I think that this project of making our own movie might be quite enjoyable, and I actually have enjoyed the small amount of editing that we've done so far(the two short videos). I think this is because I believe that I will be able to learn this program(final cut) much more easily than I have some of the others. I seem to be much better at visual programs such as photoshop rather than coded and non-visual programming e.g. processing and max, although they are totally different so they may not be the best examples, but you get my meaning. This could be seen as slightly strange, in the way that when conveying my thoughts I don't usually use visual methods, rather I find it easier to write. Everyone is different and that is just the way I work.
Back on track: I like the group I'm working with, which will definitely make it more enjoyable than it might have been otherwise. But also what would make it much better is if we had more time. I personally think that the amount of time we have to do these sort of exercises and projects is ridiculously short.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Title unknown
We got our marks on the wearable interface today, and I've got to say that I'm pretty disappointed. Although, I've reread my comments and I now think that they're probably not as bad as I originally thought when I first read them.
I'm not sure if I should actually locally voice my opinion on the following point, but I think I might say it anyway.
Personally, there is a comment in my feedback (I'm not going to say what it is), that I'm not sure I totally agree with. Well I've said what I think and now I'll sign out.. : )
I'm not sure if I should actually locally voice my opinion on the following point, but I think I might say it anyway.
Personally, there is a comment in my feedback (I'm not going to say what it is), that I'm not sure I totally agree with. Well I've said what I think and now I'll sign out.. : )
The Wizard of Oz continued
So now we're in groups to make a short movie , 4-6 minutes I think? I'll have to double check. Well anyway, I'm in a group with the fellow members of my genre: 'crime/detective' - (just the same, everyone else is divided into groups of people that had the same genre (that's fairly obvious but I thought I'd point it out anyway)).
And guess what it has to be partly based on..?
.....
....
...
..
.
The Wizard of Oz!!!!!!!! What a surprise...
And guess what it has to be partly based on..?
.....
....
...
..
.
The Wizard of Oz!!!!!!!! What a surprise...
The Wizard of Oz
Well I'm not a huge fan of this movie...
So what we had to do was cut and choose parts of the wizard of oz and make a 3-5 min video using a genre that we randomly picked. Now mine was crime/detective. Now how the hell are you supposed to make a 3 minute crime version of twoz??!!??
And we were given 1 day...1 day!!
Well I didn't quite get mine finished, once again I kept changing my ideas, I really need to learn that that doesn't help!! So basically what I had, and basically still have, is a beginning and an end, but no middle. Now that would make quite a big flaw in my miniature movie. So I'll just have to keep going with that, hopefully with some currently absent new ideas to add to it.
So what we had to do was cut and choose parts of the wizard of oz and make a 3-5 min video using a genre that we randomly picked. Now mine was crime/detective. Now how the hell are you supposed to make a 3 minute crime version of twoz??!!??
And we were given 1 day...1 day!!
Well I didn't quite get mine finished, once again I kept changing my ideas, I really need to learn that that doesn't help!! So basically what I had, and basically still have, is a beginning and an end, but no middle. Now that would make quite a big flaw in my miniature movie. So I'll just have to keep going with that, hopefully with some currently absent new ideas to add to it.
Final Cut
So we're learning Final Cut now. We had to take a number of random videos with random music that weren't made to be put together...and make a 30 second video out of the one's we chose.
It's amazing how much you can fit into 30 seconds really. I was constantly changing my ideas, which was very annoying because it meant that the video took a lot longer to make than if I'd just stuck with one idea all along. But me, I'm a perfectionist, so that's how I work. Some of the main ideas I came up with, and actually started as well, were using sharks and a shark attack, explosions, crashes, timers and the like. I'm wondering now if I was in a bad mood and was portraying that through my ideas..?
Eventually I settled with using a beating heart, a shark and a woman's face showing fear. The idea of it was basically a heart beating quickly as a shark comes closer, followed by the fear, and then the shark going away. I also added a short video of bubbles in between some different 'scenes' in order to help the transition of the different videos. It also was a way to change the type of music and the bubbles themselves also tied in with the whole theme.
I also added a short video of rain + lightning which actually didn't have any relevance and was mainly put there to just extend the video. Altogether it ended up being 28 seconds.
I was quite pleased with the final video especially seeing as it was the first time that I had used the program. However, yesterday I went back to it and changed some things, plus added and deleted. Now it's 30 seconds!! and I'm keeping that as the final.
It's amazing how much you can fit into 30 seconds really. I was constantly changing my ideas, which was very annoying because it meant that the video took a lot longer to make than if I'd just stuck with one idea all along. But me, I'm a perfectionist, so that's how I work. Some of the main ideas I came up with, and actually started as well, were using sharks and a shark attack, explosions, crashes, timers and the like. I'm wondering now if I was in a bad mood and was portraying that through my ideas..?
Eventually I settled with using a beating heart, a shark and a woman's face showing fear. The idea of it was basically a heart beating quickly as a shark comes closer, followed by the fear, and then the shark going away. I also added a short video of bubbles in between some different 'scenes' in order to help the transition of the different videos. It also was a way to change the type of music and the bubbles themselves also tied in with the whole theme.
I also added a short video of rain + lightning which actually didn't have any relevance and was mainly put there to just extend the video. Altogether it ended up being 28 seconds.
I was quite pleased with the final video especially seeing as it was the first time that I had used the program. However, yesterday I went back to it and changed some things, plus added and deleted. Now it's 30 seconds!! and I'm keeping that as the final.
Monday, May 24, 2010
'Serious Fun' Summary
Summary of the project 'Serious Fun':
We had to think of how to incorporate at least one of our characters into something that a person could interact with but, also prevent it from being a game. We pretty much decided not to use that puzzle pieces/blocks as they would be hard to fit in with the other characters.
Our first ideas were leaning towards using Max MSP more than processing by using the webcam and filtering a person out of the image while still letting them control the characters. We had many ideas involving a person interacting with the characters by controlling them directly mainly via the webcam and Max.
After a group meeting we realised that we thinking too literally and focusing too much on the narrative of the characters without involving an outside interaction. During the meeting and then after discussing it further afterwards we decided on the idea and meaning of consumerism. Using this general meaning we came up with more ideas but also decided to use only the one character; Corey's rabbit.
After more brainstorming and discussion we decided on a general idea and did ongoing research throughout the project to develop it further until we had what we wanted.
At one point we decided what we were doing was too much of a game and therefore had to change it slightly to more tightly fit the project brief.
A large influence to us during the project was the movie Dawn of the Dead. The characters and story line in the movie have strong associations with consumerism which match our own thoughts and also added to our idea.
Our final idea was to use only the rabbit(in the scene of an office - to portray him as an average human as a typical consumerist) constantly demanding coffee(showing his demands for a product that he wants rather than needs) and also a simple object that can represent unnecessary products that a person is likely to want. What the object may be is open to interpretation by each individual person.
A person was to interact with the rabbit by feeding him coffee and giving him the object(which we had as a random coloured ellipse in processing) whenever he demands it. Specific things would happen at certain times. For example if he hasn't been given coffee or his object after a certain number of seconds, he starts to yell, gradually getting louder and more demanding. Also if he is fed too much coffee he throws up, which also further represents or main idea of consumerism. The cursor is the shape of a hand(to represent the person's hand) and can be controlled either by mouse or colour tracking from Max. We also used an apple remote to control the scene.
Our idea was developed and added to a slightly more to give us the final result that we wanted.
We had to think of how to incorporate at least one of our characters into something that a person could interact with but, also prevent it from being a game. We pretty much decided not to use that puzzle pieces/blocks as they would be hard to fit in with the other characters.
Our first ideas were leaning towards using Max MSP more than processing by using the webcam and filtering a person out of the image while still letting them control the characters. We had many ideas involving a person interacting with the characters by controlling them directly mainly via the webcam and Max.
After a group meeting we realised that we thinking too literally and focusing too much on the narrative of the characters without involving an outside interaction. During the meeting and then after discussing it further afterwards we decided on the idea and meaning of consumerism. Using this general meaning we came up with more ideas but also decided to use only the one character; Corey's rabbit.
After more brainstorming and discussion we decided on a general idea and did ongoing research throughout the project to develop it further until we had what we wanted.
At one point we decided what we were doing was too much of a game and therefore had to change it slightly to more tightly fit the project brief.
A large influence to us during the project was the movie Dawn of the Dead. The characters and story line in the movie have strong associations with consumerism which match our own thoughts and also added to our idea.
Our final idea was to use only the rabbit(in the scene of an office - to portray him as an average human as a typical consumerist) constantly demanding coffee(showing his demands for a product that he wants rather than needs) and also a simple object that can represent unnecessary products that a person is likely to want. What the object may be is open to interpretation by each individual person.
A person was to interact with the rabbit by feeding him coffee and giving him the object(which we had as a random coloured ellipse in processing) whenever he demands it. Specific things would happen at certain times. For example if he hasn't been given coffee or his object after a certain number of seconds, he starts to yell, gradually getting louder and more demanding. Also if he is fed too much coffee he throws up, which also further represents or main idea of consumerism. The cursor is the shape of a hand(to represent the person's hand) and can be controlled either by mouse or colour tracking from Max. We also used an apple remote to control the scene.
Our idea was developed and added to a slightly more to give us the final result that we wanted.
'Serious Fun'
We're finished with the claymations and now staying in the groups(optional but seems to be preferred) we have to use at least one of the characters and develop it further, giving it a 'personality through its visual appearance, type of motion etc'. From the brief(regarding the character: 'creating a work in which the participant playfully interacts with the character.' This has to be demonstrated without it turning into/becoming a game.
Claymation
The day after choosing a character, developing it a reasonable amount and portraying it in a flip book, we then had to make a claymation of it. I'm happy to say that I actually enjoyed doing the claymations, I couldn't say specifically why, but I did. So I was a bit disappointed that we didn't do it for very long.
With my puzzle being basically 2-D it was a bit difficult to decide how to do the claymation. Now, I had thought of that the day before, but being the person I am and wanting to get the first part finished I just decided that I would deal with it the next day...
Instead of using the flat puzzle pieces I changed them to cubes which, though you couldn't see in the video, had the cut out semi-circle and attached semi-circle parts to make them look more like puzzle pieces. In my opinion the claymation didn't turn out very well. I hate to say this again, but I know that if I had been given more time, it would have been better.
After the individual ones were done, we got into groups of 3 or 4 and added our characters together to make a group claymation.
I was in a group with Emma and Corey who's character were, two oranges plus a knife(Emma), and a sort of blue rabbit alien thing(Corey). So we then had to figure out how to combine our characters to make a successful and understandable claymation.
We decided to have my puzzle as blocks and form some sort of block-like bowl in the middle of the scene. As those are moving Emma's orange(singular) starts to come in from the left side and at the same time have Corey's rabbit come in from the right. The orange, which has a face, reaches the blocks(we'll call it a bowl) and out of curiosity looks inside it. The rabbit sees the orange and also walks to the bowl. Once the orange is inside the bowl, the rabbit reaches it, squashes it and then proceeds to drink the orange from the bowl(added sound effect).
While it's drinking, Emma's second orange falls down and hits the rabbit, squashing it and knocking the teeth out(worked well, added detail)(another added sound effect). As the orange hits the ground it turns and smile at the camera, then Emma's knife comes down and cuts itin half(added sound effect). All that survives it the knife(and the bowl I suppose).
The final video looked pretty good, and I think the sound effects worked well. We didn't have a sound track in the background unlike many other groups, but I think that having silence and then the sudden sounds, added to each scene and gave it more impact. Unfortunately the fishwire used occasionally in the video can still be seen as the photoshop'd photos accidentally didn't get put in. Despite that I think it worked very well:
With my puzzle being basically 2-D it was a bit difficult to decide how to do the claymation. Now, I had thought of that the day before, but being the person I am and wanting to get the first part finished I just decided that I would deal with it the next day...
Instead of using the flat puzzle pieces I changed them to cubes which, though you couldn't see in the video, had the cut out semi-circle and attached semi-circle parts to make them look more like puzzle pieces. In my opinion the claymation didn't turn out very well. I hate to say this again, but I know that if I had been given more time, it would have been better.
After the individual ones were done, we got into groups of 3 or 4 and added our characters together to make a group claymation.
I was in a group with Emma and Corey who's character were, two oranges plus a knife(Emma), and a sort of blue rabbit alien thing(Corey). So we then had to figure out how to combine our characters to make a successful and understandable claymation.
We decided to have my puzzle as blocks and form some sort of block-like bowl in the middle of the scene. As those are moving Emma's orange(singular) starts to come in from the left side and at the same time have Corey's rabbit come in from the right. The orange, which has a face, reaches the blocks(we'll call it a bowl) and out of curiosity looks inside it. The rabbit sees the orange and also walks to the bowl. Once the orange is inside the bowl, the rabbit reaches it, squashes it and then proceeds to drink the orange from the bowl(added sound effect).
While it's drinking, Emma's second orange falls down and hits the rabbit, squashing it and knocking the teeth out(worked well, added detail)(another added sound effect). As the orange hits the ground it turns and smile at the camera, then Emma's knife comes down and cuts itin half(added sound effect). All that survives it the knife(and the bowl I suppose).
The final video looked pretty good, and I think the sound effects worked well. We didn't have a sound track in the background unlike many other groups, but I think that having silence and then the sudden sounds, added to each scene and gave it more impact. Unfortunately the fishwire used occasionally in the video can still be seen as the photoshop'd photos accidentally didn't get put in. Despite that I think it worked very well:
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Character invention
Our next exercise after processing was to create a character through original ideas and development. In the end, after much thought and discarded ideas I actually came up with something. If I had been given more time, it's hard to say whether I would have come up with something better or nothing more. What I came up with, was something that could probably have been developed a lot more if necessary, although I may also have just ditched that idea too.
What I had was a completed puzzle which came apart piece by piece to eventually form a different puzzle. There were a number of different images or patterns that the puzzle might make, with the simplest possibly just different colours. The pieces would rotate and move in different directions once they were disconnected and break apart if they collided.
We had to make a flip book of our character in action and because the pages are small and with so many to draw, I decided to just use a puzzle with only nine pieces and no specific pattern. Doing it like this meant that the book would portray my idea, without me having to go into too much time consuming detail and would also allow for further development.
Flip books take a long time to draw, as every new page has to have the same image. To do this properly I just used a light under a glass table so that the drawings could easily be traced to the correct size and shape. While this is very helpful, after having drawn the same image lots of times I started to get not so specific about the detail. Being a perfectionist, this is a big failure for me...
I found that if the pages where lined up together it was a lot harder to flick though them properly e.g pages would get stuck together which meant that not every would be shown. So instead when lining up that pages I moved each piece slightly higher/further up than the previous one. This gave it a sort of step like construction and made it a lot easier to flick through the pieces.
In this post is a video of my book. Not done nearly as well as would have been if I had had more time. The video is slightly blurred but it is still possible to see what is happening.
What I had was a completed puzzle which came apart piece by piece to eventually form a different puzzle. There were a number of different images or patterns that the puzzle might make, with the simplest possibly just different colours. The pieces would rotate and move in different directions once they were disconnected and break apart if they collided.
We had to make a flip book of our character in action and because the pages are small and with so many to draw, I decided to just use a puzzle with only nine pieces and no specific pattern. Doing it like this meant that the book would portray my idea, without me having to go into too much time consuming detail and would also allow for further development.
Flip books take a long time to draw, as every new page has to have the same image. To do this properly I just used a light under a glass table so that the drawings could easily be traced to the correct size and shape. While this is very helpful, after having drawn the same image lots of times I started to get not so specific about the detail. Being a perfectionist, this is a big failure for me...
I found that if the pages where lined up together it was a lot harder to flick though them properly e.g pages would get stuck together which meant that not every would be shown. So instead when lining up that pages I moved each piece slightly higher/further up than the previous one. This gave it a sort of step like construction and made it a lot easier to flick through the pieces.
In this post is a video of my book. Not done nearly as well as would have been if I had had more time. The video is slightly blurred but it is still possible to see what is happening.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Processing
Ok well the processing is finished now but here's a look into the past:
Presentations everyday! I mean come on how is that fair? Thankfully(as I've said and need to emphasise), a minute is a relatively short time to be up in front of an audience. Although, after a while the audience started to lessen as many people left before the presentations started...it really is a mystery as to why that happened.
I'm not too fond of 'processing', but then I think I can probably say the same thing about all the programs that we have used, it seems that I am definitely not a programming person. That meant that the two weeks spent on learning it weren't the most enjoyable two weeks of my life.
I stayed up pretty late the night before our 39 exercises were, and eventually got them finished, thanks to some help that I got. The main thing I'm worried about now that they've been handed in is that whether or not they're good enough for me to pass. But I am truly hoping that they will be.
I haven't said all that much, but those thoughts pretty much sum up the two weeks if 'processing'.
Presentations everyday! I mean come on how is that fair? Thankfully(as I've said and need to emphasise), a minute is a relatively short time to be up in front of an audience. Although, after a while the audience started to lessen as many people left before the presentations started...it really is a mystery as to why that happened.
I'm not too fond of 'processing', but then I think I can probably say the same thing about all the programs that we have used, it seems that I am definitely not a programming person. That meant that the two weeks spent on learning it weren't the most enjoyable two weeks of my life.
I stayed up pretty late the night before our 39 exercises were, and eventually got them finished, thanks to some help that I got. The main thing I'm worried about now that they've been handed in is that whether or not they're good enough for me to pass. But I am truly hoping that they will be.
I haven't said all that much, but those thoughts pretty much sum up the two weeks if 'processing'.
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