… for Random Weirdness

Tip #1079: How to Get More YouTube Subscribers

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Increasing YouTube subscribers comes down to leveraging your marketing.

(Image courtesy of Pexels.com.)

Topic $TipTopic

This article first appeared in MotionArray.com. This is a summary.

If you’ve been hustling away on YouTube for a while now, chances are you’re already well up to speed on all the major tips for growing your subscriber base. (Publishing videos on the regular, cross-promoting on social media, making primo content, etcetera, etcetera).

But what if you’ve tried all of those things and you’re still flailing around in sub-1000 subscriber territory? And now you’re asking yourself “how do I get YouTube subscribers and push the needle forward?”

Here are the seven steps they recommend:

  1. Enable YouTube’s Automated Pop-Up Subscription Link
  2. Collaborate With Other YouTubers
  3. Use Playlists To Retain Viewers
  4. Make Your Thumbnails Simply Irresistible
  5. Self-Promote in Facebook Groups, Subreddits, and Amazon Reviews
  6. Fill Your Titles With Super Relevant Keyword Phrases
  7. Make Video Intros a Standard Practice

Visit the article, linked at the top, for more details.


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… for Random Weirdness

Tip #1080: Filmmaking Fundamentals: Blocking

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

These five videos illustrate different ways to handle blocking a scene.

(Image courtesy of PremiumBeat.com.)

Topic $TipTopic

This article, written by Jourdan Aldredge, first appeared in PremiumBeat.com. This is a summary.

When watching amazing cinema, there are many aspects you’ll notice right away and often remember forever — great lines of dialogue, breathtaking action sequences, and beautiful cinematography. However, one film element that often gets ignored, but is still crucially important, is blocking.

Before we go into learning from the masters, let’s go over some of the basics of scene blocking. Scene blocking covers everything that has to do with placement and movement between characters, props, and camera(s) for every shot and scene. Unless you’re shooting a documentary or a certain type of improvised action, most film scenes are tightly controlled, blocked, and rehearsed so that every movement and action is accounted for.

Finally, the most important part of any scene blocking is the camera. In many ways, the camera — which represents your audience and POV — is the primary character in your scene. Consider your camera placement, its framing, and any (or all) movements that you might employ, from simple pans to complex tracking shots, when working on your scene blocking.

In this article, Jourdan provides videos illustrating:

  • How to block a scene
  • How Hitchcock blocks a scene in “Vertigo”
  • How Scorsese blocked a scene in “The Wolf of Wall Street”
  • How Akira Kurosawa using blocking
  • How Kubrick, Spielberg and Inarritu blocked scenes

SUMMARY

When you’re finally shooting your scenes with your carefully defined blocking in action, it’s helpful to treat each shot and scene as its own mini-movie. You have your actors ready to go in their starting positions, you have your lights set and queued up for any adjustments, and your camera is rehearsed and ready to move. Once you call action, you’re really just recreating the stage play that you’ve blocked and mapped out — now it’s your job to shoot it to the best of your ability.


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… for Apple Motion

Tip #1084: Effects Playground: Time Tunnel

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

This is a fun, fast and fascinating effect, with lots of opportunities to play.

The “worm hole” effect described in this article.

Topic $TipTopic

Ever wanted to travel through a worm hole? Now you can – and Motion creates it. (This looks better when it is moving than as a still.)

Here’s how to create this:

  • Drop Generators > Cellular into the Viewer.
  • Select the Cellular element, then, in Inspector > Generator change:
    • Gradient change the color on the right. (You can use any other color scheme you like.)
    • Size: 3
    • Speed: 0.5
  • With the Cellular element selected, apply Filters > Stylize > Slit Tunnel. Then, in Inspector > Filters, change:
    • Speed: 5
    • Perspective: 0.3
    • Glow: 0.02
    • Change the glow color to radioactive green.

Done.

EXTRA CREDIT

  • Position and/or animate the center of the tunnel elsewhere in the frame.
  • Replace Slit Tunnel with Slit Scan and watch what happens.

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… for Apple Motion

Tip #1085: What’s a Replicator?

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Replicators create patterns from one or more shapes.

A spiral replicator with the Oak color gradient pattern applied.

Topic $TipTopic

A Replicator creates a pattern from a single object or a group of objects. Traditionally, we think of a pattern as a rectangle, but, in Motion, we have a lot more options.

Replicators can be use to repeat a logo to fill the screen as the background for text, or creating interesting patterns, or, well, just about anything, really.

NOTE: A key difference between particles and replicators is that particles have a “life,” the duration that a particular particle is displayed on screen. Replicated objects “live” forever.

Replicators can take different shapes, including:

  • Point
  • Line
  • Rectangle
  • Circle
  • Burst
  • Spiral (see screen shot)
  • Wave
  • Or a custom geometric form

Replicators can also change color across the pattern, as this screen shot illustrates.

EXTRA CREDIT

Animate Replicators by applying Behaviors > Replicator > Sequence Replicator

.


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… for Visual Effects

Tip #1088: Animated Titles in DaVinci Resolve

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Once you have animation you like, be sure to turn it into a template for reuse later.

(Image courtesy of MotionArray.com.)

Topic $TipTopic

This article first appeared in MotionArray.com. This is a summary.

If you’ve spent some time editing with DaVinci Resolve, then you may be curious about different ways to create your own animated titles. DaVinci Resolve Fusion titles are a great way to build your own animated title sequence.

In this article, you will understand how to animate your own titles within Davinci Resolve Fusion and turn them into a template that’s easily accessible and adjustable within the edit tab. Plus, you’ll find some useful templates to get you started.

This tutorial covers:

  • Part 1: What is Fusion?
  • Part 2: How to Create an Animated Fusion Title
  • Part 3: Quick Tips & Hacks for Using Fusion
  • Part 4: 15 Awesome DaVinci Resolve Fusion Resources to Download

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… for Random Weirdness

Tip #1063: Robert Yeoman, ASC: Lighting Comedy

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Robert Yeoman, on set.

Topic $TipTopic

This article, written by Jourdan Aldredge, first appeared in PremiumBeat.com. This explores how cinematographer Robert Yeoman keeps his comedies light and helped develop Wes Anderson’s quirky aesthetic.

While Yeoman’s work long ago became intertwined with Anderson’s coffee shop aesthetic, he actually has quite a career as a cinematographer outside of that relationship. His early work garnered him quite a bit of esteem from the Independent Spirit Awards (To Live and Die in L.A., Drugstore Cowboy) and his later works have included several highly successful comedy blockbusters (Yes Man, Bridesmaids).

This article contains interviews and videos illustrating how such cinematically recognizable films as Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic, and The Grand Budapest Hotel so successfully elevates arthouse indies and blockbuster comedy franchises alike by combining his craft of kitsch with his artistic and comedic sensibilities.

  • Finding Your Creative Process
  • Developing a Visual Grammar
  • Lighting for Clarity and Comedy
  • Old School Whip Pans and Slow Motion
  • Developing the Wes Anderson Look

When looking back through Yeoman’s career so far, it’s important to recognize that he isn’t simply a means to bringing a director’s vision to screen, but in fact, he’s very much a developer of the looks and aesthetics that we’ve come to know and love.

Check out the link at the top to watch all of these.


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… for Apple Motion

Tip #1060: Shape Styles Are Magic

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Shape styles can be applied to any element that allows a border.

The Shape Styles menu in the HUD.

Topic $TipTopic

Any shape, path or element that supports a border can have its boring white border replaced with one of hundreds of much more interesting styles. Here’s how.

  • Select a shape, path, paint stroke or any object that supports a border.
  • Display the HUD (Option + Cmd + L).
  • At the bottom of the HUD, click the Shape Style menu to display over 100 colors, textures, object, lights and fluids that can be applied to the border itself. (See screen shot.)
  • The border width determines the size of these styles.

I have many favorites in lights, textures and abstract.


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… for Visual Effects

Tip #1065: Introduction to Particle Effects

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

The updated Particle Editor, from Babylon.js, simplifies creating particle systems.

Images created by Patrick Ryan (left) and Gabriel Aguiar (right).

Topic $TipTopic

Thomas Lucchini, part of the team at Babylon.js, posted this article to Medium.com. This is a summary.

Creating effects with particle systems is a fun way to learn visual effects. This article illustrates how to create a Magic Orb, using an updated tool the Babylon.js team just released: Particle Editor.

For those completely new to Particles, particle systems are commonly used in 3D scenes to simulate phenomena like fire, smoke, or visual effects like in our demo. They uses small 2D sprites which always face the camera to give the impression of volume. A particle system is displayed with one single draw call which ensures good performance. The magic comes from the parametrization of a particle system (e.g. shape of the emission source, evolution of the speed of the particles, lifetime, color, rotation…) combined with the chosen 2D sprite.

What’s new in the Babylon.js Particle Editor is that you can now create and edit particles not only in your code but also via an Editor accessible via our Inspector. The Particle Editor is part of our efforts to simplify Babylon.js.

The article linked above goes on to provide introductory tutorials to their particle system, a step-by-step tutorial, and more. (The screen shat was created using their system.)

With GPU Particles you can have millions of particles, with noise textures you can apply custom changes to the direction of the particles, with Sub Emitters you can spawn new particles from existing ones,… and the list goes on.


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… for Visual Effects

Tip #1066: Creating Fog on Set

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

Fog and haze can help create looks, fill space, soften colors and add drama.

(Image courtesy of Pexels.com.)

Topic $TipTopic

This article, written by V Renée, first appeared in NoFilmSchool.com. In it, Film Riot’s Ryan Connolly shows how to use fog to help add depth to shots, diffuse light or simply create a creepy atmosphere.

There are many different ways fog can help create a specific look and set a tone for your film, but it also helps to give your scene, as Connolly says in the video, a “Spielbergian vibe,” because it not only diffuses light, but it carries the color of the light throughout the space you’re using for your scene.

The article, in addition to linking to the ten-minute Ryan Connolly video, also includes examples from:

  • E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial
  • Jurassic Park
  • Lincoln

There also a discussion about the difference between fog and haze; and an inexpensive way to create them.

Fog isn’t the only way to pull off light diffusion, depth of field, or even fog effects (you could apply it in post if you really wanted to), and you may not even want the look it produces. (Maybe you’re going for the high contrast.) But, after reading this article – linked above – you can go forward with a little more understanding of just how versatile fog actually is, and use it in the future to create some awesome effects!


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… for Visual Effects

Tip #1067: Animating a Gothic Horror Anime Series

Larry Jordan – LarryJordan.com

One of the creative joys for the Castlevania production team is designing the various demonic creatures.

(Image courtesy of Project 51 Productions and Netflix.)

Topic $TipTopic

Castlevania launched as a video game in 1986. In 2015 a creative partnership forged between Frederator Studios, comic book icon Warren Ellis, Project 51 Productions, Shankar Animation, Powerhouse Animation Studios, MUA Film and Netflix produced an anime inspired adaptation that debuted in July 2017 and has been renewed for a fourth season.

In this detailed article from VFXVoice.com, the production team describes how Castlevania came to NetFlix, how the show is created and discusses many of the challenges along the way.

Castlevania was always going to be 2D hand-drawn animation. Anime and the artwork of Ayami Kojima for Castlevania: Symphony of the Night were influential in deciding upon the animation style. “The early character design passes for the series were somewhat bland,” recalls producer Kevin Kolde. “Evaluating those designs and looking for a recognizable visual entry point for fans to the series, we realized that for most Castlevania fans, when they thought about the look of the game series, they probably thought about the stunning art that Ayami Kojima had created for the series over the years. Beautiful gothic women and maybe even more beautiful gothic men. We focused in on Kojima’s work and pushed the designs in that direction. All of our characters had to be beautiful. It took some iterations to get there, and somewhere I have a long email chain discussing the amount of eyelashes a character should have, but in the end I think our director and Production Designer Sam Deats really captured the essence of her work and did it in a way that that we could actually animate.”

One of the creative joys for the Castlevania production team is designing the various demonic creatures. Given the nature of the source material, there is an extensive amount of onscreen blood and severed limbs. “The show was always intended for adults.” states Kolde. “We had a brief discussion in Season 1 around the dead kid we see in the street during the night creature attack on Targoviste, but we decided it was important to show the results of Dracula’s revenge. We wanted to show the other side of a character that the audience had likely been sympathetic to up until that point.”

The entire article is worth reading for its behind-the-scenes insights on how these shows are created.

Here’s the link.


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