Brogan Ross’ Blog of Random Interests

     When I first pick up the Watchmen graphic novel, I read through it in one sitting.  Well I suppose that’s a little exaggerated.  I mean, I had to eat and pee, but I definitely finished it the day I bought it.  It was amazing.  The characters are not your everyday superheroes.  As a matter of fact, with the exception of Dr Manhattan, none of the characters are “super” heroes.  They are just masked vigilantes.  The sense of psychological turmoil that happens in these people is astounding.  I mean what possesses someone to dress up and go fight crime?  A will to do good definitely, but what sets them apart from other people who just go down to the nearest food shelf and shell out some soup?

Well I’m sure I don’t have to go through the whole story since a) it’s almost as old as I am, and b) there are tons of places you can read about the story, or just go read it for yourself.  What I really want to talk about is the film.  Overall I found it to be a very accurate adaptation of the graphic novel.  The story didn’t change much from the novel.  Change is usually my biggest problem with film adaptations of written work.  Usually I can get behind any adjustments a director makes.  Except the Golden Compass, I don’t think that guy knew what the hell he was doing.  Anyway, the only major thing they changed was the lack of inter-dimensional creature at the end.  Which I could understand being removed.  Especially with such an easy fix.  Dr Manhattan leaves the galaxy anyway.  Well, shit Zack, let’s just blame him.  We could save a lot of time and money not having to create the back story of the disappearing scientists and artists, and not have to create that weird CG octopus monster.

Effects wise.  Excellent!  There were one or two things that jumped out at me but overall it was excellent work.  Right at the beginning after The Comedian has fallen to his death and they show the pin rolling on the ground, it didn’t sit right.  I don’t know if the color was off or if it was just the animation but it didn’t seem to work properly.

Dr Manhattan was well done.  But I noticed that when he interacts with people, it’s off.  The prime example is during the sex scene of Silk Specter and Manhattan.  His hands don’t have any real interaction with her hair.  I assumed that by now we should be able to get a real shot of hands touching her face, and hair, and then but the CG over top.  But apparently that didn’t work for mister Snyder.

I will say this, Rorsasch’s mask was very well done.  Though I did find the fabric to be a touch too canvas like, the moving ink effect was very well done.  And speaking Rorsasch, when I first saw pictures of the actor that had been cast to play the part, I was concered.  But damn, did he come through.  He had to crazy look in his eyes, but the stillness that accompied Kovacs.  His calm demeanor while doing the prison scene was very well done.  All in all I thought Rorsasch was the most well done character in the film.

Today I found out that I have had my first piece of professional work appear.  It’s a shot in the second Terminator Salvation theatrical trailer.  The shot starts at about 1:30 and is the birds eye view of a street, with a building collapsing on the right side.

I know this may seem a little lame but, hey man, it’s my first piece of work that will appear on the big screen.  That’s pretty cool to me. On another note, I’ve continued working on shots for T4 and it’s looking like it’s gonna be pretty cool. It’s hard to tell story line from just seeing single shots or short sequences, but from a purely effects stand point it’s going to be pretty sweet.