Animation and CGI in Cinema

• What are the Pros and Cons of Computer Generated Imagery?
pro-
CGI can enlarge the boundaries of the process in creation. Since it can makes impossible things in the past become possible at all. For example, the Avatar shows us a beautiful and mystic planet and the war scenes and creatures in The Lord of the Rings are so remarkable. So, CGI allows creator to be more creative. Besides, CGI helps producers to save money. This is because CGI can generate realistic setting and makeup.

A computer generated house image.

cons-
Although CGI  can generate a amazing virtual world, it is still virtual. Not every one, previous generation, like CGI movie since it is not real. Beside, actors' health may be harmed by CGI. This is because sometimes actors need to act like a animals or some special creatures, like apes in ''Rise of the Planet of the Apes'' and Gollum in ''the Lord of the Rings.  
   
 

• Will Computer Generated Imagery make actors obsolete? Yes or No? Why?
I don't think so. This is because CGI needs actors to make the movie more realistic. Although the actors in ''The avatar'' nearly all become another creatures and acting in a virtual world, I won't treat this film as cartoon and totally animation movie. Actors makes movie that using CGI become more real. And computer cannot brings us this feeling since actors are really real things and computer cannot generate real things . If there is only CGI in a movie, it is hard to make people enjoy in it.

A high-resolution active marker system with 3,600 × 3,600 resolution at 480 hertz providing real time submillimeter positions.

• Should digital characters be nominated for acting awards competing with humans?
I think they should not competing with human because it is not fair. Our decision may affected by the fantastic CGI since not every can be totally objective . Besides, it is hard for us to design who have a better performance between a actor and an apes which acting by a human.




• What are the advantages and disadvantages of motion capture?
Advantages-
ie is easy to create complex movement and realistic physical interactions. It also can deal with a large amount of animation data in a given time. So, it is effectiveness. It is easy to make everything digital, including the actors who just need to stand in front of the bluescreen in order to capture their movement.


Disadvantages-
There are specific hardwares and special programs are required to process the data. Besides,  the performance may not translate on to the computer model as expected.

• Should animation strive for photorealism?
I don't think  animation should strive for photorealism. Although many producer think that the ideal of animation is as real as real things, I believe that it is a irrational pursuing. There are different attractive elements in reality movie and animation film. Like animation always show us some amazing but virtual thing and make people have imagination. Animation should keep this attractive selling points instead of strive for realism irrationally.

Mission to Earth

a) What is new or different about this example of digital cinema when compared with a) traditional ways of telling a story b) and constructing a film? 

In tradition, we are not part of the film since we cannot be a creator but only a viewer. But, since the software in soft-cinema is relied on the use of databases, and the database is programmed. So that the story is almost never the same. It allows human mind to create a story for themselves, as each scene is going to require a unique interpretation. 

In constructing a film, traditional film usually use one camera to get one scene and use different cameras to have multi-angles. However, in soft cinema, the software in soft cinema controls the screen layout, the number of windows and their content, we can see that soft cinema enlarge our view since it allows us to have diiferent angles of views in same time.

b) What other art (film, digital art, painting etc) does this film remind you of?                         

 It remind me video art. Since this film is dtfferent from traditional film, so I cannot treat this as a film. However, it does remind about video art because it is produced by digital technolog and it is using video way to present some ideas.

c) Wrap up- central question for Manovich –what can this new medium do?

I think this new medium can encourage people to present their own idea. This is because it makes producing a film become easliar. People do not need to take filming courese and know many theories of making film. They can feel free to use this new medium to voice out their views. 

Modern Times: pros and cons of new technologies

Modern Times is a 1936 comedy film by Charlie Chaplin

In ''Modern Times'', Chaplin was a factory worker who employed on an assembly line. When the factory put in more and more modern technologies, Chaplin became only need to do one step over and over again in assembly line, the seat is fixed and he cannot run away from the assembly even the speed of the production line is not suitable for him. This made him became very depressed. 

Besides, he cannot smoke because of  he was under surveillance by the CCTV system. This reflected the fact that new technologies exploited his freedom and privacy. 

More over, the ''eating machine'' also made Chaplin controlled by the machine rather than himself. Finally, Chaplin suffered from mentally breakdown and needed to send to hospital. We can see that new technologies bring a terrible life to Chaplin.

Many people say that new technologies bring us convenience but extending the distance between people. Indeed, we barely cannot live without technologies, like using smart phone, wi-fi, USB. However, every time we enjoy the convenience from the technologies, we also put our privacy in to danger. Hence, although technology reduce the distance between two places, like we can use web cam or skype to chat with friends that live in oversea, it increase the distance between people in daily life. Since nowadays everyone use their digital devices to communicate with others instead of face to face communication. 

 

a brief introduction

I'm Tabitha. I live in Hostel A and I love movies and musics. Also, I'm interested in using Photoshop to design things, namely, poster, banner, name card, booklet.