Wednesday, July 30, 2014

diving giraffes

Passed along in email:

4 comments:

  1. Wonderful display of a high degree of Computer Animation Skill. The concept was creative, the animation smooth, clean and well executed. Points deducted for 1. The lack of a story. There was plenty of time wasted with lining up etc. that time could have been used to narrate a short story, 2. the background was too neat and sterile, no attempt to show any degree of naturalness. No straw, no poop, really?, 3. The unbelievability factor: the giraffes were all cooperating too well. Did they all graduate from the same Zen Monastery? Jeez!

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  2. BB -- I take your point, but have to say I like the ridiculousness of the perfections, whether prefabricated or not.

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  3. Genkaku -

    I did enjoy the diving giraffes video. It is a diplay of a high degree tecnhical virtuosity. It has a moderate sense of humor. It if were submitted as a project for a gradudate course or as an animation school final project I bet the team would have gotten an "A." I just don't believe that the sterile background was really an artistic statement; it was just convenient. More importantly, however too much effort went into the animation and not enough into story development.

    But then I remember short black and white and color from the 1950's and 1960's. Some of those cartoons had great cartoon art and great stories. I would not give today's animators a pass on the story.

    This is an issue we have been discussing in our extended family. We are trying to gently encourage a member who is a good story teller to follow her early dreams of getting involved in computer gaming and animation despite the fact that her mathematical skills and programming skills aren't bleeding edge. Encouragement is a tricky thing. Finding real opportunity can be harder.

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  4. BB -- Not to play the bleeding-heart Polyanna, but I have a hunch that for the storyteller, there is no denying stories that want to be told. It takes courage, perhaps, more than encouragement.

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