Contest Feedback

Moderators: Víctor Paredes, slowtiger

User avatar
Banterfield
Posts: 138
Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:40 pm
Location: Colorado

Post by Banterfield »

I'd love to see a contest for best script.

I think the number of voters could be increased by sending an email directly to all the user email addresses. The email could state in plain English that there is a contest to participate in (none of this "Topic Reply Notification" stuff). I suspect a lot of people were simply unaware of the contest.

Kind regards,
Dave
User avatar
kilerant
Posts: 23
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2004 12:10 pm
Location: romania
Contact:

Post by kilerant »

Banterfield wrote:I'd love to see a contest for best script.
How about a contest on a delivered script ?
I mean you give a certain script, so all the competitors must use the same script!
It will be interesting to see the diferent interpretations, i guess !?!

Maybe use the winer of best script ?
User avatar
Banterfield
Posts: 138
Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:40 pm
Location: Colorado

Post by Banterfield »

I was thinking of a lua script, but that is a great idea, too, kilerant.
Dave
User avatar
Mendi
Posts: 29
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 12:18 pm
Location: Madrid, Spain
Contact:

Post by Mendi »

Yeah, that seems a good idea. Also think on the method used by www.10secondclub.com. They give a conversation from a certain film and people have to animate and create the situation in which that conversation is developed.
Greetings.
nobudget
Posts: 412
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:01 pm
Contact:

Post by nobudget »

Nice link Diego. Some high quality entries but only 3D... Maybe it's time for some Moho animators to demonstrate the power of 2D animation. The rules admit 2D and I didn't see any mention of claymation. How come only 3D artists enter? Are there more 3D animators, are they more productive? We've had the discussion here before about 3D taking over. I believe every animation technique offers distinct qualities but sometimes it seems "old-school" animators have just given up. Pixar is the number one so others follow but where was the claymation hype when Aardman had a box-office it with "Chicken Run"?

You can enter software for review, something for Lost Marble perhaps?

Reindert.
www.nobudgetvideo.com
User avatar
AcouSvnt
Posts: 190
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 4:14 am
Location: Rochester, NY
Contact:

Post by AcouSvnt »

3D animation is now what the drum machine was in the 1980s. It's the hot new toy, so everyone wants to use it, giving the false impression that 2D animation (real drums) will never be used again. But that levels out once the novelty wears off. It's just that the novelty wears off more quickly for some of us than the rest of us.

I still haven't seen 3D CGI of any kind that has "moved" me or affected me on the kind of level that a hand-drawn picture (or something with that look) can ... it's all a big "ooh, ahh, technology is amazing" kind of thing, which impresses rather than expresses.

Even something like Shrek -- I find it entertaining for the eyeballs, but I don't come away from it thinking "what a great movie" or wanting to ever see it again.
-Keith
nobudget
Posts: 412
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:01 pm
Contact:

Post by nobudget »

In case of Shrek and Dreamworks CGI movies I agree. But I think Pixar is very good and can really bring emotion to characters. The Toy Story movies for instance, they can bring purposely inanimate plastic dolls to life. And The Iron Giant, the title figure is 3D and has some of the most intense sequences in the movie. SPOILER WARNING: Towards the end when he wakes up from his "killer" mode, very touching...

At this moment many 3D artists have a more technical background, but there is a lot of potential. And the box office has proven recently cartoon style 3D in The Incredibles works better than almost-real-but-not-quite in The Polar Express. I think there are two types of CGI, self-sustaining animation where photo-realistic should not be important and complimentary effects like virtual stuntmen and enhanced set design in live-action films.

This thread has the distinction of having the most off-topic discussions yet!

Reindert.
www.nobudgetvideo.com
User avatar
AcouSvnt
Posts: 190
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 4:14 am
Location: Rochester, NY
Contact:

Post by AcouSvnt »

I guess my concern is that when people I know tell me they went to see these films and they were "incredible", do they just mean they were dazzled by the visual wizardry, or would they have actually liked it if it was done in some low budget (or uh, no budget, heh) manner?

What if you went the other way, took some movie that was entirely writing driven and had no effects whatsoever, maybe one of Woody Allen's better films, and CGI-ed it ... that would actually kind of ruin it, wouldn't it? So, I don't know, but I'm skeptical of to what degree it will be used for the right reasons.

I sometimes say, "okay, back up and forget everything that exists, forget all the tools you have and ask yourself, what do you really want to see on the screen in the end?" But this question is kind of silly because we don't live or work in a vaccuum; no movie can exist without things around us to draw inspiration from, so there's no way to just shield everything out and conceive of an "ideal movie" in the middle of nothing. And just as the CGI people are inevitably going to be impacted by the technology around them, so are the indie folks going to be impacted by the scarcity that they have to work with. And you can't change the conditions (or at least not directly and immediately), so probably the whole debate about how much technology to use is pointless. It's kind of like asking the question of "how much money to have".
-Keith
User avatar
Mendi
Posts: 29
Joined: Sat Aug 21, 2004 12:18 pm
Location: Madrid, Spain
Contact:

Post by Mendi »

Just one more thing. In the case of 10secondclub, they just ask you for an animation, it doesn't matter the kind (3d, 2d, clay, cut out or whatever).
What's happening with that huge volume of 3d animation is something like a tech phenomenon, many people are learning animation directly in their PC, and 3d programs are the most popular (excluding Flash).

No medium is better than other if we just use it as the more appropiate way we reckon to express or tell something...

Sorry for the off topic :)
Greetings.
nobudget
Posts: 412
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:01 pm
Contact:

Post by nobudget »

"Woody Allen's better films, and CGI-ed it"

Woody Allen was actually the lead character in "Antz", Dreamworks' first CGI movie. He didn't write it of course but funny you mentioned him as an example.
Nice suggestion though, maybe something like "Little Neurotic Jew goes to the Big Apple"? A fun and Kosher Hannukah movie for the whole family! Mazzeltof!

Reindert.
www.nobudgetvideo.com
User avatar
Banterfield
Posts: 138
Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:40 pm
Location: Colorado

Post by Banterfield »

I have to say: I really love the Pixar stuff. I think Pixar could make a 2d animation that would still make $100+ million at the box office, just because their stories are great.
Dave
User avatar
AcouSvnt
Posts: 190
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 4:14 am
Location: Rochester, NY
Contact:

Post by AcouSvnt »

nobudget wrote:Woody Allen was actually the lead character in "Antz", Dreamworks' first CGI movie.
Ha, that didn't even occur to me. :oops: Okay, but yeah, you know what I meant. Something like Annie Hall or whatever.
-Keith
User avatar
kdiddy13
Posts: 381
Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:26 pm
Location: New Zealand
Contact:

Post by kdiddy13 »

Blaming 3d for looking lifeless is like Disney proclaiming 2d dead. It wasn't the fault of the medium, but rather the fault of the film makers and the story formulas or mo-cap they rely on like a crutch. 3d has some amazing potential beyond dazzling the audience with its shininess (which is kind of how Hollywood is using it at the moment), just as 2d does. Much of Pixar's work manages to capture emotion in it's characters, because they tended to hire animators with traditional backgrounds before hiring the 3d tech's. This has changed slightly over the years, if only because more artists are becoming talented animators using 3d.

One of the problems with 3d (and this certainly applies to Moho's bone system), is that when the computer does so much of the work for you, it becomes easy to miss out on animating the life into a character. I've seen a number of Moho (and Flash, and ToonBoom, etc.) animations, that are just as floaty and lifeless as the worst 3d films. It seems to be when you take the human errors out of the equation with auto tweening, bones, particles, etc., you have to work twice as hard to put them back in. :D
Last edited by kdiddy13 on Mon Mar 07, 2011 5:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
AcouSvnt
Posts: 190
Joined: Wed Aug 04, 2004 4:14 am
Location: Rochester, NY
Contact:

Post by AcouSvnt »

I don't mean to "blame 3D" ... I'm just going on my impression so far. I tend to be more dazzled than moved, which is still better than being neither, I suppose.

I want to see more in 2D using computers to evoke different media like pencil strokes, watercolor, charcoal, etc. -- stuff that would look like it was done by hand, even though it would take forever to in reality.
-Keith
User avatar
Banterfield
Posts: 138
Joined: Tue Aug 03, 2004 10:40 pm
Location: Colorado

Post by Banterfield »

http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html

Someone from here gave this link on a different thread. This is a very cool, free package that simulates all those different mediums. It seems like there have to be some neat ways to imtegrate this into a moho animation.
Dave
Post Reply