A.Page

500 word rationale

2011-05-27T06:19:00.000-07:00

Over the past two terms i have been creating an animation that is an interpretation of Marry Shelley's Frankenstien. I choose this script as Im interested in creating a virtual environment that portrays the emotions and feel of an animation. I focused on creating an environment by looking into how my mise en scene and cinematography would be interpreted by an audience. I also like the darkness and creepiness of the script and the internal struggle that goes on in the professors mind about creating something new and groundbreaking and his total fascination and engrossment in his work. then at the end his disgust at what he has created.

The look of my animation had to be in the gothic style as it is sterotypical gothic. I also decided that the look of his lab should also contain references to his work, that his objects and rooms should look like the internal working of the body. My original idea was to have every object shaped as an internal organ, but some of the objects didn't work to well and added confusion to the overall look. My favourite example of this working well is the fireplace in the shape of a heart, it still looks like a fireplace but has gothic features as well. Another example is the stairs in the first scene has a subtle look of a human spine and ribs but all the normal features of wrought iron spiral staircase. For objects that didn't work well shaped as a combination of gothic and organs I added a organ/tissue coloured texture to add a quirky detail.

As I was focusing on the mise en scene and cinematography rather than character animation I decided that my animation should be in the style of a movie trailer rather than a whole story. Frankenstein is so famous that I wanted my animation to be a glimpse into my version of the frankenstien story in visual representation. I feel the overall look gives the trailer the gothic, scary feel of the original story and the emotions going on of the creator. I added a courtyard scene of a tree to represent the amount of time spent on his work. The stairs, to show the location of his work in the top of the house. The religious stained glass window to show his internal struggle of his emotions to create and whether his work is ungodly and wrong. I also added multiple shots at different interesting angles to add a feeling of power and wonder.

As telling the story was done through the use a visual environment I decided I would create my own textures as I felt this would work well with my ideas of combining gothic design with human organs and body parts. I feel the use of my own textures added a feeling of togetherness and brought the project and scenes together as a whole.

Looking back over the outcome of the project, I am pleased with the overall look but I am slightly disappointed with the animation, it looks like the way I visualized it but I don't think it portrays how much time and work went into it. The lighting is alot darker in some shots than when I rendered it. To add suspense and excitement I also added a quick moving ending to the animation but I feel alot of the detail and textures I created are lost. Although the use of erie music helps to add to the scariness. At the end of this project I do feel my skill from texturing, lighting and modeling making have greatly improved from my previous work.

Images from my animation!

2011-05-27T06:17:00.001-07:00

Character Designs!

2011-05-27T06:03:00.000-07:00

Although I am doing the frankenstein script I have still created two characters that go with the story. I created a professor/creator in a white lab coat and wearing black rubber glove to protect him from the work he does, I also gave my character magnifying goggles in a victorian style, so he can see his work in closer detail. The overall look of my characters are inhuman beings that are cross between a rodent/alien creature as I feel this helps the viewer understand the inhuman work the creator is doing and that the creator is also a monster for the work he does. The Monster is similar to the creator but on a much larger scale, has yellow/greenish skin and is not in proportion as mentioned in the script. I also gave my character longer arms because I see the creator uses his hands a lot when working and the monster also has long arms because he is made up of part of a similar creature to the professor.

Modeling!!!

2011-05-27T05:56:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the renders of my modeling during my project. I feel the gothic/victorian gothic style is coming across well and the use of my own textures helps the overall look of the creator obsession of the human body and the way it works not only in his work but in his own home, creating an ideal place to work within his own world.

Creating My own textures!

2011-05-27T05:45:00.000-07:00

As the focus of my script is the environment to tell the story I have created my own textures rather than using default 3ds max or of the internet. I have used the starting point from the art of seeing project to take my own pictures of the textures I would like to have in my animation. I then changed and manipulated these images in photoshop to suit my design of being inside the creators mind and thoughts of his work. I used these textures together in my project to make it look more real and layered different textures together so I could have a stone wall, put it was flesh coloured like human organs for example.

Visual Inspiration!

2011-05-27T05:23:00.000-07:00

The overal look of my animation has got to be gothic. My main influences are these images of medieval architecture from churches and cathedrals. I want the look of my scenes to have a combination of medieval gothic in architecture but also to have aspects of Victorian gothic furniture and style to add more colour and patterns.

Flickr- The Art of seeing Brief!

2011-03-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

This is a selection of textures that I have taken for this project and have uploaded onto Flickr. Bellow is a link to my flickr account. I have taken a group of photos to show the changes of light in different locations and different textures that have interested me. Most of the textures are man made/manipulated and are also of a neglected, weathered and aged theme as I feel these are more visually pleasing and everyone is unique.

Link

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60755226@N05/

Project Complete!

2010-12-10T12:16:00.000-08:00

After rending my my project for what feels like forever I have completed my Animation. Overall I am happy with my final piece and like the way it has turned out. I like the look of my robo-butler and my environment and feel it fits well with my futuristic home of the future. I like the cartoon look my animation has with the use of bright colours and shiny textures. I also like the design of my environment as it worked well as the set for my animation, it had a good flow as the camera moved across for the opening scene establishing the scene. I also liked the use of camera zooms as the animation played as this added drama to the banana shot to build up comedic affect. Although it is clear and very predictable that the robo-butler will slip and fall over because of the banana I feel the ending works well as it is a surprise most people wont guess. After creating my walk it was clear it still didn't work as well as i hoped and if I had more time I would like to perfect it as I think it could work well and explain more about how my character works in its environment. I wanted the walk to be careful and each foot well placed as he was careful at not trying to slip over on the polished floor as it was very slippery due to its impractical design. I feel this walking sequence is the weakest part of my animation and I would still like to spend more time developing it, but due to the deadline it wasn't possible. I would also like to add more sounds to my animation as I feel it lacks background sounds such as robot movements or machine hums. Overall though I am very happy with my finished animation and feel it fits the required outcomes for the project. I have enjoyed creating this project from designing ideas to creating it in 3d. For the next projects in term two I would like to create a more realistic final outcome rather than a cartoon feel.

2010-12-10T11:55:00.000-08:00

Animating!

2010-12-10T11:14:00.000-08:00

Whilst animating my animation I realised I had alot of shots and scenes that were not needed as they added notting and even added confusion as it wasn't clear what was exactly going on. As it was only a minute long it also took more time away from more important parts such as falling over and the surprise ending. Whilst creating the walk form my robo-butler I tried to create a walk that showed more of my robots personality as everyones walk is individual. I looked at how butlers walk in real life by looking at clips from films and youtube clips. One big influence was the butler form Corpse Bride. In this animation the butler has a very unusual walk and posture. His body posture was very closed and kept together, His arms and hands hardly moved whilst walking unless he was moving or picking something up. His arm movements were slow and expertly performed, whilst his legs were fast and quick paced almost blurry at times. I added these features to my robot rather than a robotic movement as I feel this added to my character personality. During my animating I decided That due to the shiny/high polished affect of my flooring I made my characters walk very careful and well placed movements as he is scared of falling over the slippery floor let alone a banana skin. His steps are small and carefully placed although he still walks at a steady pace, so some times his feet slip forward a bit during his walk.

My Story

2010-12-10T11:00:00.000-08:00

After creating my robot and my environment I started to animate my robot. The story of my 1min animation for bots and bananas is about a robot butler that is starting his daily chores in the morning. It starts with a moving camera shoot across the room to set the scene. The audience will see the futuristic setting and furniture so they understand that it is set in the distant future and it is a modern day home in the sky. They will then see the robot starting to walk to his work station, by looking at his attire I hope people will recognise that it is the dress of a butler but its on a robot. As he starts to walk to his work station the audience will see a banana skin on the floor that the robot hasn't noticed. The audience is then lead to believe that the robot is about to slip on the banana, which he does do but thats not all that happens. After falling over as the robo-butler regains his wits and realises that in falling over he has damaged his work station and it starts losing power and begins to shut down. This make the robot panic as he is lying down underneath the main control centre of the computer. The surprise is this then comes crashing down on top of the robo-butler as he tries to get back up.

2010-12-10T10:55:00.000-08:00

My 3d Environment

2010-12-10T10:40:00.000-08:00

In 3d Max I designsed my environment around some of my favourite features of the research I did from Sleeper, sculpture house the Jetsons and other futuristic Furniture designs. I then changed these to make them look even more realistic by having them made in ultra shiny reflective materials, having them balance on tiny legs or stands and even hovering in mid air. I added other detail such as hovering circular rings to add an even more unrealistic/futuristic look to my furniture. This also made them look more space aged as it almost looked like rings around a planet like saturn. I also added shiny textures to all my objects or a translucent colour affect so everything looked man made. With so many reflective materials the light and shapes of other objects were reflected in everything else which added to the theme of a futuristic setting.

2010-12-09T12:47:00.000-08:00

My Robot

2010-12-09T12:22:00.000-08:00

The design of my robot is a combination of the Woody Allen's impersonation of a robot butler and the Jetsons cartoon butler. I like the idea of the overall look of my animation being in a cartoon style but a modern interpretation and 3d animated rather than an hand drawn animation. I have created it so it looks like my robot is made of shiny coloured metal and I have also added colour by giving him a blue body and yellow detail rather than being black and white like conventional butlers. I have also added a bow-tie, jacket detail and jacket tails. I have given my robot a large square head to emphasise his intelligence and he only has one eye so he focuses on his tasks. He also doesn't have a mouth as he receives orders and doesn't give them so he has no need to talk.

2010-12-09T12:20:00.000-08:00

2010-12-09T12:18:00.000-08:00

Futuristic Environment

2010-12-09T12:07:00.000-08:00

For my animation I will create a house of the future. From looking at the sculpture house I will create the layout and furniture to a similar style. I will use shiny textures such as plastics, glass and metals for my environment. I have also looked at furniture that has been designed to be ultra modern and also designs that may not be possible in really life due to manufacturing techniques or laws of gravity. I also like the use of bright colours to add detail and depth to rooms that are minimal and usually black and white.

2010-12-09T11:27:00.000-08:00

The sculpture House

2010-12-09T11:05:00.000-08:00

In Sleeper the house that is featured is a house in colorado USA. The sculpture house was designed by architect Charles Deaton and is in a distinctive elliptical curve. It also features a large glassed wall to make the most of its views over jefferson county. The house is raised of the ground and looks like its almost hovering in the air adding to its futuristic look. It is also known as the Star Trex House, clamshell House, flying saucer house and my other main influence the jetsons. I like the aesthetics and the overall look of the building as its very futuristic even though it was built in 1963. I like the use of shiny/polished materials and glass as textures for my environment.

Sleeper!!!

2010-12-09T10:53:00.000-08:00

In sleeper woody Allen Plays the part of a robot butler to escape capture. These robots are capable of doing the sort of things I would like my robot to do in my animation. I like the combination of a machine look but wearing butler clothes. I shall use these features in my robot design so it looks more like a butler than an ordinary robot. This way he shall match his job description and gives the audience an idea of the robots purpose in the animation. Watching this film has helped me fine tune my ideas and has helped to develop other ideas.

Sleeper!!!

2010-12-09T10:46:00.000-08:00

Sleeper is a futuristic science fiction comedy film, written by Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman, and directed by Allen. The plot involves the adventures of the owner of a Greenwich Village, New York health food store played by Woody Allen who is cryogenically frozen in 1973 and defrosted 200 years later in an inept totalitarian state. The film contains several plot points which parody or spoof several well-known works of science-fiction, most notably H. G. Wells's novel The Sleeper Awakes and George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

2010-12-09T10:43:00.000-08:00

Time for an update!

2010-12-09T09:52:00.000-08:00

Robot butler

For the bots and banana project I will create a robot that has to fall over, trip and slip over. The design of my robot will be a robot butler, a robo-butler. I like the idea of it set in the future where every household has a robot to do their house work and daily chores. Although the robot has chores to do, they can all be achieved in seconds with the flick of a switch or the push of a button. This easy way of life has created a robo-butler of high intelligence that has nothing to do for most of the day but the simplest of tasks, this makes him feel unappreciated and underused.

2010-10-30T06:05:00.000-07:00

Futurism is an artistic movement in Italy around 1910 that tried to express the energy and values of the machine age. It was about looking to the future and forgetting the past. Like Bauhaus it was about angular shapes combined with curved edges. The shapes used were extravagant and unrealistic but the colours were simple and plain and patterns were nonexistent. I feel that by looking at futurism and bauhaus it will give me ideas and themes to design my set and location for my robot. As my robot is a robot butler/maid I feel this will work well together.

Bauhaus style and Movement!

2010-10-30T05:51:00.000-07:00

Bauhaus was a design school that emerged in Germany in 1919. Bauhaus designers and their students broke from tradition and developed a very modernist style. Their primary intention was to integrate art, technology and craftsmanship by ignoring precedent and generating a new design philosophy. The innovative ideas ranged from architecture to furniture design to typography. They believed that design of any sort ought to be considered a high art as does painting or sculpture.

2010-10-20T15:43:00.000-07:00

Futurism and Bauhaus!!!

2010-10-20T15:20:00.000-07:00

Futurism

noun

a style of the fine arts developed originally by a group of Italian artists about 1910in which forms derived chiefly from cubism were used torepresent rapid movement and dynamic motion.

often initial capital letter a style of art, literature, music,etc., and a theory of art and life in which violence, power,speed, mechanization or machines, and hostility to the pastor to traditional forms of expression were advocated or portrayed.

Bauhaus

Bauhaus was a design school that emerged in Germany in 1919. Bauhaus designers and their students broke from traditional and developed a very modernist style.

2010-10-20T15:19:00.000-07:00

2010-10-20T14:46:00.000-07:00

After deciding that I would create my robot as a servant for my one minute slapstick comedy sketch I looked at different designs of existing examples. One of the biggest influences was the Jetsons. It is a cartoon family called the Jetsons who live in the year 2062. It was created by Hanna-Barabera who also created the Flintstones and had a similar storyline . It was First aired in 1962 and tells the story of an American family in a Futuristic Utopia filled with Robotic contraptions, aliens, holograms and time saving inventions.

2010-10-20T14:32:00.000-07:00

From initial research into robots and the design of robots I really liked the idea of a robot servant. The first robots that were designed were initially created to ease the workload of the everyday man. They were supposed to make are lives easier, they would work for free, work all hours of the day and you don't have to feel sorry for them as they are only robots.

2010-10-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

2010-10-20T14:24:00.000-07:00

Robot

noun

a machine that resembles a human and does mechanical,routine tasks on command.

a person who acts and responds in a mechanical, routinemanner, usually subject to another's will; automaton.

any machine or mechanical device that operatesautomatically with humanlike skill.

2010-10-20T14:22:00.000-07:00

2010-10-20T14:19:00.000-07:00

Bots and Bananas! The first task!

2010-10-20T14:01:00.000-07:00

The first project of this year is to produce a robot that can walk, trip, slip and fall. To do this i must create a complex Bipedal robot. I will start by researching robot designs and slapstick comedy to influence my ideas. Slapstick.... but what makes up a slapstick comedy, Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which exceed the boundaries of common sense. Some of the most famous and copied slapstick artists are Charlie Chapman, buster Keaton, Laurel and hardy and the Three stooges.

New Year, a new start!

2010-10-14T01:00:00.000-07:00

After the holidays its great to be back. After the first week of lectures and seminars it looks like this year is going to be a good year filled with many different projects and event to really get into. The first brief "bots and banana" sounds amazing, we are going to create a robot that can walk, trip and slip over and fall. Im excited to get started, but know that it will be a difficult few weeks trying to achieve the look and feel I want.

2010-05-19T12:28:00.001-07:00

2010-05-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

2010-05-19T09:52:00.000-07:00

Now our group film ambient Vapour is finished Im happy with our final edit. At the start of the project I was not that excited about the the moving image pathway as it has never really been a big interest of mine to be part of a film company or project, but after trying it out and working as a team I feel more confident using the equipment and programs than I did at the start. I understand how much effort and ideas goes into producing a film. It felt like during filming that the pathway was called moving image because it was alot of moving to different locations, with lots of heavy equipment. but overall I am very happy with our groups film as I feel we worked well as a group and came up with a very good final piece of work.

2010-05-19T08:51:00.000-07:00

Once all the film was completed we started to edit our film. As a group we spent two days capturing and editing our film together in the editing suite. After these two days we felt we had finished our short film, but we might add some erie music to it so we were happy with how quickly it had come together. That night we managed to lose our saved project and had to re-edit the whole film again!!!!!!!! :(

Although at the time this was very frustrating and very, very annoying it made us work though all the scenes again and gave us more time to think of better ways to finish our film. We saved ever copy we made and changed together on every possible hard drive and memory stick we had. After many different versions and every one in the group being a perfectionist we came up with what we thought was our final film. After getting feed back from our piers and Jools in was discovered that somethings still weren't quite right with our film.

The zooming in on the phone should be three separate shots instead of one continous zoomed in shot. The reasons for this was the camera/camera man spent to long a time re-focusing the shot which added more unneeded frames that were out of focus. If the scene had been created using three shots which when then edited together the shot would be clearer to see and half the time, but without losing its meaning in the story.

To cut off the zoom in in the bed scene as you already get what is going on. The reason this was edited was because you knew what was happing and it didn't need to be as long as it was as nothing else was going to happen in that shot. cutting this down also help kept the viewer interested in the story with out becoming bored with overly long scenes.

To repeat the first two smoke scenes to the end. These scenes were shown again to show the audience that they already know what will happen after the room fills with smoke. It explains that the timeline of the film is broken and that it actually starts with the end. These two scenes were also shortened as it wasn't necessary to see the whole shots again as this would bore the audience, but as just a refresher of what they had seen at the beginning to remind them that the scene are in the wrong order.

To add the erie Music to the text message scenes as well. The erie music that appears during the smoke scenes was added to all the text message scenes as it gave the audience an understanding of how the character was feeling whilst reading the messages, but without the character having to speak. It also added tension and drama to the scene, which without would be boring and dull to watch. It also explained that these messages were from the same person/thing and has some relationship to the first two scene as it shares the same erie music.

2010-05-19T08:45:00.000-07:00

2010-05-19T08:44:00.000-07:00

My story boards

2010-05-19T08:35:00.000-07:00

After coming up with our new scene we then development our story boards as a group. Each person was given two scenes to work on and to create a story board of each scene. I developed scene 1 and 10. After creating these story boards we went through each other story boards and developed them as a group deciding wether it worked or could look better. We also came up with a time table of which scenes we were filming on which day and which actors would be needed for each scenes. This timetable helped as understand as a group what we were doing and when it was going to happen. We managed to film our whole film over three days in 6 different locations from lector scenes, kitchen scenes, warehouse scenes and a smokey dark room.

2010-05-19T08:14:00.000-07:00

Moving Image- Ambient Vapour!!!!

2010-05-19T07:41:00.000-07:00

For The Moving image project I worked with Charlotte, Helen, Salome and Vyte. Charlotte took the role of Director, Helen: Producer, Vyte: Editor, Salome: Camera and I was in charge of sound. We were given a script called Ambient Vapour which we gathered as a group was something to do with an addiction and that it was a mystery/drama genre. We had to make a presentation on what we thought of the script, what are new scene would be, actors we would be using, the locations we would film, sound we would use and to show examples of pieces of work we liked.

We basically had to put a rough idea of what we thought our script was about and how we as a group were going to produce it as a short film. We came up with lots of different ideas of how the finished work could look and lots of ideas for the new scene we had to add to the script. After reading the script we were unsure as to what the main theme of the script was about, was it an addiction such as drugs or alcohol, or was it a cult or some short of dream. We liked this confusion so decided against putting and evidence of any of these in the film so, after watching our film the audience would make up their own mind as to what was ambient Vapour.

For our extra scene we had to create we came up with a rough idea that there would use a double screen with the girl talking to herself, but we would show more than one of herself almost as if she was taking to her subconscious mind. so you would see her as a good person on the left and a bad person on her right, she would be having a discussion with herself deciding what she should do. We gathered from the script that she couldn't remember what she had done or it was about to happened but was shown in the wrong order?

As the script was very confusing when we started the project we decided against this idea of the main character talking to herself as we felt it would add to much confusion as to what was going on and it had hardly any connection to our story and we felt it had had been used too many times before. We then came up with another idea based on the film 500 days of summer. In 500 days of summer the screen is divided into two to show two very different ideas of the same scene. It shows the reality of what is actually happening and what the character thinks is happening. As a group we liked this idea as it meant we could show the affect of Ambient Vapour on the character without adding any more confusing dialogue. The spilt screen would show what she thinks is happening... that she is asleep in bed and the reality.... she is going to the warehouse where ambient vapour takes place.

2010-05-19T07:04:00.000-07:00

I have enjoyed making this pathway, creating my own quiz more than I thought I would have. At the start like using 3d studio max I found flash very hard to understand as I have only ever used it this year. However I have continued to work with a very complicated set of codes to create my final piece of work. I am happy with the way it has turned out and I feel it meets the desired out comes, such as animation, video clip and adding sound/music. I also think that the idea of creating a quiz around the theme of Alice In wonderland worked well and makes the quiz more interesting.

Finished Jokers Lair!

2010-05-18T10:40:00.000-07:00

2010-05-18T09:49:00.000-07:00

2010-05-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

2010-05-18T09:27:00.000-07:00

2010-05-18T09:15:00.000-07:00

Once my images and questions were created I started putting my quiz together. At first I found this very difficult and a big test of my patients, because if one one part of the code was incorrect none of my quiz would work. This happened a number of times and was very frustrating and took a very long time to correct even though it might only have been because one missing letter or missed title. After a while these mistakes happened less and less often as I was more careful and understood why I kept going wrong. I then created an animation tween in the middle of my quiz so when your answering the questions its not question after question until the end. The animation is of alice shrinking after drinking some tonic. I also added some music to my work that plays though out the quiz. At the end of the quiz the user gets a reward of watching the trailer to the new Alice in Wonderland film and to know their score. If their score is not 10/10 they can reattempt the quiz again!

2010-05-18T09:09:00.000-07:00

original

My own white rabbit.

original.

My own Caterpillar.

2010-05-18T08:12:00.000-07:00

Original Illustration

My own drawings!

2010-05-18T07:58:00.000-07:00

many of the Quizzes I looked at included lots of images from the films or they had hardly any images at all. I was going to produce a quiz that was about lewis Carrols book, so i didn't want to use any images from any of the films. To add interest to my quiz I created some drawings inspired form the original illustrations from the books. I created them by drawing by hand and manipulating them in illustrator to add colour and patterns. I did this rather than use the original illustrations as I wanted my quiz to look like the original book, but with my own interpretation added to it.

2010-05-18T07:56:00.000-07:00

Harry Potter Quiz!

Interactive narrative- A quiz!

2010-05-18T07:44:00.000-07:00

After researching entertainment interactive quiz's, I discovered that there was many different types from basic quiz's on trivia to current events such a films and celebrities. I decided to create a quiz on something current at the time as I felt this would be the most interesting and fun to use and to create. At the time I created my quiz one of the most talked about film was the new Alice in wonderland Film. So I created my quiz on questions about the Alice and Wonderland book written by lewis Carrol. I looked at other examples of quiz's that were about films and books such as the Harry Potter series. I started to come up with ideas for the type of questions and layout of my quiz from looking at these examples.

2010-05-18T07:12:00.000-07:00

I found it very hard using the 3ds max software at first and found my self repeating some of the steps because I had created what I wanted by wasn't quite sure on how I had achieved it so I alot of my time in the first three weeks I did not really producing anything for my final piece, but spent my time playing with the program and trying to famililarize myself with each different process. Have spent some weeks practising, I felt more confident in making things that I want to appear in my Lair. I created many different objects from glass bottles and flasks in the Lab, to more unusual machines in the Joker cave. The inspiration for my machines were from children's toys like spinning tops and sand timers, combined with electrical equipment and what future technology might look like, such as laser guns and teleportation machines.

I have set my filming of the lair as a high widescreen angle to give it a look of being watched through on one of batman flying, spying gadgets. I also added some batman music to my film created by Danny Elfman.

I really enjoyed making this project, at first I found the software very hard to understand, but interesting at the same time as I developed understanding of how it works. I gained confidence when practising with the software and I feel I managed to create a interesting interpretation of what the Joker's lair could look like if it actually existed.

2010-05-18T07:06:00.000-07:00

The Joker Cave

The Lab

The prison

The Meetings Room.

2010-05-18T06:50:00.000-07:00

for the layout of my lair I created four rooms that lead of each other, as I felt that the joker's lair was likely to be underground in the centre of Gotham city. As it was going to be set underground each room is rather small and has a chrostophobic feeling almost like a padded cell in an insane asyleme. The four rooms I created are a meetings room, to talk about getting batman and ruining Gotham city. A prison cell, for capturing and killing his prisoners in. A lab were he creates and works on his new plans, and his own version of the batcave.... the jokercave. This is were he keeps all his inventions and his supercomputer!!! I decided against having any living quarters in my lair as the joker probably doesn't eat or sleep, but probably takes some medication that he has created in his lab.

2010-05-18T06:31:00.000-07:00

The joker has Throughout his comic book appearances been portrayed as a master criminal whose characterization has varied from that of a violent psychopath to a goofy trickster-thief. Whilst creating my lair for the joker I thought about what would the joker would need in his lair? and what would it look like? I took inspiration from the DC comic strips and also the batman films and cartoons. One of the most important parts of his character is he is a insane trickster who is symbolised by the the image of the joker card in a pack of playing cards. He has also been compared to a clown and in many films and cartoons his servant's wear clown masks or clothes. From these two main inspiration points I created my lair with bright playful colours and created some of my own imagery in photoshop and illustrator that depicted jokers and clowns. I used these images as wall coverings, secret doorways and posters as I felt that the joker would cover his own surroundings in images of himself as he feels that he is the only important person in the whole world. Creating these drawings gave the look of the lair a cartoon look, so i worked with it by using more bright clashing colours.

2010-05-18T06:15:00.000-07:00

Villains Lair!!!

2010-05-18T05:02:00.000-07:00

After researching into the idea of a villains/superhero's lair, I decided to create a villains lair rather than a superhero's as a found out that a villains lairs were more interesting as they showed their personality and in most cases their insanity for wanting to take over the world. I looked at various different villains lairs from Syndromes remote tropical island, in the Incredibles, with its 1950's look at the future of design, superman's enemy Lex Luthors Opulent Mansion to Dracula's Gothic Castle. In the end i decided to create the Joker's Lair. I choose BatMan's number one arch enemy because unlike many super villains, he's not crazy he's completely insane, so because of this factor it would give me as much freedom to design my lair in any way I felt would match his insanity.

2010-05-05T14:17:00.000-07:00

Scene 1

scene 10

2010-03-23T04:10:00.000-07:00

In our seminar last week we were given a task to research sources from other peoples blogs. We looked at the blogs from the first year multimedia blogs so we could look at any links they had looked at or different ideas or designers.I thought this was good to see what other people were researching in their blogs and it meant we might have found something that could help us a lot with our work.

Then we had to get into groups and think of 5 questions you could ask someone about their development, which could get more than a yes or no answer. As a group we found this very difficult to come up with five very clear questions that were easy to understand and were broad in the answers they gave. Our groups questions were..

Where do you draw your inspiration from?
Where do you see your career in design going?
How are you achieving these goals?
What do you think is important to your own development?
How are you going to keep your work fresh and new?

We then had to go and find someone in another group and ask them our questions and we had to record their answers.

A lot of my work is inspired by graphic designers, which i then interpet into different forms of media.
I see my career heading towards freelance film making, film noir.
I hope to create and develop lots of contacts in industry during this three year course.
a variety of different sources, trying things iv never done before and not dismissing any ideas or influences, trying anything and everything.
(same answer as above)

I thought this was a good task to set as your saw a different side to peoples ideas and creativity. you also saw what other people were researching in their blogs and it meant we might have found something that could help us a lot with our own work. You also got a better understand of each individual persons thoughts and feelings. it also helped me in developing my blog.

3D Studio Max!!!

2010-02-05T01:12:00.000-08:00

3D Studio MAX is a modeling, animation and rendering package developed by Autodesk Media and Entertainment.It can be used by video game developers, TV commercial studios and architectural visualization studios. It is also used for It has modeling capabilities, a flexible architecture design, is able to be used on the Microsoft Windows platforms and movie effects and movie pre-visualization.

I have been using 3D Studio Max to help create my own work by creating a villains lair! Over the last few weeks i have been trying out all the different tools i would need such as shape, textures and lighting too create a 4 roomed villains lair! I have never used 3d studio max before so i have found using the software difficult to start off with, but as the more time i spend on it the more confident i feel using it.

Journal Task 2!

2010-01-26T05:02:00.000-08:00

*What has my creativity been for in the past few years?

*Who has it been for?

*Why have I done it this way?

* What do I want the future of my creativity to be?

* In what specific way(s) can research help me get to these new places?

*Which research starting points do I feel drawn to?

*Which do you feel wary of?

*Which seem irrelevant?

My creativity for over the past few years has mostly all been created for myself, to develop my skills and try new ways of producing pieces of work, by experimenting and working through ideas to come up with new ideas and ways of working. In other areas of work, my work has been created for a desired audience or market such as my Graphics work or my product design work. My work has been produced this way because it was part of the course I was undertaking at the time or was to work with the idea of making something for someone else rather than for myself all the time. The future of my creativity....... I would like to get a job were mine and others ideas are brought together to create a piece of work, rather than it being just mine own its own, as I feel this would become boring to me if I was to constantly working alone. By using research this can help me get to these places as it is combining other peoples ideas and designs within my own to create something, that i feel would be more interesting and diverse. To which design process to I use the most/most wary of..... I don't feel I more prone to use one more than any other, but I probably wouldn't be wary of which one I was using at the time in my research. I probably start my research with descriptive as it would start to give me initial ideas/ an understanding of the user/project.

Term 2!!!

2010-01-18T10:39:00.000-08:00

Term 2 has already started and im getting used to being back at uni and the swing of things again. We started of the week having our tuesday lecture, but this term it was different as it included two other course pathways, Theatre design and Design for Tv/moving image. During the lecture we discussed what was important in are own subjects and then had to come up a conclusion of what was the most important aspect. This was difficult as each course had its own different ideas.... but there were some similarities. At the end of the lecture i understood more about each individual course and how we were alike.

Later on that day we also had a seminar with Jools were we discussed active learning in groups and getting to know our class better. We were then given the task to talk about on our journals how we develop ourselves as practitioners. How do I develop myself? I think as it was discussed in my group during the seminar i develop myself by looking at work that interests me and my work, by doing this by looking at others peoples work though projects, programs, journals and though the internet. I also try to read any books or design magazines that show or explain any ideas or concepts that i have that might help to develop my ideas further and improve my skills.

2009-12-15T04:45:00.000-08:00

Interactive Narrative!

my interactive narrative is designed to be used by young children. It was inspired by the cbeebies website and the jackanory website. These website are colourful and fun to use and play with, so i created my narrative in the same way using hand drawn images. I also added sound effect to my work to make it more interesting. To come up with my structure i created a flow diagram to show how the final piece will work.

2009-12-15T04:44:00.000-08:00

Interactive narrative finished!!!

2009-12-11T13:59:00.000-08:00

Interactive narrative by ~alpage001 on deviant ART

2009-12-03T13:58:00.001-08:00

2009-12-03T13:56:00.000-08:00

2009-12-03T13:34:00.000-08:00

2009-12-03T13:05:00.001-08:00

My Pixilation finished!!!!

2009-12-03T09:46:00.000-08:00

2009-11-26T14:52:00.000-08:00

2009-11-26T14:48:00.000-08:00

From looking at videos like this one and many other different types of cctv videos, there was many similarities between them all. They were mostly in black and white, blurry/pixilated, they showed the time and date. They were also filmed from above looking down on the scene of events.

2009-11-26T14:47:00.000-08:00

My One shot short film!

2009-11-19T16:03:00.000-08:00

One shot short film!

2009-11-19T15:24:00.000-08:00

As part of the one shot short films we were to work in a group to produce a one shot film. Once our group was selected were we told to make a practice short one shot film. We discussed ideas, a blind date, like someone getting stuck in a lift, a day in the life of a student, an advert, but we decided to make a short film about us as a group discussing what to make our one shot film about, we would pretend we had accidentally left the camera running. We tried this out a few times, but it didnt work as it was hard to hear what was going on and the the script was made up and not very natural. But from watching back the film we had just created, it looked and sounded like it was almost like a cctv camera watching as, without us knowing. We then came up with a more choreographed sequence of events. the story was about a girl dropping her purse, which was then to be stolen by a passer by. This idea worked much better as it wasnt dependant on getting really good sound of any one talking, which was difficult with our equipment and location. it also worked well as it was simple, and the camera looked like a real cctv camera as it was filmed from above and with jolted camera movements like a automatic camera.

After the success of our first short film we decided to meet up on friday the 13th to complete our proper shot film. We thought up ideas and talked about the success of our last project and we all really like the idea and the effectiveness of filming as if it was a cctv camera. We then realized it was Friday 13th and thought about making a film about bad luck on four different people in one location in one shot!

We thought about things that happen which seem like bad luck and thought about how and where we could film them. We came up with ideas like walking under ladders, seeing black cats and things like that, but these we difficult to recreate as none of us owned a black cat or had a ladder handy. So we thought about things that we did have or could have for the shot. We came up with things like slipping on banana skins, forgetting keys, having your drink fizz up and spill all over you, and having the a cash machine out of order.

I think the filming went well, and we managed to get it done after a few takes and everyone's movements and acting worked well to achieve their desired outcome of miss fortune. Mine was to slip on a banana peal, this wasnt very difficult to do as they are just as comical as in cartoons as i found out after 5 or 6 takes. The reaction from me is real as every time we did it, I very nearly did fall flat on my face! Everyone was happy with what we had produced, and I was looking forward to editing our film and adding more detail to it to make it look more like real cctv, like being in black and white and so on..

Then it was our next seminar where we uploaded our film onto premiere. To make it look like a cctv camera we turned it to black and white, and played with the contrast. We then added a' noise' filter to make it look grainy. We thought that the film started to quickly, so we copied a section showing the empty hallway and then pasted it at the start of our film and stretched it so it lasted for short time. We also added a beeping sound to the start to make it feel like the the camera was being started by me entering the shot. We then played with the ending to make it quite funny. Caleb slips on the banana here, and we copied it and then pasted it three times to emphasise him slipping, and the third part we stretched to make it slow motion. This i feel gave the film a comedy note to finish on as you see him start to fall over but dont actually get to see the event happen. We then reduced the background noise, but still managed to keep the noise of the drink spilling quite well. We wanted to add sound effects, but we couldn't find a sound that was just how we wanted it and we wanted the piece to look real, rather than having an artificial sound playing though out. We then added a date and a clock to our film that was created in flash to make it look even more like cctv. We also added a title and an ending title to our film. We used simple text just like the font used in the clock in our film.

Overal I feel our group worked well together to come up with an interesting idea that worked well and we produced an amusing one shot short film.

Presto!

2009-11-19T13:47:00.000-08:00

Is about a stage magician's rabbit, that is hungry and forgotten. The rabbit called 'Alec' gets in to a fight with the magician during his magical hat though the means of a set of magical hats. I feel the story works well as its a simple story line and a magic trick we all know about, but doesn't go the way we expect. In this scene new technology is used by pixar to create better motion blurs when the characters are moving face to give it more realism.

2009-11-16T12:05:00.000-08:00

2009-11-12T14:25:00.001-08:00

2009-11-12T14:18:00.001-08:00

One shot short film!

2009-11-12T08:15:00.000-08:00

One shot short films

Unlike the previous task of producing a pixilation animation, I have never done any type of video production/film producing. I was interesting in seeing what we were going to be doing as it was something I have never done before. We started off the session looking at risk assessment....to be honest was the most boring hour ever! but i understand why it has to be done! although Im still not looking forward to filling one in again. The other half of the session we were divided into groups to come up with a story on the theme of horror. As a group we came up with one of the longest and most detailed short story as well all had ideas and i felt we worked well together to come up with a very creative, maybe not a 100% original idea but it was different and worked well with are theme.

we also looked at different examples of short films. My favourite was a Touch of Evil. it was created in 1958 and was based on the novel Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson and is a black-and-white film, and said to be one of the last examples of film noir.

It starts off with an extreme close up of a man putting a bomb into the boot of a car and is a one shot until the car explodes after crossing the american boarder. This sequence is a great opening as it introduce the film with mystery as to who was that man and why that car. The music also sets the scene as it sounds like its from mexico and the ticking of the bomb matches the timing of the music.

Pixilation!

2009-11-12T07:49:00.000-08:00

This is my pixilation Animation which I created during the first rotation. I feel that it still needs some work doing to it so Im going to improve the timings and add some music to the animation, but overall I am pleased with the way its turned out. I like the way the it can be played this way or played backwards and it would still have the same story line in it.

2009-11-12T07:42:00.000-08:00

This my pin hole camera photograph.

I like the way the camera is able to capture detail in the foreground and the background with becoming to blurry. I also like the white vertical line in the image that was created by the light shinning of the inside of the can. Also i like how the photo looks like it was taken with a fish eye lens.

Pin hole camera Photo!

2009-11-12T07:35:00.000-08:00

At the very start of the term I, along with every one else produced a pin hole camera out of a beer can and then used this to capture a photograph for 8 seconds. This is my photograph of this task. This is also my favourite image I captured, as it was taken in a graveyard and the beer can camera was placed upon a headstone on the ground. Although it wasn't intensional, the inscription was captured with in my image creating more interest in the foreground and adds more detail to the overall image captured.

Her morning Elegance-OrenLavie

2009-10-22T03:46:00.000-07:00

I like Her morning elegance as it as if we are seeing her dreams being acted out on the bed. I also like the way she moves across the bed as if she was walking, swimming and jumping. The use of different sizes pillows add props to the scene as clouds and stepping stones. My favourite parts are the fish that are different sized white socks when she is swimming, the dancing scene near the end as it looks difficult to achieve but the movements still look natural and fluid.

2009-10-22T03:43:00.000-07:00

Deadline post-it stopmotion

2009-10-22T03:39:00.000-07:00

In deadline post-it i like the way the post-its have been used to create pixels on a tv/computer screen to create images and shapes. I also like the way the man interacts with the post-it by playing pong or being hit by a hammer.

2009-10-22T03:37:00.000-07:00

Tony vs Paul

2009-10-22T03:33:00.000-07:00

Im sure everyone has seen this before as it is very popular on youtube. I like the mixture of techniques used in this animation from the way photographs are used to create a video within a video and how he uses his hand to write a letter by pointing at it!

2009-10-22T03:31:00.000-07:00

Pixilation:stills as frames!

2009-10-22T02:55:00.000-07:00

Pixilation is the theme of the animation as we use a digital camera to capture a sequence of frames that assumes a frame rate of 12 per second for a 30 second piece. We must consider camera stability, view point, narrative, gag, pacing, timing, light levels and the clarity of the image. To start off with we were put in to groups of 5 or 6 and were to play around with the idea of pixilation animation. This was both challenging and great fun as we tried to make a narrative. The plot of our first story was to have to people walking to a grave yard and they were to be scared by two ghosts. After this scene was taken we watched it back and could stop laughing at the way our hips wiggled as we walked and the way the ghosts floated around in circles.

After the experimentation stage our group came up with the idea of having a magical box that people would disappear and reappear from in different locations. we couldn't find box large enough so we used a black bin. This worked well as the lid of the bin could be removed and used to hide the person getting out/in the bin. One of the difficult things was getting in and out of the bin as it wasn't big enough to fit your whole body in. As a short animation i feel the narrative worked worked and once put together on the computer should be very entertaining.

Pinhole Camera!!!

2009-10-21T10:17:00.000-07:00

As part of another introduction to the course in the induction week we also made our own pinhole cameras out of 440ml beer cans. I have used a pin hole camera before, but this was the first time I had used a beer can as a camera. To create the camera we cut the top of using a can opener and filed down the edges.A lid was then created out of black card and duck tape. A lens was created by piecing a hole in the side of the can with a pin.

To capture the image light sensitive paper was added to the can in a dark room. The camera was now ready to capture an image. The amount of time needed was about 8 seconds, this was achieved by using some black electric tape as a cover for the lens which could be removed for the right amount of time, then replaced over the hole to stop the camera capturing it image.

Overall I felt my image worked well as I placed my can camera on a flat surface, this flat surface also had a engraving on it that was also captured as well as fine detail in the background. I also like the way the images taken look like a fish photograph.

2009-10-21T10:09:00.000-07:00

Whiteboard Animations!!!

2009-10-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

On the first day of the start of my course we were set the task as a small group to make a whiteboard animation. We were given the task of getting a box from one side of the whiteboard to the other, how this was done was up to our group. As a group i feel we all got on together and produced the craziest off the wall idea. It involved a stick man, an exploding monkey, a jumping shark, superman and a time traveling dragon! Overall I feel the animation worked well even though none of us had done it before. Here is what my group and other groups produced. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtCBNlCtlcY

A Little bit a about me!

2009-10-07T08:54:00.000-07:00

Hi,

My name is Alec Page and i have just started my first week at NTU Multimedia. Before starting this course I completed a one year foundation studying Graphic Design, so the multimedia sounds exciting but a little daunting. This is my first ever blog and its going to be about various things I am going to discover this year though my course and also my own personal interests. I will include the work of others as I may like the style of their work or may like to emulate it in the future. Please feel free to comment on anything you see or read!