Making the invisible visible....

Found this through a friend, it's to raise awareness of a prisoner who's been on Death Row for 19 years, even though the system is unsure of his conviction.

Such a great idea, works well, too. I'd love to have a go at something like this.

http://vimeo.com/17296374

P.S. Embed codes hate me, so I'm sticking with the faithful Hyperlink to get me by!

My One Shot edit

Here is my finished One Shot edit. I went for an eerie theme to go with the strange concept. It works well, the music really adds atmosphere. The guy walking 'forwards' sometimes gets lost in the shadows though, I think I may have got a little trigger happy with the brightness and contrast.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66abiBg1AKQ

Embedding doesn't work with me, for some reason.

Finished my Ident!

Here it is! Found some good SFX after much searching. Premiere Pro was on my side, too :)

Our final One Shot

Heeeere she be. A good idea done well! We're all happy with how it came out :)

http://vimeo.com/16696582

Urghh.

Not been on in a long time, again. Two jobs and Uni = me being tired and taken all the time.
Anyway, here are some shots from last weeks filming doody. We went for a silent film, based on CCTV footage. It was just a simple film, consisting of two guys (Me and Mark) exchanging money for drugs while an innocent bystander (Najhet) looked on, trying not to get seen/get involved. Here are some pictures of the day, mainly me looking for suitable points for the camera to go. Also got a couple of the others standing around the camera looking busy :)

Here's Mark's edit of the footage:

http://vimeo.com/16387487

And the original footage:

http://vimeo.com/16341115

Today....

We talked about Design and how we perceive it. It's all very clever. For example, take the Swastika. You will automatically think 'Aha! Nazis.'. No! It's been around for well over a thousand years and actually means 'peace'.
Example of mind-fudgery:

René Magritte's "Not To Be Reproduced" 

It was all about how our brain tries to make sense of everything, like everything has a solution and a logical outcome. I think next week we're learning about the The Golden Section/The Divine Proportion and the Gestalt Theory (The sum of the whole is greater than its parts).

We also showed our personal Design Process Powerpoint presentations to the whole class. This was about how we go about designing and working our ideas, but we could only illustrate it and not explain it. 20 slides, the presentation must last exactly a minute. As each presentation was shown, we were given tailored questions about that certain presentation and had to note them down. After all were finished, we put our notes on a table so we could walk round a read what people have said about us. I was described as 'believeable' and 'powerful'. Powerful! I love it!

And then me and Sam went to the Noodle Bar.

It was pure win, Relentless in a glass bottle! A GLASS BOTTLE, I SAY!

My Ident!

Finally, after much swearing and squinting, my Ident is nearly done!
No sound as of yet, but I will edit it when I get back in Uni.
It will be edited in Adobe Premiere Pro, and will feature many fancy sound effects :)

Again....

I've been browsing again. I've found this guy called James Clyne who does Conceptual Illustration, he's worked on all the massive films such as Transformers, Star Trek and Minority Report, to name a few. His imagination teamed with gouache paint makes for an amazing combination. It's just mind-blowing how good he is! He's just my sort of guy, massive Sci-Fi nerd with a crazy talent.

Here's a link to his projects page.

http://www.jamesclyne.com/projects.php?gallery_id=297

Update!

Sorry, haven't been on in a while!

Our main project at the moment is our 3D Ident. I'll be honest, I'm having trouble grasping the software and coming up with individual ideas that compliment my lack of 3D knowledge. I'm sure I'll get something done, it's like everything!

Today, we (well, the 6 students that bothered to turn up) had a discussion on Ethics. This was regarding consent, working with people with possible difficulties, basically a lesson how to not dig yourself a hole. I really enjoyed it, and found it interesting. It was also nice to get in on an intelligent discussion, I haven't had one in absolutely ages!

Also, while browsing the Internets, I've found this guy. His name is Patrick Boivin and he's just brilliant at anything he tries. His Stop Motion work is the best, though, I whole-heartedly suggest that you go and look at his work! Here's a taster.

3D day!

Today was my first animation lesson, and it involves lots of 3D! I've never really taken to 3D, I don't know why, but it's never clicked with me like other mediums. Our project brief is simple: Make a TV Ident. For those of you not in the know, an Ident is this type of this:



Simple! Now to think of something....

Anyway. Seeing as I am technically a 3D virgin, I had to learn how to draw and animate using 3DS Max, a simple program that I picked up surprisingly quick. We had the task of making the word 'Jelly' move in a jelly sort of way. Here's mine:



Not bad for a first timer! It uses keyframes, and having lots of experience with Flash and After Effects really helped with this. I had a bit of time after that, so I did this:



Pardon my French. I particularly like this one as I did it unaided and it looks pretty convincing, obviously lighting is needed and a more tasteful colour scheme too.

I want to try reactor animation next, though. It looks so fun! It's a basic Physics engine that you plug-in to 3DS Max and it automatically works out what goes where when collisions occur.

EXAMPLE TIMEZ:



See? Fun! There's a few tutorials floating about for that so I'll give it a go when I get my sweaty paws on the software for my personal computer.

That be all for now.

Ciao!

On my mind....

and it has been for the last 3 years from when I started driving, is the lack of basic car maintenance on our roads today! I am a keen driver (not a boy racer, oh-no!) and I regularly service and check my car over for anything that is out of line. I see driving as something that should be seen as important and serious, not a chore or something that endangers both you and the people around you.

Anyway, it really hacks me off. I see countless cars with lights of every kind not working. I see wayy too many cars with absolutely NO brakelights at all too!

And people who think that the car only runs on petrol. NO! It needs oil too! I know someone who doesn't top up the oil, they 'send it for the service and they do it.' Once a year!? Christ!

God only knows the amount of cars on the road with no oil or coolant. Or brake/clutch fluid, more importantly!

All of these things I see on a daily basis, and it's just not good enough. There needs to be an advertising campaign or something to remind the public to regularly check their cars. If one bulb is blown, change both of them as it's usually a sign that the other is about to go. It's not hard, and it's not expensive.

/rant.

But....possible project? Auto-awareness?

Whiteboard animations!

Yay! They're finally up! My group's animation starts at 0:49, short and sweet :)

First lecture…

is tomorrow. I wonder what it's about?

Handmade Cameras!

You heard. Today was Pinhole Camera Experimentation Day! Proper good fun, learning the basics of how cameras work and actually making a working camera out of a 500ml can! No batteries, no viewfinders, no flash, just a rudimentary camera that can make exceptional pictures when used properly.

How to make your own Pinhole Camera:

Step one. Get a 500ml can. Doesn't matter what it is or what's in it. Empty by any means.

Step two. Grab a can-opener or a penknife and take the top off the can (only the very top bit, past the 'shoulder' at most). MIND THE SHARP EDGES! I put some gaffer tape around the edge to protect myself.

Step three. Make a light-tight removable lid. How we did this was position a strip of paper around the top of the can about 8" long by 2" wide. Just make sure you can tape either end together and you can remove it like a sleeve. For now, keep it at the top of the can and tape a circular bit of paper to it to form a lid. Use plenty of gaffer tape or black insulation tape as it has light-blocking capabilities. You now should have a light-tight removable lid.

Step four. Make a pinhole about half way up the can. When I say a pinhole, I mean pinhole. Any bigger and the excess light will blur your picture. Now put some black tape over that pinhole to form a shutter.

Step five. Go to your dark room and grab a sheet of light-sensitive paper. Remove the lid and put the paper in so that the edges of the paper sit at either side of the pinhole so the light can reach it. Reinstall the lid and make sure your shutter tape is in place. Do all this in the dark as the light-sensitive paper will be ruined if it sees light.

Step six. Find your object of desire that you wish to photograph. Point the pinhole at the subject and remove the tape for 8-12 seconds depending on how much light there is. My day was quite overcast so I exposed the hole for 12 seconds. After your 8-12 seconds are up, quickly cover the pinhole with the tape. AT NO POINT MUST YOU REMOVE THE LID!

Step seven. Go to your dark room and develop your cheap and cheerful work! You will end up with a negative image. Scan it into your preferred Photo Editing software and invert it and adjust the brightness and contrast until you are happy. Print it, and admire. Job done!

My finished article.....

A good start!

So. Today was our first time working in groups, and it was hilarious! We all tried our hand at Whiteboard Stop Motion, an interesting topic that I've always wanted to try, but never got round to.

We were given a task of getting a box from one side of the board to the other with an obstacle inbetween, but we were allowed free reign of our ideas and we had two hours, so we went mad. The videos are currently being stitched together, but here's some Stop Motion by last year's NTU First Years.

It begins!

So, here begins my University Course at Nottingham Trent. As the eagle-eyed among you may have spotted, I am a Multimedia student!

I promise to keep it updated regularly :)

Over and out. For now.