Adam Brunsdon’s Blog

BATMAN! - The Dark Knight
http://thedarkknight.warnerbros.com/

What do I like about this site?
How about because it is

“Wicked-ASS”

OK, but seriously…
It’s the official site for the most anticipated movie of the year!
The introduction includes fantastic motion and sound effects, along with the latest trailer for the film.
It’s menu is central, with a short list of direct links that are straight to point, all designed with a dark city overtone.

The first option is “Synopsis”.

The Synopsis is written on the back of a Joker playing card, which is very cool and in keeping with the overall style and theme of the site.

The next option is “Video”, so you can get another look at the trailer.
Then followed by “Photos”.

This menu features the iconic joker image from the poster that was created after Ledger’s death.
They found that a poster featuring a shot of the joker’s back was more respectable, and also had meaning, for their advertising purposes.
There are a number of fantastic shots available to view.

And lastly, we have “Downloads”.

This download section actually has some fantastic items up for offer.
Besides the usual ‘buddy’ icons, and wallpapers(that go up to 1600x1200 res), you can also download large posters that are used in the advertising campaign in Adobe ‘PDF’ format via a popup window. Which is quite a nice surprise, I thought.

So there you go, easy navigation, iconic imagery, music, and sounds from the film - all in a nice little package.

The only downside is the load time - avoid on slow connections, this was made for slightly higher end machines in mind.

1. The Setup:
1985 – Robbie is very happy with his life, he is a very successful wedding singer who is completely obsessed with weddings, and is about get married to his longtime girlfriend next week.

2. Inciting incident:
The day of his wedding arrives, and his fiancée (Linda) leaves him standing at the altar, spiraling him into a depression.

3. Act 1 Turning Point:
Worried about Robbie’s deeply depressed state, his best friend talks him into going back to work to get his mind off the failed wedding. But upon returning to sing at a wedding, it is a complete disaster.
A new waitress from the reception staff sees Robbie’s shocking performance and becomes very concerned about Robbie, and invites him to her engagement party, where she also asks him to help plan her wedding as he proves very knowledgeable on the topic.

4. Mid-point:
As Robbie helps the waitress plan her wedding, they begin to fall in love with each other, but Robbie feels inadequate compared to her current fiancé who is quite wealthy.

5. Act 2 Turning Point:
After a sad drunken night out, Robbie returns home to find his ex-girlfriend Linda waiting for him. He passes out, and she takes him inside, spending the night with him. That morning, Julia goes to express how she truly feels to Robbie, only to find Linda answering door.

6. Act 3 Turning Point:
Thinking that Robbie has gotten back together with his ex-girlfriend Linda, Julia rushes home distraught, asking her fiancé to rush off to Vegas and get married ASAP to make herself feel better.

7. Resolution or denouement:
Hearing about this, Robbie rushes after her, buying a ticket to Vegas. While on his flight, he finds out that he is on the same plane as Julia and her fiancé. He finally gets the chance to express his true feelings to Julia, where she reciprocates, and leaves her fiancé to be with Robbie.

If you are interested in 3D Modelling, animation, and/or videogame design at all, you owe it to yourself to play this game!

After just finishing my first play-through of it today, I can tell you that it sets a new bar for in-game cinematics, and story-telling… no videogame has ever come close to the sheer scope of this masterpiece.

It contains over 8 hours of 3D Cinematics!

Epic is an understatement, make friends with a PS3 owner today, and be prepared to be blown away.

Reviews can be found at metacritic, lots of perfect scores, averaging currently at 94 percent;

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/metalgearsolid4gunsofthepatriots

A small assignment using the internal/external reverses film technique to shoot a small discussion between 2 people.

We decided to do a wacky comedy piece as the dialogue was not overly important to practice the technique.

Shot at Frankston’s campus of Chisholm TAFE, using a combination of handheld and tripod shots.

A small assignment using 3 shots put together to create insight into a story/character.

Cut together using Final Cut Pro. Shot in standard definition on a Canon HV20 Handycam.
Shot in early morning for nice lighting, so no color correction or effects needed.
Handheld - no tripod, background sound recorded while filming with in-built microphone.

The early morning light helped the camera pick up really quite nice colors from the beach, and overall i think the video turned out quite nicely.
-Filmed at Frankston Beach.

With fully computerised generated graphic feature films storming the box-office, and CG graphics being integrated into live film and television shows more and more, a filmmaker would be smart to look into the advantages of such graphics and applications for his/her own films.

At the moment I am learning to use the 3D modeling/animation package known as ‘Maya’.

Our first fully modeled and animated endeavor is a simple model of an apple, fully textured and seated on a surface, animated with directional lighting, and can be seen here;

This model can be improved upon, by moving from simple directional lighting and no background, to a sky background with a more ambient sunlight effect achieved through Maya’s ‘mental ray’ renderer.
The effect is shown in this video;

This is only a simple model, but Maya is a very powerful program, and there is much more underneath the surface that we have only scratched.