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Saturday 6 June 2015

2D animation feedback

2D Animation feedback

Here is a link to my padlet that has my video and feedback on:
http://padlet.com/djwhite11/szjxd3j879d6

How do you feel about the work you produced:
I feel like I accomplished something, but not a lot as the animation itself could be a lot better, possibly have more content, the drawings could be better, I didn't accomplish the amount I wanted to accomplish when making this animation. But I suppose for a first proper animation I did okay.
What do you think of the feedback you were given:
I think the feedback that I was given was very valid, but it could be a lot better, the people who gave me feedback didn't exactly give me enough feedback to know where I can improve. I liked one of the comments I was given:
"I like the concept of taking a video game(portal) gameplay style and how you transfered it into an animation. The sounds fit reasonablly well, to improve I would suggest adding in sound effects from the game. Maybe you could also try some of the other mechanisms from the game."

I thought that the feedback given above was pretty good and gave me a rough understanding of what I can do to improve my animation, I think that only that feedback helped me a lot. My animation was not the same as other animations, because some animations were picture images, which means I can not really relate to it as mine is drawn.

What improvements could be made:
As said in the feedback comments I could of added more sound effects or added sound effects from the game, and I could tried other mechanisms from the game. In my opinion I would say I should of created more to the animation, could of added objects, or aspects from/of the game itself which would of added more variation. I definitely should of added more sound effects and possibly some sort of tune/song to blend into the background of the song.

Will the improvements be made:
At this time I can not say I will make the improvements, I think when I have a little bit more experience with Adobe Flash then I will definitely update the animation to be completely improved.






2D Animation Sequence

2D Animation Sequence 

I am doing a 15 second animation for my assignment, I will be using Adobe flash to create this animation. But before I began making my animation I needed some inspiration to think about what I should do. To start here is the animation I came up with:

To begin I thought of some games I like that I could possibly do as an animation, the first thing that came to my mind was the game "portal" I've seen animations for it before and I thought it would of been really easy and cool to do my own with my own twist. But I got most of my inspiration from the infinite loop that many players do whilst in portal:
This video gave my an idea, since I can't exactly create an animation of myself going through the portal, what if I had a different point of view? with a different object? The rain drop was the easiest repetitive object I could draw, so I thought I should try the infinite loop with a rain drop and then make it overload the portal and eventually explode. However exploding into nothing seemed a bit normal and I needed something abnormal so I eventually came accross the video below which made my think what about "pretty firework explosions?" And I set out to make my animation.

Making of the animation:
The first stage was to actually create a template for me to make my animation, this was simply done by clicking File > New > OK. This let me create the basic adobescript 3.0
 Here is what the successfully made template looks like, the white box is the page in which the animation is going to go, so to begin I decided to make keyframes.
 This is what keyframes are, to create one you simply right click the bar where the white box is with the circle in it under the numbers and click "insert keyframe"
 After that I began to draw on each keyframe, this first keyframe started with a little blue dot because I want the portal to make it look as though it spawned in not just popped in.
 This is the 5th keyframe where the blue dot has been expanded to this size over the 5 keyframes.
 After that I began on the rain droplet, which was a rain drop falling from some sort of upside down puddle and dropping into the portal.
 Once again using keyframes I made the rain drop fall down into the portal, this carried on over roughly 25 frames because I created a rain droplet, inserted keyframe, made a new one lower than the previous one, then inserted another keyframe etc.
 After the rain drop successfully dropped into the portal I needed another portal for it to come through I repeated the same steps as I did with the previous portal but in a different place, then the rain drop came out through it as it went into the other one.
 I wanted to give the effect that it sped up every time it went through so I repeatedly drew the rain drop and everytime it went through the portal I spaced it out more and make the rain drop longer and longer so that when it was played it would give the effect its going infinite.
 Here is the result for drawing the line as long as possible, but I did not want that to be all so I made more lines the same length, but they were different shapes and different colours.
 To colour an object you simply select it and click the fill icon which is in the screenshot above.
 Since that I was only at 6 seconds so far, I decided to make the portal shut, then go to the side. But without another portal so the beam of light would explode into the wall and slowly change back to its original colour and eventually fade away.
 One more rain drop seemed neccessary to me so I made one more, but this time no portal changes, the portals were as you can see they are now above, and the rain drop going down over and over.
 As before I created the line effect again, but I decided to change the orange portals colour, I flickered it between red and orange to give the effect its about to explode, and after that was done I made the portal disintergrate by slowly rubbing it out and adding more and more keyframes.
 When the portal was gone I made the line turn into one rain drop in the middle of the screen as seen above.
 after there was one drop left, the drop dropped into the portal one last time, but the portal was slowly closing.
 I gave the effect that the portal closed and the rain drop bounced off the portal creating some type of explosion.
 To create the explosion I just repetitively drew some coloured lines and made them fade off the screen.









MusicVideo Theory

Music Video Theory

Purposes
The main purpose of a music video is to promote something, something such as a TV show or a film. Using a music video gives a nice visual of the song even if it is sometimes not related to the song itself. All videos are different, they can either go by a songs lyrics or not go by them; either way 90% of the time it will tell a certain story in a certain way. The story may not be obvious, but it is there. Music video's are performed and portrayed in various ways. One main way is to give entertainment to the audience.
"I won't let you down" by Ok Go is a well performed music video, which was a one take music video. These type of videos are not often used but when they are they are intriguing to watch as they are not perfect but they do meet a high expectation. This video in total got 19,889,433 views.
YouTube is pretty much the main and only source of music videos, thankfully to YouTube it lets people find many different videos some being music videos and some being actual music. It encourages people to go on a place like Itunes and buy the song therefor increasing revenue.
Revenue is the main source of a band/singer/rapper/performer's successfulness, that and publicity. Increasing revenue can be done in many different ways. These ways being promoting it by singing live, possibly selling products, or a music video.
Making a good music video always has a price to pay, literally, the budget of the music video. The budget is what makes a music video possible, also the singers or band obviously. The video above is called "Scream" it has the biggest budget in the entire music video industry. The production cost for this video in total was: $7,000,000. This is unbelievably the biggest cost of production for a music video ever made, but you can expect it to cost this much due since it was made in 1995 which was not the most advanced in technology at the time.
Product placement is sometimes hidden in videos, you don't see them often. Product placement's role is to promote a product for example in the picture above, dre beats is being shown, therefore promoting it and catching the viewers eye to possibly go out an buy it or have a look into it a bit more to see what it is. Product placement can be used here and there sometimes we don't notice it because it could be hidden, such as someone in the background drinking a can of coke cola that is technically product placement, as it is using a product of a company and no matter how it is presented it is still product placement.

Techniques
Slow motion
Slow motion techniques are in a few music videos and are increasingly being used as the general technique of a music video, basically slow motion or slow mo is where the footage is played slower, lower than 24fps which is the normal amount of fps in a video. Fps are frames per second, so the the amount of frames you have in a second, to create a slow mo you could adjust the fps to be higher, maybe something in the 50-60 area but it does have to be on a 24fps timeline or it won't work. To adjust the speed of a clip you can use an editing software such as Adobe Premiere Pro, then right clicking the clip and clicking "Speed/Duration" An example of a slow mo music video is below:

Zoom in and out
Zooming in and out is a hard technique to find in music videos, and so far I only know of one that frequently used it at the beginning of its music video. That would be Darude Sandstorm, it may not be the best music video but it does use the zoom in and out technique, this technique can be done in an editing software, or on the camera itself. On camera: just zooming the lense in and out. On the editing software, such as Adobe Premiere Pro: go to effect options and change the size of the video whilst inserting different keyframes, and making the size bigger and smaller.

Cuts to the beat
Cutting to the beat is another common technique in the majority of music videos, it gives a better effect on the video itself, cutting to the beat is in the name really, "cutting to the beat" To cut to the beat you would need any editing software and possibly a pair of headphones, you simply cut the clips at the same time of the beat, as you can see in the video below its not actually cutting but the movement of the drums is similar to cutting to the beat.

Point Of View(POV)
POV, also known as point of view, is a great technique not used much but is great when it is used. To do POV most people use a GoPro, and attach it to a helmet that then the person uses it to record its own perspective. This technique does not require any post production work, just needs a camera and the person themself. And of course a script. In the video below you will see a pov of a dog, this was done as I said, with a GoPro he went round with a GoPro strapped onto the dog and put the clips recorded together with some slow mo, and music.

green screen
In this day and age green screens are commonly used here and there on a daily basis for production companies, music videos will be used but not as much as natural camera shots. Green screen is a large sheet that is green, and cast around all of the person or in a certain area that will later on be able to change after the production stage, the editing stage where the editor can manipulate the background but software and a computer is required to do so. Adobe after effects is good for this, first of all you need to place people into a chromakey, then you make the background layer transparent which will detect the single green colour and it will then allow you to overlay it with an image. The picture below is what a green screen looks like:
Below is an example of a music video that used a green screen:

styles
Animation
Animation is not used much in the music video industry, and if it is its most likely from a TV show, or movie. Animation mostly comes from a show, or little animations you see online as a gif, but they are used in music videos as well as the shows and gif's. Anybody can make an animation all it requires is certain software and possibly a little bit of talent at art; when I say little talent at art I mean having the ability to repetitively draw an object(s) over and over to form together an animation with software such as Adobe Flash, which is a great software for making animations. You just need to insert keyframes and draw different sections until it blends together to form an animation. An example of an animation music video is below:

Narrative
A narrative is kind of like a short film, it has 3 acts; beginning, middle and end. It tells a story to the audience, this can be done by making the theme of the video/music have a story to it, like its reading a story to the audience but in music form. In some cases the musics' lyrics need to be similar to the video as I said "in some cases" so it does not always need to be based of the lyrics of the song it can be different. Mostly the video will narrate the lyrics of the song, as you can see in the video below "thriller" it is classed as a narrative:

Live performance
A live performance video, is a in its name, not really hard to explain. All it is, is a video of a live performance of music, to make it a live performance it just needs to be recorded live in front of an audience. For example the music video "shots" by imagine dragons is a great example of a live performance music video; its recorded live in front of an audience with all the same usual aspects of a video, except it just has an audience that you can see and probably the equipment that is recording the video.

Found footage
Found footage music videos are the most public music videos of all time. Its using creative commons footage or other footage that you have licensed to use and include it in your own video with a track over it, to create a found footage music video you would need actual found footage possibly from a creative commons website and then cut that clip(s) into your music video, therefore creating a found footage music video. There is not much else to it besides the copyright, you have to make sure the footage used is creative commons or public to use because you could get sued for using someone elses footage, unless they license it to you to use which means that they have signed a form saying that you are allowed to use the footage from their video into your music video.

Time-lapse
Time-Lapse is another form of animation, its recording a specific scenic view or object for a few hours to a point where if you speed it up in an app, or camera setting, or editing software it will then create a smooth fast-paced video/clip. For example the video below is a great example of a Time-Lapse, it may not be an official music video because it just has time-lapsed footage with a track on top of it, but it does give a good demonstration of what a time-lapse actually is, as you can see the footage is fast paced yet still, or the camera is slowly moving but the rest is fast paced. This is done by either putting a camera in one position and recording it, or putting a camera in one position, recording up to a specific point depending on the length between the frames you could say be recording for 3 hours and record 30 minutes, stop, move the camera the tiniest amount, record another 30 minutes, stop, move the tiniest amount, and so on.


Tuesday 2 June 2015

Opportunities for speech packages

Opportunities for speech packages

Radio is made up of 3 type of stations, Public, Private, and Community. Each of the radio stations in these types of stations are all appointed to many different audiences, Public is more aimed to be there for all audiences, a good example of a public station would be BBC services. Private would be stations such as Capital FM and TFM radio, private are commercial stations that serve a local/regional area. Community radio cover small areas and ran on a not-for-profit basis.

Public:
Public radio is owned by the BBC, that's why you see anything from Radio 1 to Radio cymru as you can see from the BBC logo. £2.08 per month per household covers; Radio 1, Radio 1xtra, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 4, Radio 4xtra, Radio 5 live, Radio 5 live sports extra, Radio 6 music, Radio Asian network, BBC World service, BBC Scotland, Radio Nan Gaidheal, Radio Ulster, Radio Foyle, Radio wales, Radio cymru. Since its the BBC its a none-profit organisation meaning people dont really pay for it, besides it being taken out of the TV licence that they have to pay which is £145.50 a year. The stations that were listed above are not all of them though, there is roughly 40 local stations in England, the reason why so many is because the local stations can cover news in the local area, whereas the national ones cover all around England.


Private:
As said in the introduction, private types of stations are commercial stations, these private stations focus on certain audiences, however there are a few stations that do focus on a variety of audience. These stations use FM and AM frequencies; basically these frequencies are a different type of signal used to broadcast, you will find that these stations are quite oftenly local being to a specific location, just like some public stations are however the majority public stations are scattered all around the UK and cover a wide amount. In the image below is a list of different radio stations that are commercial/private:

Community:
Community radio stations are "for the community" it will mostly be used to a local audience just like commercial, the funding will not be that high as its a community station which also means you will most likely find a volunteer as the one or people behind the act. As I said the funding is low because its a community station so it will aim to be a non-profit organisation that allows locals to get involved to contribute to the media industry. The downside to this community station is that it comes from a community, its not national news, it comes from volunteers so the data presented could actually be false however the Ofcom broadcasting would and should prevent data from being false. Below are a list of community stations from the Ofcom website:

Factual and news differences
Factual programmes are quite different to news, factual pieces normally gives a speculation of possible future outcomes or previous stories from the past, the types can vary from magazines to documentaries. Factual pieces are not like news programmes, they do not require a news readers, but instead a presenter is involved, they present the factual piece in a certain way that appeals to all audiences much like the role of a news reader. Earlier when I said about the types of factual pieces I did not mention all of them, so here is a list with a brief description beside each one:

  • Educational
    "seeks to present, and make the viewer understand educational practices." (Link to source)
  • Documentary
    "A factual film or TV programme about an event, person, etc, presenting the facts with little or no fiction." (Link to source)
  • Wildlife
    Wildlife is often presented on channels such as the discovery channel, it gives an educational input to wildlife(animals in the wild)
  • Magazine
    Magazines are used everyday. They present media but in a short comic like book. 
  • special interest
    Special interest pieces are a unique type of media that is set to a "special interest" it presents media that will be important or appealing to other specific audiences.
  • investigative
    Investigative could be media like "cop dramas" Something investigative and realistic.
News pieces are not much like factual ones, news actually gives the news whereas factual basically presents information or peoples interests in different ways like in documentaries. As I said in the above paragraph, news is presented by a news reader, the news readers job is to give out the news of past, and future events that have occured/going to occur. However, one of the news readers main jobs is to look representable, to look formal, you would not want someone in ripped up jeans and no top to give you your news, you would want someone in a nice clean suit who looks like he/she is going to give accurate news. A consideration for the news is the news being read, you need to make sure it is 100% accurate, you can not give out a piece that is partly true, as it could change at any time.

how the target audience will shape the sound and content of a speech package:
The audience is the main aspect to any factual or news piece, as a movie, tv show, speech package, etc. As you create a speech package you will be wanting a specific audience, your "target audience" The target audience are the people you want to impress, the people you will possibly want to promote, rate, judge your piece. That is just for factual pieces though. News audiences are very different because you are wanting to inform people, you have to take into consideration the offensiveness a news piece could be. This will cause a massive impact if you do not follow guidelines provided, such as getting shut down, and hatred from the audience. 


Feedback to Stop motion

Here is a link to my Padlet that has my video and feedback on:
http://padlet.com/djwhite11/6yscyfziqdc

How do you feel about the work you produced:
I feel a little bit proud but I do feel it could be better because the animation overall wasn't long enough since that my phone camera couldn't see out of the window at night, so it was just pitch black. I think that for using a phone camera that it came out quite well overall.


What do you think of the feedback you were given:
I liked the feedback I thought it was very effective giving how I could improve and picking out the good and bad points about it. I do not believe that I could ask for better feedback, it suits the expectations at which I was wanting for reliable feedback.

With other feedback given on other peoples animations I can see that mine was effective as I said it was, the feedback was different for everyones animations because everyones were different and in a different catergory to other peoples animations. For example there was a lego animation and another animation that was a timelapse with a mannequin head that was drawn on.




what improvements could be made:
I think that the video could be longer, as said by others it isn't long enough. I could of chose better music to go with it because the music didn't blend in as well as I wanted it to, I wish I used a better camera so I would make that one of the improvements, to use a camera at a higher expectation that could possibly record night shots, or higher quality shots, with better lenses than a phone camera.

When I looked at other animations I thought to myself of how I could improve mine from looking at these videos. I saw that most of these animations were either cut out or claymation, which does not seem to fit the timelapse aspect/purpose, I suppose the editing could be better in mine and blended a bit more with the audio.


will the improvements be made:
I cannot say that I will be making the improvements till a very later date as I am buying a DSLR camera(Nikon D5300 to be exact) at the end of the year, so if I do decide to improve my timelapse it wont be until then.