Final Thoughts: COM 102

                Going into Com 102 I knew that I am not a person that likes to write I prefer to do work that is more hands on that touch more of my imagination.  Writing can be imaginative but for me it is hard to view that because of the black and white of writing.  This class was able to show that even though it is black and white it can still have color if expressed with imagination.

                In this class from the beginning to the end I, as a writer, have improved in my writing to get my point across to an audience.  With writing I am not a strong person in getting my thoughts across to people.  With the input of this class and process of peer reviews of the class helped with the way of changing the paper so that majority of people can understand the paper and some of the words in the paper.  One of the major things that I would have changed in the class for myself is spending more time on the paper to reach a larger audience.  I would want to reach more people because I know I am in the mindset that most of the of the stuff I talk about people know because I am use to talking to other people that are studying animation.  Also I have a hard time distinguishing when I am talking about something people have no idea what I am saying and when they do understand. 

                For the what you should know that are prescribed by the department I think that the correctly document sources through appropriate in-text citations and a works cited page is a good one to look at for me because I realized that I totally forgot to put the in-text citations in my paper once I submitted it.  I do understand how the in-text citations are suppose to be put in but I think I was just at a point that I completely forgot that I did not put them in the paper.  I know I had a full understanding of the Works Cited page and how specific documents should be cited. 

                This class had a great way of how to subject people to a research paper that just was not part of the second half of the semester but was the whole class I enjoyed this because it gave enough time to pick the topic and get the ball rolling so that if the topic found did not have a lot of information it could be changed early enough so that not too much time was lost.  With a good topic there was much information that could be found in the databases from the library or online to develop the paper into the length needed.  I think that the learning while writing the paper helped so that it could be improved upon and not rewritten. 

                This class has opened up the door to writing for me because of the way that the process of the paper.  I know that a paper can be just as imaginative as an animation.  So now that I have done more writing I have grown stronger in researching and completing a paper.

R&R: Elevator Chat

The elevator chat by Tim about sustainable architecture talked about the change in architecture to create more environmentally save buildings.  The big company that he talked about was LEED that has a rating system to classify the buildings on how sustainable it is.  Buildings are rated from bronze, silver, gold and platinum.  Now that he has learned more about sustainable architecture he wants it to be more shown in schools to learn it early.  Tim goes to UIC studying architecture and did not know that there was a company to the creation of green architecture.

With Tim’s elevator chat I learned more about sustainable architecture because my first major was architecture and I had a little understanding of LEED.  It was good to know that people were out there trying to make more sustainable buildings.  With LEED I knew it was hard for people attain the platinum rating because the whole building has to be completely sustainable and environmentally safe.  I had the chance to work on a LEED project while interning at a architecture firm for a summer and I know that people had do a lot of paper work and use specific materials that are safe for the environment.

Pixar

Steven Smurzynski

Com-102

Trend paper

7/30/2010

Pixar

“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

– Walt Disney

In this age of technology Pixar really started a look of creating three dimensional films in a computer.  With the words said by Walt Disney in the quote above, Pixar fits that mold perfect for how Disney thought.  If Pixar did not become a company that created these types of films it could have been years before we would see something with that look hit the big screen and have such a impact on people.  Pixar helped with the creation of a new area of animation and many different companies now do 3-D animation films.  Pixar being the pioneers of the new medium of computer animation did not get there just over night it took years.  People had many different starts in getting to the spot of Pixar.

Through out the history of animation there has been much advancement from a simple drawing on a sheet of paper to computer generated.  Animation started as simple drawings with slight changes made from drawing to drawing to create the illusion of movement. For them to put these on film and create field of depth the drawings were done on cels, a transparent acetate that was colored in around the drawing done by the animator..  This is how traditional animation was done.  Many of us grew up on the wonderful films from Walt Disney that were done in this fashion.  With traditional animation people had many jobs just to create those films.  There are the people that do the key poses, those are the people that make the drawings of all the action poses of the characters.  Then from those key poses, the inbetweening or tweening poses are made, those are the poses between key poses to create the illusion of motion.  These are the important people that make up an important part of the movie.  Then there are the people that create the backgrounds and lighting to set the mood of the scene.  With just a few of the important people listed for traditional animation this gives a good idea of how people get the emotion and motion in animations.  People always ask, Well with computer animation does it make it easier to create animations?  To that question I say no even in computer animation all the same work is done just like traditional because that possess has been perfected by the best and works so why change something that works.    In many of the advancements it made the animations look more fluid from key pose to key pose.

To know how Pixar became the 3d animation power house of today we have to look all the way back to 1972.  Ed Catmull decided to make digitized model of his left hand.  Ed Catmull is a graduate of University of Utah with a degree in computer science and physics.  With his background in computer science he actually wrote to program to make the digitized model of his hand.  He would return to Utah to get is doctorate where is doctoral thesis consisted of the development of bicubic patches, are used to create lines in the computer program, the Z-buffer, is creating image depth for 3-D scenes, and texture mapping, this is adding detail and surface detail.  All of this was done in 1974 years before the even thought that a feature length film could ever be done in a computer.  At this point Catmull was graduating again and was approached by a secretary wondering what she wanted with him.  Later he would find out that it was the President of NYIT’s secretary, Alexander Schure.  He was looking to make a movie with the computer graphics department he was just starting.  As soon as Catmull knew what this was all about he jumped on it and became the director of the NYIT Computer Graphics Lab.  This lab was not in a usual setting that we all think of a computer lab it was on Long Island in a garage of a mansion that Schure had purchased.  This lab had everything that Catmull needed to work but was missing the people to help push the limits of 3-D graphics.  So at this point Catmull was to bring a group of people together that could push the limits of the computers to accomplish what Schure wanted.  Many of the people that he would find to work on the computers at NYIT would follow him to the creation of Pixar Animation Studios.

In the process of picking people to join Catmull at NYIT there was another man working on his own computer artist odyssey.  Alvy Ray Smith received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from New Mexico State University. In 1970 he received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University, with a dissertation on cellular automata.  Smith’s life was changed in 1973 when he was in a skiing accident that left him in a full body cast.  While in the body cast he rethought everything with is life and moved back to Berkley to wait for whatever was going to happen.  After a few months over lunch with a friend he was staying with, Dick Shoup, invited him to the Xerox PARC to look at the program SuperPaint.  SuperPaint was the first computer paint program.  Smith was working at Xerox with the program but Xerox later decided that color was not needed in the office.  At this point Smith was out the job and went to the University of Utah in search of a job but there was not a job to be had.  While there found out about Catmull at Long Island.  At this point he spent the last of his money and headed to NYIT.

Smith finally in New York was welcomed by Catmull and explained what they were trying to attempt to do, which was make a feature animated film.  At this point the president of NYIT had hired hundreds of animators to aid the scientists.  Now with animators in the area the scientists could learn how traditional animation was done and adapt that into computers.  The group at NYIT was working hard to get something together and eventually dropped the 2-D animation to focus on 3-D animation.  The group made many advances in the computer graphics area to eventually grab the attention of a popular director.  This director was George Lucas, who was looking to start a computer group for his movies.  At first Catmull was the only one to be hired.  It was going to take time for Catmull to get the group at NYIT over to Lucas but they did not want to raise alarms to Schure what was going on.  Eventually everybody that was in the loop ended up with Catmull at Lucas.  While at Lucasfilm the group was to develop digital compositing, digital audio mixing and editing, and digital film editing.  The group at Lucas was always working on new stuff to bring to SIGGRAPH, a seminar for people to show advances made in computer graphics and interactive techniques, to look for new people and show off new developments.  While Catmull was at a computer graphics conference on the Queen Mary in Long Island ran into John Lasseter.  Catmull found out that he was no longer working for Disney and while in a phone call with Smith told him what had happened to Lasseter and Smith told Catmull to drop the phone and go hire him right now.  Catmull hired Lasseter and because of the nature of what Lucas wanted they had to hire him under the title of “interface designer” with Lasseter an actual animator working with all the computer scientists they were able to get a better understanding on how to make something feel more realistic when animating.  While doing many things for Lucas they were able to work on what they thought was going to be important to the understanding of how people would see 3-D animation.  The group created a short to show at SIGGRAPH titled The Adventures of André and Wally B.  The people at SIGGRAPH were awed at the realism of the short.  It showed that it was possible to complete an animation in the computer.  Eventually things would start to look bad for the guys at Lucasfilm with the divorce of George and the depletion of all of Lucas’s funds.  With a new president in place they had to start looking to finding a new home.

It took Lucasfilm some time to find a buyer of the computer software that had become to be the Pixar image computer.  It took some time and trying to sell it to Hallmark and many other companies but was not getting anywhere.  Eventually in 1986 the Lucasfilm computer division was bought by Steve Jobs.  Steve Jobs was computer co-founder of Apple computer.  When the division was purchased it then changed names to Pixar, inc.  Catmull was still determined to make a feature film in 3-D but Jobs was using the team as a top line software development team.  There were many times that Catmull and Jobs disagreed but after Jobs finally realized what was capable with the showing of Luxo Jr. at SIGGRAPH.  Along with Catmull disagreeing with Jobs, Smith also had disagreements with him and at one meeting because Smith did something to a white board Jobs and Smith were yelling at each other. After that dispute Smith decided it was his time to leave the company.  The company was doing horrible as a computer development company and started doing shorts for outside companies.  Eventually after doing many commercials for companies the group decided they were ready to take on a feature film.  Jobs was against the whole idea of a feature film because of how long a feature had to be and suggested that they do a short television show first.  The group was against the idea and thought they were ready for the big leap of faith and tackle a feature film.  They would finally get the chance when they struck a deal with Disney to make three feature films.  Frank Thomas one of the original nine old men that worked with Walt thought that a computer animated film would never work but after the really of it and how well received it was saw that it did finally work.  The first feature was Toy Story it was the first 3-D animated film to be made.  At the end of the three film deal the two companies went back into negotiations to discuss the deals not with the production of the films but on the distributions and licensing rights.

In 2004 Jobs was tired of trying to negotiate with Michael Eisner and said that Pixar was seeking new partners.  Negotiations would not begin again until Eisner was gone from Disney in 2005.  Eventually in 2006 Disney would acquire Pixar for 7.4 billion in an all-stock deal.  In the acquisition Catmull retained his position as President of Pixar, while also becoming President of Walt Disney Animation Studios.  Lasseter would become chief executive officer for Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios.  For Jobs, he would take a place on the Disney board of directors.  From the time Pixars’ start with Walt Disney releasing Toy Story to its acquisition they released many different films.  After Toy Story they did A Bug’s Life, 1998 this was about a colony of ants that where collecting food for winter and always had to set aside food for the grasshoppers. One ant went away from the colony to find help in getting rid of the grasshoppers.  Next came Toy Story 2 in 1999, sequel to the first one.  Monster, Inc in 2001, is about the realm of monsters in a kids closet and when a kid ends up in the monster world causes problems.  Finding Nemo in 2003, is about a clown fish trying to find his son that was taken by a scuba diver.  The Incredibles in 2004, is about a family with super powers that has to remain in hiding because the public does not want the help of the supers.  Cars in 2006, is about a race car that gets lost in a little town on route 66 on his way to a race.  Ratatouille in 2007, is about a rat that uses a person to make his dream come true of being a chef.  Wall-e in 2008, UP in 2009, and just recently Toy Story 3.  For all of these films it took them a minimum of four years to each of the films.  Each of the films had its own challenges to get through for the film to be completed.  For A Bug’s Life they needed to find a way to create large amounts of crowds in a single shot and with Monsters, Inc it was creating the fur on the characters.  So with the films came the minor bumps that needed to be solved and with technology always improving over the years it would help with the solving of the problems.

Pixar has films in works now for the release of next year.  For the first time Pixar is planning to release multiple films in one year.  One film is a sequel to the film Cars and continuing the story of lightning mcqueen.  Another is a sequel to the Monsters, Inc film.  The final film that they want to release is Brave that is the first film to be directed by a female for Pixar.  For all of these films there is not much information on them because when Pixar was working on a film they were talking to other animators from other studios and a film released the same year that was very similar to the film.  Ever since that happened Pixar keeps a tight lip on projects they are working on.

Computer animation has become a big part of many studios and now has become a popular area of study for college students.  I grew up on watching Disney films and cartoons that just made it easy to fall into the idea of being an animator.  With the thought of being an animator people always ask so you want to work for Pixar right and I always tell them that is my ultimate goal.  With Pixars’ history of making hit film after hit film why wouldn’t I work for one of the best computer animation companies.  Since Pixar is looking to deliver more feature films in a single year I hope that there high quality that they have been giving with the rest of the films will not drop now that they want to deliver more films.

Bibliography

Apodaca, Anthony A. and Larry Gritz. Advanced RenderMan:Creating CGI for motion pictures. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufman, 2000.

Price, David A. The Pixar Touch. new york: vintage books, 2008.

The Pixar Story. Dir. Leslie Iwerks. 2007.

Read & React: Chatter Guide

The chatter guide was a good experience with getting a good start on doing research for a paper.  With the chatter guide I found that it helped to get the ball rolling on research for a paper.  I learned that some of the information for my topic was in some interesting places like one of the places I found information on my topic about Pixar was in the British Medical Journal.  Also some of the information I found was in a place that I already knew about that has a lot of information on Pixar.  The chatter guide really did not have any affect on the topic of my trend paper because I knew that if I had to do a paper on a specific topic I knew it would be on Pixar because of my major being on animation and that I have such a fascination for all of Pixar’s work.  For the chatter guide one of the changes I would make is adding how the different topics are all related to one another.  I think that if people can relate more to other topics they can incorporated that into the trend paper.  The best source I found while putting this together is the Pixar website because it has information about its history of becoming the big animation studio they are today.  Also it has a list of all the movies and awards that the movies won.

Chatter Guide

Keywords

1. Green Architecture – a way to build that will minimize harmful effects on health and environment

2. L.E.E.D. – (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) an ecology-oriented building certification program run under the auspices of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC.org)

3. Gensler – a global architecture firm that is all about making their buildings and designs “green”

4. Sustainable Architecture – a term that describes building designed focused on being environmentally friendly in the field of architecture

5. Composition – the organization or grouping of the different parts of a work or art so as to achieve a unified whole

6. Freelance – a person who contends in a cause or in a succession of various causes as they choose without personal attachment or allegiance

7. Matte painting – Is a painted representation of a landscape, set, or distant location that allows filmmakers to create the illusion of an environment that would otherwise be too expensive or impossible to build or visit.

8. Photoshop – An image manipulation program by Adobe.

Journals

1. Energy and Buildings – This is an international journal all about energy use in buildings.  This journal provides links to how they use this energy.  The reason for this article is to show and teach people new ways and ideas at reducing energy usage in buildings and with that, it will provide a better environment.  The article is published International Council for Research and Innovation in Building and Construction.

2. Journal of Architectural Education – The articles was first founded in 1947 and is the primary journal for research and commentary.  The journal is published by the Associate of Collegiate School of Architecture through Wiley/Blackwell.  Their website is great for finding all their past articles and also finding the current issue in Architecture being talked about today.  What they also show you are other journals being published today about Architecture.

3. Wall Street Journal (via ProQuest) – includes financial news coverage from 1984-present. The financial aspect of things is especially important when discussing advertising and its influence on society. The monetary value of advertising and researching its pattern throughout the past few decades can lead to important discussions.

4. New York Times (via SIRS) – as a critically acclaimed journal I find the NYT to be a reliable source. Their articles go as far back as 1853 if you go to the New York Times Historical Database. The ability to research topics years ago is important when documenting a certain trend.

Google News Search

1. Sustainable Architecture – A handful of news articles popped up when I typed in “Sustainable Architecture”.  One article is talking about a new building purposed that will hopefully help kick start sustainable architecture more.  Another one talks about local Architects winning a Sustainable Architecture reward.  Another even talks about how Architects should take in sustainable architecture and put it more into use.  So all three of these show the importance and the views on how we should use sustainable architecture more often.

2. L.E.E.D. – When I typed in “LEED” in the news search, a couple listings were of buildings receive a LEED certification.  For instance, two Brookfield buildings in Toronto that were previously built just receive two LEED certifications.  One received a Gold cert. and the other received a Silver cert.  This shows that the program LEED is starting to get rolling and that every building is under consideration for this certification.  Also, now cities are offering tax incentives for new construction built in LEED standards.  This also backs up my point that LEED is starting to become very important.

3. Difference between a web and graphic designer – In this article, the author discusses how web and graphic designers are different. It also talks about how important they both are. Whether it is a billboard, movie poster, or a website, they were all created by graphic designers and web designers.

4. Viral Marketing – results that pulled up were a mixture “get rich” schemes for companies and popular viral videos that have made their way around the internet. One in particular is a video put out by HBO to promote their show True Blood. One article’s headline reads, “HBO apologizes for viral marketing madness”. The video was actually a play on the impact of viral marketing in society.

Websites

1. USGBC.org – the site is a great site for everything I need to know about L.E.E.D. considering L.E.E.D. was made under the USGBC.  The site goes in detail about how to get the L.E.E.D. certification and also the levels and how you get the certain levels of L.E.E.D.  This site isn’t all about L.E.E.D. though; it talks about sustainable architecture and just “green” architecture in general.  Finally this site is always great because it brings in recent articles that deal with Architecture.

2. AIGA.org – AIGA is the professional organization of design which has been around over 70 years. Was easily able to find information that I believe will help with the paper.

3. www.ogilvy.com (Ogilvy & Mather) – a major advertising agency based in Manhattan, but offices located worldwide. Not just Ogilvy specifically, but any agency’s website is important when doing research on the actual advertising business. It is a straight source to finding successful or not so successful advertisements, then from there doing further research to find out that advertisements impact on society.

Read & React: Tiger Town

In the article Tiger Town it was about how the economy was affecting the people and the baseball team in Detroit.  The article had many people such as a man that goes by Papa Smurf talk about how that in the year 2003 that the ball park was empty because the team was doing horrible and now that the team was winning the ball park was filled.  The article was also filled with comments from many of the players of the Detroit Tigers that they would run out ground balls because they know that many of the fans are struggling to keep their homes and feed their kids.  Inge commented, “I really believe they are the reason that we are where we are.”  With the park in one of the most depressed markets it was not noticed on game days.  In the article it talked about the fountain over the centerfield fence, that shoots great plumes into the air whenever a Tiger hits a home run, being one of the most valuable piece of advertising space in the stadium.  The main sponsor for that was the bankrupt GM could not pay for the spot but instead of letting them loose that spot it was flanked by Ford and Chrysler with the message: the Detroit Tigers support out automakers.  The article goes on to talk about how there are placed that are doing great at the time but if you look around them it is empty.

I think this article was a good article to show that even when some areas of the economy that are just absolutely in dyer straights people will still make the best of it when a local team is doing good and just to escape from the problems that are at hand.  The article had many people in it that dealt with the team but I think it would have been nice to have more local people talk about how they could afford to go to the games even with the chance that they could lose their home next month.  I work at the stadiums hear in Chicago and many people really try not to spend much money now because of the economy being so tough on many people.  With many of the comments that people made in the article I can see how people would take chances with trying different things.

Intro to Me

I am taking a summer course at Moraine Valley to transfer to DePaul University.  The course I am taking is Com 102, I figure it is better to take the class at Moraine Valley because it is cheaper.  Once the summer course is over I will go back to DePaul to finish my last year there to have a B.S. in Animation.  I have attended Moraine Valley before receiving the Certificate for animation.  Once done with school if unable to find work in Chicago I plan to move out to California.

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