Thursday, October 26, 2006

Maya FTV Ident Animation

All of last week, we had intensive training on Maya. It was quality training. We covered a vast range of topics including modelling, animation, dynamics such as putting a wind effect on an animation, and rendering.

We were given a brief to produce a TV animated ident for a fictional music channel. I thought of FTV as the name for my TV station (F for future or Funk music). I created a dancefloor scene with animated spheres which have hair and eyes to become characters. I included a few coloured spotlights to give a dancefloor impression. I also animated the logo to come down in a box that unfolds, and the tag line - the future of music here and now also snaps into view.

It was a challenging week, as we had to learn alot in a few days, but I am pleased with the outcome.

Here is my animation -

Friday, October 13, 2006

Why I Bothered - Digital Story

Digital Storytelling

This week has been spent on creating a 2 minute digital short. We were given a few lessons in what makes a good story including -

What is digital storytelling -
-Modern expression of ancient art of storytelling to share knowledge, wisdom and values.
-Stories were told around the campfire, then moved to screen, then to the computer.
-Used by community groups.

What's needed-
-Using low cost
-Desktop computers
-Digital capture devices - cameras and flatbed scanners
-editing software
-personal photo archives - a compelling short multi-media story
-can be published on internet or transmitted on t.v.

Resources - www.storycenter.org - runs many workshops.

You choose the story to tell. You keep control.

7 Elements -

1) A Point of View (personal view)

From the 1st person. Think about a goal and then work backwards.
Sometimes we forget the story, but we remember it's point.

2) A Dramatic Question

A desire-action-realization model.

3) Emotional Content

Moment in a story where we are emotionally engaged. Can happen anywhere.
This effect is a result of a truthful approach to the material.
Examples are death and our sense of loss, love and loneliness, confidence and vulnerability, acceptance and rejection.

4) The gift of your voice

Use your own voice in the voiceover.

5) Power of the soundtrack

We all walk around with a soundtrack running through our head.
They set the mood of our day, can perceive the visual information streaming into our eyes.

6) Economy

Show what is necessary whilst keeping the story visually rich and moving forward.

7) Pacing

The rhythm of story determines much of what sustains an audience interest.


Getting Started
Finding your story -
Start with a small idea.
As you build up your raw material, you are also working your storytelling.
Get feedback, reading material to someone .

Genres of Story
-Character stories - how we are inspired, loved, find meaning. These stories tell us more about ourselves and details of our life story.
-Memorial stories - honouring and remembering people.
-Story about an event in my life - To travel or go on an adventure is an invitation to challenge ourselves, to change our perspectives about our lives, to reassess.
-Accomplishment stories - these stories easily fit into the desire/struggle/realisation structure.
-Story about a place in my life - insights into this place give a sense of your values, and connection to community.
-Story about what I do - we all have unique ways of perceiving and valuing our jobs.
-Other personal stories - recovery stories - overcoming a challenge in life, like a health crisis or personal obstacle is the archetype in human story.
-Love stories
-Discovery stories - the process of learning is a rich field to mine.

We also had a script-writing workshop by Catherine Lindstrum which was helpful. She went over our scripts with us. She emphasized that we need lots of detail to make a story interesting. I rewrote my script to try and adhere to her suggestions. After much deliberation, I have decided to do a piece on Why I came to Wales, and why I have stayed in Wales. It was a challenge to get the photos to fit the script, but I finished my story today. I used Audacity to edit my voice over, and I used Adobe Premier to piece it together with music and pictures. I am quite pleased with the finished product.

Multimedia Presentation

This is abit of a blog catch up. Last Friday, a few of us did our presentations on multimedia pioneers. I did mine on Douglas Engelbart. It went better than expected, and talked for about 15 minutes with questions afterwards on the man who pioneered the mouse, amongst other things. I spoke about Engelbart's vision of augmenting computers to help us to share knowledge, and then be more able to solve problems. I included a clip from the famous 1968 'Mother of all demos'. I also showed a timeline of how the design of the mouse has evolved since its 1968 inception, culminating in the Mac's "Mighty Mouse".

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Illustrator training and BBC

On Tuesday we had a day's training on Illustrator. This was good because I have never used it before. This is largely because I have boxed it as an artist's tool, not to be used by amateur designers like myself. Although I find drawing challenging to say the least (!!), it was great to have an overview of how to use Illustrator. It was a pleasant surprise to discover that when you draw with the paintbrush tool, when you have finished drawing your line, Illustrator helps to curve it properly.

We learnt how to join up separate lines and pathways. The mesh tool is also useful, especially if you are wanting to create a globe effect. You can also create your own symbols and paintbrushes.

We were given our brief on the mock up of a game or website. Initially I thought I would like to do the game, as this is new territory for me. However, after an afternoon on Illustrator trying to draw a character that looks like a chef, but looked more like the Pope instead, I think I have decided to do the website assignment. I do find drawing a challenge and it can be frustrating as I know what I want to produce, but struggle to draw it.

Yesterday we visited the BBC New Media department. This was interesting and informative. A range of people from producers, developers, designers and project managers came to speak to us. We had a run down on how they operate and the issues involved in creating Flash and HTML sites, and what considerations each person has to be aware of depending on their role.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Photoshop training and S4C

Yesterday we had Photoshop training. This was a good fast-track to learning shortcuts and correct ways of methods such as masking. Although I have used Photoshop before, I am self-taught, so it is good to get the low-down on the right ways to do things, and I have never used masks before. We had an overview in the morning, and then in the afternoon we put into practice what we had learned with editing some photos.

I began to edit a doorway picture. I learned a great way to trace a part of a photo that is a tricky shape was to use the extract command. This is great to know as I have struggled to trace images before. I also learned how to turn text into an image by rasterizing it.

We then went to visit S4C, and met the team on the New Media department. Their team was smaller than I had anticipated, but it was good to see how all the roles in the team fitted together. The manager, Rachel, gave us a run-down of what they do, as well as a brief description of the issues involved with making a bi-lingual website. Issues included- when leaving space for text you have to leave alot more space for Welsh as it takes more text. Also, when thinking of short words for navigation, when you think of the English, you have to think what would be the equivalent in Welsh. She also mentioned what to think about when designing a Flash game for pre-school children - such as obviously they can't read, so use of text is minimal. Also, their coordination is still in the early stages of development, so their mouse control is less. To overcome this, all the graphics have to be big and spaced out.

It was a useful, if brief, look at how the media in Wales organise and operate their website.