Literature Review (new)

Leonard [ND] wrote a short article about the role of CGI (Computer Graphic Imagery) in the film industry, how the image making process advanced and how it has evolved from lab to full scale productions, he also mentioned some names and their work in relation to films having special effects that were CGI.

In another research about the various technologies been used Turner [2002] says in the process of movie production technologies used are mostly unreliable; the author uses a term “patchy” for it.

He also said that the process of film making is still experiencing a transformation by technical means and soon will be replaced by new methods. Later on saying that we have become so obsessed to display CGI in movies that whether it’s a melodrama (Titanic) or a sword and sandal epic (Gladiator).

Further more about CGI taking film industry to a next level, Kevin Jackson [2006] wrote in his article that back in 1970’s movies like contemporary, based on real events were easy to make, shot fast, cheap and mainly on location where as Sci-fi movies required new technology and special effects which was hard to gather at that time. So as the author says that if you don’t have any such technology for those kind of movies then start building one. There fore George Lucas started to re-invent the nature of special effects from the scratch and the end result was a magnificent movie STAR WARS.

In another article by Joe Utichi [2008] talk about software called Render Man created by people from PIXAR, which transforms the whole process and produce such visual effects that can only be seen in one’s imagination. He also discusses about “bullet-time” the first computer generated visual effect (slow motion of firing a bullet) in “Matrix”.


He also says that building a huge arena and stuffing it with 4 million people is an impossible task o achieve, but that was accomplished by Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator”, whole film was aided by CGI who could forget the recreation of coliseum.


Adding more to the topic Michael Convoy [2009] wrote about a new technology that have been beneficial for a an up coming movie “AVATAR” and he believes that it has improved most of the method of motion capture. During filming the movie all of the actors have to worn a skull cap that captures facial expressions and afterwards transformed into CGI representations which means now virtual actors will also able to convey emotions with dexterity.

EFFECT OF CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) ON FILM AND ANIMATION INDUSTRY

Literature Review

Back in the early days movies or film making was used to be an impossible task or one should say unattainable task. Movie directors used to spend hours and hours on every scene every footage day in day out concentrating how to achieve that picture that is in their mind and put it on screen. Who ever comes up with that kind of result was known to be the Da-Vinci of that time.

In the early 1820’s most of the movies were simple without any effects none of them was out of this world. But the progress was still on, visual magic like “smoke and mirrors” were used to make illusions and trick effects that have startled audiences.

http://www.filmsite.org/visualeffects.html

“The phenomenon of persistence of vision (it was first describe to some degree in 1824 by British physician Peter Mark Roget) is the reason why human eye sees individual frames of a movie as smooth flowing action when projected“

Which means when ever there was such scenes having ghosts, flying objects, sudden disappearing or some super natural objects, smoke and mirrors were used in each frame to produce such effects that when projected force the audience to believe in it. That is because the scene was done so smoothly that any person would say yes it exists in real.

The First Cartoon:

It was a revolution in film industry the year was 1928 when a comic creator and animator named Walter Elias Disney first released a seven minute black and white cartoon “Steam Boat Willie”, was a first cartoon with a post produced synchronized sound track (music, dialogue and sound effects) that was said to be Mickey Mouse’s first debut performance.

Later on many achievements came one after another, animators also introduced colors increase sense f movement and depth. Some of the master pieces are……….

Snow white and the seven dwarfs (1937)

For its remarkable hand drawn animation

Hunch back of Notre Dame (1939)

For its extra ordinary matte paintings creating Notre dame cathedral and medieval Paris.

Thief of Baghdad (1940)

Made in United Kingdom achieve academy award for its special effects (photographic and sound).

Marry Poppins (1964)

First movie for its special visual effects

Terminator 2 Judgment Day

Famous for its multiple morphing effects

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

It was the first hyper real computer generated (CGI) feature length film based on entirely original designs.

The list goes on ………

Vark Questionnaire

Results

Your scores were:

• Visual: 4
• Aural: 8
• Read/Write: 8
• Kinesthetic: 6

You have a multimodal (VARK) learning preference.

INTAKE

To take in the information:

• lists
• headings
• dictionaries
• glossaries
• definitions
• handouts
• textbooks
• readings - library
• notes (often verbatim)
• teachers who use words well and have lots of information in sentences and notes
• essays
• manuals (computing and laboratory)

SWOT - Study without tears

To make a learnable package

OUTPUT

To perform well in any test, assignment or examination:

• Write exam answers.
• Practice with multiple choice questions.
• Write paragraphs, beginnings and endings.
• Write your lists (a,b,c,d,1,2,3,4).
• Arrange your words into hierarchies and points.

What I think about the questionnaire and its results:

A quite helpful tool with proper guidance and teaches how to improve your intake, it reminds me that whenever I wanted to learn something or to keep in my head I always write it down couple of times until it remain over there. It became such a habit that I have to write down dates, schedules, answers, and passwords even my own mobile number. After completing the questionnaire some of the advices are really helpful like to improve performance in assignments or exams writing exam answers, practicing MCQS and also writing paragraphs, beginnings and endings so it means I have to write a lot to keep it in my head.

Although this kind of evaluation form puts you into a certain class but in the end tells you what your strengths are, you’re weaknesses and how to improve it.

My Learning line

My learning line starts from middle school where I started my primary education and start to know what learning is like. In middle school there were all sorts of learning material and other things that I came to know like ancient Greek history, Geography and Islamic studies. Sometimes our teacher gives us assignment like cutting off clips from national geographic magazine and discusses it and present it in the class, so there was all kinds of fun stuff.

High school was different than the middle school because I didn’t have any choices in my modules that’s why I had to stick with biology and chemistry. I don’t know what the reason behind it but I was troubled every time, may be because of its difficult names, expressions used and long formulas. Although it was troublesome for me but whenever in lab performing a practical was always manage to finish it without any assistance. Even in College I had to choose between Pre Medical and Pre Engineering and still no optional modules.

My turning point was when I took admission in a Web Animation course and taught how to develop an Interactive Web page using some three common Tools, Macromedia Dream Weaver, Flash and Adobe Photoshop. Learning these tools, creating motion tween on symbols and designing web page layouts was really fun, since then I used to look for more similar courses so after that got admission in CDS (college of Digital and Management Sciences) where I have done my IDCS (International Diploma in Computer studies)and IAD (international Advance Diploma).

During my studies I did an Internship at a HV WEBMASTER where my tasks were developing WebPages on ASP uploading them, maintaining company’s website, fixing errors, uploading new products along with details, product images, news articles and adding new html pages to the site.

So this is my learning line up till now.