Ollie Tristram

This is the finished version. The quality is pretty bad because YouTube loves to compress everything to do death, but its not too bad.

If you have me as a friend on Facebook there is a much better quality one on my videos there.

Anyway, enjoy!

Project/ Assignment title: Documentary, “Soul City”

Self-evaluation is a reflective process assessing and describing your learning experiences and the results you have achieved in your project. A transparent (fair, candid) and well-written self-evaluation will help you identify and recognise your strengths and areas for improvement. It will also help you become more familiar with your own working and design process for the purpose of improving and implement strategies for your future projects. (word count- 500-800)

The main ideas and intentions that I was trying to express in the project were:
In terms of narrative, I wanted to get across to the audience that being a busker is an interesting life and that the relationship between them and the public can be unique and sometimes special. In terms of my own intentions, I wanted to make a film that showed that I can be part of a team that can create an artistic piece showing I have a good eye for composition. Also, I wanted to show that I have a talent in sound recording and mixing, as the live recording of the busker playing turned out very good quality and authentic and the interview turned out quite crisp (via means of equalising, compression, speech enhancing etc.)

The methods I use to develop my ideas were:
Online research was my main method for developing ideas. Watching existing short documentaries, particularly on FourDocs, enabled me to gather ideas for the film, and in the end the artistic style we went for came from a couple of films on there.

I took a risk by trying something new.
I think the biggest risk we took as a group was clinging onto the idea of documenting a busker as the idea was initially disliked as it didn’t have much potential, but since we pitched a new direction to pull it in the idea grew on people. However, the technical ‘risks’ we took were using quite a lot of pull focusing as I for one had never really used much of it before so to get the film looking good via this method was somewhat of a risk.

Some of the unexpected problems I had to solve while working were:
As I was in charge of sound there were a couple of problems we came across. The first problem was when we were recording the interview with the busker on the street there was way too much background noise. This was partly because the microphone wasn’t held close enough to the subject’s mouth, but also because the street was generally too noisy, so when I came to cutting up the interview the audio too obviously stopped and started when the backing noise came in. Another problem with the sound was getting the levels correct. When we heard the film for the first time on large speakers, instead of headphones, it was too hard to distinguish what the busker was saying.

The decisions and choices I made to help solve these problems were:
To fix these problems, we had to rearrange the interview and one of the sound booths were booked out. This way we wouldn’t get any background noise at all and in the end I recorded a clear sound. As for the levels, well they were simply adjusted so that the ducking of the backing track was more severe.

The most interesting or challenging thing that I achieved was:
What I am most proud of achieving on this project is spotting and filming interesting shots that excite the audience and keep up the pace of what could have potentially been a slow, boring film.

The things I have learnt from this particular project were:
I already knew to use manual white balance and focus but one thing I have learnt is to use manual exposure as well. This is because there are a couple of shots in our film where the iris changes from light to dark when someone in a dark coat walks past the camera. I suppose the other thing I have learnt is to allow for more contingency time as things like having to rerecord the interview and even getting hold of the busker in the first place proved to be somewhat of a setback. Another point to add is that we probably needed to film a bit more footage. We had enough, but maybe just a few more shots to play with in the edit could have helped boost the artistic-factor of the film.

If I were to do this project again I would change or do differently:
Probably do a new idea. I think more research and inspiration was needed so the rest of the group and I could have found a subject with more potential to be interesting and entertaining. Although our guy turned out to be quite interesting, he could have also been very boring so it was a risk.

A new project that might grow out of my experience maybe:
I think after this film I could make another documentary. I have never made one before but it is quite a good way of storytelling and interesting to make. It has necessarily inspired me to create a new film, but I will take with me all the experience with the cameras and sound so next time I have more knowledge on how to be more efficient and more productive. Except for what I may create, this project could and should benefit me when looking for work experience with established production companies. It is another project that shows my potential and hopefully people will pick up on it and will lead me into a career in the industry.

I have achieved the following learning outcomes for this module and my evidence is:
I have learnt to be consistent with technical skills and also to work well with your group. My evidence for this is the actual final film we have produced but also all the posts on my blog that show all the research and pre- and post-production I did to go with the rest of the work from the group and into the final production file.

Here are some action shots of us producing our Documentary. These will be included with the rest of the paperwork when the project is finally submitted.

Wednesday 26th November

We captured the footage to the computer and watched through it all. It came out as 4.5GB and 21 minutes in length, which according to Jules is about the right ratio for a 4 minute film. We didn't get time to do any work on it but Tom offered to cut up all the footage into individual clips at home, so it was easier to rearrange them for our editing.


Thursday 27th November

Today started with us imported all the separated clips, Tom had kindly spliced last night, into Adobe Premiere. It was very hand for him to have done that because it made life so much easier to just scroll through a list of clips and pick out the ones we wanted in a particular order.

Next, we simply began choosing clips, placing them in a provisional order and then began cutting them up - very straight-forward.

After doing so, and getting over 1 minutes worth of footage on the timeline, we began to take a look at the audio files we had recorded during the shooting. The live recording of the busker playing is fine, but we don't want to settle for second best, and we would be doing so if we kept our interview audio file. We have decided that there is too much hustle and bustle in the background, and not only does it make the interview more unclear, but there are sudden cuts between each section of speech. Anyway, we have booked out a sound booth and will be rerecording the interview on Monday.

Wednesday 3rd December

Today Jason was off ill with a cold so Tom and I continued with some of the editing ourselves.

We applied some visual effects to the footage in order to try and get that urban, gritty city look to our film. We did this by applying high contrast and lowering the saturation of the clips.

Also today, the other groups came to look at our edit. The general feedback was that it looked nice and the shots were well framed, but they thought because of our effects that the shot looked over-exposed.

Thursday 4th December

With Jason back in we showed him our new visual style and he liked it a lot. We didn't really do much else to the edit today because Debs came round to give constructive criticism. Generally I think she was quite impressed and the overall tips to take away from her feedback was to rearrange some of the clips as not to mislead the audience (for example, introducing the busker at the right time) and to go all or nothing with the effects so that nobody thinks its over-exposed and knows that we have applied effects.

Also, some filming tips I learnt was that one performing a pan, it counts as 3 shots: still, move, still. This way any still clips that come after it fit nicely. The other tip was to make sure in the future to always use manual controls - exposure in particular. We remembered white balance and manual focus but a couple of the shots that go from light to dark see the auto exposure kick in and the white colour fades in and out making it look more unprofessional.

Our main aim for today was to rerecord the interview with Sam and we booked out a sound booth and Edirol R-09 to redo this today. At 16.30 Sam turned up and we began interviewing. Compared the interview on the street we got a lot more audio, 17 minutes worth in fact, and we got everything we wanted out of him except him talking about other buskers, which was one of the main things we wanted for the voice over of our film!

When I got home that night I spliced up the interview into bite size segments with only the best and most clear parts of the interview. This cut down the 17 minutes into around 6 minutes of roughly 25 clips. This way the edit the next day will be easier to pick and choose each audio file we want.

Friday 5th December

Today our aim was to rearrange some of the clips, but most importantly to put the new audio on the film.

It started off kind of slow, picking the most related audio clips to go with their video counterparts, but once that was sorted we trawled through the rest of the interview/voice-over clips, picked out the best and placed them in the gaps where they fitted best.

When we were happy with the order the main thing to do now was to sort out the levels for the three audio tracks: the live recording, interview and city ambiance. One technique which was important for us to do was the use of ducking the live recording whenever Sam spoke during the voice-over, to make him clearly and more prominent in the audio mix. I spent a good hour or so going through the timeline and fluctuating the audio levels via use of automation at the appropriate parts.

FINISHED! Well not quite. But we were for the day. All that is left is for Tom to put the text on screen when the busker says the important stand-out lines.

Monday 8th December

Today we heard some more feedback from Jools and we learnt of a couple of tweaks we needed to make to our film. The first thing was to rearrange some more clips, most notably the second shot was too dark following the first, bright shot. This was deleted completely. We even added in a new shot we forgot we had of Sam waving at a passer-by. It works because it shows Sam's pleasant attitude and the effect he has on the people.

Another main issue was hearing the sound of some speakers other than headphones. The mixing was fairly bad because there were times when Sam's interview could not be heard over the backing track. We had to get this sorted and we did so by altering the ducking of the backing track more severely.

A third thing to change was to add more text from what Sam says during the voice-over. This keeps in the style more and also helps the audience follow the narrative easier.

Tuesday 18th November

Picked up the camera at Waverley building at 11am. The sun was shining and the air was clear - a perfect day for filming.

Our aim for the day was to film creative and artistic shots around the city to represent an image of where Sam, the busker, plays his music. This would include shots of the architecture, the grimey parts, and also all the people that live in the city.

We started off by walking to John Lewis to buy a Mini DV tape because we forgot to provide our own (oops) and then set out onto the streets of Nottingham. As we walked around we got a shot of the Cornerhouse, down alley-ways and down Clumber Street to show all the people walking the busy street.

We experimented with the manual focus and the zoom throughout the day to really try and show-off Nottingham in a fresh and unique way.

Along our travels we came across a couple of other buskers: a violinist and saxophonist. Although not planned, we thought getting shots of these two other buskers would work well in the documentary as they will also show the audience that Nottingham and it's society has some personality to it and of course, mainly that it would run along the same theme of busking.

As the day came to a close and the sun began to set we had gathered a variety of interesting shots which I am personally proud of and looked forward to Thursday to gather more city shots and interview and film Sam.


Thursday 20th November

After Tuesdays rather successful day shooting we were all looking forward to today, especially because we would be filming our main section.

On our way down to where Sam usually plays (outside River Island) we took some more stock footage of the surroundings of Nottingham, keeping in mind all the rules of taking a well framed shot, such as rule of thirds.

As we got down to Sam we said hello and told him our plans for the day that involved him. These were to get some angles of him playing, do an interview using an Edirol R-09, and do an audio recording of him playing live.

Over the next hour or so we got as many interesting shots as we could, focusing on his face, hands and wide shots. We also filmed creative shots like of the money he'd earned on his guitar case and of his amp. All which we plan to use in a montage effect.

After we began conducting the interview. I asked him questions on his busking, on Nottingham and on the people. With the recording the plan was to cut out all the sections where I am asking questions and use only the bits of Sam talking as if to get him telling a story. The only problem with this approach is that doing it in the street leaves you with sudden cuts as the background noise drops out. We will see how it sounds in the edit otherwise we will have to go and record some more city ambience to fill in the gaps.

Finally, after buying Sam a cup of coffee and giving him some change for his time, I set about getting a live recording of him playing and did so by laying the mic close to his amp as to reduce background noise to a minimal and only pic up his playing.

With footage and audio in hand, it's off to the editing!

This is our proposal for our documentary film taken from a powerpoint presentation we did last week.

Story

• Focusing on a Nottingham busker called Sam. He is known colloquially and mistakenly as “the jazz man”. 
  
• He commonly plays blues and gospel music around Nottingham city centre
  
• We want to focus on his relationship with people and society hearing his opinions about the city and the people themselves 
  
• One of the key underlying questions is to ask why he chooses to do this for himself and the others around him.
  
• The documentary will be 4 mins long
  

• Quick background on the busker
  
• Starting slightly negative – society and the city will be portrayed negatively with general stereotyping
  
• This is to be proved wrong by our subject with an increasing positivity throughout the documentary with his views.
  
• His positivty shines through the grimness of busking life, with his music falling on un-caring ears.
  
• The Idea of putting a spin on the documentary comes from the likes of other documentary makers such as Michael Moore
  

• Artistic and creative shots throughout to emphasise the scale of the city and its character. For example, wide shots of busy city streets and close-ups of general city grime.
  
• Shots of the busker performing – mostly close-ups. Example ‘Susan and Susan’ from research post below.
  
• Camera techniques will include pull focus, canted angles, ambiguous shots to make the documentary a good visual experience.
  
• Editing techniques will include contrast variance, a colour tint – to emphasise the filth aspect. 
  
• Also text will fade in and out to reinforce particular words and sentences of interest.
  

• Voice over of Sam through majority of film which will come from questions we ask. This is what will tell the story. Example ‘Three Cherries’.
  
• Soundtrack will be recordings of the busker playing live and also general city ambience.
  
• We will record all sound using Edirol R-09 recorders.
  

• It will be interesting to find out why someone has made a conscious decision to sit on the cold, busy, dirty streets with the main objective of performing his music and meeting new people
  
• He is obviously somewhat religious so we want to know why his religion drives him to perform this act.
  

Shot 1


There is not much to say about this shot other than the man in the foreground is obviously in focus and more important to the other man. The brown clothes and background probably represent supression and a poor, dirty surrounding.

Shot 2

The characters are both lowly lit to represent a seriousness and cold aspect to the shot. we can tell the shot is structured due to the characters being on perfect thirds of the shot, but our eyes are drawn to the topless man first because of the light reflecting off his skin - compared to the darkly dressed man.

Shot 3

He is quite low in the shot and the colours are dull leading us to assume the character is depressed. The lack of eye contact with the camera also represents that he is thinking. apart from this, the shot is quite busy so we can understand the characters souroundings.

Shot 4

The lines of the walls draw us to the central character in the lower part of the shot who is less powerful. We are led to assume that he is the protagonist becuase of his lighter image compared to the dark, more official 'police'.

Shot 5

Drawn to the character. he looks like he is caged in and sad due to the lack of light, scruffy long hair and mesh on the window. His eyes are looking down so we are drawn to what he might be looking at. the patch of light open in the mesh could represent some hope for the character.

From the website that Adam gave us in the lecture last week I have just picked out the most important parts for when we come to write out our treatment/proposal this week.

"There are several key elements that make a treatment good and worth reading. The first is keeping it relatively brief."

"Another key is to keep the treatment user-friendly and straightforward."

"The purpose of the treatment is to describe the events of the story so that it can be visualized and brought to life. This should be done using the least amount of words possible."

"...the writer should highlight the major points of the story, the necessary details that are essential for the story to make sense...The writer should use it to urge the reader into asking for more..."

"The treatment focuses on the story's backbone, allowing it to be seen clearly..."

"include a solid opening that takes hold of the reader from the very beginning. There must also be a climax to the film that strikes and satisfies them. In between, there must be a protagonist (or main character) that the reader can relate to in some way."

"The story must also contain a central conflict around which all the action in the story revolves."

The other day after the lecture me and Tom Pearson went out around the town to take some shots of the surrounding location that our documentary will be set. There are still more to come but this is the general area.




Here also is a photograph of the busker we will be using in our documentary. His name is Sam also known more colloquially as 'The Jazz Man'.



Finally we took a quick video of him playing just so you can get an idea of his sound and style and probably gather a little about his personality from his musical tastes.



More to come.

A 4 minute short from FourDocs called 'The Garage Wars' about a couple who have very opposite views on the man's layout of all the old bits and bobs in his garage.

My Opinion:

I love the way the two people have such contrasting views on the 'mess' in the garage and how serious they are when they try to explain why they do or do not like the state the garage is in. In terms of how the film has been edited, it was a clever, if not obvious idea to inter-cut both separate takes from the man and woman because it keeps the pace up hearing the opposite opinions so frequently. The camera is very straight forward, mixing in a standard handheld shot with an occasional low-angle shot through a couple of bikes - so simple, yet so effective. The general concept of the documentary is really original and it is interesting for the viewer to not only see all the weird and wonderful things in the garage but how the couple bounce off each other - they are like a comedy duo!



A 3 minute 20 second short which is completely different from the video above about a woman who found comfort in playing with snails.

My Opinion:

To do: In groups of 4 or 5 plan and produce a 4 min non fictional “character study” that entertains and informs the audience of one interesting character.
Presentation: Your group will present all the work you have done at the end of this non fictional study. To evidence your work every student will be expected to provide:

1. In your Journal: A Character study on your chosen subject, (research of subject) Research
carried out for film script project - (Stage 2).
3. A production file (group copy) containing production research and paperwork treatment ,
photographs, locations, script, storyboard, call sheets, schedules, VO, paper edit, book references
etc.)
4. On a CD: a 4 minute DV documentary with title and credits. [720x576 DVAVI 25fps none
compressed PAL].
6. In your journal - entries that document and reflect upon the work done during this module.
7. Completed group peer assessment form

Networking, as defined by my Mac's dictionary is 'to interact with other people to exchange information and develop contacts, especially to further one's career'. Now this would agree with the title statement. But to break the statement down further, here is what I think about networking.

It's been over 2 months since I posted on here last.

The set and the Foley sounds are amazing. It's inpiring. I might make a stop-motion with a similar style very soon!

Hello.

Results are in and i got a 2:2 for my first year. I'm satisfied with that result but I wouldn't say I was pleased with it. Although, I got a 2:1 in the module which was most suited to me (Narratives) becuase it was mostly AV and thats what my pathway is for next year so on that basis I should be aiming to maintain and improve that score for next year.

Also, I found this awesome stop-motion of someone creating a spaghetti meal using household items.


Stop Motion Spaghetti Cooking - Watch more free videos

That is all for now.

Well, I have finally finished my interactive showcase and to be honest it hasn't been that stressful. I haven't tried to be too adventurous, but I think the main reason I haven't had too much grief is because I have been using ActionScript 2.0. All the tutorials I used online to help me were all in AS2.0 so I would have been buggered if I used 3, and when I used 3 for that last Flash project I did it turned out well crap.

I will post the showcase soon, but I just need a few people to test it for bugs etc first.

P.S. I know I haven't posted in a while but I've been playing GTA IV too much! Ha!

The above video is a competition entry made by me and my friend Andrew (who did most of the work). The competition was to create your own music video for Feeder's new song "Miss You" and the prize is to have it featured in the extras on Feeder's upcoming DVD, plus some other stuff I think. The quality is pretty poor because it has been compressed so much (I think I'll have to let Andrew know), but you can understand it lol.

The video is mainly old footage from our A Level music video to a different Feeder song which we have re-cut. Other footage you will see is from my Uni work such as the One Shot Film and Pixelation. We did shoot some new footage in the same woodland area so not to lose continuity, but on saying that, the video doesn't really have any particularly continuity to it other than repeated effects. Nonetheless, Andrew has done a very good job editing it and is easily in the top 5 compared to the other competition entries.

Have a look at some of the other entries by clicking this link: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=feeder+competition

Over and Out.

The stress has begun. On saying that, things have gone reasonably well for me on day one of creating the showcase in Flash. What's been the main issue is time. I have only got as far as creating a preloader and creating buttons for the 'homepage', and it's taken me nearly 3 and a half hours!

I'm not even sure if the preloader works because the document seems to just load on frame 2 everytime I test it, i think it might be because there is so little information for the preloader to load its loaded and gone in an instance. If that is the case then hopefully we'll see if it works by the time I have added videos.

I have been browsing tutorials most of the time, only finding the preloader one most helpful. I sort of found out on my own how to made the buttons work and they do so as I intended which I am very pleased with.

Here are two screenshots of my days work:





In my next session I am to begin importing videos, pictures and music onto the frames which the labelled buttons lead to.

After today's lecture on Flash and the Interwebs this idea came to me. It is an idea (which will probably be final) for the 'homepage' of my Interactive Showcase. It's simple, which I wanted to originally go for, and also a memorable layout idea.




I started with a basic image of me and imported it into Photoshop. Then using the Polygonal Lasso tool cut myself out. Next, I inverted the selection and painted the background white but because this gives you hard edges I used the blur tool to soften them up. I tampered with the brightness, contrast, hue and saturation until I ended up with this final image. I altered the canvas sizes to divide the image into six segments, five of which can be seen in the image. I changed the dimensions of each to give the image a distorted perception and finally added drop shadows. Also seen there is my logo idea which may act as a button to bring users back to the homepage.

In the image you can see my colour theme, which I explained in my previous post. The five images of me will act as buttons to take you to the next frames hosting various things about me and my identity. For example in the image you can see one will lead you to videos I have made.
With the other four, I am planning on these being Pictures, Music, Avatar and then for the other I'm not entirely sure, but I'm thinking of writing a short Multimedia Autobiography that will let users read my life so far using Multimedia and my influences.

I am planning that when users hover over the buttons a blue border will highlight it and the title of where the button will take you will appear.

Now just to put it into Flash... :(

Right I have been looking for ideas and inspirations for my interactive showcase.

Hello blog.

Feeder (the band) have a competition in where they invite fans to make a music video for their new single "Miss You". As my friend is a big Feeder fan he pointed it out to me that we should make something, and as it is helpful towards Multimedia and AV in particular, we have begun.
Using past videos - primarily our Feeder music video from A Level (which can be seen at the start of this blog - we have re-cut them to fit with the new song, Miss You.
The prize for winning the competition is get your video in the bonus features of Feeder's upcoming DVD. Some of the videos already posted on YouTube are somewhat, er.. n00bish! So hopefully we have a good chance. When it's finished it shall be posted on here of course. I will also be using this as the 'work I have done outside of studies' at the review in a couple of weeks.

Another thing I would like to mention is a couple of ideas that I have for my next Identities project. I think I'm going to make it personal and by this I mean everything in it is going to be by me, or at least co-produced by me.
An idea for my layout will be my bedroom in its usual state as it represents who I am. Users will then be able to interact with different parts of the room to reach different aspects of my Multimedia personality. For example, clicking on the TV will bring you to be able to watch videos I have made or clicking the guitars will bring you to all the music I have made. Each of these sub-screens will give users an idea of my tastes and abilities - or even my potential. Somewhere in here my avatar will be included.

See you soon.
x

http://www.thatvideogameblog.com/ -

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have created an entirely synthetic “child-like” artificial intelligence and introduced it to the virtual world of Second Life. “Eddie”, as he was named, is the result of a complex model of AI components. Eddie can reason on his own and has a belief system unique to his own experiences. He runs on a supercomputer that is claimed to be the most powerful university-based system of its kind. The system can produce over 100 teraflops (that’s a lot) of computing power, and runs through Blue Gene supercomputers, Linux and AMD Opteron clusters.

Eddie uses what is called “Theory of Mind” that gives him the ability to interact with other avatars within the virtual world in a dynamic way. He can reason independently of direct input and can arrive at conclusions in a way that mimics a child’s own mental processes.

Eddie, of course, is only the beginning and the researches are already looking far into the future for applications that may benefit from an advanced AI such as Eddie’s. “The apps, frankly, are endless,” says Selmer Bringsjord, the head of the institute’s Cognitive Science Department, “Imagine being able to step into a simulation environment in which you interact with synthetic characters as sophisticated as those seen in the Star Trek’s holodeck.”

The implication of this technology to the future of videogames is almost inconceivable. Can you imagine playing a shooter where the virtual enemies can actually adapt to the way you’re playing and learn your weaknesses? It would introduce a whole new level of enemy AI that has been promised for many years but has never really materialized. Currently, most AI is derived from a series of If/Then commands.

IF Player 1 is firing his weapon // THEN Hide behind a wall

IF Player 1 stops firing his weapon // THEN fire at Player 1

An ideal AI would think dynamically and remember the player’s previous habits.

IF Player 1 is firing his weapon // Notice that Player 1 is in an enclosed location and would be vulnerable to a grenade thrown with a short delay. Remember that Player 1 favors the crouching position when shooting with the M16. Remember that Player 1 frequently uses the knife on enemies within close range. Etc…

It sure would add replay value to nearly any game that could be conceived, and it truly would make the gameplay experience unique to each and every person that plays the game. While this kind of AI is probably so far into the future that we’ll all be old and gray by the time it finally shows up, and there’s currently only one computer in the world that can handle a primitive version of it, I’ll certainly be looking forward to it, should it ever become a reality.

My Avatar and it's Environment

Add to My Profile More Videos

Its quite self explanatory, but its just me and my different personalities in an environment which I can relate to.

The music was created by me and can be heard in full at www.myspace.com/pyrodrifter.

Safe!

Yello.

So this is what I have so far for the first project of the Identities module. I am going to use a 2D avatar in a 3D environment.

The avatar is simply me, but in various poses and performing activities that represent who I am and what I enjoy. I may not use all of these pictures in the final piece though and there may be newer ones included in that too. I chose for the photos to be me in normal clothes as it reinforces the idea that I am just the average multimedia student, and this is also the case when describing the editing on the pictures - minimal and simple.

As for the environment, it's supposed to be a nightclub. It is still in progress but this is its current state. There is a disco ball thing, a dancefloor, some capsule seats in the corner and a DJ booth and bar to the right. I may possibly include some more seating on the left. I also intend to use different coloured lighting and depending on how difficult it is, use flashing lights in the final animation. The final scene will include textures on all surfaces to give a more realistic image.

The various avatars of me will be dotted around the club in their different poses and the animation will be of a camera flying through the scene to explore it.

Here are some of my favourites from the thefwa.com and a short description about what they're about.

1) http://scruffs-game.com/ (26th Feb 2008)

This is a highly-flash orientated point and click game about a family known as the Scruffs. The idea of the game is to find out what Grandpa's secret is by searching the family home. A download is required for the full game. The music in particular is one of the stand-out features of this website as it completely sets the mood for the kooky and cartoony atmosphere of the game. Each section of the website has its own music and interactive element - for example on the screenshots page hovering your mouse over a fly on the desk causes it to buzz, then you have the option to splat it!

2) http://imagemoversdigital.com/ (7th Feb 2008)

The website to film creative 3D studio Image Movers Digital - the masters behind films Polar Express, Monster House, Beowulf and the upcoming Christmas Carol, which uses performance capture technology starring Jim Carrey, due for release at Christmas 2009. This site is nice and simple and gives you what the average internet browser needs to know and nothing more. The page simply contains the links "About IMD", "Projects", "News", "Careers" and "Contact" so its the simplicity and cleanliness of this flash site which I like.

3) http://www.coca-cola.com/template1/index.jsp?locale=en_US&site=../happiness_factory/index.html (31st Jan 2008)

Home to the short movie behind the 3D animated Coke adverts which you have seen on TV or at the cinema. The Happiness Factory is where Coke is made, and when you put your monies in lots of wierd and wonderful creatures do whatever it takes to make sure you get the best Coke taste! The animation of this movie is brilliant and the style of it remind me a bit of the music video for 'Starlight' by The Superman Lovers a few years back. You then get the chance to apply to work for the factory and get to interact with the different types of workers to see what they do. Its quite amusing. Who knew burping was a good thing?

Hey everyone.

On Friday 22nd February I spent the day at a Multimedia company based on the outskirts of Nottingham (with St. Anns) to see what work they got up to and to gain an understanding of how a company of their size works.

After being in contact with them for a week or two before visiting, I was originally going to attend an on-location shoot for one of their client's DVDs. However due to the nature of the business, the client had some issues to sort out for themselves, so that day (Friday 15th February) did not go ahead.

So a week later, I was invited to spend a day with them. Now, to be honest, I was expecting a big flashy office block with D3 Design in big letters along the side and then to be greeted by a receptionist. Was I wrong! Instead, the company was run from an upstairs room of an ordinary house in which the Creative Director and his partner lived, with their son and two chocolate Labradors.

Adey and Jo were their names and after having spent the day with them they were nice people. Me and Adey in particular had a lot of similar interests, especially that we both dislike coding! It was weird because originally I asked whether to come dressed in a shirt and tie, but after being greeted by Jo in jeans and a t-shirt and then Adey in his dressing gown I can see why I didn't need to.

To cut to the chase, their work room was phenomenal! I walked into this average-sized room to see a desk near the back with two 30" Mac screens on it. I then saw hooked up to them was a graphics tablet, mixing desk, drum machine and full-size electronic drum-kit. Not to mention the machine that was powering everything. I asked him the specs of his Mac G5 and if I remember rightly it was a Quad 3.0GHz processor, 8GB RAM, 4 hard drives equalling 1.5TB and dual top of the range nVidia graphics cards. I might have got those figures mixed up a bit, but it cost £2500. I was quite shocked that a normal house could have such amazing equipment in it.

Anyway, throughout the day I was shown all the different software they used which was pretty much anything you can think of. As a company that produces video, animation, music, graphics, flash, websites, etc for clients - Adey was the one that did all of that, he was so multi-talented. As we went through all the programs I thought I'd take advantage of my time there and ask a few questions about how to do things that would help me on my course, such as music mixing techniques and flash advice.

At the end of the day I was welcomed back anytime and I will still be hopefully going on the next video shoot they have. I enjoyed myself and time went by fast which is a good sign of course. Now after having established myself with them I can hopefully pop round or contact them by e-mail if I have any queries about software, because they seemed willing to help me, and again, they were nice people.

Check out their website at http://www.d3-design.com

You can watch my weekend break holiday video which I have edited on my Facebook videos page. But if you don't give a shit about what I did then you don't have to (there are ghosts in it though so you should).

Also, I'm going to create my own music to go in my Identities project thing when it is done. But I don't want to give anything away, other than it's very 'personal' to me.

Until next time...

After today's seminar on learning how to create a BBC Three-esque blob character, this is what I ended up with. Now admittedly, I didnt create the spiralling horns/arms, Andy Love did, but that was because I'd dared be more adventurous from creating 8 teeth instead of 4 like the instruction sheet said.

Andy makes 3Ds Max look so easy. And then when I want to go and use it I think, "oh i'll just do this and then this will happen and its easy to mould shapes etc", but then when you come to do it there is always something which I don't know how to do which prevents me from getting further and therefore resulting in my getting annoyed with the nothingness I've created. Anyway, I made a figure out of using the Line tool and then extruding it. It means nothing really but it could make a cool logo... or not.



And then I began trying to model a person until I couldn't figure out how to make more polygons on a face so I couldn't make any facial shapes or anything so this is as far as I've got so far.

The brief for the module says as follows;

"Create an avatar in online 3D environments, like Second Life and Virtual Doppelganger spend some time exploring the virtual environments and communication with the residents. Keep diary of at least four weeks of your Avatar’s experiences and screen shots and publish them on your journal between weeks 20 to 32."

So after testing Second Life and concluding that it is absolutely rubbish and complicated I found another similar online community, There.com. It is much easier to use and for starters doesn't lag so much! It is fairly bandwidth-friendly and I haven't encountered any serious performance issues with it thus far. I could tell I was signing up for a more user-friendly environment just from the initial log-in and welcome pages. It used a lower formality tone and talked of how There.com is just about having fun.

I have used the username of OllieT88 (Ollie Tristram and then my birth year 1988) as its what I've used in the past and its easy to remember. This is what your default avatar looks like.



As you enter the virtual world you start on Fisher Island which has multiple billboards giving you beginner tips on how to communicate, move etc. It's very simple. Use the arrow keys to walk and double tap and hold them to run in that direction. I saw a few other avatars running around the island and went over to one. All you have to do is type and a speech bubble appears above your head. This guy was nice enough and introduced himself as being an Aussie and that a lot of people are quite cool and nice on There.com. I asked him some questions about customisation and what you can get up and he said the 'buggy races' were quite fun and other than that you just make friends. Then came along a female character and we ended having a 3-way conversation. The view switches so that you all become central to the chat. You can even use gestures to help communicate expression and feelings. Laughing, becoming mad and flirting or just a few of these.



There.com uses a currency just like many other virtual life simulators. This time its called 'There bucks' and you can use it to buy land, houses, clothes and many other accessories. Unfortunately, this money system prevents you, from having a different appearance other than the default one. On saying that, you could customise you head size and shape, including nose, eyebrows, lips and ears. Therefore, without paying you are very limited from being individual. I did try however, to make the face look like as much like my real life self as possible, so judge for yourself on how accurate I was!



After getting used to Fisher Island, I looked on the map and one of the 'Places of Interest' highlighted was Motu Motu, so I teleported there. It was a row of houses and if you walked up to them it told you who owned them. You could then click on that sign for further information such as when any upcoming events were at that house.



At the end of the row of houses was a club and on the outside were signs and posters advertising for you to pay 'There bucks' to rent out the club for whatever use. Inside the club were tables and chairs, a dance floor with moving lights and whatnot - all of which you could interact with, and had there been many people about, it would make for a good virtual social hang out.

Next time I log-in I think I shall check out all the different events and 'fun' activites you can participate in.

In today's seminar we made another animation on 3D Studio Max. This time it's a squid! He's a very happy squid.
I must admit that without any of Andy Love's instructions it wouldn't anything like this. 3DS Max has so many features and functions and unless you know the program inside and out, you make 3D modelling and animation very difficult for yourself.

Anyway, enough chat, it's time to meet Squiddy!
(The clip loops 10 times)

This picture I created again in 3D Studio Max. This time I used map pictures found on Google for the Earth and Moon simply after creating spheres. I also placed a targer spotlight on the planets to give them that silhouette style. Finally, I imported the rendered bitmap into photoshop to touch up the levels and contrast and placed in a lens flare to represent the Sun.


I call it, Orbit.

Yeah it's good. It's just another one to get used to. However, it seems easier than flash so far. Another thing is that it would help if some of the stuff on the tutorials was actually in the program.

So i decided to sort of help me gradually get used to this technical program I should do some tutorials and I found a good selection on http://www.tutorialized.com/.

After a few trial and errors on some tutorials which apparently were out of my skill-zone at the moment (such as creating hair), I selected to created a wierd ornament thing.

To be honest, the end result on the tutorial was better than mine, but after a bit of Photoshopping mines looks not too bad... although you can't really tell it's 3D anymore.

I call it, Star.