Shadow puppetry matches dreamlike quality of Kate Bush song
"50 Word's for Snow found the elusive Kate Bush at her most stark and stripped-down. The album was the aural equivalent of a single line of footsteps in a snowy pasture. It's no wonder then that Bush, who has always been skilled at pairing her music with their equivalent visuals, turned away from her trademark cinematics for the video of her song, 'Lake Tahoe.'
In the album version of 'Lake Tahoe,' only quiet strings and a piano accompany Bush as she weaves a tale of an old dog dreaming of his owner. And while the full song explains the animal's true situation, Bush - who directed the video herself - has trimmed it down into a more ambiguous excerpt here.
Her use of shadow puppetry matches song's dreamlike quality. The stark contrast between the black figures and the white world makes each set piece seem mystical. The dog runs through phantasmagorical lands filled with spooky woods, looking for his owner. It's beautiful in its simplicity - emphasizing small subtle movements over big extravagance. The elegant design of the puppets mixes fantasy elements like the moving trees with realistic pieces such as the soft sway of the woman's hair."
(Dan Raby, 24 January 2012, All Songs Considered Blog, National Public Radio)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
The Family Factory: Developing Methods for Live 3D Animation
"In this way the puppeteers would be part of the development of the prototypes for the virtual puppets as well as the characters for the play, before the actual rehearsals would begin two month later. ...
The value of the actual meetings and workshops can not be emphasised enough. This gave the participants hands on experience with the constraints in the actual equipment and a chance to meet the team that would be responsible for operating it. It is not until the artist has a very physical and intuitive impression of the material and the involved people the creative process takes off for real – before this everything is abstract ideas. ...
In the planning of the research project and the actual production the division of labour within and between each field of activity were specified as outlined in section 3.
As the process went on the borders became more blurred exploring the new field between creative production in theatre and animation and methods from computer science and systems development. One of the big challenges was the development of a common language between the artist and the programmer/technicians and to define and invent new methods that were necessary to carry out the production.
I tried to explore the numerous reasons for this in the evaluation phase of the project. This was done by conducting qualitative interviews with the participants and by reviewing the large body of video documentation from the process. The footage was edited to a 50 minute documentary about the project on which the following assumptions are based (Callesen 2001)."
(Jørgen Callesen, 2003, p.15,18,30)
Callesen (2001) Virtual Puppets in Performance, Proceedings, Marionette: Metaphysics, Mechanics, Modernity, International Symposium, University of Copenhagen, 28. March - 1. April, 2001
Callesen, J. (2003) "The Family Factory - Developing new Methods for Live 3D Animation" in Madsen, K.H. Production methods: behind the scenes of virtual inhabited 3D worlds. Springer-Verlag, London.
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
L.A. Noire brings actors' full performance to gaming
"With a technology called MotionScan, an actor's complete performance--their facial expressions, how they talk, when they blink--are captured for use in a video game. We spoke to Brendan McNamara, the head of the team behind the detective game using this tech, 'L.A. Noire.' ...
Made by Team Bondi and Rockstar--the AAA developer behind the violent and cinematic Grand Theft Auto series--L.A. Noire is set in post-WWII Los Angeles, giving the player the role of Cole Phelps (Mad Men's Aaron Staton), a war-hero turned police detective."
(Kevin Ohannessian, Fast Company, 4 February 2011)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
Xtranormal: Text-to-Movie authoring tool
"xtranormal's mission is to bring movie-making to the people. Everyone watches movies and we believe everyone can make movies. Movie-making, short and long, online and on-screen, private and public, will be the most important communications process of the 21st century.
Our revolutionary approach to movie-making builds on an almost universally held skill-typing. You type something; we turn it into a movie. On the web and on the desktop."
(Xtranormal)
[The Xtranormal Text-to-Movie authoring tool allows you to produce short films. It does so through adding your typed dialogue (in the form of 'text to speech') to supplied animated character assets.]
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
LeCielEstBleu: interactive, original interfaces and applications
"Founded in 2000, LeCielEstBleu specializes in the creation of highly interactive, original interfaces and applications. Their work has received numerous international awards and has been exhibited throughout the world. They are best known for PuppetTool, an experimental animation tool; SetSearch, a visual search engine; and La Pâté à Son [Sound Dough], a generative musical composition tool and sound toy recently exhibited at Ars Electronica. LeCielEstBleu's principal artists are Frédéric Durieu (code), Kristine Malden (media), e Jean-Jacques Birgè (music)."
(Interferenze 2006)
CONTRIBUTOR
Simon PerkinsSHARE
