14.06.10

The past couple of weeks have been mental! After finishing the Video Production unit we had to gather all of our work together for the End of Year Show. We could either build a web site from scratch or choose a Template from Flash Village to display our work. I chose to use a Template which turned out to be a great deal more work than building a site from scratch. It takes a great deal of reverse engineering to remove all the work that is already on the Template and replace it with your own, especially with things like Audio, Animation and Web Sites.
I was pretty happy with the finished product though and managed to get (nearly) all of my work onto it.
The friends and family evening was interesting, although my family could not make it as they live in Devon, a couple of friends came along and enjoyed themselves.
I also had to finish my web site in time to get my presentation done for Key Skills. The presentation went well and my web site came out much better than I at first thought it would.

24.05.10

Today me and my team have been finishing and actually presenting our 15 minute Power Point presentation.
I think it did not go to bad but if we had actually rehearsed it a bit more it would have gone allot better.
The rest of the day has been spent watching the rest of the classes presentations, they have been very amusing with Matt, Conner and Lewis's being my favorite so far.

20.05.10

Today has been spent finishing editing our documentary in Premiere and exporting the finished product in to multiple formats using Adobe Media Encoder.
I have also finished creating the opening credits for our documentary, I did this using Photoshop.
I have also been finishing my pre-production and filming and editing planners.

17.05.10 'DEMOLITION PAINTBALL'

This morning we went to 'DEMOLITION PAINTBALL'.
This was not just a day out kind of thing but it was also meant to develop Team Building skills and bring us together more as a group.
I feel this was defiantly achieved as everyone had a great time and will be talking about it for some time to come.
Personally, even though I am black and blue, I really enjoyed myself.
This afternoon we have continued with the editing process and will hopefully be finished by Thursday as we have ripped our second tape from the cam-corder.

13.05.10

After capturing all of the footage from the cam-corder onto Adobe Premiere I had to go through it all and cut out all the different scenes, ten in total, once this was completed I then set about making a coherent film out of all the footage.
I have managed to do just over two minutes so far with another two minutes still needed to be done.

10.05.10

Today we have been getting to grips with some new software, Adobe Premiere which is what we will be using to edit our films. To be honest it is allot to take in in one day as there is so much that you can do with it from editing the video images the soundtrack and voice overs and you can even create sub titles and credits.
The good thing about it though is that the layout of Premiere is very familiar to Adobe Soundbooth and even Flash which makes it that much easier to learn.
I have also started creating the opening credits using Photoshop.

06.05.10 P.M.

This afternoon we went to the 11th floor of lham Tower and got some really good footage of pretty much the whole of Brighton which we will use as part of the opening sequence of our documentary.
We planned on visiting the Community Gardens on Lewes Road and a squat that we found out about yesterday but we have decided to leave it until tomorrow as we have done a great deal today and have walked miles! As we are all meeting up tomorrow anyway this will not be to much of a problem.
We have also been invited to an informal Squatters Association meeting at the Cowley Club on London Road next Tuesday night. This was thanks to a really nice girl who we spoke to earlier on this week in the Club and who phoned some of her friends and arranged for us to meet up with them.
Tomorrow we also need to get more footage of the homeless population of Brighton, find a Big Issue seller who is willing to appear on camera, meet up with Sid again at the place he is staying to get his opinion on squatting and shoot some footage of all the available information we can find on help for the homeless and squatters rights. This we will arrange on a table in the college library and possibly use towards the end of our documentary.

06.05.10

This morning we have been all over Brighton looking for footage for our documentary.
The first thing we did was meet a friend called Sid who has been homeless for around 13 years. We did the interview in the park at the bottom of Trafalgar Street where we set up the Video Camera on its Tri-Pod and the Boom Mic connected to a Digital Recorder. We asked him a number of questions from a script we had prepared in advance.
We also needed some footage of empty buildings, we had already located some last week on New England Road as part of our preparation for this task.
Next we went up to Brighton Police Station and got some footage of the building, this we will use in conjunction with some audio of the Polices position regarding the homeless and squatting in Brighton.
We also wanted some footage of a Big Issue seller but we couldn't find one who was willing to appear on camera but we did find a Busker who was willing to appear on camera for some spare change and we also found a poor guy by the train station who was begging who also was willing, for a bit of spare change, to appear on camera.

05.05.10 My Planner for Assignment One.

My first task was to complete the Proposal, this outlined the idea behind our documentary including a Concept Description, Creative Approach and Technical Considerations.
Luke worked on the script and Robby spoke to a friend about interviewing him for our documentary.
As a group we then went out to take some photos of possible locations for our documentary, these included some empty buildings and The Community Gardens on Lewes Road.
Individually I then created the storyboard, hand drawn, and then scanned it into the computer.
Once this was done, by using Photoshop I added annotations and cut out the individual frames, 20 in all and imported them all into Windows Movie Maker to make our Animatic.
I also added some music simply because the Animatic seemed a bit rubbish with out any sound.
I also had to do some research, this basically meant looking for any kind of information on any help for the homeless and what, exactly, are the Laws regarding Squatting. I got some information from the Unemployment Centre and the Cowley Club.

05.05.10

Over the weekend I have been working on the storyboard and the 20 frame animatic. After finishing the storyboard I met the rest of the group at the college library where I scanned it in.

I then added annotations to the storyboard and cut the different frames out using Photoshop.

Lastly I imported the 20 separate frames into Windows Movie Maker, added a soundtrack (something I made using Cubase) and made the animatic.

I also did some research over the weekend, I went to the Unemployment Centre and managed to get some leaflets on help that the homeless can access.

As a group we went to The Cowley Club and asked for any advice and the girl there promised to contact a friend of hers who is currently squatting in Brighton. I gave her my mobile number and later on she sent me a message saying that her friend would be happy to talk with us and gave us his name and number. we will contact him later on today.

29.04.10

Today, as a group, we did a spot of loction finding were we went into town, found a couple of empty buildings (one of which used to be a squat), took photos of them for our research. We also paid a visit to the Community Gardens on Lewes Road and spoke to a couple of Squatters who said they would be more than happy to speak on camera about some of their experiances.
Personaly I have also been working on the 20 frame Story Board and a up to frame 9.
I have also written out a Personal Planner detailing my tasks for this assgnment -
MY PERSONAL TASKS
I am going to be researching into the homeless issue by visiting The Big Issue Office, The Un-Employment Centre, Brighton Town Hall and speaking to squatters and homeless people in the hope of getting any relevant facts we can use in our documentary.
I am also creating the twenty frame storyboard as a guide for the direction we want our documentary to go in, including annotations on camera angles, specific questions we want to ask. I will be drawing this by hand and scanning it into a computer to be made into our Animatic.
Obviously I will also be lending a hand were necessary, and will be going out in the search of suitable locations for when we begin filming.

26.04.10

Today me Rob and Luke have started the Video Production unit. We have decided to base our ideas on Homelessness and Squatting. We have all finished our Proposals and have had thrown around a lot of ideas between ourselves. I am concentrating on the Research and the Storyboard. I have high hopes for the group I have been put in ('The Unit') as everyone seems to be up for putting in all necessary work.

22.04.10

I have managed to finish my first ever animation today! It is not exactly Pixar but its a start. I have just got to finish the evaluation over the weekend. All in all this has been one of my favorite units and I feel like I have learnt a great deal.

19.04.10

Today I have been finishing of my final animation and I have managed to pretty much finish it although it does still need a bit of touching up here and there. Also I need to add some sound effects. Even when finished my animation is still going to be a bit rough around the edges but for a first try I don't think that will be to bad.
I have created all the images in my animation using the Flash program itself, the tools being very similar to Photoshop and there for easy to pick up.

01.04.10

Today I have been working on my animation using Flash, this is really, really frustrating as every image needs to be a separate Symbol, saying this though it is a really, really good bit of software.
We also had a demo on importing sound into our animation and how to create decent backrounds.

22.03.10

This morning in Key Skills I continued with my research on Studio Ghibli. Having completed the first part last week i.e. copying 1000 words relating to Ghibli of off the Internet and pasting them into a Word document, today I had to put what I had learned into 300 of my own words, which I am half way through.
This afternoon John helped me with my website, specifically with Roll Over Buttons, the difference between Vectors and Bitmaps - solid colours and continuous tone respectively.
I have also been working on the Power Point research.

21.03.10

This weekend I have been finishing my Storyboard as I was finding it difficult to do what I wanted using Photoshop.
I have also been creating some images for my portfolio.

17.03.10

This morning we had a bit of a presentation on some different types of animation, including kinetiscopes, mutoscopes. Also our tutor told us about some of the things that she has worked on inculding 2D TV, music videos and childrens cartoons.

We then set about making a Thaumatrope, a simple kind of animation made up of two images sketched onto two discs placed back to back with a piece of string in between, which when wound up makes the discs spin round creating the effect of animation.

15.03.10 P.M.

This afternoon has been spent working on the Power Point part of the animation unit.
This has included alot of research on all the different kinds of animation that are out there, the history of the whole of animation in general including stop frame, cell, and going as far back as kinetoscope's and phenakitstoscope's.

15.03.10 Key Skills

This morning I have started my research on a type of animation - Studio Ghibli - and have found some information on the studio on-line, form two different sites which I have pasted into a word document.

15.03.10

Animation - a range of images and or physical objects arranged and recorded in a sequence.
Edweard Muybridge ‘Humans in Motion’ – Stop Motion Photos studied animal motion including horses and proved that when at full gallop their legs do not all leave the ground
· Bullet Time major new style on the first Matrix film
· Zoetrope – sequential images in a revolving drum
· Phenakistoscope – A disc with pictures drawn on and slits
· Cell and Paper Animation Technique – mid 1910 – Disney. Animation 18 – 36 frames per second where as film has 18 frames
· Disney’s Steamboat Willy, first animation with synchronised sound
· Disney’s Fantasia., cartoon musical in colour – based on the sorcerers apprentice
· Jan Svankmajer – exponent of surreal Claymation while Wallace and Grommet more main stream
· Animatronics – Jason and the Argonauts, Sinbad etc
· CGI – Pixar, Industrial Light and Magic

10.03.10 P.M.

This evening I have been working on the pages of research needed for our podcast assignment, this has mainly been researching the two games I chose for my podcast, and the schedule that I did my tasks in.
I am happy with the work that I have done both at college this week and at home but am worried if it will be enough as I was off last week and have been playing catch up to the best of my ability all this week.
At the end of the day I will just have to do my best tomorrow to get the necessary work in as fast as I can without letting it effect the quality to much.

10.03.10

This morning I have been editing the podcasts that we recorded yesterday, this has included splicing the intros together with the actual reading of everybodys reviews and trying to clean up the sound quality as much as possible.
I have been taken screenshots as I have been going along to go towards the written part.
I have not had any time to catch up with the written part of the assignment today but will be doing this tomorrow morning.

08.03.10

This morning we finished of any work needed for our Key Skills portfolio.
This afternoon we have been working on our Podcasts, luckily for me I was able to join the PODCATS and I have done a monologue on Modern Warfare 2 and Halo, also I have done some research on Podcasts in general.

24.02.10

This morning we watched a video before finishing our Mind Maps on different Audio Products. I am working on MP3s, Music TV and Talk Radio. I have found the research easier and more informative in the mind map form than doing it just on a word document. Mainly because you only put in the most important points rather than researching every aspect of a subject.

22.02.10

This mornings Key Skills session was not great as we had already done the assignment we were asked to do so we did not get much done.
This afternoon we started assignment 1 of unit 2/Audio Production. I have managed to get a good deal of research done on MP3s anfd other file formats plus I have learnt about the differences in Broadcasting and nonBroadcasting.
I also excepted my place on next years Games Development course!

11.02.10

Today we have been finishing the research that is the first part of this unit. We had to choose a song out of the current top ten and research the artist and give our opinion on their work. I chose Jedward, a couple of Irish twins from X Factor. I found this quite a trial as there is nothing to recommend them or their work.
In that respect I guess I did learn something as giving an opinion on something that you dislike is so much harder than giving an opinion on something you do like.
We also had to research a computer game which I found alot easier, even though I dont play alot of computer games any more I could still pick a game that I have enjoyed playing in the past which made the task that much easier.

Halo Research page two

Bungie Software Products Corporation founded in 1991 by two students at the University of Chicago. They focused
primarily on games for the Macintosh in there first nine years, creating the Marathon and Myth series as well as Oni, a third person action game with characters and environments heavily influenced by Manga.
Then in 2000 they were taken over by Microsoft and the game Bungie were working on at the time was rebranded and became the flagship game for the launch of Microsoft’s Xbox. That game was Halo – Combat Evolved. The game became the new consoles ‘Killer app’ and the game and its subsequent sequels have sold millions of copies world wide.

THE AUTHOR IAIN M BANKS & HALO
In 1987 Iain M Banks released his science fiction novel Consider Phlebas. The book is based on his Culture series of books, set millennia in the future at the peek of human scientific and technological evolution. In this novel, as in at least two other books in the series, the Culture has the ability to create entire planets and also what they call Orbital’s. Anyone that has played Halo would recognise the Orbital’s as the Halo that is the basis of the game and since the book was released 14 years before the Xbox, Bungie has defiantly taken some inspiration from the work of Iain M Banks, and why not? The guys a genius!
The Orbital’s are not the only reference Halo has taken from the work of Banks, in his book ‘Against A Dark Background’ there is a passage, albeit a small one, that is undoubtedly relevant to the game.
"The Lazy Guns had not had a happy history; they had turned up during the Interregnum following the Second War, seemingly products of Halo; the vast Thrial-polar Machine Intelligence artifact/habitat destroyed by whatever mysterious weapon had been fired from - and which appeared to have obliterated - the moons of the giant gas planet Phrastesis."

Halo Research page one

I would say that Halo 1 has been one of the most important computer game releases of the past decade, not only did it give serious gamers everything they wanted, a proper story line and excellent graphics ( for the time), it was also easy to just pick up a JoyPad and start playing.

THE PLOT OF HALO
Its the 26th century and you play, in First Person, Master Chief, a Cybernetically Enhanced Super Soldier, one of only a few surviving members of the Spartan II Project. At the start of the game Master Chief and his feminine artificial intelligence construct, Cortana, are the only survivors after there ship the Pillar of Autumn crash-lands on a mysterious ring shaped planet called Halo. The planet is in the hands of the Covenant, a race of aliens who are but one of the enemies you will face through out the game. After rescuing Captain Keyes and any human survivors you find along the way, Master Chief is ordered by Keyes to reach Halos control center to suss out its true purpose. When he reaches the control center he finds out that the Covenant has accidentally released a parasitic alien race named the Flood, capable of overwhelming and infesting any sentient life. Now the race is on for Master Chief to discover how to activate Halo which is the only way to stop the Flood spreading through the galaxy. But if only it was that simple, it turns out that the activation of Halo would bring about the end of all sentient life through a chain reaction of similar Halo installations through out the Galaxy. Now the only option is to destroy Halo, whilst fighting not just the Covenant and the Flood but all Sentinels. Cortana discovers that the only way to destroy the Halo installation is to set the crashed ship Pillar of Autumn to self destruct. To do this they need Captain Keyes authorization code who, unfortunately as been infected and turned into a Proto Gravemind Form. In the end Master Chief manually causes the Pillar of Autumns fusion reactors to melt down and he and Cortana narrowly escape the explosion.
I never actually completed the game though I did play it for some time and I found that it is the kind of game you could go back to again and again, pick up your JoyPad and get straight into the action. Very easy to control and satisfying environments, weaponry and general game play. Out of Ten I would defo give it a Ten.

Research on Jedward page two

UNDER PRESSURE – THE ORIGINAL by QUEEN and DAVID BOWIE.
Under Pressure came into being as a song by a round about route, it was originally a Queen song under the title ‘Feel Like’ though the group were not happy with the result. The song as we know it today came about from a jam session with Queen and David Bowie in 1984. It is not easy to say for sure who actually wrote the lyrics for the song, but it seems Bowie and Mercury, with Roger Taylor acting as an intermediary, probably wrote the lyrics.
There has been some disagreement about who actually created ‘that bass line’. In ’82 Queens bassist John Deacon credited Bowie with its creation, but more recently both Roger Taylor and Brian May insist that it was actually Deacon himself that created it and Bowie has also said that the bass line was written before he became involved in the song

Research on Jedward page one

This song is a cynical attempt to make money, performed by a couple of twins who represent everything that is wrong with popular music today. You could say that corporate greed has been ruining music for decades but has it ever been so blatantly obvious, so cynically packaged? In the past you could expect a ‘novelty’ song every Christmas where as now they are the norm as apposed to the exception, and when did Eurovision become a weekly event? It’s like you have to pay twice for your music, once (at least) to vote for your choice on TV and then again to buy the single. The point is it has become so obviously about the money, and not even necessarily for the performer, but for the people on the judging panel, who are the real ‘celebrities’.
Rather than relying on any innate musical talent Jedward rely on gimmicks, i.e. their ‘distinctive’ blonde quiffs the fact that they are twins and even roping in Vanilla Ice. They seem to be more interested with Fame for Fames sake than for any real interest in music. Even Political Parties have, predictably, gotten in on the act by parodying the twins in poster campaigns.

The fact that they have chosen a song that has been a hit twice before goes to show that they could not write a decent piece of original music if you held a gun to their identical heads, not that they would have any say in the song they have released.
They came into the public eye whilst competing on the talent show The X Factor, but the fact that they got eliminated has been no barrier to their music being forced upon the public. They are just the latest in a long line of talent show losers, who once eliminated, still release some re-hashed piece of rubbish, grab their fifteen minutes and disappear back into obscurity. Jedward were eliminated on the 22nd of November when they lost out in the judges over 25s vote.
The twins John and Edward were born and raised in Ireland where they competed in various Talent Competitions, taking their inspiration, predictably, from artists such as Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and The Backstreet Boys. They suffered bullying due to their taste in music until they moved schools.
The song Unger Pressure is amazingly hard not to like yet the Jedward twins have managed to create a version that is almost unrecognisable from the original, a version that has nothing to recommend it, saying this though the bass line is still enjoyable enough to listen to.
Out of TEN I would begrudge even giving this song a ONE.

08.02.10

This morning during Key Skills we did some research for our exam including dusting up on apostrophes, commas and paragraph's. We then had our exam, mine was a level 2, I am pretty sure I should pass but we do not find out until tomorrow.
This afternoon I have been updating my own Blog and commenting on some of the Blogs that I follow.
I have also been working on my Website, which I am basing on the Band, Nightmares on Wax. This includes creating some images using Photoshop for backgrounds and such, and general research on using Dreamweaver.

04.02.10

Today we have our practical exam, we have to set up a mixing desk, starting everything up in the correct order. The less help that Adrian has to give you the higher your grade. I am trying to memorise enough to get through it with minimal, if any help. Hopefully!

02.02.10

My friend from the Drop In Centre emailed me last night asking if I could do another poster for her, she wants to start a meeting every Friday where the service users can voice their ideas for the centre. The poster did not have to be a great work of art as she wanted to start putting them today, it did not take long to put it together.

01.02.10

When I had my interview with Paul from the Games Design Department he mentioned that he was happy to see I was doing my own work outside of college, such as using Deviant Art.com to publish some of the designs that I have done. I have been creating images, mainly using a program called Paint.Net, for years now but he suggested that I start using Photoshop, as it is the industry standard. The main reason that I have been using Paint.Net is because it is just a lot easier to use, but I can see the wisdom of what he is saying and I now plan to start using Photoshop for the designs that i do in my spare time.
At the end of the day Photoshop may be harder to use, but it is a lot more powerfull than Paint.Net, so the sooner I become more proficiant with it, the better.

01.02.10 - Soundbooth Project

Today I handed in my Soundbooth project and after initially finding the software difficult to get to grips with I was actually happy with how the finished product sounded. I think I put the effects to good use, making my re-mix sound that much more different from the original, and also managed to keep the whole thing in tempo, one of the harder things to do in Soundbooth.
The main thing I am worried about is the volumes of the different tracks, as some of them do go into the red, but to me it sounded spot on.
01.02.10
This afternoon I have been spending some time up-dating my Blogs, I have added quite a bit where possible and plan to put in a lot more content in the future, such as stuff that I have done at home.
I have also up-loaded my Research on making a virtual studio and the Spread Sheet (budget of £10.000) detailing all the different components that would make up my studio. For the rest of the afternoon I spent some time using Soundbooth.

30.01.10 - The Drop In, Northampton.

My friend has recently taken over the running of the young persons Drop In Centre for the YMCA in Northampton and she asked me if I could knock up a poster for her. I was more than happy to do this and am even working on some more.
At the end of the day the image itself, and the Layers that make it up can all go into my Assets folder, and plus its for charity!
I am going to upload some more of the images that I create at home onto my Blog.

30.01.10

This weekend I have been finishing the Soundbooth project, in fact I have started from scratch with a different song. I think it is going to sound OK when I have finished as I have now got to grips with the Software. For me Soundbooth was harder to pick up than Cubase, but now that I am more comfortable using it I am enjoying the project a lot more.

Over the past couple of days I have been working on the HandCANNON, its part of a joint effort creation that me and Robb are doing together.
Basically I will create FIVE 2D images -

1. The profile, which you can see on the left.
2. A front image of the gun, looking down the barrel.
3. An image from directly beneath.
4. An image from directly behind.
5. And an image seen from above.

Once I have finished I will then give them to Robb who will turn them all into one 3D image.
When he has done this the HandCANNON can then be put into a computer game.

25.01.10

Today me and Robb went around town and as far as the beach to record some sounds to import into Soundbooth. We will add these to the loops that we are creating out of the songs we have chosen and end up with an original composition. Hopefully.

23-01-10

Due to being ill on Thursday due to not being able to see my Doc I am going to get all my research finished today and uploaded. I would have finished it earlier except I no longer have the Internet at home so am using Robby's.

18-01-10 P.M

This afternoon we have started the research part of the Recording Unit, this includes building a virtual studio with a budjet of £10,000 made up of about a dozen bits of hardware and software. We also have to complete a 750 word document.

18-01-10

This morning in Key Skills we learnt about Capital Letters, were and when they should be used and we did a little test as well. This morning in Music we have been getting to grips with Adobe Soundbooth. This software is not as good as Cubase.

13-01-10

I have been continuing with the evaluation of my Cubase project today, I have almost finished. I have up-loaded my finished track for Adrian to mark and am quite happy with how it turned out. I shall have the written part of the project finished by tomorrow.

11-01-10

Started the evaluation of my Music assignment today, have been gathering some more screen shots and writing up how I created my track.