One of my friends a couple of weeks ago showed me this video of an amazing violinist, Lindsey Stirling. He said, "Danielle, you have to see this girl. She's freaking amazing." Expecting to see some live performance or a classic homemade youtube video where the girl presses the record button, gives a little introduction, and then plays some really complicated music, I was pleasantly surprised to see such a beautiful and well made video accompany such a talented artist. I could not tell at first whether I was more impressed by the musician or the cinematographer.
The cinematographer, who makes his living solely off of youtube videos, is Devin Graham. I could not find much biographical information on Devin, except that he is primarily located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Lindsey and Devin have teamed up to create a multitude of sensational videos since early 2012. My favorite videos tend to be the ones that contain medleys from video games like Zelda and Skyrim. I also throughly enjoy the Lord of the Rings one and of course the video 'Shadows,' which you can watch on the link above. These videos are visually very aesthetically pleasing. First off, the locations are incredible. For the Lord of the Rings video they actually went to New Zealand, where they shot the LOTR trilogy, and for the Zelda video they are in an unspecified location, but it is in the mountains of a beautiful, desolate, area that is absolutely breathtaking. The colors on these videos are gorgeous and highly saturated. The pacing and style of the editing and video effects are fantastic and create a lot of energy. What I also love about these videos is that the cinematographer, Devin, often releases a Behind the Scenes video to accompany the original, which is very helpful in understanding how he filmed it (what camera he used) and how he did some of his stunning visual effects. He often uses his RED Epic, 5Dmkii (which he has now upgraded to a mkiii), and his Glide Cam HD 4000.
Here is another video that blew me away.
For those who don't know, Parkour is when someone finds a route from point A to point B and tries to quickly go from one place to another in the quickest, most efficient, and (sometimes) most entertaining way while encountering several obstacles in-between.
To make this video happen, I love the attention to detail Devin Graham has because he knows if something video game related is done wrong, this could upset the diehards gamers. He worked hard on getting a good costume, score, and making sure that his (stunt) actor played the game for inspiration on how to walk and execute moves similar to the video game character. He also mentioned that he did not get a permit to shoot anywhere because he did not want to close off sections of streets and instead wanted to have regular non-actors in the background because in the video game, this character runs amongst similar crowds. Granted, I haven't played Assassin's Creed so I don't know if he is accurate or not, but if he says that he tries to stay true to the video game, I believe he does whatever he can to closely resemble the game's character in a modern day setting because he is very thorough with all of his videos.
If you haven't seen any of his videos already, you should definitely check them out!
Last week I posted about how good movies have lost reputation because they decide to make unnecessary sequels that bring low box office profit and draw viewers away from the movie itself. Well now I want to discuss a few movie sequels I thought WERE necessary to follow the story from the previous movie.
1. The Dark Knight & The Dark Knight Rises
A 3 set series following the story of Batman, directer and writer Christopher Nolan stole Box Office records through these three amazing movies that have captured the attention of many fans around the world. A story that couldn't be told in one movie was told through three films about Bruce Wayne and his life saving the city of Gotham from criminals. Batman Begin's debut in the theaters made the film $48 million while the following two increasing dramatically ($158 million for the Dark Knight and $161 million for the Dark Knight Rises.
2. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
This amazing trilogy about a hobbit named Frodo who is on a journey with eight companions on a mission to destroy a ring on the fires of Mount Doom and the dark lord Sauron. These three movies were directed by the creative and masterminded Peter Jackson as his three movies were also able to bring in box office records and a large number of crowds to the big screen. In its debut, the Fellowship of the Ring made $47 million its opening weekend with The Two Towers earning more than 15 million more at $62 million and the Return of the King increasing eleven million to $73 million.
3. Spiderman 2 & Spiderman 3
With the new Amazing Spiderman movie that brought in good revenue in 2012, most fans turned away from the old set of Spiderman movies that brought in a number of box office profits. Directed by Sam Raimi, these stories follow Peter Parker who looks to save his city after acquiring special spider powers. While most thought the third was "corny shit," most were interested by the story and would agree that this series was a great series. Opening up in 2002, the first Spiderman brought in $115 million with Spiderman 2 at $89 million and Spiderman 3 at $151 million.
Over the last week, we have spoken a lot about acting in class. This art has a special place in my heart, and my pursuit of this career has already taken six years of my life. Through workshops with casting directors, like Paul Weber from Weber Casting, and working with an acting coach out in L.A., I have learned much in those six years. Yet, I have found there is always some new tip or rule to the art. It is a constant learning process that is mostly acquired through experience, especially since theatre acting truly is a completely different concept than film acting.
So what happens when technology changes and the way films can be made reaches a new climax? Do actor's have to reshape how they perform their craft? Answer: Not at all.
When motion capture was first starting to be used, I remember hearing how worried professional actors had become. Would this new technology replace "the actor" in film, losing the face as well as the performance? Would this technology make acting even harder than it can already be? Again, I think everyone was amazed with the answer, especially when it went beyond motion capture and into performance capture. This new, amazing technology has been seen in so many recent films including The Lord of the Rings, King Kong,Avatar, Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
It started out very new in The Lord of the Rings through Andy Serkis' performance of Gollum. This was an amazing development in film: allowing actors to even become the most different of creatures without all of the make-up and prosthetics that can sometimes come across as very fake. What a freeing experience!
The technology itself is astounding as well. Through the use of a body suit, dots and many, many cameras, an actor's performance can be converted over into a completed CGI character. This character then embodies the soul of the actor that performs the role, even down to facial characteristics.
At the time of Lord of the Rings, I was so entranced with this concept of motion capture/performance capture that I didn't think it could get any better. I was really wrong. Andy Serkis then appeared in both King Kong and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, using this similar technology. His performances were stunning, and the characters truly took on a life of their own. Something about motion capture/performance capture brings a real life to these characters that creates an emotional draw as an audience member. I truly believe it has to do with the fact that there is a real person behind the CGI, a mind that can understand and convey the depth of the character it portrays.
I can't imagine the amount of time Andy Serkis had to spend studying ape behavior to get the facial and body movements to the point where they are so believable. This is another aspect of performance capture that is so exciting. It takes a lot of work to learn the behaviors and movements of other creatures. Sometimes actors even have to take months of "classes" just learning how to perform their characters for performance capture. Take it from the cast of Avatar directed by James Cameron.
I absolutely love this movie. I still remember sitting in the theatre, completely drawn into the film in awestruck wonder at how "real" the Na'vi of Pandora seemed. I know Avatar creates a mix of emotions regarding plot, but one thing no one can argue about is how revolutionizing this film truly is in just how a movie can be filmed. Not only did they use performance capture for the acting, but they literally created the world of Pandora as they went along. This extended even to the point where they made a special camera for James Cameron to use that allowed him to see a rough outline of the CGI world even though it was just an actor in a motion capture suit and a set of boxes around him. When I watched the behind the scenes sections for avatar, I couldn't help but be both amazed and excited about all the possibilities that performance capture offers. After seeing all of Andy Serkis' performances, and now all of the actors on Avatar, this technology have the ability to allow a greater opportunity to both actors and filmmakers in the future. Having minimal, but acting experience nonetheless, I can have nothing but a great admiration and excitement for actors who have been able to be a part of this new style of filming.
~Amber Capogrossi
