Ollie Tristram

...is a pile of shit.

REFRESH PAGE TO STOP THE MUSIC

As this project was to be completed using Adobe Flash my first thoughts were, “uh, oh!” I have never used Flash before in my life and my first impressions of it weren’t very good. I’m not a coder in any way, it’s like learning a new language, so I had a feeling I would struggle compared to the other narrative projects. Reassuringly though, Jools had produced a template for us to use and said that the project was not about being technical and clever on Flash, but to come up with a good narrative theme. Usually I like to be different and try new things in a project, but because ActionScript 3.0 is way over my head I figured using Jools’ template was the easiest and most stress-free route.

With a set of ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ buttons for each frame I had to come up with an idea that would take the user from frame to frame answering questions with a yes or no answer. Again, I could have experimented with this and created different answers and produced more buttons but I just didn’t want to go there. Instead of creating something rather boring and generic, I decided to go for making something humorous as if it could make people laugh, it would make up for how simple it is.

An ‘Insanity Test’ it is then.

After seeing previous html-based insanity tests in the past, in which questions are asked to find out if the participant is insane or not, I had an idea of how ridiculous and pointless the results really were so I could go for random questions when making it. Therefore one of the main reasons someone would want to play my test is a comedy factor, and everyone likes to have a laugh...

I began by creating rectangle boxes in the ‘frames’ layer of Jools’ template and used fill gradients to make them more jazzy. My intention whilst ‘decorating’ the frames was to make everything bright and colourful which has the connotations of being crazy or eccentric. I included many pictures found on Google to represent the questions in the frame. This gives the user more to look at than just the text.
To keep the user’s attention I also used sound. I created a short music clip at 180bpm, again to give an impression of being wild or mad, which loops throughout the project until the last frame. I had a lot of problems with the music because I originally wanted one clip to loop over the first frame only, and a second clip to loop over the remaining frames. But I couldn’t find anyone fluent enough in Flash (even Jools) that could help me. Still, I’m satisfied with the outcome. Also, I found free wav files on the internet to play when a frame starts coinciding with the image and text on screen. For example, the word ‘headshot’ is heard when the gun-related question is seen.

My project has a replayability factor because you can answer the Yes or No questions in a different order every time thus enabling you to see new frames and answer different questions. In addition, the route you take will also give you a different sound event at the end, so an element of surprise is also included within the project.

If I was to start the project from scratch I probably wouldn’t have changed anything at all, I would now just be prepared that in Flash things don’t always go the way you want them to.

No Time, No Space

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By Ollie Tristram, Craig Thomas, Jason Bickers and Beth O’ Connell

Documentary

08-11-2007

Today we booked out a camera and intended to film our project. We had discussed prior to this what we we’re going to do and Jason had the idea to film a single shot over a long period and speed it up (known as time-lapse photography) to fit the 1 to 2 minute time requirement. This way everything would look frantic and our intentions of filming from the bridge over Parliament Street at all the traffic and pedestrians was a good way of representing a bustling city.
However, our plan of getting around about an hours footage during sunset didn’t go quite so well as the camera was due back to the store at 4.30pm with sunset being around 3.30-5.30pm. We set up and began recording around 3.55pm and finished roughly 4.15pm, obviously only a third of our intended time. With this in mind we are planning to review the recording and test out the speeding up effect on Tuesday. If the footage is still what we had in mind then excellent, otherwise we plan on doing a re-shoot next Thursday.

14-11-2007

I began to edit the footage we had at home to see what it would look like speeded up. I did this by 1300% to make the video around 1 minute 40 seconds long. I showed it to the group and we are all satisfied with the footage, however there are some reflections in the window we shot through.
I cut the clip so I could edit a 10 second slice with some effects, as rendering would be quicker this way. At the end, the effects I had used were altering the brightness, contrast and saturation, adding the ghosting effect, adding the zoom blur effect, and adding a lighting effect with a yellow tint. It quite dramatically improved the overall visuals by giving it a much more ambient feel. It also diminished the reflections somewhat.
Also, I began work on the background music with a friend, which is a downtempo trip-hop tune. It is farily minor, which adds to the narrative of a depressing city lifestyle.

20-11-07

We have rearranged our ideas, and now that the video editing is complete with use of Ghost trials, lighting effects and radial blurs, we have decided to give the project a new theme; greater intelligences watching over us. This way the narrative is more focused and the music, which I have now finished, always connects better with the imagery onscreen.

29-11-07

The project is complete. The new narrative works well with the visuals and music. The ‘overuse’ of effects of the video symbolises the vision of the aliens watching over us. The time-lapse aspect of the project works well with this because when everything is moving so fast, and is a blur, it represents how insignificant one day of one person’s life is out of the history of the rest of the World.
Our idea of having a speech or narration over the top of the visuals and music works very well as it gives depth and meaning to the project. It gives it a point, which is one thing we thought was a neccessity for the assignment.
I had a few problems exporting the video, and one which i can’t understand or get rid of is the small portion of the video that is blacked out at the bottom. But it goes fairly unnoticed.

I thought this was a really cool stop-motion and I might have to steal some ideas in the future.


Stop Motion Stick Figure Body Art - Watch more free videos

Here is my first completed project for my degree. A memorable occasion.
It is a stop-motion animation using people. It doesn't have a narrative in particular it's just mainly random.

There are around 470 photos in this, some of which are doubled, reversed etc. We took them as a group (five of us: Me, Scotty, Kirsty, Katie and Craig) but then sequenced and edited everything individually.

The video:
One of the Earlier Stop-Motion Animations

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Unitl next time.

This is a fairly big update. Not that anyone reads this blog.

Here are some videos that me and friends have made over the past years. Some of them are good. Some of them are not. They're all hosted on my myspace but here they are anyway.

#1
Feeder - Standing on the Edge (A Level Coursework)

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#2
Trigger Unhappy TV (Extended Version)

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#3
Jim1 Music Video

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side note: This was a little piss take on a 'rap' a guy at my school did in year 11. I think the picture timings are out tho.

#4
Psychodistortion

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#5
Bee Boat

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side note: The bee was already dead (sort of).

Thats all you need to see right now. Enjoy!

Another update for you.

I really tried to get a flash mp3 player for this Blog so you could hear my tunes, but it's a lot harder than it seems to actually get it to work.

Anyway, here are the myspace links to my music-making site, aka Pyrodrifter which can be found at:
http://www.myspace.com/pyrodrifter.

And here is the link to my band's myspace, Era which can be found at:
http://www.myspace.com/musicour.

Enjoy!

October 1st was the beginning of induction week at Uni (aka Freshers Week) and it included a couple of sessions of introductory work to the course.



The first 'project' was to create an image through a pin-hole camera. This was created by getting a 440ml beer can, cutting off the top and placing photographic paper inside (in a dark room) and completely seeling the can so no light would bleach the paper. Then a pin hole is created in the side of the can which is covered with tape, light shines through onto the curved paper inside the can and an image is created. Mine is shown below.

The other students' images can be seen at this link: http://www.lab.constellations.co.nz/induction/07-08/pinhole/

The second project was to create a stop-motion animation using a whiteboard which lasted around 120 frames. The objective was to get the box from one side of the tree to the other. Below is a compilation of all the students' work. Ours is the one that starts with the wine bottle-bodied man flying out.

Now the course begins for real so expect more posts soon.

Hello. And welcome to my blog.

This has been created to share my work from the Multimedia course I am studying at Nottingham Trent University.

As the course name suggests, I will be creating many types of media such as pictures, videos/films, animations, games, music and many more.

I also hope to post any other media-related side-projects on this blog and it will be updated fairly regularly.

See you around.