Van Helsing

Van Helsing is a bad-ass version of any vampire/werewolf movie. The most eye-catching scene in the movie would be the transformations. The one I'm going to focus on would be the transformation of the vampire women from human to flying vampiric creatures. There was a lot of 3D work. The actors were shot in a blue screen environment and they were motion captured from neck down. The heads of the creatures would be in 2D which will be edited in the post-production stage. The legendary Industrial Light & Magic people had no problem taking this tenuous job. The transformation of the main protagonist into a werewolf was also a challenge to the team because they had to consider the fur movement when the character jumps from side to side, attacking the vicious vampire beast in front of him. For the shots that needed tracking, ILM designed custom suits which infrared light could not detect. This made tracking easier for them. 

Chowder

Chowder became my favourite cartoon to watch on Cartoon Network after watching a few episodes of it at times when I had problems sleeping. The series highlights the adventures a young cooking apprentice who loves food more than himself. The most noticeable difference between this cartoon series and all the other cartoon series nowadays would be that Chowder uses optical illusions for the clothes the characters are wearing. It gives the illusion that the textures of the clothes move along with the character. 

It's a stylistic choice and Chowder falls under a new category of animation that has captivated me till now. 

Naruto

Naruto is the longest ongoing anime series, aside from Bleach. Cartoon Network used to air episodes of  the famous anime but it has been replaced with a Western cartoon series. The adventures of Naruto has been set in culturally rich Japan, where ramen shops are abundant and people remove slippers and wear socks when they enter a home, regardless whether it is their own or it belongs to another. Japanese animation is completely on a whole other level compared to Western animation in terms of style of animation and storylines. In Naruto, ninja skills are essential to drive the story forward because it serves as a motivation for the protagonist and his friends which will make the audience root for him. Ninjas did originate from Japan so this is another way for the animators to promote and showcase the unique Japanese culture.

Madagascar 3 : Europe's Most Wanted

The third installment of the Madagascar series lived up to its predecessors. The film boasts about its stunning visuals and another heartwarming storyline with everyone's favourite animals. The Madagascar movies did so well that a cartoon series centered around the lives of the lovable penguins has been airing on Nickelodeon till now. 

Mark Theriault was the FX artist for the film. He has worked on films like Sucker Punch and Tron Legacy. He did keyframe animation in Maya, created fluid simulations and rippling water simulations in Houdini. The scene that definitely caught my attention would be the final scene where the circus act finally takes place. There were a lot of light waves and it looks like a bunch of glowsticks waving in the darkness.

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

The first thing about the movie that fascinated me would be the fact that the film is subtly mysterious and creepy. The story touches on a man who was born as an old man and throughout his life, he aged backwards, finally dying as a baby. It's just so twisted, yet compelling.

The visual effects work dedicated to the film is outstanding. One of the reasons would be that the film starts off with Brad Pitt and a replaced CG head. The visual effects team had to work with a reality capture software known as Mova to record Brad's facial expressions in detail to be transferred to his CG head. 

Body actors were used instead of having Brad himself be present for the shoot because the start of the film starts off with a small,old man. Brad was simply too tall so a body actor was used. After the shoot, the head of the body actor was simply replaced with Brad's old CG head. 

Before:

After:

Matte paintings for the film were dazzling too. The people in charge of the environments used in the film made use of the software we DVFX students use which would be Vue and Photoshop. Enhancements on the sky or the environment had been done in Vue.

How To Train Your Dragon

'How To Train Your Dragon' was constantly playing on TV so I decided to watch it again. Personally, I feel that the style and the look of the movie has DreamWorks written all over it. The plot has a meaningful life lesson to be brought home and pondered upon after watching the movie. 

The design of all the dragons used in this movie differ and each and every one of them has been animated differently to react according to their respective personalities. For example, the protagonist's dragon, Toothless, is shy but becomes aggressive when someone tries to harm him or the protagonist. The whole plot was heavily inspired by a novel bearing the same name. Although the novel presents countless species of dragons, the film only highlighted six breeds, of which the two-headed dragon is the largest in terms of volume.

Most of the concept art done before the movie shooting did become a shot for the full feature-length film. I personally feel that the concept artists have outdone themselves with the design of the environments featured in this film. 

The animation for the characters was smooth soon became lovable as the movie continues on. 

Resident Evil : Afterlife

So one day I've decided to watch a rerun of Resident Evil: Afterlife on HBO and I actually paid a little bit more attention to the effects work than before.

Firstly, there was a scene in the movie showing a post-apocalyptic Tokyo. After researching this, I have come to learn that the crew working on the environment shots had to shoot plates of the real Tokyo then digitally alter the footage to add smoke and the dilapidated look.

Another main attraction to watch this movie would be undeniably the zombies. Most of the zombies were puppets specially sculpted for the production of this movie. The crew had the budget to do so, anyway.

There are a lot of slow-mo scenes in this film but my favourite one would have to be the scene where Alice and Claire are forced to face-off with the famed Executioner. He was based on a video game character bearing the same name and he was played by Ray Olubowale, a tall heavy-weight boxer. 

Although this movie was intended to be for 3D, people who watch this film in 2D would not miss out on anything. The visual effects for this film would be mostly the creatures involved like the demon dogs and the zombies and the explosions. I believe this is a good example of a film that has the effects aid the telling of the story.