The shock of my first week in a masters program at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program didn't hit me until I started my first assignment. It was there I realized well this was inevitable, I'm in code school. Even my childhood best friend Kyle could have saw this coming when at 14 years old he announced I would one day pursue a degree in the computer sciences. . "Please Kyle I'm a filmmaker" I would argue.
To my stubborn credit I am still very much a filmmaker with two new short films on the way. Yet here I am taking a basic JavaScript course and playing with web browsers. Why?
Well as anyone with a pulse and works in the entertainment business will tell you - the game is changing. In the past 10 years we've seen the shift of content demands moving toward web based delivery. The boom of Youtube, Vimeo, and Social media has created new fields for filmmakers to explore and everyone has become their own producer. Even still with devices like RED's Hydrogen and iPhone X just around the corner we'll continue to see a surge in demand for AR and VR work. My point of course is this: if the technology is just getting on it's feet, one should get in early to embrace it and learn its flaws before anyone else does.
Of course, the funny thing about these tools is that they are being designed by gamers not filmmakers and what that tells you is that the solutions are not always there in front of us. Sometimes we need to build the things we need to use. This mentality has always been at the forefront of filmmaking. Camera operators, Visual Effects Artists, and Sound Recordists constantly build the tools that will help them achieve the effect they are looking for.
So for my first project I was challenged to draw a picture using just code. Here is what I came up with:
I know you are amazed by my innovations (sarcasm). In truth this took me quite a bit of time! The first challenge I had was how to work with the coordinate system. There was no grid like you may have in photoshop so a lot of this had to be based off guesswork. However, after some time I slowly started to understand: this is a hierarchy. I worked with the stem then based the face code on that then gradually filled each shape to draw something else. The web editor was fine but I wish I had more time to research how the coloring logic worked with the face. Outside of that, I am happy I was able to draw a pumpkin as I really do love my pumpkin spice lattes.
