Curated Motion Graphics Work

Starting off, I tried to consolidate a list of innovative & inspiring motion graphics work. It definitely wasn’t an easy task to try and pick any one piece over another, especially since everyone has a different opinion over what they would consider to be amazing. With that in mind, I’ve tried to balance my selection objectively, based on progression, forward thinking, originality, and execution. I hope you enjoy my selection, and continue to support Fuel Your Motionography well into the new year. Enjoy!

Prologue – OFFF 2009 Main Titles

OFFF 2009 Main Titles from Prologue! from OFFF on Vimeo.

Wow – Infinity

Infinity by: Wow from Colorcubic on Vimeo.

Esteban Diácono – Let Yourself Feel

let yourself feel. from Esteban Diácono on Vimeo.

Christopher Hewitt – Contraction

Contraction from Christopher Hewitt on Vimeo.

Sooz / Kultnation – All That Is Solid Melts Into The Air

All that is solid melts into the air. from Sooz on Vimeo.

Onesize – OFFF 2009 Sponsor Titles

OFFF 2009 Sponsor Titles from OFFF on Vimeo.

Rob Chiu – Else Mobile

Else Mobile (The Time Has Come) from Rob Chiu on Vimeo.

Alex Roman – T & S Teaser 2

T&S Teaser2 from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

BranitVFX – World Builder

World Builder from BranitVFX on Vimeo.

Tilt Shift Effect

If I had to say any certain technique had a major impact on the motion graphics industry this year, I would have to go with the tilt shift effect. The tilt shift effect is what ultimately gives real life footage, or more specifically, stop motion footage the illusion of smallness, or small windup toys. And what better way to convey this effect then through one of the industry’s pioneers of this technique, Mr. Keith Loutit [see below].

Keith Loutit – Bathtub IV

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Digital SLRs with HD Video

Ringing in at number three on my list of best contributions to the motion graphics industry in 2009 is Canon, and their Digital SLRs with HD Video capability. A lot of people still don’t realize, the moment Canon introduced the 5DmkII, it completely revolutionized how creative professionals in the mograph industry would produce work in the future. Not only are these dSLR cameras built very well, they’re also relatively affordable, all while shooting in HD video. Although, the real highlight of these dSLRs is the option to change out the lenses, at a fraction of the cost of a normal HD video camera. So you get all the power of Canon lenses (specifically Canon’s L series lenses), with the beauty of HD video. What more could you ask for?

Canon Rebel T1i

Canon 7D

Canon 5D mkII

Florent Porta – Tokyo Reality (Canon 5DmkII at work)

Tokyo Reality (Canon 5D MarkII) from Florent Porta on Vimeo.

Inksie Brand – 7D test film (Canon 7D at work)

7D Test Film from Inksie Brand on Vimeo.

Wesley Kandel – Palladia (Canon Rebel T1i at work)

Palladia from Wesley Kandel on Vimeo.

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Noteworthy filmmakers have always had a healthy vision of what their film should look like. Utilizing a myriad of camera and editing techniques combined with the keen eye of the cinematographer, the filmmaker can make the most profound statements with visuals, budget notwithstanding.

One of my favorite tricks up the filmmakers sleeve is the use of film stock itself. Every time an advance in technology was achieved, the filmmaker had yet another possibility to play around with it to achieve their vision. Think of Douglas Sirk and his arguably surreal use of technicolor or the 16mm black & white film favored in the early work of Jim Jarmusch; the stock itself becomes a silent narrator, it’s own particular mannerisms contributing to our emotional reaction of the story lines and plot points.

Let’s take a look at a few films and filmmakers who have taken stock, filters and the D.I.Y. approach one step further to achieve their unique look.

Film Stock

Buffalo 66 (1998) written and directed by Vincent Gallo is an amazing film in its own right as anyone who’s seen it knows. It was indeed a labor of love and like all films had its budget wall — when the proposed music budget was added up, it came to $22,000 dollars and Vincent had to settle for $11,000, throwing in $6,000 of his own cash to secure the Yes and King Krimson tracks he wanted for the film.

His other mainstay was that it be shot on color reversal film which had to be manufactured as it normally doesn’t exist. It’s a good thing he stuck to his guns on this one because the result is very impressive,  giving the film a washed out look straight out of the 50s/60s tinged with a lovely gloss:

Fort Apache (1948) directed by John Ford is certainly not an art film and yet his constant attention to detail throughout his career certainly separates his westerns from the standard fare. A great director in his own right, Ford was never shy to embrace technology and apply it to his vision. Although the video clip available here doesn’t come close to a quality example of the film itself, Fort Apache has a wonderfully unique quality — the outdoor scenes were shot in infrared film, giving the landscape and clouds this stark, bright and crisp look with quite a bit more contrast than traditional film stocks could provide. Really lovely on DVD. Really crappy in this clip:

Rumble Fish (1983) is one of those films that slid right under the radar. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, it’s his second film adaptation of the work of author S. E. Hinton, the first being The Outsiders. It was shot directly after production ended on the Outsiders and even used a few of the same actors. Even though it was quite a bit more arty than its predecessor, its all-star cast and coat tail credibility based on the success of The Outsiders should have been enough to secure it somewhere on someone’s required viewing list but no. Shot in black & white (completely unheard of in 1983) with small bursts of color footage and colorized elements (think brightly colored Siamese fighting fish in a b&w fishtank) combined with it’s flamboyant West Side Story style blocking and dialogue, it was just a little too ahead of its time to be a hit. Look closely for the small burst of color in the trailer:

Filters

Traffic (2000) in my opinion changed everything. Directer Steven Soderbergh had to really fight to get this film made not only because of the controversial subject of drug trafficking but for his concept of separating the three storylines within the film using three different colored filters — one for each story. Although there was nothing new about lens filters, they were mostly used for music videos, sci-fi scenes and plenty of student art films and at best used to control lighting issues in mainstream films. Producers were naturally a little concerned about a 2 & 1/2 hour film about drugs with these drastic ‘color coded’ storylines.

The effect did give the film a distinct look. A look that was so fresh it was quickly used by everyone and soon became normal. From T.V. shows like CSI to countless modern horror films, filters are everywhere — thanks to the success of Traffic and Soderbergh (who also shot the film under a false name):

Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (1997) like all Guy Maddin films, Twilight of the Ice Nymphs has that very distinct, altered look — dusty film, black & white film shot on ancient cameras (sometimes coming out sepia or blue). However, this film deviates from his previous efforts in that area to a more cotton candy dreamscape reality created through lighting, unorthodox camera settings and filters resulting in a color explosion with wonderful bleeds and blurs.

What we see in this clip is the classic vaseline around the corner of a lens trick (sorry about the French guy talking over it):

D.I.Y.

Decasia (2002) is a film constructed by Bill Morrison using reels of old decayed nitrate film containing silent films circa 1900s. Nitrate film is quite unstable and if old reels are not properly stored they either catch on fire or rot. Decasia takes advantage of these barely surviving reels by weaving their various states of decay together into something that is pure art. Lacking any plot, what we see are random images from forgotten films reels, aged and decayed and slowed down for maximum enjoyment. Beautiful damage becomes the only reoccurring character throughout this amazing film:

Mothlight (1963) made by Stan Brakhage. No treatise on treated film would be complete without mentioning Stan Brakhage. His hands-on approach, literally painting and pasting onto film stock has produced some truly unique material. Mothlight consists of moth wings and moth parts glued to 8mm film and run through the projector to achieve the fabulous result we see here:

Conclusion

With the advent of digital technology, filmmakers are no longer tied to the limitations of the camera and much less dependent on the advances in film stock as a medium.  From complicated CGI to the simplest plug-in, we can create (virtually) endless canvasses to paint on, and count on a healthy amount of possibilities in post production, possibilities a few of the above mentioned film never had. These films stand out because they all share forethought in their pre production. Forethought in exactly how they would achieve the very fixed style they were seeking. I know for myself that I can easily include the very concept of possibilities when thinking of style for a particular project instead of choosing from possibilities to form a set of rules to work with.

From motion graphics to film making to graphic design, we can all take something away from the concepts demonstrated in these films, particularly that the medium itself can play a key roll in conveying a message. Further still, by altering that medium and therefore giving the medium more prominence, we give it a distinct personality in which to deliver our message.

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AntiVJ is a visual label that I’ve recently come to know of and respect. Conceptualized by European-based visual artists; AntiVJ explores the uses of stereoscopy, holographic illusions, projected light and other progressive forms of visual stimuli that really push the envelope on live Audio / Visual performances.

AntiVJ is currently working with Principles of Geometry (a French retro-futurist electronic group), in collaboration to produce & perform a live stereoscopic audio / visual show, featuring 50 minutes of some of the most beautiful animation that I’ve seen in a very long time. Although you won’t be able to fully appreciate the beauty of their stereoscopic animation without experiencing it live (or in an iMax theatre), you can most definitely sample a taste of what can be expected during one of their live performances by viewing their teaser. »

Principles of geometry + AntiVJ: a stereoscopic show from AntiVJ on Vimeo.

To learn more about AntiVJ, or the Principles of Geometry, please visit http://www.antivj.com & http://www.myspace.com/principlesofgeometry. Thanks for reading.

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As human beings, we are intrigued and somewhat obsessed with technology and the future; robots in science fiction is a reoccuring theme often used in films to depict the future, and perhaps soon enough, may become an everyday reality.

When we see humanlike robots in films or even in real life, we may naturally try to empathize with them. There is, however, a thin line and if the robot becomes too humanlike for our liking, our emotions make a strong u-turn into repulsion. This measurement of repulsive response is called the Uncanny Valley, a hypothesis introduced by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970. On a graph, the valley is a dip in positivity of human reaction.

Realistic character rendering from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Wikipedia sums up The Uncanny Valley in these words:

…as a robot is made more humanlike in its appearance and motion, the emotional response from a human being to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong repulsion. However, as the appearance and motion continue to become less distinguishable from a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-to-human empathy levels.

Hypothesized emotional response of human subjects is plotted against anthropomorphism of a robot, following Mori's statements. The uncanny valley is the region of negative emotional response towards robots that seem "almost human". Movement amplifies the emotional response. -MacDorman, 2005.

The Uncanny Valley in Films

The uncanny valley effect is very evident in films, particularly in CGI animated fare. Examples that best represent this are Beowulf, The Polar Express, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and hinted at in the trailer, the forthcoming Avatar. The film industry takes this concept very seriously as negative reactions from moviegoers could hurt their bottom line. This is an interesting topic as a double-edged sword; audiences may feel let down if they think the CGI animation in a film is subpar or not detailed enough, however, if the filmmakers create too much realism, that could teeter into an uncanny valley effect.

Screen shot from Beowulf

Perhaps we’d like there to be clearer distinctions between the real and the artificial. Through the ever-advancing technology in moviemaking, the boundaries have been blurred to uncomfortable levels for some audiences. We see something that looks humanlike (such as any of the characters from the aforementioned films) but we know they aren’t human actors and it’s jarring as we try to comprehend this.

This doesn’t apply to computer generated animals, objects, or non-homosapiens for that matter; I mean nobody would be repulsed by Woody from Toy Story right? But make a computer generated human too human and the rules have changed.

Why?

It has been suggested that there are several reasons that underpin this theory, but the most interesting I have come across is the idea that these uncanny robots remind us that we aren’t immortal and death awaits us all. Morbid as it may sound, we begin digging our graves as soon as we’re born, and so we create defense mechanisms to deal with this. Meanwhile, an uncanny robot comes along and somehow raises our subconscious thoughts to the surface, using our own fears against us. We fear that we’re all just predetermined machine-like beings with little control over anything. A subject matter cleverly discussed in The Matrix.

Closely linked to our fear of death is the notion that we’re all replaceable, especially as we bear witness to astounding scientific achievements over the years. Couple this with films such as Artificial Intelligence, I, Robot, The Terminator, and The Matrix and we’d be right to think that robots and technology will be able to outlive and outsmart us in all walks of life. As a highly intelligent and evolved species who have fought hard for our survival, it is natural that we would feel threatened by uncanny robots, so seeing them on-screen might aggravate our fears and insecurities.

How Far Should We Go?

The challenge for designers and filmmakers is, how far should they go? Perhaps the answer lies in context. For example, if a robot lives in genres such as fantasy and science fiction, then we may be able to cognitively accept it as looking lifelike, but due to the environment, we are always aware that it isn’t. On the flipside, imagine the same robot in 2009 walking through an iconic city, and it suddenly becomes intimidating and real, at which point we walk through the valley of revulsion.

Screen shot from Polar Express

Closing

This is a complicated topic with many more theories and discussion points that I urge you to investigate further. This subject isn’t only skin deep and it raises many questions about the human psyche and the world we live in. It also begs us to question our reality. Film is one medium where reality and fiction blend but is this true of our everyday lives?

For all we know we might be walking amongst uncanny robots already, after all, how would we know?

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Martin – 1977

U.S. Dir: George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Sans fangs and bats, Martin put a unique spin on the traditional vampire film. Instead of the monster living next door, we find an average young man living a lonely and depressing life and sadly addicted to blood. His twisted and often pathetic bursts of violence shock you, but you really end up feeling the worst for poor Martin.

The Hunger – 1983

U.K. Dir: Tony Scott (True Romance, Man on Fire). Netflix, Wikipedia.

This film was not liked much by critics who seemed to have a problem with its semi erotic moments and while it’s true that it’s not the greatest film in the world (Scott’s next movie would be Top Gun), it’s well worth seeing. Sultry Catherine Deneuve plays an ageless vampire. David Bowie plays her aging vampire boyfriend and along comes Susan Sarandon unknowingly to take his place.

The Reflecting Skin – 1990

U.K. Dir: Philip Ridley (The Krays, The Passion of Darkly Noon). Wikipedia.

This wonderfully absurd film never really admits it’s a vampire film. Instead, we meet a cast of characters who may or may not be vampires; except for the lady who says she’s a vampire. Seth is sure she’s a vampire. He’s pretty sure everyone’s a vampire. Favorite line: “Why don’t you go play with your friends?” / “I can’t. They’re all dead.”

Near Dark – 1987

U.S. Dir: Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, Strange Days). Netflix, Wikipedia.

This movie is so much better than From Dusk Till Dawn I can’t believe they even bothered making it. Fast, harsh and bloody as hell. Oh, and it’s even a love story. Sort of. Look for a particularly great scene of a new vampire drinking blood from another vampire’s wrist while a large oil pump pumps away in the background.

Blood for Dracula – 1974 (AKA Andy Warhol’s Dracula)

Germany/U.S. Dir: Paul Morrissey (Flesh, Trash, Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Classic exploitation. Like most of his films it’s completely disgusting. Originally rated X for it’s gratuitous sex and violence, it’s actually less insane than Morrissey and Warhol’s 1973 Flesh for Frankenstein (AKA Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein) which permanently warped my brain.

The Lost Boys – 1987

U.S. Dir: Joel Schumacher (Falling Down, The Number 23). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Loaded with star power, The Lost Boys was more of a romp than a horror film. After all, nothing with the Two Coreys could be scary. The lost boys worked well in the theater because it had the star power, but it also had a strong story which relied on intrigue rather than shock and avoided sex and gore. Probably a good idea because by 1987, horror movies were so common place, there was hardly anything shocking about them.

Fright Night – 1985

U.S. Dir: Tom Holland (Child’s Play, The Stranger Within). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Fright Night was a fun hybrid of horror and 80s comedy — just a little too dark to be funny and too silly to be serious. Full of eccentric characters, it’s fun enough that you don’t even mind the terrible special effects. The plot moves around Charley who is pretty sure his neighbor is a vampire. His parents don’t believe him. The cops don’t believe him. Will a washed up actor who hosts a local late night horror film showcase believe him?

Vampire’s Kiss – 1989

U.S. Dir: Robert Bierman. Written by Joseph Minion (After Hours). Netflix, Wikipedia.

And Finally, one of my all time favorites, Vampire’s Kiss. Nicholas Cage plays power hungry yuppie Peter Loew who is quite possibly going insane. He’s also pretty sure he’s turning into a vampire after a series of meetings with the mysterious Jennifer Beals. And like a character from a Paul Auster novel, we watch on as Loew slowly loses all grasp of reality. Esoteric dialogue, a strong supporting cast and Cages performance all meshed to make Vampire’s Kiss an instant cult classic.

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SECONDARY ACTION

Secondary action is used to enhance the primary action. Secondary action will often give your primary action much more impact, but if overused, it will only muddle what is going on and confuse the viewer. If this happens, you should consider removing the secondary action or staging the scene differently.

Maxim Zhestkov / art film / personal project / 2006 (click to view QT video in new window)

Maxim Zhestkov’s works are great examples of using secondary action to enhance simple actions, all while using simple shapes. In the linked example above, there is a simple action: a circle moving across the screen, but it is only made interesting using the focal point due to the secondary actions of the other circles when they react.

Secondary action can take place before, during or after the primary action. The start of a secondary action during a major action can go unnoticed and the value will be lost, so staging once again must be considered to ensure that it is always obvious while not overshadowing the primary action.

TIMING

Timing refers to the number of frames it takes to complete an action. This becomes very important because of all the factors you have to take into account when planning for it. If you are making something move fast, you have to make sure that it’s still legible to the viewer, and if it’s a slow movement, it should hold their attention. Also, depending on the use of either fast or slow actions, you can establish moods of franticness, lethargy, energy, assuredness, excitement, nervousness, relaxation and drama.

Most importantly, timing can establish a sense of weight. A heavier object will take more time to ease into a motion and change directions, while a light object has less mass and is much more influenced by a force like wind and can change direction, stop and start much more quickly. Sometimes it is a good exercise to try to view the objects in your scene as silhouettes and try to tell from the timing if you can still get a sense of what that object is.

EXAGGERATION

Exaggeration may be one of the hardest concepts to master. Exaggeration doesn’t mean that everything should look like a Saturday morning cartoon. The concept is to find the most important ideas, emotions or concepts in the shot and enhance them until there is no doubt what is being communicated. You may want to think of this as the same technique that a caricature artist uses, finding the most identifiable parts of something and enhancing it until those few parts are the focus and everything else is just the periphery; connecting the pieces together. This can be done through not only animation, but through color usage, lighting, staging, sound design, typefaces or the shape of the objects. Some of these can be used selectively, but they should always work in harmony with each other to create the message. If one of the elements don’t fit, you will still get the feeling that something is wrong even if you aren’t able to pick out exactly what was off.

This Air Jordan commercial uses the lighting, time manipulation, sound design, and staging to enhance the drama. You can see in the altered version below that by changing the timing back to normal, balancing the color, and removing the sound, the impact is lost when you aren’t allowed to key in on the reactions of the people and focus in on Jordan’s slowed-down moves. The five scenes don’t really seem like much when the original 30 second spot is cut down to 12 seconds.

APPEAL

I like to think of this principle as the “make it look great” principle. This doesn’t mean that you need to apply realistic lens flares, have huge 3D models with fluid simulations and use the latest Trapcode and Sapphire plug-ins. You just need to make something that holds a person’s interest throughout and communicates your message. Simple, right?

Appeal should always be dependent on the audience and the message you are trying to communicate. There’s no universal rule or style that works for every project; it’s really up to the designer to be able to justify why their pitched idea is the best solution to communicate the message.

In these next examples, you will see very different approaches all conveying a message that’s interesting to watch from beginning to end.

Conclusion

All of these concepts are designed to help you better communicate your visual ideas, whether you’re an animator or designer. The tools are easy enough to learn, but the goal is understanding how to use them to deliver a message that is clear, convincing and hopefully interesting enough to take your work to the next level.

I hope that this short series of posts has been clear, informative and applicable to what you do. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments below. Also, the Fuel Your Motionography team would love to see you putting “the principles” to practice. If you have anything you want to share with the community, we’d love to have you join our flickr group and upload your work. It’s a great way to get your work out there and receive feedback.

For anybody interested in animation, I would highly suggest finding a copy of Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston’s The Illusion of Life which this article is based on. Often referred to as the bible of animation, it is full of insight on the animation process and stories behind some of Disney’s greatest works.

REFERENCES:

Thomas, Frank and Johnston, Ollie, Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, Abbeville Press, New York, 1981

All of the linked videos are property of their respective owners.

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There will be a Gallery Showing of works with hands-on stations at The Grassy Knoll Gallery in Portland, Oregon from 7pm-9pm on Thursday, October 29th. If you can’t meet the deadline – make something anyway! There will be an online gallery to feature all works as they are completed.

Sita Cries a River in The Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told

The only rules:

1. The final piece must have some sort of audience interaction, and be playable in a web browser.
2. You must release the source code under the same license as the content (CC-BY-SA)

You can leave comments, questions and works-in-progress on the official page: The Interactive Open

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I met Jonathan Houser, founder of Cinemek, when I was in Seattle for a meeting of the Northwest Audiovisualists (NWAV). He showed me the G35, an aftermarket 35mm lens adaptor for Digital Video cameras. Little did I know he would soon be releasing Hitchcock, the first Storyboarding app for the iPhone.

Hitchcock is an amazing application – you can take photos on-location, add stand-in actors, camera directions like zoom, pan and dolly, record notes or temp voice, write in descriptions, and more. Once done, you can view the result, with a timer running at the bottom – change shot timing, view again, swap shots, and then export as a PDF (video export is coming in an update).

I bought and installed the app and had some fun shooting locations around my house and putting together short animatics. This exploration got me wondering about how it could be useful from an animator’s perspective. Hitchcock’s focus is on Filmmakers – what would a similar application built for animators look like? I set off to discover what animation tools existed on the iPhone.

DIGGING INTO iPHONE ANIMATION UTILITIES

I found that there are mainly two types of Animation apps currently available for the iPhone – Character Animation apps, which tended to be very specific and limited in their scope, and Flipbook apps, which are mostly the same, with a few features setting similar apps apart.

Character Animation Apps

Puppet Animation allows you to add deformers to pictures and move, swing, scale and bounce distinct areas in realtime, or set loops. It’s something like a simplified version of the Puppet tool in After Effects. You can export an animated GIF when you’re all done, as seen above.

Stick It Action is all about making stick figures fight. It’s another interesting example of what could be done with skeleton rigs and purpose-driven animation – there’s an assortment of guns to fire, and tools set up to aim them, start and stop firing, etc.

Tappy Typing puts you in control of an interactive character. It’s not a utility, per se, but a set of animations for a character. It’s an example of an engine that could be a great tool in a larger program, with the addition of some skinning and keyframing abilities.

FlipBook Apps

By far, this was the most populated category of animation apps that I found in the App Store. Most of the applications look very similar, with only small feature differences. One particular application stood out from the pack in terms of its feature set:

Flickmation – I almost wrote it off due to a clunky-looking interface and lack of video examples on the website, but its feature set was intriguing. Besides painting and drawing, Flickmation offers fill tools, layers, onion skinning, stamps (reusable objects), copy/paste and a Java app to transfer files to and from the application. You can create PNG files on your computer, including an 8-bit alpha channel, and load them into Flickmation for animating. You can also export video to your local machine via the included Java application, as an AVI video or a PNG sequence.

After playing with it for an hour, it shows real promise as a start. The interface could benefit from a full facelift – it makes sense but it’s all over the place, visually, especially compared with the refined graphics of Hitchcock. I also found a pretty bad bug that repeatedly caused crashing when turning on onion skin options.

More flipbook apps for further investigation:

• Kineo
• Flip It
• FlipBook
• Animation Creator
• Cartoon Creator
• LED Animator
• Anime Maker
• RanRan Draw

CONCLUSION

It turns out that there’s really nothing like Hitchcock aimed more squarely at animators. Reading the Cinemek forums, I found that there are two animator-friendly features that will be included soon – additional angles for actor stand-ins, and importing external images. They may well add enough features to allow for real animation and editing, only time will tell.

Investigating all of these applications has at least given me a better idea of what would be useful for me in a Mobile Animation application:

• Reuseable Items – like Library items in Flash
• Keyframes – the ability to set start and stop points for the above items
• Onion Skinning – great for frame-by-frame animation
• Lip Sync – a couple of apps I saw had some interesting solutions for faking mouth movements based on audio
• Puppet Deformation/Animation – the ability to bring life to characters and sketches

If I’ve missed something that you would love to see in a mobile animation app, tell me about it in the comments.

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STRAIGHT AHEAD ACTION and POSE TO POSE

Straight ahead action and pose to pose are two approaches to animating in 2D animation. With straight ahead action, the animator starts at the beginning of a scene knowing what actions must take place, then draws each frame sequentially. This approach allows the animator to improvise as he goes along and will usually give your animation a bit of spontaneity.

In this scene from the animated film The Iron Giant, a straight ahead action technique was used most to animate the jittery child (~31 second mark), and allows more of a free-flowing stream of consciousness feel to the shot.

Pose to pose animation is the most common approach used with modern animation using After Effects and 3D suites. With this technique, you set keyframes to create keyposes at determined times. Unlike 2D cel animators, you do not have to draw inbetweens (also known as tweening) between keyposes as After Effects will create these for you. While it may reduce your workload, it can also produce unexpected results. In my workflow, I like to review both shot and keyframe in the storyboarded key poses that I know I have to hit. I then go through and give it a second pass of keyframes, still trying to keep my timelines as clean as possible. Finally, I repeat the application of more passes of keyframes as needed. This process of animating in passes ensures that you maintain proper timing and helps eliminate unnecessary keyframes that can make revisions a giant headache.

If given more complex objects like human character models to animate, I often try to break down passes into parts. Looking back to the robot jumping example in Part 1, I would first do a pass of animating just the position. When previewing a stiff character, you can still get a good idea if the animation is too fast or slow. Then, I like to move to animating the driving force; in this case the legs and torso, which allows the character to get from point A to B. Next, I would do a pass of animating the arms and head which help to flesh out the character’s anticipation, squash and stretch, and follow through (see next section). Now with a full rough animation, I will go through and add more passes to smooth out the inbetweens.

FOLLOW THROUGH

Anticipation, action, and follow through are the three stages of an animation. An action that comes to an abrupt end without follow through often feels unnatural, as if the object has lost all sense of mass, volume and velocity.

Just like you would account for in the anticipation and action stages, you have to think of the objects in terms of the same properties of volume, mass, velocity and weight distribution when animating follow through.

We’ll look at this animation from a recent project I had worked on as an example of follow through. As Kobe hangs on the rim after he dunks, his body and legs rocks back and forth from the momentum of his jump. Even without using the cutout model that the treatment called for, you can still get a sense of reality due to the movement on the swinging animation.

There are a few expressions that you can use in After Effects that will help automate some of these animations, but I believe that at times they can lack a natural feel to them no matter how mathematically correct they are.

SLOW IN and SLOW OUT

Slow in and out or ease in and out as it is most often referred to in motion graphics is used to distribute the inbetween frames between keyframes. The effect of this technique is most easily represented in a spline keyframe graph.

You can see that the ease ins and outs on the magenta circle gives the action a much less mechanical feel and allows you to have more natural feeling stop when actions like follow through are not available.

ARCS

When using the pose to pose process of animation, you will often get animation that is very robotic feeling where objects will move from point to point and lack a natural arcing motion. These actions lacking arc often feel as if they lack a sense of weight.

Arcs can be added to your animation by turning on bezier handles to your keyframes. You can create much smoother animations without having to add more keyframes to your timelines.

Using bezier handles in After Effects to create a circular motion path

Conclusion

All of these concepts are designed to help you better communicate your visual ideas, whether you’re an animator or designer. The tools are easy enough to learn, but the goal is understanding how to use them to deliver a message that is clear, convincing and hopefully interesting enough to take your work to the next level.

The finale, or Part 3 of this series to be published next Wednesday will cover secondary action, timing, exaggeration, and appeal. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.

REFERENCES:

Thomas, Frank and Johnston, Ollie, Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, Abbeville Press, New York, 1981

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In my last post, I featured a handful of visually alluring motion reels, including that of Paris motion studio Gkaster. Pierre Magnol, the founder of Gkaster, is not easy to track down, but I’ve managed to finagle a brief interview with the man behind the stunning portfolio. Pierre mentioned that he’d be posting his latest reel any day now (which has got me on tenterhooks), but unfortunately we’ll have to wait just a little longer. Meanwhile, for those of you who haven’t seen Gkaster’s reel, feast your eyes:

PIERRE MAGNOL, IN HIS OWN WORDS:

Hi! My name is Pierre Magnol. I’m a graphic designer and animator. I founded Gkaster.com studio with Pierre Fabre (typographer and also mattepainter). I have a wide range of experience because I am self-taught. I started as an editor for Canal plus, then worked for Ultime, Limoges (where I discovered motion design) as an editor, a special effects specialist and multimedia project director. After that I became a freelancer and took my first step into motion graphics as a director with my first company name, Kurtzmedias. I did a lot of short movies and contemporary productions, even “corporate” animation.

THE INTERVIEW

First of all, thank you for this interview. Who and/or what inspired you to become a motion designer?

The movies Bladerunner, Tron, Akira, and conceptual designs of Syd Mead. There are no specific things that I could point out in those masterpieces, but it’s a global approach; about the design, the interfaces, the perception of the future, and the robotics that I really like.

How did you get started in this industry?

I’m totally self-taught. First, like many others, I learned a lot of things through forums where you can find many tutorials and very pleasant people who share their time and expertise with you. I would like to thank Creative COW and many other forums like it.

With the many disciplines you’re involved in, which has been your favorite to explore, and for what reasons?

Gkaster’s main discipline is to make motion design, and the second is the reason why I partnered with Pierre Fabre, to promote his skills in matte painting and his approach to typography. Today, what’s most important for us is to simply create images and pictures, whether they move or not.

What advice would you give to young creatives just starting out in motion design?

I have no specific advice, sorry. :) But you know, I would say, it’s a mix between a bunch of hours in front of our screens, trying to learn new techniques, a lot of emails and rendezvous trying to promote our works. It’s also nice meeting with people through the internet who give you advice about your works, and on and on… there are no specific secrets, just passion and coffee. :)

Where do you go for design inspiration?

I have no specific place I go. I take a look everywhere on the internet, and within many art fields. Like everybody I guess :). I take a peek from time to time at Computer Luv, Motionographer, Mograph Forum, and so on. In France, we have FUBIZ. But you know, you have plenty of other web sites which talk about contemporary arts and architecture.

How do you typically start a new project?

Like everybody, with an empty screen.

What are the tools you couldn’t live without?

My tools:

• A MAC
• After Effects
• CINEMA 4D  (a special thanks to Peder Norrby, creator of Trapcode plugins)

Is there an area of the creative world you wish you were more active in?

Film, I mean I recently bought a camcorder and I started to film the nature around me; it’s a great experience.

What have you found to be the most effective ways to market yourself to potential clients?

All the websites I talked about, motionographer and others, they are well known and give you the opportunity to be seen all the over the world.

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Rankin Bass Production Identity Spot (1975)

Source via: http://www.youtube.com/user/JohnnyL80

Thundercats

Silverhawks

Tigersharks

The Hobbit

The Return Of The King

The Flight Of Dragons

Thank you very much for viewing / reading. Although I would very much have liked to provide more history into the Rankin Bass production studio; their history is rather long & controversial, involving some pretty nasty, unethical decisions by Warner Bros. I’m afraid that would certainly have resulted in getting really side-tracked, and could have easily resulted in a post in and of itself. So if you’d like to learn more about the history of Rankin Bass, please visit RankinBass.com « (I know that site is super atrocious, but… well, there’s really no excuse).

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For more than a century, Polish Poster art painted a chronology of Poland’s social, political, and historic landscape. By the end of World War II, eight out of every ten buildings in Warsaw was destroyed. The Stalinist era marked an artistic shift to Socio-Realism, a movement which depicted social & racial injustice and economic hardship. From the 50s into the 80s, cultural events such as film, opera, and theatre became the impetus behind the memorable poster work. This was a period that became known as the Polish School of Posters, a time when the Communist State maintained a strict censorship policy on all printed media. In expression of their opposition, Polish artists created posters of irony, surrealism, and elements of abstraction, setting a new path for artistic innovation and international admiration. Warsaw, gray and crumbled by destruction, served as a backdrop to the miles of colorful posters plastered onto construction fences; fences of posters that would represent Poland’s struggle for unbridled freedom.

Left: Tadeuz Trepkowski Nie! (1952); Right: Jan Lenica Wozzeck (1964)

Left: Waldemar Świerzy - Midnight Cowbow (1973); Right: Mieczysław Górowski - Police (1982)

Freedom on the Fence

The documentary Freedom on the Fence, directed by Andrea Marks and Glenn Holsten, captures the paradox of how this unique art form flourished within a Communist regime. The film has been shown at several film festivals including the Santa Fe Film Festival and the Los Angeles Polish Film Festival. The documentary is being shown as part of an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, running from May 2009 through November 2009.

Every kind of restriction brings creativity. – Rafal Olbinski

Interview with Andrea Marks

Andrea Marks is currently an Associate Professor and the coordinator of the Graphic Design program at Oregon State University. She received a BFA in graphic design from University of the Arts in Philadelphia and did her post-graduate work at the Basel School of Design in Basel, Switzerland. Her interests in design curriculum extend to exploring new ways in which students engage in learning. Her ebook Writing for Visual Thinkers was published in 2008 by AIGA/New Riders Press, and explores the many ways artists and designers can use writing in their work.

I spoke with Andrea Marks about the documentary, what inspired her, and her own challenges in making the film.

Why Polish posters?

I am often asked this question. I first became aware of Polish posters through a former Polish student of mine at Oregon State University named Anka Kolodziej. She and I worked on an exchange project together between graphic design students at OSU and students at the Warsaw Academy of Art. Students in both schools created posters on the theme of air and water and then sent them to one another’s school for an exhibition. It was during this time that Anka introduced me to some of her books on Polish posters. Not only were the posters amazing visually, but I also found the story of how and why these posters flourished in Communist Poland very interesting.

Left: Franciszek Starowieyski - Lulu (1980); Right: Wiktor Górka - Cabaret (1973)

Stasys Eidrigevicius - Film Poster, Zwierciadło (Reflection) 1989

How did you prepare and research for the film?

Since I am a graphic designer by training and had not made a film before, I contacted Glenn Holsten, a friend of mine who is an independent filmmaker in Philadelphia. I pitched the story to him and he was interested in collaborating. I read a few articles and looked over the books Anka provided, but I soon realized that I needed to go to Poland to meet the artists and see if they were interested in being part of the film. I also wanted to make sure the story was interesting enough for a documentary. In 1998, I applied for a grant from IREX, an international grant organization, for funds to travel to Poland for a pre-production trip, and with the $2,500 grant, three of us traveled to Poland for an intensive two-week trip to meet artists. The mistake we made was going there in November, one of the coldest and grayest months. I knew that when we eventually returned to shoot the final film, we absolutely needed to return in the summer! Glenn brought a very low-end video camera and shot footage that was useful in creating a short presentation. My thought all along with this project was that it could take some time and it was important to have visual presentations at each stage. I used these presentations (a combination of video and multimedia) to give lectures on the topic and also for fundraising purposes. I think it is very important when embarking on a large and complex project to make short-term goals. This can help give you a sense of accomplishment along the way and also create interest for your project.

What kind of equipment and software did you use to shoot and edit the footage?

It actually took three more years to raise the money to shoot the final footage. I returned to Poland in the summer of 2002, with Glenn and Jeff Hino, another friend who is a videographer at my university. In order to keep costs down and make travel easier, we shot the Poland footage with a small Canon Digital camera and rented a set of lights and a monitor in Warsaw. Editing was done for the most part in Final Cut Pro.

What were some of the key challenges faced before, during and after the filming?

I am a graphic designer, so a key challenge for me was to learn about the various steps necessary in making a film. As producer of the film, I had to also figure out how to raise money for travel and production. Logistics were challenging in Poland. Neither Glenn or I speak Polish, so we had to hire a translator and it was a bit tricky organizing meeting meetings and interviews with artists. All of my interviews were done with a translator I hired in Poland and then I had to transcribe all interviews on paper. It was an incredibly tedious process that took dozens of hours, but it was the only way I could view the various voices and understand how to string these voices together to tell a story. Archival footage was an important element in the film and I hadn’t realized the expense before developing the story. Funds for the film were raised year by year and some years were better than others, so it was sometimes difficult to keep momentum going with the project year to year. Now that the film is done, the challenge has been finding the best avenue for independent marketing and distribution. The internet has been enormously helpful in getting the word out on the status of the film. I continue to receive emails from all over the world asking to be put on the mailing list when the film is released.

In what ways has this experience shaped your creative outlook and/or teachings?

As cliché as this may sound, I think the story of the Polish poster shows the strength of the human spirit, and it’s great to share that with my students. Polish posters gained international recognition for many reasons. On one level, these posters can be viewed for their pure, imagistic beauty. Students are typically very inspired by the visual strength of the Polish posters. I think the fact that they were drawn and painted, including the typography, speaks to the students of today. For many students, the idea of working off the computer on a poster is a bit of revelation. The next level is the content of the posters. Though these are for the most part cultural posters, announcing theater, film, opera, etc., the message on the poster is never literal. In fact, the posters are wonderful examples of how not to be literal, as they use metaphor, irony, satire and humor in very clever ways. The third level is examining the history and how the time period played a pivotal role in the development of these powerful posters. One might say that the added constraints of Communism and the fact that each poster had to go before a censor board pushed the artists to dig a little deeper. These are all inspirational pieces that I have taken away from the project and I share with my students.

What are you hoping to achieve with your film?

My intent was always to create a documentary for historic preservation, as the Fall of Communism brought radical changes to the Polish poster. Once cultural institutions became privatized, the numbers of posters commissioned really dwindled. I knew that the first generation of poster artists were also aging. Two of the older artists I interviewed, Wiktor Gorka and Henryk Tomaszewski have since passed away, and I feel very fortunate to have met them and documented their words. In fact, I may have had the last interview with Tomaszweski, one of the most influential artists in the history of the Polish posters. I think the film gives a glimpse into an important historical period that students may know little about. The film begins with black and white footage of the destruction of Warsaw during WWII. This is sobering stuff to watch, and helps set up the context for how these powerful posters sprung up on the streets. I also think the film works very well when shown in conjunction with an exhibition of Polish posters and I have realized that there is still an amazing amount of interest in Polish posters. The film is currently being shown with an exhibition of polish posters at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City through the end of November, 2009.

When will Freedom on the Fence be released?

The film will be released within the first couple of weeks of October and can be purchased from the website freedomonthefence.com. It has also been shown at several film festivals over the past year.

Any plans in the future for another film?

At this point, I am just working on keeping up with screenings, presentations and marketing of the film and haven’t given much thought to another project. Having said that, I do think there are so many great stories out there to be told about art and design and it is exciting to think about the possibilities of documenting them.

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This is the first in a 3-part series where we’ll look at the Principles of Animation, developed in the early years of Walt Disney animation as they were pioneering the young animation field. Today, I’ll show you how they can be applied to your motion design work.

While previously working at a broadcast and motion design boutique, I had to go through a stack of demos for an animator position. Within the first 15 seconds of each reel, I could tell which of the applicants had filled their reel full of the latest tutorials off sites like Video Copilot (no knock on the amazing tutorials by Andrew Kramer, I have probably watched through all of them myself and learned a lot). The animation reels that really stood out were the ones that displayed an understanding of weight, velocity, object interaction, anticipation and the use of animation to communicate a feeling or emotion.

In the growing landscape of online tutorials that promise to teach you how to create “amazing effect X” or “breathtaking effect as seen in movie Z”, it’s very easy to learn the tools of the motion graphics trade. By following a step-by-step guide, you can easily learn how to apply the latest plug-ins and what each of the settings do. These posts are not going to cover anything as exciting as that, but will examine a few basic but essential guidelines to improve your work.

SQUASH AND STRETCH

Squash and stretch is perhaps the most important principle as it sets up the rigidity, mass, volume and in more complex objects, the physical structure of an object. The most common example and exercise used in teaching this principle is in the bouncing ball animation as seen in the video below:

As you can see, the ball at its peak is a perfect sphere showing a state of transition from ascending and descending. As the ball falls, it becomes elongated to show the pull of gravity and at the same time, maintaining the same volume. The degree to which the ball becomes elongated tells you how rigid the object is. At the bounce, the ball immediately becomes squashed to show the impact and interaction between the ball and the floor. Once again, the ball maintains the same volume by becoming shorter as it grows wider. As the ball bounces and transfers its energy up, it transitions back to elongated. And finally, the ball transitions back to the perfect sphere shape as it reaches the next apex in the animation. This exercise can turn out looking a number of different ways when various levels of rigidity, volume, and velocity are applied.

Bouncing Ball Timeline with echo (Click for larger image)

In the next example, we’ll look at the application of squash and stretch and how it applies to a more rigid object like a robot.

Even though the skeleton of this robot consists of completely rigid parts, proper squash and stretch can still be used in which the robot’s joints fold as they land and stretch out while jumping outwards. Observe the shifting of volume and weight.

ANTICIPATION

Some of my favorite examples of anticipation come from old Wile E. Coyote cartoons. An example of anticipation is the moment where Wile E. Coyote stalls momentarily in mid-air after realizing he has stepped off a cliff, inevitably plunging to the bottom. Both you and Wile E. knew what action was coming before you even saw it. In some cases, anticipation can be more satisfying to see than the consequence itself. A prime example of this would be in animating a very fast moving object. In a pitcher’s throw, you expect to see a wind up preceding planned actions. The wind up in anticipation can be used to add a great deal of character to an action.

Example of the the anticipation action in a pitcher's throw. (Click for larger image)

Anticipation can also be used between multiple objects. One object may move in anticipation based on the action of another object. This interaction can be used to direct the viewer’s attention to the second object. Inversely, you can choose to omit anticipation to create a surprise, however, I’ve found that proper timing can still be referred to as anticipation.

STAGING

Staging is often referred to as composition in motion design. You should always stage so that only one message, action or idea is clearly the object of focus. Like in good graphic design, composition should be used to direct the eye and remove confusion. Obviously this can become either more complicated or easier due to the element of time. Unlike a poster, you can cut to a whole new composition and for a few seconds, key in on one element of a larger scene.

For motion designers using 3D applications, I have observed that it’s always everyone’s immediate instinct to create these large, sweeping and constant moving camera set-ups. Quite frankly, whenever I see that, my immediate reaction is to think that this person isn’t disciplined enough to ask themselves which composition is best to communicate the message. Sometimes fast sweeping cameras are the correct solution but most often it isn’t. Resist the urge.

Staging tips:

• Use thirds
• Point to the desired area
• Use contrast (lighting, movement, depth of field, etc.)
• Step away and look at it with a pair of fresh eyes
• Limit the action to one animation group at a time

Staging: Try to organize points of interests on either the intersections or along the lines. (Photo by Anthony Grimley)

Staging: Use depth of field to create a focus on your subject (Photo by Donovan Martin)

Staging: Example of leading the eye to a point. (Photo by John Mueller)

Staging: Shifting the point of view can elicit different feelings or moods. (Photo by Peter Allen)

Conclusion

All of these concepts are designed to help you better communicate your visual ideas, whether you’re an animator or designer. The tools are easy enough to learn, but the goal is understanding how to use them to deliver a message that is clear, convincing and hopefully interesting enough to take your work to the next level.

For anybody interested in animation, I would highly suggest finding a copy of Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston’s The Illusion of Life, which this article is based on. Often referred to as the bible of animation, it is full of insight on the animation process and stories behind some of Disney’s greatest works.

Part 2 of this series is all about animation. We’ll be taking a look at straight ahead and pose to pose animation, slow in and outs, follow throughs and arcs. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment below.

REFERENCES:

Thomas, Frank and Johnston, Ollie, Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life, Abbeville Press, New York, 1981

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If you’re familiar with the Adobe MAX conferences, you probably know what they are all about. However, if you’re like me, and you only think you know what the Adobe MAX conference is, it’s time to make plans for your next chance to attend.

This year, I talked quite a bit about the Adobe MAX conferences. Sure, they were coming to Los Angeles Convention Center. Sure, Adobe is a sponsor of my user group in Hollywood. Sure, I’ve been in a couple of Adobe groups myself. But when the opportunity to go to the Adobe MAX conference session came up, I thought that it wouldn’t really be for me. After all, I’m really good at all of that, so it’s not for me, right? Wrong.

Adobe MAX is not just a chance to sit in sessions and learn about a specific application of a tool or scripting device, it’s a chance to meet the masterminds behind the Adobe product you are particularly fond of. It’s an opportunity to listen to some advanced users talk about what new ideas and new resources are out there which you may have overlooked. And, perhaps more importantly, you’ll have a chance to sit with people who — like you — use and have a specific affinity for Adobe software.

Flash, Javascript, and AJAX

The heart of the conferences at Adobe MAX this year are dominated by Flash, JavaScript and AJAX. There is no doubt that more designers will be looking to coders to deliver our content to the world on mobile devices. While as designers, animators and compositors, we will need to consider the possibility of content that is accessible by Flash, and those Flash developers will have to start considering us non-coders.

Introduction of Adobe Flash Catalyst

Adobe has already started to consider us code-newbies. Today, Adobe announced the launch of Adobe Flash Catalyst. In this morning’s session, we discussed the ever changing definitions of participation and collaboration. And, while some of us are designers at the core, we need to consider the potential of a wider audience and how we can ensure our designs flow from our desks to the code writers’ labs.

Flash Catalyst allows Photoshop or Illustrator work to move directly into interactive prototypes without having to write any “real” code.  It can be published as is, or move into the hands of someone who knows what they’re doing with Flash to build simple interactive content or huge RIAs. If you can use Photoshop, chances are you’ll have no problem with Flash Catalyst.

Beta Release of Flash CS5

Also announced today were beta release news clips (and videos) of Flash CS5. Of course, once Adobe says “CS5″, it doesn’t matter if you are using Flash or any other product in the store, you know that the community goes crazy. Tomorrow, Adobe has more in store for their community of MAX’ers and the rest of you who couldn’t make it.

MAX is about community

Adobe is there for us, talking about work, talking about fun, talking about what’s ready to show, and; Adobe is listening to what their community of users is saying.

Forget about what you thought Adobe MAX was. It’s difficult to understand without being there. You still have 2 more days to grab a session pass and come to a panel discussion. After that, you’ll have to wait until 2010 for your next chance. This is more than connecting with the applications, it’s meeting people from South Africa, Korea, and Kansas City who all like to do the same stuff you like to do — and are really, really good at it.

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The ’70s might have been the heyday of the maverick filmmaker, but the ’80s still remains a creative decade in my opinion. Mega hits dominated the theaters, but beneath the surface, there were several lesser known but equally praised films and filmmakers whose techniques and qualities were simply too strange, odd, dreamy, morbid or beautiful to fit in with the mainstream. Call them art cinema, independent, cult or arthouse. I call them required viewing. Here are five noteworthy arthouse films:

1. WINGS OF DESIRE

1987. Germany/U.S.A. Dir: Wim Wenders (Paris Texas, The Million Dollar Hotel). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Why you need to see it: Simply one of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen. Wenders employs a wide variety of fresh ideas onto the screen, getting outstanding performances from his actors. Peter Falk playing himself and being the only character to sense the angels that roam the city will always impress me. Shot in black & white and color, its euphoric feel is further emphasized by the haunting soundtrack and source music.

2. BLUE VELVET

1986. U.S.A. Dir: David Lynch (Eraserhead, Mulholland Drive). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Why you need to see it: Just about everyone knows about Blue Velvet, but for some reason I keep meeting people who have never actually seen Blue Velvet. It’s quintessential ’80s arthouse and everyone really should see it at least once. Lynch works some of the most twisted ideas, characters and images into a lucid and compelling mystery. Visually stunning, well acted and another prime example of Lynch’s meticulous attention to sound design.

3. A ZED AND TWO NOUGHTS

1985. Britain. Dir: Peter Greenaway (The Cook The Thief His Wife & Her Lover, Drowning by Numbers). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Why you need to see it: Greenaway has this thing for flamboyant sets, heavy themes and even heavier imagery. His films are often as disturbing as they are beautiful; as shocking as they are pretentious. Zed is no exception. Between time-lapse footage of prawns decaying and pacing (sometimes legless) animals, we watch as two zoologists go mad after the death of their wives.

4. TALES FROM THE GIMLI HOSPITAL

1988. Canada. Dir: Guy Maddin (Twilight of the Ice Nymphs, Careful).  Netflix, Wikipedia.

Why you need to see it: Maddin’s use of altered film and sound are quite impressive to say the least. He can take us to just about anywhere in time and achieve any look with his technique. In his first feature length film, Gimli Hospital, he takes us to a rather odd and low budget place. Shot in black & white, the film plays like an 1940s horror movie without the horror.

5. VIDEODROME

1983. Canadian. Dir: David Cronenberg (Naked Lunch, Existenz). Netflix, Wikipedia.

Why you need to see it: Cronengerg’s nightmare visions defy category; dark enough to be horror, futuristic enough to be sci-fi. I think of his films as being smart enough and certainly surreal enough to be considered arthouse fare. Videodrome is one his more twisted films and like his earlier work, relies heavily on themes of mind control, secret organizations and humans with guns growing out of their hands. Disturbing but worth every minute.

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