Oh, the movies!
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 3.01.08One of the best (though certainly not the best) parts of visiting with friends in Ohio is the constant and continual film watching. It’s really great just to hang out and discuss some of the latest movies, their strengths, and weaknesses.
Of the films we watched and discussed, Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was the most divisive. While some could appreciate the macabre, I was left mourning for the shock I wanted to feel over such a horrific piece of cinema. The story itself is good and tragic, the music acceptable, and the humour, at times, slightly funny. But why was there so much killing? And so artlessly done? Not that art makes violence acceptable, but at least it can make it purposeful; instead of leaving death entirely gratuitous, unsurprising, dull, and ultimately pointless.
Thankfully The Kite Runner was superb. Dark, at times, but culturally, politically, and emotionally worth it. Covering a span of some years, it follows recent Afghani history through the lives of two boys, one of whom moves to America, the other who does not. I highly recommend it, along with Osama, if you have any interest in foreign films, cultural politics, or gripping dramas.
On the other side of the spectrum, there’s Juno. Not, perhaps, everyone’s cup of tea, but a hilarious comedy wrapped around the heartache of growing up, teenage pregnancy, and parenthood. The witty lines just keep coming… amid great performances by newcomers and old hats alike.
We also went to see Aliens Versus Predator: Requiem, mainly so we could laugh through the entire film. And laugh we did… along with most of the theater. For a film that’s supposed to be serious, there are some preposterously (and unintentionally) funny lines. Unfortunately, Resident Evil: Extenction was so bad, we couldn’t even laugh. Much glaring ensued between those forced to come, and those that mistakenly insisted it’d be fun.
Other highly recommended films from the past weekend would be Death at a Funeral and Fido. Neither one can really be justified in a single paragraph, so it must suffice to say that they’re both completely odd.
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2007
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 1.01.08My belated Chirstmas letter and year end review. Enjoy sordid tales of lost jobs, the thrill of laborious moving expenses, and the excitement of my dead potted plants. Sadly, this excerpt really is more interesting than the full article, but there are shiny pictures and movie clips if you click the link!
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Much needed updates
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 22.12.07Well, they may be coming soon! I’m working on revamping the entire site layout, organization, and design.
Proposed changes should include a more holistic front page (summarizing new or popular content from all major sections), better indications of which section a page is located in, perhaps a more flexible layout, and bolder content styling.
I’d love to get your input, as I’m looking for ways to make the site clearer and more enjoyable to navigate. Of course, long diatribes against my current setup are accepted, but it’d be even better if you can tell me what changes could make your visit here more effective, enjoyable, or at least, less painful. 
I only meant you hadn’t blogged in a long time. But now you have and my curiosity is appeased. 
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Emergent
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 21.12.07A friend recently asked about my views on the emergent church movement. They had been looking over the Wikipedia article and wanted to hear about it from a different vantage point. It’s a topic that can benefit from deeper discussion, but I’ll try to keep this brief.
I see the emergent church (or emerging church, depending on who you talk to) as a reaction to the God-less christianity of America. I’ve seen this empty religious traditionalism first hand, and have been absolutely appalled, both at my own tendencies towards it, and at the pharisaical hatred and arrogance that so many people understandably mistake for Christianity.
Many churches in America today can be likened to the Catholic church in the days of “holy crusade”; purely political, and full of superiorist goals. Though thankfully few Americans take it to such heinous measures of violence, it’s still a very religious approach to christianity – not a relationship with Christ. One of the biggest problems the emergent church movement has brought to the forefront is the hatred and condescension so many church bodies have towards “outsiders”, especially those they label as outcasts (Matthew 21:31-32).
Unfortunately, in the emerging reaction against judgmental traditionalism, Biblical authority has been ransacked as well. Jesus said he came to fulfill the law, not abolish it (Matthew 5:17-18), and in the eagerness to do away with the un-Christlike attitudes found in christianity, the foundation of the faith has also been compromised. If Biblical authority isn’t taken seriously, then there is no need for it in the first place… read through some of the New Testament epistles, and you’ll see why that’s a bad thing, if one is to call themselves a Christian.
These are my views on the subject, so don’t take them as absolute truth or anything; read the Bible for yourself. See how Jesus interacted with people, and find His views on religion, humanity, and God.
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Surface
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 29.11.07While Vectorform hasn’t done a lot of broadcast-style work in the past (beyond corporate videos and training pieces), with a freshly burgeoning motion graphics department we’re looking to expand our clientele. Project one; prove we can do it!
Since the programmers have been working on various Microsoft Silverlight demos to be posted online, it seemed appropriate to work on a short clip that would help showcase the latest online video player. The Microsoft Surface, if you haven’t heard about it, is a table computer featuring a multi-touch input system and programming structure running on top of Windows. It’s touted as the next wave of computing… and while IBM actually developed this “new” technology in the 1980’s, it does look pretty cool (well, for commercial applications, I guess).
It was decided that we’d illustrate one of the more abstract elements of the user experience… Taking the multi-touch water application, it was expanded into an immersive environment the user could feel they were a part of, emphasizing the serenity instead of the frenetic environment of the bars and point of purchase displays the table will be marketed for. Aaron worked on developing a storyboard and script, from which the motion graphics team broke off to work in separate pieces. With my background in VFX, I got to do the water-based environment.
Since the main character and table were being rendered in a half-realistic style out of Maya, we quickly ran into trouble trying to find any photographic plates that could be used as backdrops. That left me to do a purely CG environment that would dance between realism and the mix of hyper-realism / toon shading found in the Maya renders.
The environment was also a curious challenge because we wouldn’t have any final camera moves from the character animation until the very end. I needed to create a setup that would allow for maximum editing, close integration with After Effects for particulate effects, and fast render turnaround so we could be making the necessary camera changes late in the game.
The cliffs were modeled as basic subpatch primitives in Lightwave, with the jagged rocky shapes created with displaced geometry and nodal texturing and procedurals. The stones near the foreground were randomly generated by Maya and imported into Lightwave as low-res .obj files, and the trees were all created using the Lightwave plugin TreeDesigner. Leaves were added using another Lightwave plugin, and all texturing was designed in the nodal texturing system. Textures were kept fairly simple, save for the diffuse gradations designed for the high-contrast / semi-toon shade render style.
Once I had the basic environment set up in Lightwave, I rendered out layers based on distance from the camera. This was edited further in Photoshop to prep for a 2.5D scene in After Effects; each separate 2D layer could move in 3D perspective, without the render overhead of rendering each rocky surface, branch, and leaf. This also allowed me to composite in 3D particle systems (Trapcode’s Particular was used for all of the falling water and mist) with correct layering of the cliff walls. The reflections were handled the same way, with various distortions and textural effects layered on top of the inverted layers to give the impression of water. Using After Effects 32bpc colour space and recursive additive layers, I was able to generate a brighter-than-white backdrop that would bleed through the foreground elements using many blurred effect layers. By the end it was a good 5 hour render out of After Effects just for a quick 5-10 second animation!
The Microsoft Surface table and character modeling, texturing, lighting, mocap, and Maya rendering were handled by Adrian; the fish were illustrated and animated by Aaron, with final compositing a group effort by all of us. The birds were a last minute addition using Lightwave’s particle system and a simple bird model and a looping wing animation. I worked for a day or two on an entirely procedural animation system that would drive flapping based on flight path characteristics. Unfortunately, it proved to be too much for the Lightwave system, and had to be abandoned for a simpler motion setup.
You can see the full video on the Vectorform Silverlight demo page! (unfortunately you’ll have to download and install Silverlight first)
Looks good!
Oh, Papa John! It was utterly delightful to see you at Christmas for the first time maybe ever. And I’m looking forward to next weekend, as well! However— and it pains my heart to voice such discontentment— my great joy has been nearly consumed by fury because of the yuletide neglect which has undermined your blog. I eagerly wait for hours on end—thanks to this distressing dial-up internet— for your stupid page to load, and then… NOTHING! Nothing at all is new under the sun! Why do you provoke your family to such wrath? Please, be reasonable. And… would you mind wiring me my New Year’s money? 
Love you mucho mucho mucho.
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Leopard
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 12.11.07This past weekend I upgraded to the latest Macintosh operating system; OS X 10.5, nicknamed Leopard. It’s been out for just a few weeks, and in the interest of not crashing all of my computers with an untested OS, I updated just my macbook with a cleaned HD and fresh install.
The install process is much like any other OS X installation. The disc checks itself to make sure everything is there and uncorrupted (important, since heavy scratching could cause parts of the OS to fail during install, as is the case with one of the old discs at work!), then it runs through the rest of the installation process. If memory serves me correctly, speed was comparable to both 10.4 and Vista installations, though because OS X includes drivers, much of the installation time is spent just coping files for various printers. Once completed, it plays the “welcome” video, with the word repeated in various languages. In 10.3 it was set to the music of Royksopp, in 10.4, the user was greeted with a series of roving spotlights and textures. In 10.5 it’s a fly-through of stars and nebulae… a theme continued through to the default desktop. Enter your information, and the setup process is merrily on its way. iChat is greatly improved, with support for Gtalk and Jabber clients, as is Mail, which helps simplify the process of adding email accounts (Gmail requires hardly any setup at all).
While I can’t say Leopard is truly revolutionary, many features are undeniably great strides forward. Spaces, for example, lets you organize applications into separate screens… the desktop, dock, and menu bar at the top all stay the same, but you can quickly manage large groups of applications without succumbing to window-overload (and eventually depraved confusion). Quick Look, Time Machine, and other improvements make this quite the upgrade to older OS X iterations. The Finder introduces a new cover flow style browser, and there are tweaks to security and network connectivity, amongst a host of other changes.
Interface design, however, is a bit of a touchy subject. There are both massive improvements, inconsitent UI design, and a pathetic attempt at Vista-like “pizazz”. First the good; the entire mac experience is a little darker. Gone is the brushed metal! Things are richer, smoother, and in some cases, shinier. It feels like a much better interface to work in, especially as an artist. Inconsistencies do still plague the platform to some extent, especially with the introduction of a translucent menu bar, repeated nowhere else. Thankfully the similarly translucent menu system is consistent throughout all applications, and also rather beautiful. While UI design is roughly homogenous, details such as buttons vary from place to place. Unfortunate, though understandable in same cases. The bad? The default dock style. It’s horrific, cluttered, hard to read, and almost impossible to use quickly. The reflections are undeniably cool (it reflects icons, nearby windows, live video, everything), but the application icons and indicators quickly blend in with those reflections, and there is a large distracting swoosh behind the whole thing.
Thankfully, there are already several programs written to aid in customizing the dock. OS X has always had features that were accessible only by command line or third party application (the debugging menu in Safari, extra interface animations, etc.), and Leopard is no different. You can switch between 3D and 2D dock styles, and using simple PNG images, you can even skin it yourself!
Introducing Iaian7gray, a simple, clean, and, I hope, elegant redesign of Leopard’s 3D dock. If you are so fortunate as to be using a mac with 10.5, enjoy! If not, you really are missing out on a cool OS.
27.10.09: the dock has been updated for Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6), and now includes an iContainer for Candybar and an image collection for the free Dock Library.
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Bald Mountain
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 8.11.07Claiming to be the most rugged state park in Michigan, Bald Mountain Recreational Area sounds like an awesome place to visit, especially at only 25 minutes from my apartment. Unfortunately, what little parts Jeremy Laughlin and I visited this past weekend felt more like a leisurely walk than an “arduous hike”. It’s still a decent park, though, with plenty of serpentine water courses and frighteningly bumpy dirt roads (not gravel, actual dirt).
We also saw quite a lot of berries, a few of which I took pictures of. I tried to avoid the easy ones (rose hips) and the obviously poisonous (white berries with red stems?). Actually, I just avoided those because the bushes didn’t make for very good pictures. Sorry.
Me and my stupidity insisted that we take the only trail not on the main map. Honestly, we did want to see the lake, and I think it was well worth it (Jeremy might have a different opinion, as we left almost an hour later than we’d hoped, plus had to skip coffee on the way home!).
After the noise from the nearby shooting range quieted down a little, the area was eerily silent. It didn’t help when we happened upon an abandoned beach, complex of concrete buildings, and empty playground complete with a small pair of child’s shoes left laying on a bench. And yes, we thought it looked a little like a cheap Stargate set for a post apocalyptic thriller… so we took pictures. Granted, this shot is really more Star Trek than Stargate. 
It was great to get out and explore a little. The exploratory spirit was not at all helpful on the way home, however, as I eventually got us lost somewhere in Pontiac. Thankfully, we got back on track, but by the time I pulled up to the apartment, Jeremy was sound asleep. The poor guy had to drive 3 hours down to Oberlin the same night! Well, maybe next time I won’t insist on taking a different route…
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Leaves, before
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 28.10.07It’s certainly a wintery autumn now, with biting winds and sharp pangs of cold digging deep into your lungs as you step outside…
These photos, however, were taken a week ago or so in the small copses surrounding my apartment. Before the leaves started to fail, before the frost, and the rain and sleet and snow. While I typically hate summer, it’s always bitter sweet as the weather changes… all too suddenly and we’re swept away into the chilling thrall of winter.
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Wabash, IN
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 15.10.07Sunday, after the previous day’s wedding and musical, was a little more relaxed. Well, save for church at eight in the morning, which is earlier than I’m used to, even for work. I got to have lunch with grandparents, then headed off to Wabash again as my family performed in the final show of Hello Dolly.
Since I’d seen the musical the night before, I ended up walking through a fair amount of Wabash, then driving off into the country on some random road (old 24, I believe), ending up in some town named Lagro. Thankfully, I made it back in one piece to take more photos before my family had finished the curtain call and we could say goodbye as I left for Detroit. Something I had not known about Wabash; there are some great trails just off the Wabash river, in amongst historic log cabins and even remnants of an ancient coral reef. Wabash is also home to some beautiful houses and old architectural structures (see some of these on my flickr page). Parts of the Honeywell center date back to the 1940’s, and the rest of the town is similarly historic.
I really love Indiana.
You would.
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Hello Dolly!
iaian7 » blog John Einselen, 14.10.07My family has been working the past few months as part of a musical production at the Ford Theater (in the Honeywell Center, Wabash, IN). Ken, Cindy, and Lydia all sang (Dad also played the judge), Lisa helped with costuming (including the design for Ms. Money’s wild yellow dress), and Matthew worked backstage (even handling the coordination of on-stage food). Two friends from college were getting married this past weekend as well, so a trip to Indiana worked out great. Sadly, I can’t really travel that far more than once a month or so… Detroit is a bit further than I’m used to.
After leaving a little late for the wedding, I ended up lost till well after and just barely arrived in time for the receiving line. I have to admit, seeing friends from college, and their kids, is a little weird. I finally realized how long I’d been gone; two years isn’t much, but enough for things to change. Driving through Indiana and recognizing places along the way between Warsaw and Wabash brings back a lot of memories. Quite a few from my trip with Keith and Joanna up to Chicago (the two of them now happily married, as of this weekend!), and plenty of others from trips to see my cousin Sarah in Goshen, or my brother Mark in western Michigan. Hopefully I’ll get to travel a little more before the michigan winter truly sets in and I become snowbound.
Anyway, back to Hello Dolly! The show was great, and though exhausted, I think it was a lot of fun for everyone involved. While the rest of my family got out of their costumes and makeup, Matthew showed me around the back ways of the stage and theater. Taking pictures the entire evening, I unwittingly passed quite the road mark; my camera rolled over from 9999 to 0001! Though I’m not sure where I started, this would be at least 4000 pictures just in the past 6 months or so.
I’m really proud of my family. They rock.
It’s nice to see the pictures since I didn’t make it personally to the show.
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I can understand your distaste for Sweeney Todd. On defense of the movie, however, I will say it stayed very true to the broadway musical storyline (we studied the musical in college theater), and actually was a great adaptation of a depressing musical. I think those who knew the musical going in would have a better appreciation for it. I warned my girls before they saw it, “it’s not a happy story at all.’ They made the blood very ‘fake’ to somewhat mimic the play. Yes, the broadway play was very bloody, and ultimately everyone dies.