Tag: computer graphics

Sergei Parajanov: Film History Series

Sergei Parajanov, “The Color of Pomegranates”, 1969, Computer Graphics, Film Gifs

The 1969 Soviet art film “The Color of Pomegranates”, written and directed by Sergei Parajanov, is a visual, poetic treatment of the life of the eighteenth-century Armenian musician and poet Sayat-Nova. The film is presented in a series of chapters depicting the poet’s life in active tableaux, presented with little dialogue. Each chapter, framed through Sayat-Nova’s poems, is indicated by a title card: Childhood, Youth, Prince’s Court, The Monastery, The Dream, Old Age, The Angel of Death, and Death. Narration on the film was done by Armenian-born renowned actor Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, known for his role in the 1979 “The Meeting Place Can Not Be Changed”. 

Four actors took the role of Sayat-Nova at different stages in his life, with Soviet Georgian actress Sofiko Chiaureli, notably playing six roles in the film, both female and male. The film was shot at numerous historical sites in northern Armenia, many being medieval churches in the Lori Provence, including the Sarahin Monastery and the St. John church at Ardvi. Filming was also done at the Old City of Baku, Azerbaijani, and in the countryside near the David Gareja Monastary in Eastern Georgia. 

Objections were made by the Communist Party and the Soviet censors  to Parajanov’s poetic, stylized treatment of the poet’s life, citing that it failed to educate the public. As a result, the original title “Sayat-Nova” was changed to “The Color of Pomegranates” and any references to Sayat-Nova’s name was removed from the credits. The Soviet officials also objected to the amount of religious imagery in the film and removed a substantial portion of it. Although the State Committee for Cinematography initially refused to allow the film to be shown outside Armenia, it did allow the film, now with a seventy-seven minute running time, to premiere inside Armenia in October of 1969.

Filmmaker Sergei Yutkevich,  the 1962 People’s Artist of the USSR and a script-reader on the State Committee, recut the film by a few minutes to appease the authorities and created Russian-language chapter titles for easier understanding by the public at large. He also changed the order of some of the sequences in the film. This seventy-three minute version ultimately received only limited distribution in the rest of the Soviet Union. 

The digital restoration of “The Color of Pomegranates” was completed in 2014 by Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation with the help of Cineteca di Bologna. It was re-edited as close as possible to the Sergei Parajanov’s original version, with its premier held at the 67th Cannes Film Festival. Parajanov’s film premiered in the US at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in September of 2014 and the 52nd New York Film Festival in October of 2014.

Cody Sampson

Cody Sampson, “Closer Look”, 2018, Digital Art, Computer Graphics

Cody Sampson is a digital artist living and working in both Long island, New York, and New Plymouth, New Zealand. His graphic works, often illusionary images or depictions of scenes with an unique flair, includes computer-generted animations, infinite loop gifs, and digital stills. Sampson creates his work using tools, such as Octane Render, Maxon’s Cinema 4D, and Adobe Photoshop. His main site is: https://cody-sampson.tumblr.com

Image reblogged with thanks to : https://doctordee.tumblr.com

 

New Power

Artist Unknown, (New Power), Computer Graphics, Anime Film Gifs

“Be not the slave of your own past – plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Any information on the artist or film source would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Olivia Howard Dunbar: “The Not Yet Darkened World”

Artist Unknown, (The Not Yet Darkened World), Computer Graphics, Anime Film Gifs

“The pale stars were sliding into their places. The whispering of the leaves was almost hushed. All about them it was still and shadowy and sweet. It was that wonderful moment when, for lack of a visible horizon, the not yet darkened world seems infinitely greater—a moment when anything can happen, anything be believed in.”
― Olivia Howard Dunbar, The Shell of Sense

The Lumière Brothers: Film History Series

Auguste and Louis Lumière, (Paris Scenes), “A Trip Through Paris, France, 1896-1900”, Film Gifs

The Belle Époque was a period in the history of Paris between 1871 to 1914, from the beginning of the Third French Republic until the first World War. The nostalgic term came into use, after the despair and deaths of World War One, for what seemed a simpler time of elegance, optimism and progress. This “Beautiful Age’ brought dramatic advancements in art, culture, and technology. 

In the field of architecture, Paris saw the construction of the Paris Metro, the completion of the Paris Opera House, the building of the Eiffel Tower, and the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Montmartre. During the three Universal Expositions of 1879, 1889, and 1900, millions of visitors came to Paris to see the latest marvels in commerce, the arts, and science. Paris was also the birthplace of the Ballets Russes, the most influential ballet company of the twentieth century, and the new art movements of Impressionism and the experimental Modern Art.

One particularly important technological invention that emerged at this time was the projected motion picture, patented in 1895 by Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas and Louis Jean Lumière. With this new technology, the Lumière brothers captured contemporary life in 19th-century Paris, culminating in the priceless black and white footage we can still see today.

Shot between 1896 and 1900, the compilation  “A Trip Through Paris, France, 1896-1900” takes viewers on a journey back in time to Paris. In six minutes, it showcases several sites around the French capital, including still-standing landmarks like Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Champs-Élysées, and the ten-year-old Eiffel Tower. In addition to featuring specific locations, it also offers a glimpse of daily life, from a scene showing firefighters on horseback to footage of children playing with little boats in the Tuileries Garden.

In order to set a lifelike scene, film restorer Guy Jones slowed the footage to a natural speed and added ambient noise. When coupled with the video’s strikingly high quality, these alterations make it possible for people today to wander through the Golden Age of Paris.

The complete film “A Trip Through Paris, France, 1896-1900” by the Lumière brothers with restoration and soundtrack can be found, along with other restored works, at Guy Jones’s Youtube site:

https://www.youtube.com/user/bebopsam1975/videos

Shannon L. Alder: “The Dark Angel”

Artist Unknown, (The Dark Angel), Computer Graphics, Film Gifs (Film Unknown)

“When you meet a dark angel don’t you ever for one minute believe they are bad because they have faced the worst demons and lived to guide you through yours. It really isn’t an easy job they have been asked to do, but then neither was standing on the front line during the war in heaven.”
― Shannon L. Alder

Reblogged with many thanks to https://domus-aurea2.tumblr.com

Walking Towards the Storm

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Artist Unknown, (Walking Towards the Storm), Computer Graphics, Animation Gif

“By early evening all the sky to the north had darkened and the spare terrain they trod had turned a neuter gray as far as the eye could see. They grouped in the road at the top of a rise and looked back. The storm front towered above them and the wind was cool on their sweating faces. They slumped bleary-eyed in their saddles and looked at one another. Shrouded in the black thunderheads the distant lightning glowed mutely like welding seen through foundry smoke. As if repairs were under way at some flawed place n the iron dark of the world.”
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses

Paul Lockhart: “Mathematics is the Music of Reason”

 

Six Gifs by Circle Art

“Mathematics is the music of reason. To do mathematics is to engage in an act of discovery and conjecture, intuition and inspiration; to be in a state of confusion—not because it makes no sense to you, but because you gave it sense and you still don’t understand what your creation is up to; to have a break-through idea; to be frustrated as an artist; to be awed and overwhelmed by an almost painful beauty; to be alive, damn it.”
― Paul Lockhart , A Mathematician’s Lament

Images reblogged with thanks to the artist’s site: http://circleart.tumblr.com

John Murray Anderson

 

John Murray Anderson, “King of Jazz”, 1930, Computer Graphics, Film Gifs

“King of Jazz” is a 1930 American pre-Code color film starring Paul Whiteman and his orchestra. The film title was taken from Whiteman’s self-conferred appellation. At the time the film was made, “jazz”, to the general public, meant the jazz-influenced syncopated dance music which was being heard everywhere on phonograph records and through radio broadcasts. In the 1920s Whiteman signed and featured white jazz musicians including Joe Venuti and Eddie Lang, both are seen and heard in the film, Bix Beiderbecker, who left before the filming began, Frank Trumbauer, and others.

“King of Jazz” was filmed entirely in the early two-color Technicolor process and was produced by Carl Laemmie, Junior for Universal Pictures. The movie featured several songs sung on camera by the Rhythm Boys, which included Bing Crosby, Al Rinker and harry Barris. Bing Crosby performed several off-camera solo vocals during the opening credits and sang very briefly during a cartoon sequence. The film still survives in a near-complete color print and is not a lost film, unlike many contemporary musicals that now exist only either in incomplete form or as black-and-white reduction copies.