Sometime ago I came across PLOS Magazine Neuro Community Blog     (http://blogs.plos.org/neuro).

This blog is a gathering place for  current and promising PLOS Magazine authors. The blog covers a lot of neuroscience research areas such as cognitive neuroscience, brain mapping and behavioral neuroscience.

On July 14th the blog posted an article about The Art of Neuroscience competition occurred during the FENS (Federation of European Neuroscience Societies) International Meeting 2016 in Copenhagen Denmark. 120 labs from 21 countries in neuroscience field  presented their neuroscience-related art pieces. The main purpose of the competition was to ask researchers to evaluate their  own work from a different perspective.

The winner of the competition was “The Mutual Wave Machine” by Suzanne Dikker and Matthias Oostrik  NYU, USA and Utrecht University, The Netherlands 

The Mutual Wave Project explore the interface of performance art and neuroscience in an effort to understand the brain basis of human social interaction. This neurofeedback installation embodies elusive notion of “being on the same wavelength” with another person through brainwave synchronization. For more information about the project : http://www.suzannedikker.net/art-science-education/

“Science + Art + Education” lab that presented for the competition “The Mutual Wave Machine” involved in other art related projects. The focus of the lab are projects that investigate human social interactions. For instance,  NeuroTango allows us to peer into tango dancers’ minds in a live experiment showing their brain activity in real time.

By Dana S.

As we all know, reading up on material from the field that interests you the most helps you learn how that field works and who’s working in it. Getting to know who’s a part of the community can help you figure out the directions that you want to take and who you want to learn from as you grow.

Rocketstock

https://www.rocketstock.com/blog/

RocketStock is a video production website with a heavy leaning toward Video Editing and Post Process, and their blog reflects that by speaking on topics like how to better yourself in after effects, ways cgi and vfx have been used, and more.

One particular article that I’m interested in is one talking about free presets for video software. Color Grading is used all over in the film industry and having list of free resources definitely helps when you need to clear up your budget for other things, or that budget’s a tight one.

https://www.rocketstock.com/blog/free-color-grading-presets/

Shutterstock

http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/

Shutterstock’s blog website is filled with professional advice, inspiration for photographers and videographers, and thoughts on future events such as drones.

One such article talks about aerial photography/videography and how drones may be affecting its future. It goes into the history of these machines and their growing industry over the last year. I find this to be an intriguing article as Drones are becoming more influential every day for independent filmmakers and even the bigger players in the industry.

http://www.shutterstock.com/blog/the-future-of-drones-photography-film-video-production

This blog makes good use of its writers, and knows when to add an image to the article in order to help make a good point.

No Film School

http://nofilmschool.com/

This blog is more technically oriented than our previous examples, with articles on camera specs, how to’s for props, and even analyzing the underlying or hidden messages in films. This one is more for those of an intermediate level or higher, as you’ll need some background knowledge into these subjects in order to get the full experience from them.

One particular article that caught my eye here is one talking about the 6 different kinds of “Long Takes”. A Long Take is defined as a scene, or a portion of a scene, that uses one long camera take rather than cutting back and forth through a scene.

http://nofilmschool.com/2016/10/here-are-6-different-kinds-long-takes-you-can-use-your-films

My quest for a good blog site lead me to the discovery of Kyle Kenworthys Animation blog(Link at bottom). I wandered around his blog for awhile and I liked most everyhting I saw with a few exceptions.

I found the layout of the site very organized and easy to navigate with clear titles for what the viewer might be looking for. There are helpful videos and comments to anwser any questions you may have and his email is provided to contact him directly. To the right of the site there are labels with tutorials and helpful hints for viewers to explore. I personally like his animation posts, as it inspires me to get out there and learn to create my own animation.

I wasn’t sure how to feel about his offering of classes on the blog instead of giving out the information for those to use as they please, but I also understand that people need to make a living. His blog has an overview on the different classes offered, prices, what is taught in the class and the class outline, which looks very thourough. I disliked that some of the text color on his blog was harder to read such as blue text on a black background or text being to small. He also only updates once or twice a month which is understandable if he’s creating his own animation but I feel that updating with tips or links to other tools would be helpful and might attract more people to his blog.

All in all I think this is a solid blog and would recommend it to anyone curious about animation.

http://kylekenworthy.blogspot.com/

audio

Beat mecca is an inspiring blog ; that gives real life success  stories of music producers and how they were   able to become  established in the music industry.  for example the link below is a blog on Swiff D. An incredible  biography on the infamous producer that has produced some of  todays top musicians killing the billboard tracks today.  His passion for music started in high school, but It seemed that he had  no intentions to pursue  music. His main fucus was  on basketball when he was in college, but life can change in a split second. One minute you think you have a career in basketball, but in the end you become a famous music producer.

On the site they have uploads to soundcloud, so you are able to sample some of the producers work. Like always  their trying to sale them to you, but given the benefit of the doubt, all in all is a very will put to gather blog. the biographies from this blog are very motivational to a student, trying to break in an overly crowded career with producers around every corner. To here some of these stories can give hope to a student that questions is talent and skills that they my have been able to put together some of our futures greatest hits.

Since touring Laika’s studios last spring, my fascination with the world of stop-motion animation has grown into pursuing it as a career choice. I was disappointed not to find more stop motion blogs. Few are professionally ran, even fewer are updated. But the website dedicated to being a promotional and informative website for the stop-motion software Dragonframe proved to be excellent in design and content.

http://www.dragonframe.com/blog/

The blog content ties in nicely with the rest of the website. The website’s purpose is threefold:

• promote awareness of features and sales of Dragonframe
• provide tutorials about using Dragonframe and general product support
• give information about what hardware and cameras work with Dragonframe

The blog part of the website ties in with the first purpose, but also supports the software users of Dragonframe by showing the animations they’ve made.

As this is a website made to promote and support a professional product used in the industry, the quality of the design and content is excellent. The organization and ease of navigation is clear and intuitive, a must for a professional website. But the simplicity doesn’t hinder the depth and richness of the content, both of the overall website and of the blog portion.

The blog portion itself does have great features and interesting sections. Down the right sidebar are profiles of artists using Dragonframe, adding a personal connection for the viewer. Each blog post contains a brief video of a great stop motion creation, several poignant stills from the featured video, and a succinct description of the content. They are appropriately tagged and categorized, so you can click on the creator’s name and see other posts featuring their work, or see others in the same category. The categories themselves are interesting and encourage exploration, as you can see student work, commercials, title sequences, and others.

All of that makes the Dragonframe blog professional, but what steals the viewer away into the miniature worlds of the videos is the actual content of the videos. Each one dazzles the imagination and sparks creativity. Personally, I had a hard time breaking away from watching them to move on with my workday. For a few short minutes, you can enter an enchanting dimension of the artist’s making. The Dragonframe blog allows us to wander through tiny worlds as enchanted observers. It completely succeeds on selling us on the magic of stop motion animation. You may never want or need to use the Dragonframe software, but if you love animation, this blog will be a delight for you.

Who am I? 

My name is Allison Bode, I am interested in Computers, Video Games and a lot of Media I have had years of experience with Video editing, Filming, and Photography I take a lot of pictures in my free time when I see a snapshot opportunity. I enjoy video production the most and I also have experience with Photoshop, but I look forward to learning even more as I continue to explore with Multimedia. 

Why Media? 

I discovered my passion for Multimedia when I was in High School, I have worked with photoshop, Premiere, Final Cut Express, and a little of Blender. The part I love the most about media is the enjoyment I experience while working. I have learned so much in the past 4 years and I am learning even more programs as I go and I look forward to my journey that is still yet to come. I plan to pursue a career in Multimedia production.

Being that I want to major in cinematic studies I wanted to find a web page that could give me good advice/tips to help me get a better grasp on what I’m getting myself into. A website called Big League Film School had exactly what I was looking for. It has a comment section that allows you to get feedback and information from amateur and professional film producers as well as a page that provides tips and tricks to help you work on your skills. On top of both those wonderful resources, the website provides a multitude of monthly videos that cover all aspects of cinematography. My favorite part of the website is the comment section. There are so many responses (majority positive) that you can find an answer to almost all ones questions. I think the website was produced very well, it looks very plain and easy to find your way around. It contains loads of valuable information and really gets down to the point.

Although this website stands out a little more than the others there are countless websites that provide amazing information and comments that could be useful to film makers of all ages and skill levels.

www.bigleaguefilmschool.com

The Big Picture is the Boston Globe’s photojournalism blog.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/bigpicture

The Big Picture is a massive series of extremely beautiful photos taken from large news sources like Associated Press and Reuters. Each photo is paired with a brief caption explaining the story behind it, but otherwise the photos speak for themselves. There is an FAQ section where it explains that the blog is moderated by the Boston Globe photo editors and various other things. When you click on a photo that you like it opens up a series of photos on the same topic all with separate captions. When you scroll to the bottom of that series is where you can comment or share to email, Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, or LinkdIn.

One series that caught my eye was on the recent flooding in Lousiana. The blog really cements that you can take real events that are newsworthy and hard hitting and make them artistic and as visually appealing as any other artist’s blog.

Those photos are just the beginning, they have 45 amazing photos posted that show beyond words the disastrous affects of the flooding.

One thing I don’t like is their font choices. It takes away from the beauty of the photos to see a heading and caption that look like someones first attempt at creating a Myspace account. I am also surprised that they decided to not link to full articles about these stories just in case you want to read more.

Overall this is a really cool photojournalism blog that has personally inspired me to go out and take some shots if I get the chance.

Lately I’ve been asked professionally who is someone that you look up to, typically an artist always comes to mind for me, Loish. Lois van Baarle is a very active artist who I think really expands on what illustration is and character design can be. Without going too far into details of how I enjoy her art I really admire how she uses color for character design. Color-wise; the technique and even brush strokes really define that they are her characters. Her style is so defined that it functions for even graphic design.

Even her blog has complete function, which is what I really like. It’s a lot more than just the front page and that gives the viewer something to relate to. On her blog there is artwork, sketches, process, news and update, random, and archive. All of these options allows you to see her artistic process which is really unique and professional for an illustration blog.

The area that the picture is actually in the random page. Why I chose this image is it emphasizes how she expands the functions of an illustration blog, she has tutorial videos and is making a Kickstarter for the said project.

This isn’t even her only blog, if you were to Google Loish you would be able to find that the whole first page is filled with all of her different blogs. Each of these blogs able to please many different demographics with dramatically different formats for each website. With each different format of the website it allows the fan to see her art in many different approaches, which gives a lot of dimension to each piece individually and her style as a whole.

I thought that my personal favorite website of hers was her professional blog, which is in the picture above. It greets you with a business card and already allows you to choose what kind of art you personally are most attracted to. For instance, if your interested in having some art for you home then her original art link would direct you to different themes of her illustrations. All of the art on this webpage is so neatly organized and that makes even the web design aspect of art fun. In conclusion it’s one thing to make beautiful art, though to me it’s about how you make the art and what and how you bring art to life.

#illustration #graphicdesign #characterdesign #activeartist