Zero Dark Thirty

I don't want to make this blog solely about films, but I figured this one was too good to not talk about. I saw this movie the day it hit theaters. It illuminates everything that occurred leading up to Osama Bin Laden's capture - which I think the average American had not been fully aware of and did not understand entirely until now. The film apparently is controversial because of the torture that supposedly the United States government is denying taking part of. Yes, the torture scenes to me seemed inhumane - because torture in itself is by nature, inhumane. That being said, some of the tactics and crimes against humanity that I have read about that have occurred in the past or that other countries and terrorist groups have been part of, are much worse. The stuff I have read about makes this movie's torture scenes look like a vacation. If you want to know what I mean, or if you want to cry a little bit, read Luz Arce's book, about Pinochet's military junta in the 70s and 80s in Chile. It details very closely how she lived in fear for years being brutally tortured and raped repeatedly, living in fear and having to become aligned with a corrupt political party in exchange for survival. It is really, really sick and disturbing (Here is the link on Google Books). And I mean even more sick than The Human Centipede. Anyway, I just thought I would mention that because her book scarred me for life and the torture scenes in Zero Dark Thirty maybe weren't as bone-chilling as some of the reviews are making it out to be. I also think that the American government does not want to fully reveal all the exact details of Operation Neptune Spear because they are classified and simply not the agenda of the average civilian - which is why certain artifacts in relevance to the truth of the movie are being denied by the government. And also there is the claim that information that had not been declassified was obtained during the research of this film without governmental consent. But this is besides the point.

What I appreciated about this movie was the way this movie communicated its message: That no matter what, war is bad. I think it made a statement; that assassinating Osama Bin Laden was not a happy, fun thing that everyone should all sing and dance around a bonfire about and scream "'Merica!!!" while waving our firearms around in the air. There are no winners in war. Period. I think a lot of people went into this movie thinking it was all about propaganda and celebrating Operation Neptune Spear. Although it is biased (because it follows an American CIA operative), I don't think it beat the viewer over the head with the fact that America was elated about the operation. I think it was more of a "this-situation-really-sucks-but-justice-needs-to-be-served" kind of thing. And this justice doesn't just speak to America. Because The al-Qaeda are a terrorist group, and do not "sit well" with a myriad of governments and political groups. Osama's body was dumped in the ocean because no country would receive it after the operation had been executed - including Pakistan where he had been secretly hiding out. The film never really became cheesy because it did not depict Osama Bin Laden, nor did it show the president. Leaving these elements out entirely focuses on the operation at hand, and the one operative who worked tirelessly on this manhunt and did not give up even after a decade. It also gives the film more of a timeless and universal quality, as the two enemies are faceless. The middlemen (in this case the middlewoman) are really the ones who pushed for this operation and for the fulfillment of justice. The audio in this film is also amazing. The first sequence of the film is just a black screen which allows the viewer to listen to the actual desperate final emergency phone calls of the victims of 9-11. It really creates a chilling experience which serves to dramatically introduce the film. The film also leads me to believe that government jobs look very difficult. And ethically conflicting. And serious. It was tiring to watch Jessica Chastain in duress during the pursuit of OBL. And when you feel as though you can empathize with a character, you know the film has done its job. Very poignant film.

Motion Design: Reality, Defined

The concept for this project stems from the information I have sorted through and collected as background and introductory information for my thesis. My thesis focus, which explores hyperreality in film and the perception of reality, requires some establishment of definitions of reality at the beginning. Since there are many forms of reality, I thought that creating an initial introduction and dialog about defining and distinguishing between the various forms of reality in the text would be vital in communicating the main ideas regarding hyperreality in current cinema more clearly. This disregards, for obvious reasons, realities such as "reality television," but makes a distinction between the realities that people oftentimes confuse such as augmented reality and virtual reality. The text that will be read as the dialog for the video has already been written, but will need to be simplified and edited down. With the advent of the new thesis structure the program is instating this year, some of this information might have to be cut out of the final thesis paper. Thus, this is a perfect opportunity to create a work that is related to my thesis but the info may not be presented in the final thesis product. It is also great introductory material to a final thesis project.

The various definitions of reality I will use as the basis for the video might offer some opportunities to experiment with style, as some ideas could be expressed with 3D more appropriately and some I could approach with using vector graphics; or even use live-action footage. I would like to create a work using mixed-media, in true postmodern fashion. The Everything is a Remix series below is a great example of the type of narrative and visual mixture of vector-based motion graphics and live-action footage I would like to create. The other videos offer interesting pace with music, and clean, colorful geometric forms which I may use as a nice style for some of the information visualizations in the video. I would like to incorporate background music as well as the voice-over narration, which serves as the structure for the pacing of the visual elements and animations in the video.

Video inspirations for the Motion Design Project Proposal:

Oscar Noms for Best VFX

Oscar season is upon us. The 85th academy awards released their Oscar Noms yesterday. As for the Visual Effects category, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Life of Pi, Marvel's The Avengers, Prometheus, and Snow White and the Huntsman are in the running. My first pick would have to be for The Avengers. To showcase their amazing abilities, ILM released a reel for Marvel's The Avengers. The reel is incredible. The movie is heavy on the effects end, with impressive modeling, texturing, and animation for the Hulk. The scene in the reel which was the most surprising, if not one of the most impressive, was the realism captured in a scene where ScarJo's character, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, is running in front of the Hulk as glass shatters and metal is bending behind them. Although only a few short seconds, the character never traverses into the uncanny valley and the actual, live actress looks composited in the scene rather than a CG version of her. Any animator knows, this is very difficult to believably achieve. The sheer scale of the set and the green screen is enormous as visible in this reel, and the complexity of the modeling, dynamics, and set design is incredible. This is one of the most complex projects that ILM has created to date; which is saying a lot when taking into consideration the legendary projects that the company has worked on. Another film with beautiful visual effects in this category is Prometheus. I found this film to be lacking in the story line and parts were laughable when they should have been suspenseful, horrific, and foreboding. For instance, why does Charlize run WITH the shadow of the falling ship at the end? The film uses the standard sci-fi mise-en-scène, but does it in a visually brilliant way. The background mattes are gorgeous and the levitating alien user interface animations I found to be intricate and futuristic.

Here is a highly photoshopped photo of the interfaces (but you get the idea, click to enlarge): Snow White and the Huntsman had moments of visual brilliance, and I found the Evil Queen (played by Charlize Theron) delightfully awful. Her character and her costume design was probably the only reason to see the movie. There are moments where the space used for the background is enhanced with green screens and replaced with backgrounds that capture enormous depth and hyperrealism (There are some nice articles in Cinefex from July 2012 about Snow White and the Huntsman and Prometheus) and there are interesting special effects, but some of the poor special effects turned me away. The strange fairy creatures with enlarged eyes seemed out of place with the rest of the film. Also, the mythical CG white deer-beast was not very believable in its realism and had unnatural movements characteristic of bad animation. Rupert Sanders' take on the evil queen's mirror was interesting and creepy, but it reminded me of The Secret World of Alex Mack every time. In the reviews I read, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey does not use as smooth or believable CG and fx as the other LOTR movies. For this reason, I have not chosen it in the lineup. And finally, Life of Pi is a visually beautiful film and has some nice reviews. Some of the CG animals in the film did not seem realistic (the movements give it away), but overall the tiger was pretty believable. I think this movie should win for best cinematography. The shots are brilliantly composed. Also if you haven't seen it or are familiar with the book, be prepped for a surprise philosophical ending. : )

Also, watch this animation about Prometheus. Hilar. And complete with the The Hans Zimmer Inception BRAAAM lol.

***** As an addendum, Life of Pi won for Best VFX and Best Cinematography. It is unfortunate about the controversy regarding the visual effects industry and Rhythm & Hues though.