By Ken Liebeskind
MINNEAPOLIS --Microsoft’s Genuine Fact Files, a worldwide campaign to combat software counterfeiting and increase awareness of software licensing issues, has been bolstered by a series of four-and-a-half-minute animated videos that illuminate the issues in an appealing way.
“Suspicious Cargo,” the seventh video in the series, incorporates Maya, After Effects and Flame to add visual effects to the animation that make it look almost like an in-cinema piece, especially during the first scene when the rippling water establishes the tone. “We wanted to get away from the comic book feel and be a little more movie style,” said Greg Shultz, designer/VFX director at Gasket Studios Limited/Minneapolis. “We used Maya and 3D elements to accentuate the illustrator’s art. Using his look, we projected the style of rippling water and dimensions that brought the ship to life. In Flame, we added lighting treatment, fog and cloud wisps. We wanted to stay in comic style, with a touch of real effects.”
Charlie Griak, who owns a design firm and production company under his name in Minneapolis, was the illustrator and director of the video. “They wanted it to feel like a graphic novel and a black and white comic book,” he said. “A combination of short film style and standard black and white comic book.”
The video does look like a black and white comic book, as the story of how a company deals with pirated software unfolds, with the characters shown in black and white illustrations with their dialogue in traditional cartoon bubbles. But Griak worked with Gasket to take the video beyond the basic comic book. “The illustrations were built in layers and they manipulated the layers individually to give them depth and movement,” Griak said. “They brought in the CGI water with a flat illustration and made it feel dimensional. It was the way to take a still image and make it engaging so you want to watch it.”
Keith Anderson, copywriter at DDB Seattle, said the video is the best in the series because of the Gasket effects and Griak’s direction. “They brought a lot to the table we weren’t expecting, the 3D modeling and lighting and camera techniques.”
The Business Software Alliance has reported that 35 percent of the world’s software is pirated and the Yankee Group noted that 55 percent of organizations report instances of counterfeit or pirated software.
As Microsoft prepared to launch Windows Vista and Office 2007, it launched the Genuine Facts Files campaign that educates businesses and consumers on the risks associated with non-genuine software. “Suspicious Cargo,” the latest Genuine Fact Files video, tells the story of how one business plagued by counterfeit software overcomes the problem with the help of Microsoft software applications.
Review: Writer-Director Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance”
In its first two hours, "The Substance" is a well-made, entertaining movie. Writer-director Coralie Fargeat treats audiences to a heavy dose of biting social commentary on ageism and sexism in Hollywood, with a spoonful of sugar- and sparkle-doused body horror.
But the film's deliciously unhinged, blood-soaked and inevitably polarizing third act is what makes it unforgettable.
What begins as a dread-inducing but still relatively palatable sci-fi flick spirals deeper into absurdism and violence, eventually erupting โ quite literally โ into a full-blown monster movie. Let the viewer decide who the monster is.
Fargeat โ who won best screenplay at this year's Cannes Film Festival โ has been vocal about her reverence for "The Fly" director David Cronenberg, and fans of the godfather of body horror will see his unmistakable influence. But "The Substance" is also wholly unique and benefits from Fargeat's perspective, which, according to the French filmmaker, has involved extensive grappling with her own relationship to her body and society's scrutiny.
"The Substance" tells the story of Elisabeth Sparkle, a famed aerobics instructor with a televised show, played by a powerfully vulnerable Demi Moore. Sparkle is fired on her 50th birthday by a ruthless executive โ a perfectly cast Dennis Quaid, who nails sleazy and gross.
Feeling rejected by a town that once loved her and despairing over her bygone star power, Sparkle learns from a handsome young nurse about a black-market drug that promises to create a "younger, more beautiful, more perfect" version of its user. Though she initially tosses the phone number in the trash, she soon fishes it out in a desperate panic and places an order.
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