The film industry has come a long way over the past century from transitioning to sound, developing color pictures, and using computer technology. All of these aspects are important to how the film industry has become what it is today, but the evolution of animation and computer generated images are arguably the most important in today’s film world. The term “summer blockbuster” comes to mind when thinking about how CGI has shaped Hollywood today. Movies that are considering gigantic box office smashes would never have been able to be made today if it were not for animation and CGI. There are huge action sequences, super heroes coming to life, worlds that are beyond a kid’s wildest dreams, and stunts like no other that are being performed in today’s films. That is all possible because of the images that are animated and generated by computers.

Animation dates all the way back to the early 1800’s but it was never even considered to be used as an art. As displayed in my timeline, devices and little toys were designed to trick the human eye into thinking that still images were moving or have life like qualities. These toys though sparked some of the greatest minds to thinking how they could improve those toys and create something from nothing. As the years went on and the concept of animation was being researched, filmmakers eventually stumbled upon this idea. Film already had taken the idea of still images and making them move, but now they were tampering with the idea of making hand drawn still images come to life. This fascinated filmmakers because it opened so many doors as to what could be shown on screen.  Stop motion was introduced the cartoons were now able to be transferred onto screen.

When the 1900’s hit, Walt Disney was the front man for animation. He took the works of Winsor McCay and the Fleischer Brothers to enhance the idea of creating a movie that was completely animated. Walt opened his studio with the sole intent of showing the public eye that animation was a thing of beauty and could create tales that no other form of art could. Through his first master piece of ‘Snow White,’ Walt achieved this and soon artists, animators, and filmmakers were drawn to the idea of animation. The animation phenomenon was not only in the United States though. Film industries across the globe saw what was being achieved through CGI and animation and other countries hopped on board. Displayed in my international animation studios map, the Asian region primarily had studios that flourished. Now, Japan is a leading country in the field of design which is largely due to the cultural love of anime.

Animation studios were opening across the world and in the United States, film companies were starting to open animation branches as a part of their studio. This included companies such as Lucas Arts, Warner Brothers, and 21st Century Fox. The biggest development for the world of animation came from Steve Jobs’ acquisition of the Lucas Arts computer animation team, which included John Lasseter. Jobs went on to create Pixar studios and thus began the revolution of animation in the film industry. With the creation of Pixar and access to Apple’s technology, John Lassester was able to shock the world and create some of the finest pieces of work the film industry has ever seen. Movies like ‘Toy Story’ and ‘The Incredibles’ showcased how magical animation could be. Animated feature films started to become wildly popular and it was proven by Pixar that animated features were profitable.

It was not long before all filmmakers started to recognize the power of CGI and what they could achieve by implementing it into their own films. Directors of major motion pictures started to tamper with adding CGI elements into non-animated features. Movies like ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘Titanic’ were able to be made because of how far animation had come and the development of computer generated animation. Soon CGI dominated Hollywood and the majority of the films being made utilized some form of animation or CGI in them. On my website, I added some links to box office records for both animated features and regular movies. The records show that almost all of the highest grossing films from recent decades are giant blockbusters which use CGI and animation. Not only that, but a large amount of the animated features listed on the highest grossing films of all time.

I also used wordle to analyze an article that was written about how Winsor McCay thought that animation was an art doomed to succumb to business. It is a sad truth, but Winsor was correct when he predicted that animation studios would dominate and animators would lose sight of what the true art form was. Even though the studio system did take over, there are still studios like Pixar who pride themselves on being innovative and creating magical stories through which could be done with animation. So, while Winsor may have been right, there are still studios in the world that understand the beauty of animation. The simple fact is, without the business, there would have been no animation studios and the film industry would not have made it where it is. In a second article that I analyzed, I focused in on Steve Jobs and his creation of Pixar shaped the industry as well. In the grand scheme of things, Pixar showed the world how animation can be properly used and they developed the technology needed to create the CGI that is being used today.

I plan on trying to update this website and keep it preserved for as long as the topic is relevant. I will make sure that the box office records remain up to date and that the website I am using remains credible. Updating is easy, and the timeline will continue to grow as more technological advancements are made. The film world owes it to the men who created those little trinkets back in 1800 because without them , there would be no CGI today. That or it would have taken much longer to reach where we have gotten today.

All information used was taken from the books below and websites listed. As well, information on the history on Pixar was taken from their documentary.

Works Cited

1. “Animation History, Winsor McCay, Max Fleischer.” Animation History, Winsor McCay, Max Fleischer. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.
2. Cavalier, Stephen. The World History of Animation. Berkeley: University of California, 2011. Print.
3. “List of Animation Studios.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 17 Dec. 2012. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.
4. Terdiman, Daniel. “With Pixar, Steve Jobs Changed the Film Industry Forever.” CNET News. CBS Interactive, 06 Oct. 2011. Web. 17 Dec. 2012.
5. Thomas, Frank, and Ollie Johnston. Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life. New York: Abbeville, 1981. Print.
6. “The Story of Pixar” a Documentary.

I know the assignment was  to read only two of Felton Reports, but I have to say, I found them incredibly interesting, so I ended up browsing through numerous ones. The data that this man collects and manages to condense into these reports is truly fascinating and I highly suggest that  people take time to at least scrim through them. I found the 2010-2011 quite interesting in the way that he modeled the report by graphing it by who he was with. It was intriguing to look at the graphs, images, and charts and noticing trends or any kind of correlation between the people he was with. What makes the reports even more interesting, is how evolved and advanced his report became over the years. For instance, the 2005 report is very simple compared to the others, and is comprised of simple graphs and images. That is not to say that it is any less interesting, but you can definitely see the advancements in technology and skill from each report.

I never knew that sites like these existed, and now that I do, it is fascinating to see how we can so easily document our lives. If people took the time, I think everyone could report their lives just like Felton. It would require tremendous work, but it would be fascinating to see. You can learn so many facts about a person from these little tad bits of information. But, not only is is beneficial for people to learn facts about yourself, but you can also help yourself learns facts about yourself. There would be so many re-occurring themes if I did reports like these, and you can even find some in Felton’s reports. All in all, these reports were extremely fascinating to look at, and I think tools like these should be more open for regular people to exploit.

This week, I found the entire website, ‘Hypercities.com,’ to be incredibly interesting. It may sound a little strange, but I had no idea that there was a site like this for people to use freely. Sites like this I feel are extremely important and useful for people to use in order for research and just to explore the past. I was surprised to see how in depth the maps were and was impressed by the detail some contained. I am not sure if was actually reading any of them correctly, but besides that, they were very cool to look at.

I think technology and websites like this are good signs of advancement in technology for us. A lot of times, people always debate whether or not technology is considered “good advancement” due to the fact that the cyber world has now become dangerous, well some parts of it anyways. However, sites like this aim to be informative, innovative, and helpful. Students who are interested in this field of work now have an advanced outlet to practice through. Since the world is moving into a digital age, technology like this needs to be available for younger collaborators to use, which makes this tool so useful. I am not sure how long it takes to produce one of these maps, or how long it takes to upload it onto the site, but the site itself appears to be quite impressive. People can learn a lot about every day cities from here and always go into the past and discover ancient cities.

This week’s readings covered the topic of password security and the fact that now, more than ever, there are people hacking into accounts and erasing or stealing property. The whole idea of a person being able to see the accounts and have control of the applications you use personally is terrifying. In a sense, it is almost like having a robber break into your house in the middle of the night. The only difference is that online hackings can happen at anytime and anywhere. Most of the time, victims do not realize they have been hacked until hours the damage has been dealt. I have never been hacked myself, but I can imagine the horror of losing precious data, or knowing that some stranger knows all of my personal information.

As for the whole ideal with the iCloud devices, this is precisely why I try to avoid using of the new technology. My brother uses Cloud to store all of his data between the multiple devices he uses for media. I try to tell him that it is not safe considering that if a person got a hold of his account for the cloud, the hacker would have access to all of his devices.Unfortunately, I think one of the problems that we are facing as a society, is that people are so quick to give up safety for accessibility. Companies tell us that their networks are secure and that setting up multiple passwords and accepting confirmation e-mails will protect our account, but that is all horse crap. I remember recently when Sony had thousands of their Playstation Network user’s accounts hacked. Thankfully only handfuls of credit card information were stolen, but that is beside the point.

Companies can never guarantee the safety of online accounts. People think that a long password will protect them, but hackers are always finding ways around security. To me it seems like that the technology hackers use are always one step ahead of any security system that is created. It sounds ridiculous, but  I think hackers could easily find jobs working for major companies by hacking into their networks. By having an internal source hack into your own system before a foreign source does, maybe we can be better prepared. After this post, I will be changing my password to something hopefully a bit more secure. Longer passwords always equal more security right?

How has the invention of 3D technology in movies transformed the industry since the 2000’s?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12255971@N04/4958818749/ – This was found using flick commons. I found this picture to be quite resonating and funny. Many films that have been released recently that are in 3D, or claim to be using the 3D technology to it’s fullest have always been criticized as being terrible films. Many movies are trying to use this gimmick to appeal to certain people, and mainly children. They lose track of what a quality film is and just focus on this 3D nonsense.

Through the mason library, there are a lot of titles that came up dealing with the production aspect of using 3D animation and technology. This is relevant to this research question, because despite 3D technology typically being generalized as negative concept for the film industry, it does show a step forward in technology and it also has opened up many new jobs for animators and editors.

On Archive Finder, there were really no archives to be found which has any relevance to 3D films. I was not too surprised, considering this subject is a bit more modern compared to most of the archives that are listed in the site. .

This topic has always struck me as interesting and complicated in the world of the web, One of the reasons why I think people are so drawn to the internet, social media in particular, is that you can essentially create a new identity if you wanted to. It is incredibly hard to authenticate someone’s identity on the internet, unless they are of large status and/or a celebrity. This is what makes doing research, or using the internet as a resource sometimes dangerous because it can be difficult to actually find a credible source. In some ways, it is more work to actually use websites as a tool of information because you have to make sure the websites that you are using were created by a legitimate organization or person of merit. If not, then your paper could lose all credibility.

I think this is where the stigma of, Wikipedia is not a reliable source to use when researching topics for school. However, Wikipedia can be reliable at times. Now that people are realizing that you cannot trust everything you read on the internet, links to the source of content posted on a Wikipedia page are listed on the bottom of the page. Sometimes, the links bring you to a reliable source which appears to be legit and sometimes there are links to blog posts that everyday people use to rant about your subject. Generally speaking, .edu and .gov sites have been branded as legitimate and do not require in depth scouting as to whether or not the information on those sites are true. I just think it is funny that this new generation of people who are growing up on laptops and computers are faced with this issue of credibility. When I was growing up, there was never  need to check to see if a publication company was legit, books always and still do have this air of authenticity about them.

“It may be impossible (or at least very difficult) to move from analog to digital with no loss of information; what you really need to ask is the cost of representing the original as closely as possible. In other words, not only does digitization mean a loss (albeit in some cases a very modest one), it also incurs a cost.”

These two sentences are the two that stood out to me the most in this entire chapter from Cohen’s “Digital History.” Every year, it seems that more and more information, history, and society is being digitized. Whether it be files, recordings, or social media, the way the world is beginning to function seems to be done mostly through a computer. However, is this actually an advancement? Yes, technology may have the appearance of being newer, sleeker, and faster but is that shiny new look worth the risk of losing information and quality?

Growing up in the time period where there is an apparent switch between books and computers makes it difficult to judge whether or not the internet and digitization is actually beneficial. Research done through text and written recordings is now being considered archaic and yet, in my opinion, still yields better results. The information that you can find not digitally seems to always be more reliable. The internet is constantly changing, and with so many people having access to its inner workings, some times the information on there is not reliable, which makes research much more difficult. Not too mention the amount of money that is being poured into the digitization of information. In my opinion, digitization if all flash, but no sustenance. It runs fast, and allows you to find what you are looking for, but through the process of digitization, information is being lost and deleted. I would much rather stick to books and written documents.

In “Getting Started: The Basic Technologies of the Web,” Cohen describes how web pages “require more shepherding” and that books or “physical manifestations of human expressions” will “likely survive for generations.” I find this to be extremely interesting to look at, considering how in this day in age, society is starting to learn towards a much more digital world. Schools and business are beginning to transition to having all of their primary work done online, whether it be through crunching numbers now into a computer instead of log books, or using online textbooks in schools. The majority of research that is being done now is through the web by using web browsers to look up hundreds of different sites.

This all relates because, like Cohen describes, web pages need to constantly be monitored and updated to make sure they are not hacked, tampered with, corrupted, or simply obsolete. Before the whole digital age, books and paper were able to be stored and used as solid records. Instead of having to search through thousands of web sites, a person could read two or three books and find all of the necessary information. It is difficult to maintain a reliable web page without keeping constant watch of the content. With this being said, how does the future plan to make the web a reliable and secure network of information? Paper and pen is slowly being edged out, and while text in a book can last centuries, thousands of web pages are hacked, deleted, and altered every day.

Welcome to onMason. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!