#i did like fifty different variations of this edit before finally going with this

[deadpoets]

(x)

[blogofvanya]

READING AND WRITING

So let's find out which one came first ! Reading or writing? In my modest opinion I would say it's like the chicken and the egg. Which one was first we don't really know. Yet I can say and I know that numbers were created thru mere lines that were added to one another so that starting with the number one a straight line ; then two, an angular one at the bottom of the one and then three with yet another one etc etc! Of course after that we composed more esthetically pleasing figures that made up today's Latin numbers! If we look at the alphabets of the world starting from the Far East we can easily see how this evolved into the alphabet as we know it in our country ! Starting with bold and simple lines in Chinese it became rounded without completing the circles in Arabic and finally became the Latin alphabet in the western world! Yet when did the people actually start writing letters to one another and why and were they still carving and etching into stone to send messages to one another we don't know ! I am sure that there is pretty good documentation in the world almanac! We people of this century who have forgotten these difficulties will probably not understand nor find it that interesting anymore . I still visit countries where there are a lot of seniors besides children who are learning to spell and to read! They come from villages without the ability to get proper education ! Then they cherish this newfound trade to read whatever is published or handed to them. They love to read the news in a simple letter or newspaper ! Yet we; the lucky ones snub the news be it fake or not and sometimes prefer viewing TV and movies instead of reading. Be it this way or not ; don't you think that reading especially books ought to be a two way communication ? I mean instead of receiving the text from the writer we should also be capable of asking or placing our own opinions as well. Thus we can understand what he or she wanted to say and why! Wouldn't it be interesting if we could do that? I know that some books have given different endings to their stories depending on the variety of options . But again the majority of books are written to address the issue or story from the author's point of view. Today the ones who publish or can; do that through monies to market their books . The new who are very good or lucky sometimes prevail ! Otherwise in this competitive market a writer may not have the chance of the book going public. That is sad of course ! That being the truth and once the author has made his or her debut then they have to come up with more and more books! This some times makes the author lazy and then they hire a professional writer with good editing qualities who helps them in producing more and more books of the same kind ! Yet this wasn't that way before ! We don't see too many Tolstoy's or Dostoyevsky's and Shakespeare's! ! These great authors who already established themselves in a time frame when the stories were interesting and the literary accomplishments were remarkable ! Shakespeare with his many stories that presented human emotions and behavior in many ways spread these across continents and made indelible imprints even in the days of no internet and poor communication devices ! The visual technology has also brought out many actors who now portray the words and characters of these authors in a remarkable manner ! Sometimes instead of referring to the book we visualize the actor who brought it to life! Yet every day when we watch these shows maybe many many times we forget that they are not true but acting! Are we fooled that easily ? Maybe ? So once more we can go back to reading and pick up the book where we can imagine the characters as they are portrayed in the words and give them the emotional and physical imagery that we want ! So how do we choose the books we want to read? Is it a friend who tells us that they liked that book ? Is it the curiosity we have towards that kind of action or story? It's probably both ! The same way people guide us to go to such and such a restaurant because they thought that the food was great! Tastes and color are subjects we don't discuss ! Cause they are variable ! Anyway getting back to books and reading ,we already know that in today's world there is a lot of fake information! That is true from the beginning of world history ! Every author writes his or her opinion and story! There is the famous story Rashomon a Japanese classic when many different people describe an event and thus they write that many variations of a story ! Imagine! To top it some of these people are even dead! Those writers who serve royalties like emperors or great companies are mostly assigned to these posts to document the achievements of the peers? The higher sources which dictates them want to see positive remarks about their accomplishments! Be it true and sometimes not! Yet there are others who see happenings around them just as they are and report them like decent journalists with proper resources! They tell these events through their own eyes and resources ! Bravo! Yet there are also liars ! The phishing in writing and producing fake news both in books and other written format was started years ago! War time was the best period of false news and intended propaganda so that they could incriminate and destroy the country opposing them ! Incriminating their leaders so that they would be despised was purposefully done and even went down in history even though they were lies! Some of these authors wrote these hate books that were supposed to be published in fifty years or later so that the person in question would not be able to defend themselves ! Just think how history was twisted to befit those slandering authors with their malicious books ! Indeed even today when someone sends written remarks over the social media how many of us readily accept the news without even checking the source or truth! Yes my friends writing and reading are great tools to be carefully examined before we take them to the level of acceptable or true; no matter what ! Let us not forget that even though there are people children or old who are new and want to learn the alphabet so that they can become educated and enjoy the thoughts of others there are those who abuse the system and yet go without punishment because of a certain freedom that we all have yet sometimes tend to ignore ! Writing is putting black on white ! It is as important as etching or carving the stone before sending it to the another person . I found out that my grievance period was diminished after the death of my parents because I opted to write ! This was a great time for me to get out of my inner thoughts and emotions ! If anything this was and is a great way of releasing ones inner feelings! But before sending it to someone please read it many times cause you may want to rethink those thoughts and examine those emotions once more! May there be many more true and different writers who can bring us back to our interdependent life style !

[the-fashiongeek-blog1]

Top 20 Collections of FW18

    It’s officially t-minus one week until NYFW! With next season fast approaching, I thought I would take a look back at some of my favorite shows from the last go around. (a.k.a. a very long post under the cut)

20. BURBERRY     These days, trying to keep up with the turnover of designers at major fashion houses can make you feel like you’re watching a game of musical chairs. Christopher Bailey’s position at Burberry was one of the few constants. However, this season marked the end of his seventeen-year tenure at the British heritage brand. His final collection was an ode to the brand, the country, Bailey’s youth, and the LGBTQ+ community. Not only did he create limited editions Burberry’s iconic logo and check patterns with rainbows, he made significant contributions to charities and organizations like The Trevor Project that are focused on LGBTQ+ youth.     While it isn’t my favorite collection Bailey’s designed for the brand (hello, FW16), there were many pieces I liked. Some of the looks seemed a little busy, and would perhaps benefit from simpler styling. Look 68, for example, works better for me than look 64. Nevertheless, the clothes are fun and have an undeniable sense of joy about them. It made for the perfect sendoff for Bailey’s time with the brand.

19. CHRISTIAN SIRIANO     From one celebration of a designer’s career to another. This season marked ten years since Christian Siriano began his namesake line. I’ve been a fan of Siriano’s since his time on Project Runway, and his win at the end of the season came as no surprise. However, I haven’t followed his collections too closely since. It might just be a matter of personal preference - he plays a lot with ruffles and 80s-style proportions, which I’m not really a big fan of. But Siriano is clearly talented and his continued red carpet success is proof of that.     This collection was one of his first in years that really stayed with me. Some of the simplest looks were the ones that stood out the most, particularly the ones in glittering black velvet. Many of the evening wear looks were elegant and seem like they were made for each specific model. Siriano has been committed to working with diverse talents and promoting a wider range of beauty standards for a while now. His shows often have some of the most exciting casts on the entire fashion calendar and this year was no exception; the addition of Danielle Brooks and Selma Blair didn’t feel like a gimmick. They looked radiant in their Siriano creations. Every model did.

18. BALMAIN     Last go around, Balmain was probably the biggest disappointment of the season for me. I’ve consistently loved Olivier Rousteing’s designs for the brand, which was why I felt so heartbroken when I didn’t. This season had me falling for the brand all over again. The premise? Balmain, but in the future. The distant future. In a time when the world feels like a hot freaking mess, many look to the past, where nostalgia goggles have turned everything a nice rosy hue. Looking instead to the future is a nice change of pace, with a sorely needed dash of optimism. There was lots neon and PVC, as well iridescent and holographic materials. My favorite textile might’ve been the plastic that had an oil-slick-like sheen. Despite it being an unfamiliar fabric for the brand, the pieces still looked very Balmain.     So what is classic Balmain? During Rousteing’s tenure, it’s a mix of 80s glam rock, military influences, and current party girl looks. We saw all of those in this collection. There were plenty of intricate, embroidered mini-dresses, as well as some very 80s jumpsuits (thankfully sans shoulder pads). There were, however, a few pieces that were over-embellished, and those dreaded shoulder ruffles made an appearance. Still, the majority of the collection was strong and filled with pieces I would wear in a heartbeat.

17. SELF-PORTRAIT     I’ll admit I’m a sucker for collections with a strong central inspiration. (See above.) Han Chong’s most recent Self-Portrait collection was more subtle. The collection featured all kinds of garments, fabrics, and silhouettes. Rather than looks with variations on the same theme, he used many different techniques and details, blending them into a thirty-five beautiful looks. Each look was unique, but they could all conceivably be found in the closet of the same person. Of the different details, the use of large grommets in everything from skirt hems to dress sleeves was probably my favorite.     One of Chong’s more well-known design techniques are his off-kilter ruffles. I know what I said about ruffles earlier, but his are brilliant. They never seem to add bulk to the figure or the garment. Those ruffles were on full display in this collection. Particularly impressive were the pieces that featured this technique in plaid. Matching up prints, or arraigning them in a visually appealing way, is particularly difficult. The way Chong has pulled it off here shows both amazing design skill and craftsmanship. Also, those leather hip bags - all of which were worn under belts, conforming perfectly to the body - were the most stylish answer to the fanny pack trend I’ve seen yet.

16. CHRISTOPHER KANE     After one of my favorite Pre-Fall collections, I was eagerly anticipating Christopher Kane’s next runway show. Not only was the campaign/lookbook aesthetically pleasing, but I loved the use of crystalline fringe. So I was of course delighted when his most recent collection brought it back. Unfortunately, it wasn’t featured that heavily. Similarly disappointing was the fact that he used a particularly beautiful lasercut pleather-and-lace textile only once. His clever use of zippers on sweaters, skirts, and dresses was delightful and I would wear those rhinestone-covered shoes in a heartbeat.     However, not every look was a homerun. The looks that featured marabou at the hems were mostly lost on me. Bulky hems, particularly on lightweight fabrics, can cause a garment to hang weirdly. Maybe it was just my dislike of marabou in general - I wasn’t a fan of those feathered shoes either. The finale looks featuring images from The Joy of Sex seemed a little too on the nose. Kane is no stranger to explicit garments (FKA Twigs’ Met Gala look, anyone?), but this seems a little too on the nose. It lacks the cheeky fun of his other collections. Some of the lace pieces, like Looks 9 and 12, were complex without feeling over-designed. On the other hand were simpler dresses, like Look 13, which called to mind the early aughts…and not in a fun way. As a child of the 90s and early 00s myself, I want to be excited about this revival - I’m just not there. Maybe it hasn’t been long enough yet. Twenty-year cycle of nostalgia and all that.

15. ANN DEMUELEMEESTER     When the inevitable cyberpunk apocalypse occurs, I know which designer I’ll be wearing. Okay, I’ll gladly wear Ann Demuelemeester before then too. From reading the designer, Sébastien Meunier’s, inspiration alone, I knew I would love it. I mean, he name-dropped Mary Shelly. The clothes themselves lived up to my hype. My weakness for corsets, harnesses, and bondage elements knows no bounds. Actually, this was a pretty bondage-light collection from the brand, leaning more towards tough, almost survivalist pieces.     Of the looks, my favorites were towards the beginning and end of the collection. While other tunic tops and miniskirts seemed to shorten the waist and add bulk to the hips, the ones made of leather were particularly flattering. And those sheer tops had me reconsidering my negative stance on shoulder pads. Hooded dresses are another great love of mine, and I’m sad there was only one in the collection. That being said, Look 6 is right up there as one of my favorites. I only have one final question about the collection; those hip capes…how do they work? I’m just as baffled as I am delighted by them. I’m being serious here. What were they attached to?

14. SIMONE ROCHA     Given my general tastes, it would probably surprise most people how much I love Simone Rocha’s designs. Cute, flowery, and girly are three things I generally am not. That does not mean, however, that I can’t enjoy them. Season after season, Rocha’s flouncy, feminine designs continue to delight. Fresh off a Moncler Genius collaboration (the best of the bunch, in my opinion), Rocha’s collection was one of exuberant excess. Her usual fare of lacy frocks included beaded chains, chandelier earrings, and more bows than you could shake a stick at. There were many patterned pieces as well, and even a dress or two that featured a large amount of embroidery.     Perhaps it was the season, or that Moncler collab, but many of the looks in the collection featured coats and outerwear. The sheer dresses layered over blazers were particularly fun. One of my favorites was an off-the-shoulder red pleather trench coat. Impractical for actual low temperatures? Probably, think of how cute you’d look! A couple looks did veer worryingly into cutesy territory, or featured enough fabric to drown the wearer, but there was only one thing that really bothered me. Even in the midst of the ugly shoe trend, I must ask if there’s really interested in wearing flats that make you look like a were-clydesdale. Unless you’re trying to sweep your floors and getting in all your steps at the same time, I just don’t see the appeal. Those beaded, lace-up numbers, however? I’ll take fifty, thanks.

13. SONIA RYKIEL     In 1968, Sonia Rykiel opened her first boutique and kept designing for her brand until 2011. She unfortunately passed away in 2016, but her legacy as the “Queen of Knits” lives on. Rykiel is also credited as inventing many techniques and pioneering braless fashion. This collection marked the 50th anniversary of her brand and was a celebration of everything she accomplished. There were sweaters galore and models sporting Rykiel’s signature curls smiled as they made their way down the runway. The five women who closed the show even had glitter sprinkled in their hair.     While the show was very Rykiel, I was surprised by the lack of details Rykiel was known for. It may just be my computer’s resolution, but I barely saw any unfinished hems and not a single inside-out seam. Nevertheless, Rykiel’s “gamine Rive Gauche” style was on full display. I particularly loved the lace dresses in Looks 35 and 36. The show was a touching tribute to a well-loved and talented. designer. Bananarama even performed! Now, that haute couture show, however…

12. SAINT LAURENT     What can I say other than I’m predictable? Dark colors, leather, and rock & roll are a pretty much unbeatable combination in my book. This may be fashion blogger heresy, but I actually enjoyed Hedi Slimane’s take on the brand. His first outing at the house was definitely my favorite, but I did like a lot of his other collections. Still, when I found out Anthony Vaccarello was taking over, I was hype. He was a favorite of mine and his designs seemed to fit the “skinny rocker” aesthetic Slimane championed for the brand. So far, he hasn’t let me down. Well, aside from jettisoning his main line to focus on Saint Laurent. But, hey, it’s a big job.     That being said, this might be my least favorite of Vaccarello’s collections for Saint Laurent. The majority of the looks didn’t offer up anything particularly new or exciting the way his previous collections have. And those twenty-nine samey mini-dresses that closed out the show? The ones with the floral embroidery that looked like 80s wallpaper? Not the biggest fan. With that being said, I still liked the collection a great deal. The majority clothes were still nice as well as wearable. I really liked the set of three black, floor-length gowns near the middle of the show - particularly when paired with those wide-brimmed hats. Special mention also goes to the earrings in Look 52. Who doesn’t want a pair of crystalline fish skeletons dangling from their ears?

11. OFF-WHITE     Virgil Abloh is having a hell of a year. First, there was the mob scene created when gatecrashers and those with invitations alike attempted to enter the show space all at the same time. Then, shortly afterwards, he was appointed to succeed Kim Jones as artistic director at Louis Vuitton menswear. His first collection for the brand was met with critical acclaim, and not without reason, but his FW18 collection for his own line deserves just as much praise. Maybe it was just me being a biased Manhattanite, but I always seem to love collections inspired by the city. (Even if this collection was titled “West Village” and I grew up on practically the other end of the island.)     Typically, when I say a piece looks like it was made from a tapestry, it’s not a good thing. Abloh literally used a “tapestry” fabric for several of the looks in the collection, but they only scream “high fashion”. A couple pieces appeared to have fit issues, but I really enjoyed the collection and liked so many of the pieces. The corsets and blazer-romper combos were particularly nice. I also liked the athleisure-style turtleneck, flowy silk dresses, lace-up boots, corsets, sequined pieces…

10. OLIVIER THEYSKENS     Until recently, Olivier Theyskens was a name I associated with Theory. I liked his work for the brand (there’s a well-loved leather jacket in my closet as proof), but I love his work for his own line. His detailing is subtle, never calling attention to itself, but enhancing the garment. The seams on the leather trench in Look 2 is the perfect example of that. I also love a good leather pant and some distressed denim, both of which were on display in this collection. The only pieces I wasn’t particularly into were the Bermuda shorts, but that length is usually a no from me anyway.     One surefire way to my heart is by combining soft and hard feminine - a major theme of the collection. Slinky slip dresses were paired with platform combat boots that made my inner emo kid sing with joy. Several looks combining chunkier dresses with long coats called to mind 90s media like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Craft (two perennial favorites of mine.) There’s been something of a grunge/90s revival happening on the runways recently - the twenty-year nostalgia cycle, I’m telling you - which this collection could definitely be considered a part of. And I for one could not be happier.

9. COACH 1941     Discovering I liked Coach’s clothing line was the biggest plot twist for me of 2014 - and that was the same year Captain America: Winter Soldier came out. Before then, I only ever associated Coach with pocketbooks that screamed their brand name back at you. (No, I’m not a fan of the logomania trend, why do you ask?) Stuart Ververs’ clothing, however, is all kinds of 70s rock & roll, which I am very much into. That vibe was present here as well, particularly when paired with the muted and neutral fall color pallet of this collection.     There were both slip dresses and more flowy pieces in a variety of colors and prints. The latter were more modest and called to mind prairie dresses, all without feeling dowdy. Some of my favorites were the ones that had a harder edge, with things like leather details. What can I say other than I’m consistent? Some pieces in the collection seemed laden with one too many details, or had an off-putting color pallet - like a metallic gunmetal and orange pleated skirt with a single, bright blue stripe near the hem. On others, however, the details absolutely made the piece. Some leather jackets, for example, had embossed inserts in a different color that really elevated them. And while I may loathe their C-print bags, there’s no denying Coach makes quality leather goods.

8. DION LEE     Variations on a central theme? Check. Clever suit tailoring? Check. Lingerie details? Check. This most recent Dion Lee offering combined three of my favorite elements into one very strong collection. While pairing blazers with lingerie has been a trend in street style for some time now, Lee may be the first person I’ve seen to combine them into a single garment. With the smallest of cutouts just above the bust, many of these suits managed to be sexy without being obvious. Well, except for the opening looks which used contrasting fabrics for the bra insert and the rest of the blazer to draw the eye. That’s not a disparaging remark either - I quite liked those two looks, and I don’t fall for grey/warm color combinations easily.     Another recurring element in the collection was the use of a fabric slashed in such a way that it becomes almost a fishnet. It’s a technique Lee’s spent years perfecting. On some pieces, the fabric was slashed more and pulled apart in certain areas to create varying levels of opacity. One element I didn’t particularly enjoy were the almost handkerchief-like hems on several of the dresses and skirts. Heavy hems are a hard sell for me and, while I adore cephalopods, I don’t think I want to go around looking like one any time soon. They worked a little better on the garments where they were pinned up, but that’s still going to be a no from me. Every single shoe in the collection, however, was right up my alley.

7. ROBERTO CAVALLI     Glamour, opulence, and excess are three words that come to mind at the mention of Roberto Cavalli. However, that was the house under Cavalli himself. Paul Surridge’s vision of glamour is a little more subtle. Outside of a few evening wear looks - arguably some of the strongest in the collection - there was nary a sparkle in sight. Instead, the focus was on business dressing that featured subtle hints of sexuality. Several drop-waisted gowns used a combination of creative cutouts and thigh-high slits that oozed Cavalli. Handkerchief hems featured on everything from blazers to multi-tiered dresses….The effect was better on some pieces than others.     Still, Cavalli’s influence on the brand was there. Many looks featured the kind of ombre prints Cavalli loved. (They were particularly reminiscent of the finale looks of his FW15 collection.) There were also the animal prints and straight-legged pants that were common staples on his previous runways. The blazers, however, were definitely Surridge; he is a former menswear designer after all. Interestingly, some of the looks could’ve benefitted from sharper tailoring. A few jackets and blazers had slits up the sides that were interesting in concept, but not so great in execution. Sensual business wear and understated elegance…Could this be what we can come to expect from Roberto Cavalli under Surridge? Of course, if you prefer the OTT glamour of Cavalli’s era, there were a nice pair of $91K crocodile leather pants that might be right up your alley.

6. TOMMY HILFIGER     Okay, okay, Tommy Hilfiger uses the see-now-buy-now business model, so the most recent runway show was actually for SS18. However, it happened during the most recent fashion week. Also, I really liked the collection, so it’s going on the list. What can I say other than I love a good moto detail? It’s the first thing listed in my “about” page. And this was a whole collection based around moto looks. It also happened to be the final Tommy X Gigi collection. I can’t speak to how much creative input Gigi Hadid actually had in the the collection itself, but the outcome was wonderful. If her streetwear is anything to go by, she certainly likes moto too - along with the athleisure vibes that Hilfiger’s brand is built upon.     In fact, this collection looks exactly like what current influencers, such as Gigi and co., already wear on the daily. It becomes a classic chicken-and-egg question. Which came first; a trend influencers picked up on, or designers picking up on influencer trends? Regardless, the clothes were still cute and wearable - if only for a specific demographic. Hilfiger is definitely marketing this collection towards a younger generation of social media stars and those that want to emulate them. There were crop tops galore and, of course, a pair of bike shorts or two. The only real problems I had with the collection were in fit and styling. Does anyone want a top that’s fitted under the arms, only to flare out at the waist? And then there were the shorts layered over, again, bike shorts. Other than that, I would happily wear almost any piece in the collection. Oh, crap, have I bought into the influencer hype? And if I have, can you blame me when it comes to collections like this?

5. JACQUEMUS     And now we move from Instagram to Tumblr. No, Simon Porte Jacquemus was not inspired by this very website. The source of his inspiration, however, is one that is quite popular here. I must admit, I never really understood the wistful posts about reading classic lit on the Mediterranean - that is, until now. After spending some time in Morocco, Jacquemus created a collection inspired by the year-round mild climate there. The collection was filled with kaftans, loose shirt dresses, and clingy but light knits. Even the most substantial sweaters and coats felt breezy compared to most of the other outerwear shown this season.     The collection was, of course, very French as well. The looks, nearly all of which had some slinky, body-conscious elements, oozed confident sensuality - the kind that’s endeared Brigitte Bardot to generation after generation. Small details were key here. Several looks included a tiny white tee that could easily be an updated version of the baby-tee that’s been gaining traction lately. Some also included a delicate gold body chain - which I need immediately. A sweater dress or two had a ribbed detail around the hip that flattered the body wonderfully. Clever draping on the jackets made you sit back and wonder just how the garment’s pattern had been drafted. Of course, Jacquemus also loves wild proportions. There were touches of that in this collection, but none more obvious than the bigger-than-big, wide-brimmed sun hats, which have been worn by Bella Hadid, EmRata, and more. With cold weather on the horizon, I’m already anticipating the moments I have every winter, where I’ll wish I was somewhere warm. This year, I’ll be fantasizing about reading Lovecraft on the Mediterranean - while dressed in Jacquemus, of course.

4. PACO RABANNE    I’ll admit, I was slow to come around to Julien Dossena’s take on Paco Rabanne. Part of it might’ve been because I was bitter about the brand dropping Manish Arora so quickly. (And I still am.) But another part was the lack of the brand’s signatures within his collections. Sure, there were nods to the materials Rabanne first made fashionable, but they were never at the core of the collection. A metallic-sequined skirt here and a plastic dress there and that was it. That is, not until his chainmail-heavy FW17 collection. His following runway collection was one of my favorites of the season. This time around, Dossena finally took on the hardest challenge in Rabanne’s legacy; plastic and metal as textiles.     To say that he succeeded is an understatement. The collection not only read “Paco Rabanne”, but Dossena as well. Each new piece felt fresh and exciting. Who knew there were so many different ways to shape metal and plastic together? There were hints of 60s mod influence, like a black and white striped t-shirt dress, but it was given a much more current silhouette. That particular dress was layered under a mesh made up of metal beads and rings. What’s more, all the pieces showed great movement. Just because they were made of stiff materials did not mean they had to be rigid or hard. A skirt composed of metal pieces shaped into flowers was even delicate and whimsical. This was classic Rabanne for the modern age. (Let’s just…not talk about those shoes, okay?)

3. CHLOÉ     You hear a lot about sophomore slumps. Difficult second albums…difficult second runway collections? Not for Natacha Ramsay-Levi. In fact, this collection might even be better than her first. Chloé is a brand rooted in the 70s, and Ramsay-Levi’s clothes, while clearly inspired by the decade, didn’t feel dated. Garments were loose, but tailored in such a way that they still showed the figure underneath. Flattered, even. (A Surridge subtweet? Never.) Cutouts are still going strong, at least over at Chloé, and there were several variations I’d yet seen. Hip cutouts with a belt over top and even side-torso cutouts if you’re feeling a little more daring. The looks that created the illusion of a cutout by layering a plunging v-neck over a cropped turtleneck were also standouts.     There were a couple pieces that did feel a little off, however. Namely the pieces that had a row of fur on them like some kind of edging or fringe. Those pants with the line of fur down the sides were particularly silly, sorry not sorry. On the other hand, the collection included a look or two with that shoulder frill so many designers have tried recently, which my mother and I joke makes you look like a nudibranch. But here it didn’t. Perhaps it was the bracelets over the sleeves that saved it. (A fashion risk, but one that definitely paid off.) There were so many other pieces I wanted to comment on - the flared pants, the jumpsuits, the updated Chloé boots, the jewelry, the aviator jacket…But what else is there to say some times other than I liked the collection?

2. ALEXANDER MCQUEEN     In recent seasons, Sarah Burton has (imho) really hit her stride at Alexander McQueen. This collection in particular had an inspiration that was close to my heart. One of my mother’s best friends collects insect displays. Creepy and weird, sure, but also beautiful. Very much the McQueen M.O. This collection featured both beetle and butterfly motifs - some more literal than others. The “articulated corsets” could either be insect exoskeletons or butterfly wings. There were also a variety of garments in butterfly and beetle wing prints that were wonderfully geometric, if a bit busy at times. The most effective was probably a trench coat with an orange and red version of the butterfly print from the lapels down. (Though not quite as impressive as the coats with lace inserts, which were simply stunning.)     The biggest surprise of the collection were the fringe dresses. Not so much the fact that there was fringe - it was ubiquitous this season, and Burton has used it before - but the fact that I liked her use of it. Her manipulation of the material was brilliant in the way it mimicked and integrated those earlier prints. The finale dresses that did not include fringe, however, I liked decidedly less. Decidedly. It’s a testament to how much I liked the rest of the looks that this collection was still my second-favorite overall. My favorite looks actually came earlier in the collection, both of which featured tulle embroidered with some very 3D beetles. Heavy? Probably. Uncomfortable to sit down in? Also likely. But stunning? Just like the rest of the collection, without a doubt.

    Alright, I’m sure you can already guess my favorite SS18 collection (because I am tremendously predictable), but I wanted to give shoutouts to some honorable mentions first. The moto-reimaginings of Jackie Kennedy’s most iconic outfits at Moschino were some of my favorite individual pieces of the season. However, the unfortunate phrasing in the campaign has left a bad taste in my mouth since. Oscar de la Renta was gorgeous (that layered tulle coat Nicki Minaj wore to the Met Gala, wow), just not as exciting as the previous season. Likewise, Area had some great looks, and I loved the dark lip on some of the models, but it was about 50/50 for me. David Koma had amazing leather craftsmanship, as always, but the looks with embroidered feathers felt like something you could find at a department store. In another season, Elie Saab might’ve made it onto the list, I just happened to like other collections more. (Look 56, though. Wow.)     And, with that all off my chest, my favorite collection of the season!

1. ALEXANDER WANG     Do all of the earlier references to designs I like count as foreshadowing? This collection literally had it all; clear inspiration, variations on a theme, moto details…Well, and Alexander Wang is my favorite designer. From the first look, I was in love. There was something distinctly Matrix-ian about the collection - and it wasn’t just the tiny shades. Perhaps it was the trench coats and the prevalence of leather, or having the models stomp through a set that was, at one point in time, an office building - the former Condé Nast HQ, in fact. Wang’s use of zippers in this collection was phenomenal. The ones that hugged the hip were particularly beautiful, as were the ones that mimicked seams around the waist and bust. Perhaps the only looks I wasn’t feeling were some of the sweatpants. As much as I liked the rest of the seams, ones near the hips always feel a little unfortunate to me.     But the rest? I was blown away. The ways Wang reinterpreted blazers in this collection; from the not-quite business wear at the beginning, to the mini-dresses at the end. Brilliant, all of them. Just the mini-dresses in general - an Alexander Wang girl is always ready to attend the hottest party in town. Those chiffon numbers towards the middle and the metallic looks near the end also deserve a mention. Honestly, even the things I don’t typically like, I was into in this collection. Pink is usually a hard color to convince me of, but I would absolutely wear the hot pink pieces here. Could I pull them off? Probably not, but I also wouldn’t care. I’m also not a huge bag person, but the Swarovski-encrusted Ziplock was pure genius.     Unfortunately, this is the last collection Alexander Wang plans to show during the conventional NYFW schedule. In fact, he already showed his SS19 collection back in June. (And I loved it, of course.) My thoughts on that collection will have to wait for a little while longer. For most designers, SS19 will begin tomorrow. However, I already know Wang’s collection will make the list.

    Alright, I think that’s enough rambling for one post. Those were my opinions on last season, but I would love to hear yours. What were your favorite collections of FW18?

[laurasdigitalvideography]

Week 10 - Testing Different Ideas

During this week I decided to try out a couple of concept ideas to help improve the appearance of this video, one of the main ideas I had wanted to try was converting my video to 60fps to slow it down and create extra smooth footage. To achieve this I followed this YouTube Tutorial.

FIG ONE HUNDRED TWENTY SEVEN 

I started by importing all of the clips I wanted to use into Premiere Pro and then using the Speed/Duration option I slowed my video down to 50%, and made the Time Interpolation to Optical Flow.

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The next thing I had to do was go to Sequence and Render Effects In to Out, this is what helped change my video from 25fps footage to 60fps. Though without changing the frame rate of the actual sequence, when playing this footage back it simply looks as though it has been slowed down. 

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While this looked okay I wanted to see how the overall video would look as 60fps, as I mentioned briefly before all I had to do was change the frame rate of the sequence. This created the smooth footage I had envisioned. 

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Here is the rendered version of this.

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When I was preparing the assets for my video I found a few different coffee shop sound effects, ranging from people having conversations to the machines making noise in the background. Originally I wanted to use this to bring more dimension to my video as I wasn’t planning on recording any voice overs, but when trying to fit these audios with my video it didn’t have quite the effect I imagined.

In Premiere Pro I had all of my footage in the one sequence, with both the song I had chosen and the coffee shop sound effects. I began adjusting the volume of the two pieces of audio trying to help them compliment and work smoothly with one another, but it didn’t matter what I did the two pieces of audio simply didn’t work well together. 

As this happened I felt as though I was going to need to do something else with my video to bring more dimensions to it, one of my ways to do this is by including kinetic typography and also transitions which will be a huge part of my video flowing a lot smoother. 

To do this I started by practising with my typography and deciding exactly how I wanted to use it in my video. Rather than have the random pieces of text appearing throughout my video, I decided to use my text as the closing part of my video featuring the name, address and phone number. In doing kinetic typography it gives me the opportunity to incorporate Aroma’s colour scheme that can be seen in all of their branding, which consists of brown and beige. 

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I wanted to keep the animation quite simplistic, with enough animation to create the idea of dimension but not too much that it’s overwhelming. I achieved this by following this YouTube tutorial. 

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As this is essentially Kinetic Typography I used After Effects rather than Premiere Pro, to begin I created a new composition and added a new solid layer with the background being Aroma’s favoured colour of brown. 

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I then began to create my separate text layers, I wanted ‘Aroma Coffee House’ to be the largest piece of text so it catches your eye first with the secondary pieces of text being slightly smaller resulting in them being read second. As for the colour of the text, I made it a warm beige colour which I also took from Aroma’s logo. After placing my pieces of text I adjusted the timing and length of them, while I had them all end at the same point I made sure there was a slight variation in when they begin. At this point fonts weren’t too much of a worry and I mostly concentrated on the animation of the typography.  

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The next step for me was to begin key framing what attributes I wanted to animate and whether or not I would keep the same animation for all or create a slight difference between them. 

Watching the tutorial helped me decide exactly how I wanted my text to be animated, for the title I clicked animate and chose Position and Scale from the Expression Selector. While I left the scale at 0.0, 0.0%, I adjusted the position slightly by changing it to 0.0, 50.0.

FIG ONE HUNDRED THIRTY SIX

Then from the animator after choosing my two properties, I chose my selector which was expression. In reference to the tutorial I took the animation/expression that the person behind the tutorial supplied, and pasted it into the expression amount. Just from doing this the animation of this text began to come together. 

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With this done I moved on and began animating my secondary text, like I’d done before I animated both the Position and Scale via the Expression Selector. I made sure to repeat the exact same settings I’d already used, but I made a slight change by adding rotation of around 30% which helped create the desired look, without it looking too much. In doing this I was bringing something more to my text, while also creating an apparent divide between the title and secondary text. 

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As the animation portion of my text was done, I was able to move on to choosing the font which I felt would work best with my video. While doing this I made sure that motion blur was turned on for my clips, to make the flow of the animation so much smoother. For the fonts I knew I wanted to use one that had multiple weights, which would make it easier for me to showcase hierarchy. The one I decided to choose is called Ashley and comes in fifteen different weights, I decided to use ‘Bold’ for the title and ‘Semibold Italic’. 

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This is how my kinetic typography looks, paired with the audio that will be playing at the end of my video. 

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The next thing I moved on to practising was my transitions, I felt doing this was a key part of my video process and it would give me a much better idea of what one’s will work. I decided to start out with a simple zooming transition, as I had planned to have one at the very beginning to help reign you into the video. Just like the kinetic typography I also did this After Effects. 

To start I created a new composition, with a few clips from the rough edit of my video making sure the audio was included to keep transitions in time. I the trimmed the clips as I saw fit and added the effect Motion Tile to them with these settings, this will help improve the look of the transition in the long run. 

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Once this was done I created an Adjustment Layer and added the effect Transform to it, in doing this I will be able to adjust the position, scale and rotation of these two clips at the same time. This transition incorporated scale, so I used the stopwatch and created a key frame near the beginning, two in the middle and one near the end. 

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As I wanted this transition to zoom out I changed the scale of the second frame to 90, and set the third to 110, making sure to leave the one at the beginning and end at 100.

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With the key frames organised I selected all four of them and Easy Eased them, to lessen the stuttered transition. Though to really create the smooth it out I adjusted the key frames in the graph editor until I was happy with the playback. 

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In my final video I will be using light leaks to create a modern effect, which can often be seen in many promo videos for different businesses. So while practising my transitions I decided to also try out one of my light leaks to see how it works with my footage, using it was easy enough and all I had to do was bring my clip of choice into After Effects and trim it down. With this done I changed the blend mode to ‘screen’ which created the vision I had imagined, and then to help the light leak appear gradually I key framed the opacity until I was happy with how it looked. 

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Here is how this transition turned out. 

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While I plan to use mostly zoom in and zoom out transitions for my video I wanted to have at least one slide transition to help break things up. To make it I essentially followed the same steps of adding motion tile to the clips, creating an adjustment layer with the transform effect and making sure motion blur was switched on. The only difference was that rather than key framing scale, I was key framing the position. 

To create the slide transition I started by slightly moving my first clip to the right as I wanted it to be subtle, and then for the second clip I moved it the same amount but in the opposite direction. 

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FIG ONE HUNDRED FIFTY ONE

Just as I had before, I selected all of the necessary frames and easy eased them to make the transition smoother. Then in the graph editor I adjusted the key frames further until they were at a similar formation to those of the previous transition, this helped keep a sense of consistency. 

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This is how the slide transition turned out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFYelph5SaM

FIG ONE HUNDRED FIFTY FOUR

[lorrainecparker]

ART OF THE CUT on editing JUMANJI: Welcome to the Jungle

When you’re discussing editing of a tentpole movie with a lot of VFX, tons of footage and a tight deadline, you can be sure that you’ll be discussing it with a team of editors. In this case, those editors are Mark Helfrich, ACE and Steve Edwards. Helfrich’s filmography extends back to the early 80s as an editor on films like, Predator, Rush Hour, Scary Movie, X-Men: Last Stand and Hercules. Steve Edwards has an extensive career in TV starting as an assistant editor on NYPD Blueand edting series like Sirens, Fresh off the Boat, Dear White People and SMILF. He also has feature experience on films including Rein Over Me, Upside of Anger and Sex Tape.

(This interview was transcribed with SpeedScriber. Thanks to Martin Baker at Digital Heaven)

JUMANJI: Welcome to the Jungle Editorial crew, from L to R: Mark Helfrich, ACE – Editor, Chris Jackson – 1st Asst. Editor, Laura Yanovich – Asst. Editor, Sam Sher – Apprentice Editor, Steve Edwards – Editor

HULLFISH: Tell me about the schedule for Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

HELFRICH: We started principal photography mid-September 2016. I went over to Hawaii the week before shooting began to go over plans, previz and all kinds of pre-production stuff with Jake (Kasdan, the director). We ended up shooting until right before Christmas. Steve joined us in the editing room in November.

EDWARDS: Yeah. I have worked on different projects with Jake for the past several years, so he brought me in as an extra pair of hands to help get to Director’s cut more quickly.

HELFRICH: There was a lot of footage on this. They shot for fifty-nine days and delivered 171 hours and 7 minutes of footage. And that’s just the first unit! — Second unit shot for 27 days. They gave us an additional 44 hours and 30 minutes, for a grand total of 215 hours 37 minutes of film. That’s about nine days worth of footage that we had to cut down to less than two hours.

EDWARDS: Over a 100:1 shooting ratio.

HULLFISH: More and more people that I’m interviewing lately have been part of a team of multiple editors. Do you think that’s a trend because of the speed they’re trying to get things to market or because of the amount of footage or what?

HELFRICH: Often times it’s because there’s so much footage and there’s usually a tight release date. When Steve came on-board, we had a release date in August. Later, it was pushed to Christmas. Originally this was going to be a late summer film and that was a very, very tight schedule.

HULLFISH: Tell me a little bit about the advantages of working with another editor. Everybody I’ve talked to really loves it that there’s somebody else around to bounce ideas off.

(l to r) Kevin Hart (Franklin “Moose” Finbar), Karen Gillan (Ruby Roundhouse) Jack Black (Professor Shelly Oberon) and Dwayne Johnson (Dr. Smolder Bravestone) star in JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE.

EDWARDS: Yeah, I think it’s really fun and a nice change from what can be a lonely job. Mark is a great guy to work with. He has an enormous amount of passion for what he’s doing and it was really enjoyable to see how he works. I found it fascinating to see his process and was inspired by it. Jake, Mark and I just went through the movie beat by beat, the three of us. It was a tremendous amount of fun.

HELFRICH: We were a tight trio. We spent many, many months and many long hours together. Steve is a really talented editor and a genuinely nice guy. It was exhilarating bouncing ideas back and forth with him. Plus, he’s a gamer, so he brought the gamer-cred. I’d never worked with Jake before, and it’s a pleasure. Talk about being passionate and smart! He’s a director who knows and understands editing – so that’s a real treat.

EDWARDS: Jake also directs on his television series, so he has learned over the years how to move and shoot a tremendous amount very quickly. Most of his shows use improv, so he can really think on his feet and work the material as he’s shooting. There’s a lot of variation, a lot of jokes, which gives us in editorial the chance to really come up with a bunch of alts.   Jake is always the last eyes on it and has a knack for finding a way to make it better. He really knows how to work the material. He thinks like a writer. I always learn from working with him, which is what excites me…the chance to improve my craft.

HULLFISH: I definitely want to get back to the idea that Jake thinks like a writer, but first, tell me how you worked together as editors. Every team seems to divide up scenes differently.

HELFRICH: Well, when Steve came aboard I already had several scenes set aside because I hadn’t had time to get to them yet because some of the scenes were huge – especially the action scenes. So there were plenty of scenes backed up for him. And as we were both catching up to the camera, we just divided it up. There were certain scenes I wanted to do and there were certain scenes Steve wanted to do.

EDWARDS: Yeah! I really wanted to do that snake basket scene.

HULLFISH: So once you got through the crush of dailies and you were working on the director’s cut, did you find that you wanted to break things up into sequences instead of scenes?

EDWARDS: Because we were originally on such a tight schedule, the biggest priority was the large visual effects scenes — the animals — we had to get all of that stuff in the pipeline. I remember, Mark, your first big task was the helicopter scene with the rhinos.

HELFRICH: I spent a long time working on the albino rhino helicopter scene early on. The animals are what took time.

From when the helicopter busts out of the transportation shed to the very end of the sequence where Spencer catches Fridge, that’s about five minutes. I have the stats on that scene: there are 194 shots in those five minutes, and all but two of them are visual effects. In that scene, for every minute of cut film, there were about 166 minutes of material.

One of the first scenes shot was when the avatars get to Jumanji, and that climaxes with Jack Black’s character, Bethany, getting eaten by a hippo. Since that was shot the first week, I was able to cut it and get it in the visual effects pipeline immediately. So the hippo was pretty much done before the film was finished shooting.

HULLFISH: So when the director’s finally in the room with you, how are you working with him collaboratively? You’re each heading off to your separate room and he’s bouncing between you? Did you each take a little chunk of the film or just separate actual scenes?

HELFRICH: We each took chunks, and we didn’t go chronologically.

EDWARDS: While Jake and Mark were focusing on the animals, I was taking Jake’s notes and beginning to recut the beginning of the film — the stuff with the kids. We had ten weeks to get the director’s cut, so we really had to boogie, because the studio wanted to see what they had as quickly as possible.

Mark Helfrich, ACE

HELFRICH: Jake would spend a half a day with Steve, then a half a day with me, or sometimes a whole day, and we just kept going.

EDWARDS: Jake likes to screen. He likes to get reactions from people, and I think that comes from his comedy background. So early on, we focused on getting a cut ready for a “friends and family” screening. That told us what we had pretty quickly in terms of jokes, and ins and outs, and what was working and how people felt. A big thing we needed to solve was: how do we get to the Jungle more quickly? I think we were originally at about 24 minutes before we got to the avatars and now we’re down to about 15.

HULLFISH: That idea of how to get to the stars quickly — or any specific important point in a movie — is always a big one. How much did the structure of the film change from the script?

HELFRICH: The film is pretty close to the script. There are very few lifted scenes — maybe two minor scenes, and they were really more like “scene-lets.” There was a little scene where, as kids, Fridge bumped into Martha in the hallway of the school, and that was the whole scene. You can see that shot in the trailer but it’s not in the film. Stuff was cut down, but not much was cut out.

EDWARDS: It is a pretty linear story, so it was not really possible to move things around. It was mostly about the body-switching, so the discussion was always about how much you need to know about the kids to get enough of a sense of them, so that when we did the body-switch people would be able to track their personalities and have fun with that.

HULLFISH: I was wondering whether there was more backstory on the kid that disappears at the beginning of the movie.

HELFRICH: Nope. What you see is what was scripted.

Steve Edwards

EDWARDS: In an older version of the script, there used to be a more intricate way the game came to the kid. They always found it on the beach, but then it got handed over to a thrift store, right?

HELFRICH: Yeah, in an early draft, the abandoned board game sat forlornly in a thrift store. Year after year everybody just passed it by. Kids were buying video games. And so the board game morphed into a video game and then was picked up. That all went by the wayside before principal photography. None of that was ever shot. It was just an early version of the script.

EDWARDS: After the dad gave the kid the game and he sets it aside, there used to be a bit more time passage with the game sitting on the shelf day after day, but we just decided to speed that up and make it the same day — so Jumanji is a bit more proactive. That was really the most economical cutdown. Mark worked on that sequence with Jake and they were able to capture the essence of the scene in a very quick way.

HULLFISH: You mentioned, Steve, about Jake thinking like a writer, and I really love that idea. Obviously, for an editor, that’s something that feels very comfortable. So tell me a little about how he acts like a writer or why you appreciate that.

EDWARDS: The rhythm of the words is most important to me and that’s something that Jake pays a lot of attention to. He focuses in on the words, the story, the characters all flow out of that. He’s definitely very fluid in his approach to the editing. The first time I worked with him, it really opened my eyes. I had been working on television for a while and show-runners are very attached to their scripts. They like their words. They want their words on screen. But Jake is very fluid about his approach to film. If the script isn’t working, he wants to know: “How can we pull this apart? How can we make it funnier? How can we compact things, move this around?”   Editing is REALLY the final rewrite with Jake. It’s one of the reasons I love working with him.

HELFRICH: He’s not precious with his words. He just wants it to work. He wants it to be funny. If it’s a joke, it should get a laugh. We recorded the test screenings and during fine-tuning, if there was a section that was designed to get a laugh, Jake would say, “Bring up the preview.” We’d listen for the audience’s laughter, and if it wasn’t there, we’d figure out why it didn’t get a laugh. And if we couldn’t crack why it wasn’t getting a laugh, then we’d just excise it. We wanted all the beats to work, as everybody does.

HULLFISH: So you guys filmed the audience during the screenings and digitized them?

HELFRICH: They were digitized and put into the Avid so we could roll to any part of the film and listen to the audience.

EDWARDS: It is a quick way to see what was working.

HELFRICH: That’s pretty common. Everybody films the preview audience.

HULLFISH: But not everybody brings it into the edit suite. You guys have much more experience than I do, but from my interviews, it seems to be comedies and horror films that are usually the ones that film the audience and then bring that into the edit suite to compare against the cut. I think Ghostbusters did that.

HELFRICH: We actually film the audience so you can see them shifting in their seats if they’re getting bored. Or you can see how many people are getting up and going to the bathroom during a certain scene. You definitely don’t want a scene to be saying, “It’s OK if I get up and go pee right now.”

EDWARDS: You can also see how much your average American movie-goer eats! Also, we always did two simultaneous test screenings — a kids screening and an adult screening.

HELFRICH: We wanted to know which parts played to what audience. It is a family film, so we didn’t want anything that was too risque. We knew we had dick jokes, but we only wanted just the right amount of dick jokes.

HULLFISH: I think you achieved that. I walked out thinking the dick joke balance was perfect.

HELFRICH: Thank you! That was one scene where there was a lot of ad-libbing, especially on Jack Black’s part. When Bethany discovered her penis — he had a field day with that.

JAKE KASDAN on the set of JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE.

HULLFISH: The other one that I would think was heavily improvised is the one where Jack Black is teaching Ruby Roundhouse to flirt.

HELFRICH: Steve cut that.

EDWARDS: That was ALL improv. There was a script, but they only stuck to the general idea of the script. They had broad, general concepts of what they wanted to talk about. Jake would call things out and they would try different variations.

HULLFISH: What is the trick to cutting those improv scenes? Because it’s no longer just following dialogue and using coverage. Now you’re choosing between different lines and many choices, but it can’t just be one long stand-up routine. You’ve still got to tell the story and the character still has to be maintained.

EDWARDS: Yeah, you don’t want it to be too long. You want it to be on point and funny. For me, one of the big things I tried to maintain was the sense the girls’ friendship. I wanted it to feel like they were working together on a problem. Originally, it was one long sequence and that was one of the places we did change the structure a bit and broke it up with the scene of Spencer saying he’d never been kissed. The scene of Spencer talking about kissing was one where Jake wasn’t happy with the first version and they went back and reshot it.

HELFRICH: Jake shot that scene and looked at the cut and decided to shoot a different version in a different location a week or so later. Originally, it was a “walk and talk” and it just turned into a “stand and talk.”

EDWARDS: The scene where she’s actually flirting with the guards is one where Mark and I both took multiple passes. There was a lot of variety there. Mark finally cracked it.

Karen Gillan star in JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE.

HELFRICH: We had many versions of that scene, trying to get a laugh at the end, and we were failing. So finally I just “stole” a shot from the scene where Bethany was teaching Martha how to flirt, and used that shot of Martha nibbling her lips and put it at the end of the guard-flirting scene. Her lip nibbles got a laugh. We just changed the background of the shot. We took her out of the jungle and put her right in front of the shed.

EDWARDS: Thanks to our insanely talented first assistant editor…

HELFRICH: Yes. Chris Jackson performed miracle temp visual effects. Any idea we had, he was able to execute it so we could pitch it to Jake or screen it for an audience. He’s worked with me for almost 30 years, on and off. He’s just the best ever. As is Laura Yanovich, our other 1st assistant, with whom I go back 20 years. And Sam Sher, our apprentice – we never worked with him before, but he turned out to be a real technical visual wiz. So if we ever wanted to graft a character’s face from one take to their arm movements from another, and place that in a third take with the other characters, and add a bird flying through the frame, or whatever, it was always Steve or Sam who would whip it up and give it to us within minutes.

And everybody contributed to the film’s content. If something wasn’t funny, Jake was open to anybody giving ideas.

EDWARDS: Absolutely, our apprentice, Sam, has ideas of his that are in the movie. He pitched things and they would get incorporated.

HELFRICH: It was a real trusting, open atmosphere in the editing room. We had a whole suite of eight rooms and we basically lived together for the better part of a year. Post production for me was 14 months, 15 months.

HULLFISH: And you guys delivered a locked cut when?

Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart , Jack Black and Karen Gillan star in JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE.

HELFRICH: “Locked” is a term that doesn’t mean what it used to – it’s kind of an antiquated term nowadays. I mean, with VFX, you can’t really lock a film until the last visual effect has been finished.

EDWARDS: We still had 600 or 700 shots to finish when we “locked picture.”

HELFRICH: So we “latch” the picture until we get that final visual effect in, and then we can fine-tune it if we have to, and THEN it’s locked. So it was really locked on the last day we worked… I mean the film was already mixed.

HULLFISH: And when visual effects came in, did those shots need to be trimmed because of the final motion in the visuals?

HELFRICH: They do all the time, especially in action scenes. Rarely does one shot seamlessly match the action of the next, because they’re building each of these shots individually from scratch, with animals or helicopters, or whatever. And the animation sometimes changes from version to version. And quite often there are over a hundred versions of a single shot. So not until you get the final finished animation can you really fine-tune the edit. Plus, there’s the added complexity of different parts of a shot being farmed out to different VFX companies.

EDWARDS: One of the things that fascinated me, not having worked on anything like this before, is that it really was a 24-hour-a-day operation. When we were asleep, there were people in Australia, Mexico City, Montreal… there were visual effects units working all over the world. It was just too big of a special effects movie for one company to handle it and things were bid out on specialties. The company that did the jaguars was the same company that did Jungle Book. There was someone on the planet working all day long every day for over a year on Jumanji.

HULLFISH: Did both of you attend the mix — the sound stage mix?

Dwayne Johnson stars in JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE.

EDWARDS: Yes. The mix began essentially when we started testing. It actually went back as far as the first studio screening. We did a full temp mix. Julian Slater was our mixer at that point and eventually, Kevin O’Connell joined us. Joel Shryack and our sound team did an amazing job.

HELFRICH: Julian mixed Baby Driver this year and Kevin O’Connell won the Oscar last year for Hacksaw Ridge. They’re a fantastic mixing team and Joel has worked with Jake since his first film, I think.

EDWARDS: With each screening, we had the chance to refine the mix. There were very complicated sound sequences that took a lot of refinement, and over the course of a year, you learn a lot about scenes. We took a long time to get the sound right.

HELFRICH: The film getting delayed from September to December gave our composer, Henry Jackman, a lot more time to live with the film and compose. We had the luxury of time to go over every cue and fine-tune it. Henry’s score is fantastic! It’s big and orchestral and thematic – everything we could want.

HULLFISH: Talk to me about temp score.

HELFRICH: We showed Jake the editor’s cut with a full temp score and for that, we were helped out by a very talented music editor, Chuck Martin Inouye. He used cues from many, many films. Our temp score was not just made up of Henry’s previous scores, Chuck used whatever the scene required. We would go back and forth with Chuck, saying, “Yes, this part works. Can you change the second half of this cue, and make this more driving and add percussion here?” And he always did an amazing job with that.

EDWARDS: We really wanted that nostalgic sound, like a classic Hollywood adventure film. We very purposely didn’t use very many songs. We just wanted it to feel like an old-fashioned film in that regard.

HELFRICH: What did you think of the movie, Steve?

Jack Black, Nick Jonas, Karen Gillan, Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart star in JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE.

HULLFISH: I liked it. It’s a big, fun popcorn movie. I’m not a big Dwayne Johnson fan but I really liked his performance. The audience I saw it with during the AmazonPrime preview really loved the “smolder” joke. My wife got a kick out of that.

HELFRICH: Ironically, that was one of the bits that Jake was skeptical about: the smolder. Jake saw that for the first time in a cut and thought, “Maybe we should kill that.” Until we showed it to our first screening audience and they thought it was hysterical. The audience really determines, in a comedy, what works.

HULLFISH: Did you discover, after your editor’s cut, that various scenes that felt good when they stood on their own, needed to change because they felt different in the context of the scenes around them?

HELFRICH: Absolutely, especially with this movie. First, they shot the Jumanji jungle scenes in Hawaii, then later they shot the kids’ scenes in Atlanta. We cut together all of the Jumanji stuff with the avatars before we’d seen the personality of the kids. We knew their personalities on paper, but we didn’t know what they looked like or how they spoke or acted. And so once the kids’ scenes were put together I really felt that we needed to rework a lot of the avatar scenes because then we could hone the avatars’ actions to try to match them to the kids’. I discovered that I wanted Ruby Roundhouse to be even more like Martha. Jake knew that, of course. He really knew what he was shooting. Jake had those performances and ideas in his head, but it’s not anything we were privy to until we saw the performances with the kids.

EDWARDS: Yeah, we really had to work from the middle out.

HULLFISH: I totally felt like Dwayne was the high school kid, just in a big body. But I’m sure that you guys probably had performances that he might have played a little bit more like Indiana Jones but you guys had to say, “We need this to play more like that goofy high school kid.

Karen Gillan, Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart star in JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE.

HELFRICH: That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Sometimes something was very funny the way it showed up in dailies, but then we found that he’s not really “playing Spencer” in that particular take. Let’s make it more Spencer-like. It was fun to retroactively re-edit some of those scenes having the benefit of seeing what the performances of the kids were like.

EDWARDS: Yeah. And it was cool because we focused on that for so long. It was a big thrust of the director’s cut, where you’re totally into the “micro” of the moment. Then when we finally sat down in a screening room and watched the whole thing and young Spencer stands up and they’ve beaten Jumanji, it was so gratifying that it worked.

HULLFISH: I loved the final scene where they’re back to being themselves and they walk past the house where the missing kid lives.

HELFRICH: That’s my favorite scene because it’s so touching, and Colin Hanks nailed that scene.

HULLFISH: I’d like to talk about — as two experienced editors — that you realize and expect that editing is a PROCESS. That what you cut the first go-round is going to be gradually improved upon over the course of time.

HELFRICH: That’s completely true. When we put together a scene from the beginning, during dailies, we’re trying to put together the best scene possible – but we know that we’ve got the time later on to hopefully make it even better. That doesn’t always happen. Sometimes you take something out and it actually doesn’t make the scene better, and then you have to go back and rework it, put something back, or take something else out to make it better. And sometimes the first cut is the way it should be.

Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan and Jake Kasdan on the set of JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE.

HULLFISH: Steve, any thoughts on the idea that an editor needs an ego to have something to contribute, but also needs to step back from having an ego to realize that they’re there to support the director’s vision?

EDWARDS: Editors are hired late in the process and you have to respect the fact that, by the time you get to the editing process, the director has been living with the project for a long time. My job is to bring a fresh sense and set of ideas to the project while respecting the vision of the Director. The best projects are a collaboration. On this, my biggest satisfaction is that everybody on the team had their voice heard. We all got to throw ideas into the film.

HELFRICH: We initially put together the scenes to please ourselves, keeping in mind the big picture — that we’re trying tell the best story possible. Then Jake came in and obviously he’s also working to make it better. He doesn’t have an ego. I never once felt that I was cutting it for Jake. We were all cutting it for the audience. Jake‘s so collaborative — I remember during dailies, I saw a shot of Dwayne — as Spencer — just arriving in Jumanji, looking lost — and he touches his head. What went through my mind was: if Spencer is touching his bald head for the first time, he’s going to wonder where his hair went. So I mentioned that to Jake. And in the next day’s dailies there was a shot of Dwayne touching his head and saying, “Where is my hair?” Jake took it even further and had him look at and poke his new muscles. That’s just one example of how collaborative Jake is. He’ll take good ideas from everybody for the bettering of the film.

HULLFISH: I’m assuming you guys cut on Avid.

EDWARDS: Yes. Avid on an ISIS.

HULLFISH: I usually ask this earlier in the interviews, but what is your approach when you get dailies? What’s the actual process: from receiving a bin of footage to ending up with the first cut of a scene?

HELFRICH: Depending on the amount of material, you try to watch most of it. Now, on a movie like this, there was so much material that I would only be able to watch one take of every angle, at first. If I watched all the footage that came in every day I would never have time to edit. I start to think, “How am I going to put this together? This is a great angle to be in for this action or this line.” That’s before I start cutting. And often it’s the case where I won’t get to that scene that day because I’m still cutting the previous scene from three days ago, and you get backed up. On a film this large you can’t stay up to camera. Especially with action scenes where they might shoot one action scene over the length of three weeks, so you have to wait until everything is in before you can start putting it together.

HULLFISH: Do either one of you guys use select reels, or do you cut strictly from the bins?

EDWARDS: Because there was so much improv on this movie we used Scripter (common Hollywood slang for Avid’s Script Integration or ScriptSync). We had assistants who religiously worked as fast as they could scripting. And the way I work is a line at a time. I watch the dailies. As Mark said, you can’t watch everything during principal photography with this much footage. You get a sense of what the angles are. And I very quickly try to figure out how to start a scene. What’s going to be the first shot and how do you get in? Then I go from there and I feel the performances. I build it line for line and I watch and watch and watch and watch.

HULLFISH: So you actually, instead of editing from a bin, you’re working from what is essentially a lined script inside of Avid.

EDWARDS: Yes. By the time I came on, there was a fair amount that had been scripted. It’s just a great way to quickly see how the scene is covered and be able to watch it line by line.

HELFRICH: I didn’t use ScriptSync when I did my initial cut. Usually, I would use that for all the subsequent cuts because then we could compare the many reads of each line.

EDWARDS: Yeah. It’s a quick way to sense out all the alts when you’re making changes later on.

HULLFISH: Gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. This was very informative and fun.

HELFRICH: Wonderful talking to you.

EDWARDS: Thank you.

To read more interviews in the Art of the Cut series, check out THIS LINK and follow me on Twitter @stevehullfish

The first 50 interviews in the series provided the material for the book, “Art of the Cut: Conversations with Film and TV Editors.” This is a unique book that breaks down interviews with many of the world’s best editors and organizes it into a virtual roundtable discussion centering on the topics editors care about. It is a powerful tool for experienced and aspiring editors alike. Cinemontage and CinemaEditor magazine both gave it rave reviews. No other book provides the breadth of opinion and experience. Combined, the editors featured in the book have edited for over 1,000 years on many of the most iconic, critically acclaimed and biggest box office hits in the history of cinema.

  The post ART OF THE CUT on editing JUMANJI: Welcome to the Jungle appeared first on ProVideo Coalition.

First Found At: ART OF THE CUT on editing JUMANJI: Welcome to the Jungle

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THE LAUNCH DATE SET ABOUT FIFA 18 Internet APP

Often, in the countries where the currency is weaker, FIFA Factors are actually dearer. The Mirror factors out that this new Footballing drama may have an effect on the FIFA 18 release date within an enormous method. Pre-ordering either will allow you to play the sport three days before its official release on September 29, as a well as get you quite a lot of in-sport objects you'll be able to be taught all about by means of the hyperlink. Sure, it may possibly. After a profitable debut, The Journey is once more for an extra 12 months and so is Alex Hunter. In FIFA 17 you could only play as Hunter with a Premier League club, but that appears set to alter this 12 months - check out our full information to The Journey for a greater idea of what could be coming. EA debuted The Journey in final 12 months's FIFA 17, which launched players to up-and-coming rookie Alex Hunter. It’s designed to show gamers what the complete recreation can be like, exhibit new features, gameplay improvements and mode improvements. As for the mechanics of the game itself, there might be signature styles for famous players that extra carefully mimic their actual-world counterparts.

In addition to extra workforce types to forestall every sport from feeling the same, players may also see higher crowd physics and more interactions between the crowds and your teammates. When it did finally arrive, it was missing arguably the most popular mode, Final Crew - and gameplay was sub par in contrast with the Xbox 360 and PS3 variations. With the likes of Harry Kane and different Premier League stars making appearances within the mode, it soon climbed up the recognition charts amongst FIFA fans. Here is our full guide to using the web app and benefiting from the chance. The brand new FIFA 18 Legends Wishlist you will note right here. Alternatively 4k FUT coins, a jumbo silver pack will price you £0.67 or £0.60 with EA Entry. Don’t waste your treasured coins shopping for packs throughout the FUT WebStart. Who're The brand new FUT ICONS? FIFA 18 consists of fifty two stadiums around 12 states which might be totally accredited inclusive of contemporary stadiums.

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What I'm Playing Now: Far Cry 4, Zelda Wind Waker and Sports Champions

This week, I dove into Far Cry 4, exercised my mind with Brain Age (I know, I’m about ten years behind on this one), started The Wind Waker HD, and played my first PlayStation Move game in Sports Champions. Let’s take a look at what I’m playing now! Far Cry 4 My backlog is rather extensive, and with an abundance of new titles releasing in the coming months, it goes without saying that I need to be efficient in choosing which games to play, to manage my time and have the most possible fun (for as much as I’d like to, restarting Fallout 4 with a focus on melee wouldn’t make much sense at the moment; there are just too many other games to play). However, Far Cry 4 wasn’t among these games—those which I hoped to clear from my backlog ASAP. I purchased the Kyrat Edition some time ago for $30, and until the realization that I’ll detail next hit me, I didn’t really plan to play it anytime soon. As I was choosing my next game, though, I noticed something odd:  a sizable stockpile of new Assassin’s Creed titles waiting to be played. AC 3, 4, and Unity were all purchased for next to nothing, and it hasn’t slipped my attention that Syndicate is rapidly dropping in cost. Also, another new title is coming out sometime next year! Ubisoft’s affinity for releasing yearly installments and my affinity for good gaming deals has created quite the conundrum—one that may never quite be repaired (the odds of me playing all four of these AC games before the next title’s release are close to zero). With Far Cry: Primal plummeting in price as well, and history indicating that Ubisoft won’t delay in crafting another entry, I realized I didn’t want to find myself in the same situation with another series—or at the very least, I didn’t want to find myself in a situation that was this bad with another series. So, somewhat begrudgingly, I began Far Cry 4 on the PlayStation 4. My first impression was that the game looks technically impressive, in terms of its graphics, and that Ubisoft has dedicated quite a bit of newfound energy to developing the story and character of this entry. Both impressions were true. From the enemies to the animals and even the aerial views, Far Cry 4’s graphics are beautiful. In terms of adding personality to the game, the characters speak for themselves (two hippy stoners trapped in Kyrat and occupying your parent’s home, the main dictator antagonist, a gun-toting warlord-turned-priest with a knack for righteous justice, a surprisingly funny and interesting radio host, etc.). The player choices found in the game also add to this personality, as completely different main-story paths can also be chosen from. Furthermore, even relatively minuscule details—like some one-line item descriptions—earned a chuckle from me. The lush landscapes and never-ending supply of exotic animals—especially elephants, which can be rode and used to trample enemies—are also of a very high quality. Moreover, the numerous vehicles, main quests, side quests, capture missions, and the sheer amount of things to do in the game are impressive—for new players, that is. For those of us who have played previous entries, the laundry list of tasks to complete in Far Cry 4 will be an annoyance more than anything else. Climbing up and liberating radio towers to change their propaganda frequency to a pro-democracy message is all well and good, but I did so in Far Cry 3 (and something similar in 2, if I remember correctly). The same can be said of the races and outpost missions! Even the involved healing procedures, where the character removes a bullet from his body, puts out a limb that has caught fire, snaps a finger back into place, or performs another healing action based upon the specific damage incurred is getting old! It was appealing when I saw it for the first time in Far Cry 2, cool in Far Cry 3, but now, it’s just a bit worn out. Therein lies the problem with Ubisoft’s quick-fire release schedule: they continually come-up with an exciting concept, revolutionize it (Far Cry 1 to Far Cry 2 saw massive improvements, as did Assassins Creed 1 to Assassins Creed 2) and then replicate this revolutionized product with minor variations through each new release. For as intriguing as the healing system is, it first made its debut in 2008—nearly a decade ago! This point is further illustrated in Far Cry Primal. It took me about an hour to find that the animals were the coolest part of Far Cry 4—throwing bait (it helps that your character is equipped with the launching power of an MLB pitcher) and watching as a ravenous predator attacks your enemies is awesome, as is riding elephants and trampling all who stand in your path. This unique, albeit relatively minor in terms of size, bit of creativity appealed to other players as well, and Ubisoft in-turn developed an entire game around the theme in Primal. The point is that, if Ubisoft delayed releases and focused on further innovating titles, their games wouldn’t be stockpiling in my collection. While it’s true that I don’t represent the whole of their sales community, it’s important to note that I’ve been playing Ubisoft’s games for years now; new players will be in the same boat as I am in no time at all. The long-term implications of this development style aren’t purely financial. Sure, Rock Band and Guitar Hero were beat to death, but by then, Activision had made boatloads of money. Call of Duty sales are continually slumping, but once again, the profits are already there. The real long-term implications of this quick-pace development style are simple: their games will be played because they are technically sound, but they won’t make history. When Rockstar releases a GTA title (or any other game), Naughty Dog creates games like The Last of Us and Uncharted 4, or Nintendo launches a new Legend of Zelda or Smash Bros entry, for instance, they are able to make history, capture the attention of the entire gaming industry, and still turn a massive profit. Brain Age While I’ve played a lot of DS games, I haven’t quite experienced everything the system has to offer—mainly because I focus primarily on consoles. Brain Age is one of the DS’s most notable titles, and because it’s been sitting in my collection for well over a year since I bought it for fifty cents at a yard sale, I figured I’d give it a go (sound reasoning, right?). I’ll keep this brief, as I’m sure you don’t want to hear too much about it, but this is an awesome game! Admittedly, I thought it was purely a collection of mind-bending mini games before playing. While these mini-games are present (and very well made), I’m finding a lot of use in the title’s one hundred Sudoku puzzles. Performing one per day is a lot of fun, and they make me wish I’d enjoyed Brain Age a while back. I’ll keep my eye out for a cheap copy of the sequel. Sports Champions I bought a PS Move bundle from an FYE store for 75% off, bringing the cost down to about fifteen dollars. I’ve wanted to try Move for a long time, and with two new games as well, I thought the bundle was worth it for the price. Sports Champions is another one of those titles that I imagine you’re not interested in hearing too much about, so I’ll keep this brief. In fact, I’m not even that interested in playing it—while it’s technically sound and well-made, I think the lack of another player (the bundle only came with one controller) and my Wii Sports days have burned me out on motion-controlled sports video games. I really wanted to comment on the Ping Pong portion of Sports Champions. While I breezed through the opposition in the title’s other sports (and had fun doing so), I can’t seem to find much success at all in table tennis. To be fair, I suck at Ping Pong in real life, but the way the CPU players return my serves and hits repeatedly seems to be a bit much! Has anyone else had the same experience? Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD Finally, I began The Wind Waker HD on the Wii U (or more specifically, my brother did). While I only played for about twenty minutes and watched for an hour or so, I was reminded of what makes the game so incredibly special—this is a great example of a title that truly deserved to be remastered. The HD graphics look spectacular (the pigeons on the side of the telescope your sister gives you at the beginning really made this clear right before the landscapes and characters did), the gamepad works impressively well (in the interest of full disclosure, I’ve been an outspoken proponent of the gamepad for a while—I thoroughly enjoy playing with it), and the game had aged outstandingly overall. Now, if only the fun I’ve had with the Wind Waker HD (and will have when I play it myself) didn’t remind me of Breath of the Wild’s delay! Next week, I’ll dive into one of the many downloadable games I have on the PS4 from Sony’s numerous sales, as well as a new title altogether (retail). I should be finished with Far Cry 4 soon, and I’ll record my final impressions of that too. Until next week!

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