PPRD Essay

Looking back over the year, I’ve seen my approach to work and techniques develop further than I had imagined, considering 10 months ago I didn’t know how to use  any of the programmes, that I feel more confident on today. From my understanding of the course before we began in September 2009, options within and from the course were ‘open’ and there was always going to be a wide range of skills that I could learn, and consequently help me create opportunities for myself through project placements over the course and choose a career path at the end of the course. This year was all about exploring my abilities and character, progressing into a digital path through my blog (Appendix 1) and making the most of the opportunities put before me, such as my role as one  of the Student Representatives and becoming involved in extra courses, such as the  60 hour, ABC Maya course.

The Viral video was our first project of the year, and working as a group gently brought us together and developed our experience with working in groups. We were criticized early on for having a large group, which hindered our final mark but the efforts of each group member was shown through our planning via blog entries, but overall, every member did put in their full efforts and I think we justified having such a large group.

Obviously by having a large group, we often had disagreements, which saw us change our idea several times but the final concept of using a Riot shield in everyday situations satisfied every member as much for the group to function. I like the style in which we shot the sequences and I thought they captured the crucial elements of the shots and emphasized the comical elements. Our aim was to jokingly suggest how really annoying things and scenarios in everyday life can all by solved by a simple appliance of a Riot Shield (Appendix 2).

The 2D project was the first of the year outside my comfort zone. Obviously I was more than familiar with working by myself, but it was my first time using programmes, such as After Effects and due to my lack of knowledge or comfort with the programme, I basically ended up changing my approach to the unit ten days before the deadline. My original drawings matched my description from our preliminary assessment and I had originally intended to create a stop-motion animation, simply using drawings but it just didn’t look how I imagined it!

I was more than happy with the drawings and everything as I feel they proved my character and mind to our group but they just looked too static at their joints and I didn’t feel it was effective as it could’ve and should’ve been. From this, I decided to re-import the whole project into After Effects, after pre-production in Photoshop. Looking over how I managed my time, it wasn’t the best idea changing my approach a week or so before the deadline but I feel I’ve got a greater result that I would’ve using stop motion. I would’ve like to make my characters more flexible and maybe concentrate more on solo features and detail to really make the composition stand out, again using additional lighting and camera angles, but I’m pleased with how effective the single camera angle and natural composition of the drawing came into effect, but I would’ve liked to have created something similar using a 3D perspective, which will be my aim within After Effects over the next year (Appendix 3).

Ever since we began, I have had an eye for 3D and immediately became interested in the skill and ability within the category, leading to my participation in the ABC Maya course. Over the course of the year, I feel that my 3D projects have shown the most of my character and progression of the topics, despite necessary skills I still need to develop. I still find the majority of aspects within 3D animation challenging, such as the animation, but I feel that my strong point for the topic so far is my modeling. For my first 3D unit, I decided to create five monsters and have them yell, “Alan”, following my humor of the “Walk On The Wild side” series. Having  learnt the basics, my modeling and texture was fairly simple and although I was happy with the final production for the shear fact that it made me laugh, it had numerous errors that I could now correct and consequently make a better version.

After the first three units, I feel I began to find my place amongst the group and my skills within Digital Media. Due to my limited skills, the appearance of my work at this time was admittably simple and amateur, with textures being nothing than simple lambert layers. Considering I hadn’t used any of this software three months prior to our first animation deadline and before this course, I really had now idea, specifically, what I wanted to do, I’m very please with how I’ve progressed my technique, found new areas of interest, but I was most proud of how I had developed as a character, regarding my work and communicating with other people, which I feel can only develop through my role as Student Representative (Appendix 4). As Student Representative, I feel that I’ve been able to interact with course members and leaders alike and become more acquitted with the course. I’ve found the experience as a Representative beneficial as I get to let my voice be head within the course and I feel it has given me my course-mates’ trust and brought the group together whenever we meet and discuss sections of the course, before and after meetings.

The ABC Maya courser really helped when creating these creatures, especially in terms of adding shadow, using effective modeling and putting the creatures into onto a plane in a live environment, and I really do feel that the creatures look real within the environment, which shows to me that I have progressed  in my 3D technique and method, which was my initial purpose. I have no criticism of any aspect of the course, as I found every moment beneficial, as I consequently progressed my ability to produce 3D animations.

With regards to the Post Production project, for me, I wanted to improve my 3D modeling more than anything as that’s a path I would like to take and develop over the next couple of years. Admittably, I put more time creating my creatures and modeling more than my attempts to make the “Post-Production” effects but bringing my creatures into a ‘live-environment’ and adding their shadows and realism, through the ‘beauty’, ‘occlusion’ and ’shadow’ layers in Maya contributes to aspects of Post-Production.

My original aim for the project as my blog, was to have “The Painter” to write in the light streaks before “The Sidekick” burps but with the tutorial I found on www.videocopilot.net, there wasn’t a specific part of the tutorial which instructed me on how to track the streaks with “The Painter’s” wond and it was too late to create anything dramatic, so my main disappointment with the piece is that I couldn’t get the wond to track with the streaks. Units such as the Post Production Unit I felt really progressed student characters and developed how they thought and approached a unit (Appendix 5).

My main criticism and disappointment of the year would have to come through the short form video unit. I enjoyed working on the piece, developing my technique with a camera and working as a group, but it’s the effect that it had on the class as a group. via the divisions caused by the diversity and narrowness of the project and individual ideas dampens the final product. I know the course expects and meets certain criteria but since the considerations of earlier units had been changed for varied reasons, I feel that the same approach could’ve been taken to ensure more student participation and motivation, having seen early protest to the unit from more than half the group.

Having said that, people did eventually come together and have produced some exceptional work from well-structured tutorials, but I feel that the process of the unit could’ve flowed easier (Appendix 6). The unit did offer each individual to show their potential, which i feel our group made the most of. I was responsible with the organization, preparation and filming of the project, producing storyboards to a higher quality than before and positioning myself into a more pre-production. From this year, I’ve become more asserted to seeing my work progress from the pre-productive period and seeing the idea progress.

After the practical units of the year, it becomes clear how a more mature approach should be taken in projects, both communicating and understanding the concepts of the unit. Although I’m happy with the final outcomes of the projects and what I’ve learnt through the more challenging experiences, I still know that I need to change my approach to units, or in a more specific way, manage by time better between planning and production. I can only hope to progress with my knowledge and technique through my work placement as the final unit to the year. I’m hoping to work within a 3D environment, where I can pick up techniques in how to create more realistic environments, textures and models to improve on my future projects. So Far I’ve looked at such Institutions as Framestore and FastFinger productions in London, from which I’d like to see how the amateur skills I have at the moment are transferred into a professional environment and profession.

Appendix 1 – http://samdubery.wordpress.com

Appendix 2 – http://samdubery.wordpress.com/category/viral-video

Appendix 3 – http://samdubery.wordpress.com/category/computer-graphics

Appendix 4 – http://samdubery.wordpress.com/category/3d-animation-and-film

Appendix 5 – http://samdubery.wordpress.com/category/post-production

Appendix 6 – http://samdubery.wordpress.com/category/short-form-video

Audio for Chadam and Friends! – Viral Video!

Unfortionately I missed the session on “Garage Band”, hopefully using the notes and some friendly help, I can gather the basics and produce some pretty good audio sessions!

Whilst creating my post for my firm viral video idea, I was listening to two of my favourite bands, ‘The Ghost Of A Thousand’ and ‘Cancer Bats’! There’s always arguments about how you define the genre so i’m not even going to go there! I’ll probably get a load of Spam email, like comments on YouTube, going, “blah blah blah, they’re this…no, no they’re this…”. To be Honest, I don’t really care what genre they are, I enjoy them! And you should enjoy music of any genre if you want to! (sorry, mini-rant there!)

Basically, whilst writing my post and listening to them, ideas were flowing through my head about how some of their songs would ‘fit the bill’ for my viral video, if all went to plan! I know I want choreographed ‘moves’ within my composition, and normally, that’s associated with ‘Dance’ genre music, but I think it’d be great to experiment and use something like the tracks below to accompany the motion in the video!

WHOA …….

WHOA WHOA …….

WHOA WHOA WHOA ………

WHOA!

If people ask me to describe a band like ‘The Ghost Of A Thousand’, I would use a mixture of single words and phrases, like chaotic, fast, In Your Face and Friggin’ amazing! This is the kind of vibe I want to create in my Viral video, so I would aim to use one of their tracks, mainly because I’ve listened to this album so many times, I know that I could and how to work with it, before, during and after filming! If I went the other way and recorded my own audio, or had to and used these ‘lads’ as influence, I would film my Viral Video ‘freely’, and adapt a ‘chaotic’ soundtrack using ‘Garage Band’, using symbols and ‘break-down’ beats at effective points in the video and slower sequences when I concentrate on the audience’s reactions, which in turn, suit their reaction then let all hell break loose when the action starts again!

Making it feel like you were at one of their gigs would be great….

Sound Production- What I missed!

Basically and unfortunately, I missed the tutorial on sound production last Tuesday, so here are the notes I missed to understand what you did!

• 1Hz = 1 cycle/sec = 2 samples per cycle
• amplitude = decibel (db)
• Pitch Of Human voice –> 110-130 Hz –>Male
• Pitch Of Human voice –> 200-230 Hz –> female
• If a Frequency is:

1. doubled/halved = 1 Octave
2. 16-32 Hz = Lowest Octave
3. 32-512 Hz = Second to Fifth Octave
4. 512 – 2048 Hz = tinny
5. 2048 – 8192 Hz = presence, breathing
6. 8192 – 16 kHz = Bells, cymbals

…..

• Pitch +Timbre  property + character
• CD Sound:

1. 44,100 samples/second
2. 16 bits / samples
3. 2 channels
4. 1.4 mbit/second

Garage Band

–> Loops —> select Instrument —> drag and drop into section –> toolbar on top left to do stuff.

–> reset to choose another instrument –> click and drag to make longer.

Car Chase – Video Production

Our Film Studies assignment was to create a film/ animation chase scene, bringing the ’180 Rule’  into effects. You get a lot of chases with two people heckling at each other, having a fight or just dressing up and acting (which I don’t think any of us wanted to do), so we thought we’d try a car chase… a toy car chase…. in film and stop motion!

I like how we decided to experiment using different camera techniques to create a pretty darn epic chase. Again, loads of ideas raged in and out, but ending up at Alex’s house, we went for the kitchen scenery, using normal objects, such as (HUGE!) knifes, ironing boards and fridges! oh yeah, and a Transformer!

We used a mixture of stop motion and film, which I think created a pretty cool effect for all thirty odd seconds of the sequence. Overall, it was really fun to make, despite a few hick-ups, especially in the editing but i think it came out pretty cool… I think the soundtrack  adds to the epic motion, especially the sirens!

A Firmer Idea for the Viral Video!

I have to admit, I was really excited about the morphsuit idea for a long time, then I became really excited about the Chadam mask idea so I was quite lost with which one to choose and what would be most challenging etc. Having said that, and debated about what could work best, I’ve decided that I’m going to use the mask idea, with Chadam as the influence. I mapped out my ideas using a  mind map so I had a reference on my ideas and room to expand them or manipulate them if needs be.

Above are screenshots of my mind map regarding my viral video, highlighting the keys areas, especially how I intend to expand the Chadam and Pardee influence. I know how often Pardee is used within my work at the moment, and yes, he is my main influence in alot of my own work, and I worship his book, ‘The Awful Homesick’!

In the shots above, there is also a quick drawing I constructed of three masks and characters that I would like to use! Ofcourse, these are primary sketches and they will obviously be expanded etc but they’re a starting stone for how my characters will look. Below is a link I found to the ‘Chadam’ Tv series, where you, as an audience can get an idea of how his character looks and acts originally, as possibly see how my ideas are composed around it!

My firm idea of whichever Viral Video I chose to create would be the comical factor! The Morphsuits themselves were crazy, and would create a comical factor whatever you did! The Main downfall and challenging factor of Chadam is that his character is general quite morbid and pessimistic, as the trailer shows, but this is where my ideas could expand and flow.

The last thing you really want in a viral video, which is meant to be humorous is some petty, depressed character so I’m taking the idea of Chadam’s appearance, and creating a juxtaposition within his motion composition. As you can see from the trailer for his videos, Chadam has a mixed storyline and character representation, so I intend to take that idea but mix it with the morphsuit representation. The video below is by ‘The Used’, a band who use Pardee’s work alot with their album artwork and video choreography, and during the various clips of band performance, you can see Pardee’s style of artwork, so I thought an example of how the work is composed side by side with music, or sound would help express the vibe i’m trying to create! The composition of the human characters is quite good to note as well, as a further branch of ideas is to bring in human character’s, similar to Pardee’s, and add the kind of vibe you feel in the video, but in a juxtaposed manner…i.e humour!

The standard mask of Chadam already has a smile, so that’s a start to the more optimistic vibes of the character(s), as the below images show, so I need to incorporate that into a more vibrant and active character, that dances in the streets and other ‘stunts’ (no, nothing involving a gun or street fighting), such as playing ‘American’ football, even sitting in the park with a paper! I want to create something out of the ordinary…using two cameras! I’ve got the character(s), (I keep putting brackets around that word because sometimes I’ll use one, sometimes I’ll use two, sometimes I’ll use three characters, but I haven’t planned out each scene as of yet, storyboard and character drawings to come… ) which using the masks themselves can capture an audience reaction, but camera two will be used to solely capture the audience reactions, then later edited in to the actual video, with a hopeful whackey soundtrack, created using Garageband or a soundtrack of my choice, oooo a blog entry on sounds would be good…..

I’m actually impressed with my imagination a little bit, when I did the brief drawings in the top gallery, I added braces and white shirts to the character compositions, and I hadn’t even seen these pictures, but now, look at that…….

I want to keep the idea of some form of choreography within my composition, but I’m still debating what kind of choreography. I would like to use a choreographed dance routine that maintains humourous vibes and appearance such as Will Smith’s Dance to the ‘Men In Black’ Music video….

…But I suppose the extent of performing randomly in a place is dependent on my actors and how they feel like performing! I think once the masks are on and they’re in character then nothing will be a problem. As it’s obvious in the above music video, a choreographed movement is a really successful feature within videos, and it really draws the (target) audience into the narrative and composition. Either way, I feel the character compositions I have created will attract a wide audience reaction, that works well with the humour factor and then the audience reactions can only add to it….

Morph Suit Idea Versus Alex Pardee Remake!!!

(Over Microphone) “In the Blue corner, weighing at absolutely nothing, The Morphsuit Idea (crowd cheers!)… In the Red Corner, weighing all your emotions into one, The Alex ‘screw with the mind’ Pardee remake (crowd cheer equally loud!) ”

I’m torn between the two ideas. The Morph suit would admittably be more fun and optimstic. The flow of that piece would come together simply as there are so many possibilities! The colour of the suits enlighten the entire composition and would create a more optimistic feel but where I get confused is that I could apply this theory to using Chadam, but would it be equally effective! The enitre concept of Alex Pardee’s work is more pessimistic, despite it’s somewhat humerous undertones, but if I aplied a juxtaposed composition to using Pardee’s mask, would it still work as a public performance.

The decided feature of my viral video is the narrative and plot. The actors (ok, their numbers aren’t decided yet, aiming for 3) will act in public with simple sequences, such as; reading a newspaper, walking through a park, cycling a bike through a crowded area…. i’m still in debate as to whether or not i could get away with boxed, masked people performing a choreographed routine in a public place, like the morphsuit ‘traffic light dance off’. The  idea of using masked based on Pardee’s characters would be equally effective, because the clothing of the characters could make the sequence laid back and an equally good visiual peroformance, and create a comical factor but i’m still not sure which path i’d like to go down…. any thoughts?

New Viral Video Idea –> Alex Pardee and some of the most ‘screwed’ up work you’ll ever see!

I’ve always been a fan of surreal and ‘screwed’ up artwork that really toys with your mind and gives you a new and alternative perspective on how you may view things! As much as I love my original and truly firm idea of running around in morph suits, the main issue is the price of a suit and some of my ‘actors’ aren’t entirely sure if they can afford it before I will have completed the project! so with that in mind, I began to look for another unique and emotive narrative and representation for my viral video!

Enter Alex Pardee! Searching through my art books as influence for some freehand drawings, I found a great string of ideas that I feel I could turn into an effective viral video, but as a juxtaposed representation, therefore maintaining the comic side of the viral video narrative. His work reflects the emotions he felt throughout his time at a mental hospital through his late teens and early stages of being an adult. In his foreword to his book, ‘The Awful Homesick’, he states “Crystal clear from the beginning is that this is one artist’s distinct blazing path of dedication to the langauge of expression… these pages will make you grab someone close and pull him or her into your moment!” And he’s not lying….

His colourful and expressive work creates an imposing visual metaphor. The images he creates reflect children’s toys to depressed comic superheroes to personal fears and he successfully creates a comical appearance but maintains a serious factor within his work.

“In these pages is the sense of arrival and as you turn, you will find yourself trying to remember the details, maybe retracing the projecting figures’ silhouettes in your palms, to trying to see inspiration, or simply trying to know what tools were employed into its crafting”

Written by Jeben Berg, ‘The Awful Homesick’ – January 2008

With the examples and such a ‘Omni-directional’ selection of artwork, how could these be directed ad transformed into a viral video? As well as numerous drawings and paintings, Alex Pardee also creates numerous flat, and 3D installations, similar to that those we saw at the second exhibition in London, and most recently, one of his characters, Chadam, reflecting a rectangular boxed shaped head has become a feature in a series of 3D animated episodes, as well as being a dominant feature in Pardee’s installational exhibitions.

Taking the idea of Chadam, I would use the same approach as I have with the morph suit idea but transform it’s composition. I would aim to create one to three characters, sometimes all visible, sometimes only two, sometimes only one. The performance would still be publically based, aiming to observe and record a public’s reaction to any form of public performance.

More Morph!

The Idea of a Morphsuit Viral Video keeps growing with new ideas as I see new videos of ‘public performances’ and other groups that have used Morphsuits for public stunts! My main admiration for this is the pure comic stance  of protagonists in the suits themselves! The only obstacle at the moment to carrying out this idea is the cost of a suit! I’ve mapped out and planned my ideas on a storyboard and a mind map which will be posted shortly!

The video above demonstrates how simple and effective a public performance in a morph suit is! Whether I used one model or four models, I feel an immediate effect on any audience would be guaranteed! The fact that no one knows who you are is great, so you can simply go crazy and have fun, which creates the comic and pleasurable experience of the viral video…

I thought this link would be effective and suitable as it demonstrates how home made videos of morph suits work in comparison to amateur and professional videos. I dare say that any ‘actors’ I use won’t go as far to kick each other in the crutch or throw each other around! Since I mainly want to concentrate on a small series of comical performances,. I will keep them subtle and low key and observe the public response as well as directing something worth watching!

My primary and initial ideas of what my protagonists would do include; sitting in a park with a magazine, a small dance, riding a bike, skateboarding, going into a shop and trying on clothes or an item that that shop sells, sitting on the beach, playing American or standard football, generally and casually walking , or even running through the streets , depending on how many actors I have! As I said, these suits aren’t cheap! Any other thoughts? my main task other than ensuring these ‘stunts’ work will be to observe and capture how they are taken in by the passing audience. Since it will be in a public place, i’m not giving myself a ‘target audience’ to capture whilst filming, I merely want ot observe how a general audience will react to something out of the ordinary!

I haven’t yet found an example worth showing, although the ‘Blackhole’ clip on the Fda Digital Media Production website isn’t a million miles way but I’d like to start and end the viral video with the protagonists walking into and out of a phone booth or public toilets. They enter as themselves, come out in the morph suits and re-enter and leave as themselves! Again, the more actors I could get, the more comical that sequence could be!

Choreography For Viral Video!

Having had the idea of Morphsuit ‘day-out’ and a choreographed movement in my head for all of 48 hours… I thought i’d research various amateur choreographed movements to get inspiration for our own!

I like the simplicity here, but how good do you have to be at dancing to pull something simple off?  The people I have in mind for the job like to dance as we all do, but that can normally consist of a few glasses of ‘Dutch Courage’ to really get into the swing! and walking around in Bright suits is going to be challenging in its own purpose!

If I decided to stick to this form of performance, I’d bring in the influence of Tony Chance and storyboard the entire sequence from start to finish, in fact, I’m going to do that anyway as part of planning. I think the idea of Morphsuits on their own is comic, people wearing them and walking through the streets is humour but a choreographed routine in a public place would be Hilarious! As i said, i’d like to keep it a simple routine but I feel that it’d make the video more appealing to a wider target audience. I would aim to have anything between 10-30 seconds long when it comes to the choreography! The first Morphsuit video of the traffic light dance lasts for a fraction of the time, then the protagonists immediately switch their attention to another feature. This is a base that i’d like to use for my own sequence.

A Morning With Tony chance

I found the talk by storyboard artist, Tony Chance not only interesting but very inspiring! His wide knowledge of art contributes to some high quality and very effective work! From Art and Photography, I was more than aware of the Rule Of Thirds, and although he may not use it as much as I originally thought he did, the 180 Degree line rule was very interested and I can fit it into so many films I’ve watched without noticing it before! Hopefully, I’ll be able to create further my technique and ability whilst filming my projects and in general work.

Not only was his talk on his work and life as a Storyboard artist interesting, giving us an insight of the industry and how it works, I was inspired by the nature of his work, his planning and his all-round technique. Just the talk has given me more confidence within my work and given me a new range of ideas in my production and presentation of my work.