nistaani

Original Star Wars Effects Documentary

david — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:11:45 +0000

Here’s a great find from 1980 on the special effects on the first 3 Star Wars films as well as a few other films. Mark Hamill at one point explains that on Empire Strikes Back “some shots contain 38″ blue-screen elements. Put this up against today’s FX shots for blockbusters containing hundreds of elements if not more and you are reminded of how much you actually need to tell a story.

It’s great to see all the miniature sets and models they used. Oh and beards must have been mandatory at ILM in 1980.

The Art of the Japanese Manhole Cover

david — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 23:16:59 +0000

That sentence rates high on being able to make most folk turn and walk away when you mention it but wait! I came across this great blog post on the strange and surprising world of Japanese Manhole Covers. They really are a thing to behold. Each city has one or more unique designs ranging from icons of the city, abstract designs to the plain strange.

It also reminded me I had a couple of photos of the covers from my trip to Japan so had to share.

More here at http://www.kuriositas.com/2012/01/art-of-japanese-manhole.html

Re-design Live

david — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:00:24 +0000

With the new year well under-way I thought it was about high time for an update around here. Trying to make my portfolio a little …

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The Axis Of Evil Dead

david — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 09:25:00 +0000

Excellent work on this ‘fake’ movie trailer about the rise of Zombie Bin Ladin. What’s not to love?

http://zombinladen.com/

Game of Thrones VFX by BlueBolt

david — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:41:00 +0000

Really looking forward to season 2 of Game of Thrones already. Outstanding work from Blue Bolt on the VFX.

Redakai

david — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:47:49 +0000

First advert for the new card game Radakai has gone live. Composited and animated the deep image cards in this advert. The cards use a ‘Linticular‘ printing method to achieve a hologram effect and it was this that the produced wanted to enhance for the advert. Most of the work was done using displacement maps to turn the 2D artwork into something more representative of the cards.

Comaduster – Scrape Preview 03

david — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:57:00 +0000

This is an in progress demo for ‘scrape’, an audio visual piece I’m working on. I’ve performed a preliminary performance of it, but it is an on going learning process.
The visual focus is on macro videography, and all of the visuals are achieved completely with my camera (no 3d rendering or design).
I used a Canon T2i with a Tameron 90mm f2.8 macro, and a kenko extension tube set. Custom dollies were made with lego and rubber washers to smooth out the lego wheel motion.
The visuals are a little rough at the moment, very little post processing has been applied.
The visuals are matched with a dark ambient sound scape, but it later drifts in to glitch and micro house regions. Most of the drones and textures were created on a Eurorack modular and manipulated in Ableton Live.

Slowdance

david — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 16:05:00 +0000

Another cracking video from the Ghotly camp. Love the effort these guys put into everything outside of the actual music.

Video by Charles Bergquist

The Storm Theme

david — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 10:26:00 +0000

Excellent video from Damien Vignaux (elroy.fr). It’s giving me wonderful low budget ideas.

Rain, Rain and more Rain

david — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:09:16 +0000

In the spirit of pure irony all this sunshine in New Zealand has made me miss home in the strangest of ways. I needed a bit more practice with Particular so tried this effect. I also found a Binaural recording of a stormy, rainy night so if you have headphones give it a go. Might need to find a louder section in the 30 minute recording but for this I think it works well.