James Lock's Creative Blog

2010-10-18T15:38:00.003+01:00

You can now find me on Twitter @ http://www.twitter.com/james__lock

My personal blog is http://james-lock.tumblr.com

2010-04-21T21:54:00.000+01:00

"When troubles tumble in on dismal days remember this: it's not the end of the world and if it was it would matter even less." twitturgies

Class of 2009-10

2010-04-16T20:55:00.001+01:00

For those who want the pic taken the day Mark left here it is, click on the pic to load a bigger version.

Updated: Misrepresented by a journalist for a Dutch Newspaper

2010-04-02T11:47:00.003+01:00

Update:
I have been in contact with Sanne and it would appear that there is bit of a mis understanding her translation of what she writes is: ‘I’m worried about the violence,’ he writes. ‘And I think young people get a raw deal in the media. It often has to do with violence and stuff. That only gets people into a panic.’ which is a lot close to what I had originally written then the translations that I had before hand. She has also apologised for calling me a T-shirt Designer. I have apologised for getting the wrong end of the stick and I am glad that it has been sorted out, I am going to leave my original post below so that you can read the whole of what I had to say on the issue.

Yeah I know it sounds surreal, but that is actually the situation I have found myself in. Seriously, the things I get myself into. If you found my website through the blog post by Sanne Rooseboom - http://www.depers.nl/buitenland/468022/Bendeoorlog.html I would firstly like to point out that I am not a t-shirt designer, it isn't even a part of what I have done in the past, although it may well become part of what I do in the future, short and/or long term. Also below is my original comment on the situation to Sanne, I feel that my views haven't really been done justice and have perhaps been moulded to fit slightly more in with the views of the main stream media. Me views come from studying Sociology, which included a module on the media including how it reports on and affects minority groups and research that I did for my knife crime project last year.

Below is the original message that I sent to Sanne:

Why are you active against knife crime?:
The Nottinghamshire area where I live in the UK is one of the worst for knife crime. The police and Crimestoppers asked our college to get design students to produce a range of posters for them. Also the view that people have of young people is an important issue close to my heart, I feel that we get a raw deal from the media. It was a project that I was passionate about, I think that as a designer feeling that you are helping to make a difference in a real way is great and will always be the best projects that you get.

Do you think the problem is getting less or worse?
Information that I found when researching the project suggests that knife crime as a problem is not getting worse in itself, but the demography of those committing offences is changing. The statistics have slowly changed to show more young people rather then adults committing offences. The media and government have both released data over the last couple of years to show that there has been growth in recent years and data to show that the problem is being reversed recently. The old adage "statistics, statistics, statistics" comes into play and I think it is possible to read what you want into it. There is certainly a feeling among the public that it is getting worse and has been turned into a moral panic, however I feel that a lot of this is down to the media and the way the issue is presented rather then first hand knowledge and hard facts about the issue. However not living within a city I may have a different perspective on the issue to those that do as gang culture is not such a big issue (especially as I live out of town as well).

What about awareness among young people?
This is increasing with campaigns being run, and education being given around the issue however it is a drip drip process. Again it isn't such a big issue because of my location. However I think there is a fairly wide awareness due to the media attention given to the issue. I do however feel that the media attention often only perpetuates the situation, it also only acts to create a moral panic.

After using a translator this is how the part of the blog that mentions me comes across: Through an anti-knife crime Facebook Site I in the mail with James, a boy from Nottinghamshire who designs T-shirts against knife violence. "I am worried about the violence," he writes. "And also about how young people in the media emerge. Usually associated with violence and shit. If you hunt people just fear. "So he designs T-shirts. Because there was no place for him in my article, at this link.

I'm sure some of it is down to translation errors but even so I don't think it represents my views.

Step by Step

2010-03-15T07:39:00.002Z

After photocopying my images and printing them using cellulose thinners I scanned the prints into Photoshop. I changed the levels to bring the differences in tone out more in the image. I then scanned in a piece of sugar paper and used the hue and saturation tool to change the colour, saturation and brightness. I then placed this in a layer underneath each of the prints in their separate Photoshop documents and then multiplying the prints to allow the texture to come through on the lighter parts of the image.

I used Quick Time to save my .amr audio file in the.mp3 format so that I would be able to use it in Final cut pro.

To import the audio tracks to the time line I set the in and out points in the viewer and then inserted the section.

I adjusted the volumes of all the audio tracks so that the speech could be heard clearly along with the music. To do this I used the audio mixer tool.

I added the cross dissolve video transition to the changes between pictures. This communicates the character fading away until he kills himself at the end. It generally adds to the lonely and sad feel of the piece as the transition is often used when showing pictured of people who have died.

As I was creating the video I realised that some of the images were lasting too long to hold the viewers attention. To combat this I turned on the wire-frame in Final Cut Pro to allow me to change the size of the images. I then cut the length of the photo and made the second part zoom in to a smaller part of the image. This helps to keep the viewers attention through the piece.

I used the tint filter and used key-frames to set the colour changes, and fade between these, to edit the images within Final Cut Pro. However I didn't like this effect. I felt that the video was more effect without the colour change, for communicating sadness and loneliness.

Evaluation

2010-03-15T07:36:00.000Z

What were you asked to do?
Create a digital story based on monologues from a film, a poem, part of a script etc...
What did you make/present?
A photo montage film based on the character of Worsly in Caryl Churchill's Owners.
What did you want to communicate?
The character in the play is lonely, he makes many different failed attempts at suicide. I was not trying to take a literal re telling of the play but wanted to explore the loneliness of the character.
What materials and processes did you experiment with?
I used cellulose thinners to print my images. This gives a grainy effect, effective for communicating the loneliness and sadness within my piece. To do this I changed the levels of my photos in Photoshop to allow the differences in tones to come through more. I then printed and photocopied these before using the cellulose thinners to print. Once these were scanned in I changed the levels in Photoshop to bring the areas of tone out more. I then scanned in some sugar paper and multiplied the images on to this to give more of a feel of it being printed
I also experimented with getting the colour of the images to change, slowly fading between one another in the video. I used the tint effect in Final Cut to change the colour and key frames to create the fade between colours.
What materials and processes did you reject?
I rejected the colour changing of the images within the video. I didn't like the effect. I think that the video is more effective as it is. The feeling of loneliness and sadness was distracted from by the colour changing.
What did you do to ensure you worked with tools and materials safely?
Cellulose thinners were used outdoors to ensure good ventilation and care was taken not to spill any of the substance.
How well did you manage your time?
Apart from the fact that I had to compile my portfolio at the start of the project, putting my slightly behind I think that I managed time fairly well during this project. everything was completed on time and there didn't seem to be any real rush to get it finished.
What were your strengths in completing this project?
I have used Final Cur Pro before and find that I Take to the program fairly easily. This meant that I didn't have to worry about controlling the program and could work on the creative side of the design.
What would you like to have done differently?
If I were to complete the project again I would like to get my own recording of some sad piano music. However due to time restraints I was unable to do this for the project.

2010-03-15T07:17:00.002Z

This is La Jetee by Chris Marker, which uses the technique of photo montage to tell it's story.

I like the use of photo montage to tell the story, it takes the emphasis away from the action and places it on the narrative. It also allows the viewer to take in each image more thoroughly and pick up on the visual language being used in each shot to enhance the narrative.

The panning and zooming techniques used with in the montage add movement and interest as do the transitions. The transitions within the montage help to create meaning for instance harsh cuts are used during dramatic events and soft dissolves are used when we are being shown the destruction of Paris - showing the way that the City has come to a stand still.

I also like the use of sound and music within the piece. The music is used well to build tension as you follow it's flow. It build's up and then relaxes again as it follows the pace of the narrative. Whispering is the only sound used other then music and the narrator and shows the secrecy of the experiments they are doing and the fact that what they are doing is dodgy. They need to whisper to cover up their act so others do not hear what they are doing.

Evaluation

2010-02-26T15:52:00.000Z

I started by researching other animations and how they had been produces. I like the animations using other day objects and people to animate with, so I decided to animate myself.
I found an animation of barcodes, which made me think of the theory that barcodes are actually the mark of the beast. So I researched more into that theory. It worked well with the theme of "The Beginning of the End of the Word". The song I chose was "My Given Life" by Mammuth, with the lyrics "trying to find the motivation, to live my given life" links in with trying to not succumb to the order that the Beast imposes with the Mark.

I conducted some animation tests, looking at how I could get the barcodes to appear in my eyes and how I could get my eyes to animate.

After I had completed my tests and edited my music to the section I wanted to use I animated and then edited the final footage.

If I were to do the project again I would hope to get my idea quicker. I had to put quite a bit of time into idea generation.
I quite like the idea that I came up with for the animation, I feel that it explores the idea in an abstract way, allowing the audience to think about and question the theme that I was referring to.
I feel that the biggest threat to the project for myself was the tutor being off ill, resulting in a lack of input from a specialist animation professional.
The opportunity presented to my in this project was being able to explore ways of animating with a different medium, the human body and learn more about experimental animation techniques.
I would also like to light my animation better if I were to do it again, to give a better visual quality to the final.

Animation Final

2010-02-26T15:27:00.000Z

Animation tests

2010-02-26T14:25:00.001Z

Test 2:

This is a test for my animating with bar codes. I had wanted to animate myself so that I boil slightly and have an animated quality to the visuals however when automating cutting out the eyes in Photoshop the head doesn't stay still enough so I have decided to use a still frame within the animation. I used the fish eye effect in FinalCut pro to make the car codes look more like eye balls.

Test 1:

I am going to make sure that my eyes open fully in my final. This is just for a short section of the animation. I will also make sure that I am wearing a white t-shirt and have a white background when I produce the final animation to make it look professional.

2010-01-25T10:22:00.000Z

Webdesign Final

2010-01-22T19:24:00.002Z

My website has been hosted at the following address http://nwep.james-lock.co.uk/

Web design evaluation

2010-01-22T18:49:00.000Z

For this project I had to create an online information system for an apocalypse scenario. I chose to use a nuclear attack as my scenario.
I decided that I wanted to mix flash and HTML to create my information system.

Due to time constraints I feel that I ended up rushing the creation of the flash and this has had an impact on the quality of the work. I feel that visually it doesn't work as well as I would have liked. The white backgrounds to the flash are too harsh against the dark template for HTML. I would also have like to have created mroe interactivity in a couple of the pages, however again I ran out of time to do this.

I wanted to keep my navigation clear and consistent throughout the site as this is easiest for the user, making their use of the site more enjoyable. It means that they are more likely to use the website for a longer time and also return to the website. If people get frustrated with navigation they are unlikely to want to use the website.
I feel that I have been successful in this aim as my navigation is consistent throughout the website, at the top right of the web page.

As part of the creation process I learned how to create my own scroll box using actions script and masks. I have also generally become more confident with flash. I do generally get the way in which Flash works and understand how the coding works

Next time I will plan my time more effectively to allow myself to complete the design to the best that I can rather then having to rush. Part of what caused this for me is that I had to design the HTML elements as well as the Flash.

Website Step-by-step.

2010-01-22T06:30:00.035Z

To create the shelter page I firstly used a motion tween to get to doors to open.

The text had to me masked to get it to work in a scroll box.

This code was added to the actions layer:

function downward(){

if (txt._y>-32.8) [this bit stops the text from being able to scroll outside of the area which it is meant to]

txt._y=txt._y-2; [this controls the scroll and tells flash to more 2 pixels every time the button is pressed]

}

function upward(){

if (txt._y<27.2)

txt._y=txt._y+2;

}

function mover(myscroller){

goer=setInterval(myscroller,1000);

goer;

}

And this to the buttons for the scroll bar

on(press){

clearInterval(mover);

mover(upward);

}

This makes the custom scroll bar work.
I made an invisible button using the rectangle tool and deleting the frames apart from on the hit state for the handle, to make the doors open. This code was used:

  on(press){
  gotoAndPlay(2);
  }

This gets flash to play frame two, which has no stop command, so flash plays to the end of the doors opening as that frame has a stop command.

To create the login page I used three keyframes. The first holds the password message and the text field for the password to be entered. The second frame displays the password fail message. And the third frame has the password protected information in it.

var myPassword:String= 'password' [this sets the password, in this case it is password]

submit_btn.onRelease=function(){

if (password_txt.text== myPassword ){

gotoAndStop(3); [if the password is correct this tells flash to go to and stop on frame 3]

}

else{

gotoAndStop(2); [if the password is incorrect flash will go and stop on frame 2]

}

To create my food page I use the alpha channel and motion tweens to get the page to fade in.

I wanted hot spots on the background image over the tin and the packets to make more text appear in the bottom text window. To do this I put text in a movie clip on frame two with a blank frame one. I then create invisible buttons over the tin and the packet and used the following code

packsbut.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_OVER,packsplay); [the button will do something when the mouse hovers over it]

function packsplay(event:MouseEvent):void

{ packs.gotoAndStop(2); [the button will cause flash to got to and stop on frame two of the packs movie clip, this will show the text]

}

packsbut.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_OUT,packsstop);

function packsstop(event:MouseEvent):void

{ packs.gotoAndStop(1); [when the mouse leaves the invisible button it will return the movie clip to frame one, making the text disappear again.]

}

To create the web pages I sliced my template in Photoshop. In Dreamweaver I then selected the table cell which covered the area I wanted to input the rest of my design and deleted it. I then used the image as the background to the cell so that I could enter information etc into it. I inserted my flash interface for each page in this cell. I also selected each of the slices that contained the links and linked these to the pages which they needed to link to. This was repeated for each of the pages I wanted to create.

Great thinkers

2010-01-21T09:08:00.000Z

Postmodernism:
a) All truth is limited, approximate, and is constantly evolving
b) No theory can ever be proved true (we can only show that a theory is false)
c) No theory can ever explain all things
d) Thus absolute and certain truth that explains all things is unobtainable.

"The ONLY ABSOLUTE TRUTH is that there are NO ABSOLUTE TRUTHS" (Feyerabend)
"Finally, if nothing can be truly asserted, even the following claim would be false,
the claim that there is no true assertion." (Aristotle)
"If anyone thinks nothing is to be known, he does not even know whether that can be known,
as he says he knows nothing." (Lucretius)
"And isn't it a bad thing to be deceived about the truth, and a good thing to know what the truth is?
For I assume that by knowing the truth you mean knowing things as they really are." (Plato)

Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889-1951

"Our investigation is a grammatical one. Such an investigation sheds light on our problem by clearing misunderstandings away. Misunderstandings concerning the use of words, caused, among other things, by certain analogies between the forms of expression in different regions of language."

“For a large class of cases–though not for all–in which we employ the word “meaning” it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.”

Karl Marx
The gap between the rulling classes and the workers. Society needs to be restructured. Workers become the commodety themselves as well as what they are working on.

Lead to socialism.

Interactive interface design research.

2010-01-20T10:32:00.001Z

http://www.rendercreative.com/

The navigation on this website is large and clear, it is also the same on each page giving consistency to the website and making it easy to navigate around the website. The website is centered, possibly using CSS, this means that the look of the website is consistent in any size of browser. The home page isn't cluttered with too much information but is kept simple and clean making it pleasing to interact with. It also makes it look professional giving a good first impression of the company and its work.

The ideas that I want to include in my own design is a nice simple and clear navigation system that is consistent throughout my site. This will make it easy for my users to interact with and use my interface.

http://moodle.westnotts.ac.uk/

Moodle is an open source communication system mainly aimed at the educational environment. The design and composition is poor. The page is cluttered and finding where the information you want can be confusing. The package is designed to be simple and easy to use for staff who may not have much computing knowledge but the over simplification on this level leads to a poor file structure for end user.
I will put much more into the designing of my site, making it look attractive for users and also make sure that my pages are not cluttered and that navigation is not complex and confusing.

http://www.marzsolt.com/

This website looks really nice, the design is simple but effective. I like the simple navigation that also animates, making it interesting to interact with. Although this is not consistent throughout the flash site this does not cause any issues with navigation, as you load each of the pages you get a simple menu button at the top which reloads the navigator. This happens swiftly with an animation, keeping the viewers interest.

Content loads in a small box in the centre of the screen and plays. This fits in with the composition of the website and is also large enough for content to be viewed.

My main criticism of the website is the moving background, whilst this isn't distracting from the content and is a nice design feature it made me feel ill through motion sickness. I usually only experience this whilst reading in the car and is probably due to concentrating on something with other movement around. The designer should be more aware of how this could effect his users, I had to look away from the screen and take the screen grabs quickly to stop the motion sickness continuing. This would mean that visitors would leave the site.

The idea of using space within a design, stopping it from becoming cluttered is something that I will consider in my design. The small navigation and content works well.

Evaluation - Mark

2010-01-18T08:55:00.001Z

For this porject I decided to push myself to learn new software so that I could create a kinetic typography piece. I wanted to take the oportunity to widen my design scope and software knowledge. However I had to teach myself the software which has also caused problems. I managed to get on ok with the software, however time has been an issue as it has taken me longer to gain knowledge of how the software works as apposed to having someone teach it to me or using software I already know.
My strength in the project has been my ability to pick up software fairly quickly and my willingness to learn.
My weakness has probably been my story board. I gave tried to do it digitally this time however I am still not happy with the result.

For reasearch I have look at both still image and motion graphics designers to help provide me with ideas for the project. I wanted to give an aged look to my piece as I was doing the begining of the end of death, using a christian song and Bible quotes to show this. I wanted to communicate that the message was old but relevant. in research I found that artists had achieved this using sepeia tones to give an aged paper effect. I created this myself by tea staining paper.
Whilst looking at motion graphics designers I found that they used the animation or look of the words to represent their meaning. I have incorporated this into my work. For instance the words "in dark corners my name" have been made small to give a feeling of being in a tight, cramped corner.

If I were to do the project again I would want to master the use of the camera in Motion as I was unable to work out how to get it to work correctly for me. This would enhance the motion graphics piece that I did.
Next time I am going to use software that I already know as this will allow me to concentrate on the creative process and creating the design rather then having to put the time into learning new software, leaving me with less time to design.

Design Process - Mark

2010-01-18T08:46:00.002Z

I created my background texture by using the scanned image of tea stained paper and crumpled paper. I multiplied the tea stained layer to allow the crumpled paper texture to come through to make it appear as crumpled tea stained paper.

I used iTunes to rip the track I was using from CD. I then converted this to .mp3 to work in motion. I edited the song down in Final Cut Pro as the controls for doing so are easier then in Motion. I then exported the new version as an .mp3, again so it would work in motion. I cut down the song as it is repetitive and has a long solo section. I used the crossfade option to blend the sections of the song together and make it sounds as if it had been one continuous piece of music.

I then opened up motion and typed the song lyrics in using the faith collapsing font. Each of the words had to be on a separate layer for the animation. This gave greater control over the individual positioning and size of each word, as well as enabling the words to appear at different times.

I then sorted out the composition of my lyrics using my ideas and storyboard to create the compositions. This involved resizing and positioning the words.

I then used the time line and dragged the time that each word appeared to correspond with the lyrics. I used the inbuilt behaviours within motion to get the words to fade in and out. I then set the duration over which this would happen for instance 4 frames for the fade in/out.

I wanted to add a video texture to the word fire. To do this I selected the word and used the tyle tabe within the inspector. I selected fill with texture and then dragged the video that I had into the panel. This gave the word the texture that I wanted.

I wanted the word fall to literally fall. To do this I used keyframes for the start and end point for this, on the position in properties. I also used behaviors to make the word fade in.

I then exported the project as a .mov file as this is the standard file format to use ready for others to view.

Batteries not Included - Motion Graphics

2009-12-01T20:45:00.001Z

I really like this visual representation of the phrase created in After Effects. This shows perfectly how typography can be used to communicate the meaning of words, which is something that I need to aim to achieve in my work. I will look at ways in which I can use the type to communicate the meaning of the words.

That's My King! Typography Film

2009-12-01T20:01:00.001Z

That's My King! from Albert Martin on Vimeo.

I like the way that the maker of this film has included some other graphics and also some video into the piece. The way that the video pieces freeze and become stylised graphics looks really effective. The video over all is stylised to look like an old scroll, communicating the fact that it is talking about biblical subjects, I want to stylise my video in a similar way using the sepia like tones and black text and graphics as I am wanting to communicate a similar thing.

Tick Tick Boom Motion Graphics

2009-12-01T18:24:00.003Z

The maker of this Typography Motion Graphics short film uses the movement of the text to represent it's sound. For instance it blurs and snaps to place, representing the loud, almost shouting way that the singer sings. The camera is also rotated at the end of some of the song lines, showing the distinction between the lines. In my piece I will want to find ways to represent both the sound of the song and the words being sung through my graphics.

The creator of this piece has probably used either After Effects of Motion to create this piece. The text will have been created in the program and key frames used to animate it. The camera has also been animated using key frames to create movement and rotation. The items and camera are moved in the canvas and then a key frame added to create movement, the tweening is done automatically in the programs.

animation research

2009-12-01T18:00:00.051Z

This is the music video for "Hey". The action follows the music and goes with the flow of the phrases within the music. Events such as crashing through floors etc coincide with a drum beat or certain guitar riffs.
The animation seems to have been produced via CGI, perhaps using a program such as Lightwave or Maya. It has more of a grungy feel then CGI can tend to, this has been achieved through texture and use of colour, rather then using bright, child like colours that CGI is often associated with in animation. I prefer this asI am not

I really like the grungy feel of this animation. It suits the style of music well. The use of textures and also cardboard as the material helps to achieve this.

All The Tears

Gojira | MySpace Music Videos

Although i generally like the actual animation of this piece I feel that it hasn't been edited to the music very well. The action of the animation should have been edited to the beat more to make it feel as though it is part of the music, it just doesn't really gel, they feel like two separate entities that just happen to have been placed together. In my piece I will make sure that I edit it to the music more professionally.

I really like the idea behind this, using everyday objects and giving them a different purpose and meaning. The message behind the animation is about western culture and what we value. The objects chosen work really well in this, and I feel that it is something that I would like to try doing.

I really like the idea of animating a human body as in this piece. It's experimental and different, which is what I would like to aim for in my piece. I also like the way that the frame rate is reduced, making it look like an animation (although slower) but still giving the feeling of motion. This is something that I could have a look at doing, or animating at a standard rate.

This animation actually gave me the idea to use barcodes to animate with. It lead to me putting together a narrative based on the idea of the beginning of the end of the world and trying to resist the mark of the beast.

Again this animation uses the human body to animate with. I like the fact that they have tried something different and turned the human body into a skateboard, seemingly achieving the impossible. The sound in this animation really enhances the action, it is realistic and changes in the right places i.e at jumps it sounds like the skate board has been lifted into the air and landed again.

Typography tutorials

2009-12-01T17:58:00.001Z

http://ae.tutsplus.com/tutorials/motion-graphics/design-rhythmic-motion-typography-in-after-effects/

For my Digital Storytelling project I want to create typographical motion graphics short film. I found the tutorial above to help give me ideas. The movement in the graphics needs to represent some aspect of the sound or the story, for instance important words may be bigger and functional words (and, it etc) made smaller to represent their relative insignificance.

http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/motion_working_keyframes1_spencer.html
As after effects isn't available for me to use I have taught myself how to use Motion, part of the Final Cut Pro package. Although I have worked most things out how to create a key frame was not immediately apparent so I used the tutorial above to learn how to use them in the program.

Old Poets

2009-11-22T23:09:00.001Z

Ok so this is really just a test for mobile blogging as my new phone comes with the ability to post to Blogger. However this is a really cool pub in Ashover called The Old Poets Corner. If only i lived nearer I could come sit and do college work here.

Animation final

2009-11-10T00:01:00.001Z

Animation Test

2009-11-09T23:59:00.000Z

In this first test I mostly looked at the animation of the handle. I have used 24 frames per second but recorded in 2's. I feel that this creates a smooth movement for the handle and works well.

Testing animation

2009-11-09T23:50:00.000Z

In this test I wanted to see how the box could animate. As I was unable to stiffen the hinges enough for the lid to hold itself up I had to reposition the camera angle to hide the back of the box where I was going to hold the lid to animate it.

Animation process.

2009-11-09T23:32:00.001Z

I am doing a 3D stop motion animation and have made a jack in the box and have bought a victorian clown like doll and spinning top to use. I have also built myself a set using a box, wallpaper and some carpet.

To create the actual animation I used iStop Motion moving the box, doll etc a little at a time and pressing space bar to get the camera to take a new shot.

The handle on the box was held in place with a disc of wood on the inside and some tape so that it could be stopped in any position.

When I had animated using iStop Motion I exported the video as a quick time movie.

I imported the music to Final Cut Pro. I had edited this at home using the Audacity music editing program. I wanted to create a surreal a creepy feel with my animation and so eidted my music ot help create this effect. I slowed the music down a little, to make it "hang" in the air as it goes along, almost as if it was struggling to play through the note and onto the next. I then copied the track and placed it in a new track. I reversed this and slowed it down. This creates a very surreal feeling to the sound as it plays backwards as well as forwards.

After that the animation was loaded into final cut pro where I edited it. I used scale and keyframes so that I could crop the footage where my hand was visible animating. I also used this to make sure that my close ups were well composed.

I then used filters to desaturate the image. I allowed a very small amount of colour to come through into the video. This gives it a timeless quality, and also make it quite surreal.

I then altered the brightness and contrast of the video to enhance the visuals and really create the surreal feeling to the animation.

I then used the text tool to add the credits at the end. I used the cross fade video transition to makes this made in and then out, to give a smooth, professional feel to the end of the animation.

Second Animatic

2009-11-09T23:11:00.000Z

I made this second animatic to get a better idea of what the animation is going to look like, without going to the effort and expense of producing the fully formed and edited animation.
After producing this I realised that I didn't like the last shot in the animation =, looking head onto the box again. I don't feel that it work or fits in with the animation at this point. I decided to remove this before producing the final edited animation. I also decided that I needed to make sure that I was using a close up on the doll as the box opens, to really focus attention on this.

First Animatic

2009-11-09T23:02:00.000Z

I created this animatic by adding some extra frames into my storyboard. This allowed me to start planning the timings of the animation and also a better look at the shots I would use.

Digital Storyteling Design Process.

2009-11-09T06:52:00.000Z

I have already posted how I edited the photographs.

I imported my photographs and sound material into Final Cut Pro. And then dragged my story mp3 into the time line. I listened to this through and cut it in the parts where I needed pauses.

I then started to drag the photographs into the time, I opened them up in the viewer first so that I could set the time for each of them. I then dragged them to the time line. I could then drag the photograph out from here if I wanted to make it last longer or shorter.

For the part of the video showing the journey to the shop I set the duration of each photograph to 2 seconds. This set a nice pace to the changing of the photographs to represent a journey through the photos as I take the viewer to the shop. I then used the cross dissolve transition as I feel that this creates the effect of travelling through the photographs

When the story is talking about being in the shop I have used photographs of the sweets on the shelves. I use a quicker pace of 1 second for each photographs to show the excitement of a child looking at the these sweets. This leads to the child being given a packet of buttons.

Again I use one second per photograph for this section about the busy road. This crates the feeling of it being busy as more photographs are being show and also shows the fast rate of the traffic driving past.

After the buttons had been run over I decided I wanted a sequence where I fade in between photographs zooming in to the packet. I dragged the transition effect out to make is fade slower. This is a similar effect to that used when there are deaths on TV, where the camera slowly zooms into the character and their stillness. I wanted to show the drama of the event to a child using this. The slow cross fading is an effect used by Chris Maker when the destruction of Paris is talked about - this shows stillness and creates the drama of the event for the audience.

After adding all of the photographs I then added the other sound material I had got to the time line. This was background traffic noise and the sound of splashing in puddles. I then placed this in the appropriate position on the time line. I then cut some of the background noise from the recording of the story and copied this through the time line to the places where the story have been paused. This creates a feel of continuation with the story rather then making it seem that it stops and starts.

Digital Sotry telling - evaltuation

2009-11-08T22:28:00.000Z

What were you asked to do? (Project brief tasks)
I was required to create a digital story in a similar style to that of Chris Marker's La Jetee. The film was to last between 5 and 10 minutes. The theme was family mythology and I needed to look into different stories that could be told from my family.
What did you make/present?
I made a photo montage film based on a story about me dropping a packet of chocolate buttons in the road as a child. The buttons were ran over and we had to get another pack. I took photos and recorded sound to use for this.
What did you want to communicate?
The main thing to communicate was the plot line for the story. I needed to represent the different sections of the story that gives it's structure and sense. I wanted to show the story through the child's eye by taking photographs from a low angle. This will allow the viewer to view the events through a more child like perspective.
Who was your intended audience?
My intended audience is my family. I found in research how story telling is used to help create a sense of identity, however these stories are fluid and change fro telling to telling. I have created a digital story that will tell the same thing every time. This means that there is a set basis for identity to be based around rather then a changing story. The video can be shown for many years to come, within the current nuclear family and to children and grandchildren to communicate that sense of the family identity. The story is fairly simple and told in a way that is suitable for all ages. This means that it can be shown to children to help create this sense of identity at the crucial stage for this.
What materials and processes did you experiment with?
I made a digital collage by scanning in photograph, textures and other images that I found. These were then compile in Photoshop.
I also used Photoshop to change the saturation of photographs and use pin light blending mode to allow colour to come through from a duplicate layer. This helped to give a sense of a rainy day to the photographs.
I used traditional collage, cutting up text and sticking it back down to create my title. This gives a child like, hand made feeling to the title - communicating that the story is about a child and the photographs are mostly take from a child's point of view.
What materials and processes did you reject?
I didn't use digital collage in my final. I wanted to communicate my story through a series of photographs, making the event seem more real to an audience. Using collage would have disrupted this, and therefore I decided not to use the process.
What materials and processes did you use in your final designs?
I used Photoshop to edit my photographs to make them seem more like a rainy day as they had been taken on a bright, sunny day.
I also used traditional collage to create my title. To communicate it being child like and hand made.
How do the materials you chose to use help you to communicate your message to your audience?
By editing the photographs I more successfully communicated the rainy day. If I hadn't done this my photographs would not have fitted in with the story. My use of photography helps to make the story seem like a real even, rather then using other techniques such as illustration etc that may have taken this away from the story.
What did you do to ensure you worked with tools and materials safely?
I made sure that I had no food or drinks around the computers and that I took regular breaks from the computer screen. I made sure that the camera was protected when taking photographs splashing in the puddles. I used the long zoom to help achieve this. When taking photos by roads I made sure I was a safe distance from traffic on the pavement. I made sure that I attained model release forms for my models to prove that I had the right to use the photographs.
How well did you manage your time?
Although my time management could improve I feel that I have done better on this project then previous ones. I had gotten more work done early on on then before. My main issue at the minute is balancing all the areas of my life as with college, work and church commitments I am finding it hard to find time to relax and have fun - running the risk of burn out. I am trying to address this. I have started to use a timetable that I have created for myself to plan my college work and other activities for the week around work, college and church.
What were your strengths in completing this project?
I have used Final Cur Pro before and find that I Take to the program fairly easily. This meant that I didn't have to worry about controlling the program and could work on the creative side of the design.
What would you like to have done differently?
I would firstly like to try and balance my commitments more effectively. I would also have liked to put some more work into the development stage of the design process.
What will you do to ensure you improve for the next project?
Next time I will make sure that I balance these areas of my life more effectively and put more effort into the design development side of the project to ensure I can achieve the best grade possible.

Digital Story Telling Final

2009-11-06T11:39:00.002Z

Animation evaluation

2009-11-05T23:27:00.000Z

What were you asked to do? (Project brief tasks)

Create a 20 second animation using a theme based on ourselves. We needed to follow the animation design cycle including story board, animation and final. We then had to edit the animation in Final Cut Pro. My animation is based around the theme of locking you emotions up in side rather then dealing with them - the jack in a box representing this. It was also loosely based around an animation I found in my research by Jamie Dean. I really liked the Gothic Surrealism style that he used and wanted to recreate something similar. I also feel that this style helps to communicate my theme as it is dark and strange and feels quite lonely.

What materials and processes did you experiment with?

I created a bouncing ball using drawn animation. I decided not to do a drawn animation as my drawing skills are not very strong and I feel that this would have resulted in a poor animation.

I also learnt many new techniques in final cut pro - using key frames to pan, zoom and scale the video. I also learnt how to skew and play video's within other visuals. I am not going to use the latter technique, it doesn't fit in with the style that I am looking for in my animation. However I have used the scale tool to zoom in on my animation.

I made the jack in the box with the help of Gary the 3D workshop technician. I then painted this to fit my style.

I used gardening wire to create an armature in my doll so that it could be animated more easily.

What did you do to ensure you worked with tools and materials safely?

I followed all health and safety advice in the 3D workshop, also the technician used the machines as I am not a 3D student and have not been trained in the correct procedures to use to be able to use them safely.

How well did you manage your time?

Although my time management could improve I feel that I have done better on this project then previous ones. I had gotten more work done earlier on then before. My main issue at the minute is balancing all the areas of my life as with college, work and church commitments I am finding it hard to find time to relax and have fun - running the risk of burn out. I am trying to address this. I have started to use a timetable that I have created for myself to plan my college work and other activities for the week around work, college and church.

What were your strengths in completing this project?

My strengths in this project was my willingness to try 3D animation and make my box and set, trying new things. I enjoyed this process and it gave me a sense of achievement.

What will you do to ensure you improve for the next project?

I will create a better quality animatic first time, using photographs if I am creating a 3D stop motion again. I will also put more time into editing around class times as there is not enough time to get tests and final animations done just in the lesson times.

Evaluation for web design.

2009-11-05T22:53:00.000Z

What were you asked to do? (Project brief tasks)

I needed to create a website that would represent me as a designer and my work. It needed to include the pages: Home, About me, Work and Portfolio. The website should communicate aspects of my work and/or personality.

What did you make/present?

I have made a 4 page website, using the techniques shown within lessons and others that I have learnt myself. I made a home page as an introduction to my website, an about me page to tell people about myself as a designer, a work page to show my capabilities as a designer and a contact me page.

What did you want to communicate?

I wanted to show a juxtaposition between dark, grungy imagery and bright colours. I feel that this represents my personality. Also my work is often darker/grungy but I also produce more colourful pieces.

I also want to communicate professionalism and ma capability at design. This means that my website must be well designed and that the work I choose to showcase needs to be the best quality work that I have produced.

I also wanted to show how I work - digitally whilst using traditional techniques to enhance and texture my work, therefore my website needs to represent this.

Who was your intended audience?

My intended audience is university admissions tutors and prospective clients. I am applying to uni and having a website will be another way of me advertising myself to universities I am applying to. I also want to show people looking for a designer that I am capable of producing the work they are looking at having done so that I can add extra pieces to my personality.

What materials and processes did you experiment with?

I learnt slicing so that I can create the layout for my website in Photoshop and then export it as a HTML document. I learnt how to use behaviours to change links to roll-overs - changing the image. I have learnt how to change font styles and positioning of items using CSS in Dreamweaver.

What materials and processes did you reject?

I haven't used roll overs for my links as I feel that this didn't fit in with the look of my website.

What materials and processes did you use in your final designs?

I used Photoshop to create my layout. A tea stained piece of paper was scanned in to help create the background. This creates a dark, grungy texture that represents this part of my personality. I then used the techniques detailed in my previous post.

How do the materials you chose to use help you to communicate your message to your audience?

The grungy texture communicates this part of my personality and my work. This is then balanced off with the colourful links which communicates the other side of my work and personality. The work showcased on the web site then backs this up as you can see both the darker, grungy pieces and those that are more colourful.

What did you do to ensure you worked with tools and materials safely?

I made sure that I had no food or drinks around the computers and that I took regular breaks from the computer screen. When tea staining the paper I did this in an area away from computers and electronic equipment.

How well did you manage your time?

What were your strengths in completing this project?

I had done web design in the past and so I had a good understanding of the basic principles. including the way that coding works. This was a major benefit as it meant I could concentrate on learning the new skills without having to worry about having to get to grips with the basics. It also meant that I got on will the new skills I learnt well as I understood how they worked, even though I hadn't known how to do it in the past. It also meant that I managed to bring in some techniques that I had learnt in the past to enhance my work as well as those that we were shown in the tutorials.

What would you like to have done differently?

I would firstly like to try and balance my commitments more effectively. I would also have liked to put some more work into the development stage of the design process.

What will you do to ensure you improve for the next project?

Next time I will make sure that I balance these areas of my life more effectively and put more effort into the design development side of the project to ensure I can achieve the best grade possible.

Website Step-by-step.

2009-11-04T20:06:00.002Z

I created my page layouts in Photoshop and then sliced them. I saved them for web including all the slices and the HTML. This allowed me to open my design up in Dreamweaver already set up and ready to go, without having to do the HTML myself. It also meant that the jpeg images were saved at an appropriate quality for websites. I then removed the slice for the place holder for the text. I then used CSS to set this slice as the background for that cell so I would be able to type on top of the image.

After creating the CSS styles I clicked on the cell and set the style in the properties panel. I also used CSS to set my font and font colour. I chose Arial as it is simple and professional it is also easy to read for users of the website. It has also been used in my work and so represents this.

I then set up the navigation. I clicked on the slice that I wanted to link and used the property panel to set the link.

I wanted the link to my blog to open in a new window, so that users won't have to leave the website to view it, meaning they are more likely to continue using the website after going to look at the blog.

I created a new table in the cell containing my background so that I was able to type my text above the place holder. I aligned this central to get my text to sit nicely in the place holder.

To centre the whole page I set up a new CSS rule as follows. I had to try several different combinations of percentages before I was happy with the result. I used the properties panel to set the page's table to use the CSS rule. I also set the main page background to black so that there is a solid background that fills all sizes of browser windows, this is more professional. I used CSS to do this as I was able to set the rule in a separate CSS document that I could set to be used in all my pages to save me having to set the centre coding for each individual page.

To create my "work" - portfolio page I inserted a table with one column and 7 rows. I then merged cells where necessary and typed the category titles. I then inserted the thumbnails I had created in Photoshop for the pieces of work that I want on my website. I then linked the image based pieces of works to the file containing the larger - full version of the piece of work.

I want the full versions of my work to open within my webpage rather then on a new webpage. This is more professional and integrated. It is easier for the user as they don't have to either leave the page or end up with extra windows to close back down again. To achieve this I downloaded the files for the lightbox javascript application. I had used this in the past and knew it was capable of what I wanted to achieve. I put the relevant files and directories in the directory for my website.

The following script is added in the tag of the HTML document to link the javascript and CSS files to it.

I then edited the code for each of my linked images as follows:

I have used the category [illustration] so that I can add other catagories to my work in the future but retain separate lightbox operations for them. I have also titled each of the images to give the user more information about it in lightbox.

I made the page for my VJ piece video. I used the same background as the other pages for this, but exported it as a single image and used it as the page background file. I had uploaded my video to Youtube and used the embedding code from there to input it into a table on the document. I again used CSS to position this. This allowed me to get the content to sit centered on the page, which looks more professional and generally makes the composition more pleasing to the eye.

I wanted to get the video to open i a new window on my website as this is more professional then sending people to Youtube to watch it. It also means that people are staying within my site and are more likely to continue using it then if I sent them to an external website.
I then used the code:

javascript:window.close()

In the link for Close Window, this will close the window when the user clicks it, allowing the user to return to the work page of my website.

I created a hotspot over the thumbnail for the video.

I then used the behaviours pane in Dreamweaver to make the link open in a new window.

I then repeated the last two steps to open up my flash campaign for knife crime. I had embedded this in a HTML file before for an older version of my website.

I wanted to create a scrollbar for the content holder on the about page as I wanted to input more information without affecting the overall layout of the page. I wanted to retain the free space and subtle composition. To do this I included the following code into the cell. I had to change the amount of pixels a few times to get the scroll bar to fill the content holder properly. I then typed all the information I wanted into this.

Again I used lightbox to open up larger versions of images I wanted on my webpage.

I then used an on-line service to create a favicon for my website. I used an small selection of the source material I had used. I chose an interesting looking selection, with detail. This was then placed in the file directory to be displayed in browsers when my website loads. I wanted to have a favicon as it is more profesional and gives the website an identity if people save it to their favourites - they will see the icon and imediatly know it is for my website. It communicates that I have considered the design of my website and that I understand web design to universities and potential clients or employers.

My website can be found at www.james-lock.co.uk

2009-11-03T22:48:00.000Z

As I was unable to get sound recording of a child splashing in puddles. There was too much background noise when I was taking photos of my model. I have downloaded an mp3 of this youtube video. I will use this in a short section of my film to enhance the section that shows teh character splashing.

Photo editing 2

2009-11-01T15:13:00.001Z

When editing the photos I used a new document at A5 size so that they would all be the same size for the Final Cut Pro canvas. I used a DPI of 72 as the files were to be used for on screen display. I used rulers to indicate the thirds, to help with the composition of the images and used the Transform tool in photoshop to resize and place the photos on the Photoshop canvas creating a composition that I was happy with for my photo montage.

Photo editing

2009-10-30T12:52:00.002Z

Some of the photo's for my digital story are too bright as they were taken on a sunny day and my story is set on a day where it had been raining. I have edited these photo's to look more like a dull day.

Original photo:

I duplicated the background layer and turned off the visibility on the new layer.

I opened up the hue saturation tool and lowered both the saturation and the brightness.

I then turned on the visibility on the duplicate layer and changed the blending mode to pin light to allow the layers to blend together and crate a dull looking photo as if it was overcast.

As I had to do this to a few photos I recorded it as an action and used batch processing to repeat the action on several pictures quickly.

This makes the photo's look more realistic for a day where it has been raining and will communicate this in my film better.

I have also decided to edit all of my photographs in this way to stylise the film and give a feeling of continuation throughout it.

File conversion - audio

2009-10-14T10:48:00.000+01:00

My sound recording was originally in the .amr mobile phone file format. This was not compatible with any of the programs available to me including Final Cut Pro, Garagband and iTunes. to convert this into the compatible .mp3 file formate I used the http://media-convert.com/ website. The file is uploaded to the website which then converts it and offers the converted file as a download. I was then able to work with the audio file in the programs I needed to use.

Light

2009-10-07T14:43:00.000+01:00

This is the animatic and final animation for the Light animation. This shows how the animatic represents what is happening in the final but is not a finished and polished piece and has less movement in it. This is done as it is cost effective. These examples also show how an animation changes, more animatics would be produced to show these changes as they are requested by whoever is commissioning the animation, until a final animatic is agreed on to take to animation for final. Again this cuts the cost of producing final animation when changes may be made, it saves time as well as money.

Gorillaz Animatic

2009-10-07T14:17:00.002+01:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJmCWeyRlpo
Unfortunately the embed utility is disabled for the above video. However it is an animatic for the Gorillaz song Dare. This shows how an animatic is used to pitch an animation, without going to the cost of producing the animation before it possibly being turned down - which would be a loss. The animatic is simple but shows more movement then a story board, it is also set to the sound track used for the animation. This gives the viewer an idea of what the animation will look and move like. This animatic also introduces some colour, showing the night club like lights again giving the feel of the animation to the viewer. Animatics are supposed to be fairly cheap to produce as the animation is not necessarily going to be commissioned at this stage and fully animating would cost too much for the risk of a loss.

Honda Diesel Ad

2009-09-22T21:47:00.000+01:00

Earlier I blogged about Nightmare Before Christmas and how that shows part of my personality. Well I feel that this represents another, contrasting part of my personality. I also really like colourful, bright things. Perhaps child-like at times. It shows the bubbly, friendly, somewhat outgoing side of my personality. Maybe I could some how use the juxtaposition between the two in my work.

Jamie Dean

2009-09-22T21:27:00.001+01:00

I really like this stop motion animation. I love the old feel it has through the grey scale and jittery, achieved through the use of super 8 film. I would look at using filters and effects to recreate this style in my own work.
The items used within the film also add to the old look of it. I really like the simple animation and the jerking movement of the obejects. This reminds me of old childens stop motions such as Camberwick Green and Trumpton and could be recreated through playing with the frame rates and/or shooting fewer frames.

The animator has used focus settings to create parts of the animation that started out of focus and then focuses in. I like this effect, it is surreal and really adds to the effect of the film.

The music really adds to the effect of the dark feel of the film, the spacing between the bass and the treble within the song and the contrast within this. The slow, lingering tempo of the song adds to the creepy effect as well.

The overall feel of the short film is Gothic and Surreal. I really like this. Again it shows the side of my personality that really likes creepy, strange things.

Erica Russel

2009-09-22T20:48:00.000+01:00

I really like this animation by Erica Rusell, the smooth movement and the complex dancing that they do is amazing. I also really like the way it becomes abstract, with simple shapes making up the human form.

The materials she has used seems to be pencil crayons or pastels, ink at times, graphic markers or similar and possibly some computer based animation at times.

I could perhaps use abstract shapes, and ideas to communicate meaning in my work. I can also look at experimenting with different materials to see what works.

Nightmare Before Christmas

2009-09-22T19:56:00.001+01:00

I think that the smooth motion of the puppets is great, especially the spider like way that Jack moves, very creepily. I think that the way they achieve in stop motion is amazing, the skill and patients that it must take.

Zero the ghost dog is created through double exposure (source: the DVD extras for Nightmare), which is now something that we can do through computers and take for granted. I think it is great that they had the manual skill to create the effect, which looks so much more interesting then a computer generated effect may look.

I generally really like Tim Burton films, I love the dark feel to the films. The shadows, creepy figures and strange buildings. It all adds to the feel of the films. I think that this represents part of my personality, I love the strange, the horrific, and dark, creepy stories, images, films etc. This is something that could think about including in my work.

Stop motion puppets have been used to create this animation. Lip syncing is created using different puppet heads, which are replaced to create the mouth shapes of the vocal sounds. Many of these have to be used for each sound to create realistic, smooth motion between the vocal sounds. The puppets joints will have hinges or ball joins which you are able to move but are stiff enough to stay in place so that each small movement for every frame can be captured to create the smooth movement of the puppets.

Slicing

2009-09-18T12:27:00.001+01:00

Although I have done some web design in the past no one has shown me how to slice. I'm please to say it's actually pretty easy! Here is the tutorial I followed:

Create guideline where you want the slices to be.

Use the slices tool to convert guides to slices. Then combine the slices that you want to merge. Then save for web.

Ta-da finished website in Safari :).

Web design research

2009-09-18T10:45:00.023+01:00

This year I am doing web design as a module at college. The first brief is to create a personal portfolio site (...finally I can upload something that will impress universities, designers, agencies etc rather then on that just serves it's purpose!)

I am starting my research into what makes a good design.

The first website that I looked at is http://vermeersch.ca/

The website is based around a 1:1 ratio picture of the artist. You navigate around the website using the buttons at the bottom, which then make you travel around his body to find out different navigation. The website is simple and easy to navigate as the navigation is always visible as the bottom of the screen. It is clean and easy to take in and navigate around. The idea is strong, the artist says that he puts a lot of himself into his work which is why he has created the site as he has, creating a strong idea for the basis of the website.

There is also an explore option in the navigation bar that allows you to look around the site freely.

The portfolio section of the website is displayed in this box, with its own navigation for the projects. Each link causes the box to move to a different part of his body - so that you explore the whole of his body. As you hover over it the information about the project is displayed at the bottom of the box.

Overall the website is simple to navigate, clean, clear and serves it's purpose.

The limitations of the site is that it could easily become cluttered if more content needed to be added. Also it is slow to load on slower connections, over my broad band wi fi at home it took considerably longer then on the wired network at college. However the target audience for the website are more likely to be people working in offices with faster internet connections on wired networks, making the loading faster. The final limitation is that some of the links to his work are now dead, this looks unprofessional and is something that I would need to keep on top of on my website if I was linking to externally hosted projects.

Representing myself with my website is something that I should consider with my website, to show universities and potential clients who I am. Also a simple navigation system is useful for users of a website, meaning that they would be more likely to want to use the website.

I have also looked at http://positivehype.com/

I really like the design of this site, the bright colours on the dark background. I would really like to create something like that. I think that it shows my personality, with my friendly, bubbly side in juxtaposition with my like of darker films, stories, myths, imagery etc.

This front page is clean, simple and easy to navigate. Everything fits in the browser screen, meaning that you ca take everything in easily.

On their "our work" and "blog" pages the navigation bar disappears which is annoying as you have to go back to the original site to be able to navigate to other pages. This is poor design, the navigation should provide a continuation between pages for consistency and also ease. I fell that people are going to find this frustrating and are less likely to want to use the website. I will need to make sure that my navigation is easy to use and consistent for my website users.

http://equation.laptop.org/

This is the website for a charity that believes that a lot of the worlds problems are down to education, and that the solution is for every child to have a laptop to support their education. This is a simple campaign website asking for people to become part of the equation for change. You can add yourself to the chain, selecting your colour, name and equation that you would like to add. The scrolling is simple, just move the mouse left or right and the chain scrolls through, it also animates up and down as a chain and plays a musical note.
You can then click on one of the icons to load up a box with information in. I really like this idea, it is something that I would like to use for my portfolio, however I am not sure if it would be practical. For one it would be hard for people to tell what is going to load what in my portfolio (although perhaps I could get around this with different icons for web design, illustration etc and captions explaining what they are). It is also hard to accurately click on the different icons to load the information you want. This could be helped with larger icons and slower scrolling.

http://www.dinghyinsurance.com/

The web design for this site is awful, to the point where I am struggling to find anything nice to say about it. And I have no idea where to start criticising, so I will just go for it. Firstly the links are the same colour as the background colour, this makes them hard to read, and would be impossible for people some people to read. The website is not very accessible. Secondly a lot of the text is underlined, meaning that it is easily confused as being a hyper-link. This is annoying when you go to click on this text. The three images, which I can only assume, should be in line with one another are not. They also cause conflict for the eye as they are all brightly, coloured competing for your attention. The colour also clashes with the rest of the website. No consideration has been given to composition.

Basically the only thing that I can take from this to make my design better is to avoid all of the mistakes made by the designer(s).

http://www.karimzariffa.com/

I really like this website, which centres around a simple, clean menu bar which floats in the centre of the screen. The layout is clean and easy to take in, the large text is easy to read.

As you click on each of the menu items they unfold upwards until you are focused on the top box. From there you can click on the lower box to scroll down, or in the grey area to zoom back out to use the menu bar again.

I feel that the simple, clean design really works. The website is easy to navigate and find your way around. Using one page helps people to be away of the orientation of different items.
For my design I could look at a simplified, clean navigation system to make it easy for a viewer to look around.

http://www.havenworks.com/

This website is awful. The designer as clearly put very little thought into the design. This is shown in a few ways. Firstly the website doesn't fit on the screen horizontally (and I am using the standared 1280 by 800 resolution) and vertically you need to scroll a long way. Secondly there is far to much information on the page. The eye is unable to take it all in and the information gets lost on the page. I don't think a visitor to the website would know where to start with taking in the information, and you are likely to miss the information you are looking for. Poor layout adds to this with far to many columns on the page. Too many colours have been used, including colours that clash. Again this makes it hard to find and take in the information on the page, as it causes a conflict for the eye.

Lightwave

2009-09-17T14:13:00.002+01:00

I have had my first 3D modeling & animation lesson today. We need to research, develop and create our own world of the future using the Lightwave software. I have come up with an initial idea which is actually drawn from an activity I did in a science lesson about 5 years ago in Year 9. We had to create a way for humans to live on another planet as the world was being destroyed. My idea was to build a large dome on the moon and use large air tanks to supply the air until a self sustaining environment was created, through the growth of plants. I am using this as my starting point and initial idea and developing it further from there.

Here is my first design sheet, it isn't very big because the college scanners are not working so I have had to take a picture on my phone (5MP so decent size) but then send it to Wordpress (as blogger doesn't have a UK mobile utility) and then save it to upload it. My life story over, that's why it is only a small image.

I have started to look at a couple of different ideas for developing the design.

I am quite excited about this project. I am now off to do more research!

Brecht Follow Up

2009-09-16T21:27:00.000+01:00

This is part of a documentary, you can see clips from his plays - as directed by him and see some of the techniques "in action" also his wife and others that worked with him and in his theatre. Talking about the man and his techniques etc

This is from Antigone as adapted by Brecht (originally by Sophocles). It isn't in English but is a good example of getus and I think know being able to understand what is being said helps this to become more apparent.

Brechtian Acting

2009-09-16T20:33:00.004+01:00

In the past I have studied Drama GCSE and Drama & Theatre Studies A.S. Level. My favourite practitioner (and the one that was favoured by the college I went to) is Brecht. I will do a brief back story.

Drama had been about being as realistic as possible, making people believe in what was happening on stage, letting them get lost in the story and not challenging them at all. People went to the theatre to enjoy themselves, it was reserved for the bourgeoisie (the ruling class).

Brecht wanted to change that. He believed that theatre should be for everybody. He also believed that theatre should be used to challenge people, to question their morality, to highlight political issues, injustice and other wrong doings. He also broke down the fourth wall (the invisible one between the audience and the actors on stage, separating the audience from the action and them being involved). He believed that people should be aware that they are watching a play at all times, and not drawn in to the story and believing it was a state of reality, allowing them to remain objective and pick up on the plays message.

Several techniques were used by him, by others following his style now and have also been developed (with new technology etc) by those trying to direct/act in the Brechtian style. Firstly Set and costume is kept to a minimum, perhaps just changing one item to denote the character being played (actors may also play more then one character - reminding the audience they are actors), set again may be denoted by just a couple of items, or a backdrop (and in recent times a computer projected image). Actors may change on stage from one character to the next - showing that they are actors and not the people they are playing once again. The language used is colloquial and easily understood by the lower classes, the price is also affordable - famously with the Threepenny Opera (which cost a Threepenny to see). When it is thought the audience is perhaps likely to start becoming emotionally involved in the play, through sympathy with a certain character etc a song is often used to break this, allowing the audience to remain objective.

The Verfremdungseffekt (or V-effekt) is used to describe the action being made strange, alien, detached to stop the audience from identifying with a character, to allow them clarity of thought. The characters in his plays were meant to represent a type of person, rather then an individual character. Questioning the roles of different types of people within society, Archetypes are often used to represent these. Also the person acting should not try to become the character but rather portray them i.e. they are not trying to get into the mind set of the character, as with other styles of acting but rather show what has been said, done etc. It is more of a narrative of the character then an impersonation. Getus - over acting, large actions are used by actors, again this show that they are not trying to impersonate a character, it also adds to the archetypes - over acting of typical mannerisms etc may be used.

He also believed that only bright lighting (which source could clearly be seen my the audience) should be used, as lighting to create mood would be too suggestive to an audience. His plays always had a political or social motive to their meaning questioning the roles and actions of the ruling class and their dominance over the rest of society. He points out injustice, fraud and other wrong doings. Sadly his plays are as relevant today as they were when written (as I found out when doing the Threepenny Opera, a closing dialogue was written summarising the points of the play using examples from the news of the previous 12 months)

There is much more I could talk about, it is almost endless. However I feel I have outlined some of the main points. I love the style and also really like the fact that there is always a political point attached to his plays. In some ways I feel he was the equivalent of the Dada movement in theatre.

I am going to look at ways to include some Brechtian style techniques in my visual work. Apparently it may be more relevant for the next college brief, however I wanted to write down my thoughts now as they came to me.

I got the information for this from past experience and also here

Joggler Ad

2009-09-16T18:57:00.003+01:00

This is the recent 02 Joggler Ad on TV. I love the cut out effect of the characters in it and the different textures etc used on them to build up the character (like wrapping paper, wool etc) making them look like a child has made them - the kind of thing that would be found on the fridge door. I like the style generally and I am thinking about possibly building it into my animation although the idea would need more development. I also like the lighting in this advert - the way that it creates defined shadows behind the characters, giving more of a 3D feel to the advert.

As a sideline I also think that the picture frame TV screens that o2 have in their stores at the minute are awesome. They look really cool and make great interior design. With the right decoration it would look really good in a living room. I'll try find a picture to upload.

La Jetee

2009-09-14T20:07:00.002+01:00

This is La Jetee by Chris Marker, which uses the technique of photo montage to tell it's story. The college brief I have been given today is to create my own photo montage telling a story from my life.

So I thought a good place to start would be evaluating this video - something that I will come back to and add to as I go along.

I like the use of photo montage to tell the story, it takes the emphasis away from the action and places it on the narrative. It also allows the viewer to take in each image more thoroughly and pick up on the visual language being used in each shot to enhance the narrative.

The panning and zooming techniques used with in the montage add movement and interest as do the transitions. The transitions within the montage help to create meaning for instance harsh cuts are used during dramatic events and soft dissolves are used when we are being shown the destruction of Paris - showing the way that the City has come to a stand still.

I also like the use of sound and music within the piece. The music is used well to build tension as you follow it's flow. It build's up and then relaxes again as it follows the pace of the narrative. Whispering is the only sound used other then music and the narrator and shows the secrecy of the experiments they are doing and the fact that what they are doing is dodgy. They need to whisper to cover up their act so others do not hear what they are doing.

So these are my observations so far I will add more as I have more to say :)

First post

2009-09-12T19:14:00.002+01:00

Ok I'll add something more interesting later but for now this is my first post!