Building a Scene in Maya

Special Effects in Animation and Live-Action

My first two term paper scores were both above 80; I will not be writing a third term paper.

Outline for the Third Term Paper

Green screen
Intro:
A. One of the most common and cheapest effects in movies and tv shows
B. Actors and foreground scenery placed in front of a green screen, which an image is then placed digitally on the green screen
C. Used in place of expensive scenery, making a scene able to film indoors.

Use in Harry Potter
A. Used in many scenes, mostly commonly in scenes with large landscapes, caverns, and most notably, quidditch.
B. Often used in scenes where magically properties use, especially every flying scene. It is almost impossible to tell it's green screen.

Use in Whose Line is It Anyway?
A. In a more humorous fashion, this show uses it in the game appropriately named "Green screen"
B. The "on the field reporter" (usually Colin or Ryan) stands in front of a green screen while two other performers acting as reporters back in the newsroom ask the field reporter questions. The field reporter, based on those questions, has to guess the image being projected on the screen. It is hilariously unrealistic.
C. The reporters usually hint at what's going on using puns.

Conclusion
Green screen is everywhere, and even the most amateur of film makers can use it, as long as they have the appropriate software. Don't wear green when you use it, otherwise you'll blend into the background. I didn't know we had to do the outline until it was almost too late so this is really last minute and I'm a horrible person and I'm sorry.

Stop-Motion Character Animation

"A Day in the Life of Mr. Jenkins"

This was actually a photography final I did back in community college at home in LA. I decided to do a stop motion.  I made most of the props myself out of cardboard and paper. A few of the props were from my old barbies I had laying around.  I set up the camera on a tripod and a table and took pictures of my drawing doll in different rooms in my house going about his life.  It took about 2 weeks to make the prop, shoot everything, and edit the video.  The doll doesn't stand up on its own very easily, so for the (poorly made) walk along the wall I used sticky-tac against his arm to stick him up to wall. I also used stick-tac to make the doll hold things.
While this project was fun, it was also very frustrating because the doll often fell over and I would have to start all over in that shot.

Scientific Fact or Cinematic Fiction

Incorrect Weight and Gravity

Sometimes, in order to make a movie or TV show more exciting, animators ignore the laws of physics. This often results in impossibly high jumps, seemingly weightless characters, and other death-defying stunts that would simply be impossible in real life.  Some laws of physics are also ignored in video games in order to change the difficulty of the game.

In many movies and TV shows, a big, heavy and bulky character might even be animated to seem agile and light as a feather.  This might be done to make fight scenes more exciting and dramatic, but can seem very unrealistic.  It can also be done for timing purposes.

In the animated TV show "Fullmetal Alchemist," Edward Elric, the fifteen-year-old protagonist, has had a prosthetic arm and leg called "automail" made out of steel alloy since he was eleven years old.

The heavy automail resulted in his stunted growth as a teenager, with Ed standing at only about 4'11".  Despite him being vertically challenged and weighed down by metal prosthetics, Ed has adapted to become adept at combat, and is surprisingly agile. He spent many years training with his automail in order to gain strength that compensates for the heavy machinery. This doesn't explain, however, why he can jump so impossibly high and far. In multiple episodes, he is shown to be able to jump at least three times his height, which should be impossible for anyone.  His fight with Greed the homunculus makes his agility and apparent ability to jump at super-human heights apparent:

According to his character profile, Greed is about 6 feet, making him more than a foot taller than Ed:

In this scene, Ed jumps not only more than twice Greed's height, but almost three times his height in distance, as well as spending almost three seconds in midair. 

This would be difficult if not impossible for anyone, but for someone weighed down by metal limbs it should be absolutely impossible.  The animators also animated his limbs as if they weighed the same as his other limbs. Although Edward has trained in order to move his automail with the same agility as his other limbs, he would still be affected by the differing weight.  Later in the show, Ed gets fitted with lighter carbon fiber automail, resulting in his growth in height as well as even greater agility.

Another example of incorrect weight is in the 2003 movie "The Hulk." This video speaks for itself.

I mean it's as if the animators purposely wanted it to look ridiculous. I don't care how superhuman you are, when you're that big and bulky of a character, there's no way you can jump that high and far.  Additionally, when the Hulk lands, it causes such little impact it brings to question if he's really very heavy at all. Although he lands on natural arches that are barely sturdy, they don't break upon impact, despite the fact that he can jump through a ceiling that was barely a foot above his head.  This inconsistency makes the movie laughably bad.  His jumps make him look like he's floating in the air, almost as if there is little to no gravity, or as if he's suspended from wires. But being such a big and bulky character, and knowing that muscles weigh a lot, this should not be so. However, the animators really wanted to get across the fact that he is a superhuman, as if the fact that he's an eight-feet-tall green bodybuilder that destroys entire buildings doesn't already illustrate that.

Skyrim is a video game for the PS3 that is critically acclaimed for its stunning graphics, exciting gameplay and multiple engaging story lines.  But the flawed horse physics is widely known and often exploited by gamers.  When horses were added to the game, the developers realized that there wasn't much of an advantage to owning such an expensive asset, so they made it so owning and riding a horse made scaling mountains and other steep slopes much easier.  However, they forgot to change to model, which means that no matter what angle the horse stands on the mountain, the legs are always perpendicular to the body, as if it's standing on flat ground.   In many cases, this results in the horse looking like it's floating in midair, rather than standing on the mountain.  This also causes a glitch in which jumping on a mountain confuses the game, causing extra hang time in the jump, resulting in a horse that looks like it's flying.

In conclusion, while some physics errors are due to pure ignorance, sometimes the laws are bent in order to make a character or scene more exciting, such as in Fullmetal Alchemist and The Hulk.  Sometimes the animators simply forget or simply overlook a few details. Perhaps the animators simply neglected some laws of physics in order to rely on the audience's suspension of disbelief.