Distinctive Terms in Terms of Movie - Essay Example

WHY IS IT MORE RELEVANT TO TALK ABOUT THE MOVING IMAGE, RATHER THAN USING THE DISTINCTIVE TERMS FILM, ANIMATION, GAMES, INTERACTIVE MEDIA, IN THE DIGITAL AGE? By Author’s Name Name of the Class Name of the Professor Name of the School City, State 13 February, 2014 Introduction Media presentation in the digital age portrays a great transformation of the entertainment industry from the nineteenth to the twenty first century. It has become easier for the audience including the children and less illiterate people to analyse and explore whatever images they watch and hear on the media. Previously, before the invention of moving images, media production relied on still pictures and live drama in cinemas by actual actors. The invention of motion pictures took entertainment and its production to another level, from pictures to film production and its projection in the theatres. As civilization came in, motion pictures again improved in terms of speed and display. Later came in the graphics revolution, from the black and white pictures to the modern coloured and 3-D images. Today the booming movies and series production among other interactive and entertainment productions depend on the motion pictures generated to communicate the content visual and audio messages. Moving image and Animation A lot of productions especially in the last 20th century delivered entertainment to the society through use of animation. As computer graphics came in, it seemed rather a whole different thing from film production, through it was not much different. Today cartoon production remains a legend in the dependence of animation to produce quality entertainment. In the past, experts in computer graphics have been using 2-D computer graphics, but thanks to the technology development that gave rise to 3-D, which renders output in more fast real-time. Basically, the whole idea is about picture motion and aims to give an image some sense of reality and life, by portraying them as active objects. Animation history preceded the existence of cinema and had been taken from one level to another using the earlier first invented machines designed for photography. The first principle applied and which remains to be was the discovery of persistence of vision, which facilitated the work of animation by allowing the human eye to perceive the fast succession of actions in bits as the moving images. When pictures of an individual performing a task are taken, one step to another and aligned in sequence, it makes no difference in the human mind of the real performing individual and what the sequence of images portrays as they are in a continuous movement. In computer animation in the digital age, creating an illusion of moving images has been made easier by use of computing to present a characters movement that give the audience the right impression of the idea of the animator. Traditionally, moving images were enabled by filming of single frames of pictures drawn by hands, but as the digital devices came in, computers are now the target objects to draw and render the motion pictures which are depicted as animation. The digital age has brought up the use of three dimension, allowing animators to define and control characters’ movement in 3-D, which has been used in a diverse of productions ranging from animated cartoons, fantasy characters and photorealistic humans (Chaudhuri, 2007, p.1). Regardless of the different types of animation the secret behind is just about rapidly replacing the previous image with another one related but with some sort of change or variation. Computers have provided ways to create the scenes and perform the tweening of the scenes saving the animators costly time and efforts dedicated to accomplish it. With the use of 3-D, moving images can be viewed real by the audience from the front, backwards and even sideways, making the computer generated images appear much more real to the audience. However, it’s not just a movement as the animator has to take care of very fine details that would place a doubt over the reality of the picture in audience mind. For example, showing a heavier and a lighter moving object would display some differences based on the weight factor and speed of movement as perceived in reality. To give the viewer the impression of a smoothly and continuous moving object the rate at which a complete image or frame is drawn plays a crucial role in shaping the viewer thought and what they see. Lower rates to give the impression of moving image would result to viewers detecting some flaws in the production, because they would realize the existence of still images, which to them is an interruption of motion pictures, deviating from giving the impression of real moving images. To reinforce the realism of moving images, frames must be drawn at a higher speed at a standard of about 24 frames per second or even higher in computing (washoe.k12.nv.us, N.d, P.1). With respect to the persistence of vision the human can be able to appreciate the fast transition of the frames to realism. Looking into how most cartoons production are made, you realize that the effect of movement to photographed objects and skeleton built images using programming languages the computing. The example of the Mulan cartoon production employs the traditional animation of slightly differing the successive the images to create motion pictures. Avatar is the modern production that has used realms of three dimensions, among the majority of the cartoon productions have in the past and currently continue to use cell astute in 2 –D. Others have used stop motion animations to create moving images in entertainment. Animation employs moving images and to deliver realistic or animated characters. Moving images and games Development of video games in the modern digital age entails a combination of different elements that are integrated together to produce the intended creativity. For the production of video games, it requires critical analysis of the idea, the game itself least to mention the film production that may occur first or later. In the contemporary world, video games require substantial amount of time with well designed and produced graphics and audio elements. The video element consist a combination of photographed pictures, animation, text and digitally captured moving images (WIPO, 2013, p.8). Perhaps the similarity of games and cinema development stems from the existence of the cut scenes employed. It provides the viewer with a variety of information and the game, to either advance the plot of the game or even give the back-story of the game. According to King and Kryzwinska, cut scenes link the cinema and games, such that they tend to employ camera movement, shot selection and framing just like in cinemas and provide orientation for the player using a combination of long and short screen shots at varying intervals throughout the games (opening, end of one scene in the mid and at close up) (N.d, P. 142). The different techniques employed in game development project the images ability to shift and change position. Other features entail elimination of dead time, hence spending substantial time to interact with the objects that play a central role to the game plots. By eliminating such redundancies and using moving images for non interactive sequences, this allows the games to be delivered closer to something like real time. Video games also employ animation to render motion pictures, especially in depicting fictional world. For example, in the realm of three dimension build video games, the players can be designed to turn around their heads 360 degrees with a permissible view all round, when in the characters playing in the game are animated to unique creatures with superpowers. Copyrighted and patented work It is a currently an international policy and in most countries for people to protect and claim ownership of their original produced work either hardware or software in print or online. There is a lot of fabrication of original work in media and entertainment industry; hence, use of copyright and relevant rights concerning digital images touch on motion pictures. This is regardless of the distinct classification of varying moving images. All digital image collections including moving image materials entail the creativity and delivery of idea of the original authors, which are subject to legal protection that places some responsibilities on the user’s part to both acquire and utilize the different digital moving images up to a certain level. With the increasing technologically enabled sharing of digital images (video, text, and photographs) across different digital platforms on computers, Television, smart phones and interactive social media, issues of copyright infringements have to prevented. At times, the authors and developers of such creative works provide the authorization of sharing such moving and still images; pretty small things such as copying from one format to another could be left unauthorized. Without careful use by the end users, they may end up violating the rights of protected moving images. Today a good number of schools especially in the developed nations have wide use of video games integrated in their learning. Teaching practice are employing works of moving images in video games to facilitate critical analysis for literature and media students. Moving images are owned properties, which can change ownership as time progresses and entails some elements of transfer from one party to another. Most copyright legislations do not lay out exclusively the type of digital material they protect; rather they protect the original work of still and moving images in the digital age. Inclusive, all literacy, artistic, films, typographic, music and dramatic work which are made of still and moving images are copyright protected. In issues of preservation of these digital work, animation just like movie production cannot be distinctively addressed alone, rather digital moving image is used to cover all those distinct terms that entail rendering of motion pictures. Therefore, the preservation and maintenance of moving images’ authenticity is easily covered by various laws just like the electronic documents. Moving images and interactive media It is obvious in this digital age to come across media that give some sort of navigational control. People can now accomplish specific purposes by interacting with the data available in the digitalized computer system. Almost every electronic gadget available in the market has been designed to use a particular operating system that facilitates two way interactions between the users or between a user and the machine. “Interactive media is the integration of digital media including combinations of electronic text, graphics, moving images, and sound, into a structured digital computerized environment that allows people to interact with the data for appropriate purposes” (England and Finney, 2011, p.2). Ranging from the economic sector to the social aspect, interface developers for most interactive environments utilize the ability of moving images to communicate with the devices, For example, the numerous ATMs around the streets have embedded the technique of moving images, whether in texts or in picture format to allow the user communicate easily with the computerized teller and acquire full services. Using the text images, the user can be able to receive a response for his/her request, while the automated system instructs and avails relevant information to the user moving textual and icon images. Together with the texts, motion pictures have been used in interactive media like video games to guide the players and users of the system on using the product. For example, in video games, motion pictures are responsible for making a character produce a change or movement effect. Since video games employ both the sound, still and moving images, with the manipulation of the game controllers, players can be able to respond and produce an effect through moving images, with respect to the existing cues. The cues could be sound or visual or integrated as perceived from the screen in the context of the game. The casino games employ a combination of video (motion pictures and audio), animation, text and sounds to draw attention to the various pieces of information. The social networking media and internet also depend on moving images to convey information between parties in communication. Moving images are the modern norm, embedded and utilized in social media communication such as facebook, twitter and live streaming on the internet and TV among other interactive media products. As long as the input is captured an sent, camera motion tracking would facilitate communication between the parties due to the ability of video presence and computer vision, enabling real time interactive media (Kwon and Baek, N.d, p.12). Nowadays, with just a click of a button or touch screens on digital devices, the user can explore as a far as possible to acquire information or study an aspect. Modern developers of interactive video games are using preexisting works of motion pictures to be re-purposed in the interactive video games. As such, the film makers and video games developers have a lot to share in terms of moving images that make up the largest part of their productions. Moving Image and Film Film production has been one of the artists’ work in moving images. Until the interactive media came, the largest contribution of motion pictures had been recognized in movie production. It is the habit of the society to keep live its cultures and postulate over the events in the future. All this have been coded in the moving images in form of short films in movies, series and documentaries. Motion pictures have become almost a necessity in a people’s lives; they have them in their residential places, in cars, on phones and laptops and available in work places for their pleasure. The films enable the society to see the content and have a feel of the major issues been addressed. This could be impossible without the moving images as they bring the connection to realism and actual experiences which humans can relate to. Films use motion images to engage viewers’ minds and emotions in a patterned manner of experience and develop an idea that generates an effect on them (Mcgraw-hill.com, 2006). Film making is not such a simple task like taking a video of a family outing. The main idea of its production lies in the shooting of the film images and sounds and their assembly, to give an idea of the content issue with respect to the written screen play. Initially, the images were series of photographs taken and the audio elements; today, due to technology evolution, digital cameras enable film makers to capture video frames that consist of complete moving pictures. it may take producers a while longer to collect the relevant motion pictures and sound at different scenes, but not longer and tedious as was in the previous centuries. Even though video frames are the common trends, photographic works that deliver still images remain quite relevant because they are often required to complete a scene. It is until all these images are assembled into the final form and editing begins, when the parts of the films that have been missed out or modified are realized enough. Series of scenes are edited, pictures and sounds cut, the continuous shots merged and sounds like music among other factors inserted into the moving images. Algorithms for motion pictures At the core of filming involves camera motion tracking, and rendering frames of video that give the sequence of images perceived to be in a continuous motion in the viewer’s eye. The motion detection algorithms in computing allow displays and changes of the successive images in sequence. As such, the right image is chosen and positioned to succeed the previous one and generate an appropriate relative motion. There are many techniques employed to facilitate moving images in diverse distinct categories of artistic work in the digital age. Block matching is one the techniques employed in interactive media; and works by “dividing the images into equal sized block and finding the best matching block in a reference picture for all blocks of the current image” (Drab and Artner, n.d., p.2). The motion here is given by the relative displacement of the blocks. It has been utilized in the video conferencing codec. Frame differencing is another technique used in checking how frames change and render images on screen to give the continuous impression. Working with a specific video frame, the algorithm seeks to compare the color value of each pixel in the current frame with the successive frames, to determine the movement to a particular location and bring a change effect (Kwon and Baek, N.d, p.13). Light is of essence in this algorithm as the calculation of the color value depends on a stable lighting environment to avail enough brightness to track the differences and select the next frame in motion. Conclusion Hundreds of moving images rendered one after the other in a time frame that gives an impression of real-time facts are what make up the distinct categories of the artistic works described as films, animation and interactive media among others. Production of all these works employs the motion pictures to give the viewer the right perception of the earlier created idea. Devices such as digital cameras, computers and programming languages have continued to enhance the delivery of various moving image productions, which can be integrated with other textual, musical and sound work to give relevant categories of entertainments in the industry. Digital moving image is the broad term that covers all the distinct categories and relevant to represent them when it comes to matters of legislations across the industry to authorize or protect against their use, transfer and manipulation. Reference list Chaudhuri, P., Kalra, P. and Banerjee, S., 2007. View-Dependent Character Animation. London: Springer Verlag London Ltd. washoe.k12.nv.us, n.d. Computer Animation. [online] Available at: http://www.washoe.k12.nv.us/galena/cl/Computer_Animation_1.pdf [Accessed 11 February 2013]. Drab, S.A., and Artner, N. M., n.d. Motion Detection as Interaction Techniques for Games and Applications on Mobile Devices. [online] Available at: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.84.4764&rep=rep1&type=pdf [Accessed 13 February 2013]. England, E and Finney, A., 2011. Interactive media, Whats That? Who’s Involved? [online] Available at: http://www.atsf.co.uk/atsf/interactive_media.pdf [Accessed 12 February 2013]. King, G., and Kryzwinska, T. n.d. Computer Games Cinema and Interfaces. [online] Available at: http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/05164.41114.pdf [Accessed 12 February 2013]. Kwon, J. and Baek, Y., n.d. Real Time Interactive Media design With Camera Motion Tracking. [Online] Available at: http://www.minipimer.tv/txt/body/Real-time%20Interactive%20Media%20Design%20with%20Camera%20Motion%20Tracking.pdf [Accessed 13 February 2013] Mcgraw-hill.com, 2006. Film as Art: Creativity, technology and business. [online] Available at: http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0073535060/410534/Bordwell_Ch01.pdf [Accessed 13 February 2013]. WIPO. 2013. The Legal Status of Video Games: Comparative Analysis in National Approaches. [online] Available at: http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/copyright/en/activities/pdf/comparative_analysis_on_video_games.pdf [Accessed 11 February 2013]. Read More