If your anything like me then you actually find peace and solace while people speeding towards you on ice skates, shooting hard vulcanized rubber at high velocities directly at you. That’s right, I’m talking about the Goaltender. http://ingoalmag.com started in 2007 and has everything you need to keep you current on the ever evolving goalie position.

The site is mapped out nicely. Easy to navigate and there is a really cool option where you can read all the articles in a digital magazine. There’s tons of info on important stretching techniques and training videos so you can try them out at home or on the ice. They have their in-house writers as well as many guests that are asked to write up certain articles. I really like reading the interviews. It’s fun to hear what your favorite NHL goalie or up-incomer has to say about the game. My favorite parts are the Gear threads. Especially the Masks. I love character design and goalie masks do not disappoint when it comes to eye candy.

Goaltending is a sports position like no other. It’s a very athletic position that requires a lot of physicality but even more so it’s very mentally challenging. InGoal Magazine is a great tool for goaltenders and I recommend it to anyone interested in strapping on the big pads!

By Noah Gutierrez

Fyodor Pavlov (warning for sexual content throughout site)

Fyodor Pavlov runs a personal/professional blog on their website Fyodor Pavlov  through a direct live feed to their Tumblr based web blog. It consists of anecdotes and pictures, and serves as a means for employers to look into their life. Their pictures are generally tied to current projects, such as the first few photo shoots on the actual blog.

I think it’s nice because Fyodor serves as an over the web inspiration and mentor of sorts. He helps showcase the corner of the world he lives in and even though he doesn’t blog in the same way other professionals do in his line of work, I’d say that it lends a sense of authenticity not found in many other mediums. 

When overlooking some of his posts, you know that his life is definitely avant garde, but his view point never strays too far from a professional demeanor. His web presence is bulky and difficult to maneuver around, so as far as blog set up, I have my issues; though looking past it is easy for the quality of work and information.

There’s not very many external links, but he does self promotion and promotion for other LGBTQ+ artists within his community. One of my favorite things he does since he’s on tumblr is that he weblogs master posts with interesting facts about art and upcoming events that you can scope out.

It goes without saying that Fyodor is an artistic inspiration of mine, but he also is a role model for the kind of online presence I’d like to have–if not a tad bit more sfw. If you have the time and stomach for some lewd things, he’s a pioneer in his field. Fyodor began blogging before expanding his career, so the entire blog has a lived in feeling. Overall, the quality of work is exceptional–if not hard to maneuver in a web setting–and he stands as one of my favorite artists and bloggers.

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.