TED Talk Blog
So this weeks blog was about Danielle Feinberg, Pixar's director of Photography, explained how the art and lighting of the movies they have made go hand and hand with math, science, and code to create worlds, making fantasy into reality.
The TED Talk starts off with Ms. Feinberg recalling a memory of her childhood, when she was asked the very question that every child is asked when they are young, "what do you want be when you group?". She happily replied that she wanted to be an artist, to which she received an answer of "you can't be an artist, you'll never make money and live as an artist". Ms. Feinberg was crushed hearing that as a child, however she loved science and math and went to college for computer programming ultimately landing a job at Pixar studios in lighting. Lighting and practice is placing lights inside a three dimensional world. Lighting can set the mood, guide the viewers attention to a specific object, and set the differences between the character and background so they don't blend together.
When creating the setting, the team uses science and Earth as references to make things look realistic and believable. In Finding Nemo, the underwater scenes were made by using underwater footage that the team gathered and recreated it in the computer, then broke it down to see what elements give it that "underwater look". To create the caustics in the water, they had to see how light travels through the water and to create the color of the water, they had to let the color coexist with the lighting. However, although real footage was used to help get a feel for the scene, the goal wasn't to create a scientifically correct world, but a believable world, that viewers can immerse themselves in.
Not everything is these types of movies has to be hyper realistic. For example when they were making Wall-E, his binoculars were so realistic to where they looked "glassy eyed" which is what you don't want. The animators and lighting artists had to make it less realistic and focus on how to make his personality pop since he only has binoculars for a face and nothing else to display his emotions or and showing his personality. Finally they found a solution which was adding a light that leaked into his lens, which gave an eye that portrayed a human eye, giving Wall-E a soul/ personality, then they brought back the glassy eyed look when Wall-E went "dead". Lighting uses math, science, and code to create worlds, while using art to bring them to life, which all comes together to make fantasy into reality.
Listening to a TED talk instead of reading an article really allowed me to get more information and understand it more. Listening to how much lighting has to do with animated films and how big of a part they play in making them just makes my respect for lighting artists so much bigger, I thought it was very broad in explaining how things are done with lighting for example taking a real world footage and tweaking it into what they want really surprised me, as well as seeing how much the lighting artists have to about the scenery such as how real water currents move and how sunlight refracts in the water.
It was interesting to find out how coding and math tie into lighting because I always thought you just put certain lights in and see what looks best with the scene but then again Im a complete amateur with this stuff. There is so much more you have to do, you have to make it look semi realistic as well as appealing to the viewers watching it. For example when they were fixing Wall-E's glassy eye, they had to try some many different things such as try different lenses until they found a solution, requiring a great amount of patience. I definitely recommending reading this if you are interested in becoming a lighting artists, interested in animation and the different components that go into it, or if you just want to find a good TED Talk to listen to.
The TED Talk starts off with Ms. Feinberg recalling a memory of her childhood, when she was asked the very question that every child is asked when they are young, "what do you want be when you group?". She happily replied that she wanted to be an artist, to which she received an answer of "you can't be an artist, you'll never make money and live as an artist". Ms. Feinberg was crushed hearing that as a child, however she loved science and math and went to college for computer programming ultimately landing a job at Pixar studios in lighting. Lighting and practice is placing lights inside a three dimensional world. Lighting can set the mood, guide the viewers attention to a specific object, and set the differences between the character and background so they don't blend together.
When creating the setting, the team uses science and Earth as references to make things look realistic and believable. In Finding Nemo, the underwater scenes were made by using underwater footage that the team gathered and recreated it in the computer, then broke it down to see what elements give it that "underwater look". To create the caustics in the water, they had to see how light travels through the water and to create the color of the water, they had to let the color coexist with the lighting. However, although real footage was used to help get a feel for the scene, the goal wasn't to create a scientifically correct world, but a believable world, that viewers can immerse themselves in.
Not everything is these types of movies has to be hyper realistic. For example when they were making Wall-E, his binoculars were so realistic to where they looked "glassy eyed" which is what you don't want. The animators and lighting artists had to make it less realistic and focus on how to make his personality pop since he only has binoculars for a face and nothing else to display his emotions or and showing his personality. Finally they found a solution which was adding a light that leaked into his lens, which gave an eye that portrayed a human eye, giving Wall-E a soul/ personality, then they brought back the glassy eyed look when Wall-E went "dead". Lighting uses math, science, and code to create worlds, while using art to bring them to life, which all comes together to make fantasy into reality.
Listening to a TED talk instead of reading an article really allowed me to get more information and understand it more. Listening to how much lighting has to do with animated films and how big of a part they play in making them just makes my respect for lighting artists so much bigger, I thought it was very broad in explaining how things are done with lighting for example taking a real world footage and tweaking it into what they want really surprised me, as well as seeing how much the lighting artists have to about the scenery such as how real water currents move and how sunlight refracts in the water.
It was interesting to find out how coding and math tie into lighting because I always thought you just put certain lights in and see what looks best with the scene but then again Im a complete amateur with this stuff. There is so much more you have to do, you have to make it look semi realistic as well as appealing to the viewers watching it. For example when they were fixing Wall-E's glassy eye, they had to try some many different things such as try different lenses until they found a solution, requiring a great amount of patience. I definitely recommending reading this if you are interested in becoming a lighting artists, interested in animation and the different components that go into it, or if you just want to find a good TED Talk to listen to.
Good description of what the TED talk was about
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