PIXAR STORYTELLING RULES

I found this on "http://www.pixartouchbook.com/" 

Pixar story artist Emma Coats tweeted a series of “story basics” over the past month and a half — guidelines that she learned from her more senior colleagues on how to create appealing stories:

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.

#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.

#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.

#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.

#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.

#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.

#17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on - it’ll come back around to be useful later.

#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.

#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?

#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?

#22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

check out this interview with Dennis Muren on his VFX history as well as some SUPER 8 specific stuff.

Canon EOS Gamma Curves

  The selection of curves provided by Light Illusion attempt to maximise the capture capabilities of the Canon EOS cameras, enabling the most to be made of the images in later post-production, and are based on the very successful Sony Gamma Curves, also from Light Illusion.

In the following url from light illusion they go into depth about trying to mimic "LOG" gamma from canon DSLR cameras.. Really useful when trying to get the most out of the post color process. Forget baking in the saturated colors and beauty that the camera can give you. A good colorist can bring that out 10 fold. They offer packages for most Sony CineAlta cameras as well as Canon DSLRs.

You can buy their curves here.

http://www.lightillusion.com/canon_curves.html

The art of storyboarding with Ridley Scott

You gotta love Ridley Scott. This creative vision and storyboard techniques show why he makes hit movies and not just the run of a mill "bay" flick..

In this video you Ridley takes you on a journey through story boarding and what it means in the production process for him.

This is one of the best VFX shots I have seen the breakdown for in a while. I am sure great shots go unseen all the time. I must say though, this is awesome.

Its one of those "one take" shots that travels from a helicopter shot, then stitched to a crane shot then follows the main character through an entire stadium.  

Its flawless and a must see for you VFX lovers.


LEGAL DISCLAIMER
The images show­cased rep­res­ents the pro­fes­sional work of Rodrigo Tomasso –vfx designer/supervisor– and Mar­celo Gar­cía –vfx pro­du­cer– for the film “The Secret in their Eyes”.
The vfx pro­ject was done at “100 Bares Pro­duc­ciones” where they were the Heads of the Vfx Depart­ment dur­ing 2006–2009. This vfx break­down reel intends to show ONER Vfx’s tech­nical and artistic exper­i­ence only, not to take comer­cial cred­its. The final images of the film “The Secret in their Eyes” con­tained in this vfx break­down shall retain their respect­ive copyrights.
Images cour­tesy of 100 Bares Producciones.

• artist/studio: ONER Vfx
• web­site: http://www.oner-vfx.com

James Cameron Wants to Convert Everyone to 5D

James Cameron wants everyone to adopt "5-D," a term coined by the film and television industry to describe shooting in 2-D and 3-D simultaneously.

Follow the link to the full story on Gizmodo > James Cameron wants everyone to adopt 5D

Pixomondo did a great job with HUGO> check out the VFX breakdown

:full article here:

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/01/pixomondo-hugo-vfx/

“We didn’t have enough electricity [to do the rendering] in one office,” Pixomondo VFX supervisor Ben Grossmann said in an e-mail to Wired.com. “We blew out two power transformers trying, and had to get the electricity company to help us install more powerful ones…. Each time we rendered the shot, it cost $35,000 in electricity alone.”

stumbled upon this video in the suggestion bar on Youtube

so so true.. most of these 15 plugins are the sole reason why 3ds max is so popular.

RENDERMAN - one of these days

one of these days I will get to use renderman...

RIB files confused me at first but coming from programming it all made since after a while.. and who says it isnt fast? of course the guy in this video isnt using this for production but you can see how it can save time. Especially with other renderers like Mental Ray or Vray.