My Final Blog

Wow, I didn't think this day would ever make it.  Since day one, we have worked on many different projects and I have learned quite a lot through out the entire process.  Some of the things that I learned involve the ability to draw a mechanical tool and replicate it to give the viewer a challenge of figuring out what it is.  I learned quite a bit about NET.ART and everything that is involved in the structure of it.  Creating a house in 3d and realizing that my girlfriend and my dream house is too large to make into a reality.  We could turn one half of the house into a homeless shelter and never see our guests.  Well it has been a lot of fun working on all this stuff and I have to say that it has helped make my curiosity in the design world grow to an astronomical level.  Thank you for everything.
-Joe

A weekend spent watching movies.

Even though the weather was decent outside this weekend, I was a bit under the weather and spent a majority of my days watching movies.  I was very intrigued by how many films use 3d to get different effects.  I noticed on Talladega Nights that 3d was used in some of the race scenes, it almost looked like a racecar game (something I just noticed, racecar spelled backwards is racecar, hmm).  Then all the 3d used in the Harry Potter films.  Now what made me talk about this is how come the 3d in the Potter movies looks more realistic than that of Talladega Nights.  I understand some programs are better than others and they probably used the better ones for the Harry Potter films, but here is my question.  How do I get a job doing this 3d work and is it available here in the DMV area?  Well I hope all of you had a better weekend than I did, well a more productive one at least.  Take care and I look forward to my final blog for the class, COMING SOON!
-Joe

It's that time of year

If only we were able to hold on to this type of weather for a majority of the year.  How beautiful the surrounding trees look with their contribution of colors just waving in the wind.  The aroma of fire places emitting smoke into the gray skies of fall.  Sweatshirts and long pants coming out of hiding and showing their true meaning of existence.  It brings us to a sort of homecoming I have never experienced before.  My girlfriend is a grad student at Gallaudet University, which is a school for the deaf in the middle of DC.  Their homecoming was yesterday and she invited my daughter and I to join her.  We went and loved it, the score was 26-0 by the end of the third quarter and we got up from our chilled bleacher seats to go get some of her school stuff.  However prior to us leaving, watching the fans chat with one another using nothing but ASL was very intriguing to both my daughter and myself.  My daughter made the best attempt at signing that she could, but we spent a majority of the day with her mind turned on, yearning for knowledge to better her signing capabilities.  I as well learned some new words and feel a little more confident in signing.  But the true magic was the way it captivated my little girl and made her want to learn more.  While walking around the school we were looking around and I noticed they have a lot of cool gadgets for the deaf students that attend school there.  One thing in particular that caught my mind was a touch-screen TV that was located next to the elevator that would guide the students to the necessary spot in the building they needed to be.  Very cool.  On the screen I noticed a lot of different things going on all at once.  I don't know if it was Adobe products they were using, but I caught the use of Flash, Photoshop, InDesign, After Effects and Premeire.  To see all those products being used to create one screen and do it in complete harmony was truly amazing,  My girlfriend had to pull me away, literally, but I did manage to push a few buttons and it was so awesome. 

Clue?

Today will be an interesting day.  My girlfriend and I are heading to Annapolis to check out the play Clue, but we are going to enjoy the interpretation with sign language.  It is a requirement for both of us to attend a deaf event from one of our other classes, but this should make it very interesting for the both of us to see a play and its interpretation.   Since I am on the subject about plays, do any of you have plays that you would recommend that she and I go check out?  Anyhow, I am sure that I will post something later on how wonderful the event was, but if you are looking for some form of art exposure, it is only $5 to get in and should make for a great time.  Hope to see you there. 

-Joe

Fall Festival

Going with my daughter to her Fall Festival at school was a great time.  As we were given a tour of the school, I found that what we are paying for in college is now being offered in a high school level.  My little girl is 4 years old and she attends a private school that goes from K-12th grade.  I am astonished at some of the products these kids have put out.  I just wish this was offered when I was in high school.  Just the thought of having 3ds studio max when I was a teenager, may have a whole different outlook on what my life would be like today.  It also got me to thinking what in the world will be offered when she a teenager in school.  Already, she loves to watch films and she likes to try and act out some of the scenes she sees.  I catch her sometimes watching a film and then trying to draw out the scene with an added rock or two in the scene.  I did some research into this and found that at the age of four, Steven Spielberg was intrigued by film and made his first home video when he was five.  Hm mm, makes me wonder what is in store for my little girl.  She loves to sing, act and draw.  Could be a sign as to what she wants to be when she grows up.  My little girl.  Anyways, I wrote this in the beginning of October, but for some reason it didn't post.  Good thing I save everything I write on here.  Have a good one and keep on smiling. 
-Joe

In my video bar, check out Sir Goldlion.

Some of you may have noticed that I have been able to turn my projects in way early.  Well I can attribute that to the fact that I am not new to the whole design world.  I am not a designer by trade, wish I was though, but I have dabbled in doing things using some Adobe products already.  In my video bar, I have a certain movie in there that my friend and I created.  We were really bored and well we wanted to do something along the lines of making a short film.  When it was all said and done, we submitted it to a couple of different film festivals.  One being the CAMM/Video Bake-off right in Baltimore.  We were able to attend the festival, and we wound up winning "Best Effects," which I did for the most part.  However we didn't win best overall picture (we should have though, but we didn't invite any of our friend along, we just wanted to see how we would fair in the publics eyes), but we did come in a close second though, losing by only one vote.  I was a little upset, but very pleased with the award we got. 
What really made the night special was after watching all the other films, which dealt with suicide and stuff of that nature, the audience was falling asleep, trust me I was one of them.  Then our corny film came on, and it brought down the house.  It isn't a great film by any means, but what we did, we were able to make an action film that got the audience on the edge of their seats.  After it was over, the audience gave us a standing ovation and it was a great way to end the night with our film being the one that got the audience excited.  Please take the time to check it out, the quality isn't all that great, but it is a you tube film, and please let me know what you think.

Sesame Street

After finishing up Project 4, I was kind of curious about using After Effects.  I found that most Television shows use this product, or something close to it.  I was watching Sesame Street the other day with my 4 year old daughter and was noticing that they had an episode where the kids were looking out of a window.  Well it got me to thinking, aka googling, and found that through After Effects, you are able to make it look like there is a window present even when there isn't one.  NIFTY, I thought to myself.  Now here is my question to the world.  Why would they do something along this nature?  What is it's purpose?  Anyway, just curious if anyone else has taken a look into all the products Adobe has to offer.  Check them out if not, they are really cool, and Adobe's website has a lot of tutorials on them to shed some light onto there mysteries. 

Moving Along

Well another project is in the books and let me tell you I am happy.  I love premeire and all the fun stuff you can do with it.  I started to venture into After Effects and that is something else.  How on earth did the editors of times past do what they did is beyond me.  Adobe should definitely advertise on you tube and help all those people that make home movies, do it the right way.  If their was a way to do this full time and make money at it, I would love too.  From my knowledge, I have found that it's not what you know, but who you know in the film industry.  Case in point, Ben Stiller.  How is he an actor?  Anyways, hope all is well and people are moving along nicely in this class.  A lot of inspiration from other projects have helped me along the way and I appreciate it. 

-Country Joe

Finally

THE COWBOY'S WIN!, sorry just had to get that out of the way.  You know the more and more we do in this class, the more I find that graphic design is used in everything surrounding us.  From little captions on the television screen, to a giant billboard on the side of Route 97, to the labels on DVD cases.  We are in one giant graphic design based world.  I guess it falls under that "ignorance is bliss" category.  Do this, take about 2 minutes and just look around the room you are in.  See how many different things you could do with graphic design, or how to do it.  What program you would use to get that label done the way it is.  Amazing how everything around us is done with graphics. 

The Life we Live.

Hello everyone,

     Well it was a rough week for my family and me this past week.  My grandmother passed away on Saturday and kind of hit that family pretty hard.  When I was sitting there alongside her bed recalling all the wonderful things that my life had that were revolved around her, I then realized some great thoughts.  She used to have me draw cartoons for her Sunday school class, so the kids could color them in.  She used to take the time and tell me I was T-R-O-U-B-L-E, but she loved me anyways.  She wasn't much of an artist, but she always told my mother and I that I had a talent for art but I was just too damn lazy to see it.  Gram would always have crayons and a coloring book available for me when I was younger, and now that I have a daughter, she started the same thing with her.  Not too much more to say, but hope you all take a minute and tell the ones near and dear to you that you love them before it's too late.
-Joe 

Watching Football

Finally, it is here!  The greatest reality television show available.  FOOTBALL.  From college to NFL, then I'm happy.  Enjoying the fantastic time being a fan and talking trash with friends is a great way to pass the time.  What can I say, I'm a guy.  How this relates to this class is simple, From the 3d animation they use to show the scores or the editing program they use to show different angles of the field or the use of other programs to incorporate all the stuff we see on the television.  I am curious as to what program they use or how they are able to get the yellow first down line to show up on the field and be underneath the players.  If any one knows, feel free to let me know.  Anyways, happy football season to all and to all a good night.

The Newseum

Recently, my girlfriend and I visite the Newseum.  I didn't think it would pertain to this class or blog what so ever, but here I am writing about it.  In the news, they use graphic design every day and it is something we all overlook.  Anyhow, what I want to talk about was the 4d movie they had inside.  4d, whoa what is that, hold on and I will tell you.  They incorporated a 3d video, complete with glasses, but the incorporated moving seats, air blowing against your face which made for a nice touch.  At $40 a ticket, it was a bit pricey, but worth it to me.  The last stop on the trip was the 9/11 video and I don't believe their was a dry eye walking out of there. 

The Princess and the Frog

The chance to be a kid every time my daughter and I are together, makes for a wonderful experience.  I got her a new addition to her already large Disney collection and the title of this film is "The Princess and the Frog."  I have to admit, I am a bit of a cartoon fanatic as it is and I have been working on one myself for some time now.  It is a lot of work for just me to work on and when I saw this film with my daughter, it makes me think of all the hours that are spent doing the artwork for it.  The animation itself  is very intriguing to me.  Knowing the time spent just to get a hand to raise in the right direction during this movie makes it that much more interesting to me.  My daughter on the other hand, loves the music and the character's involved.  One thing about it, she shares my admiration for animation.  Till next time.

It's a beautiful morning.

Waking up, I rolled out of bed and went to the gym.  My ipod decided it was gonna die half way through the workout, but ESPN was on the TV.  Lucky for me.  Now I am doing all sorts of fun school stuff.  I have to finish this and then make my way over to English land to do some of that stuff, then History to learn about someone that has been dead for quite some time now.  Oh well.  Anyways, with the help of coffee and a great breakfast then I will be enjoying this great morning and getting geared up for football tonight.  Go Cowboys!