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Incorporating CGI with practical effects is a huge inspiration in my work and life. While the technology isn’t necessarily new it is still evolving. The most recent film I have scene that combined the two flawlessly was Mad Max Fury Road. The filmmakers tried to stick to practical effects when it was possible. Those insane cars were actually built and set on fire instead of being done with CGI. They then added more explosions in the editing room to amplify the real explosions. Fury Road was filmed on set in the Namib Desert in Southern Africa. However, Mountains were added later with CGI to make the desert seem more threatening to the audience. Charlize Theron's arm was removed in post production because there is only so much you can do with practical effects. She was willing to shave her head for the role but I don't think she would take to lightly the request to remove part of her arm.

For a while in the film industry many filmmakers relied to heavily on CGI. In many of those cases, the films felt flat and lifeless. It makes directors come off as lazy and unimaginative. For example, the Star Wars prequels were primarily filmed in front of a green screen unlike the original trilogy which incorporated both practical effects and CGI. When watching the prequels, I can tell with ease what's green screen and what's a set piece. In a well made film you shouldn't be able to do. It takes the viewer out of the story and sometimes that's all they can focus on. I rather use my imagination and pretend that the model spaceship is supposed to be real then have to watch a half hour of CGI spaceships shooting at each other. Alike a lot of people, I was relieved to hear that J. Abrams wanted to bring back huge set pieces and practical effects while still using CGI in the new film. I was still hesitant when I first heard the news though. That, however, changed once I saw the new trilogy. I know other directors like Christopher Nolan, David Fincher, and Quentin Tarintino also prefer set pieces and practical effects over CGI and I hope they will continue to do so for as long as they make films. It one of the reasons why I enjoy watching their films so much.

http://youtu.be/I627rJ4V7UQ

Start video at 8:45 for a story about garbage CGI

http://www.tested.com/art/makers/459394-practical-effects-masters-pros-and-cons-cgi/

Practical FX Masters on CGI

I pretty much save everything to “the cloud.” Unfortunately, I discovered this beautiful piece of technology a moment too late. I have this external hard drive with thousands of family pictures, old school documents, and GBs upon GBs of music on it. I needed to access one of my portfolios for a college application. However, I lost the AC adapter during the move from Florida to Michigan. I thought I lost a flash-drive with a copy of the portfolio on it too during the move. Luckily, it was found later. I tried to replace the adapter with one by a different brand although it appeared to be very similar. Similar does not mean the same. When the adapter arrived in the mail, I plugged it into the drive that was when I realized I had made a huge mistake. Black smoke poured out of the vents and it smelled like burning acid. I quickly unplugged the drive and my heart sank. This is when I made another huge mistake. I plugged the drive back in hoping it was still fine. Not two seconds later more black smoke poured out and I was sweating. I unplugged it yet again and headed to Google. Yahoo Answers told me I was quote unquote fucked. Other forums suggested it might be possible to recover the files but the drive would have to be send to a data recovery center and it would cost thousands to do so. In the meantime, the hard drive makes a nice book end.

After that painful incident, I switched over to the cloud. I use Dropbox for my phone and Google Drive for everything else. They are amazing. I have yet to lose a file and don’t have to worry about losing a physical drive or any adapters. I can access my files from any device that is connected to the internet by simply logging in. I’m aware that there are trade offs to saving everything to the cloud. Google and Dropbox can access my files at any time. They can also sell my info to third parties. Wherever that is legal or not, I do not know. For now, I guess I am okay with that. I would rather have someone at Google see a sensitive photo of me than lose thousands of precious family photos in a drive fire.

For more info on cloud-computing check out

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2372163,00.asp

I mostly use texting the same way people use email. If I’m by my phone, sure I’ll reply and try to keep the conversation going. However, if someone texts me and I’m out or away from my phone I’ll respond to that person when I can. The big thing is when I’m home I usually don’t have my phone by my side. This well tends to annoy people. After an hour or so of not responding people will send multiple follow up messages wondering where I am or they’ll think I’m ignoring them. It’s not that I just don’t have my phone attached at the hip when I’m home. When I’m out, it’s in my pocket and if I feel it vibrate (yeah, I keep my phone on vibrate 99% of the time) I’ll reply. If I’m walking or moving around I don’t usually feel my phone go off. Yeah, yeah, I know, “why are you so stubborn? Why wouldn’t you put your phone on loud. What’s the point of having a phone if you don’t answer it.” Yes, mother, I hear you. I’m a pretty independent person most of the time and hey, I just like to do my own thing a lot. Sue me.

With most people I’ll text instead of call. I hate awkward silences on the phone so much I rarely talk to friends over the phone. That’s the beauty with texting…there are no awkward silences, at least not on my end. There are exceptions though. If I’m meeting up with someone and let’s say I want to know where they parked so I can park close by I’ll call them. That call lasts less than a minute so no awkwardness. There are some cons to texting versus calling or talking to someone in person. Sarcasm doesn’t translate so well over text. I wish you could italicize text so everyone would know that it means sarcasm. Wouldn’t that be nice. In the meantime, sarcasm tends to come across through text as serious or it makes you look like a dick. Unless you add a bunch of ridiculous emojis with their cartoon tongue sticking out and one eye squinting like they just sucked on a lemon. Also, I usually try to save big news until I see the person or people I want to share it with in person. I feel bad sharing big news with someone over text because I’d much rather do it in person so I can see their reaction in person. The last important news I shared over text was about switching degree majors yet again. His response was that he got married. That’s some news I would have rather heard in person but what can you do when you live at opposite sides of the country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/books/22book.html

If the technology was only five years old then no, I wouldn’t voluntarily implant electronics into my body to make it smarter, faster, or stronger. The first iPhone was released eight years ago and the technology is still far from perfect. One of this biggest issues with the iPhone plus is that the metal that Apple used is so mailable that you can bend the phone with your bare hands.I mean, this is a multibillion dollar corporation and if they haven’t yet perfected the iPhone why would I voluntarily implant something into my body if the technology was only five years old. Of course, there are hypothetical situations where I would implant and electronic device into my body. Let’s say I were diagnosed with cancer and there was a device that could treat and eliminate the cancer completely without having to go through chemotherapy and almost destroy my body in the process. In hypothetical cases like that, yes, I would voluntarily implant an electronic device if the technology were only five years old. If it was a life threatening situation I would even consider it if they technology was LESS than five years old. If something like that were to happening would probably be so desperate that I would try anything.

http://9to5mac.com/2014/09/30/bendgate/

This is a video of my setup for Project 4. I wanted to stick to a monochromatic color theme using different shades of light blue. The source of light is an LED 5′ light leftover from my work’s holiday window display. I set it below the installation so I could film as many shadows as possible. I used a separate accent light to give the video a warm feel to it. Using thread and clear tape I hung crumbled pieces of paper from my bedroom ceiling. In the center of the paper figures I hung a drawing mannequin upside down. It’s wrists and legs were tied with string. In some of the shots there is a fish/mammal bone spinning. The bone was found off the beach in Boca Raton early one morning when I used to live there. A gargoyle looking figure which I bought last year from a garage sale was placed on the bedspread. I used to chair to steady my arm while filming.

So I’m don’t really sure what the point of this app is. I mean, from what I got from the movie is that the app is making fun of texting and the way people communicate with each today. With the first woman, instead of building up the courage to breakup with her boyfriend in person or even just over the phone with a simple phone call she sends a surrogate or “somebody” to do it for her. This just leaves the boyfriend and the surrogate completely uncomfortable at the end of the message. “What do I do now, hmm I guess a nice pat on the head will do.” The next scene bothered me more than it probably should have. The woman could have just turned around and apologized to her friend right there. But no that would be awkward and uncomfortable so I’ll just have this little old lady do it for me. My favorite part of the movie was the plant at the end. It was fun anticipating what it was going to send next. Deeper. It's a cute project but I'd rather not participate in it. I'd rather say how I feel than let someone else do it for me. I guess the message that we are supposed to take from this app advertisement is that when it comes to personal and meaningful messages they should be said in person when possible and not through a text message.

http://somebodyapp.com/

hockneybabe

red-lipstick

jtmccarthy-blog

Jaeyeol Han (South Korea) - Passers-By, Notting Hill, London, 2012 Paintings: Oil on Canvas

project 4 concept

I don’t have many plans about a story for this video. I plan on using a cyan LED light as the main source of light along with a white LED light. I want to try to stick to a color palette of cyan, white, grey, and black. My bedroom with be the set for the video. I intend to use a blank white wall as the background with a shadow cast on it by one of the lights. I’m thinking about hanging different crumbled forms of paper from the ceiling with fishing line and letting an oscillating fan move them around. I have this little ceramic gargoyle that I would like to incorporate into the video. Thinking about lots of wide angle shots and close up. Maybe some stop motion? We’ll see.

audio recordings

6/17 - home - 54 seconds - flipping pages of a book

6/17 - home - 30 seconds - song by Gorillaz playing on radio. lots of intentional static

6/17 - home - 1 minute 5 seconds - oscillating fan on wind setting

6/17 - home - 18 seconds - scanning the radio and stopping at a jazz radio station

6/18 - oakland - 40 seconds - traffic in the background

In my opinion newsprint was the most effective way in print form for people to share their ideas before the advent of blogging. Like blogging, newspaper articles can be printed daily with new stories and opinions. However, new blog posts can be made at any point in the day and multiple times a day whereas once the newspaper is printed that’s it for the day. Newspaper articles can’t be updated or retracted until the following day. So if the paper finds new information about about a hot and controversial story that’s it for that day...there’s no going back to edit articles immediately. Some other paper can beat them to the press which costs that paper money. Another problem with newspapers is that people have to have a physical copy in order to read it. Blogs are part of the internet where almost anyone anywhere in the world can access it at anytime on their little computer they keep in their pocket. If I want to read a GQ or People Magazine post about Caityn Jenner, all I have to do it pull out my smartphone and go to their website to read it. Boom. I don’t have to go to a newstand or gas station to buy a paper or magazine to read a similar article about Bruce Jenner’s transformation. When Vanity Fair released the first picture of Caitlyn on the cover of their magazine it was posted to their blog before the magazine was even printed. By doing so they were able to say, “It was us...YES! WE WERE THE FIRST.” If they had waited to release the photo until the magazine hit the stands some blog, like TMZ, could have beaten them to the punch days or weeks earlier. The biggest advantage blogs have over print it that stories can be released as the story is unfolding. There’s no wait period. Really, the only disadvantage blogs have over print is that some people are stubborn and still want to have a physical copy of the article in front of them when they read it. People still buy the New York Times everyday even though the Times posted most of the articles to their blog. And by posting the articles to their website and printing them, they reach the tech savy audience as well as the stubborn audience who still wants to flip threw the pages of the newspaper and get black ink on their fingertips while they drink their coffee in the morning.

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/06/caitlyn-jenner-bruce-cover-annie-leibovitz

For web or poster size 14″ x 22″

Mad Max Infographic rough draft

Mad Max blood spilt infograph sketch

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