Visual Essay - Example Images

Below are a few images that I feel are relevant to the pathways I am currently considering going into next year.

Gollum: Possibly my favourite character from the Lord of the Rings trilogy - What I found most impressive about his character was the way he was implemented into the film. Andy Serkis, the actor that plays Gollum, has all his movements and facial expressions mapped so that a CGI version of Gollum can be layered over later. Andy also played King Kong, in Peter Jackson's 2005 rendition of the film. I have chosen this image because I feel it relates to both the 'Moving Image' and 'Virtual Environments' pathways, and I am interested in both of those.

The link below follows an interview with Andy, and how he goes about creating the voice for Gollum and the story behind it.
Andy's Interview with The Guardian

Video showing exactly how much Andy's facial expressions play a part as Gollum.


Video showing how it's done.




Wall-E: Looking at the film as a whole, not just at the specific character. I find Pixar always too an amazing job when it comes to animation. What probably impressed me the most when watched it was the life-likeness of Wall-E's hands, feet and head movement. I could tell they had really spent a lot of time giving him real human characteristics to reflect the character has was trying to portray in the film. I have chosen this image as it relates to the 'Virtual Environments' pathway, and this is one of two pathways next year I am considering taking.


Avatar: Hopefully it didn't need any introduction, though this image isn't exactly the clearest I could have chosen for the film. The entire Avatar world was created in CGI, and having experienced the film in the cinema (in 3D!), I found they had done a phenomenal job. Many people have said, after seeing Avatar, that it's ruined other CGI films for them, as nothing compares. Including promotion costs it was estimated that James Cameron spent somewhere in the region of $500 million, and still turned over an enormous profit, in one weekend it managed to make $232.2 million worldwide. So clearly CGI is a big money spinner.

The cash figures are irrelevant, I chose this image because I thought it was topical and best represented CGI, and in doing so, the 'Virtual Environments' pathway.