Holiday

What I did on my Holidays

My final project is based on the experience I feel while working. When we finally get good weather in Manchester I don’t get the opportunity to enjoy it as I'm always working. I gaze out of my window at work watching everybody enjoying themselves and it ticks me off.

For this project I opted to do an animation. This gave me an opportunity to use After effects and my other skills in Photoshop, Illustrator and editing software.

For research I looked at graphic styles and colours we associate with summer. My inspiration for the animation came from the Diet Coke Plus advert. I’ve always wanted to make a video animation using compositing software. I first used illustrator to draw different scenes
for the animation. This was a long winded process that requires a lot of problem solving of how graphic images would animate on screen. Storyboarding can only give a rough guide so I had to rely on a lot of improvisation to make the animation as fun and interesting as possible. I then had to transfer all my vector images in to after effects and teach myself how to use the software finally adding a complementary music track.

I really enjoyed doing this project I was given free range on content. This was an opportunity for me to develop new skills with software I’ve never used before and I personally think it was a good animation for a first attempt with after effects.

George Lucas Flash Site

Flash Interactive movie

This project was a love and hate relationship for me. I chose to do an interactive site on the director and producer George Lucas. This was a good opportunity for me to talk learn about a director whose films have influenced the film industry. These films have given me the inspiration to get involved in visual effects software.

I knew from the start of this project what I wanted to showcase. The design of the interface was the challenging part of the brief. I did a lot of research on flash websites for usability and design. After series of ideas I settled for a storyboard layout for the interface design. I got this idea from watching the behind the scenes documentary of Star Wars and caught a glimpse of an old storyboard scene which was a perfect layout for the flash movie.

Now that I have all the elements that I needed. It was learning how to use the flash software to covey the information. This was difficult for me as I only have a basic understanding of flash, but complexity of this movie required a lot of action scripting which I don’t understand.

For this project I’ve have had to study flash for myself, studying many late nights till the early hours of the morning to get this project completed. Due to this project I have learnt how to do basic action scripting and extended my previous knowledge of the flash software. Although i struggled with the programming side of the project i was really impressed in what i acheived with the final product.

Doritos

Doritos advertisement

To be honest the product does not fill me with any excitement. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any memorable Doritos ads since the late 90’s. They must be desperate resorting to college students coming up with ideas. Doritos have never really had a memorable ad campaign. I have never liked the taste of Doritos which makes it harder to gain inspiration. I found this project really boring and did not want to it.

The challenge with projects like these is that college projects are always limited with inadequate resources where as advertising companies have a lot of money and access to professional equipment that opens up thousands of possibilities. So to compete with the professionals you have to come up with really clever ideas that do not require big budget props. For these reasons I have had to hold back on many of my ideas.

Of the five ideas I generated I settled on one that enabled be not have actors or big effects. The idea consists of two sock puppets. The concept was two socks would both fart and smell each others fart realising the flavour of the Doritos they were eating.

Now because I am doing this project on my own and not working in a group. I’ve had to rely on friends with no skills in filming or acting. This was my second challenge, because I knew what I wanted, my friends had no experience in the creative field it was difficult to get them to understand the concept.

I had drawn storyboards and written a screenplay to help me and my friends play out the scene. We occasionally improvised which really worked well. But when it came to editing the shoot I found the filming was not as I hoped.

The editing of the film was really tricky as I did not have many shots and the time to reshoot. As we were acting with sock puppets the cameraman managed to catch our heads in the shot which he was supposed to just focus on the socks. So I skilfully edited film to get away with the mistakes. I really enjoyed the editing and felt a real achievement in the final cut.

My next challenged was the dubbing. Our Manchester accents did not work well with our sock puppets so I had to record myself with a high pitched voice that work out better for my sock characters.

Towards the end of this project i felt that it was the best brief ive work on this year. I thought overall advertisement was a success and it was a good opportunity to work on a live industry brief. Due to this experience I have found a love for the editing profession.

There is a link to the Doritos advert in the video bar above.

Code Computer love

Code Computer love is a digital design company based in Manchester’s city centre. It is one of the leading digital design agencies in the UK and the number one agency outside of London. Their fresh contemporary and innovative style has gathered over forty awards in the last five years and has acquired an impressive portfolio of clients such as HMV, Umbro, Waterstones, and Huggies.

Code continues to define the digital industry here in Manchester and offers a wide range of services such as online marketing, web development, interactive technologies and TV and animation, making them the only full service digital agency in Manchester. Code is proud of its heritage and collaborates with the Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), Manchester Digital and E-Consultancy to raise the digital profile of the region.

Code has a team of 46 designers and marketing specialists priding itself on the work they produce, this means that they recruit knowledgeable people with extraordinary skills. Code is always recruiting the ‘very best’ talent around and has a tough recruitment process where only the right person gets through. In 2006 they head hunted an award winning freelance interactive designer ‘Stewart Hamilton’ so they could offer his skills in the latest technology to clients. They insist and thrive on experimenting in new and exciting ways of presenting clients with innovative ideas in order to connect with their consumers, offering them a service beyond the norm.

The company established itself in 1999 and started off small, in a rented room above a hairdresser’s shop in Stockport. Tony Foggett, Wini Tse and Louis Georgiou are the founding directors of Code. Tony and Louis first crossed paths whilst studying an educational media design degree at the MMU and coincidentally they met again working at the same design company, Mainstream. This is where they met their third partner, Wini Tse and became friends.

As the three colleagues worked with each other they realised that there was a potential market for multimedia at a time when design was predominately paper based. This was a perfect business opportunity to be taken advantage of; as people did not realise. As Foggett recalls: “For us it’s the specialism that’s always been the key, and that’s why we decided to jump ship”.(1)“There’s a huge difference between a specialist agency and a full service advertising agency that offers digital as just one of those services. When digital’s a ‘bolt on’ you may get a nice integrated approach, but digital in its own right needs to have a much more on-going, focused and long term strategy”.(2)

“It surprises me that there aren’t larger agencies with the capabilities of us around. In fact I’d argue that we’re now emerging as the only real full service digital agency (in Manchester) – in that there are other design and build, or advertising based agencies, but nobody that’s actually integrating creative, media and planning like we are.”(3)

In April 1999 they started their business with a mere £3000 and bought a new computer with basic equipment in order to setup their first office. They financed their office space by trading five months of rent for a website! The team then planned a strategy to attract cliental by teaming with the same traditional design agencies that undervalued digital so they could build their client base. Traditional design companies agreed with this and would bring Code on board to develop digital solutions as they could not offer such services themselves. This allowed Code to have access to renowned brand names and media exposure.

Over the years they took on many projects; however, one in particular positively changed their future and cemented the company reputation. The website commissioned by ‘Doctor Martens’ the shoe company’s. This was a breakthrough for them as their work on the website was impressionable and instrumental in securing them a permanent place with the massive corporation KCC Kimberley Clark Corporation (Huggies).

Tony Foggart: “We put an awful lot of love and attention into that website, really demonstrating how well we could get to grips with a brand, and it paid off. We got a lot of great jobs off the back of it and secured a great relationship with DM. It was a real turning point.”(4)

The managing director of Code has well established the company and has acquired a great achievement by attracting big brand names that opted for them over their competitors in London. “We love sticking it up the south”. (5) “We’re Manchester people and we love it here. I think that fact makes us more determined - gives us an extra yard in preparing for pitches – and that usually pays dividends.”(6)

http://www.how-do.co.uk/north-west-media-features/special-features/deciphering-code-20070814801/ (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

How Stuff Works 'it's good to know'

http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/movies-channel.htm

This is an odd but interesting website, it's layout is terrible, there is too much information on its home page and you need a little bit of time to get your bearings.

The interesting part of the website is the behind the scenes information of the movie industry.

Sometimes when i've watched a movie and thought to myself how did they do that. Well this Website tell you exactly that.

There are over a hundred articles explaining Hollywoods secrets ranging from movies like 'Monsters, Inc.' to visual effects companies like Industrial Light & Magic .

These next paragraphs are extracts from the website

The Film 300

Scenes involving horses were particularly complicated. “In the first battle scene,” Watts relates, “we had the riders ride the horses up to the edge of the blue screen and skid to a stop. That was a challenge we got around through clever editing and a convincing backdrop.” But the Persian messenger‘s ride over the hill to Sparta actually had to be shot outdoors. “We couldn’t get the horses running fast enough [otherwise],” says Snyder. He was intent on having a real feel to "300" despite the artificial setting. “I didn’t want the movie to look like it was made in a computer, like 'Polar Express.' The movie was shot on film. We added grain and lens flares because I wanted it to feel rough. It’s very organic-feeling.”

The Perfect Storm Visual Effects

The model of the Andrea Gail (the main boat in the film) is itself a wonder, with objects on the boat, such as cables and buoys, reacting to the wind and movement of the ocean as well.
In addition, to help capture the rolling motion of a stormy ocean, ILM placed a virtual camera into the simulation on a second boat. The virtual camera pointed to an invisible target object located on the boat that was the focus of the shot. The virtual camera had a certain degree of freedom that emulated the difficulty a person would have holding a camera while trying to stay trained on an object that is moving. This method is used in several shots to enhance the realism.
Most of the actual 3D modeling work took place using a commercial software application package called Maya, made by AliasWavefront. The cool thing about Maya is that it contains a complete programming language, C++, that allows animators and designers to write their own custom plug-ins. "The Perfect Storm" team at ILM wrote more than 30 plug-ins for Maya for this movie. They also wrote several stand-alone applications for specific aspects, such as shaders and particle systems, of the ocean scenes.

Whether your a nerd like me or just curious you should take a peak you might be surprised. It may even give you idea into what specific area of media you would like to persue.

Enjoy!

You Tube

You Tube is a video sharing website where people can upload, view and share video clips. You Tube was created in mid-February 2005 by three former Pay Pal employees. The site uses Flash software to play its videos including movie clips and music videos, as well as amateur content from around the world.

Personally, I think it’s a fantastic resource for multimedia and film students. It is easily accessible if you need to research a particular film or music video new and old, You Tube is the answer.

For example, I always wanted to see the Turkish delight advert from the 1980’s, I found it on You Tube with ease. I would also use this site for training tutorials and to watch American shows that you would not be able to see in the UK.

Any project that I would work on I will use You Tube for research. Not only is it great source of video footage, you could use it for a video portfolio as anyone across the world could access your work . I have recently uploaded my video footage on You Tube which is perfect for me to access it if I need to show somebody my work.

The key to any good website is how easy it is to navigate around it You Tube is one of those websites that is 'dummy' friendly.

Spiderman 4 Trailer

A thirty second opening sequence or trailer for Spiderman 4 film.

I thought this project would be difficult to do. The Spiderman franchise are mega budgeted movies and i had to create an open title sequence with no experience in filming.

At first I struggled with just borrowing a video recorder from college. How was i going to produce any film if i could not get the equipment. I was without video equipment for 4 weeks, what a great college.

To be given a project like this and not offer any advice, guidance or classes on video making. I dont know what results the tutors are expecting. I would have appreciated a little advice on how I could start or how to use a camera correctly and all its functions, for example, how to stop a shadow from casting on a scene. I felt the biggest problem here was a lack of teaching, thus it made it hard to do the work.

Secondly, I felt that without acknowledging these problems I had and the extra amount of effort I had to do on this project it is unfair to recieved nothing but negative feedback on my final piece.

However, I disagree with the tutors comments saying it had tacky use of typography. I thought it was very successful. Lots of time and effort was spent on researchand the final film.

My idea was to film my self drawing the characters in the Spiderman movies and i would narrate it in the same fashion as the comic books. I began researching the Spiderman movies and comic books looking at different illustrators well known with the Spiderman character. I felt this was a very good idea because of the limited resources I had.

I started with a storyboard to help visualise the correct poses for the film. As I began filming myself drawing each character from scratch it became an absolute ball ache as I tried to stay out of the camera frame while trying to produce high quality drawings at strange angles. After long hard working hours and late nights I finally produced over 10 hours of footage.

Editing was the next challenge, I had ten hours of footage that had to be condensed in to a minute. The final cut had to be engaging and fast paced as it could have easily been very dull.

By adding certain filters to give that comic book feel. The typefaces had to have fast movement added more energy to the trailer. I used the Batman television series for reference to show how type would emphasize on action.

A good amount of effort has gone in to this project I hope all will enjoy it. All Clips are accessible in the video bar in the top right hand corner.

You


Wednesday 10th October 2007

To describe oneself is not very easy, so many factors and experiences define a person’s personality. The best approach to this brief would be to focus on a particular feeling or trait
that describes me the best.

The obvious thing to do, would list absolutely everything I like and dislike, do’s and don’ts. During the exercise I began to get very personal, I didn’t like to expose certain things about myself which could attract undesired attention.

At the production meetings we were told to work out of our comfort zones and do not do obvious things. The more I wrote the more I started to understand and realise the things that affected me.

I realised that I was extremely paranoid, whether that was something to do with cleanliness or the way I had a cynical view on life. So I would then concentrate on this particular area.

The challenge then is to interpret these thoughts and feelings and visualise them. As the subject matter was a psychological feeling, my research revolved around watching films and analyzing photographs and typography that dealt with the darker side of society.

Movies like Seven, The grudge, Silent Hill and David Carson gave me ideas in which I presented my project. I experimented with taking photos of areas that would create a sense of danger and would be thought as provoking. I looked at different typography that was edgy, scratched and gave a sense of unpredictability.

As time went on I felt that the images of people and environments I collected were all too predictable so I decided that typography would be the best form of delivery. I used eight to ten different type faces and over 50 different brushes in Photoshop to create the right atmosphere.

I then gave the animation a story line. The start explains the parnoia problem the middle shows a conflict and the end shows my failure to overcome the parnoia.

Next was the challenge of composing the right sounds.

The audio that would accompany the footage had to be strong, irritating and emotional.
I cut and looped different sounds and played it in reverse until it sounded right, some parts were slowed down and some parts were speeded up to get the atmostphere I needed.

I Hope you enjoy this personal insight in to mylife. All Clips are in the video bar in the top right hand corner.

The Drew Review

I stumbled on a poster called Back to the future 2 in 1989 and I was blown away when I realised it was painted rather than a photographic image. I saw a small signature on the poster. I couldn’t make out the name but I think it said Drew.

Back in the early 90's I would try to pick up movie posters from the video shops and lookout for the same signature. I would spend hours in the Athena and Odyssey 7 shops looking for more posters by the same artist.

It was only until the internet was available that I found out who this artist was and his full name Drew Struzan.

Drew Struzan is an American artist, and was born in1947. Struzan has painted album covers, advertising, collectibles, and book covers, but he is best known for his extensive movie poster work. Struzan is one of the industry's most recognized talents, having provided artwork for over 150 movie posters, including many of the best-known films of all time.

The following extracts are from the Drew Struzan website


It was in 1977 Struzan and a friend Charles White, was commissioned by George Lucas to create a poster design for the 1978 re-release of Star Wars. White, uncomfortable with portraiture, asked Struzan for his help on the project. As such, Struzan painted the human characters in oil paints and White focused on the ships, Darth Vader, C-3PO and all the mechanical details of the poster art. The poster went on to become a fan favorite as well as the director's, as the original art hangs in Lucas' home. Thus began Struzan's long association with the Star Wars series.
As other directors and studios became aware of Struzan's work, they beat a steady pathway to his door. Throughout the '70s and '80s Struzan produced a constant stream of work for such diverse films as Blade Runner, Cannonball Run, the Police Academy series, Coming To America, First Blood, Risky Business, An American Tail and The Goonies, among many, many others.
During this period, Struzan continued his association with Lucas by creating the associated one-sheet artwork for both the continuing Star Wars saga and the Indiana Jones series of films
Struzan's primary work medium is airbrushed acrylics on board with finishing details in colored pencil, which allow him the easy flexibility in having to accommodate any requested changes to the work. Preferring to work on a 1 to 1 scale, Struzan's one-sheet work would be approximately 27 x 40 inches, the size of a printed movie poster. Working from reference photographs and live models, Struzan has been known, at times, to include depictions of himself, family members and friends in his work. He is known for working very quickly; typically it takes him two days to finish a painting. With the theatrical release of the Star Wars special editions, Struzan created the three-panel triptych poster in 3 weeks.


Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 1984

This is the poster that Drew tied up the reputation of being "The" Indiana Jones artist. Drew did three quick drawings and then one colour sketch.They loved it and gave him the go ahead. It proved so wonderful that they never looked back. Ever since then, just as Harrison Ford 'is' Indiana Jones, it is only authentic if Drew paints him.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - Advance February1989

This job was a blessing to Drew and his family in more ways than can be told. It was his utter delight to have gotten this job and to have painted this picture. He did dozens of beautiful black and whites in preparation for this, a number of full color full size paintings, he did two versions of this finished painting for the advance poster and then did the wonderful one sheet for the release of the film. He also did numerous paintings that were used for newspaper ads. It cannot be discerned from these paintings but this was the beginning of the worst time in the life of the artist and his family. Along with severe emotional distress they were also suffering their worst financial disaster. What an unprecedented blessing when Paramount Studios decided to purchase the entire body of original work for their archives that Drew had done for this film. Paramount does not know it but they most surely saved the life and career of this artist and his family.

A Groundbreaking Movie

Star Wars

Star Wars was made by George Lucas, an independent film maker and editor from San Francisco, California. It has become the most popular space adventure of all time and the most groundbreaking movie in cinema history. Star Wars has captured my imagination as well as the rest of the world.

Star Wars was more than a science fiction movie for me, Not only did it change the way we look at movies, it changed the way movies were made. I had never seen anything like it let alone anything to match it visually or technically. Star Wars reinvented the science fiction genre which opened the doors for aspiring filmmakers such as Ridley Scott, Jameson Cameron. and Dean Devlin.

In the early seventies movies were violent, grim, and downbeat. Instead of old fashioned heroes, the screens were dominated by hard nosed antihero’s who broke all the rules. Films like Taxi Driver, The French Connection, and Dirty Harry were very dark and dealt with the gloomy side of life. So when Star Wars hit the screens in May 1977 it took the world by storm, breaking all box office records and acquiring seven Oscars, making George Lucas an overnight success and a multi millionaire.

Star Wars was not only a huge success it smashed open the possibilities of what film could actually do. It was an enormous step forward in to how people perceived the cinema going experience. The film has a powerful theme and story which was executed in such a way that it was believable and exhilarating than anything I have seen before.

Most importantly Star Wars introduced techniques and innovations such as motion control which showed incredible dynamic movements never achieved before. Lucas also wanted his worlds to have a lived in feeling so surrounding were made to look used, beaten and rough to give the film a realistic look. These were major milestones in visual effects history and would change the way films were made for years to come. Like Star Wars it self the music was also a key element which defies conventional wisdom. At the time disco music dominated the music charts but Lucas followed his instinct and went with a classical soundtrack which was a huge risk but a genius move as it now has become one of the most memorable movie soundtrack in cinema history.

Overall, Star Wars proved to be a great movie of science fiction in its own right. A great fantasy adventure marketed for people of all ages. However, some would disagree with me and consider it ridiculous and the ‘worse thing’ to ever come out of the film industry. I personally believe that without this film the movie industry wouldn’t be where it is today. And the movie audiences would not have been entertained and amazed by such talented filmmakers responsible for movies like Alien, The Terminator, Jurassic Park and The Lord of the Rings, these films are constantly raising the bar and breaking the boundaries of film.


Year 1
New Media Foundation