My edit of One-shot

I adjusted the colour to really bring out the red coat of the little girl, which I think is really symbolic. I also adjusted the pitches on the audio, faded out the end and added some credits. 



One shot - chalk emotions new edit from Harry Cook on Vimeo.

My second edit of animation

For this one, I changed the camera angles, used some different lighting and shifted the whole image down because last time the rendering cut some of it out! Comments would be great!

Tv ident take 2 from Harry Cook on Vimeo.

Interactive Space

I have just finished my project for the interactive space module. I found it a lot of fun and was able to pick up the basics, such as the html coding and dreamweaver, relatively quickly. I thought it was quite a simple project and less time consuming than the previous projects in animation and moving image. The most difficult part I found, was thinking of a good storyline to use. This was because I wanted to think of something original, whlist keeping it interesting and engaging. 

My first idea, was to do a cookery themed project, however tw issues arose with it. Firstly someone from a previous group had done a similar idea, and secondly it was highlighted to me that it may be difficult to keep it interesting and engaging for the user. I therefore moved on from that idea, and was really strugglingto think of something else. I did a braintstorm to try and find inspiration, I knew it had to be fun and engaging and that led to me to think that a mystery of some kind would work quite well. You do not know what the outcome could be so there is an element of suspense. So for my final idea I came up with the idea of a murder mystery.  The basic story is that the user must search for clues around the room, and decide whether they have a enough evidence, they are then confronted with two possible suspects and the user must decide which one is the killer.

Once I had my images, I edited them on Photoshop, adding text and slight colour adujsments. I then was able to add the hotspots on the images, using dreamweaver, which links together the images. This was a fairly straight forward task and with a few tweeks I got there. It all works pretty well, but I think next time I would make it more elaborate.

Overall, I really enjoyed the module, it was a really interesting project and suited what I like doing, I am looking forward to doing more challenging projects in the area! 

The fully working project will uploaded to www.makingnewmaps.com in the next few days, for now here the images I took, altohugh I have not included the image which reveals the killer, I'll leave that for you to decide. 

 

Forrest Gump

We had a lecture about the layout of design and how to do it well and do it wrong, as a task we were given an example of a bad layout design and asked to improve on it, we got given a Forrest Gump DVD cover. However there was not a lot of design faults, the only identified ones were that the title was on the right side of the layout which is not the optimum space for reading and meant it was the not text that was noticed first, secondly the text was not particularly well aligned which helps to make text pop out


This is the original DVD: 

and these are my designs:

One-shot Chalk Emotions - Editing

We finished editing today, the process was largely straightforward but quite time-consuming. I took a leading role in the process, which I was happy to do and I enjoyed doing the editing. We sped up the film to 675% of its original speed this gives a more engaged feel, however we slowed it down at the end for the pan shot. In addition to this we laid down a audio track which includes 2 music tracks which changes to show the developing emotions, overlaid onto that is a heartbeat ambient noise which signifies the change of mood, we also took away the original audio track. With a bit of a colour alteration a lot of time-consuming rendering and exporting that was the editing done. This is our final cut, enjoy...



One-shot film chalk emotions from Harry Cook on Vimeo.

Connected Marketing Logo

My Dad needed a logo for his new company and asked me to design it, using Adobe Illustrator I set to work and mocked up a few ideas, I wanted it to be quite a bold design but knew that simplicity and clarity are key to a good logo, it must grab attention with good use of colour and shape. 

These were my designs:

We decided to go with the top right design, it stands out, with use of complimentary colours whilst maintaining a professional feel. The imagery of the shapes also fits with the word connected as the pieces all connect together which is effective link. 


Here is the logo on the finished website:
http://www.connected-marketing.co.uk/  
With a bit flash added to the design it finishes it off nicely.

On the set of our one-shot

Yesterday we filmed our one-shot film, after rain had postponed filming by 24 hours we were pleased to be able to get it done and got lucky with the weather. The idea was to have a little girl who was drawing on the ground with chalk, we want to express her emotions through a period in her life, we depicted the break-up of her Mother and Father, starting off with a happy family, then the break-up, and finally how the little girl is feeling afterwards. The emotions went from happy to worried and then sad.

As the camera-man I first had to adjust the white-balance so that the colours were true to life and as effective as possible. As we were filming in direct sunlight it was also necessary to reduce the iris a bit to ensure clarity of the video and that it was not too bright. It was a challenge to get the camera set up in the optimum place and it took quite a while and a lot of different experiments with alternative angles and heights of the tripod until we found the right one. As we were drawing chalk on the ground and the limited time and areas we could film, we knew we effectively only had one take to get it right, however as we were taking off the audio track in post-production we were able to direct as we were filming which was vital to it being done first time! Being a one-shot film obviously meant we had to film continuously and without different angles etc. However we were allowed one pan or zoom, we decided it would be a nice effect to pan up as the girl finished the drawings and follow her as she walked away and then pan back down (in one movement) to end on the images, this worked well and was nice finish. 

In post-production we will remove the audio track and replace it with suitable music to go with the emotions, and also ambient noises to go with the emotions, such as; laughter for happiness, rowing and shouting to depict the break-up and then crying to show her sadness. The audio on the film is going to a vital element to the film as it will bring the emotions to life and hopefully create a powerful depiction. The film will also be sped up for effect, this will engage the viewer more, because otherwise it is not particularly exciting to watch someone slowly draw out pictures. If we not limited by the brief I think it would also be effective to reverse the film at the end the create the effect of her wiping it away at the end, almost to show her covering up and hiding her emotions. 

Overall I have really enjoyed this project it was a lot of fun, I am happy with outcome, and I am sure after editing it will be a really effective one-shot film. The final edit will be uploaded next week but for now here are some production photos...

DP1 Film - First couple of weeks

I am currently doing the Film project in DP1, it was the area I felt I had least association with, I'd never really done anything do with film, and never really had an interest in it, but I was willing to give a try and see how I got on.

The brief was to produce a 'one-shot film', which is pretty self explanatory, it basically means you have one camera, and it must be in the same position for the entire film. Although we are allowed one pan or zoom in our pieces. The only other rule we have is that there cannot be any credits or similar added at the end, if we want they have to part of the film. 

In the first week we were put into groups and asked to produce a practise one-shot film, after much deliberation I came up with an idea that we could do. Basically the you see someone walking in the distance towards camera, then people start running past the camera, away from something, however the viewer does not know what, the person that is walking towards camera is completely unaware of what is going on around and continues to walk on, he eventually becomes aware of what everyone is running from, stops dead in his tracks, turns and runs! It is a simple idea, but I thought it could be quite effective because there is an element of suspense because you don't know what is going to happen, and also there is mystery as you have no idea what everyone is running from, we were lucky enough to be able to produce what we needed in one shot, this is what we produced: 



One-shot film from Harry Cook on Vimeo.

I am happy with the out come believe we achieved what we set out to, I would like to added some suitable ambient noises, such as police sirens, to add to the overall feel. 

In the second week, we learnt about lighting and how effective it can be, I found this really interesting, and I never really realised how simple and yet effective light can be. Light can be really manipulative and it can really change the mood of the scene or the feel of the setting. We were given the task of going off to the studio rooms in our groups and attempting to re-create a particular lighting, our group was given the task of re-creating daylight, to do this we had to use blue filter gels, which make the light a lot colder, it was actually really difficult to create but with a bit of help we get there in the end. The secret is to set up each light individually to know exactly where it falls and how effective it is, whereas as first we were trying to do it with all the lights on at the same time. Once set up correctly the effect on camera was really impressive. 

Animation

So, I've finished doing the DP1 module which was in Animation. I had never done anything to do with Animation before so there was a lot to learn! I found the process time-consuming and at times frustrating but overall I really enjoyed doing it, and it's something I can see myself taking further! Once you have a grasp on the software it's a lot of fun to create everything from scratch and I realise my final piece isn't amazing but I'm still pleased with myself for what I have done! 


When we first got the brief I was a little daunted, but I immediately had an idea of designing a little blobby character like the one from the original BBC Three ident. So it was pretty lucky that we learnt how to model a similar character as I was able to tweak that design to create my own. The idea behind my clip is that the letters (which are my initials) turn into a generator which produces a football which the character heads on, only to find a UFO has flown in and is hovering above his head, he subsequently get lifted up by the UFO and dropped a few seconds later, it's a basic idea but thought it would be good because it allowed me to use my recently acquired to skills easily. The most difficult part of the creation was the football which has slightly been cut out of the final piece so I think there will a take 2 coming soon which shows it more clearly, I will post some images of the football as well, as I am quite proud of it, I even managed to create the separate panels on it. As part of the animation teaching we had a guest lecturer who was a storyboard artist,  I found these sessions really useful as he taught us how to get our ideas down in quickly but accurately, this helped me storyboard some of my initial ideas.


Overall I really enjoyed my first DP1 module, it was fairly hard work but once you know the basics it's great fun and I really enjoyed it


I am going to post a take 2 of the ident some time soon.......

Animation TV ident

Tv station ident from Harry Cook on Vimeo.


This is the ident I designed for animation, more to come about the design process but enjoy for now.......

Animation working progress - learning the 3ds max ropes

I've been working with 3ds max for a week or so now and am starting to get to grips with it, I produced this character that will eventually have some moving animation added to him, this is the basic shape, just need to create the emotions and then piece together a short clip. To create a character you have to almost sculpt the shape you want out of a block shape and then create a skeleton mesh of the finished design to work with, adding colour, texture and details such as; teeth, lighting and shadows and then different emotions for the final animation. We were told to keep it simple, hence the basic shape and lack of eyes, but that's because it is quite a difficult  piece of software to get your head around, so one step at a time!  

I will upload the finished animation and the different emotion still images... 

Last piece of work

The last piece of week that I did was to design a masthead to go on top of a website, the client was a jewellery designer, and was moving into teaching arts and crafts for children and adults. However she already had a logo and font that she wanted. I found this hard because I did not particularly like the logo or the font. I felt it made the brand look cheap, but this was a great lesson to learn because it is important to know that you are designing for the client not yourself.


The client also had a basic idea of how she wanted it to look, it was just a question of piecing together on my part! It was a reasonably simple brief and only took some basic Photoshopping of pictures. Although I much prefer to be working to a wider brief that allows me explore different ideas and bring in different elements from a number of designs to create an ultimate design.


I was happy to use the logo and font but decided to do 2 designs; the one that the client specified as well as one that I felt worked better. In the end the client did just want to use the original design but I saw no harm in showing my design, because then I felt I could have more input plus the client may have decided they preferred that design!!!   


This is the design which I created as I would have done it: 

This is the design to the brief: 

In my personal opinion my first design is better, it looks more professional and clean cut, but I would not have chosen the logo or font in the first place.

However overall the brief taught me the importance of designing for the client rather than yourself and that is something I can take and remember in future work.

First couple of weeks

Been through my first couple of weeks at NTU now and am absolutely loving it! Freshers week was insane and had an awesome time. I don't know how I had the endurance to go out every night, but I managed it, and it was definitely worth it, that's for sure! I had my induction for Multimedia as well, which went really well. I found the whiteboard animation exercise so fascinating and was so much fun! It is such a simple concept but one that is so effective when it all comes together! This is what we did....





In my second week, I started on the real work! I received my Context 1 brief which is an essay on The Design Process methodologies, which are; Prototyping, Market Research, Reverse engineering and Open source. The brief is to discuss and argue how they effect the Design Process. I think this is a really interesting topic to talk about and will also allow me to tap into my Business skills for A level as the Design Process and particularly market research are vital to business success. It should be an interesting essay! 


I also started my DP1 which I talked about in my previous blog! I have now downloaded 3ds max  on my computer and am loving it! its such a brilliant piece of software, such a great designing tool to work with, I know I havent tried the other parts of multimedia and my background is completely and utterly graphic design but I am liking the sound of taking animation further, more and more! early days yet though! 

Test Blog

Hi, just making sure it all works! 


Started doing my first DP1 module yesterday on animation! Our brief is to design a ident similar to one used for tv stations between programmes. This sounds like such a good brief and I cannot wait to get really into it! Used 3ds Max for the first time as well, it is such an amazing piece of software and I am really looking forward to exploring it further! I'm sure that it is one of those things that however much you use it there will always be a new brilliant element that you discover everytime you use it. I managed to pick up the basics fairly quickly and have started to explore all the different areas to it!