Catching Up!

Ok, so it's been a long time since my last blog and I don't have a lot of time to keep it up to date, so I'm gonna have to speed through what I've been up to, hold on tight!

1. Back at Uni now! Had a chilled week with friends watching movies, playing games, etc, etc. Finally getting back into the swing of things but I'm already spending too much money! Cinema trips are just so expensive!

2. Watched Sherlock Holmes with my sister at the cinema. Awesome movie and although it's got lots of action and pretty dark plot, I've been told it's actually very accurate to the book, which makes me want to read it... But the film had great acting especially the interaction between Holmes and Watson, the English accents were pretty good, the story was interesting and surprisingly intelligent and it was overall entertaining and laugh out loud hilarious.

3. Completed Assassin's Creed II!!! All I can say is that this game is epic. Ezio starts a bit of a loser but then everything changes when his family is victim to a rather nasty conspiracy and your character grows into one hot badass! Ok, so I'm a little biased, but it was a great game with many improvements from the first (I completed this one 100% which I'm quite proud of! =] ) and I absolutely cannot wait until the next game! The ending (without spoiling it) was immense! I've heard they will be making it a trilogy, which I will be happy with, but they can do A LOT more with the storyline and I'm looking forward to seeing it unfold. I'd love to see a female assassin for the next game! :D

4. Received the project for my next animation brief and it is so much more exciting then my last one! I have to design an original character and a four-legged animal to use to animate a series of exercises over the next 12 weeks. I'm really enjoying creating my character at the moment, (her name is Danielle) and there will be development artwork coming soon for her and her "pet"! ^__^
We have to use the same character for every exercise so everyone is working hard on creating somebody that we will want to animate and love to draw. More on this on the weekend!

Only issue is the tight deadlines; we are gonna be worked to the bone this semester, but it will be so worth it!

5. Princess and the Frog!!! Finally saw this film today after months of waiting and was blown away! The art and animation was top-notch and was accompanied by a lovely story and excellent music. This is worth seeing at the cinema if just for the sound, which was incredible. The power of the songs was spine-tingling--well done again Randy Newman! I was a little disappointed with the design of Princess Tiana as a frog, it was pretty weak in comparison to Prince Naveen's frog design, and similarities to the Swan Princess was somewhat distracting at times.
Nevertheless, this is a superb film and will hopefully mark the return of 2D animation in feature films, which was sorely missed on my part. The production quality was excellent throughout, I believe that it proves itself at least as equal as 3D counterparts! With luck, other animation studios will think likewise!

6. Had an awesome time last night at a Comedy Central night in my Uni. I wasn't expecting anything hugely fantastic, but was pretty entertained by the first comedian who presented everyone. The second was good, but a bit of a Noel Fielding knock-off and had a tendency to lose audiences on long and rambling jokes. But the last... WOW! We had the absolutely fabulous Mitch Benn who came on with a little guitar and Thin Lizzy shirt and brought us all to tears with laughter. He interacted with (read as; make fun of) the crowd, made Star Wars sound effects, sang songs about killing James Blunt and a love song translation of men's dirty habits.
He was so good, Rob, Paul, Dale, Alex and I chipped in to buy one of his CDs afterwards. I have yet to listen to it yet, but will be burning it tomorrow! :D

7. Almost forgot! Got my grades and assessment back with good marks! I basically got the equivalent of an A minus for everything that I did last semester. Yay! ^__^
I had one of the best lectures ever the other morning too, I'll update with what happened another day as it will be a part of my homework to update my progress from the lessons!

So, yes! Having a great time, but don't expect to be hearing from me very often! This animation work is going to be occupying a lot of my time, but I'll post up my progress every now and then. =]
I also got FFIV for the DS to play at last, I've heard good things about it so looking forward to playing it!

Ta-Ta for now!
Love Gemma xxx

End of the Holidays

Well, it's been a lovely month back at home, not that I've got much done mind! Mostly relaxing, spending time with family and friends and playing video games of course!

I completed Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days on the DS last week, the end wasn't particularly difficult, although the gameplay was a lot longer than expected. I clocked up almost 30 hours just playing the story mode. Although this may be because I tackled every mission on every day (you don't actually have to play 358 days though, some are skipped!) as sometimes you are given a few optional ones instead of just doing what needs to be completed to progress.

Overall, very enjoyable; nice story with a lovely yet sad ending that gave a bit more perspective to Roxas's story; great gameplay and levels; cool additions to the battle system and leveling system making customisation very easy and fun.

Unfortunately missions do get repetitive and you find yourself revisiting worlds more times than you'd like. Agrabah and Wonderland were frequented much too often for my liking, especially when there are lots of other awesome worlds you could be going that weren't included in the game. Tarzan and Mulan's worlds, for instance. And this is without considering the 'Challenges' you can unlock with the normal missions which give you more difficult versions of the levels. Through completing Challenges, you are rewarded 'Sigils' which earn you items at the Moogle shop.

In my case, I didn't feel they were particularly worth doing. I collected about 30 Sigils (you can get a maximum of 3 for completing a challenge) and finished the game over level 50, which was more than enough to beat the last bosses. And even then they were not as difficult as the boss at Beast's Castle or Halloween Town.

All in all, good game, but be prepared to play it a lot. I haven't tried the multiplayer yet, but looking forward to doing so with my friend Paul at Uni!

I also completed Assassin's Creed in late preparation for the new sequel (yes, I have been productive!). Great, great, great game. I loved the story, loved the gameplay, loved the visuals and Altair is badass indeed!

But like Kingdom Hearts, this game also became repetitive in nature and it would have been nice to have some more variety. Finding flags is pretty tedious and only for the satisfaction of an Xbox Achievement, and of course the whole thing about not being able to run anywhere without being up to something... Fortunately the sequel does correct this among other things.

I'm currently playing Assassin's Creed II and I'm about 70% finished judging by my in-game statistics. I really like what they added to it, it doesn't have the same feel as the first, but I love how full of historical references it is. It makes the story so much more immersive and plausible, it really makes you think again about what we know about history. So far I've been reading every little factoid that pops up in the game, even if it disrupts gameplay, just because it's so interesting!

I could go on listing everything that's different, but will stop there and leave the rest for when I review it after completion!

Apart from games, I saw a great Japanese film called Kamikaze Girls. It's about two teenage girls in a total style collision. The first loves the Rococo style where girls are delicate, feminine and wear lovely frilly dresses; the other, a 'Yanki' girl who wears baggy clothes, rides a customised scooter and is rude, violent and inappropriate.

I don't want to spoil it, so I'll just finish by saying it's brilliantly off the wall, wild and wacky, absolutely hilarious, very sweet and moving at times and has one of the best endings I have ever seen in a film! Definitely worth a watch!

I've also taken up an old digital painting I started last year and am making good progress despite being out of practice! Here's a preview...

Next week I'm heading back to Uni. I have a storyboard project to do which shouldn't take long and an assessment and then we begin character performance! I am really looking forward to expressing emotions, personality and even doing the lip-synching! (A lot of animators dread this!) The walk cycles should be fun too!

That's all from me for now, tomorrow I'll be seeing the new Sherlock Holmes film with my sisters, so bye for now!

Love Gemma xxx

Avatar (A Review)

14 years in the making and the largest budget of a film ever, estimated at $230,000,000 and boasting the greatest CGI effects and animation of all time, does James Cameron's first film in 12 years, 'Avatar' meet our expectations?

My short answer, would be 'yes', but the film has received mixed reviews...

There is absolutely no doubt that the visuals are the best seen in just about any film. And it was worth the wait. It is clear how much our ability to create believable graphics and computer-generated characters has increased ten-fold. I say 'believable' simply because the content is of course fictional and I am leaving doubt as to whether perfectly photo-realistic graphics can actually exist or be accomplished. Certainly, Avatar does a very convincing job, but at the beginning it is obvious the imagery is a complex hybrid of live-action on green screen, matte painting, motion capture, computer-generated imagery and animation.

But saying that, as soon as you see the 'Na'vi' creatures in action, you are immediately drawn in. I was spellbound by how they looked and the way they moved. Seeing the likeness in a Sigourney Weaver Na'vi was particularly stunning. They have real expressions too! Unlike previous realistic computer-generated films such as Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, where characters have stiff movement and blank expression a lot of the time.

Some argue the opposite of course, but I don't see why this level of detail would be ignored so easily.  Of course, nothing like this could perfectly duplicate human life, but the characters are a different species altogether and this is the best example of computer graphics I've ever seen. The lighting and texture is so real and fleshed-out, far better than previous attempts that just look flat, rigid and completely "artificial". The claim that the public won't be able to tell the difference, is far-fetched, but you do read them as real characters as the film progresses and not just puppets. You forget that they are digital.

It's not just the characters however, but also the backgrounds, creatures and effects. The environments in long shots are epic and the glowing scenery at night time is absolutely beautiful. Watching this in 3D is a must, by the way. It has come a long way since those red and green plastic glasses!!

As has been highlighted by many reviewers, with all this money going into visuals, will the story hold it's ground? Thankfully, it does. Though the storyline has been told dozens of times before, (similarities can be drawn even to Disney's Pochontas!) Cameron brings fresh originality to the setting and characters that keeps you gripped for the whole 162 minutes (that's two and a half hours) with fast and punchy pacing that slows down in all the right places.

Like any film of this quality, certain sacrifices have to be made to make it 'safe' so that it will make a profit. And Avatar has a big profit to make! Thus, the story has a tendency to be predictable just before important plot points. Thankfully, these aren't too obvious from the beginning and there is plenty of guessing throughout the film. I do congratulate Cameron for telling this story so expertly so as to keep your attention for the full time, personally I have a tendency to 'space out' on shorter 2 hour films, but this had me for the entire time, whether it was the character interaction, the beautiful visuals/animation or the impact of a particular event in the story; I was gripped.

I loved this film, I consider it the best one I've seen all year and must-see for anyone with an interest in film, animation, Sci-fi and storytelling full of action, suspense and even a little romance and comedy.

For another spoiler-free view of this film that explains it much better than I ever could, please check out this video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxhL_Ru-Yqs

Bye for now! =)

Where The Wild Things Are (A Review)

Where The Wild Things Are is a brand new film directed by Spike Jonze, based on the popular 30-page children's book of the same name by Maurice Sendak. But don't be mistaken by assuming this is a film for kids. Spike Jonze (Director of 'Being John Malkovich' and various music videos) does not patronise the audience and creates a much darker and spookier film like the original book suggests.

We are introduced to a young boy named Max. His world is full of imagination and creativity and he wants nothing more than to live his childhood to the full, but sadly he has no one to share it with. His sister ignores him and his mother has other things to worry about. Sounds typical? But no, the way this subject has been tackled is totally real and unique. The way the characters are filmed, their emotions and what they say is unlike anything I've seen in the beginning of a film before.

An interesting note... The very first shot shows Max chasing his dog around in his 'wolf' costume. I didn't realise this when watching but my friends told me later that he was actually chasing the dog with a fork and you don't see the unfortunate animal in the film after this scene... Hmm...

After falling out with his sister when he is trapped in his own igloo and hurt by her friends, and getting into a row with his mother and biting her in front of her new boyfriend, troubled Max runs away and into the forest. Here he discovers a boat which he sails to the world of the 'Wild Things'. The Wild Things accept him as their 'king' and Max finally has friends to play games with.

The film does not have a specific storyline, if anything it's just a sequence of random events past this point. The characters are set up perfectly, but once we reach the other world, it's all about the characters and their development. Each Wild Thing represents a different part of Max, although the outcast girl creature, KW, represents his relationship with his sister and mother.

This creates fascinating tensions between characters as, in a sense, Max is building friendships and/or rivalries with different aspects of himself and you can see this develop throughout the film. The roles of Carol, Judith, KW and Alexander are particularly important to Max's self-realisation.

Visually the film is beautiful. All of the creatures are played by real people in costumes with some digital effects on the faces to enhance emotions. When these guys cry, you feel sadness with them, and when they are angry and rampaging they are very scary indeed! The film uses wonderful earthy colours and it has a traditional grainy look to it which stays true to the original artwork.

I didn't particularly like how the Wild Things first appeared, I don't know how they were shown in the book, but I prefer how we first see Carol in the trailer, as opposed to the film where they are not left very ambiguous. Speaking of the trailer, the use of music is amazing. The original trailer music, 'Wake Up' by 'Arcade Fire' is a glorious and uplifting song which fits the themes of this film perfectly and has such an independent feel to it. We don't see this song in the film, but the original music orchestrated for it reflects the feelings in this song and is just as superbly written, if not quite as good.

Overall, if you love to see a film with something different to offer with great characters and development, then definitely see Where The Wild Things Are. For a film adapted from such a short book, taking away nothing yet adding so much more, Spike Jonze has done a superb job. I would not recommend it for young viewers as it can be quite scary and upsetting at times, but neither is it adult. It's a lovely feel-good piece that definitely grows on you.

Welcome Home... Paramore!

Got back last Wednesday to spend my holidays at home. I should have a whole month off Uni as my course has an extra two weeks with nothing timetabled until the 25th. Unlike my unfortunate boyfriend who has to return on the 11th. :(

I do however, have a 2500 word essay to write about animation to hand in on the 13th. But I can send this to my friend Rob to hand in for me as he is returning early with his fiance. So all is good!

I came back a little earlier than everyone else to go to Paramore's concert in Manchester. It was epic! I didn't see what all the fuss was about for the last support act, 'You Me At Six'; they sounded completely generic and not memorable whatsoever. Fortunately Paramore were incredible and played most of their hits including, 'Emergency', 'That's What You Get', 'Crushcrushcrush', 'I Caught Myself' a lot of tracks from their new album: 'Ignorance', 'The Only Exception' 'Careful' and followed up with an incredible three-song encore: 'Misguided Ghosts', 'Misery Business' and 'Brick by Boring Brick'.

I missed hearing 'All I Wanted' from their line-up, as it is my favourite from their new album and I would have loved to hear Hayley hit those incredibly high notes live that she does in the song. Overall, great crowd interaction, fantastic performances and improvisation and very lively with a good atmosphere! My sister and I bought a T-Shirt each that were very cool also. =)

If you haven't heard their new album, 'Brand New Eyes', I would suggest you do so as they have definitely come back with a bang!

Since getting back, I have been relaxing and still recovering from my mad week of Uni work! I have a lot planned over the holidays in terms of meeting friends and family, going ice skating, going to the zoo, cinema etc... So I'll only be updating now and again with odd updates and stuff.

Until then, I am about to follow up with journal with two short reviews for 'Where The Wild Things Are' and 'Avatar', so stay tuned!
Love Gemma xxx

A Hectic Week of "Torture" and a "Drug-Laced Salad"

Apologies for not updating too frequently the past few weeks. What was once supposedly a 4-5 week project suddenly became just two weeks and everyone has been working so hard this week to complete our Manifesto project.

The premise is to take an art manifesto/movement, look at it's purpose and intentions and create a 30-60 second animation inspired by those ideas. I went with the surrealist manifesto by Andre Bréton and created a surreal poem from newspaper clippings and re-assembled them in a completely random order to connote a sense of humour and being illogical. The results were quite interesting, it was funny and random but also had thought-provoking messages within it. The title is inspired by one of the lines that appeared in the poem: "Disneyland, you're a drug laced salad".

This took just a few days to complete, but it involved very intense working hours! Monday I came up with my final idea after realising that I could do my animation around the text of the poem, rather than just thinking of visuals inspired by it. Tuesday morning I recorded the voices in the soundbooth at Uni. Tuesday afternoon I did all the under the camera animation, using photocopied sheets of the newspaper poem, splattering paint on glass over it, scrunching it up all sorts. I spent about 4-5 hours doing this alone and finished it with a very bad back indeed. It was enjoyable though as I haven't done any animation with paint before and I hadn't used colour in a Uni animation until now.

Wednesday was spent editing. This literally took all afternoon and all night. I animated the 3D text that flies past the screen in After Effects using a tutorial by Andrew Kramer (http://www.videocopilot.net) which helped enormously. I then took everything into Adobe Premiere and started putting my audio to the animation from yesterday.

Editing all the voices took far longer than I expected, as I alternated voice every word or couple of words. It reminded me a lot of Radiohead's "Fitter. Happier." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EoukRWQ-ec) and was partly inspired by it, but I only realised the similarities afterwards.

Wednesday evening I started exporting--oh the exporting!!! My least favourite part of any project has the potential to take the longest. I have a bad history with exports going wrong (random errors, wrong aspect ratio, no sound or picture, poor quality etc...) and that night was no exception. I hadn't even had any dinner and I was there trying to get an MOV and AVI version of my film from around 6pm until 11pm when I was finally happy with my export! It's madness!

I was up until the early hours making a power point for a presentation on 'The Prestige' the next day, so very little sleep this week also.

Thursday morning I had a good lecture with Caroline and Emily on the second part of Post-Modernism and Post-Humanism which was fascinating. We also got to see a whole episode of SPACED (The episode, "Pain") which was hilarious and I had been looking forward to it for a long time! =]

Thursday afternoon I spent completing my sketchbook for submission today, writing evaluations, finishing my power point and helping Rob and Vikki with their projects. Had an earlier night too which was fortunate.

Zara, Rob and I were also supposed to have our film presentation that afternoon at 4pm, but we had it moved to today (Friday) at 10am in E4. We were just giving the presentation to Caroline, so thank goodness there wasn't a lot of pressure! Just to clarify, everyone has to do a group presentation on a film, I am doing mine earlier as I am going home the day before everyone else is arranged to have theirs!

So it went really well! We basically just talked about The Prestige for half an hour and went really in-depth and we were all really relaxed and talkative (despite being extremely tired--Rob had only had two hours sleep that morning!), we didn't even get told off for going over ten minutes! =D

After that was over, I worked up until 12pm finishing all of my work for submission and burning it to CDs. Rob and I actually submitted our work at the desk several minutes after the deadline, but got away with it as there were a few people submitting on the hour. I am so happy that is over and done with now though, it has been a very stressful week for everyone!

I was going to go to the cinema today with everyone to celebrate, but we've moved it to next Tuesday to give everyone a rest and hardly anyone could go anyway! "Where The Wild Things Are" shall have to wait! XD

And a recap on previous news, I went back home last weekend for my Mum's birthday and to see my very poorly guinea pig, Truffles. But sadly my guinea passed away on the Sunday, aged 6 and a half, so she had a very good life though it was a sad day for all. =[

Well, that's all for now, I'm off to have a weekend of well-deserved sleep and recovery and I'll blog again soon with thoughts on "Where The Wild Things Are". I am also going back home on Wednesday to see Paramore in Manchester--gonna be goooood!!! ^^

Until then, bye-bye!
Love Gemma xxx

Last Life Drawing

A week last Monday was my last Life Drawing session in the studio at Newport. Late report, I know, but the workload this past two weeks has been phenomenal and blogging was rendered impossible.

Being our last session, Elfyn let us experiment with our own mediums for once. We warmed up as usual with some blind self-portraits, though I haven't been able to scan these properly yet. So I'll skip ahead to show you my contour drawing of Juliet along with a half-hour pencil tone study and another half-hour colour paint study...

 

 

As normal, please click on the thumbnails to enlarge... I feel these were very successful drawings. The contour drawing is the best one I've done in that style I think and the tone and colour studies are nice and communicate well but would have liked more time on them!

I have my life drawing presentation next Monday, which is just a power point of my favourite work thus far... Should be good, though always a little nervous about talking about my own work...

Next post: my last animation for this semester and general updates!

And Another Thing...

My friend Paul got this awesome Ezio figurine with Assassin's Creed II and it's so beautifully crafted and painted I had to do a spontaneous photo shoot with my mobile phone camera.

These are heavily touched up and re-coloured in Photoshop, but hopefully still preserve the beauty of this model! Thanks Paul! :D

Enjoy some of favourite pictures...

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, bye-bye for real this time! :D
Love Gemma xxx

Life Drawing in Cardiff Take 2

This week, the intention was to arrive at Winter Wonderland in Cardiff at 12pm to draw the ice skaters there. But as usual, the Welsh weather spoiled our plan and the rink was instead a shallow pool. Plan B was to visit the art museum next door, naturally, the museum was not open on a Monday, so we reverted to the city centre and drawing at St. David's shopping centre again.

It was a good session this time though, Zara and I did some good work outside drawing people with umbrellas and all huddled up and gloomy from the cold. Inside, we found Matthew at these nice circular sofas overlooking an escalator, so that was a fantastic place to draw. My results can be seen below, experimenting with pencil, pen and a little charcoal, though this wasn't too successful.

 

 

Please click to enlarge the pictures as always. :) I think these are starting to improve again after two slightly disappointing classes. Here are my results from the previous trek to Cardiff Bay (see previous post).

I may upload my last indoor drawing session, only that I did it on two A3 pieces of paper taped together, which would mean scanning each piece four times and stitching it together--not fun!

Anyway, I spoke to Matthew on the "good" Cardiff session last Monday and he gave me a printout of my life drawing feedback which was very complimentary! Basically it's all great--I can carry on as I'm doing but concentrate on looking ahead to where I'm going. As in, introducing more experimentation and colour, doing some animal studies and thinking about my characters to use to get closer to my goals and dream career (Character animator / Character concept artist / Storyboard artist etc for Video Games or Movies... so obviously believable characters and storytelling are my near-goals).

We also talked about where I could go for work experience next year and where my work could take me. Pixar has been mentioned a few times, which makes me very happy and excited!

In other news, my friend Rob from animation is now engaged to his girlfriend, Charlotte, so congratulations to them both! They make a lovely couple. :)

I saw "The Men Who Stare At Goats" at the cinema with my boyfriend Alex last weekend, which was really nice. The film itself was pretty good, certainly entertaining and thought-provoking. I don't think it was great for the big screen, it was quite short and seemed like a small scale film, the kind better suited to TV or DVD really. Peculiar, considering the star actors in the cast.

With such an amazing collection of actors, the performance could only be brilliant. The script is good, if a bit random. But overall pretty funny with some extraordinary facts and is very relevant to today.

My next animation project, "Manifesto" was introduced to us yesterday, but to be honest, it's awfully confusing! We have to do a presentation in pairs next Tuesday morning and nobody knows whether we are analysing and presenting an image that we like, or researching an art movement (e.g. Cubism, Dadaism) that we like or agree with it's intentions and talking about that. The lecture itself was rather confusing also, it tailed off into the realms of what art actually is, and lost everybody in its complexity.

We haven't even decided partners yet! Never mind, we'll get something together in time.

Anyway, I'll keep you all posted, apologies for not posting last week, I am busy with a commission outside of Uni and it's pretty time-consuming. Almost done now though. I will post a link if and when I am allowed to publish it.

Can't wait for Christmas break! I'm also coming back a couple of days early to see Paramore in Manchester with my sis, Emily and Alex----excited!!! Their new album 'Brand New Eyes' is stunning. :D

But for now, cheerio!
Love Gemma xxx

Abstract Animation, Weekend Wonder, Christmas Carol and Cardiff Fail

Unlike the title, this post will be documenting the mentioned topics in reverse order, because I am currently in sleep deprivation mode.

Today was supposed to involve life drawing in Cardiff Bay from 10am-1pm, but after a 20 minutes walk from the train station and a wander around, we concluded that the entire area was deserted. It was a little unexpected as normally it is supposed to be absolutely packed. But I took some nice pictures of the buildings and the bay and various Doctor Who signs in the area.

It was worth seeing the place, but after returning to Cardiff and having an unproductive session drawing shoppers in the St. Davids shopping centre, I couldn't wait to get home! At first some officials came up to us asking what we were doing and we got the impression that we were not permitted to draw random people walking past (which I find utterly ridiculous considering that it is impossible to capture any detail of a person they are gone so quickly!) however it turned out we were allowed to sketch them, but we couldn't sit down--not even out of the way!

I assume that was due to obstruction, despite being nowhere near anyone walking past. Ah well.

It was certainly a relief getting back home, I caught up on some sleep and warmed up and then my flatmates and I blitzed the kitchen--it was in need of a very good clean! It looks quite nice though, but could still do with curtains to make it more homely.

OK, a little rewind now. My sister, Emily came over for the weekend taking to train straight from her college, which was pretty convenient! I made dinner for her, Jess and Vikki who came over Friday night to eat and watch movies in celebration of finishing out animations (I will come to this later). We saw Goldmember and Dudley Doright and had a great night, later joined by Dale and Alex.

Saturday was a bit of a chillout 'nothing' day. 'Cause apart from washing towels, we pretty much did nothing! On Sunday we went all out. We visited the Roman Amphitheater in Newport which I haven't been to before. It was actually really cool and looks like a great spot for picnics when it's sunny.

 

After that, we took a bus and train to Cardiff for shopping! We went to the relocated Disney shop and bought 'Up' pins and badges! It was an awesome find, so awesome in fact, that I went back and bought two more pins for £3 each for Jess and Vikki too! Emily got a lovely soft new scarf and we had a big explore of most of the shops.

In hindsight, we probably should have gone on Saturday, as everywhere shuts early on a Sunday and it's difficult to get buses. There was also lots I hadn't looked into properly, so we didn't have a very well planned out weekend! Emily wants an itinerary next time!

 

After shopping we went to the cinema to see '9', (Em had not seen it yet) but there were no showings at the time, so we saw 'A Christmas Carol' by Robert Zemeckis and starring Jim Carrey instead. I had rather mixed feelings about it and have much to discuss, but shall try to be brief!

The first point, which has been said by many already, is of course the decision to remake a story that has already been adapted to death. This makes it difficult to really stand out as a unique and creative version and avoid copying previous films. I felt that 'A Christmas Carol' fails to do this.

Once again, high tech graphics and the pursuit of photo realistic animation left little room for story development. The film starts promising and a lot of attention is put into showing exactly how cruel and cold-hearted Scrooge is, but his character is lost somewhere in the middle only to be redeemed for five minutes at the end with some great acting and dialogue by Jim Carrey, who gives an excellent performance. But it's really not enough, and instead we are given pointless action sequences in which Scrooge attempts to escape the clutches of the final spirit.

It was mildly entertaining but didn't particularly deliver what Zemeckis was trying to hype up about this film. His previous work shows such expert storytelling, ('Back to the Future' being a classic example) but he appears to have put that skill aside in favour of 'real life' computer animation. And yet, for most of the film, I found it completely unconvincing! Perhaps it is different in 3D (I saw it in 2D) and perhaps I have a different perspective being able to spot CGI a mile off, but the movement often felt rigid, textures were sometimes flat and the lighting looked incredibly artificial (this being true, it's not supposed to be quite so obvious).

While there are some lovely shots and the camera movements had an interesting style (though it's refusal to 'cut' to another shot was a little annoying) and Jim Carrey's likeness is quite scary, I didn't find it enough, though certainly a good attempt. Also, did anyone else notice how long it took for Scrooge to realise it was him who had passed away in the future? He even sees his own dead body under a sheet in his bed, but has to see his name on a gravestone before he actually twigs. Why couldn't they just go straight to the gravestone like in 'The Muppet Christmas Carol'? Personally I consider the latter a much better adaptation that did a better adaptation, though the Muppet's are definitely difficult to beat!

Nevermind, I think I've had enough of a rant now. It was a good attempt, but very disappointing Zemeckis. I would have loved to see more of Jim Carrey's hilarious dialogue and performance throughout as there were some fantastic moments with his character development! Ah well...

Finally my sister and I got back home, had dinner and had an awesome night of gaming at Alex's flat before hitting the hay. I had to get up very early today however, to see Em off to the train back to college and to catch my own train to Cardiff...

And at long last, my animation! Apologies for the long rant! Here it is, all finished and complete with sound!

It was quite a task to complete, I was in my animation room all Thursday morning, afternoon and night to get it finished. I think it was worth it and I actually did something that was quite abstract I think. I used a lot of charcoal though, (thanks Vikki for the extra ones!) and only managed 25 seconds of pure animation out of the intended 30, but got it to 37 seconds with some editing and 'atmospheric' black screens. We have a presentation tomorrow to show our animations to our class and to talk a bit about it as well, here comes some on the spot improvisation!

Also, here is a video that my sister made at college for an anti drink and drive advert competition, her group came through as winners in their county and are through to the nationals next I think!

There Is No Reset Button from Emily Roberts on Vimeo.

That's all from me now methinks, time for some food and digital Disney drawing with Jess tonight, ciao!

Love Gemma xxx