Digital Technology

QUESTION 1:
Digital Technology and the Cinema: CGI, Motion Capture, and King Kong Lecture Video QUESTION:

Please watch the following video (LINK SEE ATTACHED FILE) on Peter Jackson’s special effects (FX) company, Weta Digital, and the making of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, and answer the questions that follow. You will also want to reference our FH textbook to help you answer some of the questions.

1. What kind of artist was Christian Rivers, when working for Peter Jackson on Lord of the Rings, and what process–that you learned from reading Chapt. 30–was he describing in the beginning of this video? (2pts)

2. How did actor Andy Serkis transform the CGI character Gollum? According to Jackson, this was the first time this had ever happened for him and his company (and possibly ever in the development of CGI characters).

3. Jackson makes a claim about how to create better CGI characters. What was this claim, and why do you think he makes it? (1pt. for restating the claim and 1pt. for your opinion as to why)

QUESTION 2: The Hollywood War Machine: Media Culture, Empire, and Marvel’s Militainment Lecture Video

In the first clip of The Avengers played in the lecture (the opening of the film), what are the two spaces that are introduced to the viewer?

Why is the pairing of these two spaces important?

QUESTION 3: In the third scene of The Avengers shown in lecture, how are the important, possibly critical dialogue pieces disrupted or made difficult to absorb? (Please name two of these distractions/disruptions.)

QUESTION 3:

Digital Convergence, Film Form & Style, & Animation Lecture Video

Digital technology was used to amplify what familiar film technique in the film Birdman? (1pt.)

How did this technique help to enhance the scene shown in the Birdman lecture clip ? In other words, what effect does this technique have on the scene’s subject matter? Feel free (and encouraged) to mention other film techniques at work in this scene. (2pt.)