Another made-up movie. Made for an After Effects project to show off 3D Space, but I actually quite liked how it turned off. Almost everyone that sees it says "We Were There? We were where?" and gives me, what I would call a guffaw. Not quite a laugh, not quite a scoff, but a guffaw. Is it that weird of a title? I'm not going to call it "OH SHIT ALIENS!"
Alright, so front cover...the main image with the man supporting a child on his shoulders is a picture I took one evening while hiking up a local landmark. The spaceship is from District 9, and I painted in some dots with a paintbrush and just blurred them to look like space travel lines if such as a thing exists but you know what I mean. Came up with a title, and a style and presto.
Back Cover
Back cover looks as good as any Blu-Ray I've seen IMO. I'm normally a huge critic of myself but I really like the back cover and think it looks legit. Random logos that don't really belong but you don't question them because the look is right and it feels genuine. Some nice leading text down to a "Special Features" box that jumps out.
Spine
The spine is a spine. Don't know what else to say so how about that mission to kill Osama huh?
FEAR. You know that shadow you see out of the corner of your eye? That sound you hear when you're home alone? When the hair on the back of your neck stands up for some inexplicable reason? Well, stop freaking yourself out because it's nothing or something dumb and useless like a possum. Seriously give me a reason why possums exist? That's what I thought.
As for this, I like it. It's supposed to be a short opening credit sequence for a made-up movie, and I really like how it came out. First I pitched a lot of movies to myself like I was sitting in some movie studios office and they were glaring at me like I had just taken a dump in the backseat of their car. Thriller that takes place in a creepy forest? BLAH! Action film with a focus on awesome car sequences? BLAH! Vin Diesel has this genre locked down so I can't compete. Prison movie about a prisoner with a heart of gold? BLAH! I want action, but wait...lets toss in some monsters, awesome dudes, and a hot babe? It has to at least to better than the smegma that is Date Movie, Superhero Movie, Meet the Spartans, and Please Shove A Hot Iron Into My Pupils Because Of These Damn Movies Movie.
So I found an awesome picture of a scary ass brick wall because prisons aren't scary. What goes on inside prisons is scary. Prisons look too clean now instead of murdertoriums so I had to find a creepy ass wall. Made everything dark, and just used some camera moves and lighting to made it look creepy. Matt Damon stars in it because he is Jason Bourne so he can kick ass and still make your girlfriend want to come and imagine him naked. Dwyane Johnson is in it because the Rock needs to stop wearing tutus and get back to ripping peoples heads off their shoulders while dropping a catchy line that you grin. Charlize Theron is hot when she is not in "Monster" mode so she's in it easy. I would toss in Kristen Bell or Natalie Portman, but then everyone (guys and girls) would be too busy fantasizing about them to focus on the movie and can't have that.
Toss in some awesome music from the game BioShock, and time it up with what happens in the trailer and you get a great atmosphere. Not to mention the thumping from some unknown monster, and the bloodcurtling scream unleashed at the end and I need a new pair of underpants, and the theater maybe needs a new seat and a HAZMAT team.
And in case this blog ever becomes any kind of popular (it won't)...NO NOTHING NEEDS TO BREAK THROUGH THE WALL AT THE END! I KNOW SOMEONES GOING TO SAY IT! USE YOUR DAMN IMAGINATION INSTEAD OF HAVING SOMETHING BEAT YOU OVER THE HEAD!
I'm also going to give it an open-ended ending so I can claim that I'm edgy and want the audience to really think about it, when really I just couldn't decide on an ending.
You know those little animated logos you see on some channels before a show of some kind starts? That was the assignment. Because I guess we need to be reminded right before we watch something what channel it's on because we are all from the ADD generation or something. Anyways, that was the assignment but that would have been too simple so it had to be longer and a bit more detailed than just some floating logo saying "VSD...We have tv shows" or something.
Anyways, again I went a little crazier than most people and decided to create most of my own artwork instead of just taking images from somewhere. First off, I decided to go with a children's cartoon network except an awesome children's tv channel with shows that had tanks shooting at each other, dogs with platinum grills that solved the murders of rich, busty heiresses, and a show that featured Lebron James, Kevin Garnett, and Paul Pierce getting repeatedly nailed in the nuts with Mjolnir while the Lakers hang out in the back polishing their two recent championships. You know...stuff like that. Maybe some Dora the Explorer too because I can get down that too but you get the idea.
So again, I started with jotting down some ideas and sketches to get basic ideas of what I needed. First up was the island, not too rough and Illustrator made it easy to give it a slightly 3D look and give it some depth. Next were the tanks, and lettering for the words at the end. After Effects was used to animate everything and include some explosions and the intro morph of the island. Toss in some appropriate music, and you have something that works. I would watch this channel.
So this little video took some time to complete. The assignment was to create a short little video displaying some of your interests or hobbies, and I decided I wanted to spend some time on it. I decided early that I wanted to do at least three different scenes, and I just quickly brainstormed some ideas and came up with:
1) Basketball - I like playing and I watch more Laker games (plus some others I deem to have a chance of being entertaining) than is probably medically recommended.
2) Video games - I'm a video game nerd to put it bluntly. Played a lot of them (and I mean a lot). And while I don't play them anywhere near as much as I used to because I spend a lot more time with my girlfriend or working on other things, I still have a soft spot for them somewhere in this xbox-360 shaped heart of mine and I still love playing great games when they come out and I find time for them. Gamertag: Cable387...look me up.
3) MMA - I probably started becoming a fan of the sport around UFC 67 or so. From then on, I devoured it. Most people know MMA only as "oh, that UFC thing right?" but there are many organizations and I devoured a lot of it. One day while watching a WEC event, they mentioned a fighter fighting out of a gym near me. I went in and signed up the next day. Lost a ton of weight and still love the sport it easily made the biography reel.
All the art in the video was created in Illustrator. Just did some rough sketching and came up with some simple drawings to recreate in Illustrator to match the humorous theme I knew I was going with. I created the environments, the characters and various poses they would need, and then animated them all in After Effects. Last step was taking the quick snapshots of my facial expressions to plug in and once those were done and inserted, I had a video I liked. Music is too quiet so I'll get around to fixing that or maybe adding more scenes in the future, but I like what I ended up with.
I've been using the internet for probably 11 years now. Can't be completely certain because I suck with remembering what happened in what years. You know when you read a self-biography or someone tells a story and they can rattle off something that happened and remember what year and month it happened in? Yeah, that's not me unless it was some major event. I always believe that those people are just picking some random time they think it happened and deciding that they are close enough so it doesn't matter if they're off a little.
Anyways, I've been on the internet for a long time and never really been into the whole blogging thing. Never really got into the whole MySpace or Facebook thing either, maybe I'm a little anti-social. Most of my internet time was spent on message boards reading peoples impressions on things or viewing peoples work. So by creating a blog and putting some of my thoughts and ideas out there, I'm going out on a bit of a limb for myself.
So hi, I'm Andy Garcia. A 24-year old student attending Riverside City College right now. I've had no clue what I wanted to do as a career until about 1.5 years ago. I tried going to video editing, tv production, and even computer programming but nothing stuck with me as something I could sit somewhere for 8 hours a day doing. That was until I starting taking graphic design classes at RCC and something changed. I was taking classes with work I enjoyed, and for the first time ever, I could see a future for myself.
Something changed. I was always a pretty good student but I made sure to work as hard as I could for projects, and this carried over into my life outside of school. I made new relationships, I began working out which eventually led to me taking up MMA and losing a lot of weight (which I've put some of which back on due to some medical issues not allowing me to train but I'm working on it :p), I met a girl I love and I just felt happier overall.
So enough spiel about me for now. Just enjoy some of my work (hopefully) and comment freely.
