Yeah, it has been a while since I played with WebGL. Now it is time to resume. This time want to make it a little bit clearer how to work with WebGL shaders and I find this lesson very useful: https://github.com/Jam3/jam3-lesson-webgl-shader-threejs To make it a little bit more interesting I have added some additional movement using rotation attribute of the mesh in three.js. More

According to the PAIR website: PAIR is devoted to advancing the research and design of people-centric AI systems. We’re interested in the full spectrum of human interaction with machine intelligence, from supporting engineers to understanding everyday experiences with AI. That is why, I was thrilled to watch their first symposium ever to hear more about their practice and recent findings of other researcher in the field of AI and machine learning through the prism of human centred design. The first thing that I really like is Tensorflow Playground, which makes understanding the way neural networks work much easier. More

To bring my therapist bot to another level I decided to learn more about how to make a bot more intelligent. For that we have to take a look at artificial neural networks, deep learning, natural language processing and so on. Clearly, to use something like API.ai there is no need to understand all of that stuff, but I don’t like to do something without understanding how it works. Our first stop is artificial neural networks. I find this book pretty good to learn about the topic: http://neuralnetworksanddeeplearning.com/chap1.html Basically, artificial neural network consists of a large number of artificial neurones which are interconnected. More

Continuing my work on the therapist bot (also known as Mysty), I went to the UX Crunch event dedicated to chatbots and AI.  We all understand that there were no AI 🙂 But some interesting facts about chatbots could be brought out of the event. First of all, no one knows how to design a chatbot, there is no convention or any structured workflow. Just imagine what your end user could potentially ask and code it. On the bright side, the basic principles are becoming more and more complete. And in general, there are a lot software… More

Everything you see in the film, like a newspaper or a telegram, should be designed by someone; and it plays a huge role in such a movie as The Grand Budapest Hotel. That is why we can see Annie Atkins’ work all over throughout the film. She describes her experience of collaboration with Wes Anderson and his production designer Adam Stockhausen this way: I doubt I’ll work on a more beloved film that pays so much attention to graphic design again in my lifetime, so not a day goes by when I don’t thank my lucky stars (and Wes and Adam!)… More

When I was talking about creating an atmosphere in the movie, I used to mention only a director, but it is not actually fair. To be honest, it is always the result of the work of a trio: screenwriter, director and production designer. While screenwriter and director are visionaries, the creation of a world, as a matter of fact, is a production designer’s responsibility. To know more about this role, you could go here. If we talk about The Grand Budapest Hotel, we have a not common situation, when produser, writer and director is the same person, Wes Anderson. Therefore,… More

The next director, master of creating an atmosphere is Wes Anderson (according to my own ranking system). Particularly, one of his latest films, The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) is of my biggest interest in this field. I like the way he creates his own worlds in the movies, using the whole specter of tools from filmmaking techniques to perfectionist’s attention to every detail, every object in the frame. Here is a nice overview of the visual language, that shows us how important different details for the right perception: Cover image: https://brunch.co.kr/@vonovono77/33… More

Watching movies, I found for myself that cuts and transitions play the huge impact on my perception of the story and atmosphere of the movie, so to be able noticing them I found this great video explaining that: Cover image: https://giphy.com/gifs/film-editing-f-for-fake-Iyqv0kE4hUwYE/download… More

As I mentioned previously, writing a script is different to regular literary writing, thus it requires a particular way of reading it. Scott Mayers describes his way of reading screenplays in a series of blog post here: How To Read A Screenplay: Parts 1–7 Here are the main steps you better to take digging into a script you are reading: The First Pass, go here. The Scene-By-Scene Breakdown, go here. Plotline Points and Sequences, go here. Subplots, Relationships and Character… More

Wondering about cinema, cinematic storytelling, creating an atmosphere and director’s work in general, the question that had arisen in my mind was where is the origin of creating an atmosphere in a movie takes place. And apparently, it starts in the screenwriter’s mind and he has to somehow transfer it onto the paper. Writing a script is totally different from the book writing or so because, first of all, a film is about showing things, not telling them. For example, it is ok to narrate two-page inner dialog of the main character in the book, but it is a complete nightmare… More