Tag: Independence Day

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Aurora – Special Edition

Inspired by Adobe Photoshop’s new generative AI capabilities, I gave my SAE thesis project back from 2007 the «Special Edition» treatment and made some minor changes I wasn’t able do the first time around when I was attending the digital film and animation school.

Especially one scene at the end never was as bombastic as I’d planned it to be. After some upscaling and with the help of some generative AI-magic the frame was extended and new details were added.

For dramatic effect I tried to generate some smoke-simulation in Blender but I was quickly reminded of the fact that one doesn’t just start up a 3D-software after years of absence without browsing through a handful of tutorials.

After hours of struggling and rendering, the first results were less than underwhelming and I went the old-school FX way of simulating smoke: Capturing footage of some milk dripped in water did the job just fine. When I cropped, enhanced and flipped some of the footage I had taken inside my kitchen cupboard earlier, there was no going back to Blender – for now.

Making of the smoke clouds

It’s been 16 years since the original version of Aurora – a fictitious trailer, my very own homage to high concept disaster movies à la Independence Day but it hasn’t lost an ounce of its soul, enthusiasm and – admittedly – cringiness:

I give you: Aurora – Special Edition:

Aurora – Special Edition

Maybe the next version will finally get its own soundtrack without all the copyright issues…

In the meantime, here’s the original version and some bonus content:

The original version from 2007
Some outtakes for good measure
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Independence Day: Resurgence

Rating: 2

Well, that was silly! But to be honest, not much sillier than the first part, more than twenty years ago. And surely not sillier than let’s say «X-Men: Apocalypse».

I must say I really enjoyed «Independence Day: Resurgence».

And why shouldn’t I? In a sense it’s mostly an almost shot for shot remake of the original. With a lot less charm because of the lack of the impressive practical effects from back then which where replaced by state of the art, but still kinda copy and paste CGI (which isn’t improved by the green screen and compositing quality that somehow seemed to be stuck back in the nineties).

I admit I give the movie a lot of slack because its predecessor was one of the first high concept «let’s just blow some shit up» movies I loved as a child, which I think has to be given credit.

And I liked the characters: There’s of course Goldblum, Pullman and Spiner who I just loved the shit out of (minus one really too silly moment that I loathed). The second Hemsworth and the one and only William Fichtner who really wears those kind of characters like a glove. And I reeaally loved what they did to poor Will Smith (which is kinda mean, but I guess the second part of the movie that really put him on the map has somehow the right to make fun of his arrogance, in a way.) And somehow they also dragged Charlotte Gainsbourg into this which surprisingly didn’t hurt the movie any more than some other side characters I think they could’ve skipped.

Though for today’s standards the whole movie is kind of «been there, done that», I really liked this one, mostly because it doesn’t take itself serious at all, serves the fans with a big plate of references to the original, the one movie that startet it all back then as one of the first of its kind of that era.

As a fun action movie, it never reaches the quality of «Captain America 3 – Civil War» or to be honest, any of the Marvel Movies, but «ID4» 2 never annoyed me, because it doesn’t try to be anything that it isn’t. It knows that it’s silly and just goes with it; takes all its stupidity, ludicrous one-liners, over-the-top patriotism and heroism and shoves it up my ass right up to my pleasure center (which normally is not my preferred path of delivery).

If you’re old enough to have enjoyed the first one, I think you’ll like this one. If not, I’m not so sure, because there where a lot better films in the meantime that have done the same thing, much better (e.g. «Pacific Rim»).

id4_2

And correct me if I’m wrong. But didn’t I spot a reference to «Citizen Kane» in the last act?! I sure loved the boldness in doing that. 

This is neat, too: http://www.independencedaymystreet.com

And of course: Aurora.

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Aurora

With «Independence Day – Resurgence» coming to theaters, it’s only appropriate to share my last big filmschool project from 2007: «Aurora – A Fictitious Trailer», which was heavy influenced by over-the-top, big event, high-concept blockbusters like «ID4».

Enjoy:

And here’s some outtakes and bloopers for your viewing pleasure:

Big Thanks to all the nice people who helped realizing this project. I had the most fun I’d had in a long time creating it.

Trivia:
Being a nod to the idea what «Independence Day» would’ve looked like if it was set in Switzerland, I named the project inspired by the first verse of the Swiss national anthem: «Trittst im Morgenrot daher…» («When the morning skies grow red, and over us their radiance shed Thou, O Lord, appeareth in their light…») and I borrowed the name of the roman goddess of dawn: Aurora,… mostly because it sounds cool.