OUDF601: Synthesis Practical | Storyboard

Fig.1

Above (Fig.1) are the main ideas that are going to be used for testing an idea. The project is compare Visual Effects to Special Effects. 

The images are above are going to be computer generated, therefore are going to include live action flames composited to a CG orb. A glow effect will also be composited at the post processing stage using appropriate tools. 

The images below represent special effects, therefore I will be using tools such as a polystyrene ball, fishing wire and other appropriate tools to help me achieve the illusions. 

The shot are going to be filmed using a still camera with a 50mm lens attached and also mounted onto a tripod for extra stability  there will not be any tracking shots. 

OUDF601: Research for Essay | Failed Interviews

While looking for interviews for my research question, I sent email to a few number of profession Industry practitioners. Unfortunately some of them never do respond to your emails but those who do offer kind responses. I got into contact with a practitioner named Susi Sie for an interview and she kindly agreed. The downside is her English speaking language wasn't up to par as she mentioned so herself, so when it came to actually asking the questions, she failed to fully understand and never responded.

This led me to continue searching for other practitioners to contact. I joined Linkdin in an attempt to find other contacts who work in the visual effects industry.

Below are screen shots of the interview process with Susi Sie: 

OUDF601: Acoustic Levitation

While I was researching ways to levitate the polystyrene ball, I came across this article of Japanese Scientists that Discover a Way To Levitate Objects Using Sound. 

The developers mentioned that they employ the ultrasonic speakers and you hear nothing around the device. The science behind it seems very complex and it is beyond my ability. Therefore I will stick to using the near invisible fishing wire.

Author Tim Williams wrote,

"The three Japanese scientists/engineers are from the University of Tokyo and the Nagoya Institute of Technology and the device they’ve recently unveiled uses sounds waves to move objects through three dimensional space. It uses four sets of speakers which converge their sound waves on one point that can be moved up, down, left and right using a set of controls, essentially allowing objects to be levitated and moved around. What’s better is that the sound is ultrasound so the machine isn’t even loud – it’s completely silent." (Williams, 2014)

Williams, T.

VIDEO: Japanese Scientists Discover Way To Levitate Objects Using Sound

In-text: (Williams, 2014)

Bibliography: Williams, T. 2014. VIDEO: Japanese Scientists Discover Way To Levitate Objects Using Sound. [online] Available at: http://www.sickchirpse.com/japanese-scientists-levitation/ [Accessed: 30 Nov 2013].

The video is below:

OUDF602: ASFF Aesthetica | Barry Ryan On Warp Films

Bio: BARRY RYAN HEAD OF PRODUCTION AT WARP

Barry is the Head of Production for Warp, and is responsible for the production of films across the Warp Films and Warp X slates.

He produced Grow Your Own, written by Frank Cottrell Boyce and Carl Hunter and directed by Richard Laxton for Warp Films and Line Produced Warp's first short My Wrongs 8245-8249 &117, which won the BAFTA in 2003, and Dead Man's Shoes, Warp's first feature which was nominated for the Best British Film Award at the BAFTAs 2005 and which won the Hitchcock D'Or at Dinard in 2004. Dead Man's Shoes, Hush and Bunny & The Bull have all BEEN nominated for "best achievement in production" at the BIFAs

Prior to working for Warp, Barry ran Cargo Films which made a number of successful shorts (Puffer Fish, Sound Effects of Death & Disaster, You Are My Favourite Chair) and the ultra low budget feature, Jelly Dolly, which won the best film award in 2004 at the Britspotting Festival in Berlin.

I thoroughly enjoyed this masterclass at York Theatre Royal as Barry gave a unique lecture on the things you learn from film making.

Why would you shoot a short?

• Showreel
• Practise
• Story to be told
• Fun/Experiment 
• Hang out with friends

Barry mentioned that he wouldn't recommend to just shoot shorts for a showreel otherwise you're gonna have quantity than quality. You need to do it to show your talent.

Thing you learn from film making:

• Budget
• Schedule
• Negotiation Deals
• Project Manager
• Technical Manager
• Human Resources
• Health & Safety
• Legals for closing Film/TV tax credit
• Cash flow

OUDF601: Practical Synthesis | Mood-boards & Concept Art

A lot of inspiration to this was taken from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The film feature Wizards such as Gandalf the Grey and Saruman the White, this led me to also look at Albus Dumbledore from harry potter & use the inspiration. 

OUDF601: Practical Synthesis

On our CoP3 module, we're required to integrate our extended essay with a practical idea of choice; the definition of synthesis is the combining of separate elements or substances to form a coherent whole. In my case, my essay is about whether visual effects can improve or detract from cinema. I brainstormed through a couple of ideas that were likely possible concepts to use & I came to a conclusion of the following.
Practical Idea: To use two indistinguishable scenarios, in which they're both the similar but only one of them features computer generated imaging while the other uses traditional special effects. Judgment will then be made to which is the superior footage, the one with conventional special effects or the other that features contemporary digital effects.

A conceivable idea that can be done within the short amount of time that I have is as follows: To use an actor dressed in character as a man with magical powers, otherwise identified in legends and fairytales as wizard. The idea is to have the character hold a magical orb, through special effects the orb will be made to hover and glow. The second scenario is to use digital effects; use a CG orb modeled in Autodesk Maya and through compositing software such as Adobe After Effects and Nuke, I will add animated effects such as glow, particle effects & more.

Pre-Production:

· Brainstorm Ideas
· Research appropriate locations
· Storyboard
· Recruit an actor
· Equipment (Camera 5D MKII, Green screen, Lighting, Sound)

Production:

· Filming
· 3-D Modeling

Post Production:

· Compositing
· Digital Effects
· Colour Correction
· Editing

PPP3: Photo-shoot | UNAAAY Clothing.

My job as a nightclub photographer provides me with opportunities of meeting potential clients. Fortunately, on one of the Saturdays I was approached by a client who owns a clothing company, they were interested in marketing their brand through advertising & they needed a photographer. I was offered paid work & free clothing for my efforts, thinking this would assist me to build my portfolio further, I immediately accepted this task & we exchanged contacts.

After exchanging quite a number of emails from the client explaining what they wanted, we came to an agreement of a shoot day, payment process and other details. Prior to the shoot, I had to make a lot of preparation such as booking out the college studio as it provided a huge white backdrop and large studio lighting. Having recently purchased my Canon 5D Mark II, I was excited to use it with the Canon 24mm f1.4. The one setback I had was finding models that were willing to attend the shoot due to their busy schedules as the shoot was booked at an awkward time, which was on a Monday morning.

On the day of the shoot, I had to make sure my client was provided with a guest badge at the college reception in order to have full access to the institution. Luckily, the client provided they’re own model to pose for the shoot, I had to make more effort on the day to find people who would be interested & I found two. On the day, they were advertising they’re line of white t-shirts.

Setting up for the shoot was relatively not that problematic, I only needed help in attaching the diffusers to the lights as my last induction on them was 2 years ago. Another problem I faced was the fact that the lens I was using had an extremely wide focal length; it was a 24mm prime lens. To resolve this, I booked out a 100mm telephoto lens with a wide aperture of f/2.2. This set-up worked well as with a manfrotto tripod, my camera settings were set on ISO: 320, aperture: f/7.1, shutters speed: 1/125^th sec.

Photo Credit: UNAAAY Clothing.

The final images came out looking fairly decent, there wasn’t a lot of post-processing necessary due to a well lit environment & correct camera settings.

I appreciated working with my client & I feel this experience has given me self-confidence to work with other people at a professional level in the future. In my judgement, I feel the images are of a near professional standard & they do the job that they’re intended to do, to sell the t-shirts.

Copyright: Wisdom Makubile 2013.

OUDF602: Upcoming Event | ASFF: Aesthetica

November has a number of relevant events to attend, the next one I'm attending being ASFF: Aesthetica Short Film Festival in York St John University. 

ASFF is an established and dynamic player on the UK film festival circuit, the Aesthetica Short Film Festival (ASFF) is a celebration of independent film from across the world, and an outlet for championing and supporting short film making. The festival champions film making talent from across the world, spanning all genres from Comedy to Drama; Animation to Documentary and Art to Experimental Films.

There is a 3 day weekend festival that features a lot of screenings. Student tickets are available to full & part-time students & the prices are 

• £27 for a 3 day pass
• £13.50 for a 1 day pass
• £8.50 for individual masterclasses

Masterclasses include:

• BAFTA nominated Supervising Sound Editor Joakim Sundström, he will discuss the principles of sound editing and design, drawing upon his extensive experience working on Oscar and BAFTA winning films. 
• Barry Ryan on Warp Films
• Tom Leggett n Film Production
• Alice Lowe on Screenwriting
• Hussain Currimbhoy on Documentaries
• Lisa Bryer from Cowboy Films
• Tandem on Animation
• Susie Wright from Channel 4
• Maggie Ellis from Film London
• Craig Mcneil on Music Videos
• Chris Thomas on Directing
• & there will also be panel discussions from all of them.

I'm looking forward in purchasing tickets to some of these masterclasses, sadly a few of them have already been sold out as there were high demand for them. 

OUDF602: Writing Invoices for Freelance Work | PPP3

During the summer holidays I was working as a freelance photographer at 3 different locations. These locations were Halo, Space & Bar Room Bar, I was working for a client called Voodoo events who organise one of the biggest nights for students in Leeds. 

To get paid, I had to provide them with an invoice that included such details as my name, address and VAT number (not registered) plus the name and address of my client. Also I included the date! This ensured that if payment was not received, I'd have proof of when I submitted it to them.

Item/Description was another factor to concisely describe exactly what work I had done for them, in this case it was for photography services, editing & sharing the pictures on their social page for promotion. 

This was my first time doing this type of practice & I believe it has helped me prepare for the professional world as a post graduate if I decide to be self employed & own a small business. 

OUDF601: Structure / Chapter Plan

Are Visual Effects Improving or Damaging Film? 

My Extended piece of writing will consist of the following possible chapters.

Abstract: This part will be the whole essay condensed into a paragraph, it will consist of the main problem addressed, the solution offered and the conclusion reached. 

Introduction: Are Visual Effects Improving or Damaging Film? This will be the central driving question and theme of the essay. This is where I will present the question or problem that the essay will try to solve, I will demonstrate my competence at researching a topic at a professional level and present my findings in an appropriate manner. 

I will also explain how and why my essay is structured the way it is (chapters). This will insure that reader understands why I'm giving particular information. 

Main body of essay | First discussion. 

How do Visual Effects Improve Film?: Here I will talk about numerous films that have been successful due to the beauty & art that visual effects provided.  I will talk about films that can't be done practically without the use of VFX.I will also talk about the companies who work tirelessly to make this happen, I will have to include the industry practitioners who are willing to provide information about how they go about doing their job to constantly improve the quality of the computer generated imaging we see on screen. These will include, directors, VFX supervisors, compositors, animators, editors, actors etc. The films I wish to talk about are Pans Labyrinth (Pale man, Fann, the subtle use of VFX & mostly SFX), Life of Pi (Using a CG tiger as to using a real one), Gravity, Elysium, Avatar, Transformers trilogy, 300, Sin City and more.

Second Discussion.

How do Visual Effects damage Film?: Here I will present the argument and explain how visual effects actually damage film instead of improve it. Finding information on published material for this argument has proved tough, this is where research methodologies come in. 

Quantitative & qualitative research will be useful at this point, I will create questionnaires which do not have leading questions but refined questions that will genuinely engage the people with my research. The responses will enable me to evaluate what others think & they will help me construct my argument with more validity as to what other people's views are on the subject. 

Conducting Interviews is one of the best ways to conduct this investigation, by interviewing appropriate people such as industry practitioners through emails and also interviewing my fellow colleagues and my tutors will help me with this investigation. 

Criticism of VFX

Third Discussion.

The Progress of VFX & what it can achieve:

OUDF601: Level 6 CoP3 | The Beginning.

Before we broke up for the summer holidays, we were briefed on a new module for our third year study called Context of Practice 3. In this module we are to write a 6000-9000 word essay which is the same as a dissertation but it's an extended piece of writing due to the fact that we have to produce a synthesised practical with it. 

We were given a massive head start to begin our research, this was 3 months prior to handing in our final proposals. What i liked about the brief of this module is the fact that we can write about anything that interests us, it doesn't have to relate to any studio concerns. To make the most out of my study, I had to relate it to what I'm specialising in on my my 3rd year & my speciality is Visual Effects & focusing solely on digital compositing in post production for Film & TV.

My initial essay proposal was 'The Evolution of Visual Effects in Media', the feedback I received from this was that the subject matter was way too broad. So over the summer this led me to do a lot of research that would help me conclude to a good topic. This led me to read a number of undergraduate dissertations to learn styles and structuring of writing an appropriate extended piece of writing. I also Read journalistic articles and various academic papers  from Academia.edu & some on Google Scholar, as well as  blogs. Doing observation research such as watching relevant films also help to an extent, these were past & present films, this also led me to watching various interviews of industry practitioners.

I was recommended a good book to read over the summer & it's called 'Special Effects : An Oral History by Pascal Pinteau', the book is a good read & it features interviews with the practitioners who worked on big films such as The Matrix, Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, Star Wars, E.T to name the least. It covers a series of interviews from the big names in the industry, Early movie SFX to today’s big blockbusters VFX, it’s a good read, it’s filled with great history & good insights that are otherwise hard to find. 

With all the reading & thinking during the holidays, I came up with a new title for my extended piece which is less broad & has a much focused question. My new title is 'Are Today's Visual Effects Improving or Damaging Film'. I feel much better writing about this essay as I now know exactly what to focus on, my mission now is to think of an appropriate practical idea to combine with this essay for synthesis.

 

OUDF502: Industrial Light & Magic on You-Tube

ILM has a You-Tube channel in which they post videos of VFX breakdowns, they also reply to the people with questions and comments regarding the process in which they use to create amazing CG. 

They have posted videos covering the topics of the films they have previously worked on such as:

• The Avengers, how they built an entire digital New York. How they also created the Hulk
• Battleship, How they used they're proprietary in-house fluid simulation to achieve the water simulation.
• The Animation and the Effects in Rango, they mention that all the animation was key framed instead of using motion capture suits.
• Transformers Dark of the Moon, the speak about how they digitally created assets as most of the shots had shifting perspective. 
• Pirates of the Caribbean 3 
• Star Trek and the visual effects behind them 

As a person who is interested in VFX for film, their channel is very interesting to follow and it is very informative. I like the fact that even though they are the leading VFX company in the industry, they are not secretive about how they work and the tools they use to achieve amazing results. Below are some of the videos they posted:

OUDF502: Guest Speaker Susan Everett

We recently had a guest speaker come to one of our PPP sessions to speak to us about scriptwriting. Though scriptwriting isn't my focus, I found the advice she gave us really important, in fact, she was one of the best guest speakers we've had.

Susan showed us the film she she had previously written and directed in 2008 called 'Mother, Mine'. The film is about a young woman who is grieving the death of her adoptive mother, trying to track down her natural mother to find a replacement 'mum', she sends out a videotape as an introduction. But her intentions are not as straightforward as they may seem. 

The film was really intriguing and and the story was captivating, at a costly fee of £21,000 the short drama delivers a disturbing thriller with great acting and cinematography. 

OUDF502: Bradford Animation Festival

Bradford Animation Festival seems to be becoming bigger and better every year, with over 800 delegates 2012 BAF was a very interesting experience for myself and my peers as it was another eye opener and confidence boost that we needed. There were very interesting people at the talk who shared they're visions and the hard work, they also gave some notable advice on what to expect in the industry. They spoke about how they went about finding a job after graduation, how long it took them to find employment etc. During the talks, I learnt that making an interesting show reel of your work is very important as that is what employers target.

We had panel talks from the following interesting delegates: 

• Professor Paul Wells of the Animation Academy from Loughborough University
• Chris Williams from Bournemouth University
• Tony Prosser of Real Time UK
• Caroline Parsons from Newport University 
• Sophie Jenkins from Double Negative 

We viewed a number of student films and they were the following:

• Buy Buy Baby

Buy Buy Baby was a very interesting piece, it was made at an estimated budget of £4000. The animation to is is very 1920's it worked well with the music soundtrack.

Other shorts that we viewed were:

• The Other Side
• Drawl 
• Snowflake

During the Panel talks, I really enjoyed the presentation by Sophie Jenkins from D-Neg. "Double Negative is a British full-service visual effects/computer animation company located in London. The company was set up in 1998 with a team of 30 staff and has since grown to over 1000 staff, making it Europe's largest provider of visual effects for film." She spoke about her journey as the visual effects supervisor for the 2012 blockbuster film Total Recall. She spoke about how it was hard to work with an American director Len Wiseman through conference call all the time as the ideas kept changing. She mentioned that at some point they had to build an entire city (Federation of Britain) I believe it was called, without any reference whatsoever, these were some of the challenges she faced. 

OUDF502: PS4 vs XBOX ONE

There has been a lot of speculation recently about which next gen console is the better one. What I will attempt to do is to compare what the consoles have under the hood. Using the facts, both the consoles have an 8 core CPU, the PS4 has 8GB of GDDR5 Ram while the XBOX has 8GB of DDR3 Ram that is 3 times slower than GDDR5. The XBOX GPU has 32MB of on board cache that is 60% faster than DDR3, the PS4's GPU is 50% more powerful at the same clock speeds and there is a very high chance that its operating system will require less processing power in ram to work. At a standpoint, Microsoft seems to have created an entertainment box for a target audience such as families whereas Sony has created a gaming console for actual gamers. None the less, both system's power are the same only just that the PS4 is a little over clocked. 

At the conference, Sony revealed a lot of next gen games however they did not show the actual design of the console, they showed the interface briefly and they revealed the controller. So far the games that I'm personally looking forward to the most are as follows

• Killzone Shadow fall
• Watchdogs 
• Knack
• Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
• Infamous

On the other hand, Microsoft revealed it's actual console to the press but they did not show any content of upcoming games, they only showed the interface of the system. 

Unfortunately non of the consoles have any back wards compatibly of previous games, this is something I'm sure a lot of people desperately want from both these companies but from a business stand point, it would be a loss to the companies. 

The controllers have both been modified and made to look very different, Sony has broken it's tradition of keeping the same look of the controllers. They did this to compensate for the new technologies built inside that have forced them to change the design. Overall both the controllers look beautiful though I've never been an Xbox fan, I must admit that the new controller look inviting. 

Below are the videos of the press conference: 

ODF502: 80's Revival in Contemporary Media

So far in 2013 I've been noticing a lot of media artifacts being revived from the 80's style. The most prominent events and trends in the 80's popular culture of the decade include Music, Film, Television, Fashion and Video games. Popular video games include: Pac-Man, Super Mario Bros, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong and Tetris  to name the least. With today's technology, all these games can easily be recreated to fit today's media or today's contemporary games could be made into 80's style. 

I recently saw a teaser trailer of a next gen console system named 'Cyber Punk 2077'.

Cyber Punk 2077 has an amazing 80's style concept to it, yet it is based in a retro futuristic Blade Runner Esq world. The game is being developed by CD Projekt RED for the PlayStation 4 and XBOX ONE consoles, it is due to be released in 2015. The game will feature an 80's style futuristic world in which ultra-modern technology co-exists with a degenerated human society. The developers mentioned that the game aims to be mature and ambitious, with character customisations being strongly tied to the plot. Analysing the teaser trailer, I'm guessing these customisations will be the cyber limbs and the Real Skin. According to the developers, the story of the game will be a non-linear one and will have different character classes throughout, the game will be playable as a multiplayer. The teaser trailer received a lot of positive feedback for it's amazing graphics and the developers are also known for their previous PC game, The Witcher. Below is the teaser trailer of the game: 

Another 80's Revival game that caught my attention is Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. 

Blood Dragon is a FPS developed and published by Ubisoft as a stand-alone expansion to the 2012 video game Far Cry 3 meaning players do not need the original copy of Far Cry 3 to gain access to Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon. The game, a satire of 1980s action films, takes place on a retro-futuristic open world island crawling with evil. Players can play as the action role of eye-patched cyborg protagonist Sergeant Rex Power Colt. The release of the game was on April 30 2013, for PlayStation 3 via the PlayStation Network, it has also been released for XBox. The game received generally positive reviews from professional critics on release. 







As a promo for the game Ubisoft hired VFX You Tube stars known as Corridor Digital to create a short film to help promote the game. Here's the link to it below: 

OUDF503: Evaluation

Evaluation



At the beginning of this course we were given an opportunity to explore and create our own digital artefact that would have a potential to have its use expanded, reused and remediated into other mediums. Though this was a self directed brief, it was tough for many of us to choose exactly what it is we wanted to do, it seemed we would have much rather be given a particular brief to respond to. After reviewing the brief, I struggled a little in finding out what I needed to do so I begun doing research. Research was going as bit slow as I had a different module at the time I was focusing on, so therefore it was a bit half hearted. When I finally had the time to give it my full attention, I ran through a couple of Ideas in which most of them received bad critic from my teachers and peers. It was good that I had to explore a few ideas but it was time to choose one that would work as time was running out. We had a month left at identifying a self directed project.

From the many ideas I had, I ended up choosing to do a vox pop type of interview with kinetic typography animated on the screen. I begun by drawing out my ideas on a story board on paper and reflecting back to it, the video looks close to what I originally drew. I then begun to search for fonts online and I was mesmerized by a font named Bebas Nueu, on the response proforma, I mentioned that I would only use two type of fonts. Those were Bebas Nueu and Pacifico, the fonts complimented each other though they were from different font families, it was very important for me to choose the right type of design for the two font rule. The fonts were originally made for print and web but in my case judging by the evidence, they look outstanding as animated texts.

The filming process had its ups and downs, I was glad that I chose to collaborate with my peers as it would have not been possible to have done anything without them. The problems I encountered were the fact that I was working in Photography studio to do film work. The studio was double booked, meaning that there were photography students in the same room as us, this meant that the noise levels were loud and it was impossible to film. Their slot was booked at the same time as mine, this was from 9:30 am-12:30 noon.



The main source of the noise was coming from the flush gun firing and the students communicating to each other, not only was it the sound but my visuals were also compromised as their camera triggered our lights. Acting upon this, we politely asked the students to keep their noise to a minimum, they politely agreed and we also drew the curtain that separated the Studio A in which we were in and Studio B. To act out on this learning, I ran and booked out the collar microphone as the boom mic was still picking out a lot of unwanted background noise. I begun preparing my actors which were also my crew to get in their positions and begin filming during the time the other students kept the noise at minimal. All the actors had an opportunity to have a second take just in case the first had some unwanted noises in the background. To a certain point this was a success but it was not to professional standards. When the other students had finished, we had a small window in which I had an opportunity to film those second takes. What I've learnt to do differently next time is to not do any film work in a photography studio, instead to get a pop out backdrop and set up somewhere I would be able to control the noise. Overall, I believe I did a good job in directing my cast and crew, handling the situation and also filming the project.

Post production is and is always exciting to me, for the first time I was going to explore animating kinetic typography while synching it with sound. I learnt a lot of new things especially working with the new package of Adobe. I used Adobe Premier Pro CS6 for editing the footage and Adobe After Effects CS6 for animating the visuals. I thoroughly enjoyed this process, overtime I've learnt that I enjoy using After effects and it is one of the tools I'm willing to focus on my level 6 area of study. A lot of the animation was done manually and not using presents that After Effects provides for you, I did this so I could further broaden my skills on it. Some problems I faced during post production were losing power on my computer and having to begin my work from a previous save that was done a while ago. This taught me to always keep saving my work every couple of minutes instead of relying on auto save.

In conclusion, contrary to popular belief, a self directed brief is much hard than one which is set out for us. It was hard to find guidance on this brief but It definitely taught me to be more independent in my own work. It also taught me how important it is to collaborate with others in order to come out with the best work.

OUDF503: Conceptualising Into Trans-media

"What is trans-media? It is content created to exist on different platforms in different forms (e.g a TV program with a website delivering separate audiovisual content; a feature film with an associated game). May also be used as an umbrella term encompassing cross-platform, interactive and trans media content." 

There are definitely aspects of my project that can be re mediated into trans-media. The project I chose to do is vox pop style type of interview with added kinetic typography. The trans-media aspect I have identified is as follows:

The video could be turned into an animated banner of a website to promote whatever aspect, it can be used at a school or college website to promote the courses of undergraduate students. The animated banner could also be turned into a poster that includes good design typography in use for promotion and for people to click on, the link could take them to a different website or to something related to the topic.

Another aspect could be simply a radio advert used as a jingle, a short tune used in advertising for other commercial uses. It could contain one or more hooks and meaning that explicitly promote a certain product being advertised, usually through the use of one or more advertising slogans. It could also be used as a television commercial, the video can also be used in non-advertising contexts to establish or maintain a brand image. I've added some supporting visuals to help contextualise this 









Bibliography: Screen Australia. 2010. Definitions in all-media [Online]. Available at:http://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/funding/allmedia/definitions.aspx

OUDF503: Sound Ideas & Inspiration

During the editing process of my video, I kept wondering what kind of sound I would need to compliment the video. The type of music I kept hearing in my head was Soundtrack music with featured instruments such as Pizzicato, Clarinet,  Flute, Percussion, Xylophone, Marimba, Celesta. I immediately logged into incompetech.com where I could find royalty free music to search for this type of music. Incompetech is a free music site in which you could use what ever sound you wish without having to worry about the copyright infringement laws. 

while doing research on the type of music I wanted, I came across a music producer by the name of Rob Simonsen. He has worked in the music department for such films as Life of Pi, Surfs Up, Money Ball and TV shows such as Blue Blood and Dollhouse. The one soundtrack I was intrigued by that he did was for the i-phone 5 advert and it's called Falcon Hero. The sound features the same types of instruments as I was searching for such as pizzicato, clarinets, xylophone etc. 

Below is the video of the i-phone 5 commercial that features Rob's soundtrack 

The sound I finally found from incompetech added a bit of a humorous feel to the entire video and overall it fits perfectly with the look of the video and gives it a good feel. I've decided to use it as the final choice. 

Below is a widget to Rob's Sound-cloud, another sound I really found interesting from there is called 'Facing the Obstacles'. His music is copyright protected therefore I couldn't use any of the sounds.

OUDF503: Storyboard & Shot-list

1. Medium angle shot of the chair without the person 00:05 
2. Medium still shot of the person sat on the chair from a different camera angle 00:05
3. Extreme close up of the person's face with animated typography around the screen (shot will last as the person talks)
4. Wide Angle from the main camera of the person sat left to the screen. Animated typography on the right side of the screen (shot will last as long as the person talks)
5. Medium close up shot from the second camera for a different angle (shot will last as long as the person talks)
6. Close up of the hands from camera 2. Camera pans up and down (shot will last as long as the person talks).

OUDF503: I Haven't Got A Catchphrase

Above is another video that inspired  me to do my video behind a white backdrop. This video named 'I Haven't Got A Catchphrase' by Kevin has some really interesting aspects to it such as camera angles and animated typography to it. The font they used is very similar to the one I have used in which mine is Bebas Neue part of the Sans Serif family. What I like about this video is the simplicity behind it but after working on my video I realised to achieve this kind of simplicity you real have to work hard setting up the right equipment. 

Analysing this video, they definitely used 3 point lighting if not more, to get the pure white look of the back ground and to also maintain the vibrant colours on the clothes, the skin and the hair on Kevin without bleaching him out. As for the camera work, they used an extreme wide angle lens, maybe a 10mm zoom lens that allows some of Kevin's features to appear distorted, for example in perspective, his head would appear way larger than his feet.

For my video, I worked in a much simpler way than that, I had my cast simple sat on a chair and talking towards the camera placed on a tripod. During post production I animated the typography around the interviewees. 

Critically comparing my video to the one above, my white drop is not pure white as the one on Kevin's video. The trick they may have used is the either by a clever lighting process in which I could not achieve, given that I was using a photography studio instead of a film studio, or they achieved the pure white at post production by keying out the person and placing a virtual background. 

OUDF503: Ira Glass On Being Creative

Ira Glass is an American public radio personality, host and producer of the radio and television show 'This American Life'. He was once interviewed about Story-telling by current TV and he gave some intriguing advice on how to stay creative in writing stories. I felt his advice applied to all creative work, not just writing, his advice can be applied to artists, filmmakers, games designers, animators, basically to anyone who is a content maker.

It is important to watch the video if one feels the need to be motivated. He explains on the video that, he himself took longer than anyone else he knows to be good at what he does, he just persisted and he never quit. He mentions that a lot of creative people have good taste but they can tell that whatever they are making is not as good, that is what leads people to quit. Most creative people that he knows including himself went through a phase of years in which they really had good taste, they could tell what they were making wasn't as good as they wanted it to be and he explains that this is completely is normal. The most important thing we as creative people could do, is do a lot of work, to go through a large volume of work and set ourselves targets every week or every month to make sure we fill in that gap that will make us masters at what we do.

What I learnt from his advice is to not give up on myself and keep working even when I've not been allocated any work to do. To constantly learn during my spare time and to always have passion to what I do and most importantly to have good taste. 

Part 3 of the video was turned into motion graphics, in which it really inspired me during the process of making my own trans media motion graphics video, this video also applies to trans media. See below

OUDF503: Bing & Jay Z Trans-Media Marketing Campaign

Jay-Z's media campaign for decoded was created by a Miami Ad School graduate and industry practitioner named Jon Kubik, he is the senior art director on this campaign and is based in New York. Jon worked along closely with Jay Z and the search engine known as Microsoft Bing. Decoded is an auto biography book by Jay-Z that talks about the rapper's life over the years. 

The book is very specific to locations of things that happened throughout Jay-Z's life, so they came up with this idea of a geographic auto biography. Working with Microsoft Bing, this was a great chance for them to incorporate pop culture trans-media, so the idea of a geographic auto biography was to Geo tag each location from the book into Bing's maps online and places different pages on those actual locations so people could search and assemble the book ones by one. The most interesting locations were the time square in NY

The other was at the bottom of a hotel pool in Miami

And the other were pages printed in plates at a restaurant in Manhattan where Jay-z spoke about eating a burger with Bono.

With a project of this magnitude, it took them over a year to present all the 300 pages at different locations.

Jon spoke about how the collaboration process was important in this project as it was a production nightmare that needed them to be on top of their game constantly in order to keep Jay Z and Bing happy. 

OUDF503: Filming & Problems Encountered

Today I begun filming the footage for my response brief project, I faced so many problems from the beginning but I managed to pull through them thanks to my peers. I begun by booking out the following in advance:

• Photography Studio with white backdrop
• Canon 5D mk3
• Canon 7D
• Tripod x2
• Rode Mic
• Small collar mic 
• Lights

The first problem encountered was the studio that I was working in, it was a photography studio and there were other students doing a shoot. This obviously meant that there was going to be noise coming from them communicating and also from the flash firing. I wanted complete silence for my filming and this was impossible to get. Their session was booked at exactly the same time as mine 9:30-12:30.

At this point all I could do was to prepare my set for my actors to interview and the best I could ask for was for them to keep the noise down. When it came down to filming, I had to use a collar mic instead of a boom mic as it gave a clear and crisp sound with little to none background noise.

To some degree, this was a success but the sound quality is definitely not up to professional standards. After the photography's session finished, we had a short window in which we could do second takes with no background noise. We managed to film two interviews until we were interrupted and told that our session was over. 

Below is an image of myself directing and filming the actors in Studio A.

OUDF503: Interpersonal & Collaboration Process

Previously working with a third year fashion student, I managed to collaborate with him again only this time it was my project. Shaun had asked me to model in the clothes that he had created in a crit session. He had told me to contact him anytime if I needed any help from him, so during this responsive brief projects I figured it would be a great opportunity to work with him again. All that I asked him to do was to answer a couple of questions that I had for him while he was being filmed on camera. The great thing is that he also brought his own clothing line that he created in his course and wore one of the outfits during the interview. See image below: 

He did very well good job at answering the question, it was exactly what I was looking for and it was very professional.


I also collaborated with my peers from my own course. Daniel Scoffield, Jess Watson and Phil Jones. They helped me set up the lights and the camera and they also were involved in the interviews. I was truly grateful for them coming in to help me as I would have not be able to make the film without them. 

See images below of our collaborative process: 

My peers as the cast

My peers as the crew

OUDF503: Bebas Neue

Typography is a very important part of design and choosing the right type for your design can be very challenging. Bebas Neue is the primary font in which I've decided to use over Helvetica and Ariel. It has a good combination of typeface with OSP DIN, FRANCHISE & LEAGUE GOTHIC as they all fall under the same font family which is Sans-Serif font. These are a great collection of fonts and can be used for commercial use. The reason why I chose this font is because it looks professional, clean and it will work well through motion graphics. I want to experiment with it using various techniques in after effects as this font was made for web and print typography. I'm always cautious about the fonts I choose when designing, having a good Idea of choosing the right font combinations is always useful. Good use of typography and a combination of fonts can really help to add that extra wow factor to a project. 

It is important not to break the 2 font rule but once in a while it can be broken if the designer can make it work. Combining Bebas Neue with a font called Pacifico is something I'd be willing to try.

Below is an example of Pacifico Regular: 

Below is the font chart for Bebas Neue: