The Future of Visual Effects
The future of visual effects in films, TV, and VR; from crossing the uncanny valley in human animation, to light-field camera technology that will change the way moving images are captured.
DOOM: Behind the Music
GDC: In this 2017 session, Doom composer Mick Gordon provides a detailed look into the compositional process, production techniques and creative philosophies behind the hell-raising soundtrack to the 4th installment of the seminal first-person shooter franchise, Doom.
This is one of the best talks I’ve seen on the GDC YouTube channel! In addition to the new Doom game, Mick Gordon has composed music for the new Wolfenstein games and Prey. In his talk Gordon covers a lot of ground, including how he approached the brief, making satisfying bass come across on unsatisfactory equipment, hiding subliminal messages and courage vs. confidence.
See also
- A history of Doom — If you had a PC — you had to have Doom.
- The art of Firewatch — A recreation of Jane Ng’s talk from Game Developers Conference 2015.
- Black MIDI — Have you ever been listening to a normal song and thought, “I really wish this normal song had 280 million notes and took up 1.1 terabytes of data and was literally unplayable on any computer?”
Also: Two recent Vox explainers on Shepard tones and gated reverb →
The Death & Rebirth of FINAL FANTASY XIV Part #1 – “One Point O”
Noclip: In the first video in our three-part series, we tell the story of how the 1.0 version of FINAL FANTASY 14 came to be. How FINAL FANTASY 11 inspired its design, the ways in which the game fell short and how Square-Enix and the development team reacted to its failure.
See also: Other posts tagged ‘games’.
Push Process
The Royal Ocean Film Society: I’ve been asked a lot what the process of making these essays is like, but rather than just droll on about recording voiceover, late night editing sessions, and falling into despair upon seeing the first cut, I want to take these few minutes to talk about how that working process has evolved creatively over the past year, and about where I’m trying to take these essays in the future.
See also
- Cutting on sound: David Lean’s scene transitions — Despite whatever presets there are in Premiere, scene transitions are not limited to wipes, fades, or dissolves.
- Explore the ‘filmmaking’ tag or my new ‘video essay’ tag for lots more like this.
How To Make A Blockbuster Movie Trailer
Auralnauts: We provide you with the winning formula that turns any trailer into the blockbuster smash hit of the season it was meant to be.
See also
- Five ways movie trailers are all the same
- How to make a movie trailer (a song)
- The history of the movie trailer
- Other posts tagged ‘trailers’
Hitler rehearsing, 1925
Mashable: Hitler asked his personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann to take photos of him rehearsing speeches. Hitler would try out various gestures and expressions, then review the pictures to see if his postures looked stunning or stupid.
Though Hitler ordered Hoffmann to destroy the pictures for being “beneath one’s dignity,” the photographer kept them in his studio. He later published the photos in his memoir, Hitler Was My Friend.
Hitler rehearsing
“One of Hitler’s best talents was oration. He first developed his acumen for public speaking in beer halls, where his rants would start out cool and precise, then escalate into hypnotic histrionics as his audience became more engaged (and drunk).”
ZeroPhone
Hackaday blog: There are several open source phones out there these days, but all of them have a downside. Hard to obtain parts, hard to solder, or difficult programming systems abound. [Arsenijs] is looking to change all that with ZeroPhone. ZeroPhone is based upon the popular Raspberry Pi Zero. The $5 price tag of the CPU module means that you can build this entire phone for around $50 USD.
Features:
- Raspberry Pi Zero in a PCB sandwich
- No proprietary connectors, hard-to-get parts or chips that are tricky to solder
- All the specifications for making this phone yourself will be available
- Python as the main language for developing apps (aiming to add other languages later)
- UI toolkit making development quicker and easier
- Numeric keypad, 1.3" 128×64 monochrome OLED screen (with screen header supporting other types of screens)
- 2G modem for phone functions, can be replaced with a 3G modem
- WiFi (using an ESP8266), HDMI and audio outputs, a free USB host port
- GPIO expansion headers for customization
- RGB LED and vibromotor – for notifications
- Tons of Pi Zero-related hacks that were discovered along the way, that I'll share with you as the project goes =)
See also: Other posts tagged ‘Raspberry Pi’ & Phones for the people
ZeroPhone: a $50 Raspberry Pi smartphone
A Pi Zero-based open-source mobile phone that you can assemble for $50 in parts.
