Box Lid Cover

For the cover to the box lid i could not use the same image that is used as the front cover to my comic book as they are two different sizes, not only that but i didnt want to show everything all up front, i want to capture the users attention and make them want to open the box and experience the DVD. Therefore a smaller version was created, seen above :)

Proj 5 - 6/7 June

For my DVD case i am going to create a stylish wooden box that will open on a hinge system so that its sort of like opening a book. So overall the project will be a box set that will contain the DVD that is what i like to call a "DVD Digital Comic book". Its taking the world of comics into new age, with the content digital it needs protecting as it can be damaged easily. Because of this wood is quite a good material to use being durable as well as stylish if its shape is designed nicely. The box base, frame and lid will all be made of wood and then on top of the lid will be a layer of perspex which will cover an image of a smaller, refined version of the front cover to the comic book as seen on the DVD.

Front Cover to Comic Book

Here is the front cover to the comic book I am designing for my DVD menu. It incorporates my little animation guy who is representative of myself and then images relevant to each of my project while overall keeping in the style of a comic/magazine. For the 48 hour film, my part was the "shy ninja" so i have used a ninja image to represent that. For my documentary, it was about a history of video games, for that project i designed a controller which can easily sum up video gaming so it was placed on the cover. Then my site project, i was trying to express the essense/traces we leave behind i a site, the particular site i chose was the primary school. There were many things you could find as evidence of people being there. Such things included clothes and graffiti. These 2 things I have portrayed in 2 cartoon characters i created. A sock and spraycan figure. These graphics were also used on my website to portray the film so i thought i would include them here also.

Character Coloured - Minus the horns

Decided to change the horns to a simple feather in his hat :) He is a host character to my DVD, not a warrior.

Character Coloured :)

Proj 5 - 1 June

Am making some good progress on my project. Although it wont be so great this week as I have two other projects I need to complete before Cinematics as they are due next week Monday so after tomorrow I’m going to have to put it on hold for a few days. Not to worry though as I think I’m at a good place right now and later today I am going to begin work on the DVD case. I have decided to use wood for the case. As I mentioned in a previous blog I really want to get away from simple cardboard made cases and I like wood, you can create some really treasurable items out of it. My DVD is something to treasure, a privilege to own :P so wood is fitting to my project.

Proj 5 - 30 May

Final class session of Cinematics was today. Rather shocking, almost half way through the year. I had a talk with Morgan about my idea with the DVD and he seems to think it’s a good idea so a comic book style it is ☺ Over the next few days leading up to the hand in I will create all necessary images for the menus, transitions and any other animations I decide to use.

Proj 5 - 27/28 May

Scanned my character to the computer and began making a traced vector based image of it to be used in my animation. Being vector based will mean I don’t have to worry about messing up its resolution when I transform it. It is a bit of a process but it’s worth it in the end.

Character for Start-up of DVD

Proj 5 - 26 May

Drew up a character for my start-up animation to go at the beginning of my DVD. I like him a lot. Ill put a post up of the sketch after this. So this week ill go about developing him and getting him ready to animate.

For the rest of the DVD I had an idea to make it like a comic book. After the start-up it will come to some sort of menu screen and it will be of a room and on a table a comic book which you can click on and then it will come up to the screen and then the user will be presented with another menu which will be used to take them to three sections which contain my three chosen videos for this DVD. These will be my Site/Non-site video, Documentary and 48 Hour Film. I am not going to use my Munted video; it got me a D so no use putting bad work on my disc.

Proj 5 - 25 May

I have decided to go ahead with Option A and use animations for my DVD menu. For the start-up of the DVD I am going to have an animation with a character in which I will design myself tomorrow night. That way I can scan it to the computer Tuesdays class and begin with creating developed iterations of the character to piece together to make the complete animation. As for the rest of the DVD I am not to sure what I will do, but I think in keeping with the start-up animation I will have it all somewhat cartoon drawn. I’ll have a bit of a brainstorm tonight.

Project 5 Concept Ideas

Righteo, i have got two ideas for how i am going to approach this project:

Option A:
Make it personal to me, styled in some way of my own design. I am really into cartoons and drawing, many people can tell you that. With my new found experience with flash and illustrator i could create some animation/s for the menu and then link them together.

Option B:
Working with stills. I also quite like photography so this could be quite an interesting approach. Use a collage of images for backgrounds and menus and sequences of stills to create videos for the menu.

Not sure which idea i will take yet. Ill get Morgans and/or Rowans opinion tommorrow as well as some from people in the class. Update you soon :)

Project 5

Yes, project 5 has now come. The 48 hour film festival for project 4 was... lets say some good times :D Now its back to individual work and i need an idea for my DVD menu and package. Looking at some examples of peoples cases it seems card made ones are quite overused id say so ive decided im going to use some other material besides the norm. Perhaps plastic? or wood? Metal is another idea, but i think thats a lil intense. Not to mention if it doesnt have a nice even finish it could scratch the disk. Hmm I have some thinking to do so ill get back to blogger soon..

Thursday 8th May

What I thought to be my final day to complete my video turned out to be just another day. Morgan granted an extension because many people hadnt worked during the week and were trying to do there videos in one day and so if he had left the deadline in place he was going to see a lot of crap videos tomorrow. This was kind of a relief as it bought me some more time, but I couldnt help but feel kind of frustrated as I have worked my ass off this week exhausting myself when If i had known about the extension earlier I could've spaced the work out more so that I didnt have to be there every single day this week spending 12 or so hours at the computer... Never mind though. Such is life. Im going home earlier today but I will finish the movie tomorrow as I need some R and R this weekend or I am going to collapse.. The 48 hour film festival is next week also so last thing I want to be is exhausted for it because its going to be one hell of a weekend. Im going to need as much energy as possibe.

Wednesday 7th May

Today I finished editing my footage into shorter clips and sequences and then compiled all the sequences in order. As expected, the outcome of what was to be my doco came out a little longer than the allocated time limit. 7 mins 42 secs so therefore I had to cut 2 mins 42 secs out. Which wasnt as hard as I had thought it was going to be because I realised areas could be and some needed to be cut down in length and that some footage wasnt even needed as my voice over didnt make any reference to it. Once I had got it down to 5 mins I then downloaded my audio footage and then deleted the video from it and exported them out into quicktime to turn them into proper audio files that I could simply drag and drop into the timeline where that information was needed. A long grueling process but I got it done.

Tuesday 6th May

Was this a stressful day or what? Had a power outage at uni today and so this stopped me from getting back onto the computer to continue the edit process. I wasnt going to let this stop me though. I missioned it back home and researched info about each of the consoles and formed it into a speech for my voice over. Once that was done I then recorded myself saying all of it. Luckily after I had done this I got word that the power was back on so I rushed back into uni again only to find that only one side of the lab computers was working and unfortunately this was not my side. I made do though and instead I downloaded the images I made last Sunday to the computer and compiled them into a Website. This time paying better attention to what the site looked like if the window was smaller than the mac screen. Last project I didnt do this and found out afterwards that when you looked at my site on different computers, on some where the screen was a lot smaller, this squashed my title and other images. So this time I must try to get it right. Two more days to go.. I hope I make it.

Monday 5th May

Today was an extremely long day of downloading my footage to the computer and then editing it into short clips and sequences. I created a sequence for each individual console so that tomorrow i can put them together and edit it to run nicely as well as within the correct time limit because im pretty sure it will come out longer than the maximum time limit of 5 minutes. In doing this i developed a plan of how my doco will pan out. The first minute will talk about the Sega Master System and Megadrive, then the next 30 secs will be about the gameboy followed by a minute to a minute and a half about the Playstation and Playstation 2, then another minute about the Wii console and then a final minute to include the interview I had with my mate and the player of the consoles throughout the video.

Sunday 4th May

Last night after work I had my mate come round and we got out all my old consoles and hooked them up to the TV and I shot my footage of him playing the consoles in many diff angles etc. I also then sat down with him and interviewed him on his thoughts of video games. What was his favourite console, games etc. as well as where he thought video games would be at in the future to gain some perspective on what a hardcore gamer thinks.

Today (Sunday) I started creating images for my website and developed them in photoshop. My idea is that my video is about a history of video games, so its kind of like a journey through time. So in the beginning, your taken back to the time Sega was todays Playstation or Xbox, and then as the movie progresses you get closer in consoles to modern day in which i explored the Wii console as I find it the most interesting out of whats on offer today as it has taken gaming to a whole new level. Its not just a console with improved graphics in its games, but its gone and taken the way in which we play these games a step further. Because of this journey, its like going through a time warp like you see on movies so im going to use this sort of image for my background on my site, then ill have a person moving through this time warp as that represents the viewer being taken on the journey when they watch the film, then ill have the person reaching out for something that will represent video games, as this is my subject so must be included. It could be like he is reaching for the future of video games, but in order to get there you must first go through and learn of its history and where its been.

Friday 2nd May

Unfortunately went to class today without any footage, my flash project took a lot longer to complete than I had hoped. Never mind though, thats all done now and so im free to focus on this documentary. After class though I did go down to Gamesman and take some pictures so that is at least a start. I have hired out a camera also so I am ready to shoot as soon as I get a new tape. I have got one of my mates to act as my 'gamer model' as well so shooting shall commence tomorrow night :D

Tuesday 29th April

So I pitched my idea to Rowan today and got some positive feedback. He thinks it is a good idea which means im set to start filming in a few days when i've got this damn flash project completed for my other 201 paper. I was intending on filming myself using the consoles etc, but i think it would be a lot better to get someone else in to be my 'gamer model' for the doco. Then I can also sit down and have a interview with him about the games afterwards. This should save me a lot of time as I can ensure the camera stays in focus and in the right position as I will be behind the camera the whole time. There will be no frustrating repeats of filming footage again and again, well there might be a few but at least no where near as much as if it were just me.

Monday 28th April

So i have decided on filming a history of video games for my documentary project. This should work out nicely for me as I am quite familiar with this topic and even more so as I am in the process of writing a thesis to do with the topic also for my history 271 paper. Another advantage I have is that I own a lot of the older consoles including the Sega Master System, Sega Megadrive 1 and Sega Megadrive 2, Gameboy, Gameboy Colour, Playstation 1, Playstation 2 and a new addition, the Nintendo Wii. All of which are available for me to film and use in my documentary.

I am also thinking about putting some still images into my film. I know the Gamesman on Manners Street has a timeline of video game consoles above the counter so I could see if they would allow me to take some pictures of the different consoles so that I can include them in my video.

Inspiration - History of Video Games Documentary

History of Video Games Documentary

Project 3 Concept Idea

The world of video games has become hugely popular since its birth in 1971 and is now a forever growing source of visual entertainment. It has become so large in fact that it now rivals the motion picture industry as the most profitable entertainment industry in the world, a $10 billion industry. It is no wonder that it has become so large. With constant advancements in technology, this allows manufacturers of video game consoles to integrate this technology into the consoles thus allowing production of a new range of games that are ‘bigger and better’ than those that came before them. Video games have become a huge part of modern human culture; billions of people around the globe now own at least one machine console that functions as a means of playing these games. But how did we get to where we are now? How have these games evolved over the years? Or better still what can we expect to see in future gaming to come? It is these questions I hope to answer in my documentary video. I am going to take viewers on a journey through time to experience video games past, present as well as present ideas towards what might become of these video games in the future.

Monday 7th March - Final Day

Today i had a talk with Rowan who gave me a few things to improve my video. This unfortunately required me to redo my whole audio which after completing it now i can see how much better it is. The mix i had before was a good tune but i agree, it didn't relate to the video enough for it to work, the sort of music it was created a sort of story and so too many things were going on. The sort of breaking and entering thing, essence of children and traces etc. So the audio is now sort of ghost audio, as you move through the corridor scene you hear children talking/screaming, adults or teacher in the background also, in the playground, again children playing and having fun while the view of the video is when there nobody there. This i think emphasizes my idea of presenting the site by showing its unseen details that are all a part of it which are our essence of once being there. As a brick is to a wall, the footprint is to the pavement, its all connected to the site. This essence you really get a good feel for by listening to the audio. It allows you to picture what has happened in the space by connecting what you see with what you hear, even though you weren't around during the time the kids were there.

Overall i am quite happy with my video, hopefully Morgan will be as well and will give me the pass mark i am hoping for. It is a quite different to my original concept, but as they say, change is good :)

Sunday 6th March

OK well today was my audio day, before i got stuck into this however i revisited the school one last time to shoot the ending of my video. Got some good footage and just in time because straight after the battery ran flat. I set the camera up on the tripod and filmed myself exiting the school. As i leave i look back at the sign in which we see at the beginning of my video so i think it ties it up pretty nicely. Also got a neat shot of a man walking past after i leave who looks up towards the school and sees the camera and keeps moving. quite funny.

Rest of the day i spent putting in my audio. Early morning i came across a pretty cool techno remix which really suits the start of my video quite well. Managed to arrange it quite nicely so that once i get the door to the school open, the music busts out. Audio wasn't long enough to cover my whole video but that is fine because i found i nice slow guitar piece of music on my computer, no idea where it came from, never heard it before. Is an unknown track so i don't know who the artist or person playing is. But this piece goes nice at the end, it goes in sync with my video nicely because it means the majority is fast paced then as it comes to the end you get this nice slow easy tune until finally it comes to the end and the music stops. Found the first bit of music on some persons profile on some site, dowloadable for free so thats all good, decided to play with it a bit just to ensure it be copyright free and i gave it a slight remix, so it is a remix of a remix now :)

Also realized that my website didn't really link well to my cinematics area so have redeveloped it so now when you click on cinematics on the main menu it takes you to a cinematics menu page where you can pick which project you would like to view, so it means now navigation to both my videos is much simpler and well defined, its not all over the place like before. So busy day today but it had to be done. I don't want to see myself failing this project as well so I'm giving it everything I've got!

PS: Also loaded up my website with project 2 onto the web itself with a near completed version of my video to ensure everything works OK which it seems to, so all i have to do 2mrw is complete the video as best i can and load it up to replace the old. Not long now...

Saturday 5th March

Came into uni before work. Spent the time editing my video a lot, putting in a few effects. Then began my search for what sort of audio to use. Drum and bass? Techno? Rock? so many choices out there and yet i just dont know what to use for my video.. Hopefully ill find something 2mrw as it is my audio day.

Fri 4th March

Pieced together all my sequences to create my full video, turned out to be 6 mins 48 secs. Then began the editing process, cutting out what didn't work together, what didn't flow, and parts of scenes that were a little too long. After doing this i managed to get it down to 4 mins something, which is good means now i am in the correct time limit. All i need to do now is polish of the video and correctly add the audio to make it all finished and ready to embed into my site. Yay! Oh and i also got a few opinions from my class mates. They all seem to find it pretty good. Things to improve they said were: 1) cut down a few bits at the start as areas are slightly too long, 2) perhaps add few more zoom sequences into the film as they liked these areas i created already in the video, 3) To add a good ending, ideas for this included a) a scene to show you close the door behind you so that the audience knows ur leaving the school and so that there ends the video or b) (which i worked out together with a class mate) have a scene of the sign i start the video with showing the pathway next to it that leads up to the school and you walking down this pathway exiting the school and walking down the road. This clearly shows you have left the school and so there ends the video. I think this option b is better because option a wouldnt make sense, me closing the door behind me, when by the end of the video im already outside in the playground area so why would i be closing the door? I have clearly already exited.

Wed 2nd and Thurs 3rd March

Completed turning my footage into subclips and sequences ready to be put together nicely to create my video. Was quite a grueling task as i had about 80 mins or so of footage which i had to go through manually capture and download my stuff as the computer wouldnt download it all in one go. Created 48 secs of my final video by editing and joining 3 of my sequences together. These were the Ngaio school sign footage, entering the school and a part of the corridor scene where i come across the cleaning lady. All in all this 48 secs is to be the start of my video :)

Tues 1st April

Today i polished up my graphics for my website and got them arranged onto my site which is great, means i can now concentrate on my video. Had a few issues getting the computer to read my camera to download footage but after a good 30 mins me and rowan got it going, although i could only download the video with no audio at this point. Later however i discovered that if i just download piece by piece i could get the audio to download as well which was great. Other than that i just began editing my footage turning it into subclips and sequences.

Sunday 30th March/Monday 31st March

Sunday i also drew some graphics to go onto my website. As i am showing traces of people left behind at the school i created a sock cartoon (i found a lost sock on the field), evil pen and spray can (graffeti on the playground) and a kid going down the slide, symbolizing youth as the place im shooting at is a primary school so young childeren play a big part in creating these traces ive found. Today (Monday), i scanned these graphics from my book onto the computer and altered/coloured them in photoshop ready to be put onto my website for the completed video which i will start producing tommorrow and finish on wednesday so that i have thursday to sort out any problems (it loading on my site for example, this can be huge pain! big drama!). The webpage itself is also created and ready. Just needs the graphics put onto it and most importantly the video when i finish it :)

Sunday 30th March

Weather not as bad today so at 4pm same time as day before, braved the cold breeze and drizzle to gather more footage. This time i wasnt able to get inside the school.. damn! Made use of the no rain though and shot a whole lot of outdoor footage. Traveling up into the school, my personal introduction (yep i filmed myself) and a lot of footage showing traces of people. Sock on the field, cut tree in the arbaretum, footprints on the roof (and yes i ninja'd onto the roof) and a real cool detailed exploration of the playground fort in which i found a whole lot of graffeti, all perfect for my video. In shooting my footage ive decided to change my original concept and instead what i am doing is looking at what traces of ourselves we leave behind at school, after a long school day what essence or trace of us remains at the school while our physical selves leave the grounds and goes home. What i have found this to include is peoples graffeti around the school, making there mark, clothes such as jackets or socks and shoes out on the field after playing out on the field and forgetting to pick them back up. Its such things as these i want to present in my video whilst i also capture the space that is Ngaio School.

Saturday 29th March

Got stuck having to do a shift at work, needed to film! Thankfully I got off early. Rushed home and picked up the camera, stupid Wellington had real bad weather today so I had to be quick. Managed to get a little from outside but not so much as soon as I got there it started to spit so wasn’t long at all before it really came down. No biggy though as I managed to um get inside the school… through a door…honest :P
Got some footage of me snooping around the inside and dodging the cleaning ladies haha, crack up :D

Storyboard

Project 2 - Site/Nonsite Concept

For this project I have decided to use the primary school of the suburb in which I live in, Ngaio School, as my intended place of production. I plan to capture the area that plays house for out next generation, to seek out and discover what truly goes on within the building and I shall do so by going to the place at a time when people don’t even think about going, after dark. Yes, I am going to take a journey through the school grounds with no one else present, the classrooms, playgrounds, corridors all empty. Only then will I see what lies after class, what is education after dark.

A primary school is a place where we begin to grow up and develop our knowledge of the real world outside of our young imaginative worlds we create as young youths. It therefore possesses great importance as it begins to shape what is to become our future and I would like to be able to show a record of this, to be able to show true learning unseen to the outside public. I have great interest in this school as it has a strong significance to me as it was at this school that I began my very own schooling of education.

In order to succeed in achieving my goal I will first of all write a letter to the principal of Ngaio School to ask for permission to scout the grounds of the school as I plan to do so after hours when there is usually no entry to the public. After gaining this permission I will then commence shooting, exploring the grounds carefully so that I don’t miss out on anything of interest. I may also start by taking a few pictures just to gather and sort out my ideas. In shooting my footage I will ensure to look at areas of interest from different perspectives as you never know what you might miss if you look at something in just one particular way. Sometimes things require a closer look.

In shooting my video footage I will experiment with a range of shots to capture my ideas followed by those I believe to work best within the area I am trying to shoot. I would like to use a combination of shots as this makes for a more interesting video. If it were to be all at the same level it can become boring, and in some cases you may not capture enough detail required in a shot. High angled shots will be good for wide open areas, mid angled shots, for looking at things within normal field of vision and low angled shots for when I need to get up close and personal to something. This could be things on the ground, underneath objects or parts of building, within cracks and corners.
Overall I hope to create a video that is somewhat of an eye opener to the public, to answer the question “what do my children get up to?” in which I hope will have a positive response and perhaps come off somewhat inspirational.

Lost blog posts...

Hmm well it seems some of my blog posts have disappeared.. well here we go again.

March 6th:

Have now learnt how to conver MPEG files and how to make short clips using the program Quicktime, which i never thought was a that greater program until now after discovering you can actually do quite a lot with it. I have also finished finding video footage from archive.org. Whole lot of wicked superman videos and i have a bugs bunny and robbie williams clips as well. Not sure how ill integrate these but we shall see.

March 8th:

Created a whole lot of sub clips today which was quite cool, great success!
Now how to arrange them? audio is a concern to..

211 Cinematics - Post 1

Have a big passion for cartoons and animation so have therefore selected this category as my area of interest to select my video material.

Looking at mighty mouse as an example of a piece of video material sparked childhood memories of watching cartoon videos including mighty mouse and superman, Surfing through archive.org i found the following Superman videos i used to watch as a kid:

http://www.archive.org/details/arctic_giant
http://www.archive.org/details/billion_dollar_limited
http://www.archive.org/details/destruction_inc

Then looked up munted on net, found the following terms used to describe it:

To be broken, bent, sparced, splintered, shattered, crashed, crushed, smashed, snapped, squashed, lascerated, punctured, peirced, cracked, destroyed, burst, demolished, trashed, disintegrated, fractured, fragmented, hit, pounded, pulverized, slamed, or squished.

These words to me make reference to areas within the Superman videos such as the arctic giant, a huge dinosaur smashes a damn and a bridge etc. Perhaps a collage of these things put together could be interesting?

Also came across this Robbie Williams music video which i found quite funny and it has some good animation. Am wondering if i could integrate any of this material into my video along with snipits of Superman. ???

http://www.archive.org/details/RobbieWi2001

Thats all for now.
Andrew