I’m thinking about telling a story about education through the innumerable portraits created of teachers and students in movies. I feel like there might be something we could learn from these portraits of schooling.

I’m picturing a mashup of scenes that portray high school and the interactions between students, teachers, parents, and principals. I want to see what will happen if I create interactions between characters from the Blackboard Jungle and the Breakfast Club. Too crazy?

Anyway that’s where I’m thinking of pointing my creative efforts – Hitchcock GIFs and/or a high school mashup. I’m excited and anxious at the same time. It’s been a while since I’ve felt ready to do something like this.

Rear Window Animated Movie Poster

By mbransons in Digital Storytelling 6 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Alan Levine’s post about watching cool flick’s with Jim Groom finally got me to get of the snide and finish this animated movie poster for the amazing Hitchcock classic Rear Window. I have an older post with animated GIFs from Rear Window, but all things GIF need to ratcheted up a notch every few weeks.

This poster is was created for the limited theatrical re-realease of the movie in 1999 after an extensive restoration. I am a little disappointed with myself as if I were to really make something truly awesome, it would have been modeled after the original theatrical poster, which showcases all the happenings in the many neighbors windows. *Note to self, amazing summer project might include creating a number of Hitchcock animated movie poster GIFs.

To make this poster, I used the James Stewart GIF from the previous post, as well as made a new one for Grace Kelly. The work on Grace Kelly’s GIF was a lot tougher as it required the erasing of the background on ten separate frames (not fun). Here’s what one of the frames looked like beforehand:

To create the animation, I used the animation timeline in Photoshop in which you basically turn on and off different layers per frame. This is also a bit tedious, but it allows you to create some interesting timing options. Each frame can be assigned its own amount of time, which is how the pauses work. Here’s a look at a few frames of the animation timeline:

And here’s a look at the layers:

Since Alan’s post refers to Blow-Up as well as Rear Window, looks like I still have more work to do.

American Werewolf in London Animated Movie Poster

By mbransons in Digital Storytelling 7 Comments Tags: , , , , , , ,

Writer, director John Landis is best known for his comedy work in the 80s, particularly the Blues Brothers, Trading Places, and Three Amigos. But the cult classic, An American Werewolf in London was one of two forays he made into the horror genre (I never saw Innocent Blood, but reviews were pretty bad). Admittedly I’m not a huge horror film fan, but  what I loved about American Werewolf was the dry sense of humor that Landis brought to this pretty gory film.

There are a number of subtle things – like a cut away to a little wide-eyed, arms outstretched Mickey Mouse figurine almost looking to hug David as he graphically and wrenchingly transforms into a werewolf. And after having spent the evening slaughtering half a dozen people, there’s classic Shakespearian comic relief the next morning as David wakes naked and confused in a zoo cage with wolves. He spends the next ten minutes streaking London, until he steals a lovely women’s coat which he wears on a bus ride home.

So the original poster blends the droll and the savage sides of the movie quite well, I just gave each of them a little animated accent.

To create the vibrating werewolf head I used two frames from the scene of David’s metamorphosis and replaced them on the poster in Photoshop. The nod to the British lady that catches David covering himself was created by using the puppet warp tool on a selection of him. And in order to have the nod be brief with a long pause between, while the werewolf head kept moving a lot of duplicated frames are needed in the animation (42 in total). I wish I knew how to do this with the fewer frames and keep the file size down, as there are only five unique frames needed to make the animation.