Tag: films

The Art of John Barry Ballaran


John Barry Ballaran is a 2D digital artist based in the Philippines, specializing in drawing and painting character art.


He has worked as an in-house artist for several studios in the past, with jobs ranging from creating background art for games; animating sprites; designing logos; arranging wedding album layouts; drawing traditional portraiture, creating print ads and storyboards for advertisements – basically any job that comes up to help pay the bills.

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InterRail 2010 – Part 10: Alnwick Castle

After visiting Cardiff I took the train back to England, and traveled north up to Newcastle, Northumberland.

After dropping my rucksack of at a hotel, I hopped on the bus out to Alnwick Castle.

I had traveled to this particular castle because this was the castle which had been used as the filming location for Hogwarts in the first two Harry Potter movies, ‘The Philosopher’s Stone’ and ‘The Chamber of Secrets’, and had as a result informed the look of Hogwarts in all subsequent films.

In the movies there were of course a lot added to the castle in post-production, mostly in height, but I did not mind. Hogwarts was a place I had wanted to visit ever since I devoured the books as a child.

While doing research for this post, I learned that the castle had been used to film many other things than just Harry Potter, but one of them made me really exited.

In February of 1983, Rowan Atkinson and his co-stars were filming around Alnwick Castle, as it would double as King Richard IV’s castle for the first Blackadder season, titled ‘The Black Adder’.

Blackadder is one of my favorite comedy shows, so I wish that I would have noticed that when I was there.

After I was done soaking in the Hogwartsian atmosphere, I took the bus back to my hotel.

And after a night in Newcastle, I started my journey southwards, to France!

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Five Essential Marvel Movies

‘Avengers: Infinity War’, the most recent film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was just released, and it was wonderful!

If you are someone who has not indulged in the Marvel films yet, this 10-year anniversary is not the best place to start, as it is somewhat of a naval-gazing celebration of the world that Marvel Studios have created over the years, and therefore a bit confusing to newcomers.

 

If you have time, you should see all the 18 movies that preceded ‘Infinity War’ before seeing it.

But if you don’t have that much time to spare, here are the four movies I think you need to see to get an appreciation for what people love about these films.

 

1 – The Avengers

This was the culmination of Iron Man 1 & 2, The Incredible Hulk, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger.

Despite being the sixth movie in a series, you can easily start here, as the film-makers anticipated a much bigger turnout for this film than the others, and therefore made it easily accessible for new viewers.

I would also still rank this as the best of the movies, but only barely as the latest films have all been incredible. By watching this one first, you can pretty quickly find out if this series is something for you or not.

 

2 – Guardians of the Galaxy

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