I wish I could draw » film

My Macro Morning

Spence — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 22:25:32 +0000

One of the cool things about living here in Pacific Grove is the wild forests. Kenna and I took a walk with the dogs yesterday and I brought my macro lens with a flash. It’s really hard to get the lighting correct and I’m realizing I need to hold the camera a LOT more still. Nonetheless, I think these turned out pretty cool. I love looking at these after I get back to the lab. You see stuff on the big screen that you don’t catch when you’re out in the field.

Another take on Predator

Spence — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:18:08 +0000

Robert Rodrigues is releasing a new Predator movie called, strangely, Predators. I was never a fan of the sequels to the totally entertaining 1987 original, but this looks like a fun ride.

Dog Boy Reviews Avatar

Spence — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:20:57 +0000

Really excellent facial animation work here. I’m not sure if this is an individual (if so, bravo!) or a studio trying for some kind of viral response.

More Panoramas

Spence — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 04:16:10 +0000

I took a walk down to the beach with my buddies Jason an Courtney a few months ago – just unloading the camera tonight. Photoshop’s autostitch tool is amazing.

This is a seadragon viewer available from none other than Microsoft (click the full screen icon, it’s cool). Their R&D guys are also amazing. Gosh.. that’s a lot of amazings..

SkyBoxes

Spence — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:37:25 +0000

Working on Skyboxes today.

Skyboxes are six images that are mapped onto a cube that follows the 3D camera around in a realtime 3D space. The skybox object is drawn first and then everything else is drawn on top of it. It simulates a big giant sky.

I’ll post a tutorial in a while, I need to get these done first:

Pano for iPhone

Spence — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:42:24 +0000

I found this cool little app for the iPhone the other day called Pano. It’s really very good at capturing quick panoramas.

This is my morning at the Aquarium:

Get it at the App Store.

Repo Men

Spence — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:17:21 +0000

Not a remake of the trippy 80’s cult film. Looks like a good ride film,… Jude Law as a muscleboy? Really?

A Paleontologists take on the critters of Pandora

Spence — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:06:14 +0000

Darren Naish, Tetrapod PHD fires off a really interesting scientists view of the creatures of the planet Pandora from James Cameron’s Avatar.

DayBreakers

Spence — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 19:38:11 +0000

Kenna and I went to see Daybreakers last night on a whim. If 70mm over-the-top blood explosions are your bag, this is the movie for you.

Directed by another Hollywood brother team, Michael and Peter Spierig, I got the feeling they watched Zombieland and the last Rambo movie a bunch of times before they shot this. I’m still unsure of whether they were attempting true horror or just going for the gross-out. Tons of “gotcha” moments where a bat flies by or something jumps out at you. So many, in fact, that by the ending bat fly-by with shriek, I didn’t even jump.

The makeup and creature VFX was done by Weta Workshop and was excellent but the post compositing of some of the outdoors shots and explosions by Postmodern in Sydney, AU looked pretty bad.

So unless you’re looking for in-your-face spatter on the big screen, you can probably wait for the DVD.

My 3-line Avatar review:

Spence — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 07:33:59 +0000

Best. Movie. Evar.