Final Website

Click on the picture to take you to our homepage!

Incredible

The Incredibles

The opening sequence of this movie has incredible face gesture and expression! Elastigirl speaks out the side of her mouth.
Talk about detail.

Faces of Guitar Hero

Guitar Hero

I stumbled across this on the net today. How appropriate!!!

The artwork of Ari Pescovitz:



Are video games and interactive media the future of cinema?
I think so!

Psycho

"Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms." - Alfred Hitchcock

In the Beginning

The Lord of the Rings (a few years old, but pivotal to the history of cinematic visual effects.

Andy Serkis (Gollum) writes:

I had an emotional root to that sound. For me, it is where his pain is trapped. That emotional memory is trapped in that part of his body, his throat. In just doing the voice, I immediately got into the physicality of Gollum and embodied the part as I would if I were playing it for real.

Peter Jackson adds:

Serkis' performance was so strong as Gollum that the initial digital character has evolved throughout the production to be more like the actor. Gollum is probably the most actor-driven digital creature that has ever been used in a film before

Watch Andy Serkis perform as Gollum (not the best quality):

On Beowulf

How can we have a blog on Face Gestures and Emotional Resonance without mentioning Beowulf?





Ehhhh. Blah blah blah. We’ve heard it already. But, like I said, we can’t not talk about it. Instead of rehashing the argument, I’ve picked a few key quotes from the blogger community:

Ralph Eggleston, Artistic Director for The Incredibles says:

In my opinion it's always been a fallacy, the notion that human characters have to look photo-realistic in CG. You can do so much more with stylized human characters. Audiences innately know how humans move and gravity works, so if a human character doesn't feel right, they'll feel something's wrong. But if the weight works for stylized characters, the audience doesn't question it.

And, the General Public writes:

*Okay, so maybe I'm just a geek cinephile but it totally looks like CGI to me - it's the lack of emotion in the eyes, the stiff appendages and the rubberized body motions that give it away so easily. However, that said, the technology has come a long way and it still looks pretty darn fantastico*

*I hate this type of lazy film making. It gets big stars on the cheap so they don't have to work too many days. Then a computer does the rest. No real investment in actors at least trying to get into character (any wrong expression can be fixed by the computer guy) and no real sets. It's lazy and an insult to ones intelligence*

*Animated Angelina HOT...Buuut. She's also animated, which defeats the purpose of daydreaming in my book. Why go thru all the trouble for the animation technique when you can just shoot live-action. Obviously it's cheaper, but it kinda takes the magic out of the movies*

Why go through the trouble? Just because...we can. Thomas Kang, our guest speaker, elaborates:

Are You Ready?

Norma Desmond sure is (from Sunset Blvd.)



Where would Hollywood be without the close-up? Dave dares to ask during our seminar panel, and Professor Marsha Kinder responds:

The Close-Up

Birth of a Nation:



Ivan the Terrible, Part 1:



Once Upon a Time in the West:



Persona:



The Shining:



Ratatouille: