The Meeting

Here is my one shot film entitled 'The Meeting'

Changing Colours - Photoshop

My selected image to manipulate is one of my friends from back home.



I then used photoshop to change the colour of his guitar.



This is done in many different ways, the easiest has been introduced to CS3. There is a colour replacement tool within CS3 that takes all the ballache out of layering up colours and carefully cutting (or rendering) parts of the image. All that happens now is you choose your colour, click on the part of the image you want to change and the tool automatically changes it for you.

I decided to change the guitar colour as green and pink are two colours that complement each other, rather than blue and pink.

One shot film - Prep and Shoot

As a group we decided on intrepreting the title of 'The Meeting' as the awquardness of meeting new people.

The shoot will be silent so that music can be overlayed, which also gives members of the group chance to write in 'thoughts' of the characters within the film. These thoughts will hopefully show how people will try avoiding making the first move when meeting new people.

I created the following image as a plan to shooting the film.



The camera (inspired by that 70's show) will be panning to each character sat round the table. It will stop on each character for about 5 seconds so it would be possible to add the thoughts in through the edit, plus body language of each will be portrayed properly.



After we completed the shoot I realised how interesting this idea could exactly be. Each person within the film acted differently, some alot more than the others. This is perfect as each group member will interpret the body language differently, meaning there is a possibility of 6 totally different films coming out of one shoot.

After studying the footage, i began to draw up characterisics and personalities for each character, making it far easier to add thoughts into the film. Below is a sort of outline of what i came up with. I must stress that these outlines are based on the film and not what i actually think of my group members!

Imogen - Flirtious, bitchy, IT girl
Grace - Lazy, unenthuseasic (however you spell it)
Dan - Hungover!
Will - Stereotype boy (makes excuses to why the situation isnt his fault???)

The final edit of the film be up as soon as i get enough time to let youtube upload it (my pix project took 4 hours! these film is about 2-3 times longer!!!!!).

The rule of thirds

The rule of thirds is a commonly known rule relating to camera position within photography and film. As you can see from the example above, this rule uses two horizontal lines and two vertical lines to split the image into thirds. This gives a basic outline of where the focal points and horizon lines should fall.
It is my understanding that a interesting focal point will fall into one of these thirds directly, with the main components of this point falling to the left or right vertical third. The horizon line should then be shown on either the top or bottom (horizontal) third.

I took a photograph (of the one and only Luke Burton) to try and describe this rule.



The focal point (Lukes face/eyes) fit within the top right third, and the horizon fits on the bottom horizontal third.

PIxelation - Finale

So I have finally made it to the library to upload my end result. I called the scene finale, hope you all like!



There is a valid reason behind the camera jolting near the end! I knocked the camera at that point, so i couldnt get it back into its original position (sush, dont tell anyone!).
Anyways on a bonus i guess i could just say its like his true transition into the afterlife..... (artistic bullsh*t ext)

Youtube Account

So i have finally sorted my password for youtube out, which means i once again have a fully functioning account.
Not only will the account showcase my NTU work, but it also has a few videos i made of me Djing. The DJ Warefare ones are quite old (i dont go by that alias anymore..) but new additions will be added as soon as possible.

http://uk.youtube.com/user/ParlourBEATflex

Please feel free to check out any of my videos, comment and critise!

Pixelation - Shoot & Edit

After composing my ideas on my selected ‘Death’ scene, I then got about shooting it.

Location - Mansfield Rd Cemetery
Actors - Luke Burton (Main Character), Matthew Robinson (Grieving boss)
Props - Leafs, Empty Gravestone
Dress - Dark Hoody and trousers (Luke), Formal Suit (Matt)
Notes - Shooting will have to be done about an hour before sunset, so that images are progressive within time and darkness.





As you can see from the above images, the shoot came out really quite dark. I wanted to represent death as a good end to ones journey, instead of the usual doom and gloom associated with it. I used Photoshop’s batch action to create a feel for the short that would satisfy my needs for the representation. I used a variety of filters and adjustments (colour, saturation ext) to come up with the following look:



I really like the grain effect I have used, as it represents the process of aging really well. With this and a complete colour balance, I feel I have created a much warmer mood to the piece, again trying to look at death a different way to the norm.

Successful Design Practice

The above is a picture of the Nokia N95 phone. It is my current phone and although it lacks in important issues such as battery life and reliability, it is my favourite of all the phones i have had.

Why is it that we want our belongings to do more for us than to function well?

The quality of a product depicts two aspects, function and form. While function is the more important, form truely sells the product. As there are many companies all specialising in the same thing, the differences surronding the product are mainly visual and sensual. This means that a potential user will pick a product depending on how that product makes them feel, or makes them look. Noticably, the best selling products (when referring to phones) are ones that portray the user as sophisicated, modern, stylish and expensive.
This all comes down to todays society and the way the user would think society would look at them. When people buy things like phones, they realise that the rest of there world will view there new purchase as well, so it would be very important for the product to give the right impression.

Why are we willing, as soon as we can afford it, to pay extra for things with appealing forms?

The fact of the matter is that products that look better visually, make us feel better sensually. Again, it boils down to the requirements of the user, which is mostly social and functional satisification.
For example, the difference between and ipod and a mp3 player (with equal functions/memory) is the visual aspect and of course the price (Ipod being the more expensive). The ipod, possibly the best known music player, has been purposely designed to be beautiful, or visually appealing (again it matches todays social requirements of modern, sophisicated, stylish and expensive). This is the reason most people would rather spend the extra money to afford one, rather than a functional rival.

Pixelation - Individual Collaboration

Finally! The first assessed project is now underway - Consisting of 3 stages, which include; Pixelation, one shot film and interactive enviroments. Beginning the first stage we were quickly seprerated into small groups for sharing a camera with and set about the basics of Pixelation.

My group consisted of Luke Burton, Matthew Robinson, Jaime ?, Sonny ?.

With pixelation being a whole series of photograhs that create motion, careful consideration was needed to fully meet the brief criteria. Our group discussed ideas and decided to create a narrative that broke into scenes, one directed by each group member. We then decided on a ‘rags’ to riches type story and came up with ideas on how the scenes will be parts of the main characters life, each scene will make sense in its own right, but as a collabration, the narrative will be much more clear.

Never trust a ISP

The following posts are all late! Its been real hard connecting to the internet... Real hard. After realising how much the glasshouse entrusted company 'CableCom' was ripping us unfortunate students off (160 quid for a full year of 'basic' internet, in other words no big downloads, no torrents, no video streaming ext ext, a extra 60 quid for the deluxe package) i decided to hook up to one of the popular mobile broadband packages. With T-Mobile being the cheapest/fastest of all i went with them, expecting a strong signal and finally a chance to access the internet.

BUT NO.

I am now experiencing such slow speeds id rather have dail up. What the nice people in T-Mobile forgot to tell me was that the nearest 3G transmitter was malfunctioning, and could be for the next 3 week. Somehow Im not keen on finding out and surpassing my refund date.
So tommorrow its back to T-Mobile, and on to Vodafone, reccommended by a good friend who has been with them in notts for about a year.

As i said at the start of the post, the following assignment based posts are all late, i prepared them onto word for when the internet was available to me.

FreeSat - The Newest way to watch TV?

For all you lucky enough to catch onto the idea of HD instead of blue ray, there is a new satellite based television provider coming onto the scene. Free Sat is (basically) a HD version of Free view, running similar to Sky except it is practically free (At the moment the system is integrated within new HD TVs, but I assume a box version will be available in the future). There are no monthly subscriptions for the package and they also include programs that you would normally pay for. For the full list of features go to the Free Sat website located HERE.
They are also finalising the design for Free Sat +, the equivalent of Sky + (enables the user to record/rewind/pause live TV).

This new system really shows how quickly high definition has taken off within our culture. More and more we are seeing HD replacements, HDDVD, Sky HD, ext. Entertainment systems like the Xbox 360 now give users the chance to experience gaming in high definition.
At this time however, Free Sat probably won’t make a huge impact within society. Unfortunately for the technology, a lot of homes don’t have high definition sets, they cannot afford to upgrade, especially with the credit crisis affecting today’s market. This is definitely an idea we will see in the near future, as it’s the next general step to upgrading everyone’s television to a digital high def signal. The full digital switchover is likely to be completed in 2012, unless your area has been already, meaning the complete halt of television analogue signals throughout the UK. It is probable that some time after, the switchover between normal and high def will occur.

I believe this will be a bigger success in the near future (within 5-10 years)... As more people will have upgraded to a higher definition by then. As I have a HD Monitor though, I will be taking advantage of this new technology to the fullest.

Whiteboard Animation

The results of all the first years whiteboard animations are now uploaded to youtube!




My groups is the one with the big stickman coming out of the house roof. I believe we were successful at the task although alot of the events within the animation dont follow a similar narrative, making it (as a whole) quite random. Looking at others work i can see the benifit of creating a 'story'... Even if its based on how a box moves to the other side of a house.

The Nottingham Welcome

Hello Nottingham!

So I have now been here for about two and a half weeks.... coming up to three. I moved into the glasshouses as early as possible, because my hometown is boring! Not so boring here though! Everyone has realised how good the nightlife is... and now i share the same feelings about my course.

Although the 'Welcome to Nottingham' lecture didnt hold much point, the following course specific ones really impressed me. Pin hole cameras and white board animation were really interesting introductions to the world of multimedia, and gave us all a chance to get to know one-another.

Im now going to get ready for the unions 'Big Bang Theory'. Should be a pretty heavy night, so i need to get myself dolled up to impress the ladies. Until next time!