What I Learned in This Class

This will probably be one of the easiest blogs I've been asked to written! For starters I can say that I definitely learned a heck of a lot about the media in the digital age! In class we've covered so many topics and over the course of the year I learned alot about the transition from analog to digital, the emergence of computers, graphics, animation, the internet, and so much more. I think this class would have been a lot easier for me if perhaps I took a computer science class before hand. I completely respect the world of computer science, and software engineering, and web developement but I will never understand why would anyone in their right man want to do such a thing! Understanding those topics had to be the absolute most pain staking things Ive learned in college ever, it is probably the equivalent to learning a new language. I am glad I made it through alive, and I am more glad this semester we had the opportunity to do more hands on work with animating, cameras, and editting. I will definitely be taking the skills I have learned in this class and continue to work on them!

Avatar & Animation

Working with Flash and Illustrator I have gained a whole new respect for the animation world. I am constantly looking at animation movies and wondering how in the world was this animated. Animation can be done in so many different ways, especially now in that we are living in a digital world, and can be made into 3-D. I think the movie Avatar is a perfect example of the evolution of animation. There are other movies in which animation is used with real people, for example "Cool World" but I think Avatar is a major advance for animation because of its use with 3D computer graphics, and didn't the director build an entire uniquely designed camera for the movie? Thats awesome in itself!
Avatar is filled with beautiful colors that add to the visually entriguing story. I think Avatar shows how far animation has come because in all elements of the movie, writing, filming, and acting, it reaches audiences of all ages expressing massive amounts of global issues that this blog cant even begin to describe! The colors are very illusionistic and very pleasing to the eye, it is something very unique to the "big screen" and thats why I think it was such a huge hit. The characters are neither mechanistic nor lifelike but they are so well developed that the audience can connect to a whole universe of aliens, or in this case Avatars.
The use of 3-D brings the movie to life and really engages the audience making it more visually enticing. It allows the audience to really connect with the story and feel what is going on in the movie. Avatar has earned my respect, as far as animation goes, but critics will be critics!