Still Alive
Have I been working on any new comics?
No.
Have I been working on any more games?
No.
It’s amazing how busy returning from a long trip abroad can make you. even though at the moment I’m restricting my PhD work to normal working hours, so much stuff has been occupying my time. I just thought I’d post to ensure you that I do plan on keeping this site alive.
Before I upload new comics or make new blog posts I want to try and merge both into one system, so until then there may not be anything interesting going down here.
Watch this space!
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Latest I S L A N D musings
So, I’ve mentioned on a number of occasions that I’m considering a sequel to I S L A N D, partially because I enjoyed making it, partially because I want to make another game. However, I’m toying with the idea of continuing the story in web comic form, while making a different game altogether.
I’ve started drawing the first page already. How soon it will be before I finish it I don’t know, but it’d probably be a while. It’ll take longer than my Laminated Goat comics since I plan to colour it. Furthermore, I’d want to release it with a few more pages to introduce the story properly, so even when it is finished it’d till be a while before you’d see it. Whether or not this would be a long term project only time will tell. I’m just experimenting, but whatever I come up with, finished or not, I’ll be sure to share it with you all!
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Why I don’t like 3D movies
3D movies look rubbish and hurt my eyes.
One of my webcomics on 3D spectacles
Many people who know me will expect me to kick off when it is suggested a group of us go to see a movie and watch it with 3D glasses. I’ll complain about spending an extra £1.50, which could be spent on just over 100 grams of cola bottles in the pick and mix, on a pair of glasses which make my eyes hurt and present me with an effect of ‘three dimensions’ which, to be honest, I find to be pretty rubbish. The images don’t appear to be three dimensional so much as they do to be layered on top of each other. Also, the three dimensional appearance of an object doesn’t look so good if a part of that object is off-screen. I decided to follow the standard procedure for any computer scientist who has something trivial to complain about and bitch about this in my blog, but then I came to realise that these points are mostly down to opinion and so I should just calm down and shut up. I can accept that people do like watching movies in 3D, and for that reason, we should always have 3D movies. However…
One thing still bugs me, and that’s the fact that just because one or two 3D movies were successful, suddenly every film has to have three dimensions. You can’t watch a movie trailer nowadays without the narrator continuously reminding you to ‘see it this Summer… IN 3D!!!‘. Two dimensions just aren’t enough anymore. Regardless of whether or not people like the 3D effect, film producers shouldn’t feel it so necessary to market their production as a 3D one. 2D can be cool too, and I wish to remind people of that.
A return to classical animation
A short story about classical animation
I’m now going to digress slightly. Please cast your minds back to when you and your mates would kick back and watch The Return of Jafar on VHS with a glass of Ribena on the side. Hand-drawn animation has produced some brilliant film. Disney is a perfect example. Classically animated movies were abundant before the new millennium, and satisfied cinema goers everywhere. Then in 1995 Pixar released the first fully CGI animated movie: Toy Story. When I was 7, you weren’t cool unless your dad had taken you to see this film. From then on we saw more and more CGI movies produced. I love CGI, especially the work of Pixar, but I was disappointed that the popularity of CGI eventually became so great that hand-drawn artwork was scarcely used to produce animated films. It was almost as though production companies felt as though they had to keep up with the times in order to survive. I remember that eventually people began to reminisce about the days before CGI, and that they missed classical animation. Recently, we saw the release of The Princess And The Frog, and there was a lot of hype about the fact that it was created using a classical style of animation.Though CGI seems to have become the preferred method of animation, people can still enjoy the classical approach but film-makers fail to notice it.
James Cameron's Avatar - A 3D movie with lots of blue people.
The life and death of the 2D movie
How does this all related to the issue of 3D movies? I would like to quote the following:
After Toy Story, there were 10 really bad CG movies because everybody thought the success of that film was CG and not great characters that were beautifully designed and heartwarming. Now, you’ve got people quickly converting movies from 2D to 3D, which is not what we did. They’re expecting the same result, when in fact they will probably work against the adoption of 3D because they’ll be putting out an inferior product.
– James Cameron
In the same way that CGI became so popular that the classically animated movie faded into oblivion, 3D movies have become so popular that it just isn’t cool to stick to two dimensions anymore. Movies are being shot in 3D for the sake of it. James Cameron’s concern is the effect it will have on what 3D movies could be, and that’s fair enough. I have no problems with a 3D movie when its producers choose to use 3D technology so they can be creative with it, rather than to just jump on the latest bandwagon. However, my concern is that the classical approach of watching a movie in two dimensions will die at the hands of a pair of 3D glasses, just as hand-drawn animation died at the hands of CGI. I know we will always have the option of watching a movie in 2D, but the way films are being marketed lately, it’s as though I’m being told that I’m behind the times if I choose to watch movies in this way.
It doesn't matter that it stars Brendan Fraser, we can watch it in 3D. It's okay!
Three dimenstions should not be the selling point of a movie
When a film has ‘3D’ in its title, I immediately know that I do not want to watch it. A good film should be enjoyable whether you watch it in 2D or 3D. Including the number of dimensions in the title of the picture is telling me that if I’m not wearing special glasses, I can’t enjoy it. It can also make the most interesting, exciting or inspiring title look pretty lame. “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest 3D” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Whether or not ‘3D’ is in the title, a movie’s marketing should not put more emphasis on the 3D feature than it does on other aspects of the production. This gives the implication that paying extra for a pair of glasses makes the film more enjoyable, and it shouldn’t do. Just because I can watch the film in an extra dimension doesn’t mean it doesn’t have an awful script.
2D pictures can ‘jump out at you’ too.
One final point before I conclude: though I can ‘see it come alive in eye-popping digital 3D’, I can also ‘see it come alive’ in 2D with my eyes remaining comfortably in their sockets, thank you very much. The illusion of depth can be presented on a 2D canvas too, but without having to wear special glasses. Painters and photographers have shown us this, and it’s also very true of cinematography. I like seeing a three dimensional world represented on a 2D screen. Putting on a pair of 3D glasses is only translating it back and causing some of the cinematographer’s skill to go unnoticed.
How to make a good movie
I’d like to reiterate that I do not think 3D movies should go completely. Some people like them, and there should always be something for those people at the movie theatres. What I don’t like is how every movie just has to have three dimensions. If you’re going to use 3D technology to produce a film, use it well. Use it because you have ideas of how to use it artistically. Don’t just include it because it looks cool and all the other films are using it lately. 2D movies have their advantages too. Stop telling me your film will be better if I wear polarising spectacles. It won’t.
Filed under: Cinema | 1 Comment
Tags: 2D, 3D, 3D glasses, animation, CGI, cinema, film, movies
Life in a Day – My Submission
Many of you may have heard of the Life in a Day project. For those who haven’t, anybody with a camera handy was asked to film parts of their day on the 24th July 2010 and send it to Ridley Scott and Kevin MacDonald to edit into a feature film. The idea is to create a cinematic time capsule of the world on this day so future generations can download pirate copies and understand how we lived back in the third millenium. Either that or the idea is to make a lot of money. Either way, it’s an awesome idea for a project and as a fan of both cinema and video editing, I was sure to contribute something.
Anybody who knows me well will know I like to produce short comedy films with my friends (though half the jokes tend to be in-jokes, a habit I intend to break). Those same people who know me would therefore probably expect me to produce something similar to impress Mr. R. Scott and his fellows, but this time I’ve actually made a pretty simple video which seems unexciting at first, and will probably still seem unexciting after you have seen it, but I wasn’t really trying to entertain when I made it. All I did was record various locations I passed on a trip to Tokyo, and here is why:
I felt a good contribution to Life in a Day would be something unknown. Many people will submit scenes of London, Paris, New York, etc., but in order to capture as much of life as possible, I felt locations not so well known to the world were also necessary. For this reason, I took some shots of the rural area of Japan I currently reside in as I passed through it on my journey to Tokyo. I then continued to film the rest of my journey since A) I might as well and B) the top of Tokyo Tower gave me a good opportunity to capture the Tokyo cityscape just in case the producers had some use for it.
Anyway, here it is. I can’t promise a particularly entertaining video. I just wished to contribute something the producers are unlikely to have received from anybody else:
If anybody else has produced anything for this project, I would be keen to hear all about it.
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Tags: Japan, Koga, Life in a Day, Nogi, Tokyo, Tokyo Tower, YouTube
Here is footage of some of the kids I’ve been teaching in Japan, from various ‘yochien’ (Japanese kindergartens). Anybody who has me on Facebook will probably have seen this already. It’s taken me a while to get round to uploading it here also.
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Tags: children, Japan, video
The best website in the world*
* Maybe
Even as a computer scientist, I have a tendancy to fall behind as far as the latest internet phenomenons (Did I even spell that right? Answers on a postcard!) are concerned. As such, this link I share, or sites like it, may not be new to you, but I have only recently discovered it and rather like it.
Anyway, Midomi is a site for those times when you don’t know the name of a tune and you would rather like to find it. If I know some of the lyrics, I usually google them and find the song that way. However, if lyrics are unknown, Midomi has the functionality for you to hum or play the tune into the microphone and it will detect a number of possible matches. Every time I have used the software, it’s found the song with no trouble.
It’s much better than Song Tapper, which produces an exhaustive list of every song except the one you are actually searching for.
I feel like going into one of my AI nerd ramblings and explain how I think Midomi and similar software works, but then it occurs to me that none of you actually care.
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Tags: Internet, Midomi, Music, Song Tapper
I wish to withdraw my application as I have recently received and accepted an offer to study a PhD for three years.However, as I may be interested in working for you in once the PhD is complete, I would like to ask if it may be possible for you to keep my application on your records for future reference?
Thank you for contacting us recently. Naturally we are very sorry to learn that you will not be proceeding with your application for the following vacancy: Software Engineer – Graduate. However, we are sure that you reached your decision after due thought and consideration.Please accept our best wishes for every success in the future and, if we can ever be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us.
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Tags: e-mail, employment, enquiries
Smug Mode
I’m basically posting to just brag, rather than say anything interesting about site content.
Many of you will know that I’m currently an English teacher in Japan. When I started this job, I was told that when a student whom only you have taught shows clear progress, there is a strong sense of reward. I got to experience that first-hand today when my class of 8-10 year old girls vocally spelt many three-letter words without looking at the word cards. We’ve been studying spelling for a few weeks and I had found it difficult to see progress. However, I could see it today and this left me feeling well chuffed.
In other news, I started drawing a prototype background for a potential I S L A N D sequel today. There probably will be one, if you had been wondering, but it’s very early days and I have three busy years of PhD ahead of me. I may not find any time for it. I’m just drawing characters and backgrounds as and when I feel like it for now, and am not making any promises I can’t keep as far as a completed project is concerned.
Filed under: I S L A N D, Japan | Leave a Comment
Tags: ISLAND, Japan, Teaching
Try, try and try again
If at first (second and third) you don’t succeed at making a blog, [title of this post].
I’ve made at least two attempts at starting Blogs with the intention of regular updates. One was personal, the other meant to keep friends up-to-date with what’s going down during my 8 months in Japan. In both cases, I never got round to updating them and when I did, it was usually to point out my own failure to make any posts. Eventually both just died. It didn’t matter, because the former blog was just the mindless ramblings of a nerd, and the latter was superfluous since my Facebook profile and maintained contact with friends from England keep my peers well informed.
So why am I making a new blog? Do I plan to finally make regular updates? Well, no. But that’s not to say it won’t happen. As explained here, Laminated Goat was revived not so much to show new artwork on a regular basis but to show artwork whenever it is created, regardless of time between updates. My plan for this blog is pretty much the same. Ideally I’d like to have something to say each week, but ultimately I will only post when I have something to share. Most likely this will be news/thoughts related to development of further work or reflections on older work. General thoughts, musings and satirical commentary on things I see are likely to appear also.
So please, make what you can of this blog, and of Laminated Goat in general. I’ll try to make them interesting!
– Joee
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Tags: blog, laminated goat, updates
Laminated Goat 