Computer Animation Arts

The original scene... The appropriation...

In 1998, director Gus Van Sant remade Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho  - pretty much shot-for-shot, give or take a few additions, notably some subliminal cuts of seemingly random images.  It was universally panned by critics: Rotten Tomatoes states "Van Sant's pointless remake neither improves or illuminates Hitchcock's original."   It certainly seemed like an odd choice for a respected director, and an intelligent director at that.  Watching the remake is a very strange experience.  It feels familiar, of course, but also synthetic: it's Psycho -flavoured all right, but it isn't a real flavour; it's artificial and unsatisfying, as saccharine is to sugar.   One might be tempted to think the Psycho remake is a knowing art-house appropriation in the style of Sherrie Levine , who likewise enjoys disrupting existing legacies and superimposing parasite meanings on revered or especial cultural artefacts... Pointless remake or another postmodern mind game...

Many of you will already be familiar with the 'How It Should Have Ended' animated skits, which lampoon Hollywood movies by poking fun at their plot holes and contrivances of script.   This selection, featuring  Toy Story 3 , Scream , Aliens,  and the Harry Potter franchise, made me 'laugh out loud' at their pitch-perfect appropriations of favourite moments and skewering of narrative absurdities.  You're probably much too busy to watch these...

Here are two music videos from a band called "Stuck in the sound". This band have really interesting taste for their music videos with lots of obvious references. It is really fun when you can recognize pretty much every scene in the video from somewhere else. First animation is created by a director with a nickname se7en for a song called "Brother" and second video "Pursuit" is an extract from the upcoming album to be released on January 2012 Directed by Caleb Krivoshey and Fortiche. Stuck In The Sound - PURSUIT by stuckinthesound

Prepare yourselves for a new Pingu remake of John Carpenter's masterpiece THE THING (1982) by Lee Hardcastle. This is actually just hilarious and genius at the same time. This looks like a proper home made video even with the sound effects recorded by himself, so it makes this even funnier. Storyboard :))) http://leehardcastle.com/blog/storyboards-pingus-the-thing/

Postmodernism has been and gone (or has it ?!?!) but this remix of the Planet of the Apes gave me a hearty Saturday morning chuckle. Appropriation aplenty! There's not much more to say!

Okay, so, back in 1982, John Carpenter (dir. of horror smash, Halloween ) remade The Thing From Another World (1951), and so unleashed some pretty amazing non-cg special effects set-pieces in which dogs turned inside out and disembodied heads sprouted legs.  This was the film that got the playground buzzing in terms of its extreme gore and 'out there' creature design.  A prequel to the film is due for release very soon, but it appears to this jaded viewer, that The Thing 2011 is just the The Thing '82 all over again - but with cg augmentation probably undoing all that was properly visceral and grisly about Rob Bottin's extraordinary puppets...   Anyway, this postmodernism-themed post could be about the continuing slow death of the avant-garde in terms of film-making as Hollywood stagnates in a perpetual 'nostalgia mode', as it seeks only to remake and revisit its own back-catalogue, as the levers of capitalism demand bums on seats over...

'A "Lynchian" man and woman find a 1950's style educational video that teaches them How To Make A David Lynch Film. While going through Lynch's canon, they learn how to achieve long pauses for no reason, crazy music and sounds, stories with no plot, and how to confuse the shit out of their audience! HOW TO MAKE A DAVID LYNCH FILM is a parody that will bring Lynch lovers and haters together in comical harmonium!' How To Make A David Lynch Film from Red and Tan on Vimeo .

Hi there, this caught my eye a few days ago and only now have I had the chance to post it. It is somewhat morbid (and I am still going through that "baby head" stage, as Phil put it today), but if you can push past the whole... partially dissected baby thing, the model is perfectly charming in its own right. There are a few more at this link to Geekologie, including Yoshi and Sackboy. http://www.geekologie.com/2011/09/its-not-just-air-anatomy-of-a-doll-baby.php Steven Payne (First Year Student)

Today, I was browsing internet, when I came across this - the famous film, The Shining , but told differently. With the footage from the film and some editing, the mash-up trailer changes the plot of the film. This may be of interest for the 2nd years as they step on the interesting grounds of Post-Modernism. Enjoy!!

Just saw this on RudeTube, and thought it was one for all the nerds :)