Royal Scottish National Orchestra - Prokofiev critical review

Critical Review...

Last night we had the treat of seeing and hearing the Royal Scottish National Orchestra play at the Perth Concert halls...

The movements played were:

                Rachmaninov: Caprice bohémienProkofiev: Piano Concerto No.4 (for the Left Hand) Prokofiev: Suite from ‘Cinderella

Surprisingly, given  that there was a deliberate absence of set design, I found the entire evening very interesting from a visual perspective!

The blonde wood of the concert hall was bright and warm against the gloss black of the evening dresses, coats and tails and grand piano's.

The finishes of the instruments, wood, chrome plate, brass were stunning and the whole look and feel of the room was completely classic and timeless....

The music quality was breathtaking....and not a microphone in sight....

Even the cacophonous screaming tension of the violins, as the 'clock' (tubular bell and percussion) struck Cinderella's midnight, was spectacular to listen to....

I was also struck by how much an orchestra is a team. It reminded me of how we are currently working on our Going Live animation...and that each of us has taken an element of lip sync or animation and it's all coming together as a complete piece...

I like the image of the empty concert hall. The orchestra and the audience came together for a moment in time last night and created something that could only be captured exactly that way once.

And then we all disappeared.....

Magic.

Rendering and toy set up for the establishing shot - Going Live

Now this was fun!!

I finished off the lip sync and secondary animations for shots 24, 26 and 27a today, and then began to assemble and place the 3D model toys, in Maya, to create a heap of toys for our establishing shot. We realised that we can create a sharp opening shot, which combines both the first and second shots in our 'storyboard' sketches, currently on the PreVis.

It was fun to create He-Man, in an ungainly position, unceromiously dumped onto a wooden hoop toy post! A real contrast to when he is marching about being a big know it all....

Great to see the intial renders, showing natural daylight in the sitting room. A fellow student, Stathis, has been looking at tutorials and working with Sang at the University, and the output renders are great to see. Very realistic!

Maya interface, showing a locked off camera shot.

Rendered view, including lighting. More positioning to be completed tomorrow, but a good indicator of the final feel of the toys as a group.

Progressed animated PreVis and lip sync - Going Live

Here's how our Jeremy Kyle show animation is coming along...
great to begin to see the pace of the edit and how the shot sequence is shaping up...  
Primary and secondary animation is about 80% completed and we are now in the rendering process....

                      

The Imitation Game - Critical Review

So this past week was a blast in the USA...a reunion of friends. Apart from noticing that Oregon looks very much like a 1:25 scale version of a 1:50 scale Scotland the weather was similar too...

One of the advantages of flying, apart from seeing the Northern Lights from the plane, was time to watch a handful of movies...

First up over Greenland, was 'The Imitation Game'.

I think the movie poster says it all. I really like that the lead character is shown facing away from the audience, fully absorbed in his obsession.

Moments of this film, which is a true story about the genius Alan Turing, who cracked the Enigma code during WWII, were reminiscent of 'A Beautiful Mind'. The lead was not implied as being insane, but certainly gifted in an extraordinary way.  The acting was very convincing and the art direction was invisible. Always, a good sign that the design is well thought out. The sets and locations were pretty subdued both in terms of lighting and colour, and this really added to the authenticity....

 

The real Alan Turing

Critical review - The Transport Museum in Glasgow, Zaha Hadid and the Tall Ship

I spent the weekend in Glasgow and visited the Transport Museum, designed by Zaha Hadid.....and the Tall Ship 'Glenlee' which is situated directly outside the entrance of the museum.

The two attractions, look at first sight, as if they have nothing in common....but having found the concept top shot (as below) I can see how the Transport Museum looks to be an interpretation of waves, water and refracted light, leading to the shore where the boat is moored.

 I didn't get that impression whilst inside the building, but the concept, now having seen the exterior top view, makes more sense.

First we had a look around the Tall Ship, which is moored directly adjacent to the entrance of the museum. It reminded me of the contrast of the Royal Yacht in Leith, being situated directly alongside the Debenhams department store!

I was taken aback once we had gone below deck, as the space was enormous, and the curvature of the hull was extensive. The interior was so huge compared to the size of the deck that I wasn't entirely convinced that we were still inside the actual boat. Dr Who's Tardis came to mind.

The smell of varnish was wonderful, and I loved the contrast of one minute being surrounded by waxed timber, wooden beams, sugar sacks and jute, to the next minute being surrounded by molded ceiling panels, glass and steel.

The interior of the Transport Museum has been treated in a very specific pale green. All moldings, handrails, vents, air conditioning panels, conduit, ceiling panels, no matter what the finish, are all coated in the exact same colour.....pale Hospital Green. The colour reminded me of the 1920's and 1930's and sanitoriums and war museums. Interested to note that this colour, whilst definitely making a statement, didn't detract from the displays. The atmosphere it created only added to the 'historical' context of the transport showcased inside - and made the exterior completely contrast to the interior.

I particularly love this shot, where the Tall Ship is reflected in the glass, and the 'waves' (almost like sound waves, or heartbeat waves) crash over the top....

Critical Review - The Heat 2013

As part of my ongoing reflective practice, and following our lecture on the three C's of Cinematography, I have been studying and reviewing movies....from all genres, tones and styles...

This week I watched 'The Heat', which is a buddy cop comedy with Sandra Bullock and Mellisa McCarthy...

The editing is great. Very fast and the story moves along at a great pace. McCarthy has not only been given some brilliant and coarse dialogue, but her delivery and sarcasm is hilarious.

It was interesting to note that the stereotypical 'beauty' (Bullock), when portrayed as uptight and rigid, became less and less attractive as the movie progressed.

And conversely, the more McCarthy's character delivered ferocious come backs and took absolutely no nonsense from anyone, the more attractive she became...

I believe that confidence is a key factor in attractiveness. 

Conference Presentation

Conference presentation for our Advance Production module.

Good feedback today on the conference presentation; with a possible idea for a future event based in the heart of Dundee...!