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Silent Reviews

• 17 Again – Competent…

Napa and Columbine

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the day when two teenage boys entered the Columbine High School, carrying duffel bags that contained the guns and home-built propane bombs they would use to wantonly attack their fellow students. What followed is one of the deadliest school shooting in US history; an event that shook up the nation, sparked a cultural debate, inspired a movie, and created a term that has become synonymous with school shootings all around the world: Columbine.

Today also marks the day that an armed man walked across the Napa Valley Collage campus (my wife’s school), putting the college under a total lockdown, with SWAT teams and helicopters combing the perimeter for the suspect.

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Silent Reviews

• Watchment (movie) – Yes
• Bolt (Blu-ray) – Yes
• Rachel Getting Married (Blu-ray) – Yes
• Depeche Mode: Sounds Of The Universe – Yes

Monthly Hike: Point Reyes

When I was in my early teens, I caught a swashbuckling adventure movie about Sir Francis Drake on TV. The movie was probably awful, and the plot most certainly heavily romanticized. But back then, it impressed me enough to start naming my game characters after the legendary English captain/explorer/pirate (depending on who you listen to) – and ever since then, my Ultima avatars have been named “Drake”.

History caught up with me a few years ago when I moved to Marin County. Drake’s Bay at Point Reyes is considered to be the most likely landing spot during Drake’s 1579 world circumnavigation, and many local features (such as the Sir Francis Drake Boulevard) are a constant reminder of this colorful history.

Why am I telling you all this? Because during the past two weekends, Victoria and I visited to Point Reyes National Seashore to do some heavy-duty hiking. Point Reyes is well renowned for its great hiking trails and camping sites, played host to the classic horror movie The Fog (filmed in Inverness), and offers other attractions like the Point Reyes light house and great whale watching. Oh, Point Reyes  is also located smack middle on top of the San Andreas fault – the reason for the breathtaking terrain that makes up this part of California.

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Disney Resemblances

When you work in 3D animation you’ll sooner of later hear of the term “retargeting”. That’s when the artist/TD takes animation that was created for one rig (the skelton used to puppeteer a character) and applies (“retargets”) it to a different rig. That’s how animation sharing across multiple, different characters becomes possible. But if you think that this practice is a modern development, think again! The 2D equivalent of retargeting is “rotoscoping” – and it looks like Disney animators did quite a bit of it:

Quite an eye opener! Of course production realities and deadlines often encourage these kind of shortcuts, so I’m neither condoning nor condemning. The resemblance is very fun to watch, that’s for sure!

Found at ThinkingAnimation.