The 2013 Oscar Nominations Are In!

For my favorite Oscar categories only...

Which one of the 2012 movies will win an Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year? Will it be...?

• Amour (5 nominations)
• Argo (7 nominations)
• Beasts of the Southern Wild (4 nominations)
• Django Unchained (5 nominations)
• Les Misérables (8 nominations)
• Life of Pi (11 nominations)
• Lincoln (12 nominations)
• Silver Linings Playbook (8 nominations)
• Zero Dark Thirty (5 nominations)

Best Director?

• Amour (Michael Haneke)
• Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin)
• Life of Pi (Ang Lee)
• Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)
• Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)

Best Actor?

• Silver Linings Playbook (Bradley Cooper)
• Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis)
• Les Misérables (Hugh Jackman)
• The Master (Joaquin Phoenix)
• Flight (Denzel Washington)

Best Actress?

• Zero Dark Thirty (Jessica Chastain)
• Silver Linings Playbook (Jennifer Lawrence)
• Amour (Emmanuelle Riva)
• Beasts of the Southern Wild (Quvenzhané Wallis)
• The Impossible (Naomi Watts)

Best Supporting Actor?

• Argo (Alan Arkin)
• Silver Linings Playbook (Robert De Niro)
• The Master (Philip Seymour Hoffman)
• Lincoln (Tommy Lee Jones)
• Django Unchained (Christoph Waltz)

Best Supporting Actress?

• The Master (Amy Adams)
• Lincoln (Sally Field)
• Les Misérables (Anne Hathaway)
• The Sessions (Helen Hunt)
• Silver Linings Playbook (Jacki Weaver)

Best Original Screenplay?

• Amour
• Django Unchained
• Flight
• Moonrise Kingdom
• Zero Dark Thirty

Best Adapted Screenplay?

• Argo
• Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Silver Linings Playbook

Best Animated Film?

• Brave (Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman)
• Frankenweenie (Tim Burton)
• ParaNorman (Sam Fell and Chris Butler)
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits (Peter Lord)
• Wreck-It Ralph (Rich Moore)

Best Art Direction?

• Anna Karenina
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Les Misérables
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln

Best Costume Design?

• Anna Karenina
• Les Misérables
• Lincoln
• Mirror Mirror
• Snow White and the Huntsman

Best Cinematography?

• Anna Karenina
• Django Unchained
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Skyfall

Best Film Editing?

• Argo
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Silver Linings Playbook
• Zero Dark Thirty

Best Makeup?

• Hitchcock
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Les Misérables

Best Original Score?

• Anna Karenina (Dario Marianelli)
• Argo (Alexandre Desplat)
• Life of Pi (Mychael Danna)
• Lincoln (John Williams)
• Skyfall (Thomas Newman)

Best Original Song?

• Chasing Ice ("Before My Time")
• Ted ("Everybody Needs a Best Friend")
• Life of Pi ("Pi's Lullaby")
• Skyfall ("Skyfall")
• Les Misérables ("Suddenly")

Best Visual Effects?

• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Life of Pi
• Marvel's The Avengers
• Prometheus
• Snow White and the Huntsman

Best Sound Mixing?

• Argo
• Les Misérables
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Skyfall

Best Sound Editing?

• Argo
• Django Unchained
• Life of Pi
• Skyfall
• Zero Dark Thirty

Tune in to find out during ABC's 85th Annual Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday, February 24th. Hosted by Family Guy and Ted's Seth MacFarlane!

The Mayans Are WRONG! So Relieved That We're STILL ALIVE After 12/21/2012!

As of today, 2 days since the predicted date of the Mayans' so-called "End of the World" event, most of the entire population on this very planet STILL LIVE! No earthquakes or tectonic plate-shifting, no giant tsunamis, and no volcanic eruptions or giant meteors were ever present! It's a good thing that 2012, a 2009 blockbuster disaster film by ID4 Roland Emmerich, did not end up as being a "true story"! Or else we might've been completely stuck listening to those silly superstitions about facing the catastrophic armageddon!
Sorry, Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson)! I guess YOU WERE WRONG! Just like what the Mayans think!

Blog 08 Assignment

One of the most interesting things I learned about digital art, is that it takes a little practice and experience to get used to the kind of program that uses the digital art techniques to create a perfect artwork project. There are a few things that I have not yet experienced in digital art when I took this class; such as when I have never used Adobe After Effects, which is a more helpful program in editing the videos. Digital art is the most creative thing for me to do, which will help me accomplish my art skills. I also learned that there are many artists who also use the digital art programs for their own creative works. For example, Ron Borresen was an illustrator who knows how to use Painter and Photoshop to create the uniquely drawn cartoon characters.
I believe that I will continue to work with digital art. It all depends on if I am advised to create something that requires some visually and realistic details to impress those who knew much about the Adobe application programs. As much as I am very skilled in handling the computer art stuff, I might sometimes find it as a hard-working process which usually takes the amount of time to get it completely done prior to the confirmed deadlines. Just like how it is very difficult for me to render a video completely and check to see how much data storage there is for a rendered video to fit in any folder or random location of the desktop.
Photoshop is pretty much my favorite program I use this semester. I have been using Photoshop many times since I took a computer class in my summer school, and I had never gotten tired of using it. It never takes a very long time for me to get my assignment work completed like After Effects, which is takes a longer process for the videos to get loaded up. I find that photo-editing program as a "fun way" for me to play with the art tools to alter the details or make up something from what I imagined. In fact, I wouldn't have to worry about creating digital comics on Illustrator based on the amount of details, the way the storyline is handled, and the how much time the process will take; just as long as I work with a program that is much easier for my artistic skills and will not worn me out.

Blog 07 Assignment

The art student I have interviewed is Meghan Connell from my Computer Graphics I & II class, whom we both shared during my current semester. Even though I never met her or know her that often, I was proud to meet someone who is a bit friendly than the others I have known. Her art-working process appears to be going quite well for her lately since the first time I came to Ms. Jocelyn Sowa's class. From the looks of it, she seems to be an excellent artist and very skilled in handling the art tools on the computer. According to Meghan, she likes to draw animals with her amazing art sketching style.
Based on what I have learned, her major art concept is to make animals in the form of a sketch drawing. The reason Meghan is into making animal drawings, is because she discovered the animal pictures upon researching through the images via Bing. Details of the animals are probably why Meghan is inspired to draw them. Using pencil and paper allows her to sketch the details of every animal. She is well-precised with the creatures' designs, as well as knowing how they need to be drawn.
Not only does she drew them with just a single pencil, she can also draw the animals with the writing tablet which works with computers. Aside from that, Meghan can also use acrylic painting to make luscious colors for the animals. If she can use painting, then she must be pretty good at creating the texture of every animal she would find interesting for this subject. So therefore, Meghan is an excellent artist with her drawing and painting skills from what she told me during the interview. And best of all, she looked like she was an "animal lover" after she viewed them on the internet pictures which became her art style.

My Favorite Summer Movies of 2012

My Top 10 favorite movies of Summer 2012:

1. The Dark Knight Rises - 87% (CinemaScore: A)
2. Marvel's The Avengers - 92% (CinemaScore: A+)
3. The Amazing Spider-Man - 72% (CinemaScore: A-)
4. Brave - 79% (CinemaScore: A)
5. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted - 79% (CinemaScore: A)
6. Battleship - 34% (CinemaScore: B)
7. Snow White and the Huntsman - 48% (CinemaScore: B)
8. Men in Black 3 - 67% (CinemaScore: B+)
9. The Expendables 2 - 66% (CinemaScore: A-)
10. ParaNorman - 87% (CinemaScore: B+)


Note: These percentages indicate how positive the critical reviews are, according to rottentomatoes.com. To learn more about CinemaScore, enter http://www.cinemascore.com/.

Blog 06 Assignment

This is my photo-montage of what I did outside of NOVA (as I have fall semester classes on Monday, Thursday, and Friday) on Tuesday, November 6th (Election Day).

Blog 05 Assignment

My art theme is mostly about creativity. The ideas about my own theme includes something that comes into my mind when trying to achieve potential success. The type of art media I use is usually computer graphics. I can bring a piece of work "come to life" with the amount of animation and regulated art tools for better use via computer. Painting is another type of art media for my artistic theme to create my valuable artwork.
For my computer skills, I have a style in animating the cartoon characters and managing the storyline depending on the amount of work I would handle. Due to my experience with the computer art programs since summer school, I know how to use them and create my own works based on my creative ideas. Say that I would make an animation sequence of a chicken walking and talking with the duck using Adobe Flash, which allows me to create the number of frames to help motivate the actions of the characters and the background scenes. Sometimes, I would decide how the story would go before knowing if it will work out for what I pictured. This is an example that I have an amazing way of using my imagination to create my very own art.
Besides computer graphics, I will use my color painting skills to paint whatever kind of art I like to make. In my eyes, the colors represent that they are the key to balance out the painting skills and brilliant ideas to create anything I can imagine. In terms of thinking about what I want to make in order to follow my theme, I could paint the details of my own art drawing with the colors in the pattern of a color wheel. Namely, if I use like the color blue for the beautiful clouds in the sky, I will use the corresponding colors of the color family for my selected color to greatly develop a unique painting in a creative routine. Both of these two art media techniques are what I need for my theme on creativity which requires using what I imagine to successfully develop my art skills.