Archive for August, 2008

28
Aug
08

Disney/Pixar President to Accept First Randy Pausch Prize

By expressionblogger Leave a Comment
Categories: Animation
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Ed Catmull, president of Walt Disney and Pixar Animation Studios, will accept the first Randy Pausch Prize from Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center. The prize is in remembrance of computer scientist and game veteran Dr. Pausch, who passed away in July 2008 of pancreatic cancer, and who was co-founder of the ETC.

Pausch may be best remembered in the game community for co-founding the Entertainment Technology Center at CMU and for creating Alice, a free 3D programming environment that lets the user easily create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web.

Catmull will also present the keynote address at the 7th International Conference on Entertainment Computing, to be hosted this year at the ETC campus on Sept. 26, according to an announcement.

The ETC plans to present the Pausch Prize annually, in honor of entertainment industry experts who embody the professor’s interdisciplinary spirit. Pausch was passionate about the need for technologists and artists to work together and unusually successful in making these collaborations work.

“We couldn’t think of a more fitting person to receive the first Pausch Prize than Ed Catmull,” said Don Marinelli, who co-founded the ETC with Pausch and is its executive producer. “Eleven years ago, when the ETC was just a vision that Randy and I were trying to make a reality, Ed generously shared with us his thoughts about how to prepare students for the new world of interactive digital media. His suggestions, including the idea of having everyone in the program study improvisational acting, were priceless.” All ETC game development students must take improv. “He helped us make the ETC a place where right-brained and left-brained individuals can work together successfully,” Marinelli said.

Catmull co-founded Pixar and created two other leading centers of computer graphics research: the computer graphics laboratory at the New York Institute of Technology and the computer division of Lucasfilm Ltd.

Catmull is also one of the architects of the RenderMan rendering software, which just celebrated its twentieth anniversary and has been used in 44 of the last 47 films nominated for an Academy Award in the Visual Effects category.

By Jill Duffy
August 26, 2008 12:50:00 PM PST

Stumble It!

27
Aug
08

Life is animated for this young Modesto woman

By expressionblogger Leave a Comment
Categories: Education
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We love it when local papers write about our students!

 

Davis High grad Melissa Nichols Flores is a budding artist who dreams of working for Pixar or some other big-name animation company. She’s attending art school in Emeryville. She also loves her tatoos; she designed them herself. Shes holding her artist sketchbook in the Modesto Bee studio Thursday August 7, 2008; she doesn’t leave home without it. For epress yourself. (Steve Kosko / The Modesto Bee
Modesto Bee – Steve Kosko

By DONNA BIRCH
dbirch@modbee.com

The High Five are the five most-read stories, updated hourly.

Melissa Nichols Flores says she’s a die-hard cartoon fan. And there’s nothing Mickey Mouse about the college degree she’s pursuing.

The 23-year-old wants to be a professional animator and is earning a degree in animation and visual effects at Expression College for Digital Arts in Emeryville.

“I dream of making 3-D animated movies, hopefully for DreamWorks or Pixar,” Flores said. “That’s a five- or 10-year goal — and to get as much experience in the industry as I can.”

Flores took the saying “Do what you love” to heart in choosing her career.

“Everybody loves cartoons growing up,” she said. “I just never grew out of it. In my sophomore year of high school, I was watching Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. And growing into adulthood, (cartoons) were more of a passion than just an obsession.”

Flores, a Davis High School graduate who spent a year in the Navy, rarely leaves home without her sketchbook and Hacky Sack. She and her husband, Anthony Flores Jr., will celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary this fall. The couple enjoy fishing and spending time with their dog, Foxy, a Chihuahua-corgi mix. Q: When did your love of cartoons begin?

A: I was always fascinated by them. “Peter Pan” was my favorite cartoon growing up, then it was “The Little Mermaid.” I had VHS tapes of “Mighty Mouse” and some other older cartoons.

Q: What’s your favorite animated film, and why? A: There are so many. I might need to do this in categories. “Peter Pan” was my favorite as a kid. My favorite 3-D animated film is “Kung Fu Panda.” It was an amazing animated film. I loved it for all kinds of reasons — its color, texture, the dynamics. It was visually stunning film. I also have to give a special (shout out) for “FernGully: The Last Rainforest.” Q: What are your earliest memories of wanting to draw?

A: I was raised by my grandmother Wanda Nichols. Growing up, I was an only child. My earliest memories are actually my grandma’s memories. I’m left-handed, and when she’d see me drawing or coloring when I was little, she’d put the crayon in my right hand. I remember thinking about art in the seventh grade. But I was drawing before that. I’d color and draw and doodle around. Q: Is there a style of animation you gravitate toward?

A: 3-D because of the amazing things you can do with it. You can make it look so real and work with in so many different ways. You can make your own cartoons or work for NASA creating 3-D images of space shuttles or use it in architecture. There are all kinds of things my major can lead to.

Q: You also do freehand art. Is it difficult to switch between that and using a computer?

A: It goes in and out. Some days, I’ll be really into the computer, and some days, I’ll go outside and draw. It depends on my mood. Drawing is a passion of mine, but the computer is the tool I use more.

Q: What artists inspire you?

A: Don Bluth. He was an animator at Disney who did “The Secret of NIHM” and “The Rescuers.” I had the opportunity to meet him when he came to my school to talk. He was an inspirational speaker. Most of the speakers tell us about the industry. Don just started talking about life, being a good person and how much he loved drawing. I’d also like to pick the brain of Brad Bird (director of “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille”). In my industry, that is who I’d love to meet. But I also love works by Jackson Pollock and Salvador Dalí. Q: What do you like doing when you have free time?

A: A bunch of things. I love to play video games like “Rock Band” and I like to go the marina in Martinez and fish. And I’m taking up kayaking. I like watching movies. I’m a film buff.

Q: You’ve amassed a collection of tattoos. How many do you have, and did you design them yourself?

A: I have seven tattoos and I designed or adjusted five of the seven, like the San Jose Sharks tattoo. The tattoo is the team’s logo, but I revamped it a little. Q: What does your lion tattoo symbolize?

A: Lions are at the top of the food chain. They’re dominant but also graceful and wise. I try to take on those characteristics. Q: Do you have any personal heroes?

A: My grandma. She raised three kids on her own and then raised me. She’s a very strong-willed and caring person. I dream to be like her, minus the worry.

Original article – click here 

Stumble It!

25
Aug
08

In the mix with DJ B-EZ

By expressionblogger Leave a Comment
Categories: Music and Social Media
Tags: , , , , , ,

We love reading great things about our students!

DJ B-EZ: My name is Brandon Masangcay. My alias (B-EZ) was given to me by a close friend in high school (RIP VEE). I currently reside in Hercules, CA. Besides family, there are 2 most important / must-haves in my life: music & education. Lucky for me, I chose the path where those two can work parallel with each other as I go to school at Expression College For Digital Arts. Aside from being a nerd, I love to play basketball, eat cheeseburgers and pizzas, and enjoy life as much as possible.

Read Full Article

 

Stumble It!

25
Aug
08

SF Outside Lands

By expressionblogger Leave a Comment
Categories: Events, Music and Social Media
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

The SF Outside Lands Music and Art Festival took place over the weekend in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

We’d love to hear from any Ex’pression students that attended the event.

Also check out some Expression media at CrowdFire.

Stumble It!

19
Aug
08

Life-like animation heralds new era for computer games

By expressionblogger Leave a Comment
Categories: Games and Movies
Tags: , , , ,


From Times Online
August 18, 2008
Lifelike animation heralds new era for computer games
‘Emily’ will set a new precedent for photo-realistic characters in video games and films, says her creator, Image Metrics

Jonathan Richards
Extraordinarily lifelike characters are to begin appearing in films and computer games thanks to a new type of animation technology.

Emily – the woman in the above animation – was produced using a new modelling technology that enables the most minute details of a facial expression to be captured and recreated.

She is considered to be one of the first animations to have overleapt a long-standing barrier known as ‘uncanny valley’ – which refers to the perception that animation looks less realistic as it approaches human likeness.

Researchers at a Californian company which makes computer-generated imagery for Hollywood films started with a video of an employee talking. They then broke down down the facial movements down into dozens of smaller movements, each of which was given a ‘control system’.

Science close to unveiling invisible man
A military funded research project is working on a material that can bend light around objects, rendering them invisible
RELATED LINKS
Science close to unveiling invisible man
Grand Theft Auto producer is Godfather of gaming
Hong Kong seeks to win Asian animation crown
The team at Image Metrics – which produced the animation for the Grand Theft Auto computer game – then recreated the gestures, movement by movement, in a model. The aim was to overcome the traditional difficulties of animating a human face, for instance that the skin looks too shiny, or that the movements are too symmetrical.

“Ninety per cent of the work is convincing people that the eyes are real,” Mike Starkenburg, chief operating officer of Image Metrics, said.

“The subtlety of the timing of eye movements is a big one. People also have a natural asymmetry – for instance, in the muscles in the side of their face. Those types of imperfections aren’t that significant but they are what makes people look real.”

Previous methods for animating faces have involved putting dots on a face and observing the way the dots move, but Image Metrics analyses facial movements at the level of individual pixels in a video, meaning that the subtlest variations – such as the way the skin creases around the eyes, can be tracked.

“There’s always been control systems for different facial movements, but say in the past you had a dial for controlling whether an eye was open or closed, and in one frame you set the eye at 3/4 open, the next 1/2 open etc. This is like achieving that degree of control with much finer movements.

“For instance, you could be controlling the movement in the top 3-4mm of the right side of the smile,” Mr Starkenburg said.

For many years now, animators have come up against a barrier known as “uncanny valley”, which refers to how, as a computer-generated face approaches human likeness, it begins take on a corpse-like appearance similar to that in some horror films.

As a result, computer game animators have purposely simplified their creations so that the players realise immediately that the figures are not real.

“There came a point where animators were trying to create a face and there was a theory of diminishing returns,” said Raja Koduri, chief technlology officer in graphics at AMD, the chip-maker.

AMD last week released a new chip with a billion transistors that will be able to show off creations such as Emily by allowing a much greater number of computations per second. “If you’re trying to process the graphics in a photo-realistic animation, in real-time, there’s a lot of computation involved,” said Mr Koduri.

He said that AMD’s new chip – the Radeon HD 4870 X2 – was able to process 2.4 teraflops of information per second, meaning it had a capability similar to a computer that – only 12 years ago – would have filled a room. AMD’s chip fits inside a standard PC.

But he said that the line between what was real and what was rendered would not be blurred completely until 2020.

There have been several advances in computer-generated imagery (CGI) in recent years. One project at the University of Southern California involves placing an actor inside a giant metallic orb which fires more than 3,000 lights from a range of different angles – and with different degrees of intensity – at the actor while he or she is are being filmed performing an action.

The image captured by the camera can then be transported into another piece of film and the lighting effect (on the actor) chosen according to the ambient lighting in the scene.

http://www.image-metrics.com/

Stumble It!

19
Aug
08

History of Anime

By expressionblogger Leave a Comment
Categories: Animation and Movies
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

History of anime
The evolution of the artform
By ATSUKO KOHATA

‘Akira’

MORE ARTICLES:
Showgate sets piracy showdown
Animated fare honored with Emmys
‘Pokemon’ sets record box office
Toon shops spark to 3-D
Minghella steering Sony to new niches
Imagi revives ‘Tusker’ tale
Anime properties such as “Transformers,” “Speed Racer” and “Avatar” (the latter announced for M. Night Shyamalan to direct) may make for obvious tentpole fodder now, but the medium took decades to gain critical mass among U.S. auds.
First introduced in the 1960s via family-oriented shows such as “Astro Boy” and “Speed Racer,” Japanese anime enjoyed early popularity but limited respect among kid-driven crowds. In the following decades, sci-fi shows like “Gatchaman” and “Transformers” helped keep younger auds interested, while “Akira,” “Ghost in the Shell” and other mature anime featuring violent and sexual elements earned cult standing among adults.

By the late 1990s, anime maestro Hayao Miyazaki (already viewed as the Walt Disney of the format in Japan) began to catch on with U.S. auds. By the time his “Spirited Away” won the animated feature Oscar in 2003, major Hollywood directors were at work on live-action versions of their favorite Asian toons. What follows are the benchmarks from anime’s rise to prominence in the U.S.

1963
“Astro Boy” series starts in Japan, launches in the U.S. later the same year. The original manga was created by Osamu Tezuka, who is considered the father of the format.

1966
“Gigantor” series debuts in the U.S.

Another of Tezuka’s creations, “Kimba the White Lion,” launches.

1967
“Speed Racer” takes off in the U.S. a year after it was first broadcast in Japan, airing off and on over the years. MTV picks up the show in 1993; Cartoon Network adds it to their lineup in 1996.

In the same year, restrictions over violent content limit Americans’ access to Japanese animation, including such shows as “Devilman.”
1978
“Battle of the Planets” (aka Gatchaman) series debuts in the U.S.

1979
“Star Blazers” series starts in the US.

1984
“Voltron” hits U.S. shores, followed by “Transformers.” Both the anime and tie-in toys become popular.

1985
“Robotech” takes off in the U.S.

1986
An animated “Transformers” feature earns more than $5 million at the box office, including a key voice performance by Orson Welles (who died before the film was released).

1989
Anime feature “Akira” opens in December, giving U.S. auds a taste of what the format can accomplish.

Hayao Miyazaki’s “Castle in the Sky” receives a limited released in the U.S.

1993
Troma releases a dubbed version of Miyazaki’s “My Neighbour Totoro” in the U.S. Writing for Variety, critic Leonard Klady says he doesn’t get it.

Early 1990s
Many Japanese animations go directly to video, where more mature titles with sex and violence catch on among cult audiences.

Video rental stores start to set up Japanese anime sections.

The word “manga” enters the English language with “pop, erotic, futuristic and artistic” connotations.

1995
“Sailor Moon” airs in the U.S. Since much of the audience are young girls, it helps expand the image of anime from being a male-oriented media to something both sexes can enjoy.

Around this time, the Japanese trend of dressing up as anime characters (or “cosplay”) comes to the U.S.

1996
“Ghost in the Shell” is released on video, landing many fans who will later work in Hollywood (including the Wachowski brothers). Hits No. 1 on Billboard’s video charts.

“Dragonball Z” debuts on TV, with violent scenes edited out.

1998
Cartoon Network airs unedited “Dragonball Z” episodes as part of its Toonami programming block.

The “Pokemon” TV series launches, riding the popularity of the game franchise.

1999
Still largely unknown in the U.S., Miyazaki improves his profile with Miramax’s release of “Princess Mononoke.” Toon’s PG-13 rating and limited release leads to modest box office, but draws strong reviews and attention to its creator. In Japan, it becomes the highest-grossing film of all time.

2002
Disney releases “Spirited Away,” with English-language dubbing personally overseen by Pixar’s John Lasseter. The film goes on to win the animated feature Oscar.

On television, “Yu-Gi-Oh” and “Inuyasha” both launch.

2005
Cartoon Network adds “Naruto” to its Toonami lineup.

Nickelodeon debuts “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” a toon modeled after the style and content of Asian animation (mixing martial arts, mysticism and serial storytelling). Two years later, the show wins a primetime Emmy.

2006
Viz Media dubs manga-based toon “Bleach” for American auds. The show courts older viewers as part of Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block.

2007
Michael Bay directs a live-action version of “Transformers,” hiring Peter Cullen (the lead voice on the U.S. animated series) to reprise his role as Optimus Prime.

Paramount announces plans for an “Avatar” feature (not to be confused with James Cameron’s original sci-fi project) to be directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

2008
The Wachowski brothers adapt “Speed Racer” as a live-action film, using cutting-edge fx to reflect (and modernize) the style of the original show.

Check out the original Japanese version of this story at Varietyjapan.

More than one option
(Film) Ghost in the Shell
(Tv) Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
More than one option
(Tv) Dragon Ball Z
(Film) Dragonball
More than one option
(Film) Pokemon The First Movie
(Tv) Pokemon
More than one option
(Person) Peter Cullen
Voice, Song Performer, Actor
(Person) Peter Cullen
Props
More than one option
(Person) James Cameron
Director, Matte Painter, Camera
(Person) James Cameron
Grip, Dolly Grip
(Person) James Cameron
Choreographer
(Person) James Cameron
Actor
(Person) James Cameron
Narrator, Actor
More than one option
(Film) Transformers – The Movie
(Film) Transformers
(Tv) Transformers
More than one option
(Film) Tomorrow Never Dies
(Film) Avatar
Links posted in this story:Akira, Akira, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Battle of the Planets, Bleach, Cartoon Network, Cartoon Network, Debiruman, Hayao Miyazaki, Inuyasha, John Lasseter, Orson Welles, Osamu Tezuka, Princess Mononoke, Robotech, Sailor Moon, Speed Racer, Spirited Away, Spirited Away, Walt Disney, White Lion

Stumble It!

15
Aug
08

Ex’pression Student Life Page

By expressionblogger Leave a Comment
Categories: Ex'Radio and Social Media
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

  Stumble It!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Visit Page

14
Aug
08

WALL-E Widget

By expressionblogger Leave a Comment
Categories: Animation, Movies and Social Media
Tags: , , , ,
WALL-E uses Clear Spring Widgets, too!

Stumble It!

14
Aug
08

Sacrifice & Bliss

By expressionblogger Leave a Comment
Categories: Music and Videos
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This video was created in the Motion Graphic Design program at Ex’pression College for Digital Arts.

The cycle of life with an eco-conscience. Credits to Andrew Cornett, Dean Pogni, Antoine Lee, Yael Braha, and Ex’pression College. Music by Creative Vibrations.

read more | digg story

Watch It Here

Stumble It!

13
Aug
08

Selick and Gaiman’s Stop-Motion Coraline

By expressionblogger Leave a Comment
Categories: Movies
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Trailer Watch: Selick and Gaiman’s Stop-Motion Coraline

One of my fond memories is a trip to San Francisco when I worked at E.W. to visit the set of stop-motion director Henry Selick’s James and the Giant Peach.

His building housed room after black-draped room with exquisitely crafted and lit miniature sets surrounded by stop-motion cameras and animators who carefully moved the puppets one frame at a time. Such patience! Craftspeople huddled inside rooms full of tiny props and parts and costumes; it was like being part of a giant dollhouse.

Selick’s next, Coraline, is a collaboration with fantasy writer Neil Gaiman, who so far has not been adequately adapted on-screen, in my view. No one has yet captured his charming whimsical style.

Here’s hoping they get it right this time. Focus Features will release the pic in December.

http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononhollywood/2008/08/trailer-watch-s.html

Stumble It!

« Previous Entries
What inspires your creativity?
( surveys)
exradio badge

Twitter Updates

Expression Flickr

The Temper Trap - Ex'pression Session

Fanfarlo - 3

Fanfarlo - 2

More Photos