Finish Interactive

woopwoop, i finished my interactive a few days ago, but haven't had time to write or post about it. Ive also been busy with my css thingy which is in the post below. At the moment it's not on the Internet yet, but i remember getting an email about web space, so it will be up soon enough to be playing with.

I decided that my piece would be about mood and emotion. With no defined questions to force the user to respond, apart form the starting question which is "choose which most defines your mood..." the user has to explore and decide which way they will go, based on what they are feeling.

I used symbols to represent the emotions these include:

. Anger/Hate

. Love/Happiness

. Jealousy/Greed











. Sadness/Depressed

. Content/Passive

. Fear/Scared










This was also my very first time using flash (woot). At first it was a little nauseating because of all the code (i did computing for A lvl ERRRGGG, i don't enjoy coding that much) but after a while it all made sense. Working out how to create different buttons/symbols so the user could interact with the picture and not the great big arcade buttons was probably the hardest part (well longest) to figure out. But once i had learnt these basics it was simple enough.

The music i used was by decepikon (and yes that is how its spell I'm not a bad speller haha) again, as it was in my last piece. However ofc it is a different track. I chose this piece of music primarily because it sounded very neutral to me. I did not want to use a happy or sad charged track as this could affect the users choice. I think it worked well with this interactive. The symbols are typical of each emotion/mood. Anger is a fist, jealousy was a green funky hand, its quite obvious which mean what. This gives the user some kind of choice as to which pathway they want to take, i didn't want to leave them completely clueless. Overall i am happy with the way it turned out. Now I'm off to go have a look at some other peoples ^_^.

Counter Strike Source Trailer Thingy

yes thingy is required. Ok so earlier this year i said i was going to make a quick thing about counter strike source (css), the game not the code. Anywho, after looking at some examples of css vids on youtube, these were my favourite :

surreal 3 trailer -->



This is a very high quialty video. A lot of time and effort has gone into the making of this and it really shows. The editing fits perfectly with the music, which was something i also wanted to achive in mine.

The other clip i found on youtube as well --->



I liked the way it also coincided with the music, it really gave it an edge. Although all it is, is about 20 seconds of test editing, it was still rather good.


So here is my version of it all -->



Mine does show similarity in that does stay in time with the music. I chose to go with a song by muse, as the intro to this song was good, fast beat and nicely paced for my video.

Adaptation of my interactive

After looking at my interactive project, it seems I'm going to have many different pathways. Ive decided that i don't want it to loop back to previous pictures such as a trial & error interactive, but more of a continuous flow. At the moment i can see a total of 6 endings/pathways on which the user can take. This means that my original idea of love and hate isn't going to work, since these make up only two of the 6 pathways.

So, a bit of "golden showering", and i was able to come up with something better! I'm going to expand my original idea of love and hate, and turn it into emotions and feelings. The beginning of my interactive will tell the user what to do. In my case, it will say something like "what most influences you / draws attention to?". Then there will be a picture with a choice of 2 which the user can then split into a path. Now i just have to think of the different emotions/feelings.

Emotions --->

. Anger/Hate
. Love/Happiness
. Jealousy/Greed
. Sadness/Depressed
. Content/Passive
. Fear/Scared

Ok so now i have my 6 main feelings, its now time to work out how i will make the pictures/drawings and which way they all split.

update on this coming later ^_^

Interactive Narrative

OK, so our last project is going to be an interactive. Basically that means we have to create a piece of work using flash (cs3 woot) along with pictures and a well thought out narrative. This was set by one of our lectures called jools who after giving us a brief intro to flash told us to toodle off and go play with it ^_^. Now where to begin. Ive done coding before, i did As and A lvl in computing. The sight of all those words and numbers on a white background just makes me want to be sick! I really didn't enjoy my experiences coding, however that aside, its a new start and im not coding programs I'm coding something much more fun. So at least Ive got a head start hehe.

We were told to get about 7 photos minimum, but i think it would be best to have more! You cant really tell a story in 7 pictures. However a picture is a thousand words so 7 * 1000 = 7000 words = a mini story ha. ANYWHO, getting side tracked. I worked out (looking at the coding of the template we are using for a stop/go cycle in flash) that i need about 12 photos. I also drew up this picture to help plan what pathways I'm going to be giving the user. At the moment it looks like it can split about 5 or 6 different ways. Here's the pic:


So now all ive got to do is think of some ideas! Here is what ive got at the moment-->


. Love and Hate - Using drawn pictures and if possible good photos ( i say good photos since it will be hard to get subtle hints across) i will let the user explore the picture and it will force them to click one of two areas selected. The picture will be giving away hints into which pathway it will lead too. For example, a devil and an angel (that's one example, and a very obvious one lol). Along with this, i might try to put some music clips of one tone, and add tones as they progress. I may have to use a midi keyboard for this (music gcse YAY).

. How to fix/clean/build/find something - all my other ideas seem to be rolled into this category, of trying to get the user to do one of these things until he/she reaches the end. Its kind of basic and does ofc give a simple narrative, but nothing special as it is clearly obvious what it wants you to do.


I think i may use my first idea as jools was telling us how important it was to get the narrative right, and not necessarily the actual look and functionality of the flash piece. So now Ive just got to draw these pics, or take some, and make a nice final interactive project

Visual Aesthetics

We have been set the task of assessing the visual aesthetics of a certain object. After much thought and hard thinking (lol) i have decided to write about my glasses! why you say? why not, i have to look at them for hours in the day, well through them, not at them. So i thought it best to write about them

here is what they look like, i took some close up macro shots:




as you can see the frame itself is quite modern. The shape of the glasses are squarish, more oblong/rectangle to be correct. The colour is black, id rather not look like a pimp with pink glasses ha. And the legs of the frame is actually made of a plastic/lightweight see through material:




Pros:

. Modern overall look and feel
. Minimalistic - no extra baggage or unnecessary material
. Compact - perfect size, not too big, not too small
. Smooth texture - metal is a smooth sleek black colour, plastic also smooth
. Shape - shape of legs flow with overall design and curve instead of bend at end
. Robust - bendable hinges made of metal give impressions of durability
. Weight - very light, shows thought has been put into the ergonomics of it

Cons

. I have to wear them
. Compact frame - usage is limited to its size
. Contrast - Frame turns from black metal to a see-through colour


Clearly there are more pros then cons as i do like my glasses and do wear them, so I'm not going to be insulting myself just quite yet. It is noticeable how with time and societies views and standards glasses have changed. Here is an example of a retro pair of specs.


OK so they look nasty and round, but I'm sure someone will enjoy them for their aesthetic looks. ^_^

Edited Film

We finished filming the one shot film and I have finally put the finishing touches on it. I'm quite pleased with the way i edited it, the music felt right to go with it also. Il let you have a look firstly:



As you could probably tell, this piece is about a person who has everyone betray him. One by one as the story unfolds he explains how each one has left him and ultimately how it leads to his end.

The overall feel is meant to be sad and depressing. This is emphasised by the make up of the composition. The framing shows him right at the side of the screen with a huge amount of black space. This is representing the loneliness and sadness of this individual. As the story continues, people come and go leaving him all alone.

We set up the lighting on our main actor (cliff cook) to single him out and put him on the spot. We did this so it would give the viewer a focused attention to him, all alone in this big black space, once again trying to get our visual grammar across. You should have also noticed that the other actors (me and donna) were not lighted very brightly. This was deliberate to show a distance in relationship between the main actor, cliff and me & donna.

I believe the music worked well with this piece, it had quite a sad tone to it which made the overall feel of our theme (sadness & loneliness) feel right. I'm quite happy with the final piece, however the only downside of the work was the camera. We had many problems with the first camera we used. We decided to get another one to sort out our problems. The second camera worked well, our lighting was set up correctly as we wanted it (after much fiddling ^_^), and we got a few good clips of our one shot film. Unfortunately when putting it onto computer we were able to see the quality was not fantastic (as it always should be ! lol) and the camera had not performed well in our lighting. That aside, i thought it went fairly well. I'm off to go look at the others now!

The films itself!

Ok so here is the raw footage of the actual thing! Its unedited, well apart from chopping out all the hundreds of mistakes we made and attempts we had to go through. This one was the one we got right:

Roles and story

We finished filming our one shot piece last Wednesday and let me just say it took a nice bit of effort to pull of all the lighting and cameras. I am happy. Anywho, I'm going to link the plot of the story from donna's blog, so i don't take credit for this part ^_^, but it will all make sense once you see the film:


Roles:
Donna: Scripting and character profiles
Hayley: Storyboarding and Lighting assistance
Cliff: Lighting
Tom: Booking equipment and studio and Camera duty
(We all have roles in the movie)
We all have each others phone numbers in order for us to communicate with one another.
Our workload is pretty much the same as the roles written above, I have produced all of the information below whilst the others are doing what it says beside their names.

Character Profiles:

Character One - Played by Cliff Cook
Name: John Thompson
Age: 21
John is the main character in the movie who has been betrayed by all of his three closest friends.

Character Two - Played by Donna Massam
Name: Jeniffer Saunders
Age:21
Connection to main character: Ex-girlfriend
His ex girlfriend Jeniffer gets drunk one night with John and Daniel one night, John passes out because he's too drunk, one thing leads to another and she sleeps with Daniel - Afterwards she realises that it wasn't a mistake and that she has feelings for Daniel and wants to be with him (Daniels feelings are mutual). She admits everything to John and leaves him

Character Three - Played by Hayley Jennings
Name: Jade Cunningham
Age: 20
Connection to main character: Friend
Jade was friends with both Jeniffer, Daniel and John. When she finds out what has happened between Daniel and Jeniffer and as her and Jeniffer are best friends she stands by her and Daniel, despite John never failing to be there for her.

Character Four - Played by Tom Pearson
Name: Daniel Jackson
Age: 20
Connection to main character: Best Friend
Daniel gets drunk one night with John and Jeniffer one night, John passes out because he's too drunk, one thing leads to another and he sleeps with Jeniffer - Afterwards he realises that it wasn't a mistake and that he has feelings for Jeniffer and wants to be with her (Jeniffer's feelings are mutual). Jeniffer leaves John to be with him.

Name of movie: Betrayal

Story Synopsis:
John Thompson (Cliff Cook) has been taken for granted, used and betrayed by the three people he most cared about, Jeniffer (Donna Massam), Jade (Hayley Jennings) and Daniel (Tom Pearson). In this short movie he tells the story of what they have done to him , but the story then tells of a dramatic twist of fate and how these three selfish people held johns fate in their hands.

Story - What will happen:
The setting starts off black, lighting then turns on, focusing on the main character (Cliff) The lighting will also reflect onto the three 'ex' friends in the background, making them less visible than the main character. After 5 seconds have passed Cliff will begin the dialogue about the first character (myself) who has betrayed him (this lasts for 15 seconds). He then goes silent. this character then walks backwards slightly, gradually leaving the light completely. (This silence then lasts for 2 seconds). Cliff then begins the dialogue about the second friend - Hayley, explaining what she has done to betray him. (This also lasts for 15 seconds). After this everything falls silent, Hayley then like myself walks back gradually removing herself from the light. (2 second silence). (now only cliff and tom are in the frame). Cliff then begin the dialogue about about the third friend (Tom Pearson), explaining what he has do to betray him. After he has finished, Tom steps back, removing himself from the light. All falls silent for 5 seconds. John (Cliff) portrays a sad expression on his face throughout the whole time, he then finishes with an end dialogue, a simple and short description, explaining to the audience about the incident that sealed his fate, (5 seconds).

Without no added effects or titles so far the movie will last for a total of 64 seconds.

Spoken Dialogue:

On Jeniffer (Donna Massam) (15 seconds)
"I was in love once....
She broke my heart....
Then she betrayed me....With my closest friend....
The she left....
She chose him...."

On Jade (Hayley Jennings) (15 seconds)
"I was always there for her....
But she let me down....
When i needed her most....
I gave her a shoulder....
She closed the door in my face....
She chose them...."

On Daniel (Tom Pearson) (15 seconds)
"We grew up together....
We were best mates....
Through thick and thin we stuck together....
But not through this....
He took everything from me....
He chose her...."

End Dialogue:
"I seen him down the pub
he was mocking me
I left
He followed
I saw a glimmer
a blade"

"Now i have no body,
And no body has me"

Everything then goes black (Sound of a blade falling, and a body falling on the floor to follow).

The atmosphere and the look of the set will hold a dark, hidden and mysterious feel, this will be to express the characteristics and feelings of the movie, portraying the feeling of betrayed and hidden selves as well as the feeling of being alone. We will create this mood by having the set completely dark with the lights on the characters being the only light source on the set. Also we will be wearing dark clothing as to not distract your attention at all within the movie.

The main character will be the main focus of the movie so we need him to be placed will in the frame to keep it balanced, also so that the three characters stood behind him don't take any emphasis off his role in the movie, i was thinking if we have cliff closer to the camera so that we have a shoulder view of him, also leaving room between the top of his head and the edge of the frame so that he doesn't look squashed onto the screen, with us other three characters stood just behind him so that we catch the light but don't distract the audience's attention away from what the main character is saying.

Roles

We had another talk a few days ago, ive only jsut had chance to write about it since i went home this weekend. Home was great, i got to see some friends and my GF so im my happier now ^_^. That aside, we were talking about what kind of roles we should give each other.
Here is what we decided:

Me(tom): Organising and booking, saftey, lighting, acting
Cliff: Lighting, camera framing, acting
Hayley: Storyboard, film pacing, acting
Donna: Script/dialogue, narrative, acting

It should give us a more focused approach to this project. It also means we will be getting things done faster and easier since everyone knows thier designated job and will stick to it. filming this beast, starts on weds. From there we go and edit it our own ways. Cant wait.

Ideas for the 1 shot film

So as you know we are making this 1 shot film that is just 1 minute long. shock horror.

We all got together me, donna, cliff and hayley and started to brain-storm. However after a recent lecture its now wrong to call it that due to epileptic people. (no offence seriously). So its now called (in my mind at least) golden showering!! a much better name in my opinion. After havign a little doodle of my own i came up with these ideas:

starting with location as a starting point-

market square --> busy / people standing out / noisy

indoors --> claustrophobic / dark / lonley

park --> quiet / empty / peaceful


After showing this around, we thought that the best place to have our film would be indoors. This would give more control with the lighting and stuff (yes stuff!). Stuff meaning composition, framing, visual gramar and so on, (just shortened into one nice compact word ^_^).

We went a few steps farther. We decided after some mad "golden showering" that we wanted the feel and theme of lonlieness. We could do this by having a focused spot light on one person, and having some sort of monologue. This would give it the feel we want.

As for now, im going to do some sketches later for the storyboard, i know the hayley has done this, i thought i would have a go to better explain the actualy story. Dialogue is being sorted out, im going to have a go at that as well. We can then all collaborate about it etc. We start filming soon. Ive decided to take action and organise and book things and "stuff" and rooms for this grand event etc etc lol.

tata for now blog. Pictures and dialogue will be up soon.

The one shot film

Our latest seminars and lectures have been upon the audio/visual side of things. Deb tuck has been taking these recently and has given us the task to summon up a 1 minute film, which is compramised of just one shot. However its only 1 min long so, really i think we should focus greatly on how we are going to film this one shot. After doing some storyboard reading, and having a lecture upon narrating a story and so on. Its quite clear that its not justt the content of the film but more, how its filmed.
Things like composition of the shot, movment in the shot, colour/lighting, framing, visual grammar and so on. All these things must be taken into acount to get the perfect film.

So after our last seminar, we got into groups of 4, My group compramised of me(tom),cliff,hayley and donna (people that other you probs dont know about unless you know me). We organised a time to come in and meet, to discuss how we are going to film this.

So typicaly, im not a late person, but this one day, i just am! so pift. So brainstorming goes ahead. After what was said about all these thigns we must think about, we come to the conclusion that we want to do this peice indoors. I think this will give us much more control over the amount of lighting and colour we can get. We have a lecture to come on lighting as such, so hopefully it will spur on some more ideas. The main concept of the story will be spotlight sort of lighting in a dark room. That is all im saying for now. As im fairly tired and hungry but have no food! grrrr ha. So an update on this shall come soon enough

css

I thought id write a new post about games. Recently ive been a bit worried about what im going to be doing for my pathway next year. After having a tutorial with andy, and a bit of a ribing i found myself a bit worried. At the moment im not too sure as to what i want to be doing. I like the audio/visual side of multimedia but also the game side. So i thought id take up some blog space to write about one of my fav games. Counter Strike Source ^_^

Basicaly the game is compramised of two teams, terrorists and counter terrorists. One plants the bomb / has hostiges, and the other have the defuse/save said hostages. At the start you buy your weps and trot of on your way to do your buisness. But wait!!! pewpew headshot, your dead and have to sit out a WHOLE round because you rushed.

Now, this game is actualy played online. This makes it very competitive (which is partly why i do love it). It becomes a skill, the better you are, the more fun you have, the better you play and the more respect you will gain from other players. I love the mechanics of online gaming. There seems to be some sort of heirachy of respect. One example of an online game like this is WoW (otherwize know as world of warcraft). I used to play this game, but dont anymore (yay). Here if you are a higher lvl or have better items you seem to own the place. But anywho, back to css.

Nowadays gaming has become a bigbig thing. We have competitions where you can play for money and prizes. One thing i do like is the whole psychology of games and competing on them. Some go as far to say that gaming is a sport (which i partly agree with since you are using your brain to percive things in order to act out a skill). But wow, ive just read that back and its going into the wrong direction, another time il explain more but il get to my point.

I recently saw a clip of this game:

now this is only the trailer, but its a good example of multimedia as general. Very good editing, music timing, etc. I thought i would have a go at this. ^_^. Expect to see it soon.

Reading Material

So, as i progress through my course it is only natural to be reading up on some of the differnt areas. At the moment we are in the narratives stage of the course, for our first year. So time to get some books out.

Off i trot to the boots library in nottingham to go and explore. I enter through the doors with ease, walk up the steps, and into the main lobby. Heres where the fun starts. I first get stuck at the gates, looking like a numpty not knowing how to get in. Which way does the card go!! After dodgy looks from others and 2 minutes later, i manage to get through. I find a computer and look up 4 of the books on the reading list. I then venture round in hope of finding them. Luckly they all happend to be on the first floor, however unfortunatly, i could only find one of the 4 books, sigh.
This happend to be: the art of storyboard by john hart. Probaly the last one i wanted to read but hey, i was gonna read it anyway.

It basicaly does what it sais on the tin. It gives an introduction and history to storyboarding. Telling you the facts and details, which artists did what when and how for starters. Which is all quite straight forward. Further on you start to grasp the concepts of what is trying to be said. The author john hart explains why it is so important to have storyboards for the narrative and continuity of a film. Storyboarding is the exoskelton of the narrative, this can then be used by others to work with. Without this aid of preplanning, continuity and the narrative itself can be lost, which in turn creates a poor finished piece of work. It gives structure to the whole operation of creating a piece of work, whether that be a film, animation or an advert for example.
This makes me reflect on my first peice of work, did we think about the narrative enough? could we have done a shot differnetly for better results? After reading some of this book, i can see that the narrative is the foundation of the finished piece. It is important to see what you have done and evaluate it, before it gets to far in, otherwize it could be wrong.
But i shall continue! The book carrys forward the same concepts of storyboarding, but delves into art, and how to draw. Although this is handy as you pick up minor tips, it is just showing you basic art skills. This said, it does however open your eyes to important aspects of drawing for this kind of thing. Such as lighting, motion, framing, shots etc.
Overall this book is fairly good. It gives relevant and important concepts of storyboarding and how they relate to film and media. ^_^

Stop Motion

ok, at long last ive got round to writing about this piece of work, here it is firstly:



This was our first project. We were given a brief to make a 30 second stop motion film. At 12 frames a seconds that works out at about 360 shots.
Our group managed to flick through 600 photos or so. So it happened to be slightly longer then 30 seconds. Firstly i thought this would be too many photos to use because it would go over the time limit. However once i was editing, i found that 30 seconds really wasn't a long enough duration. Music editing was hard. Trying to get it in time with the pictures flow was the challenge. After a few trys and the handy razor tool i was able to get it to work. But still, when working with music to fit into a 30 second gap, which in my case, was always changing

My inspirations for making this stop motion as it is, is down to a few things but, if i had to choose just a few then it would be these.

This is a song by yellowcard: way away. I like this kind of music generally, i haven't herd them for a while but this is a classic example of what I'm trying to get at. If you have watched the clip, the introduction and the build up to the actual song is very good. It bursts into song abruptly, which gives an instant boost of energy, I like this, it gives the ability to change the mood and pace instantly. I kind of wanted this in my stop motion. My stop motion does this, by building up to the moment when the person plugs in the headphone, and then the song which i use in my piece (coburn: we interrupt this program) bursts into full swing. This gives much more focus to what the person is doing, and also makes the association between him plugging in the headphones and a good feeling (such as the music).

So we started this process by batching all the photos. This meant, setting up a kind of macro in photoshop. You first have to record what actions you want photoshop to do to your photos. Such as resizing the image, changing the contrast or the colour etc. Once you've set these procedures for it to run from, you choose which photos you would like to batch. When you set it off, it will just run through all of the photos selected and applies whatever you have set. This tool is great for the amount of photos we had. It would have been extreeeeemly time consuming and boring to do them all by hand.
Here are some examples:
the before and after



That was the easy part. After editing all of these photos. I had to import them to premier. I had decided to have two sets, which had been differently edited so they could coincide with the music. Dancing and normal. The normal pictures are of him walking, which i took some of the colour out via saturation. The dancing ones i had taken all of the colour out and whacked up the contrast, this gave it a very cool look. Overall i liked the look of them. But as i say, i had two different set, cut up into 7 different folders. This made numbering a bit time consuming, but at least batching did it for me. I just had to make sure each picture lead on from the next from the different folders. That aside. Onto premier

In premier, i had to import/fidle/playaroundwith/cut/edit/move/lengthen and so on. I made it so pictures were flicked through at 12 pics a second. This was easy enough. The music choice and editing took longest. I chose to use a track by coburn - we int erupt this program. This piece of music has a funky dancy feel, along with mellow background. So with precision and time i made it work.

uploading to youtube, was the final part. Having rendered the master version at dvavi quality it was around the 200MB mark. Youtube allows you to upload 10 minutes worth of vid and of a size of 100MB. To manage this task, i made another copy from premier which had a smaller frame size and was compressed. This in turn pushed it down to under 90MB. gdgd.

Overall i like the feel of the whole thing. I know ofc that if i spent more time on it, it would have looked much better, what with better key framing and more experimentation with the tools i had. I think next time i will defo be spending more time, making some different version to see whats better. Often its that case that even though the work you are happy with, and you are quite pleased to call finished, is not the best it could be. It could be better with a bit more this, or dont like this and that etc. So i think next time, i shall be spending more time on it. ^_^

The beginning

So heres my first post. Firstly il just say that ive never made a blog before. So hopefuly with time it should improve. But as for now, here goes.

My name is Tom Pearson. I moved up to nottingham on the 28th of september to start my university life. Out drinking every night with some amazing fancy dress has been a great start! But apart from getting drunk, we have been working. A few intro talks about our course has gotten us warmed up, along with a few mini activities.

The first activity we did were the pin hole cameras. Here we made containers out of beer cans with a lid and pinhole, which we could use to make a camera. After having NO success with these kinda things at school, i was a bit hesitant to try it again. However after having a walkabout outside the building, i managed to get some nice pics. After opening the shutter for a few seconds for the photographic paper to be affected, it was off back to the dark room. Here we developed the pieces of paper until we saw a picture. They had told us if it goes black too fast then rush it to the stopper. And typicaly, this happend to be straight away. Developer everywhere. Anywho, the pictures came out very well, two of which are shown:














When you first develop them they are negative, so good old photoshop managed to sort that out. I havent changed the colour levels so i have no idea why the left one looks slightly red. But they both seemed to come out great so im pleased. One effect i did like which someone had done was the shaking of the camera, although probaly by accident, the outcome looked very surreal, like a towering inferno.

The second activity was whiteboard animation. Here we had to draw on a whiteboard and take still photos. These are then put together and made into a short clip, where the pictures move fast enough to give the effect of movment. Ours took 2 hours to create about 12-15 seconds worth of film:




Thats what we got up to in our first week here. The main course starts on tuesday so i cant wait to get started. Ive been asked multiple times what i want to do as a career at the end of it all. to be honest i really dont know, i hope as time goes by i will be more influenced by what ive seen and take a liking to certain areas of my course. If i had to give one area to go into after uni, i would probaly say AV editing. But as this course gives such a wide variety, its a good way to see if i like differnt areas. As for now, i think il shelf that question, and answer it at a later date.