BARKING PRODUCTION STILLS

These are way overdue being posted on this blog so i have decided to upload them while i am active! These were taken on the day of shooting. Videos will be uploaded later when i can find a good converter to get them off my phone!

BARKING COMPLETE

Finally our fictional film is complete! The youtube link shall be up shortly, but for now here are some promotional photos!

MALAC

The project prior to our Fictional Film project had us assigned in a group and various roles were assigned to different people within that group. After receiving a pre-written script, we had to interpret the subject matter and write out a story-board etc. and ultimately, produce our own film.

This is the finished product.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiUaMoMU7yA

SWOT Bulletpoints

Just finished making some brief bullet points on my SWOT analysis based on my opportunity to get into the moving image career path. I found the exercise interesting and i think it is important to identify my weaknesses so i can improve on them.

Strengths
Hard-working, positive thinker
Dedicated to something once started
Technically minded with broad knowledge of hardware and software
Natural leader – strong communication skills
Strong network of contacts
Helpful and supportive to others

Weaknesses
Plan to improve job hunting skills
Sometimes distracted
Competing priorities in life due to busy social life (Host a club night in the week, attend gym and play sports)
Not sure what i want to specialise in yet.
Sometimes find it difficult to say no to people
Get frustrated when people don’t work as a team.

Opportunities
Living in Nottingham is a huge creative opportunity
Attending university provides me with a degree which will set me apart from many others.
The recession has boosted the creative industries

Threats
More competition from university graduates.
People may have better job-hunting skills than me
Moving image career path is very ruthless

NETWORK MAP

After spending a while writing the networking essay, i thought it would be suitable for me to post on here my network map. (which is still in development) It may be a tad difficult to understand without the accompanying text, however i am rather pleased with it.

Updated treatment for BARKING

Today we gathered as a group and spoke to Jools regarding our interpretation of the Barking script. Jools was happy about the idea of a flashback which we had intergrated into the script, however he was unhappy about a hole in the plot which, by using a flashback, we had opened up. The protagonists were returning to the house in "present day" and we really had no valid reason for them to be going back there, especially if the said house is supposed to be haunted.

This caused us to rethink how we could change the flow of the narrative with minimal dialogue changes, as the opportunity to modify the script was no longer available to us. In the end we decided that our protagonists were returning to the house to hunt the ghost, and we made this obvious by including a line of dialogue "We need this to stop now." We also changed an umbrella that Chris was holding to a crucifix, this is perhaps more relevant to ghost hunting. Here is the treatment i changed to reflect the new story.

Something evil resides in a seemingly normal household in the city. Its exact entity is not known, but communicating seemingly from a fridge, a terrible, almost demonic voice is heard, threatening the occupiers of the home.
There is darkness.
A car pulls up to the curb, next to the house. Chris and Sam, who live in this house, are good friends and currently are inside the car, it is clear something is not right. They have been here before, attempting to capture the demon in a recording device. Their past thoughts haunt them. Memories are rekindled detailing how afraid they are of this situation. They think of the past few days, how hopeless they felt and the intense feeling of being watched at all times. They remember how they failed to capture the demon on the device and how they seemingly accepted defeat.
After spending a few minutes reflecting on the flashback, Sam and Chris are clearly at their limit and very frightened. They hesitantly agree amongst themselves to enter the house and confront this entity. As the couple enter the house, they are clearly ready to tackle the supernatural entity, Chris weilds a crucifix and Sam clutches to the Holy Bible like her life depends on it. At the end of the hallway, they reach the kitchen door and slowly push it open. After what seems like a lifetime, they take a step into the living room and breath a sigh of relief. There is no more tension, everything seems ok for now. Chris jokes about how dry his mouth is and opens the fridge to make a drink. Nothing could prepare them for what they saw in the fridge, sheer terror is plastered on their expression. Sam looks away and screams as the awful demonic voice makes its presence once again known.
Everything goes black.

Title Sequence

I have thought some more about the possible title sequence i would like to create and after reviewing the film choices given to us, i have decided to go with Crouching Tiger, Hidden dragon. I think the main themes and ideas associated with the film and martial arts can be used and creatively interpreted to create a deeper meaning for my title sequence.

The initial ideas that pop into my head when thinking about martial arts are

discipline,
nature,
action,
fighting? (could be difficult to pull off)


Obviously the plot of the film will affect the outcome of the title sequence. One of the main themes featured in the film is one of treachery (hidden dragon), and this might be interesting to reflect in the title sequence, possibly through the use of a voice-over that could possibly hint at things to come? It is something i intend to think more about, and i shall keep the blog posted.

Barking coursework script

As assigned producer for this project, i have organised a meeting between our group to discuss ideas about the interpretation of the script and how we could shoot it. I am interested to see everyones different opinions on how the script works, i think that the beginning lines of dialogue after the car has pulled up should be shot as a flashback, but we will see how the meeting goes. I shall update after the meeting has taken place.

St Bernards Abbey

Two days ago, on my day off university, i visited a monks church called St Bernards Abbey. After observing the fascinating lifestlye these monks lead, i have become inspired to film their self sufficient way of life for my university coursework when we have to shoot a documentary.

I think it will be a great idea for our documentary as the sheer amount of material we can use will make calculating shots and content so much easier. A good concept for the documentary would be a "day in the life" idea, following the monks on their daily chores and lifestyle.

Additive Primary Colours.

Today we were told to read about the additive primary colours, so i have decided to post a picture of an additive colour wheel i found on an article hosted on DevX.com. After reading about how these colours are created through mixing lights, i read that LCD technology uses additive colours to project an image. The LCD screen can only transmit the 3 primary colours, but it makes up the different shades by mixing them. Interesting!

MALAC RECCE SHOTS

After discussing today with my group for the MALAC task, we have decided we should shoot the scene in an area that will reflect the dark and tense atmosphere which we are hoping to achieve throughout the composition. The perfect area which fulfilled this criteria was the basement in our house. At present, the basement is dark and would not be suitable for filming ( this is reflected in the current pictures ) however with a few strategically placed lights, the dark and menacing looking room would be the perfect setting for the scene to take place. I particuarly like the withered and run-down look of the brickwork on the walls and i think if we can successfully light the scene to create focus on the subject, then this will be the perfect location for our shoot.

Possible Practitioner for essay

Simon King, a wildlife cinematographer, has caught my attention as being an ideal candidate for my practitioners essay. I can think of nothing more inspiring than following in his footsteps, travelling the world and filming the natural world.

I first discovered about Simon King after watching through one of my favourite documentaries, Planet Earth. At the end of each episode there is a section where the viewers are shown how particular sequences are shown. On episode 9, shallow seas, Simon King uses a high-speed camera to capture footage of Great White sharks totally leaping out the water and capturing their prey. I found this footage so influential and inspiring that i had to look at some of Simon Kings other sequences that he had shot. I logged onto his website and looked at his show-reel and this week i shall be watching many of the other projects he has worked on.

Here is simon king in his zone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnfK7nlY9AM

Following a lecture i attended in the week, i have been further reflecting upon Jurgen Wolffs ideas on connections and creative writing, especially the broadening idea which was mentioned. Wolff described that the more diverse a persons knowledge and experiences, the more there creativity can blossom through different connections.

I find this idea particuarly inspiring, and i like to think throughout my life i have experienced many different things. Throughout my time i have travelled to many places such as Mauritius, South Africa, Dominican Republic. I have been walking across the peak district and climbed many mountains. My background as an athlete provides me with emotionally fuelled memories that i have lots of opportunities to write about, and my current lifestyle as a student is certainly not without its drama. I suppose this post is more of an observation that there are always opportunities to broaden my creativity, it's just a case of stepping out and living a little bit.

BACK IN ACTION

After being back into the swing of university lifestyle for a few days now, i think it is about time i published something on my blog, more of a reflection really than anything really exciting, about Location Research and Risk Assessments, a topic we covered in todays lectures.

We were asked to provide a recon-report and a risk assessment on the crossroads outside the Waverley building to judge the suitability and safety of the area for a shot required of someone "hastily" crossing a road. After a long discussion and many points raised between our group the general feeling was that unless the director was adamant on the area being used, then a different road would be more suitable. Points raised were:

• The traffic on the crossroads was hazardous, so many directions the cars could go etc.
• There is an active tram route through the shot. The tram is scheduled to pass through every 10 minutes, which means there is a small window for actually setting up and shooting the scene.
• The pavement surrounding the road was very narrow, this was a hazard to any pedestrians wishing to pass by and also our equipment as a tripod would not comfortably be able to sit on the sidewalk.
• In an ideal situation the road would be closed off, and this is important to remember, however due to our student budget and if the film was going to be shot under our control, the location would simply not be suitable.

After being paired with people who i do not know so well and introducing myself to them, i found the group-work to be very effective. We were all bouncing ideas off eachother and came up with some very interesting ideas which may not nessacarily have been generated by each of us had we worked alone.

IDENTITIES - COMPLETE!

After a lot of actionscript, sweat and tears, my identities project is finally complete!

I am pleased with the finished result, I decided to go with a more linear presentation which took the users through the journey of my body. Each section of my body contained a different element. The interactive music box which was supposed to be linked to my ears was unsuccessful after numerous attempts, and due to the huge amount of frames and data i was using the quality of each song sounded terrible anyway. I replaced the music box with a small piece about my musical history and allowed users to listen to a song i had written called - Walk Like I'm Guilty.

I managed to overcome flash's 16,000 frame limit by splitting my presentation into two scenes and linking them with actionscript. This allowed me to export the file as one .swf as opposed to two seperate ones, which would quash alot of the effect of having this 'journey' through my personality.

Now i just have to finish this questionnaire and circulate it amongst family and friends!

Oh and not forgetting the evaluation.....

Night of the hunter

This morning in our lecture we watched a 1955 film - The Night of the Hunter, directed by Charles Laughton, his first and only film. I found the film interesting and entertaining. One of my favorite parts of the film was after the children had fleed from Henry Powell and their old house. The shots of the river and the surrounding nature were used in such a way to create an eery, dreamlike sequence which i thought was particuarly effective in reflecting the surreal state of mind the children must be in. My favourite character in the film was Uncle Birdie, i liked how he provided the endangered John Harper with a sense of security and i think it was easy for the audiences to warm to his character. I also enjoyed the character of Walter Spoon, i thought he was successful at representing the stereotypical man and brought a sense of "normality" to the male characters. I found the film in some cases a little absurd and it seemed to me that the film was taking a dig at women for being weak and impressionable (maybe a reflection of society at the time of the film?) until the last half hour or so when Rachel Cooper makes an appearance.

Overall i found the film enjoyable for a Tuesday morning lecture!

Romancing The Stone

After nipping down to Blockbuster to check out the behemoth sale they had on DVDs, i seemed to have picked up a few classic DVDs of films i remember watching when i was younger.

After watching Romancing The Stone again now i am older, i can see why i enjoyed the film so much when i was younger. The sense of adventure as the two characters travel across columbia is well conveyed, and the tongue in cheek script is easy to follow. Michael Douglas cracks some pretty corny jokes but carries off his character successfully as the cool mercenary Jack Colton and Kathleen Turner pulls off the performance of romantic novelist Joan Wilder superbly, her transformation from a lonely "geek" to the battle hardened woman we see at the end of the film is remarkable! The two seem to have a chemistry that looks natural and just works! The whole film is rather predictable and cheesy but still very enjoyable due to some classical action sequences and a brilliant soundtrack, the main riff makes me smile every-time i hear it. Overall an easy and enjoyable viewing experience!

Simple Bird COMPLETE

Finally finished the short animation containing my avatar: The Simple Bird. In the animation, the avatar rants and raves about how people are so materialistic in todays society and like to judge a book by its cover. I found the animation enjoyable and after showing it to family and friends they also found it amusing, a perfect element for my identities package.

NEW LOGO!

After much dispute between my friends, here is the design for my new logo! I decided to keep the wings, however the "never-ending journey" idea was kept with a circle to represent something that never ends, surrounding the desire to be free ( the wings ).

Quite effective i think, the wings create an illusional glow when viewed over the black background!

THE TRIBE

An A/V piece for my Identities project has been completed! It was born out of research i was doing to discover what me and my friends were really like.

I basically set up cameras around the house in the hope that i could watch back the footage and see what we were like, however i found the footage amusing and decided to turn it into a faux-documentary!

What was especially interesting about the piece was that with the addition of a simple script and a soundtrack, the whole representation of me and my friends to the audience has been altered. No longer were we lazy slobs, we were indigenous tribe members!

I think the piece is funny and should fit well into my identities package due to it being about me and my friends!

The British Philharmonic Orchestra

On sunday night i went to the Royal Concert Hall to watch the British philharmonic orchestra perform a variety of film music pieces, and i found the whole night fascinating and it really made me appreciate how much music can have an impact on films, as the pieces of music were all fantastic and really emotive.

Aside from really enjoying watching the orchestra perform these pieces, it gave me inspiration to one day create my own films, and when i do, to properly consider the impact music could make within a scene.

My Creativity...

What has my creativity been for in the past few years? Who has it been for?



The past few years, whenever i would have a creative brainwave and start planning and shooting a film, the target audience in my mind would not stretch more than me and my friends and family. Unless i was instructed at college to create a piece of work that would be viewed by many people, small side-projects that really represent my "creativity" would only be viewed by myself and close friends, mainly for a sense of achivement and so i could look back in future and see how my taste has changed and how my technical skills have improved. I see my work as a way of expressing myself and visualising ideas that were in my head, since starting at university and being in an environment with more like minded people, i have found critiquing my work more important than ever before and so now i will upload my creative expressions onto youtube to recieve further feedback.



Is this my decision or someone elses? What do i want the future of my creativity to be?



I have never really been pushed into creating films, i decided to study Multimedia at university as i would like to find further ways of enhancing my skills and i feel that by gaining qualifications and learning more about the subject it will give me the confidence to get my work circulated into the wider world. An ideal future for my creativity would be the chance for other people to watch my work in a cinema or at film festivals.



In what specific ways can research help me get to these new places?



By researching successful film-makers and how they managed to achieve what they have it will provide me with inspiration and a rough idea of how i can form my own pathway and begin to get my work "out there". I find reading literature about other practicioners and observing the work of people whom i am inspired by allows me to not only obtain descriptive and explanatory research, but it provides me with motivation to one day achieve their status.

Logo.... complete!

After putting some thought into creating a logo, i decided to go with a minimalistic but effective design which reflects my personality. The spiral shape has always intrigued me, and i used it to represent my journey through life unwravelling and never really knowing what is going to be around the corner. The wings represent freedom and the power to explore. I didn't want to use colours in my design, i found the contrast between black and white enough to give my logo presence and almost an angelic aura.

*EDIT*

Thinking about changing my logo now after Jules made a valid point that a circle would be a better representation of a never ending struggle as a spiral clearly does have an end to it..... Not sure how i let that one slip...

Simon made a point of the wings looking rather "heavy", like something someone would have as a tattoo? I'm not sure if i agree with him on that one but i will be sure to show friends and ask them for feedback!

Water in 3DS Max

After playing around with Autodesk 3DS Max i decided it was time to do something productive with my time and had a go at creating some realistic looking water to get used to the material editor. Thanks to numerous tutorials across the internet i managed to take a bit of information from each one and make my very own water.

First 3D design/animation complete

I had a play around with 3DS max studio today to get to grips with creating 3D models and animations. After getting to grips with creating basic shapes and using modifiers to interpret them in different ways, the simple keyframe animation system allowed me to create a basic animation and the product i created could be developed further to create a logo for my future productions.

Wrapping up Second Life

After reguarly logging on to Second Life for almost 2 weeks now, it is time to say a few words to summarise my experience and voice my opinion on the program.

I went into the Second Life experience with an open mind, there are a lot of negative connotations with these virtual reality applications but i didnt want that to taint my experience so i immersed myself in the lifestyle, trying numerous activities and visiting various real-world landmarks that had been re-created in the program. The people i came across in Second Life were always very friendly and eager to show me around. I learnt alot within the first two sessions and after that i felt i could comfortably use the system. I was tempted to purchase some currency within the game and buy my own house, however on second thoughts it seemed a waste of money!

I enjoyed the experience and can see the appeal of it and its uses in industry. Personally, i would prefer to go out and listen to real life music and meet real people rather than virtual representatives. I was always cautious and critical when meeting new people, constantly pondering who could have been behind the avatar. There is an option for a profile box on Second Life to put a picture of yourself in and a few words about what you are like in the real world, but out of everyone i met, no-one had filled that section in! From a programming and technological perspective Second Life is very flexible, allowing user-generated content to pretty much mould the way the virtual world grows. It is for this reason, that Second Life will more than likely continue to grow.

Second Life Banter

After playing around a bit more with second life, i began to familiarise myself with the program and the way things worked in the virtual world of Second Life. After making my avatar dance around like an idiot in a virtual club for a bit i quickly learned off second life regulars that without the currency used - L$ your avatar is pretty much worthless. This upset me, as i wanted to buy some more clothes instead of going through the tedious process of creating them yourself.

A few conversations later, i came across a friendly guy who gave me the address of some "FREEBIE" areas. These are areas where people donate second hand objects or just create objects for "NEWBIES" to use. Newbie is a term that people seem to use for people who have only just joined second life. Some freebie areas only offer free clothes to avatars who are 30 days older or younger, so i made the most of it and stocked up on designer clothes such as Levi's jeans and Nike t-shirts. Hairstyles and tattoos were also up for grabs in these free areas so i gave Swanny Zsun a bit of a make-over.

The tattoos looked awesome, as did the trademark Swanny blonde hair!

Wowwww!

Seems like forever since i put a post on this journal! What a mad past couple of weeks! After being in Wales for the christmas period and partying hard for a Detonate Countdown event at rock city for new years i think it is time to get back on track with things!

With the identities module coming up, i decided to download Second Life and create an avatar to represent myself online. Initially i struggled with the un-needingly complex clothing and texture system, maybe i was doing something wrong? However i soon got over the problem and created Swanny Zsun.

As you can see, he actually looks nothing like the real me. I found this entertaining though as the people i met online would have no idea, and this virtual representation of me would be all they could see. Part of the attraction of Virtual Chat programs such as this are escaping from reality, and so i thought it appropriate to make Swanny Zsun a caricature of my personality. I searched around Second Lifes communities and found a shop dedicated to gym merchandise in the hope that someone may be there to discuss bodybuilding/fitness etc. as these are both keen interests of mine, however there was no such luck. I will post an update when Swanny Zsun has his first conversation!