Title sequence for "Un chien andalou"

Well, the semester is almost over, and this is my final assignment for Electronic Imaging and Design. I chose to create a title sequence for the famous surrealist film "Un chien andalou", created by Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel which I found most impressing.

The sequences of apparently senselessly connected scenes which appeared in the dreams of directors Dali and Bunuel are sometimes horrifying, crazy and even funny. Many people tried themselves to analyze this short film and draw conclusions out of the pictures but I doubt this is possible...which could be the artist's intention.

I took the element of the moon, which appears in the beginning of the 17-minute film and build my short title sequence upon that. I wanted to create a dream-like sequence, so I chose to do it in a slow pace, with some classical lullaby music and a font that matches the theme.

The title sequence ends with a zoom out of someone's eye, which is a reference to a key scene in the movie and also to show that everything could be unreal, be just a dream.

Have a look here:

Abstract sunset

I recently played around with some photos I took on Phu Quoc Island. The sunset there is stunning, and you can really get some very nice pictures....Well..the usual, "romantic" and a bit kitschy photographs everybody knows.

I wanted to create a more dramatic, less photographic image out of that, and Photoshop offers some nice tools to reduce details and merge similar tonal levels, so after a while I got a colour-reduced picture with detailed outlines of the foreground and a dramatic, simlified background.

This is the original photograph:














This is obviously the cropped and modified version of the sunset

Max Ernst

I'd like to present you a few works of the german surrealist painter Max Ernst I found quite interesting. Ernst was born in 1891 and began studying philosophy, literature, art history, psychology and psychiatry.

He survived two world wars, married three times, lived in Germany, France and the United States and produced more than 80 significant works before his dead in 1976.


















This one is titled "The triumph of surealism" and was made in 1937. I find this one especially powerful. The creature, half man, half beast could be originated form your worst nightmares.





















This one his one of his earlier works, form 1023 and is called "Ubu-The imperator". It somehow strongly reminds me of another picture I have seen before, but I can't get the connection...

I like the way he mixes realistic, human elements with fantasy styles and non-organic patterns, and it still feels so fluent

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Ernst
http://www.allposters.com/

"Web 2.0" Headers

I am sure you have already stumbeled upon this new header style, normally used with a webaddress, with this shiny, polished look, the bright colours and the mirroring.

This style has become quite popular recently and is often associated with the buzzword of Web 2.0 applications.

Although I am not the biggest fan of this new style I wanted to try it out for myself, and well, here is the result:







Have a look here for the Photoshop tutorial.