Hasta La Motion!

My first introduction to French duo Gangpol & Mit (Guillaume Castagne and Sylvain Quément) was through their music. It wasn’t until recently that I learned they are as involved in the creation of animation as they are in concocting their unique blend of electronica.

Their latest DVD, Faits Divers (Pictoplasma Publishing), is a collection of 18 audio-visual offspring from Gangpol & Mit’s collaborative relationship. According to Pictoplasma, “Guillaume emails some graphics to Sylvain, who then composes a melody and sends it back – or Sylvain coughs up a tune and has Guillaume translate it into animated worlds.”

The introductory essay for Faits Divers from Peter Thaler and Lars Denicke builds an interesting context for the DVD, albeit in the affected language of an art exhibition. The thrust is this: “Eat technology before technology eats you.” This cultural wariness underscores much of the DVD’s contents: Gangpol & Mit are clearly in command of the technology they use to create their audio-visual works, and yet they seem to hold it at arm’s length, choosing to exercise only a certain level of sophistication, never more. in this, they remind of the Amish, who have decided that wheelbarrows and ovens are acceptable technologies, while everything else is regarded with suspicion.

As with all of Gangpol & Mit’s music, the soundtrack is a precise melange of meticulously crafted electronic hooks that mixes a staggering array of retro-flavored synths with Baroque fugues and campy musical devices. Melodies run and jump like Super Mario himself, and warm analogue pads wrap around your head with nostalgic charm.

The visuals, while equally controlled, are comprised of rudimentary vector shapes and gradients, animated in simple, mostly linear movements. If 8-bit Nintendo characters could reproduce and evolve, they might have grown into something like the cast of Faits Divers. In terms of its intentionally sophomoric execution and its left-field content, the animation reminds me of cut-scenes from the Katamari Damacy franchise. Colorful, simple and weird.

Gangpol & Mit juxtapose cultural ephemera like well-traveled DJs, mashing up new and old, familiar and obscure, high and low. Aztec warriors hurl cell phones at each other in a video game brawl, a James Bond-esque hero ingests a psychoactive plant, and a man riding a flying armchair considers cutting off his own arm to rid himself of an evil hand-puppet. Every moment of seemingly cheery sentiment is undercut by a quiet violence, a disturbance of some sort.

The contents of the DVD are grouped into loose categories: Clips/Stories, Activities, Art with Heart and Archives. Clips/Stories are loosely narrative sequences focusing on the misadventures of a motley cast of characters. Activities are stand-alone vignettes that often combine spoken word and music. Art with Heart is a series of three “interviews” with fictional artist characters, each of whom suffers from a unique form of narcissism. Archives contains three animations from the back-catalog of Gangpol & Mit: “Chinese Slavery,” “A Few Elements of Vocabulary” and “How to Play Ping-Pong.”

The accompanying 32-page booklet is handsomely produced and re-presents some of the DVD’s films as sequential art, complete with typographic annotations that shed a little light on the sometimes elusive narratives.

My only complaint: I wish the audio was available separately, either as an optional download or on a separate disc. While I appreciate the visuals, I want to listen to Gangpol & Mit so I can create my own stories to accompany their delightfully twisted tunes.

Note: Faits Divers is a PAL DVD. For more information and to purchase, visit Pictoplasma.

Our rating:

Posted on Motionographer

I have to admit that I was wary of reviewing Hollywood Camera Work’s Visual Effects for Directors. When the package arrived, I groaned. Seven DVDs. All about visual effects. “Great,” I thought. “When I get bored, I’ll watch paint dry instead.”

How wrong I was.

VFX for Directors, it turns out, is actually fun. Although densely educational, the material makes sense—and more importantly—it feels relevant to the art of digitally enhanced storytelling. Every chapter had me saying, “Oh, so that’s how that works.”

Smarter Directors = Happier Productions

The overarching goal of the seven-disc series is to empower visual effects artists and filmmakers in general to make sound decisions so that post-production time can be spent creating the best visual effects possible. The course is aimed at newcomers to the world of vfx, but it doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to technical details.

Touching on the history of visual effects and CG imaging when necessary, the course delves into the “how” behind digital image-making. The result is a richer understanding of vfx—it’s no longer a “black box” or a magic wand. And that means that in addition to making smarter decisions, directors can also be more efficient (and less annoying) when working with others in the post-production chain.

Depth and Breadth

If you’re looking for step-by-step instructions on how to model a Tyrannosaurus rex in Maya, this isn’t the series for you.

If, however, you want to understand everything it takes to realistically pull off a shot of a Tyrannosaurus rex trudging through the forest before munching on a squealing paleontologist, then you’ll be more than pleased with what VFX for Directors has to offer.

The creators of VFX for Directors literally spent years working up the tutorials, and you get a sense of their commitment right from the start. Countless live action and CG shots are woven into the instruction with nearly 1,000 examples of digital effects in total.

The CG samples are mostly rendered at draft quality, since it’d be cost prohibitive to fully polish each and every shot. This doesn’t get in the way of the instruction, though. In fact, it helps isolate the topic at hand, highlighting only the necessary aspects of a given shot.

The series covers a staggering array of topics, including sexy stuff like the simulation of massive swarms, crowd replication, virtual set creation and digital stunt doubles—to touch on only a few. (See Hollywood Camera Work for a full list.)

Because the series focuses primarily on the underlying principles of vfx, the in-software instruction is relatively timeless. Most of the software packages used in the series are familiar—for example, Maya (for 3D and particle systems), Fusion (for compositing) and BodyPaint (for texturing)—but the coverage is broad enough that it can be generalized to any major package for any part of the vfx workflow. Again, you won’t be going step-by-step, chasing cursors through the UIs, but you will learn, for example, what a Merge node does and why it’s important.

You’ll also learn loads of practical on-set information, like how to properly light a cyc or how to shoot for planar tracking. There’s even a section on building your own cyc from scratch. (Note to self: stop by Home Depot tomorrow.)

Criticisms

It’s hard to find serious fault with VFX for Directors. Hollywood Camera Work knocked themselves out to create a practical, comprehensible course.

My only small criticism has to do with the direction of the narrator. While professional, the narration is very staccato, with slightly too-long pauses after each sentence. In defense of Hollywood Camera Work, this does allow for easier digestion of new concepts and terminology.

Bottom Line

Whether you’re working alone or planning a larger project, Hollywood Camera Work’s Visual Effects for Directors provides an excellent base for understanding visual effects and directing appropriately. Currently the course is offered for $329. Considering the amount and quality of instruction you get, that’s an incredibly good deal.

You might want to go deeper on select topics, but I can’t imagine a more comprehensive introduction to the general subject. I enthusiastically recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in visual effects and filmmaking.

The entire course, by the way, is available as a box set of DVDs or via download. Nice to have that option. See Hollywood Camera Work for more information.

As with all reviews on Motionographer, I was not compensated for this review. I received a copy of the course, which was used for the sole purpose of writing this review.

Posted on Motionographer