Evaluation of my documentary

In my documentary i was trying to communicate a basic overview of the sci-fi genre and to communicate why i think it is such a great part of media. I tried to convey this through my vocal commentary which i recorded though a microphone and also through images e.g. pictures of lasers and book covers.

My character is myself.

My documentary was mostly fact though some of it could be subjective, for example i included a definition of Sci-fi but there are hundreds of different definitions and many ideas of what Sci-fi is or should be.

The audio of my project was intended to be a commentary on the subject i was debating, it was the core of my presentation - the images and animation were there to aid this presentation. I didn't include a soundtrack to my documentary because i felt it would distract the reader from the information i was giving. Furthermore when making this piece i was intending to imitate the style of an animator who doesn't use soundtrack in his documentary sequences:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DyRxlvM9VM

(Example of said animator)

I felt this made the documentary more effective but i included some music in the end credits to make up for the lack of sound.

In comparing to my researched example i feel my project is similar to their work but that it doesn't have the same quality of animation or writing. However this is because extra credits (the youtube channel shown above) have been polishing their animation and writing style for many years. Furthermore they have an entire team working full time in order to make these videos, to write them and animate them etc.

This audio will communicate it's meaning to the audience through the presence of fact and information. It will be immediately clear that the audio is a commentary which while informal, is communicating academic concepts. As a result of this my intent it should communicate this meaning from the first second of the video with the words "sci-fi" and the corresponding fact.

Before recording the audio for my project i went to a quiet room in order to minimise the background audio, this is a technique. Another technique i used was to sync up the dialogue in my project with the animation in order to make it seem as though my character was speaking.

I think that if i was to improve this piece i would add a soundtrack, sound effects, improve the dialogue and maybe even add a few visual effects.

Copyright and royalty free assets

Without copyright the work of artists and musicians wouldn't be protected, but some generous people give their work to the general public and remove the copyright protection instated on it. By doing this they make their work royalty free, meaning they give their work away without asking for payment (royalty) although most prefer if the user could reference their work in some way.

I often use these assets for my collage work, so for example if were making a short film we might include royalty free sound effects or music to increase the quality of the project. Another thing to note is that even royalty free sites sometimes have a price associated with using the work, for example certain sound effects might require money to be used.

In professional work plagiarism is heavily punished but collage work is not and this is why many of my projects include work with youtube video audio.

My finished project

Boardgame analysis and reasearch

Analysis of the brief

How do you feel about the task, requirements and parameters?
I feel they are fair and understandable, they limit my options but this means that i will have to think less about the vast possibilities of what i could do. i appreciate being able to rework an original board game because it allows for a lot of creativity and while keeping a base foundation, this seems more interesting to me than creating an original piece because the possibilities and complications for an original board game are so broad and diverse. i will make good on the brief by following the rules and making a safe board game. i'm looking forward to making a strong identity for my product and i have some basic ideas, i want it to be darker than the usual board games. I intend to work individually for the duration of the project.


Research

What research are you going to carry out and why?
i will research good and bad board games finding what makes them good, i think a key component for  a good children's board game is simplicity combined with fun, deep but understandable mechanics. games intended for older audiences can be more complex but must still be compelling and fun.

Do you have an idea already?
i have an idea of theme and some board games I've seen before that look interesting. I probably know who i will be aiming my work at - young adult. i will probably rework an older board game because making an original one is too complex.

What are your research questions?
Why are certain board games more popular than others and what constitutes a good board game?

How can i rework an old title like Cludo or Snakes and ladders into something different - fresh but still packed with nostalgia.

I will do a snakes and ladders rework for an older audience in a horror themed style with more complex rules and concepts, maybe a Cuthulu style game?

ideas for pieces: swords, boats?,

research evidence:

Character draft

I'm not very good at drawing, that should probably be apparent. But i am relatively happy with the stuff I've made so far. I've decided to call the little blue blob Kite, i drew him first because he's going to be the character i animate. I'm not that pleased with the design so I'll definitely change it to make him cuter and more detailed. The face i drew on the right was just a little project to show that i can draw complex characters too, but i wouldn't ever be able to animate this because the form is too complex. I wouldn't be able to replicate it multiple times at different angles, plus the character doesn't have much variety in emotion - bit of an emo.

Motion tween - cars racing

Shape tween - animate

My finished Lovecraftian board game

Rules:

Snake and ladders phase
you roll a dice and the number it lands on you move, if you hit a tentacle you have to move down. When you land on a tentacle roll a die, if you score above 3 you pass over it without damage, however after 2 misses you have to score above a 4, and after another 1 miss you have to score at least 5

Battle phase

Choose a position.

Acts
You take turns and you can do specific acts, you can fire weapons at Cuthulu or heal your crew and patch up the ship. When you do one of these acts, roll a dice, if you score over 3 the act is successful, if you score under 3 the act fails, if you score 1 the act backfires and you take damage. However unlike the previous stage you can die at this point, if you die you are out and that’s it, you have to wait for your friends to finish him.

HP
Cuthulu has 24 health and the ships each have 6

Attack of Cthulhu!
When Cthulhu attacks - he does this every turn - flip a coin, heads he misses, tails he hits and both boats take 2 damage.

Supporting parts

Logo

Player pieces 

The rationale + evaluation for my Lovecraftian board game and my peer assessment of another game

Rationale
My board game fulfils the brief criteria because:

i have the finished product - shown above. It is clearly a board game because it takes one of the oldest board games in existence (snakes and ladders) and reworks it. Furthermore i've taken a popular character from media and used it in a game so this demonstrates a clear product identity (a Lovecraftian identity).  

I brought in the new identity because i thought the conventional snakes and ladders format would be too childish for my target audience, this is why i introduced the darker theme - since it should grab the attention of an older age group more easily.

The supporting objects: The ship figurines, the logo for the game, and the rules for the game.

This means that the game is in it’s complete form and can be played by anyone.

As stated in my research this game is aimed at teenagers and i think it fulfils this through it’s design features and it’s overall theme.

Peer assessment - max’s game

I thought this game was well made but not because of it’s design - that was relatively simple. It was it’s rules and gameplay that made it very approachable and compelling.

The game revolves around player interaction and deception, it has a huge amount of depth because you can play it in innumerable different ways. The competitive nature of the game makes it so enjoyable and interesting and it can be approached by a very broad audience.

I think it will fit with the brief as long as my friend can show that he has included supporting parts like a logo or rule set.

Evaluation

In conclusion i am pleased with my finished product.

I think it more than accomplishes the requirements of the brief and might even exceed it. I did it solo too which meant i had none of the help others in the course did, i feel this further shows the merit of my effort.

It started as a series of outlines at the beginning of the project and slowly evolved into a full piece of work. I used lovecraftian pictures as a reference to draw cthulhu and artwork of waves as inspiration to make them seem realistic as well.

I think the greatest strength of my game is it’s rule set and artwork, i feel the art looks perfect and hits the theme and target audience, and i feel the rules are complex enough to be interesting for my audience without bogging them down in numbers and figures.

I don't think either of these factors are perfect, far from it, the artwork is far from professional and i realise that the rules can be confusing after testing the game. I am less happy about my logo, i feel it doesn't fit with my target audience, it’s cute design clashes with the actual product and i don't actually like the artwork itself either, it looks unfinished and crude.

But overall i feel my product was well done. I had a lot of fun making it too. I think that if i had more time then first i would fix the logo and then i would’ve i would’ve made the artwork more detailed - more shading - and i might’ve streamlined the rules.

Symbols in animate

Symbols are images that you can use as tools in photoshop. To make one you create an image like the penguin i drew above, you then convert it into a symbol. This puts it on the animate library and so you can drag and drop the symbol onto the page as demonstrated by the flock of penguins shown above.

Animate: the timeline

The time line is the canvas on which an animator puts their paint. all of the tools and most of the work will be in combination with this time line.

Using it you can animate a series of animations by using keyframes, with these you can advance to the next frame in an animation, stop an animation, add another layer of animation, and do many other things such as changing the frame rate or adding onion skins.

The slower you add the frames the smoother the animation will look. for example if you are animating a running stick figure you must move their legs centimetre by centimetre to make it look smooth.

Review of the overview animation webpage

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/learning_guide/animation/part01.html

This overview was useful because it went into many of the basic tools of animate in great detail. A complex program like animate needs a good guide for newcomers, however this isn't the best source for those newcomers. I would argue this because the overview isn't pleasant to read with blocky paragraphs and few pictures to support it's raw information. This makes it difficult to approach for a newcomer.

Its not a cat but it is a dinosaur.

Experimenting with animate

Expressions

Sceptical

Sad

Happy

Scared

Tired

What we learnt from our walk round the crescent

Our walk around the crecent highlighted many important factors around filming. We were instructed to think about how we would shoot the opening shot of a sci-fi period drama. My first thought was to use an image of the actual cresent, but we realised that the cars and scaffolding would clash with the genre of the film, making it unsuitable unless we could edit these factors out in post production. We also experimented with lighting and position of the shots, as shown in the photos with myself under a tree. The day was perfect for this, especially in england so i count us very lucky. We would have to take into acount the weather of course if this was a different day or situation. Eventually we started looking for a different location and found a hotel in one of the cresent houses. It was much more suitable for a period drama shot because it had little of the modernity you would see on the street.

Day of the zombie classroom. - Script writing exercise

S1: INT College classroom. Day.

Dappled sunlight is slipping through the windows and into the classroom. A few students sit around their computers listening to music or playing on their phones. Blue light illuminates their sleepy faces, eyelids half closed stare at the messages with an abstract kind of boredom. A sleepy silence hangs over the scene as the door opens and Ed walks in.

‘Hey guys, how we all doing?’

‘...’

‘Did everyone have a good weekend?’

‘…’

Everyone is silent, no one moves a muscle, it's almost as if they aren't breathing.

Max and kiri suddenly walk through the doors and come to sit down.

‘Sorry we’re late’ Kiri says

Max nods

They sit down.

‘Hey Rory’

‘...’

‘...Hey are you alright? You’re looking a bit pale.’

There's a cry of horror from kiri as he is suddenly gripped by a student, his eyes are snow white and pupil less, like lightbulbs against his rapidly yellowing skin

‘What's wrong with him sir?’

Kiri jerks backwards but the student's grip is iron, he opens a mouth filled with yellowing incisors dripping with saliva.

‘Braaaains’ he says and lunges forwards.

Ed watches in horror as his student is torn asunder, then he runs from the building shouting for security as throngs of zombie students shamble towards him on the corridor, he doesn't get far.

At this point the classroom is filled with the sound of ripping and tearing, max looks at the carnage before him.

‘Shit…’ max grabs a chair and runs for the window but it's too late.

How to spot a pyramid scheme

The animation and drawing was simple but entertaining to watch, the animation made the subject more engaging and interesting. Furthermore the comic book style characters are simple making it more relatable.

Short animation reviews - Zero and How you die

An odd and interesting reflection of poverty and life.

I don't think it was a true representation of real life in many ways, it was more of a message against fascist ideology. However i suppose the depiction of this society could be compared to India's caste system where untouchables live next to the higher classes and are segregated on every level.

The animation was unique and was useful for showing the dystopian aspects of the world it was showing. However i think this was why i found it difficult to empathise with the characters, another reason i found this difficult was because i knew reality wasn't as harsh as this and so the reflection felt fake.

However the story itself was moving if slightly simplistic, something familiar being done with unique techniques (the string characters).

I also think the narrator was good but perhaps without the constant narration the story would've been more interesting, since the narration seemed to drive the story too much and we could've understood it all without commentary. I think the relative quiet would've made the story more powerful.




How you die short animation review:

I thought this short film was informative and useful to all people in all countries. The animation was simple but this allowed it to get the info across very easily and quickly, making it accessible to most. The information was easier to digest in this format and more fun too because of the dark humour.

However personally i have low blood pressure so this short film was difficult to watch (because i get dizzy and tired) so next time a warning might be nice. 

From a technical standpoint it is clear that the animation was a sort of flash related program that was limited in it's capabilities, or perhaps it wasn't and the artist simply didn't have much time to animate. Nonetheless the animation was perfect for this kind of information and worked perfectly fine.

Analysis of "The package" short film and the shots we used

We started the short film with a wide shot of our location, i used this to establish the setting and mood of the piece, and used the music to set the mood i wanted.

As i was introduced into the shot i let the atmosphere continue for a little longer, then used the close up shot on my watch to show that i was waiting for something.

Then i switched back to the wide shot and introduced Kyriakos to establish him in the location. The next shot is a low angle shot of Kiri, i used this to make him seem more powerful and influential because of course he seems bigger in the low angle. I didn't include myself in this shot to show that he was the more important character, to make my own character seem insignificant.

I then used an over the shoulder shot to better convey the dialogue in the scene and to show my character's reaction to seeing his boss. It is over Kiri's shoulder to make him seem bigger - again to convey his power.

When the package was swapped we used a medium close shot of their torsos for two reasons, first to show the importance of the package in the film and to better convey the body language of the characters e.g. my character's impatience.

The next shot is a blank screen, i used this approach twice in the short film which in retrospect might have been too much, but in this instance it was used to intensify my dialogue. Furthermore i think the blank screen signifies my character's feelings in this moment - dejected in the face of the boss's power.

After this we used the wide shot to show them leaving the scene, the distance was useful in conveying the end of their interaction, because they are far away you cant easily see a reaction. I was hoping it would fool the audience into thinking it was over.

After this i used the blank shot again to add to this illusion. Furthermore i used it in conjunction with the music since the song seems to show to a stop, then pick up again at a quicker pace immediately. This was useful to enhance the next scene which showed the agent character opening the package.

We used a high angle shot to make him seem smaller and weaker, furthermore we didn't show his face in this shot lowering his power further. This combined with the body language made him seem desperate and scared of being caught.

The next shot was a panning shot and i know we weren't supposed to use movement in the film but i just had to include it because it was my favourite shot out of all the ones before it. We did take a still shot of the scene that was similar, but in my opinion it didn't have the same power in body language or general effectiveness. I can remove it and replace it with the other shot, but I'd rather not.

The shot is a panning shot from the package to my face and reaction when it's contents are revealed. It starts at the agent's shaking fingers, he picks up the banana and the shot pans to his expression.

The final piece of dialogue completes the whole film for me wrapping it up perfectly and allowing the credits to roll.

I think that of all the short films i have made at the collage so far this is the best, the music was perfect for the atmosphere and easy to edit, the dialogue was satisfactory (i feel i could've done better) and the shot quality was excellent - i only have Charlotte to thank for this.

Thoughts on the stopframe animation films shown today

Favourite video - I really enjoyed the 'fat cat' video because it was done in a style i had never seen before. It was amazing to realise that it was made of wax and i found it hard to imagine how long it must have taken to make. It's message also resonated with me and the general tone of the piece was really effective, being enhanced by the wax etched style.

Short film on stop frame animation - This short film demonstrated that stop frame animation is very hard to do but also very rewarding because of the immense range of style and manipulation available and as was said in the film it looks far better than CGI when fully animated. The short film inspired me and gave me an insight to how dedicated stop frame artists are, it shocks me to realise that even one minute of footage can take months to create. This puts other animations like Wallace and Gromit into perspective. Furthermore this film reinforced the knowledge that stop frame animation isn't just for kids and that it can have deep meanings and connotations.

Diminishing Returns and Coffee Beans

The product timeline of my company's coffee beans (mongoffee coffee beans):

(Place)

The ground is prepared and seeds are sown in africa or south america, specifically mongolia for this product.

Beans grow to full size over time.

(This involves place and product because you brand workers being paid well)

Beans are picked by workers from the plant - paid well with fair trade practices

Beans are put in sacks and shipped to waiting country

(Product and promotion)

Coffee company designs brand and packaging for the product

(Price and promotion)

More product research, then the employers decide on price - organise discounts and list price.

(Promotion)

Advertise product - direct and digital e.g. free samples in the streets and adverts on tv, I market it as a quality monglian item.

(Price)

Beans are sold and provided in supermarkets.

In a coffee shop employees grind up beans and make coffee

(Price)

Profit

Diminishing returns in farming

(the law of) diminishing returns

1. 1.

   used to refer to a point at which the level of profits or benefits gained is less than the amount of money or energy invested.

look at diminishing returns with coffee price point for them

A farmer grows x number of beans employing people to plant them and pick them, the coffee beans and employees are an investment that has to be compared to the eventual profit. you have to ballance the optimal amount of investment (as little as possible) for the highest amount of profit. Eventually you have a huge excess of the product and this means that the value of the product will drop or freeze. so adding employers wont change this.

For example you could grow 1000 coffee plants but you would need to employ people to pick them. Their saleries would cost money on top of buying the seeds of the coffee beans and the land you bought to grow them on. As a result the employer would would want to employ the optimal amount of people to pick the plants, at the optimal price to get the most profit. This is why immoral business practices can become reality, because employers try to work around the law of diminishing returns by takeing huge numbers of people for low wages. They get the most profit but very little goes to the workers. e.g. working for a dollar a day.

An analysis of blade runner's final monolog. Tears in the rain.

I thought about many other film clips in this analysis but none of the other clips had the same intensity or magnitude as this clip.

The shot types are utilized to show the power hierarchy in the movie, we see the first clip with Deckard clinging to a metal beam on the edge of a building about to slip off in the rain. Batty is looking down at him and clearly has more power, this is why we see him from a very low angle and see Deckard from a very high one.

Furthermore the power separation is further demonstrated through the extreme close up shot on batty’s bloody rain swept face after he emerges into the shot, in particular the contrast between his cold blue eyes and the blood. This magnifies the danger of this character and his power.

However batty saves Deckard and shows this power by lifting him with only one hand. We see again the close up on his face only now he is trembling with exertion, he is risking his life too. After the monolog about slavery this scene has more power and significance since the slave is saving the slaver and murderer in an act of mercy, and the dove becomes a true symbol of his peace and forgiveness.

Deckard scrambles to the wall and we see half of batty’s body, only his legs in the shot, this shows his power because he is standing over him and makes him less human because we can't see his expression or guess what he is feeling. We might have the impression that in this scene batty could do anything, we are tensed and ready for batty to kill Deckard but he simply kneels down and gets on his level, sitting in the rain with him then starts the monolog.

As the monolog starts ‘i've seen things you people wouldn't believe’ we get a profile of batty’s face. Lighting is used to excellent effect in this scene casting his face in partial shadow until he dies and the darkness becomes complete, indicating his death. It is at this point the dove flies away and this symbolises both the passing of his spirit and the death of an innocent.

We are left with this shot for a while as Deckard takes in his death and the experience, the music frames the moment in beautiful clarity as the audience is left to admire the shot and think about batty’s death. It is as though we are watching a minute of respectful silence.

What goes into a film?

Preproduction - most important

Story

Scriptwriting

Storyboards

Location scouting

Casting actors

Financial backing

Budget

Concept art

Hiring film crew

Marketing

Costume design

Cinematography

Rehearsals

Make up artist

Health and safety

Directing

Prop design

Kit supply

Choreography

Production

Poster design

Lighting

Infrastructure

Cinematography

Catering

Transporting

Make up artist

Health and safety

Directing

Security

Acting

Computing

Marketing

Post production

Advertising

Editing

Soundtrack

General release

Marketing

Any film no matter the budget requires a huge amount of input from a variety of sources. Often preproduction is the stage you have to nail because if you get it wrong everything falls apart.

You have to organise what location to film in, what actors to hire, film crew and so many other things under a budget, you will have to feed a huge group of people, provide them with comfortability, entertainment and sleep in remote places, you have to keep them safe and also get them to do their jobs. This is the foundation of the film upon which everything else follows. 

All parts of film production also need to stay in touch with the underlying story, you have to keep it in mind with the directing to avoid angering fans of the original content but you also need to make it approachable for a wider audience. Most of this takes place in the preproduction but the director needs to keep the story in mind through the whole process.