Sunday, December 13, 2009

How Being in the Art Industry has Changed the way I watch movies

I remember a time when watching a movie or animation was just about watching it. Those were the good ol' days.

Then I thought that I wanted to make my own animations or movies. Somewhere along the line, I decided to make that my career. Before I knew it, I already have my degree and am already working in an animation company.

When you come into the art industry, you are programmed to make things look good and believable. As a result of this, you begin to scrutinize every tiny detail in a production.

I remember watching Buzz Lightyear of Star Command the pilot episode having much fun and in awe way back then.

I rewatched it recently and caught myself playing interesting sequences frame by frame, analyzing how they made a scene, how they achieved an effect and noticing glitches in the animation.

For example, there was one frame where a character snapped from one position to another when he should be standing still. Fortunately, I still had fun watching the show.

One other thing I noticed was that I actually paid attention to the credits. SHOCK SURPRISE MADNESS. Well I would want my contribution to an animation to be recognized would I not? So I noticed that most of the animators of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command to be Asian (of which I am)

Watching something more recent like Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs also made me unwittingly use art terms in comments such as 'Wow I like how the color scheme changed to red when the..' or 'haha the animation of that guy is hillarious. he had snappy pose-to-pose animations' or 'i bet they used a separate head model with unique blend-shapes for that particular scene'.

Having said that, I still managed to enjoy the show. I suppose the change of the way I watch movies isn't necessarily negative; it made the process of watching something to be something not only entertaining, but also educational!

That's right folks, I revise my studies by going to the cinema.

Just in case those of you who 'read thick text-books to remind yourself how this function affects that operator' missed the impact of that last off-hand comment:

I revise my studies by going to the cinema.

On another note, do not trust movie trailers. I actually considered not watching 'Meatballs' because the trailer looked really mediocre. But what I watched was totally much better than my expectations.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Same here. Haha. My friends and I like to talk about visual styles and the story.

The fun thing about being in art schools, IMO, is that we have to read comics, watch animated shows and films, and even play videogames as part of our studies.