DVD Menu

For this next assignment we had to create a DVD menu for our films that we have previously made. We had to create the opening menu using photoshop. I'm definitely going to change it up before we turn it in, but I needed to get something done for the moment.
Some people were confused about the buttons. They didn't stand out enough for some people and I understand that since it is the same font as the title. People did like the "Creative" part in the title saying it added good elements to it.
I like that the characters are looking at the buttons and will probably keep them in the same place, but will change what they do and how they look. Overall it's very plain and simple, but it's effective because you don't want people to get lost looking for buttons.

Opening Title Sequence

On Oct. 7th I had to do a presentation on the opening sequence of a movie. I chose Anchorman because it is one of my favorite movies of all time. Little did I know that I would learn so much about the movie just from analyzing the first four minutes of it.

Typography!

Here is an assignment all about typography. Our Professor gave us some sayings and we had to use Photoshop to create a meaning we wanted to convey. I had a hard time with some of the phrases, but the three I'm posting here were my favorites.

The American Dream is something that I think many people don't achieve. When I think of it I think of money, so I got a picture of million dollar bill and merged it in with the word dream. I added a shadow behind it to distance the dream from the "American" part of it because many people do not achieve it or they just lose sight of it.



I personally believe the second one is the most important. I wanted to stress the importance of voting and therefore just made the word vote the biggest. I thought of this saying as a sign someone might hold or you would see in a lawn. It's not who you vote for, but that you go out and vote.



This one is kind of comical. It has such a ridiculous blood splatter that it makes it seem like a joke, but it also grabs your attention. I wanted to stress the lethality of AIDS and that's the reason for those words being bigger. Apathy is small because I didn't think it was too important to what I was trying to convey, but the word apathy even takes on it's meaning and hides in between the other words. I took a picture and masked it over the words and used cloning.

Training Exercise 1

For our first exercise in the class we had to replicate an ad to the best of our abilities using Photoshop. Some people were just learning while some were experts at it, I personally was in between the two. I could this ad because I thought it would be interesting to work with real people and the lighting. I didn't know it would be extremely difficult though. I used the dodge and burn tool a lot to touch up the shaded areas and make them like the ads' models. I also used the clone tool on my male model's hair to get it longer since it was pretty short. Coloring and cloning the shirt on the male was one of the hardest parts as well. I'm satisfied with it because of the time constraints, but too me it still looks a little 'drawn.' The first picture is my replica and the second is the actual ad. Enjoy!

Introduction

Just wanted to introduce myself to everyone reading this here blog. My name's Josh Carlson and I'm a film/video student at Grand Valley State University, with an emphasis on animation. I have an extended background in drawing. However, I mostly like to draw character art.

In high school I worked with Adobe Premiere and Photoshop quite often. I have done a few stop-motion animations with Legos and a few hand drawn animations as well. As soon as I came into college I was taken out of the animation world and thrown into live-action film making. I found this quite enjoyable and am glad I have chosen to go into this field.

Recently, I have started working with Adobe Flash and Photoshop more often. I'm learning some of the trickier tools that go along with those programs. I'm very fluent with Final Cut Pro and have some experience with ProTools. I enjoy every bit of animation and film I get to work with. It truly is a privilege.