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ilikekidsshows · 4 years ago

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Kagami got to take a happy selfie after all! You know, this episode has some god-tier mirroring, and you guys know how nuts I go over some good mirroring. Firstly there was the design of Ikari Gozen. As noted during the liveblog itself, Ikari Gozen combines the designs of both of Kagami’s Akuma transformations: Riposte and Oni-Chan. I’ve had a long-running theory that the purpose of an Akumatization, when not used for evil, might be to bring a person’s darkest emotions to the surface, so that they can be physically fought, which is why so many Akumatization victims get over whatever issue they had after being purified or why they might even feel better after the fact, as was the case with Chris. The fact that Kagami and Tomoe have similar Akuma forms implies a connection between their internal strife, with them either sharing them or Tomoe actually being the cause of Kagami’s. This makes me think that an Adrien Akumatization that emphasized his Adrien side’s conflicts would have design similarities with Collector, as their family relationship is paralleled with the one between Kagami and Tomoe.

Another mirroring that happens in the episode is the structure of the arc of Kagami and Marinette becoming friends, especially when you consider Adrien is at the center of both their connection and strife. When Marinette first meets Adrien, there’s a misunderstanding that damages their relationship, but once it gets resolved, they start to grow into very close friends. The same thing happens here between Marinette and Kagami. The similarities don’t end there. The thing that makes Marinette soften on both Adrien and Kagami is discovering how their parents control them and how they don’t have any friends. The contrast, however, comes from how the Act of Kindness that starts the friendship was performed by Adrien in Origins, and Marinette here. So, yeah, Kagami and Marinette’s relationship just got directly contrasted with the one Marinette shares with her primary love interest. Make of that what you will.

Also, the color palette contrast is strong in this episode too. Marinette and Kagami wear contrasting colors, but they also have complementary coloring going on. Marinette’s pink complements Kagami’s dark red, while the lighter/darker complement is reversed in their hair, signifying a balance between these two. Of course, the hair color is mostly intended for the purpose of highlighting, which is why their hair colors are actually identical in the last shot, though it could be symbolic of their new understanding of each other as well. The pink/red complement is by itself a fitting choice, though, as these two colors symbolize these characters extremely well, with Marinette’s pink standing for her romantic, playful and feminine aspects, while Kagami’s red stands for her passion, short temper and courage. Why I find this fitting is that these are personality traits that their counterpart shares as well.

Also, is it just me, or did Kagami instantly getting outed as a superhero feel like the writers made her too good, so they had to remove her from play? I mean, Longg is already a ridiculously overpowered Kwami, but Kagami had masterful control of his varied abilities right off the bat. However, Kagami’s mistake also highlights the nature of the conflict against Hawk Moth. Kagami is too careless to be a reliable Miraculous holder, which is risky because defeating Hawk Moth once and for all requires our heroes to exhibit caution. This would be an interesting angle of Kagami’s nature conflicting with the series’ main goal to study in a fic that makes Kagami a more permanent Miraculous holder, who has to constantly worry over making a mistake that could allow Hawk Moth to get the upper hand.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #miracublog #episode wrapup #marigami #am I using these wrapups to throw around fic ideas? maybe

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snkpolls · 5 years ago

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SnK S3E20 Poll Results (Manga Reader Version)

The poll closed with 287 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results of the manga reader poll. Anime only watchers are suggested not to read if you do not wish to be spoiled about certain events! Anime only viewers, click here to view your poll results!

RATE THE EPISODE 279 Responses

This episode was another hit with most viewers, with 74.6% of participants ranking it 5 out of 5.

Just brilliant. Best series.

This was the first episode I’d been excited for in weeks. With the serum bowl I was dreading the last three episodes but the Marley Arc is my fave and I’m super super excited for what comes next in the anime.

The music was incredible and Grisha's VA stole the show.

The best of this season yet!

This season has now given us 2 (two) episodes WITHOUT openings and both times the episodes blew me away. I’m so stoked for the fourth season

I'd say it was a pretty solid episode. I can't believe we've finally made it to Marley, I am so not ready for the nonstop angst that is to come…

Anime quality was ass again, but the plot and voice acting make this a fantastic episode overall

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING SCENES WAS THE MOST MEMORABLE? 282 Responses

There were several informative and memorable scenes. 45.7% of participants thought Kruger’s big reveal was the highlight, while 12.1% can’t decide what stuck out the most. 9.9% of participants felt Dina becoming the Smiling Titan made the biggest impression.

DO YOU THINK GRISHA’S FATHER WAS RIGHT IN EASILY DEMEANING HIMSELF AND GRISHA TO GROSS? 270 Responses

Though Grisha’s father yielded to the Marleyan police regarding Faye’s death, 77.4% of participants believed he was right to prevent the rest of his family meeting a similar fate. 15.6% thought he should have shown a bit of resistance towards Gross’s accusations. Many in the comments agree the situation is simply not that black and white.

It's not whether it's 'right' or 'wrong' in these situations - if your options are the death of your family or satisfying your own feelings of dignity, then I think it's up to the individual what their priority is. But I think it is not a sign of weakness to put your family first.

He probably hated himself for doing it (at least I'd do), but losing another loved one would be horrible for anyone in his situation, so I can understand why he did that.

I can't really answer with clear 'yes' or 'no'. On one side, He was right to protect the rest of his family, on the other... He could try to comfort Grisha in a better way (you know, not yelling at him to be silent)

No, but I think he could’ve dealt with Grisha more privately. He didn’t have to continue with his indoctrination of Grisha.

I think it's complicated

no one is right or wrong here.

SERGEANT MAJOR GROSS STATED THAT “PEOPLE LOSE TOUCH WITH LIFE AND DEATH AND START TAKING THEIR LIVES FOR GRANTED." DO YOU THINK THERE IS TRUTH TO WHAT HE SAYS? 283 Responses

Gross told Grisha that people took their lives for granted when losing touch with life and death. 60.4% of participants think there is truth to his words even if his actions are morbid. 27.2% believe he just said this to excuse his cruelty.

Idk but him staring into my soul made me unconfortable

That is true, but it doesn't actually justify or support his position. We're SUPPOSED to all have the luxury and privilege of 'taking life for granted', as he puts it - that's why humanity has worked so fucking long to improve society to this point! We shouldn't have to think in life-or-death terms to consider ourselves worthy of living.

There is truth, but it's obvious that it's more words for him justifying his horrible actions more than a maxime which guides his life. If it were so, he wouldn't have been scared and screaming when the titan eat him.

Yes, but he's just making excuses for his sadistic mind.

DO YOU THINK HUMANS IN GENERAL BECOME INTERESTED IN VIOLENCE? 284 Responses

The episode observes humans and their reaction to violence, Gross saying he finds it interesting. 49.6% of participants believe that most people are interested in violence, while 40.1% specify that it depends on how violent the event is.

The most interesting part of the episode is Gross addressing the viewer over making his victim dance. Part of SnK is watching some victim being devored by the lions. Be it Faye to the dogs, Mike to the titans, Eren's squad to the titans in Trost, Carla to Dina, Marco to Araki Titan, Bert to Armin... the reactions however differ. Some of us came to see characters fighting and get eaten by giant monsters, but as the story progressed, our point of view differed and it became disgust for the most part.

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT GROSS'S DEATH? 281 Responses

Gross’s death was a gruesome one, but 53.4% participants were satisfied he got what they feel he deserved. 17.1% were less comfortable by the irony of the situation, and 13.2% found his struggle enjoyable.

Watching reaction videos where people cheer on Gross getting his face chopped on kinda unsettled me, I'm not gonna lie.

IS FAYE’S DEATH THE CRUELEST MOMENT IN THE SERIES? 282 Responses

Being torn apart by dogs is a disturbing way to go and 46.8% of participants felt it was the cruelest moment of the series thus far. 45.4%, however, believed there were crueler moments worthy of mention.

I didn't think Faye's death was the cruelest because let's face it, Mike's was the absolute worst. :(

GIVEN HOW HE TREATED ZEKE, DO YOU THINK GRISHA IMPROVED AS A FATHER WHEN IT CAME TO EREN? 280 Responses

Though Grisha didn’t show a lot of compassion for Zeke as a son, 55.4% of participants believed he learned to be a better father for Eren as a result. 24.3% would rather have more information before saying for sure, and 20.4% of participants felt Grisha didn’t quite change his ways.

GRISHA STATED THAT YMIR “BROUGHT BOUNDLESS PROSPERITY” TO THE WORLD. WHEN GRICE QUESTIONED THAT, GRISHA RETORTED WITH THE FACT THAT HE “BELIEVED IN YMIR”. WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENED? 282 Responses

There was a mix of histories regarding Ymir Fritz. 50% of participants believed Ymir may have brought prosperity but that Grisha was also jumping to conclusions without context. 40.4% of participants thought Grisha was just seeing what he wanted to see.

Grisha’s va knocked it out of the park this week. The episode made me re-think whether grisha actually could read any of the sacred texts. Was he just BSing the whole way through? Will we ever know what they say in that case?

BEST ROGUE TITAN DESIGN? 282 Responses

Out of the three Rogue titan designs, a majority 62.8% of participants thought Eren’s was the most physically appealing.

Best Rogue Titan design? That's not even a question. ITS ALWAYS ERENS. LOL

HOW FAITHFUL WAS THE ADAPTATION TO THE ORIGINAL MANGA? 276 Responses

A majority of manga readers believed the episode was mostly faithful to the original chapters, with 54.3% believing it was nearly perfect. Others felt the episode could have been more accurate.

Great, pacing was a little quick but I think the anime adaptation explained everything a bit better than the anime. I had to go back and read those chapters like 3 times to fully understand everything lol. I do wish they didn't cut lines from the warrior selection announcement though. Overall great though!

Great adaptation. They should've cut the ending too, so they wouldn't need to cut some parts, but it was as close to perfection either way.

I'm sad that they omitted so much when Marley announces the Marley warrior program. Besides that I think it was an amazing episode.

Was thoroughly impressed with how they managed to adapt two of the most dense chapters into a single ep without any significant cuts. The artwork for the Eldia/Marley lore was gorgeous, and the performances were as expected, phenomenal. Kruger's transformation was breathtaking, as was the OST. Definitely one of the best episodes of the season. Also, Marina Inoue saying "Shingeki no Kyojin" in the preview gave me chills.

KRUGER'S HAIR: BLOND OR BLACK? 282 Responses

Kruger’s hair was colored dirty blond in the anime compared to the darker shade in the manga. 47.5% of participants felt that either color choice worked well for him, while 39.4% preferred his black hair.

kruger is a dirty blonde colour imo ;p

I’m just over the moon to finally see The Owl aka Kruger animated with a voice.

The color scheme in this series has always been weird. Not that Isayama himself is limited palette-wise, but the colors have been much sober than WIT's multicolor fest. Kruger's hair are meant to be black or dark brown. Isayama draws blonde/hazelnut hair with full lines. Same goes with the uniform: Isayama uses frames for dark colors (the SC's green coat ie), ink for black and dark blue. Anime already made odd choices with Mikasa's scarf (black in the manga) or Armin's eyes (brown).

Always thought Kruger was brunette

After last week's preview I thought Kruger with blond hair was weird but having watched this week's episode I think it fits better with the blue uniform and the show's colour palette. Besides, he still looks hot so all is fine lol

HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT THE APPEARANCE OF MARLEY? 282 Responses

A majority 60.3% of participants believe Marley’s appearance was just as modern as they expected it. 29.4% of participants thought it appeared more lavished.

WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE CENSORSHIP FOR SOME OF THE GRAPHIC SCENES? 283 Responses

Some of the more graphic scenes were censored in the anime, but 53% of participants aren’t bothered by it. 35.7% of participants were disappointed that some parts weren’t shown as a result and 11.3% felt it was appropriate to censor the more graphic scenes.

I don't mind Grisha's penis as well as the gory parts being censored (it's NHK after all), but the censorship comes across as convenient for the series. They omitted some marleyans officers saying Gross was going too far, or masked the details of the warrior program: no full confirmation of RBA being trained into infancy to be promoted at the status of Honorary Marleyans. Conbine that with the RBZ+Pieck scenes from this season being watered down and you have the anime making it even more black and white than the manga.

ISAYAMA ASKED THE ANIME TO HIGHLIGHT GROSS’ SPEECH TO BREAK THE 4TH WALL AS A “CALL OUT” TO THE VIEWER. WAS THIS DIRECTION SUCCESSFUL? 277 Responses

Gross’s 4th wall break was a request made by Isayama to address the viewer as he spoke. 65.3% of participants felt the direction made them feel more called out than when they originally read it. 24.9% can’t relate to what Gross is saying in the first place.

His eyes that never left the spectator's gaze froze my blood, it was really very successfully made.

I get what Isayama was trying to do but there's a huge difference between being sadistic knowing that it's fictional and being sadistic in real life

Honestly I didn't even know that he broke the 4th wall until I took this poll.

I didn't feel like what he was saying pertained to me because I've always been repulsed by his mentality and justifications.I think it says more about Isayama that he felt this was something that needed to be broadcast to society.

The speech wasn't as well done in the anime. I think he broke the 4th wall in the manga pretty well.

The Gross 4th wall break didn't really deliver in the end. Wish it was more obvious (eye contact, zoom in, voice acting)

It would have been a lot more successful if he'd written the call out to come from someone less sadistic and despicable. It's hard to reflect like that on words that came from a character that had a nine year old child eaten alive by dogs.

considering i had no idea it was meant to be a callout, i'd say it failed

WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN WITH YMIR’S BACKSTORY FLASHBACK NEXT EPISODE? 280 Responses

Since Ymir’s backstory was moved to Season 2, 39.3% believe that Historia reading the letter will show Ymir’s death instead of the entire flashback. 35.7% of participants think the scene will just show a cut down version of the backstory with Ymir’s narration in the background. 21.1% believe that the backstory will be shown again with some tweak to the narration.

Fuck man I dunno, maybe they'll play some interval music and Ymir will tapdance

I feel like the one disappointing thing about this part in the manga is that Ymir died offscreen. This would be a good change and I wouldn’t mind a teaser of Galliard also.

The backstory shown in season 2 wasnt the letter 1/1 right? Then just have the letter read out and have slightly altered images of her story

I got no idea which way they'll go, but WIT will do her story justice, no doubt about that

They will recycle s2's animation and that's it. If they show Ymir's fate, kudos to them, considering they've been pretty lazy with additional content so far.

THE ANIME ADAPTED EREN'S LINE AFTER WAKING UP AS "WHO AM I?" WAS THIS A MORE APPROPRIATE PHRASE THAN THE TRANSLATIONS ABOUT EREN USING DIFFERENT JAPANESE PRONOUNS OR HAVING A DIFFERENT VOICE? 280 Responses

In the manga, Armin comments on Eren’s change of pronouns when he first wakes up, but the anime changed this line to “Who am I?” 38.6% of participants thought this change made more sense in context. 30.7% of participants didn’t realize there was a change, and 21.4% thought the manga made enough sense for it not to warrant a change.

I feel like this episode is where we lost Eren as he once was. The change wasn't immediate, but this is the impetus. All that information, all those memories. The boy has started to become a man.

WHICH SCENE FROM THE PREVIEW ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 284 Responses

Of the scenes that were shown, a majority of 52.1% of participants are most looking forward to more conversation between Kruger and Grisha.

Historia is lookin fine in the preview

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

Just a nitpick but I wish Kruger’s attack titan was animated more in destroying the boat since it felt more like a colored panel; I’m still happy how it turned it though! Maybe there might be additional animation next episode but I can only hope :’D

This episode was beautifully done. The voice acting really knocked it out of the park, especially Grisha's. His screams, holy shit. I got chills. Kruger's voice was also brilliant, just that perfect blend of nonchalant and forbidding. What I found interesting was the VA for young Grisha sounded so much like Kaji Yuuki! I saw in the credits that it wasn't actually him, but what an excellent casting choice!

Needs more Floch

KRUGER!!!!

This S3P2 has to have the weirdest pacing I've ever seen: the 2ch1ep formula doesn't work at all for backstories like Grisha's, considering the whole worldbuilding is unleashed. That being said, the preview from last episode's accustomed the anime-onlys to the outside world, but combining chapter 86 and 87 leaves no time to breathe properly.

Thinking back on it, wasn’t this Grisha’s first time seeing Titans in the flesh, and eating a person right in front of him?

I had hoped Kruger's hat toss would be more dramatic, but alas, t'wasn't. Other than that, went pretty good

They pronounce 'Zeke' completely different from how I imagined it would sound.

Perfect, especially the final scene. I knew what was coming, but seeing the restorationists become the Trost Titans, the Dina reveal, and Owl transformation was something else. That sequence is on par with Reiner/Bertholdt reveal and Erwin’s charge as best scenes in the series. At least for the anime so far.

I thought this episode was kind of disappointing. Maybe it's just because I really dislike the tone shift that came with the Marley stuff, but I thought the manga handled all this exposition kind of awkwardly and was hoping for better from the anime. Nope, the only thing improving it is that it won't be drawn out for months between chapters this time.

Bby Zook my boi, must protecc at all costs, so innocent, so pure

In one episode all this information WAS WAY TOO MUCH! poor anime-only fans lmao

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 265 Responses

Thanks again to everyone who participated! We’ll see you again in a few days!

#snk spoilers #snk s3 #snk poll #snk polls #poll results

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housebeleren · 5 years ago

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War of the Spark Reprints & New Art

I can’t believe we’re already on the brink of Core Set 2020 previews! Before we go there, I”ll wrap up my thoughts on War of the Spark. Today, some reprints & the new art that accompanies them. This is always one of my favorite things, to see how staple cards are reinterpreted in new contexts.

Starting with a bang, so to speak, is this redo of limited staple Gateway Plaza. To me, this was an ingenious design on the part of the creative team. By giving us identical art two sets in a row in Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiance, they created a sense of constancy, of permanence on this world. Blowing it up was the most evocative way to start this war, and to make clear the sudden and violent change the plane is to experience. In a set that was somewhat hit or miss on the “war” tone, this was one story moment that was perfectly executed.

Sung Choi has a fairly small pool of Magic art so far, but all of it is excellent. His work first caught my eye with the fantastic Molten Rain reprint in Modern Masters 2017, and recently blew it out of the water with the Ultimate Masters Life from the Loam. This Gateway Plaza does a phenomenal job of conveying this powerful story moment, and is a highlight of the set.

All Versions:

War of the Spark

Guilds of Ravnica/Ravnica Allegiance

Ajani’s Pridemate has been a staple since it was first printed in Magic 2011, and it’s great to see it back here as Ajani’s signature spell, errata and all. The existing version by Svetlin Velinov has been the only version til now, so it’s exciting to see a change.

Sidharth Chaturvedi got 4 cards in War of the Spark, and for good reason. The set has a very animated, comic book style about it, and Sidharth’s style is a perfect fit. He tends towards this illustration-esque feel, with stark but narrow color palettes (basically just blue & yellow here), and a sense of visible brushstrokes. It fits in beautifully with the feel of the set. My only wish is that the setting were a little more visible, putting this in the context of Ravnica, as he did on Pouncing Lynx.

War of the Spark

Magic 2011

Augur is another staple from core sets of yore, and a fantastic reprint for Standard, though I wish we had more context for this character. Who is this merfolk defecting to Bolas, and why? But that’s neither here nor there.

What I love about this depiction is it really conveys the sense of this creature being an oracle or seer of sorts, where the existing artwork is more generic. The water in particular is done amazingly here, conveying the motion surrounding the character while still giving us a perfectly clear view. The colors are beautiful, and the details are precise but not overwhelming. Alex Konstad is excellent, and I love the piece. I’d check out his Coral Commando & promo of Deeproot Champion as examples why it made perfect sense for him to get this commission.

War of the Spark

Magic 2013

Another signature spell that made perfect sense to bring back. As much as I love the original version of this, charging at the viewer, this one is simply phenomenal, and I’m so happy they had Aleksi Briclot do it. He’s done a huge number of Magic cards, going back to the Kamigawa days, and often gets major commissions, including all five of the original Lorwyn Planeswalkers. He does Chandra and fire so phenomenally well. Just look at Stigma Lasher and Ravaging Blaze for a sense of what he can do with fire. And, of course, the original Chandra Nalaar is beyond iconic.

This piece, a Common whose art will often go unnoticed by drafters, shows just how incredible the quality of Magic art is.

War of the Spark

Kaladesh

This is one of those spells I always feel like has been around since... I dunno... Tempest or something. But it’s actually only the second time it’s been printed since its debut in Khans of Tarkir. Obviously, the dream is to draft it in the same deck as Feather, the Redeemed, but I’m not sure how often that is actually going to happen. Either way, it’s a fun cantrip & utility trick for Limited.

Gabor Szikszai is great at these action shots, frequently illustrating for the Boros or other combat-oriented individuals. His pieces are full of energy, and always feel like the very apex of the moment, like the shots you’d see on a storyboard or in a comic. This style is a perfect fit for War of the Spark, and this piece does a great job.

War of the Spark

Khans of Tarkir

Demolish, on the other hand, has been around for a long time, going back to Odyssey, and it still shows up as a perpetual inclusion. It’s always not good enough for standard, and most of the time it’s not really playable in Limited either. That said, it’s the kind of effect that needs to be around, just to serve as a baseline. Probably its best inclusion, from a Mel perspective, was in Kaladesh, where artifact removal was maindeckable, yet the rate made this far from overpowered.

As for the art, this may be my favorite iteration ever, since it’s possibly the only version ever to actually depict destroying both an artifact and a land, whereas most versions are more typical artifact destruction designs. This also goes deeper, as the building being destroyed is the Interplanar Beacon, first hinted at on Steam Vents in Guilds of Ravnica. The fact that they went to so much effort to seed these important story moments for War of the Spark is above and beyond awesome, and I’d love to see more of this in the future.

Adam Paquette needs no introduction–he’s Magic art royalty at this point. But I would like to point out that he did a huge number of lands for this year on Ravnica, including the aforementioned Interplanar Beacon, another of my favorite pieces from the set, and several of the evocative basic lands. It’s amazing to get to see so many different angles of the same buildings & locations, and was one of the highlights of this incredible year in Magic.

War of the Spark

Ixalan

Kaladesh

Theros

Avacyn Restored

Zendikar

Odyssey

Awwww look at the goodest boy! Mowu is here serving good boy realness, and I’m all about it. I love that they were able to print this spell and use it effectively as a signature spell to demonstrate Jiang Yanggu’s magic. I’m always a little surprised to see this spell reprinting, since it feels like Wizards is perpetually unsure if this is too powerful or not, toying with making this effect cost 2 mana or making it slightly less of a buff for 1. Either way, I’m happy to see it back. Obviously, this card goes back to the genesis of the game, and is one of the only iconic spells from that era that would still be printable these days.

I didn’t immediately recognize Dmitry Burmak’s name on this card, but one cursory glance at his card history and I immediately recognized a number of his pieces. His first Magic pieces were from Unstable, including two of my favorites: Lobe Lobber & Willing Test Subject. On Ravnica, he’s done a bunch of pieces for the Rakdos & Izzet, including Captive Audience, Electrodominance, and Light up the Stage. His pieces have tremendous energy and more than a dash of whimsy, and I am here for it. I’d love to see more of this energy in Magic art going forward.

War of the Spark

Return to Ravnica

Tenth Edition

Ninth Edition

Seventh Edition

Fifth Edition

Ice Age

Alpha

From the very old to the much more recent, New Horizons is one of the increasing number of land ramp enchantments Wizards has been pushing in recent years as an alternative to land fetching. To be clear, these effects have been around for a while, but they’re much more frequent than they used to be, and land fetching doesn’t show up quite as often. It’s a cool effect, and I do like it. I just hope they keep land fetching as well, since both effects are useful in different ways.

Eytan Zana is a name that may not be super familiar, but you’ve definitely seen a ton of his works, and that’s because the vast majority of his Magic artworks are lands. One of my favorite Forests of all time is his, the idyllic deer & stream Forest from Avacyn Restored. It’s his mastery of landscapes that makes this New Horizons art so good. For all intents and purposes, it is a land art, just themed on a spell. I love the subtle ruins of the city in the foreground, and the majesty of the great trees growing out of the main structure are absolutely breathtaking. Well done.

War of the Spark

Ixalan

Ahhh, Primordial Wurm. Herein lies the proof of just how pushed creatures are these days. Back in Alpha, this casting cost got you a 6/4 Craw Wurm. Now it either gets you a 7/6 Primordial Wurm, and it’s still basically unplayable. I look forward to ten years from now, when we get a 10/10 Wurm for this exact casting cost at Common, and it still doesn’t see play.

Anyhoo, this is a fun piece. Svetlin Velinov is another piece of Magic art royalty, who needs absolutely no introduction. What I love about him is the vast array of types of cards he does. Sometimes it’s a high-profile Mythic Legend like Roalesk, Apex Hybrid. Sometimes it’s a goofy limited trick like Maximize Velocity (with goofy Viashino to match). And sometimes it’s an absolutely gorgeous land. But no matter what, his style shows through and makes something totally memorable. I’ll remember this Wurm chasing down bite-sized eternals, even if I forget if it’s a 7/6 or a 6/6 or a 6/4 or whatever the hell size Wurms are these days.

War of the Spark

Dominaria

One only need look at the original version of this art by Karl Kopinski to get a sense of the art direction for this set. What was once a somber, pensive piece is now action, in full comic book mode. And I’m totally here for it. I do love how the Nicol Bolas statue was used as a prop in this set.

Obviously Daarken is a legend. Suffice it to say, he’s done everything, but definitely has a talent for darker, more sinister pieces (and occasionally, the exact opposite). This piece is great, though I will say I don’t quite understand the Nahiri quote on here. I would really have rather seen a Sorin quote here and had them use this one on Nahiri’s Stoneblades. But what do I know?

War of the Spark

Magic 2012

Last but not least, it’s Totally Lost, everyone’s favorite card they wish cost 1 mana less, but couldn’t really without being a little too powerful. Honestly, I love that they brought back Fblthp for this, though if they do it a third time, then they’ll never be able to do a version of this card without him ever. Think about that carefully, Wizards. Probably my favorite thing about this card isn’t even Fblthp on top of the Bolas statue, but actually the flavor text reference to his Easter Egg in Captive Audience from the last set. They really went deep this time around.

Aaron Miller does a huge variety of cards, from high profile works like Ajani, Mentor of Heroes, to cards you probably already forgot existed, like Honed Khopesh. He seems to really enjoy these interesting perspectives, looking up or down at his characters from unique vantage points, and creating stylized pieces that have character, but still fit into the Magic universe. I enjoy that this card made it into the set, and I think this depiction of one of the game’s favorite memes, high over the spires of the city, is a perfect place to close out this post.

War of the Spark

Gatecrash

#MtG #war of the spark

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ursafilms · 6 years ago

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Jedi Knight and Homicide

In 1996, LucasArts and Steve Dauterman called again. Did I have any interest in producing Jedi Knight? A more complex videogame requiring a lot more actors and ones that would actually have to be able to act and not just ensconce themselves in a rib-crushing costume or rocket seat the size of basic coach as they had in Rebel Assault II, my previous effort for George Lucas.

Me: "Uh, yes?"

Steve: "How soon can you get here?"

I arrived at LucasArts, just as Dauterman hung up the phone.

He handed me the cut-scene storyboards. They showed Aliens requiring original design, set pieces needing original construction, and wardrobe not currently in the Lucasfilm Museum. We had cannibalized the company’s museum for its stock of costumes from the Star Wars canon for Rebel Assault II. That first game also needed no Aliens.

All these tasks in the previous paragraph translates to a real job. At Lucas this meant I’d have to be blessed by George since a lot of the art direction, costumes, and other visuals would be original and not stock. This would entail me meeting George . . . at Skywalker Ranch . . . in his office.

And more than the time I’d spent in the business being embarrassed in public by the topflight commercial directors of the 80’s, or my own personal Nightmare Before Christmas with Tim Burton and the coffee maker, or even having to ‘handle’ the likes of Carol Channing, Sammy Davis Jr., and Bill Cosby (Jell-O pudding. Mmm. Mmm. Good.) nothing could have prepared me for actually sitting down to get vetted by George Lucas.

The closest experience to professional fear I could remember was being cut right away, more than once, by Michael Bennett during auditions for Chorus Line. Or, having to sing ‘Blue Skies’ acapella for Bob Fosse. Or, maybe it was the time one of the ensemble dancers in Hello Dolly picked up a napkin as opposed to a tablecloth during the waiter’s ballet. But that’s another book.

After a coin flip, I’d have to say the knee-knocking of my illustrious dance career came closest.And like most things in life, the anticipation exceeded the actual event. Not the part about meeting the man who changed filmmaking forever, but the fear factor. George Lucas could not have been nicer. I don’t recall a lot of the conversation. He did ask me about my work on Nightmare and, of course, on Rebel Assault II.

George impressed upon me the same things he probably imparted to everyone who worked on Star Wars franchise projects. Consistency with the mythology (For lack of a better term) was most important. The archetypes of bad guys. Wardrobe choices for good guys, particularly those of the Rebellion. Color palettes for certain planets depending on their ‘role’ in the video. Found him to be soft-spoken and genuine. And, again, though I don’t remember much, I will never, ever forget that meeting, which took place at Skywalker Ranch in West Marin. I walked into the antebellum house that served as his office and sat with him and looked out over the beautifully manicured landscape through the bay window in front of the house.If not for the fact that he looked like an Ewok during this Heavy-Facial-Hair-Period of his life, I’d have passed out. I just kept imagining him as a little furball, per Harrison Ford. It made me exhale enough to not hyperventilate.

****

Jedi Knight inflicted one of the most dreaded departments in the history of filmmaking on me.Wardrobe, which is part of the Vanities Department. If I could have dressed and made up actors all by myself, I would have. Nothing gave me more understanding of serial killers than having to deal with the collection of Macy’s make-up floor rejects that passed themselves off as hair stylists, two-legged cosmetic applicators, and the worst of them, costume or wardrobe designers.

I’d much rather deal with Directors of Photography on their overloading of lens orders than have to discuss fabric textures with these recent escapees from the Lord & Taylor couture department.

We cast a very trim and beautiful woman for the female bad guy on Jedi Knight. As I sat in the costume shop at Lucas, cleaning my .38, I was subjected to the following from some Coco Chanel wannabe as she did her level best to hide the actress’ well-toned figure.

Coco: “I think it should have a soft drape. Perhaps tulle?

Me: “Something used for ballerinas ain’t a great idea for an evil FEMALE Sith Lord.”

Coco: “Really? And what did you have in mind, Mister Producer?”

Me: “Given her figure and her role, how about Vampire chic?”

At this time the use of the bloodsuckers for reference in films and TV shows was not a microwaved concept. True Blood hadn’t arrived to tantalize us with its brilliant dialogue and ridiculous concept of somewhat benign predators purchasing a house in a quiet suburban neighborhood.

Dimbulb Neighbor Wife: “Honey, look there’s a new family of vampires moving in next door. I should take something over.”

Dimbulb Neighbor Husband: “That’s nice. There’s still some type O in the freezer from the last vampire family. Where did they move to by the way?”

Dimbulb Neighbor Wife: “The Arteri clan? I think they went back to Italy.”

Dimbulb Neighbor Husband: “Okay. Take the leftovers, and if you never come back, I’ll wait for your metamorphosis and then you can come home and feed off me for an eternity.”

Dimbulb Neighbor Wife: “Oh that would be lovely.”

As an aside, when my good friend, Dan Ogawa, got hitched I attended the wedding. He put me at a table of production professionals, but since they all worked for public television, it put me in the difficult position of carrying on a conversation, especially after the wife of one of the guests postulated DIVERSITY as the overarching concept of True Blood.

Me: “Is that right? From what I can tell, the cast had just finished a series of L’Oreal commercials. So does the diversity of True Blood lay in the difference between a nine and a ten?”

If not for the presence of a justice of the peace and Dan’s elderly parents, a wedding cake food fight might have ensued. After Lee kicked me under the table several hundred times, I relegated my comments to oohing and aahing over the DIVERSITY of True Blood.

However, had I known that Dan would be divorced within two years I’d have stood on my chair and castigated the politically correct twit for daring to virtue signal at my table.

****

But back to the Coco Clone, the head of the Vanities Department for Jedi Knight. She had drawn a line in the sand over her wardrobe choice for evil female Sith Lord.

Coco: “I think the actress playing Sariss will be able to perform admirably in tulle.”

Me: “I’m sure, but I’ve got a market of teenage boys whose hormone levels are in the red zone 24 hours a day. If I put her in tulle, sales will drop by millions. I guarantee it.”

Coco: “I don’t think we should get hung up on stereotypes.”

Me: “No one is stereotyping Sariss. The actress is a workout freak. She’s cultivated that body for jobs like this. So, let’s get to work on spray-painting some black spandex on her shapely behind and move onto one of the guys.”

Coco was about to accuse me of some heinously stupid crime of sexism, but before she could the marketing department of LucasArts lined up behind me, as did the director, and Steve Dauterman. The marketing department and Steve had financial success and hormone clanging male customers motivating them. The director would have preferred that Sariss perform the entire game naked, but spandex provided the next best glimpse.

All I wanted to do was move onto the rest of the 14 leads that required specialty wardrobe, which we did after agreeing that Sariss needed to having nothing between her and her catsuit.The other attractive female in the cast played the Princess Leia knockoff role, so that limited the controversy to what shade of white battle ensemble we needed to squeeze her into. The male parts, a collection of good and bad guys occupied the rest of the meeting.

Coco, however, kept gravitating towards her Marin County roots, which consisted of channeling ideas germinated from Woodstock. If she hadn’t been a Lucas employee, I’d have bounced her right off of Skywalker Ranch.

Me: “No. Tie-dye is a bad fit, unless we’re in Mos Eisley, which we are not.”

Coco: “Mos’ what?”

Me: “Are you f$#king kidding me? How did you get his job?”

Coco: “I’ll have you know—”

Me: “Don’t want to hear about it. It probably involves a wet—”

Dauterman: “Okay, let’s move on.”

So I did.

Me: “Colors in a darker palette for the bad guys. Lighter palette for the good guys. Don’t know how much clearer I can be. I can’t put Sariss’ consort in hippie-wear. This game is about a war between these two factions. The concept is military. I need form-fitting outfits that are just loose enough to allow for quick movements. The fight choreographer is on this job for every shoot day for good reason.”

I got my way, but discussions like this, now a regular occurrence on any job with a Vanities Department exhausted me. More than most, I appreciated a well-developed POV on creative matters. Missing the concept, or letting your ego sidetrack a project is crippling.

****

Jedi Knight needed so many stellar resources that I opted to shoot in Los Angeles. Kooktown, USA (That’s San Francisco, for those of you reading this as your first excerpt.) just doesn’t have the talent level to pull it off. On many levels, a great call on my part. On just a handful, a stomach acid producing one.

First up for indigestion, studio space. While an abundance of it occupied much of southern California, stage owners and managers have a tendency to look at out of town productions as a way of boosting their profit margins from 1% to 50%.

The local production manager, Beth, toured dozens of stages before taking me out to look at three prime candidates, and after a negotiation that consisted of lowering expectations of the rapacious owners, we settled on Hayvenhurst Studios, a home to early TV and film westerns. It still had the sheriff’s office building, replete with hitching post and horse trough, which it used as an office. Beth and I moseyed on inside the office. First order of business? Getting the deal in writing to avoid any surprises on the back end. Guaranteed, if a stage contract doesn’t include everything down to paper products, the invoice will have a charge for toilet paper higher than the entire Lighting and Grip cost.

Beth: “$1200 for load-in. $1500 for Pre-Light and Shoot. $1200 for strike.”

Sheriff Hayvenhurst: “Rate card is $1750 for—”

Beth: “Don’t care what rate card is. $1200 for load-in. $1500 for Pre-Light and Shoot. $1200 for strike.”

Deputy Hayvenhurst: “Next item.”

Beth: “Grip and Electric package as listed in the stage’s package is $500/Day flat. Items not listed are a la carte, but must be approved prior to use by me or George.”

Sheriff: “Rate card is $800—”

Beth: “Don’t care what rate card is. Grip and Electric package as listed in the stage’s package is $500/Day flat. Items not listed are a la carte, but must be approved prior to use by me or George.”

This went on for another hour. By the time we had moseyed out of the Sheriff’s office, Beth had a signed contract that fit within the confines of our budget. Eternal vigilance would be required for the duration of the job, since any crack of fiscal daylight a vendor in the film industry can find would be exploited to the point of financial ruin for producers.

We moved into the studio on a Monday for the build and pre-light day.

This is what greeted us on the main wall of the cyc. (See Below)

Here’s the view of the left and right side walls of the cyc. (See Below)

And here’s the floor. (See Below)

Beth George stopped everyone just inside the studio. She had a look on her face that would have scared the Gestapo out of Poland.

Beth: “Nobody f$%king move.”

We all froze, including Jason Chin, the game supervisor from Lucas, who had a thousand pound desktop computer under each arm. Nick No Last Name, the prop department intern who talked me into working on the project, started giggling like a fourteen-year-old at a Jon Bon Jovi concert, didn’t stop walking and found himself face down on the floor. Beth had him in a hammer lock.

Beth: “No one walks on that floor without these.”

She stuffed a pair of the dreaded clean room booties into Nick’s mouth. The poor guy, so traumatized by his first encounter with an experienced P.M., did not wear regular shoes for a month after the job finished. I went back to visit him at his regular job at Kinko’s and when I heard the shuffling noise emanating from the supply closet, I knew he still wore the accursed footwear.

I hate booties. I also hate clean room masks, coats, gloves, and pants. Add hardhats to the list, along with steel-toed boots. Over the years the enthusiastic Safety Overlords, have trussed film crews up in every capability killer imaginable. It only took one job in one high-tech chip manufacturing facility to make me swear off entering any similar business.

Oh, I’d take the job, but only at the point of gun would I ever slide one of those dopey white jumpsuits over my clothes. Not after seeing the employees walk in to these supposed sterile environments carrying a Sloppy Joe lunch and smoking black cigarettes.

But Beth would not be denied. We all changed our shoes. Oddly, production and folks on flat rates put them on so quickly we went back in time. The hourly hires took most of the morning to do the same thing which neutralized any positive use of the clock.

And there we stood, surrounded by . . . (See Below)

Me: “I really like what we’ve done with the place.”

****

For two weeks, I lived at the Van Nuys Best Western. I endured about a dozen shooting days of one way conversations with my deaf DP, but the absolute soul-crushing interactions continued with the, ahem, Vanities Department. See the short list to follow.

1. Coco and her colleague, Igor, both of whom were forced hires because they were Lucas employees, delivered a grand total of Zero of the 14 principal wardrobe pieces on time, which was the aforementioned Monday build and pre-light. We were supposed to do the fitting that day as well. More on that to come.

Early on I clearly told them I would NOT be taking them to southern California for the shoot and was assured everything would be finished in time for me to ship and/or drive said wardrobe for the first shoot day. The first people that greeted me at the hotel? Coco and Igor. They had just finished dinner and wanted to know about per diem. Me: “F$%K off.” 2. The efficiencies of Coco and Igor necessitated the hiring of a full-time seamstress to both finish and adjust the wardrobe. I had just added a seamstress and her assistant to my Vanities Department, in addition to the two incompetent Lucas employees who decided NOT to deliver the wardrobe when they said they would. With Prosthetics, I now had ten people in Vanities.

And I needed two fittings. Not one. Two. And in the interest of elucidation, I had ONE WARDROBE PER ACTOR. Not two. ONE.

And why did I need more than one fitting?

I’ll tell ya.

Despite the theoretical calculus employed by the Vanities Department our lead bad guy looked like someone had taken half of Siegfried’s costume and half of Roy’s and sewn them together in an ugly Yin/Yang combination the size of Totie Fields. His henchman, a part-time bouncer for the southern California mob, took a gander at his getup in the mirror after his fitting. He called Billy Barty and joined The Lollipop Guild. Coco and Igor looked the two actors over.

Coco: “Looks like we were slightly off in our measurements.”

Me: “If you try and put Sariss in tulle, you’re leaving Southern California in a body bag.”

The last time I heard someone say they were slightly off in their measurements, an actor took a joy ride through Central Park while tethered to a medieval catapult launcher, also called a flying rig. Images of Coco and Igor landing in the Loeb Boathouse Lake, as the aforementioned performer had, drifted delightfully through my head. Also, holding them underwater for several hours made me giddy.

Me: “Would you like another fitting? My current record is two unnecessary fittings per outfit, and there is a personal best is in my future. I can feel it.”

Coco: “I don’t see any other way.”

In order to avoid raiding petty cash for bail money, Beth and the director carried me out of the fitting room while I screamed, if memory serves, “I’ll tell you what else we could do. I could go back in time, and abso-f$&king-lutely refuse to hire any of the slugs that draw a paycheck signed by George Lucas.”

The job finished on-time, only $10,000 over budget, and without homicide.

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briangroth27 · 8 years ago

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Power Rangers (2017): Go, Go See This!

This is my 100th original blog post! Fitting that it’s about the modernization of one of my favorite things from childhood!

I was seven when Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers premiered on FOX Kids in 1993 and I still vividly recall watching the pilot in my parents’ living room. As soon as that Saturday’s morning cartoons ended, I immediately watched my newly-recorded VHS copy of “Day of the Dumpster” again: the adventures of five “teenagers with attitude” had hooked me instantly! Along with Superman, Batman, the Flash, and TMNT, the Power Rangers were some of the first live-action superheroes I ever saw, and they definitely left an impression. The giant robots (based on dinosaurs, another childhood obsession thanks to the recent release of my still-favorite movie, Jurassic Park) and monsters blew my mind. Amy Jo Johnson was my first celebrity crush. I took Tae Kwan Do for a few years solely because of Power Rangers. I still have all the original action figures, the Morpher & Power Coins, the Blade Blaster, the Megazord, and the Sega Genesis video game. I fell out of the Ranger fandom after Zeo ended, but I’ve always fondly remembered the originals. I went into the new movie just hoping it would be fun and proud of its roots; things like the R-rated Power/Rangers by Adi Shankar are cool and all, but the real Power Rangers don’t need to be grim and gritty. I left the theater humming the theme song with a huge smile; this movie is great!

If you were a fan of the show, you’ll love the new movie for taking the characters deeper than the original series did and for the clear love it has for its source material. If you thought the show was too cheesy, you’ll probably appreciate the modernized themes and issues the teens face here. The movie makes you wait for most of the action, but the characters were fun and compelling enough (and the actors strong enough) that it never felt slow. When the action does arrive, it’s earned and very well-tied to the characters’ arcs! That connection, striking at the core of the Rangers mythos, also makes for an important message about teamwork and understanding.

I didn’t think the Rangers needed to have powers when not morphed, but it didn’t hurt the story to introduce that aspect either (though it does remove an easy path to drama if they’re attacked and can’t morph). The Putties were formidable even with super-strength, so not having powers would’ve led to the unmorphed Rangers’ immediate deaths in this film (a rare case of the movies scaling the villains up to meet the standards of the heroes, something I wish Superman films would do with everyone not named Zod). I thought the suits were a little over-designed and bulky, preferring the ones from 1995’s film, but I didn’t hate them. Similarly, I prefer the simplicity of the original zord and Megazord designs, but these are good too. Jason gets his Power Sword during the fight with the Putty Patrol, but I wish everyone else had gotten their Ranger-specific weapons too (Zack’s ax, Billy’s lance, Kim’s bow, and Trini’s daggers). The final showdown didn’t feel rushed; I totally felt that it was worth the wait. That the team visibly showed fear during the final battle also humanized them and helped sell the idea that they were still teens and not at all polished superheroes, despite their mighty powers.

Though the film looks a little washed out in terms of its color palette, there’s a great energy running through it. The effects were solid and felt realistic. I loved all the nods to the original series, such as the movie’s MacGuffin (the Zeo Crystal), what seemed like a shout-out to one of Rita’s best henchman (Scorpina), and an outstanding, iconic scene during the final battle. While there is a definite sequel teased in the mid-credits scene, this is a complete movie and I loved that it didn’t just feel like a stepping stone to bigger things.

Absolutely see this!

Full Spoilers…

My absolute favorite aspect of the movie was its focus on friendship and the need for the Rangers to harmonize in order for their powers to fully work. Like their Megazord, the Power Rangers are a team that’s stronger together than they are individually, and their literal inability to morph until after they’ve opened up and bonded with each other was portrayed perfectly. This was an excellent bridge between their character arcs (which felt like real things modern teens go through) and the superhero side of the story. There’s an important metaphor in your friends giving you the power to become a supercharged version of yourself capable of fighting your demons, and to paraphrase Zordon’s catchphrase from the series, that power protects these kids (and hopefully, the kids in the audience who see the value of connection and teamwork). Given the realistic diversity of this cast, it’s also easy to see this as a broader metaphor that the only way to survive and harness our true potential is to understand each other and work together.

Always believing the teens’ “attitude” meant good attitudes, I was initially skeptical when the trailer cast the Rangers-to-be as juvenile delinquents rather than the show’s socially conscious do-gooders, but the trailer was misleading. Jason (Dacre Montgomery), Kimberly (Naomi Scott), and Billy (RJ Cyler) meet in detention and Zack (Ludi Lin) skips school a lot, but none of them are terrible people needing epic redemption arcs. Instead, they’ve made mistakes (Jason’s in trouble for a prank gone very awry and Billy for an innocent experiment with explosives), but are still generally good kids.

Kimberly did the worst thing—forwarding a scandalous picture of one of her ex-friends—but it didn’t mar her character as much as I feared it would (I was spoiled on that plot point). She and the movie acknowledge this as the awful thing it is and I was impressed that she immediately shot down Jason’s well-intended suggestion that she forgive herself because there are “lots of pictures out there.” Instead, she correctly points out that it changes nothing about the picture she sent or the effect it had on her former friend. “Everyone else does it” doesn’t comfort her or excuse her actions and the fact that she knows how bad it was and has clearly grown softened this change from the show’s Kimberly for me. Scott’s Kim isn’t the valley girl Johnson was, but you can definitely see hints that she used to be a similar popular girl. Despite the darker backstory, Scott channels the corresponding original actor more than anyone else in the film, crafting a performance that’s her own but includes strong shades of Amy Jo Johnson (as well as a dash of Buffy season 1-Sarah Michelle Gellar). She probably has the most personal growth in the film and, along with Billy, was my favorite character.

Billy’s still the brains of the team and sets their ascent to Rangerhood into motion. Though Cyler brought a different energy to Billy than David Yost did, he was still most definitely “Billy.” While Scott channeled her predecessor most, Cyler channels the essence of the original character most. Everyone deserves to see themselves as heroes, so I loved that the film delivered an autistic hero in Billy, something I don’t think any other superhero movie or TV show has done yet. To the film’s credit, his being on the Spectrum is never portrayed as something to overcome or a handicap he’s “so brave” to live with; it’s merely a fact of his life and doesn’t hamper his superheroics in any way. Cyler brought an instant likability to Billy that pulled me into the Rangers’ circle and played perfectly against his hidden pain over to the loss of his father. Because he’s so personable, Billy’s death hit me hard (even though I didn’t think it’d be permanent) and the other Rangers’ reactions felt realistic and believable—though they’re only together a week, the team’s bonding feels real.

Jason’s prank causes property damage so he isn’t initially the Boy Scout from the show (though he is a jock), but I really liked that his movie arc takes that idea and shows us how he might’ve gotten there, molding him into the upstanding (and understanding) father figure he craves as he takes on leadership of the Power Rangers. While he does have a father (David Denman) in the movie, there’s clearly a distance between them. What exactly caused it isn’t revealed beyond his dad not understanding him and perhaps having goals and expectations Jason doesn’t want for himself, so Jason’s issues felt the most routine and well-trodden in terms of movies and TV. However, his relationship with the Rangers is more important than with his parents, so I was satisfied that Jason’s parental issues were resolved by Zordon standing in for his dad, particularly when Jason found out why the Rangers morphing was so important to Zordon's plans. I liked that even though he was chosen to be the leader by virtue of being the Red Ranger, he wasn’t a natural and it felt like he had to earn that position, both in Zordon’s eyes and in terms of motivating the team. As familiar as Jason’s issues were (perhaps they were delivered in shorthand precisely because they're so universal), Montgomery never came off as boring or bland and he was a good lead.

Zack was fun and I liked that his up-for-anything bravado (an update of show Zack’s charisma, party-guy attitude, and jokester persona) was a cover for the knowledge that he’d probably very soon lose his mom (Fiona Fu) to her illness. While he and Trini (Becky G) could’ve definitely used more screentime to match the arcs Jason, Kimberly, and Billy had, I think Zack gets enough for Lin to display the fears just under the surface of his cool guy façade. He also gets to have some serious fun joyriding in his zord and physicalizes the tension and pressure the team’s under to become perfect superheroes in a week when he comes to blows with Jason. So, even though he wasn’t as big a focus as he should’ve been, he contributed to the personality mix in unique ways. Trini absolutely needed more material—her and Zack’s reduced screentime compared to everyone else is my one big negative note about the film—but what she got worked well. MMPR’s Trini was soft-spoken and polite, which here translated into a disaffected loner persona, owing to being moved around a lot and her parents’ (Erica Cerra, Patrick Sabongui) inability to accept her as anything other than the normal daughter they wanted. I liked that they made her the first LGBTQ movie superhero (Mystique and Harley Quinn are bi in the comics, but the X-films and Suicide Squad haven’t had that onscreen yet) and didn’t mind that this amounted to one conversation: none of the other Rangers have love lives explored here either. While Trini is guarded for a good portion of the film and her limited screentime gives her the hardest time when it comes to connecting with the others, I thought Becky G pulled the arc off. I bought her reasons for not talking sooner and her growing friendship with/trust in the others, particularly Kimberly, felt genuine. Not giving Trini more to do was a missed opportunity for what could’ve been a fun sequence of her using her superpowers to evade her helicopter parents to go train. Speaking of her parents, it’s odd they didn’t hear her room being trashed by Rita. She could’ve written the damage off as (extremely localized) effects of Goldar’s attack later on, but someone should’ve heard walls being dented. That could’ve been an opportunity to employ a classic “superhero has to explain extraordinary problems to keep their identity secret” moment. Given Becky G’s sardonic delivery when questioned about where she’d been spending her nights, she could’ve told her parents exactly what happened, comically upending those superhero tropes.

One of the film’s biggest surprises was that Zordon (Bryan Cranston) has an actual arc, making him far more interesting than the show’s version. I’d heard there was a prologue focusing on his history with Rita Repulsa (Elizabeth Banks), but feared a focus on Zordon and Rita might overshadow the Rangers themselves. That prologue is only a couple of minutes long, but Zordon’s desire to have a physical body again was still unexpectedly touching. His tension with the Rangers over this point provided some good conflict I didn’t see coming. Alpha 5 (Bill Hader) was another big improvement over the original version, who I always found annoying. Banks was entirely over the top as Rita, but that’s exactly who Rita is supposed to be! Like the Joker, I really don’t have an interest in an entirely serious version of Rita Repulsa. In fact, Banks’ casting—along with the tag line “Go Go”—was the first thing that convinced me this wasn’t going to be the super-serious mess it could’ve been in our current “gritty is automatically superior” pop culture mindset. Rita’s full-on insane and she fit in without breaking the tone of the movie, even against the grounded Rangers. I never felt she wasn’t a deadly serious threat (she kills several Rangers in this movie alone!).

It was cool that Amy Jo Johnson and Jason David Frank (my favorite original Rangers) got cameos here! I wish David Yost, Austin St. John, and Walter Jones also appeared; maybe next time. Jason Narvy and Paul Schrier really should get cameos too; as the original series’ Bulk and Skull, they were the longest-running characters in the show’s history. With that in mind, I was surprised a new Bulk and Skull didn’t make an appearance here…Jason’s prank buddy Damo (Matt Shively), possibly feeling rejected after Jason finds new friends, and the “Bully of Detention” (Wesley MacInnes) could’ve easily been them.

The post-credit scene lays out the arrival of Tommy Oliver, the Green Ranger, though I wouldn’t have minded one more film with just the original five Rangers. With five more films planned, there’s more than enough time to explore the dynamic between these kids before throwing Tommy into the mix. Still, I’m definitely excited for the prospect of a traitor Ranger, especially with this film’s emphasis on the team’s need for unity and trust to morph. Someone who can get past their defenses, earn their trust, and then stab them in the back will be a perfect, devastating adversary!

I love that we’re getting something of a Ranger renaissance now (to say nothing of the fact that 24 years and several iterations later, the show is still going). Not only did this movie come out (along with a tie-in sequel comic), but there’s an excellent ongoing Boom! Studios comic book featuring the original team! It’s set right after MMPR’s “Green With Evil” saga and deals with the Rangers learning to trust Tommy, and whether or not he can trust himself to be free of Rita’s influence. There’s also a fun Kimberly-focused 6-issue miniseries (“Pink”), set after she left the team, a crossover with the Justice League, and a brand new ongoing series set right after “Day of the Dumpster,” Saban’s Go Go Power Rangers, coming soon! While it’s at the other end of the tonal spectrum, Adi Shankar is trying to put together a gritty, adult-focused animated series about Power Rangers too. And of course, Saban & Lionsgate are planning at least five more films in the rebooted series, one of which may be a prequel focusing on Zordon and Rita’s team. With the film taking a series of hits at the box office after a strong opening, I think these plans might be pared down, but I really hope we get to see these Rangers’ adventures continue. Rather than rushing to create an entire universe at once, focus on making an excellent sequel to this one’s already superb foundation and then build from there!

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insane-male-alphabeticalsymbol · 7 years ago

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Oh fucking boy, here we go

Now you know what, I'm entirely able to say that Japanese people all aren't alabaster pale. (??????Shocker, right??????)

But you know what they aren't, like really, do you know what a native Japanese person born from two Japanese parents looks like? Because I can definitely say that a vast majority of them don't look like they're African, Hispanic, or even Indian considering that a majority of the population of the country is in fact mostly Japanese ethnic wise.

I'm legit fucking color blind for God's sake, but even I can tell someone's skin pigment and realize what characters would get a tan.

But even then, taking a character that's Japanese, say like Jotaro Kujo from JoJo, and making his skin several shades darker than what it is in both his actual design and what is more reasonable in the live adaptation (considering he's actually a mix of European and Japanese) of part 4 is anti-asian, if we're going off the criteria that was given by the people throwing a shit fit over Scarlett Johanson playing the Major in the Ghost In The Shell adaptation.

The Sephiroth picture on this post is making a point of this. There's being reasonable, then there's being a Tumblr artist and being ridiculous. Sure, you have several different variations of Asian ethnicities, but the point is that there's making art of a character, and a overly dramatic depiction.

An another thing, I don't actually mind the art style for too many of these pictures. Excluding the ones that are obviously over blown for the sake of being over blown, many of these are just because of the person's prevered art style.

You can tell, and that's fine.

But legit fucking making a character visually hideous and doing it under the guise of being either realistic or changing a characters appearance for the sake of representative purposes is stupid and goes against the entire point of their design. Making a character realistic or relatable isn't an excuse to give them an over abundance of body hair and stretch marks.

That isn't part of an art style or part of someone's process. That is a conscious choice that artist makes, fully aware that the character they're making a picture of doesn't have any of these things.

The DDLC picture in this post, that's fine. I don't like it to much, but overall it isn't that bad of a piece.

The artist was doing the best that they could. You can still tell who is who. I'm not very into the game, but I can at least recognize Monica. I can still recognize that it's a picture of the cast from Doki Doki. They're certain better off than me, because I haven't made a full blown piece in a long while. It does what it seeks out to do and it does it relatively well.

The picture of Prince and Marshall though??? Not only is it doing a piss poor job at depicting two recognizable character designs, it doesn't feel like a finished product.

Considering that if it was given a bit more work, like adding more definitive features to make them look like who the artist is depicting, then it wouldn't be as bad.

I could do better than that. I could do a vastly better job in like 2 hours. It's isn't even because of the art style, because personally I like it a bit, but it still doesn't take away that it feels lazy. Maybe like a more diverse color palette, better shading, either a more defined anatomy with more detail or attempting to use the source's art direction instead, and there you go, you have a way better take on the picture.

Then onto a personal note:

Fuck you.

Fuck you for assuming that someone who isn't an artist can't either recognize bad art, or can't have a critical opinion on art just because they aren't an artist.

You don't have to be an equally skilled film director to recognize when someone is skilled in what they do and put forth effort in their art and when someone is treating their audience like a bunch of fucking idiots.

An even if you aren't part of the group of people who want better from these artist, then look at it from the view of the general fanbase or public that these are aimed at. Do you think that I would look at the KLK picture and say "Oh I love that"? Or am I going to focus more on pictures, regardless of purpose (SFW or NSFW), that at the very least don't cause extreme physical pain to my eyes?

what women are ridiculed for when drawing men: ‘tumblr nose’, tall and wearing a bowtie, flower crowns

male artists drawing women:

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biofunmy · 5 years ago

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That Ugly Fireplace Isn’t as Bad as You Think

“The fireplace must be the focus of every rational scheme of arrangement,” Edith Wharton and Ogden Codman Jr. wrote in their 1897 design classic, “The Decoration of Houses.”

Not much has changed since then. Fireplaces are usually the dominant element in rooms lucky enough to have them, and the anchor around which furnishings are organized. In fact, most fireplaces refuse to be ignored, whether they’re beautiful or ugly. And therein lies the problem: What if your fireplace is clad in dated tile or discolored brick, or your mantel looks out of proportion or out of place?

Giving a fireplace a new look may seem daunting, but it’s not as hard as it sounds.

“It’s an architectural ornament that’s changeable,” said Thomas Jayne, an interior designer in New York and the author of “Classical Principles for Modern Design,” a book on applying Wharton and Codman’s ideas to contemporary interiors.

Transforming the appearance of a fireplace is usually well worth the time and expense, he said, because “if you like your fireplace, you’ll like your whole room a lot better.”

We asked Mr. Jayne and other designers for advice on how to deal with a problematic fireplace.

Consider What You Have

It’s easy to write off old mantels and surrounds as unappealing when they’re damaged from years of abuse or covered in layers of soot, grime or caked paint.

But don’t automatically assume that you need to rip out or cover up what you’ve got. Instead, try to imagine what your fireplace would look like if it were restored.

“In a lot of projects, we start with ugly-looking fireplaces” that are actually beautiful underneath, said Andrea Fisk, who founded the Brooklyn-based architecture firm Shapeless Studio with Jess Thomas Hinshaw.

“A lot of them have just been painted over and over and over,” Ms. Thomas Hinshaw said, “so that they’ve lost a lot of the detailing and character.”

When Ms. Fisk and her life partner bought a rundown townhouse of their own in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, it had a dreary-looking living room fireplace covered in dirty cream-colored paint. But rather than immediately removing the mantel, Ms. Fisk performed a careful investigation.

“We really had no idea what was under there,” she said. They couldn’t even tell whether the mantel was stone or wood. With a chemical paint remover, she stripped away layers of paint and was astonished by what she found: a stunning mantel of green and gray slate with hints of pink and carved floral details.

“That was a wonderful surprise,” she said.

Not only did she keep it — after removing every trace of the old paint, of course — she also based the color palette of the room on it.

Paint It

There’s a reason old mantels are often thick with layers of paint: It’s one of the easiest and least expensive ways to change the look of a fireplace. When done well, with an appropriate amount of paint — not gobs, which can clump, drip and look unsightly — painting can be surprisingly effective.

Susana Simonpietri, owner and creative director of the Brooklyn-based design firm Chango & Co., occasionally paints brick fireplaces white for a crisp, fresh look. Recently, she did so while renovating a 1970s house in East Hampton, N.Y., which had a two-sided fireplace between the living and dining rooms made from orangy brick that neither she nor her clients liked.

“We painted the outside white and the inside of the fireplace black, for a lot of contrast,” she said.

It was as simple as covering the brick with a sealing primer, she said, and then applying several coats of Decorator’s White paint from Benjamin Moore. “The priming is very important,” she said. “If you don’t prime, the color from the bricks will bleed through.”

Almost any type of paint can be used on the outside of a fireplace, Ms. Simonpietri said, though she prefers an exterior-grade paint for durability. But inside the firebox, it’s important to use a special high-temperature paint that can withstand the heat.

A painted brick fireplace is easy to maintain, she said, even when it’s white: “All you have to do is hit it with another coat of paint when it gets dirty, over time, from the smoke.”

Change the Mantel

Replacing an existing mantel or chimney piece, or adding one where there was previously none, can immediately change the character of a fireplace.

A traditional fireplace can be made to look modern with the addition of a mantel composed of simple marble slabs, and a contemporary fireplace can be given a sense of age with a traditional wood mantel that has classical details.

“Changing the mantel itself is not that big a deal,” Ms. Simonpietri said, noting that they can usually be pried off the wall like trim. “Essentially, you are left with walls that need to be healed. If you’re a handy person, it’s a do-it-yourself project.”

Replacement mantels are widely available at a range of prices, from home improvement stores like the Home Depot to specialty manufacturers like Chesneys. And reclaimed mantels can be found at architectural salvage stores like Big Reuse, Olde Good Things and Demolition Depot and Irreplaceable Artifacts.

You can also build a custom mantel, like Vincent DiSalvo, a principal of DiSalvo Contracting in New York, frequently does for his clients.

Installing a new mantel is fairly straightforward, Mr. DiSalvo said, “as long as you work within the parameters of code requirements,” and size it properly to fit the existing opening. Combustible materials — like a wood mantel — must be at least six inches back from the sides of a wood-burning firebox, he said, and “the horizontal piece that runs across the top of the firebox should be around 12 inches” above the opening, depending on how far the mantel projects off the wall.

The resulting gap between the firebox and mantel creates another design opportunity, he noted, and can be finished with distinctive ceramic tile or stone.

Install a Creative Surround

Of course, not every fireplace needs to be finished with a conventional mantel. There are countless creative alternatives.

When Mr. Jayne renovated a house for clients in Oyster Bay, N.Y., he designed a tall box clad in Delft tiles to surround the fireplace.

“Rather than just having a fireplace with a row of Delft tiles and a pretty 19th-century wood molding around it, we tried to modernize it and make it more contemporary,” he said.

Sometimes, Mr. Jayne eliminates a ledge or shelf above the fireplace altogether, as he did in the library of an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. There, he removed the existing “pseudo Georgian Revival” mantel and clad the wall around the fireplace in colorful mosaic tile — a design loosely inspired by a fireplace in a dining room designed by Stanford White at Kingscote, a 19th-century house in Newport, R.I.

For a more monolithic appearance, a fireplace can be resurfaced in concrete or natural stone in the same way. If you use natural stone, though, choose a dark one, like slate, rather than a light one, like white marble, Mr. DiSalvo advised: “You want to select a stone that isn’t easily stained by soot. A darker-colored stone holds up better over time.”

Or Transform the Whole Wall

Attacking the mantel or the area immediately around the fireplace sometimes isn’t enough. In that case, the whole wall that houses the fireplace may need attention.

When Shapeless Studio renovated a Brooklyn apartment that had an especially unappealing brick wall with a fireplace, they built a new wall with drywall in front of it, floor to ceiling, to conceal the entire expanse.

That slightly reduced the footprint of the living room, but it created a cleaner look and the opportunity to add a beefy custom limestone mantel. The architects also used the thickness of the new wall to create recessed storage nooks on either side of the fireplace.

Linc Thelen, a Chicago-based designer, used a similar strategy to conceal a dated-looking rubble-stone feature wall with a fireplace when he renovated a house in rural Indiana.

“We had to reframe it,” he said, because there was no other reasonable way to remove or conceal the stone. After adding cement board to the framing for a smooth surface, he installed a linear arrangement of buff-colored manufactured stone veneer from Eldorado Stone on top.

“I wanted something that was minimal, but also warm and modern,” he said.

Building a second wall may seem somewhat extreme, but transforming the appearance of an unloved fireplace can pay big dividends. “The fireplace can help tie the whole house together,” Mr. Thelen said. “And it can say a lot about the personality of the person.”

There are also family traditions to consider, he added: “You can have Santa Claus coming down a stylish chimney.”

For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @nytrealestate.

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filipeteimuraz · 6 years ago

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10 Trending 2019 Website Color Schemes

There’s a lot to take into consideration when you’re designing a website: there’s the layout, the architecture, the CTAs, picking your domain name, setting up a host, configuring the backend, picking a theme, perfecting the wording of your value proposition, and deciding which visuals to use. The list goes on and on.

All too often website color scheme is an afterthought.

So many site owners put little to no thought into picking their website color palette, let alone a trending color scheme. They think, How important could website colors really be?

Well, the color choices on your website, and how dated they feel, has a bigger impact on visitors than you might realize.

In fact, research shows that people judge products within 90 seconds of exposure — and 90% of that judgment is based on color alone. Choosing the right colors can enhance readability by 40%, increase comprehension by 73%, and improve learning by 78%.

Colors are one of the most important elements that add credibility to your website. According to HubSpot, 46% of people rank the design of a website the number one factor in determining the credibility of a company.

The University of Toronto conducted an interesting study on colors and how they are perceived by individuals. The results were very intriguing. They determined that most people prefer combinations of simple colors. In most cases, just two or three colors were perceived as appealing. That’s why sticking to a color palette is so important to the success of your site, and ultimately your business.

But there are more than 10 million colors in the world. That’s overwhelming, to say the least. How can you determine which colors are the best for your website?

Whether you have a new site that you’re designing from scratch or an old website that needs a facelift and some improvements, you’ve come to the right place. This guide will show you which site color palettes are trending in 2019, so you can find the best ones for your website. We’ll look at examples of real websites and list some of the exact color codes used for on those sites.

1. Soft tones

Soft tones are definitely trending in 2019. Creations Namale is a jewelry brand based in Canada. Here’s a screenshot from the 2019 look book on the homepage of their website:

The colors are soft, classy, and very appealing. It’s a perfect choice for a brand in the fashion industry selling jewelry. The simple tones work well with each other and the jewelry stand outs.

In addition to the simple color scheme used on this site, the layout takes the same approach. The white space lets the page breathe. This will be a common theme as we continue throughout this guide.

As you can see, there is minimal text. Rather than trying to cram as many products as possible onto one page, this site takes the approach of just one at a time.

If you’re interested in using these colors on your website, here are the exact color codes you’ll need:

As you can see, you need just two or three colors to be appealing to an audience. If this site had used six or seven color tones in the design, the simplicity and trendy effect would be lost.

2. Simple grey, off white, and a pop of red

Let’s continue with the simplicity trend. You don’t need to have lots of busy colors to have an appealing website color scheme. Simple website color palettes are less distracting and allow your audience to focus on what’s important to them. Check out this page from Tareq Portfolio. Tareq Ismail is an experienced designer, so it’s only natural that he chose a powerfully simple design and color scheme for his own website.

This page is a bit different from the previous example. There is more text on the page, but it’s still simple and easy to read. Rather than using a pure white tone, Tareq chose a slightly off-white color to blend with his grey and red color palette. This off-white works well since he’s wearing a white shirt in the image on this page. The subtle hints of red the text really complete the look and take a page that would be otherwise boring and make it pop.

These are the color codes used on Tareq’s site.

This is a great option to consider if you’re looking for a color palette that’s professional, simple, and works well with pages that have bit more text.

3. Gradient blues and greens with white text

Stripe is a payment processing software for Internet businesses. It’s a very popular tool used by ecommerce companies. As a technology brand, Stripe needs to stay up to date with all of the latest tech trends. But they also have a website color scheme that’s trendy as well.

Before we look at what their website looks like today, take a look at what their site looked like six years ago, back in 2013:

Is there anything wrong with this design? On the surface, it just looks a little bit boring and dull. There’s nothing about it that’s really visually appealing.

But Stripe made adjustments. It’s current color palette uses a technique that’s been growing in popularity: gradients. Take a look for yourself:

Shades of blue. Shades of green. White. Very simple.

By using a gradient scale, Stripe takes a very simple blue color and blends it with different tones. The difference between the 2013 site and the 2019 site is like night and day. Even if you’d seen the two homepages without knowing the years, you’d have been able to identify the newest one.

If your website is currently outdated, and looks more like the Stripe site from 2013, try adding color gradients to give your palette a more modern look.

4. Throwback oranges and red tones

Retro color schemes are making a big comeback in 2019. Lots of top brands are using popular colors from the 80s and 90s on their website. But they are putting a modern twist on them.

It’s a bit of an oxymoron. How can something by retro and modern at the same time?

Let’s look at the Spotify homepage.

These orange and red tones have a throwback vibe to them. These are warm colors that give people some nostalgia for their childhood and adolescent years.

Spotify’s polka dot colors are inspired by the 80s and 90s, but the design itself is very trendy and uses gradient scales, which are very current, to blend the colors.

It’s important to make sure you understand who you’re trying to target with your website color schemes. This goes far beyond just picking pink designs for women and blue designs for men. To find a retro color scheme that fits your audience, you can use generational marketing to segment your target audience.

5. Soft pink, bright pink, and jet black

Cowboy differentiates its brand by selling electric bikes on a modern, and very pink, website. Typically, the words “Cowboy” and “pink” don’t normally go hand in hand. But the sleek and trendy design of this website is perfect.

The soft pink tones in the background makes the jet black bike stand out and become the center of attention. By adding the brighter pink accents in subtle locations around the page, Cowboy Bike nails the trendy and modern color palette.

Most people would assume that pink would be used to target females. But there is nothing feminine about this website. The product appeals to both genders. It just goes to show you that you can throw certain stereotypes right out of the window when it comes to choosing a color palette for your website.

If you like this design and think that the modern feel would work well for your website, you can use these color codes as a reference when you’re choosing your color scheme:

6. Grey, soft yellow, and deep green

The QED Group is a website based in the Czech Republic. They offer services to both companies and individuals to help improve organizational development by applying concepts in psychology and behavioral economics.

It’s safe to say that the business model of the QED Group is very unique. Along those same lines, they implemented some of the latest color palettes on their website as well.

At first glance, the color palette of their home page is a bit busier than some of the other examples that we’ve looked at so far. But they still pull it off well with this trendy design.

Normally you would think that yellow, green, and purple tones would be difficult to read and hard on the eyes. By using lighter and dull grey tones in the background, they are able to add brighter contrasting colors to the middle silhouette.

If you like the modern look of these soft yellow tones paired with grey and deep green, check out these color codes:

7. A very light touch of earth tone

Konstantopoulos S.A. “Olymp” sells greek olives. Earth tones, especially olive tones, make sense for its website.

The layout and design of this homepage are very simple. It uses a color scheme that’s visually appealing and fits well with the product that’s being sold. The main color choice here is green — olive green, of course. But as you can see, it’s used very sparingly. This is key for getting that modern look with a more classic color palette.

Rather than going overboard with wall to wall saturation of dark greens, the soft grey background adds a more modern and trendy feel to the website. Behind that grey, there are green leaves that are muted, since they are layered behind the design. This technique allows the green text and logo to have a stronger presence on the page.

For a business that sells olives, the earth tones color palette was a great choice. Refer to these green, grey, and light brown color codes to get a similar look on your website.

You can do something similar if your product has an identifiable color: start with the light grey background and darker grey copy color, and add your accent color in sparingly.

8. Lots of red, balanced with muted tones

If you look back at all of the trending website color schemes we’ve covered so far, you’ll notice a popular color that’s rarely used. Red.

That’s because red is one of the most powerful, but challenging colors to use on a website. One way to effectively use read is to use it lightly to give a pop of color to something as small as a few key words in the text.

Another way is to pair more muted colors with red.

The creative branding agency five/four swung for the fences by using a bright red color on a huge portion of their website.

The reason why this bright red was so successful is because five/four used muted tones on the rest of their page. If they had decided to go with bright yellow, light blue, and bright orange in addition to this red color, it would have been way too much.

But these soft colors pair perfectly with red. This red works really well for the brand, too. It’s bright, bold, and draws lots of attention to the theme of creativity.

So for those of you who want to go modern and bold with your color scheme, consider using these color codes with red on your website.

Just make sure you don’t go too big with the red. You want to be certain that you have enough of the softer tones to let your page breathe, while still capturing a trendy appearance.

9. Futuristic pastels and primaries

When it comes to choosing a color scheme for your website, it’s a good call to follow in the footsteps of those who have experience in this field. No need to reinvent the wheel.

That’s why this list wouldn’t be complete without an example from Anton & Irene. These are professional designers based in New York. They specialize in all aspects of design, including digital products. Of course they have a modern and trendy color palette on their website.

One of the best parts about this website color scheme is the futuristic feel about it. The outfit choices of Anton and Irene are pretty far out.

While this site uses more colors than some of the other examples we’ve seen so far, they are used sparingly, so the page isn’t messy or unappealing.

If you’re looking for an artistic spin for your website color scheme, try using different combinations of these exact colors.

10. Black on black on black

We’ve seen some black on nearly every website that we’ve looked at so far. But the black was always used pretty sparingly. It’s usually used for text, as opposed to the main colors or background.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t use heavy blacks in more abundance for your website color scheme, especially if you use different black tones like these:

Let’s see what happens when you combine these tones. Check out the JY BH homepage. By combining different shades of black, you’ll get the gradient effect, which you saw earlier with some of our other examples. The heavy black gradient gives the site a mysterious look.

This company is a French clothing manufacturer. They sell luxury garments and accessories for both men and women. Just like in fashion, black is a timeless color. It’s been popular for years, and will continue to be popular in 2019.

But if you’re going to go black on your website, use different shades, like the example above. Just one black will look flat and basic.

Conclusion

It’s 2019. That means it’s time for you to ditch the color scheme you were using years ago. It’s important to switch it up because color schemes can impact sales on your website.

Choosing the right website color palette doesn’t have to be hard. To update your website with a look that’s modern, trendy, and unique, you can use any of the palettes in this guide. You can even use some of the exact color codes that we showcased.

What colors schemes are you using on your website now? What will you update them to for 2019?

http://www.quicksprout.com/trending-website-color-schemes/ Read more here - http://review-and-bonuss.blogspot.com/2019/01/10-trending-2019-website-color-schemes.html

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audreygallegoba2a · 6 years ago

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Wes Anderson's THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL - Analysis

Task: Find a link on any kind of (audiovisual) work. One that we think is great, one that we think no one else in the group has ever seen before and one that we think is really bad. We will analyse them together next Monday.

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Director: Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson loves making films that look like Wes Anderson films. He has a a very peculiar style, people like parodying this style because of how distinct and funny, it is. His style is known for having: captioned freeze frames, '60s pop music, gorgeous color, overhead shots, and deadpan dialogue.

He often uses a very wide angle anamorphic lens with lens distortion, he loves the rostrum camera insert shots, he often uses shots of emotionless characters facing the camera, and his films often deal with middle/upper class issues, especially when it comes to families and family trouble.

Production Design

When we enter Zubrowka it's white, gray, and brown. We see three men, dressed in black, and a girl, dressed in a brown coat and hat. Everything about this Zubrowka is solemn and subdued, everything except for a bright pink book.

Once we leave this Zubrowka and enter two others, both the interior of the Author's study and the interior of the aging Budapest Hotel are full of yellows and browns. The color palette is less dull, but it's not exactly more interesting or alive. It has a homely air; it's worn but inviting. These colors match the subdued friendliness of the older Mustafa.

Finally, we're thrown into our final setting: 1932. The Grand Budapest Hotel is at the height of its glory. The Hotel itself is full of pinks and whites. The outfits of the Hotel staff are a deep, rich purple, highlighted with red. These colors speak not only to the affluence of the hotel and its patrons (royal purple), but also to a general sense of warmth and vibrancy.

Blocking refers to the positioning and movement of actors on a stage or set. Wes Anderson is a well-known blocking maestro:

While the Author stands conferring, elbow-to-elbow with M. Jean, we get an unusual image: Both characters are talking to one another, but they're facing the camera at the same time (it's almost like they're acting on a stage). This type of blocking has become a Wes Anderson trope of sorts; in many of his movies the characters are engaging with the audience even more than with each other.

Then there's an opposite sort of blocking found throughout the film, where two characters face each other directly. The center between them is exactly at the center of the screen and the background appears almost flat behind them.

Music and Score

Alexandre Desplat, French composer and previous Wes Anderson collaborator on Fantastic Mr. Fox and Moonrise Kingdom, also composed the score for The Grand Budapest Hotel, and won an Oscar for it.

Desplat had the difficult task of creating an authentic, cultural sound to aid in forming the rich history of a fictional country. At the end, an entirely unique- but still very central European - sound accompanies the film.

The film - and the score - also has many somber moments. Darker moments of humanity and war also come through in the score with pieces like "Daylight Express to Lutz."

Though the score doesn’t just set the mood for Zubrowka; it does the same for our characters as well. Many of the characters have their own musical motif that follows them around the film. For Gustave it’s all about the mandolins, which provides a solemnity for Gustave who, although a bit eccentric, takes himself and his job very seriously.

For Jopling it’s a more ominous piece with some Gregorian choir chanting that, like Jopling’s character, isn’t always supposed to be taken seriously. Zero also gets a theme, co-titled "The War," which is also solemn, but a bit more subtle than the other larger-than-life characters of the film.

Story: Hero’s Journey

Every blockbuster movie has the same fundamental pieces: a hero, a journey, some conflicts to muck it all up, a reward, and the hero returning home and everybody applauding his. Joseph Campbell noticed first in 1949 and wrote The Hero with a Thousand Faces, in which he outlined the 17 stages of a mythological hero's journey.

About half a century later, Christopher Vogler condensed those stages down to 12 in an attempt to show Hollywood how every story ever written should follow Campbell's pattern. So, in this film worked in accordance with those 12 stages:

Ordinary World

Call To Adventure

Refusal Of The Call

Meeting The Mentor

Crossing The Threshold

Tests, Allies, Enemies

Approach To The Inmost Cave

Ordeal

Reward (Seizing The Sword)

The Road Back

Resurrection

Return With The Elixir

Point of view

A frame narrative is a story within a story - or a story within a story within a story within a story if you're Wes Anderson.

Before we hit the ten-minute mark in the film, we've already visited four distinct time periods and three distinct locations. The first is a post-1985 Zubrowka, where we see the grave of the Author and a girl with her Grand Budapest book.

The second is 1985, where we enter the home of the Author who prepares to tell us about the story he wrote.

The third is 1968, where we see the Author in the Budapest itself, where he meets Mustafa.

The fourth is, of course, the heart of the story; it's Zubrowka in 1932, where our true protagonists are finally introduced.

Not only does the frame narrative allow for a moment of world-building (and for the audience to adjust to and accept the fictionalized Eastern European country of Zubrowka), but it also begins to thematically explore things like memory and the past, creating a feeling of the grandeur of an era (and hotel, and man) long gone.

The frame narrative does something else, too: it gives us a narrator.Two narrators, in fact. The first is the Author, who tells us about meeting Mustafa, giving us intimacy and insight into who Zero has become in his later years. The second is Mustafa himself, providing that same information for Gustave.

These character/narrator combinations are infamously unreliable, and yet we never find ourselves questioning the accuracy or authenticity of the story we hear.

Genre: comedy, adventure and caper

Wes Anderson's movies have always been, no matter how depressing (or, in this unusual case, action-filled) they are, comedies at their core.

The Grand Budapest is a distillation of the zany Zubrowkan society and the larger-than-life characters who inhabit it. The humour lies both in the outrageous situations and the dialogue, which develops our preposterous characters and gives us plenty of the bizarre and farcical monologues and non-sequiturs. Plus the blocking. The way that actors stand and move within the scene can be just as funny as the things they do or say. Anderson has a tendency to highlight the absurdity of his films by the irregular placement of his characters.

Adventure was new a new genre for Wes Anderson (and it's possibly why Grand Budapest has been his most successful film to date). The Grand Budapest's plot takes the form of an adventure of a framed concierge and his young friend.

A sub-genre of the more general crime fiction, a caper generally involves crime. Not scary violent crime, capers usually deal with the planning and stealing of something valuable. And they usually star super-charismatic thieves that we end up rooting for.

Grand Budapest isn't your traditional, Ocean's 11-type caper film. There's no elaborate heist. However, the consequences of the missing Boy with Apple, the false murder accusation, and the prison break are what drive the action of the movie. We're rooting for Zero and Gustave… even if they're not always on the side of the law.

Tropes and Conventions

- Mendl's: the most delicate pastry shop in all of Nebelsbad, with the most delicious signature treat. The Courtesan au Chocolat is pretty, delicate, and its colour palette fits perfectly with the pastels of the Grand Budapest. It's sinfully rich, but apart from being calorie-heavy, it's as innocent and harmless as Agatha.

Except for the fact that a Mendl's pastry can sometimes contain a hidden metal file or hammer. Mendl's is in many ways a symbol of deception. Not only are Mendl's pastries used to smuggle tools inside a prison, but also Zero and Gustave disguise themselves as Mendl's employees when they infiltrate the Grand Budapest in the film's climactic scene.

- Each poem is, essentially, an exaggeration of the art of poetry. They use outdated language that sounds like Early Modern English, combined with blatant excesses in the grammar ("me thinks me breathes me last me fears," said he,") and imagery, ("A moist, black ash dampens the filth of a dung-dark rat's nest and mingles with the thick scent of wood rot…").

These poems are clearly a mockery of poetry: they suggest that poetry is a useless way of speaking in a modern world. In fact, most of these poems ends with the recitation being interrupted. There is no time in the fast-paced world of modern Zubrowka for the laments and exaltations of old.

At most, these poems are a form of expression that allows for the characters to connect with each other and brighten each other's lives.

- The war certainly isn't in the spotlight of the movie, but it keeps finding ways to creep into the plot. When Zero and Gustave are stopped for the first time in the barley field, the text tells us this is the "closing of the frontier." What "frontier" they're speaking of is unclear, but we know these soldiers are military personnel and the stop has something to do with the war.

The characters are trying their hardest to drown out the noise of the oncoming bloodbath and focus instead on the smaller matters at hand.

#film language

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oliviadunncolourcomplex · 7 years ago

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PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF COLOUR AND SYMBOLISM

COLOUR: WHITE

White is a very common colour to use when you want to make your space look big, open, clean and refreshing. White is can be used in many different ways whether you want to make specific items stand out but contrasting them with the pure white colour or whether you want to use white in a small dose to make things look simplistic or modern. It is a very versatile colour in that sense as it can pretty much go anywhere.

Throughout my apartment I am going to use white as my base colour, to emphasise my bold and extravagant colours drawn from Lambie’s floor installations to stand out rather than fit in with the background. He usually uses white as his surrounding colour also, especially when utilises an atrium floor. This makes the room look bigger and lets the floor be the main attraction. The apartment space is not very big or bright and therefore I am aiming to use this white base to allow the spaces to look bigger and brighter which will help enhance a positive and happy mood for the brain.

COLOUR: YELLOW

The colour yellow is rarely used as a common colour for your interior or even exterior space. It is usually used as a feature colour rather than the main colour. The colour yellow will portray a bright and optimistic feel for the space and is associated with the emotion of happiness, hence why a smiley face is usually seen as yellow. The colour yellow associates itself also with the sun and therefore combines positively with white as it opens the space making it bright and inviting. It is definitely a colour which stands out and can look more effective if you use it in smaller doses against another colour to make items stand out.

I think using yellow in my apartment could be very successful as it associates with the emotion of happiness and joy. It is a bright colour which is the vibe I would like to use in some areas of my apartment. I feel by using it against another colour on the colour wheel I could create a funky space which effects the happiness of someone and creates good vibes. Thinking of this, I believe adding yellow into the kitchen could be a very cool theme as yellow is not usually used in a kitchen space but will aid in helping form the desired result.

COLOUR: RED

The colour red is a very strong colour used in many different aspects of life. The colour red can be used as the colour for love, such as a red heart, roses, romance and love, and therefore very stimulating or exciting. But it can also be used as an action such as a stop sign, or a traffic light, or even seen as an hot and angry colour. Therefore red is used in many ways and can have both positive and negative affects. It is closer to a darker colour and I would not want to use this colour in bulk but if I do use it I will use it scarcely. It can make a room feel warm and cosy but it will make the space look smaller and therefore more intimate. Talking about intimacy, I would have thought to use red in the bedroom to create this desired result but it does increase your heart rate (Interiordezine.com, 2017). When reflecting upon depression and anxiety which commonly can go hand in hand, you want to lower your heart rate when going to sleep as it is the place for relaxation, and sleep. Insomnia can be a side effect of these disorders and I want to create an area which helps fight the battle of insomnia if it is present in someones life, and therefore use the right colour palette to do so.

In reflection upon the colour red and how I can use it within my apartment I will tread lightly and only put it in where it is necessary and can work with the surrounding colours and spaces. I would have initially used it in the bedroom but I have strayed away from this idea now and will look into alternative colours which create a calm and relaxing vibe for example a blue colour which is closely associated with a calming effect. If I am going to use red I will use it with combinations of colour in reflection upon Lambie’s crazy colour palette.

COLOUR: PINK

The colour pink has many shades which can have dramatically different effects. The colour pink can represent compassion and love and some pink shades can create a fresh and soothing feeling, whereas a more vibrant pink like fuchsia can create energy, glamour and happiness. (HGTV, 2017) The colour pink is usually associated with girls but can be used in the right way to be used as a colour base for a beautiful space for anyone. Pink is a combination of red and white, and therefore holds characteristics from both the deep red and the pure white. Pink draws the love and power from the colour red and then is softened positively from the purity and freedom of the colour white (Color-Meanings.com, 2017).

I think the colour pink could be used in many shades throughout my apartment by utilising the lighter pink in a room for purity and refreshment, with a touch of love and compassion (whether that is self love or love with a partner - both aiding in the journey to happiness to fight depression), or a darker fuchsia pink creating energy and vibrancy. I am imagining the bathroom to be a very light colour palette to reflect the fresh and pure desired result, and therefore could also use my light pink tile which was created in the wet lab to assist in this colour scheme. And then using a bright pink in an alternative area in the apartment such as the living room or kitchen or maybe the exterior balcony. This colour of pink has the opportunity to work in different ways in the apartment to create different emotions and I would like to try these out and see how they fit in.

COLOUR: BLUE

The colour blue is a very common colour to use as it associates with many things in life such as the symbolism throughout many areas such as trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven. Usually we see blue in the colour of the sky or the ocean as a child but can be a lot more meaningful when you get into detail. The colour blue can create a very cool, calm and clear look. You can use a baby blue to open up a space or a dark blue to create depth. It is commonly associated with relaxation and meditation as it has been said to lower blood pressure and your heart rate which contrasts with the colour red. Reflecting upon this, blue could be used in the bedroom to aid in fighting insomnia.

After analysing the colour blue I have a picture in my head of it being in the bedroom of my apartment. After researching closely and also experiencing insomnia myself it is a proven fact that insomnia and depression often go hand-in-hand. Peter Jaret who studied health and well-being states that “15% of people with depression sleep too much, as many as 80% have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. Patients with persistent insomnia are more than three times more likely to develop depression” (Jarat, 2017). In this case, I would like to use colours which psychologically create a very relaxed and calming feel in the bedroom to help with sleeping issues and lower the heart rate of those who occupy it. I would like to use a deeper blue as Lambie uses a deep blue in his work and I have utilised it throughout my explorations of tiles, and wallpaper and really appreciated the affect it gave. I think a deep blue can look very classy and modern also while creating this soothing emotion.

COLOUR: GREEN

The colour green can be used to create a clam and relaxing atmosphere in a space. We usually associate the colour of green with nature and the outdoors, as it symbolises freshness, growth, harmony and fertility. Green is also seen to have good healing power and that goes hand in hand with nature as people believe nature is sometimes the best way to heal ones soul. It is a very easy colour for the human eye and therefore is similar to the colour blue. The psychological effects of green are very alike to the effects of blue, as green is perceived as calm and clear and so is blue.

I would definitely like to incorporate green into the apartment in many ways, from using it as a colour and also bringing the outdoors-in. I would like to incorporate a light green into the bathroom with the light pink colour which will work together to create this fresh and harmonised space. A light and pure bathroom will hopefully help create a clear brain for the morning and a positive emotive space.

Plants are both aesthetically pleasing and also go far beyond that to benefit psychological health, illness reduction, productivity. This will allow me to draw from the colour green within Lambie’s work and also aid adding to the aim of how colour can create a psychological effect on the human brain but also to the body. Recent research from Ambius - Benefits of Indoor Plants tells us that indoor plants are good for buildings and people in many ways. Plants play a huge role in providing a pleasant and tranquil environment in which to move, work or relax. Indoor plants can also help health, wellbeing and productivity (Ambius.co.nz, 2017).

The research found that Indoor Plants:

Help improve indoor air quality

Help reduce sick building syndrome

Help improve well being

Help improve productivity and performance

Help to lower stress and negative feelings

Help to reduce noise

Contribute to fulfilling at least 75% of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) Criteria

REFERENCES

Ambius.co.nz. (2017). Benefits of Indoor Plants | Ambius New Zealand. [online] Available at: https://www.ambius.co.nz/office-plants/benefits/index.html [Accessed 4 Oct. 2017].

Color-Meanings.com. (2017). Pink Color Meaning – The Color Pink. [online] Available at: https://www.color-meanings.com/pink-color-meaning-the-color-pink/ [Accessed 4 Oct. 2017].

HGTV. (2017). Behind the Color Pink. [online] Available at: http://www.hgtv.com/remodel/interior-remodel/behind-the-color-pink [Accessed 4 Oct. 2017].

Interior Design, Design News and Architecture Trends. (2017). The Psychology of Color for Interior Design. [online] Available at: http://designlike.com/the-psychology-of-color-for-interior-design/ [Accessed 4 Oct. 2017].

Interiordezine.com. (2017). Red Color Meanings for Interior Decorating and Design Interiors. [online] Available at: http://www.interiordezine.com/color/red/ [Accessed 7 Oct. 2017].

Jarat, P. (2017). Depression and Insomnia. [online] WebMD. Available at: https://www.webmd.com/depression/features/sleep-problems#1 [Accessed 3 Oct. 2017].

Quick Facts and Stats 2014. (2017). [ebook] New Zealand: Mental Health Foundation, p.1. Available at: https://www.mentalhealth.org.nz/assets/Uploads/MHF-Quick-facts-and-stats-FINAL.pdf [Accessed 4 Oct. 2017].

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