CMP1014 Creative Technologies 2006

Three down, one to go!

2007-04-01T05:02:00.000-07:00

I've been doing quite well in this, if I do say so myself :

Photography assignment = 70%
10 second movie = 68%
IPTV presentaion = 71%

By my calculations, that puts me on 54% for the unit, which means that I need 80% to get a first. Oh well, it's not the end of the world. 80% is unlikely, but I can still aim for it. The flipside is that I have actually already passed, and can take this one easy if I so desire. (I'm not gonna, though!)

The 4th and final assignment piece is to create a flash interface for a website, based on either a moive or a game. We need to show understanding of the concept of tweening, use some action scripting, and include a pre-loader. The actual animation we are to produce is to be between 10 and 20 seconds.

That's not actually a lot. (What is John's obsession with shortness? 10 second movies, and now this? There is an obvious suggestion, but I won't go there...) But, I think I shouldn't really have too much of a problem with making something good. If anything, I am more likely to have to extend my storyline than I am to compress it.

I have decided to go with one of Capcom's extensive range of Street Fighter games. The main reason for this is that I think I can make something quite interesting with just basic animation. The idea I have is of close-ups of certain characters in mid-fight stances, and some usage of anime style 'speed lines' as background. I can then also fade in M. Bison over the top, to suggest that he is the bad guy. Putting 20 seconds of this together should be a doddle.

There is absolutely ZERO shortage of animated gifs available on the web, should I choose to go down that route. Or, if I perhaps want some more detailed artwork, then I can easily find some of that, too. I even know a couple of people who can draw the stuff for me, if needs be. That's the good thing about using one of the most popular series of games of all time. Also, the fact that I have been playing the games myself since they came out in 1990 helps, as I know them inside-out.

So, the first thing I should do, I suppose, is to get my story from out of my head, and onto some paper/a notepad. Then, make the animation. The pre-loader and interactive part can be done afterwards. In fact, it's kinda pointless doing the pre-loader until there is something to pre-load!

Of success, and failure.

2007-01-24T06:52:00.000-08:00

Tested all my files. Even the high quality one streams from the CD. YAY!

Went to hand in my assignment, but the facility office closes at 12 on Wednesdays. BOO!

So, I guess I hand the assignment in on hand-in day AGAIN. One of these days, I WILL manage to do it early.

Movie burnage.

2007-01-23T16:27:00.000-08:00

My movie is complete! And, by complete, I mean burnt to CD more times than I could possibly need to. See, I wanted to ensure that my movie would play, so I ended up choosing 5 different export settings for the version to be played from CD. These are three different WMV standards, one Real Media standard, and an MPEG1 VCD standard. All stream faultlessly on my PC, and I can therefore only assume that at least one of them will work in the Games Lab and/or Architecture building theatre.

The biggest hurdle I had to overcome here was in choosing what to export as, as Premiere Pro has more WMV presets than you can shake a stick at! I thought about just choosing one and praying, but decided that discretion was the better part of valour in this instance, and instead opted for overkill. From a tiny version at 15 frames per second, to a smooth and large version that worked perfectly here, I think my samples are representative of 5 stages of quality. I plan to test all 5 in the Games lab tomorrow, and will make my selection as to which one I will attempt to play during the presentation based on the quality I perceive on the Games lab screen.

As for the high quality version, I have actually included 2 of these. The first is the Quick Time .mov file that I planned to submit to http://www.tensec.com The reason I didn't is that I found out that they only accept submissions on CD, that have been posted to them.

... What?

This is a website, that doesn't allow you to upload to them. Wow, I can't recall the last time I ever saw that. Odd, to say the least.

The second version of my movie is a Windows DV AVI, in full-screen PAL. With all requirements fulfilled, I can now reflect on the finished movie.

From an artistic standpoint, I am extremely happy with what I have accomplished. The look, the feel, the mood ... they are all exactly what I aimed for. The fade effect worked even better than I had pictured in my mind, and I was lucky to find a song that matched so well. I would have liked to have had a little more time to film, as in the end it was quite rushed, and I had to change the last scene to fit in with the new time constraint. Originally, I had wanted to take him to a park, and film him diving to save a football that had been kicked towards a goal. Sadly, the weather whilst I was in Winsford did NOT co-operate, and I had to improvise the shot of him running into my auntie's house.

I would also have liked longer to play with. 10 seconds is extremely limiting, and I think that I could explore this theme better with more time. Perhaps I will make another version, with more scenes. Or, something with a different actor, and some kind of shock at the end. There are possibilites to play, and if I find the time ... well, who knows?

Technically, I can not complain at all. As the movie is called 'Memories', I am glad that it is clear that it was all shot on a home camera instead of something more professional. The whole point is that it is what I am remembering, and slightly grainy home footage conveys this point so much better than some high-def polished wonder could ever hope to. If there is one fault, it is that the song ends ever so slightly too soon. This was also part of the plan, with the sudden lack of sound forcing even more focus into the 'I MISS YOU' shot, but I think I could possibly have allowed a fraction of a second longer. Still, what I have works very well, in my opinion. (An opinion that is shared by the few people I have shared my movie with, as it happens.)

I also decided against titles and credits in the end, as I feel they would diminish from the impact. To have "A film by Lee Weedall" plastered onto it would just look wrong, and I think that by not having names to put to the movie, people viewing it will draw their own conclusions. Everyone who has seen it knows that Josh is my son, so they all see the film as meaning one thing, but perhaps people who don't know might wonder what happens. Remember, the last shot is of a child running onto a road, without looking both ways first.

I did done dood it!

2007-01-19T09:27:00.000-08:00

This screenshot shows my three sections of footage, all imported into their appropriate bins, along with the still image for the message at the end of the movie.

At this point, I have no title or credits, because I am more concerned with getting exactly 10 seconds of footage. Also, I have yet to add the audio track. For the purposes of this movie, I have unlinked the audio from the video clips. This is simply because there was a baby crying in the background when the sofa shot was filmed. Also, the music will be played along with the track, so there is little point in keeping any of the background noise.

A close look at the timeline will reveal little gaps between the individual scenes. This is intentional, in order to avoid a too sudden jump-cut. I wanted each of the scenes to feel like a seperate instance, and this is the best way I can think of to ensure that the audience feels that.

My next stage is to choose the 10 seconds worth of music from the song I chose. In order to do this, I open the song in Adobe Audition, and simply cut out the exact portion that I think best represents the mood I was aiming for. I select a bit which has the phrase "If I can dream" spoken over a slow beat, with a haunting sounding baseline, and export just that part of the track as it's own mp3 file. I can then import that track into Premiere, and store it in the Audio bin. From there, I can simply repeat what I have already done with the video, and drag it down into the timeline.

Finally, I need to export the entire movie at least twice. Once in a high quality format to burn to DVD, and once in a lower quality format that will run directly from a CD. I choose also to export it in Quicktime format, for the purposes of the Tensec site.

Now all that remains is to test the lower quality file, and to see if it does actually play direct from the CD. Whilst I am not worried, I shall test this in the games lab on Monday, but I can now have a nice relaxing weekend.

Creative Commons

2007-01-19T06:52:00.000-08:00

I originally planned to compose my own music for the movie, but I hit a snag. The snag is that I am not really a particularly muscial person. The tune I wrote years ago just didn't feel right, so I suddenly found myself in a bit of a pickle. Since it is my plan to upload my finished piece to the the Ten Second Film Festival, I need something that I can use. Which means, nothing commercially available.

Or does it?

Suddenly, I remembered something quite important. CREATIVE COMMONS! This wonderful organisation basically allows people to share anything that has this license attached. Well, not everything, but an awful lot of it. (I first heard about this a couple of years ago, and made the decision at the time that everything I create would be available under such a license.) All you have to do in most cases is credit the creator, and they are happy for you to share, use, edit, sample ... pretty much anything. So, that solves that!

After scouring the various websites, I have settled on the track 'Discreet Homecoming' by _ghost. It has almost exactly the feel I wanted to convey. All I need to do now is to find the perfect 10 second section to use alongside my finished edit.

The After Effects bit!

2007-01-18T08:11:00.000-08:00

I decided to do something a little different for this post. I recorded the screen as I edited the layers in After Effects, and uploaded it to Youtube.

I am also providing a link for a much clearer version of the file, since I doubt anyone can read the text in that one! Find it here!

The long, slow process...

2007-01-17T17:11:00.000-08:00

The footage I took was for three distinct 'scenes'. The storyline is that I am remembering my son, who now lives on the other side of the country to me. In scene 1, I look at the stairs, and see him walk down them. In scene 2, I see him playing games on the sofa. And, in scene 3, I see him running towards my auntie's house. The catch is that I am just imagining this, and in each scene he fades out of existence. The fade effect will be achieved in After Effects. Before I can do that, I have to actually get the clips required for the scenes.

My footage was all shot on the one tape, and therefore I have to lift the sequences I want from it. For this, I will make heavy use of Premiere's Monitor window.

The tool that will be of the most use to me is the tool to set In and Out points.

The Monitor window has 2 screens. The left screen is the unedited video, ann the right screen is a kind of preview. If I run video in the left window, I can click the 'Set In Point' tool, or just press I, and that will mark the start of the footage I want. I can then click 'Set Out Point', or just press O, to mark the end. I need to do that several times, as I need a minimum of 6 pieces of footage for my story.

Scene 1 is of Josh walking downstairs, so I start with that one. Now, this was actually the second scene I shot, so I need to move about a third of the way through the footage. This is a simple matter of moving the pointer on the left window timeline to the appropriate position.

I choose about 4 seconds of the empty stairs, and move them down into the timeline. This allows me to export this as a movie. My reason for this is so I can then play about with it in After Effects.

I then have to repeat the above process with footage of Josh walking down the stairs, along with the other footage for all three of my scenes. So, I take some empty sofa footage, and some footage of Josh on the sofa. And then I cut out bits from outside, both with and without Josh in them. All of these are exported, so that I can open them up in After Effects, for the spooky 'fade'.

First bit of editing!

2007-01-17T17:04:00.000-08:00

So, having transferred my footage, it is time to put it together. This requires opening Adobe Premiere, as I have decided to use this instead of Avid. The main reason for this is that Adobe stuff all works together really well, so I will be able to utilise Photoshop and After Effects alongside Premiere whilst making my movie, and will also be able to use Audition for the sounds. A rather nice package, methinks! (Also, if I were to use AVID, I would pretty much be forced to do all my editing on campus. This is far from ideal. I enjoy Half Life 2 as much as the next man, but I don't need to be hearing people shooting each other in it whilst I am trying to work. Also, I would most likely be distracted enough to join them, and do little to no actual work whilst I was there!)

So, the first choice Premiere throws at me is what format I will be working in. Well, that's fairly obvious. We live in a country that uses PAL, so it is pointless to choose NTSC. PAL, which stands for Phase Alternating Line, is a broadcast standard that updates the screen 50 times a second, giving an output of 25 frames, whereas the National Television Systems Committee standard refreshes 60 times a second, giving an output of 30 frames. This may sound like NTSC is the superior standard, but the extra updates come at the loss of 100 lines of pixels. PAL has 625, NTSC has 525. This means that PAL has the edge when it comes to providing detail. Also, since the 10 second film festival site wants submissions to be at 25 frames per second, it makes sense to start out with this!

I chose PAL, naturally :

The next thing to do is to import the video I have captured :

(Sadly, it did not occur to me to screenshot that process, as I did it on campus at University.)

At this point, because I am the kind of guy who likes to keep on top of things, I will make my 'bins'. This is what most video-editing software calls the folders where you store the unedited clips. I shall make three. One for the video, one for the audio, and one for still images. To do this, I simply click on the folder icon at the bottom of the project window, and make my new bin :

Finally, I place Untitled Clip 01.avi into the Video bin, and then double-click on it to place it in the monitor, ready to edit :

With this, all preliminary work is complete, and it is time to start chopping stuff up to put into my movie!

The countdown begins ...

2007-01-16T07:01:00.000-08:00

With just over a week to go until we have to hand this 10 second movie in, I guess it is time I started to actually work at it!

I filmed the footage when I went to Winsford to visit my son. Sticking with the idea of fading an image in or out of the frame, I filmed him sat on the sofa playing my DS, walking down the stairs, and running into my auntie's house. Also, I filmed each background without him on it.

There was a slight problem when it came to retrieving the footage, though. Our camera uses USB, not firewire, and seemingly the USB port on the camera itself is busted. So, I had to go to University and book one of the Uni cameras in order to get the footage off the tape! Then, I copied it to my flash drive, and carried it home. Where I shall edit it in Premiere, and then use After Effects for the fade trick.

So far, so ... not quite perfect, but still pretty good.

Assignment #1 = PWNED

2006-12-11T05:23:00.000-08:00

We got our grades back for the first photography assignment. I got a 70! Colour me happy, because I was a little concerned by a couple of comments John had made during lectures. For whatever reason, I took his "people are leaving it until the last day" comments personally, since I kind of did. I literally selected, edited, and uploaded to BSP the day before the assignment was due. Of course, my reasons for this were to make sure that I had plenty of good photos to go from, but I still felt he was singling me out somehow. Paranoid, much?

And then, when he suggested that people had not gone into enough detail in their blogs ... well, let's just say that I suddenly panicked, and looked back at what I had written. And, I suppose he had a point, I probably could have done much more on the actual editing posts. Certainly I should have included screenshots of the DURING post-production process, which is what John mentioned in his critique. Silly, much?

Still, 70 = happy Lee.

The 10-second film is starting to dominate my idle thoughts. Whilst I am still planning on the 'ghosts' idea, I seem to get new ideas all the time. The latest one is a kind-of pastiche, a "How not to make a 10-second movie" movie, in which I dig at time-lapse, and boring movies. It will end with me saying "Ultimately, make sure you don't run out of ti", at which point the screen blacks out. It would be tricky to pull off, but I reckon I could do it.

That's the advantage of having my own camera, I guess. I am not tied to having just one day to shoot it. I do feel sorry for anyone who has t go through the University booking process, as they don't have anywhere near enough cameras for people. The last week before it is due in will be particularly amusing. Also, since I am now very comfortable with both Premiere and After-Effects, I can, as I did with the photography assignment, concentrate on getting good footage. If I can minimise my post-production again, then that surely has to be a good thing!

After Effects FTW!

2006-11-28T09:18:00.000-08:00

I have to swallow a little humble pie, I guess. After slamming Adobe in my last post, how can I sing their praises now? Because, I downloaded After Effects, and I love it!

The coolest thing about After Effects is its usage of layers. Just like in Photoshop, layers can contain individual images. Best of all, each layer can have its own properties. So, for example, one layer can be fully transparent, and another layer can be fully opaque. Or, better yet, each layer can have varying levels of opacity. And, even betterer, these opacities can be set on a timeline, using keyframes and tweens. This is what makes Flash so cool, and is what has sold me so completely on After Effects.

Whilst playing around, I quickly realised that it is possible to film something, and then change an element of it and film it again, and then slide the opacities of the 2 layers in playback so that the altered element either appears or dissappears. This has led to me completely revising my original idea. Whilst I still love the comedy inherent in "Lee takes a photo of himself every second for 10 seconds!" I now plan to film sections of my house, or another house, or just random locations in Lincoln. The first filming will contain either myself or a more photogenic actor, and the second filming will be just the background. Then I can fade the person into or out of the footage. Do this 3 or 4 times, and then end with a text scrren saying "I miss you." Provided I can get the right music, this could be extremely effective.

Perhaps building an entire movie around one gimmick/effect is not the best thing to do. However, when the entire movie lasts only 10 seconds, then this becomes an extrememly powerful tool. I am aiming for 'spooky' which leads to 'moving', and I am pretty sure that I can acheive this.

This leaves me with one major problem remaining. Who to use as the 'ghost'? The obvious person is myself, but this is not necessarily the best solution from a dramatic standpoint. An actual actor would clearly be superior, as even though they will be on-screen for mere seconds, they will still have to convey happiness in that short time. Now, I do not know how good an actor I am, so perhaps I should try and find somebody else for this part. Also, as non-PC as this sounds, I do want the actor to be somebody good looking. Possibly even someone visually striking, as this might be the best way to get the emotional pull that I want. Maybe even use a child, although that might upset people. Which, let's face it, is quite an accomplishment in a 10-second movie!

Lots to think about!

Adobe Premiere = hassle!

2006-11-23T04:36:00.000-08:00

Seriously, Adobe, sort it out. This is easily the least user-friendly of all your products, and that is saying something! It won't even let you open it until you give the file you plan to make a location and name. WTF? I just wanted to play about a bit, and see the menus. It was the first time I opened the damn thing, and I know you can see that kind of information. Why not offer me some kind of tour on my first open, or at the very least give me a 'Tip of the day'? Sheesh.

Having overcome this hurdle, I have to say that I am not that impressed. Sure, it's Adobe, and no doubt there is some nice stuff tucked away in there. But, to all intents and purposes, Premiere is Windows Movie Maker in a business suit. And, since most of the students already have Movie Maker, it would probably have made sense to mention to us that we could edit our movies with that. The obsession with Adobe is somewhat worrying. I GET that we will need to be au fait with more industry-standard software, and I GET that they can offer a lot more flexibility than the standard Microsoft stuff, but personally I feel that people learn more when forced to overcome limitations than they ever do when being handed a massive sandbox. Add to this the consideration that we either get the Adobe stuff for 30 days, or pay a fortune for them, whereas there is an abundance of free software available, and it all adds up to a bit of a pain in the bum. </rant>

W00T!

2006-11-21T05:24:00.000-08:00

This morning, in my inbox :

Lee Weedall,

The batch of 4 files uploaded on 2006-11-15 09:36:54
has been processed by our Image Approval & Moderation team. Below you
will find the status of the files in this upload:

Approved Photos
----------------------------------------------------------------
The following files have been approved and will be scheduled
to be added to the website on the next update (within 24 hours).

1001225 Bridge

1001226 Tracks

1001258 Stag
Comments: do not use maker name pls.

1001362 Hull

Thank you for your help with BigStockPhoto.com!

BigStockPhoto Approvers

That'll do nicely!

We have our second assignment. "Create a 10 second movie." At first this sounds ridiculously easy, but a little thought makes you realise it is actually quite tricky. To compile anything with meaning into 10 seconds is not particularly simple. The onvious answer is just to go with some comedy, as 10 seconds is rather a long time for a good slapstick gag.

The problem, and this is actually something I am not too pleased about, is that according to the criterion reference grid for the assignment, we appear to be being graded more on our usage of audio than we are on the imagery in the movie. In fact, we can not get a first-class grade unless we use audio from multiple sources, and synchronise it to the on-screen action. Now, whilst this is far from an impossible task, I actually find it somewhat limiting. I mean, in a 10 second movie, it may be desirable to have little or even NO soundtrack! A lack of sound can tell as much of a story as the sound itself can.

Anyway, having thought about it, an idea suddenly popped into my mind. In our first Creative Technologies lecture, John showed us the video of "Noah takes a photo of himself every day for 6 years." If ever anything was crying out for subversion, it is something like that. So, my plan is to make "Lee takes a photo of himself every second for 10 seconds." I have already thought of two or three ways to introduce a little more humour inside the 10 pictures, but have yet to decide on the final storyboard.

All I need to do is somehow come up with my own piano piece, so that I can upload it anywhere. Either that, or discover what the original piano piece used in the movie is, and somehow obtain the permission to use that. This would obviously be ideal, as it would be instantly recognisable to anyone who saw the original movie, but all I really need to do is have something that sounds a little bit like it. As long as I capture the feel, then hopefully it will carry across and remind people. Let's face it, the entire lecture theatre will have seen the original, and it is them who will be seeing my finished movie.

Filming should be straightforward, and I am lucky enough that I won't have to struggle to borrow one of the University provided cameras. Filming this idea should literally take no more than 10 seconds, possibly a minute or so if I do multiple takes. It is how I fill in the gaps between the pictures that will ultimately take up all the time, and will ultimately determine my final grade, I believe.

All at sea!

2006-11-15T10:19:00.000-08:00

For the final pic, I took a look through my boat pictures. The one that I took of the underside of the hull was clearly the most interesting, as you rarely get to see boats from that angle. My idea was hopefully to trick the viewer into thinking the picture was taken at sea, rather than from just on the other side of a fence near a boatyard, several yards from the harbour.

In order to make it look like it was taken at sea, I first off had to adjust the colour balance. I wanted the picture to be more blue, basically, which would hopefully make it look like it was taken from a lifeboat or something else. It took several attempts, moving the balance bar a pixel or so at a time, but I think I managed it! (Seriously, sometimes there is literally no other way to get the picture you want than just changing it until it looks the way you planned.) Also, since the whole thing has been brightened, and the contrast increased, then I think I have done a good job of making this look like a sea-going vessel in mid-August, rather than a grounded yacht in early November. The contrast adjustment certainly improves the looks of the clouds, in my opinion.

All in all, I think that the main thing I have learned from this exercise, apart from getting a new camera that actually holds its memory cards properly, is that the best way to go about this kind of thing is to actually have a good photo to start with. Photoshop may well be an extremely useful tool, but it has its limitations.

A British classic.

2006-11-15T10:18:00.000-08:00

The Triumph Stag is one of the all-time classic British cars. Whilst not quite as iconic as, say, the E-type Jag, it is still an instantly recognisable roadster that immediately puts certain images into your mind. When I was given this assignment, I knew I had to get something like that. Now, the stag in the picture belongs to my fiancee's stepfather, and he was more than happy to let me take some photos of it.

For this one, what I actually wanted to do was to make the background grayscale, and just have the bright yellow of the car itself stand out against that. Seems like Photoshop can't handle that idea, as you are unable to have a single layer in grayscale. If one is, all are. Oh well, no worries. So, instead, I chose to make the background as blurry and old looking as possible, whilst still trying to maintain some kind of hint of modern. By very carefully selecting all round the car, I was then able to put it into a layer all of its own. Then, I went back to the original background layer, and applied gaussian blur filter. This gave a nice effect, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for. The next best thing to grayscale would be some kind of sepia tone, or just adding a lot of noise. The idea being that I wanted anything that was not the car to look old, with a shiny car standing out against this dull background. Again, I also had to crop in to the car, as too much background tends to be a bad thing on the site. In this case, I think this is a pity, as the concept of the photo would possibly stand a bit more background.

That has ended up being a touch overdone, and I may well go back afterwards and do some more work on it.

Picture 2!

2006-11-15T10:15:00.000-08:00

The train on the tracks. Now, the whole reason I went up on that bridge was to take stuff like this.

I was looking for something based on the tracks going off into the distance. Figuring I could frame it nicely, when the train came into shot. I realised that this actually improved the shot somwhat, as it gave a focus, and linked it more closely to 'Transport & Technology' than just a set of train trakcs on their own. I feel the unedited picture sets a fairly standard urban scene.

In editing this pic, my intention was still to frame the tracks, as originally intended. So, again, rotate the pic, and crop it into it. Without the train on it at all looked fairly good, but there was just something about the train that made me want to include it. Again, the pic was sharpened, and I played with the levels to maximise the brightness. A small crop made a pretty large difference, as the tracks really do grab the eye on the edited pic.

Standard stuff, I guess, but I happen to like it. Again, I think I did a pretty good job on the composition of the picture in the first instance, which meant not doing an awful lot to it before uploading.

Nightmare!

2006-11-15T10:14:00.000-08:00

All my photos of planes seemingly never took. I did get a 'Memory card error' message on the last couple of pics I took yesterday, but I never noticed it before then. I guess the card needed reseating, as I have now done that and it seems to be working just fine. It's not the end of the world, or even the end of my own world, but I really could have done without it.

So, out of the 40 or so pics I took, only 30 or so were actually there to work with. So, I looked through what I had, and selected some that I could mess with. My plan was originally to do a boatm a plane, a car, and a train, thus matching 'Transport' perfectly. Sadly, this wasn't to be. However, I did manage to stick to one car, one boat, and one train. My plane was replaced by a bridge, which whilst only kinda matching the theme, matched enough for my liking at such a short notice.

I have decided to post about each pic seperately. This way, I can talk about them in slightly more depth, and nobody has to endure a ridiculously long blog post from me. First, I'll talk about the last minute replacement, the bridge.

The original image was actually the only shot I got of the bridge, as this was where I noticed the 'memory card error'. Originally, I went up there to get a bird's eye view of the tracks underneath, and it wasn't until I was up there that it occured to me that this was something that might be useable. I thought that it could be used to indicate 'connections', or 'building bridges' in some business kind of way, as I had already realised that business images were the best sellers on the site. This was mainly why I wanted to add the '& Technology' to the 'Transport' theme the group chose. Obviously, it would serve two purposes. First, it would make the theme broader, and secondly it would improve any chances we had of getting stuff accepted, and possibly even sold.

So, I placed myself down at floor level, and then JUST as I was about to take my shot, a woman walked into sight. She was carrying some shopping, too, which meant that I had to wait a good couple of minutes for her to walk across. Then, just as she passed me, a man came into shot from behind me. I ended up waiting nearly ten minutes to take the shot!

I ended up with this :

which is a firly striking image, or at least I think so. Editing it proved fairly straightforward. First off, I had to roate the picture, obviously. Then, crop into it a little, to remove the cathedral, and brighten it a little. Adding just the tiniest hint of contrast made the bridge stand out, and naturally I sharpened it.

The finished result is here :

Whilst I possibly could have done a little more to bring out the colour, I think the fact that it was a failry grey day did not help me. Also, the picture was mostly unplanned. Overall, I am happy with the result, as I think the concept of the image carries it quite well.

The eve of destruction!

2006-11-15T01:56:00.000-08:00

Or, more accurately, the day before the assignment is due.

I have finally taken the last of my pictures. Well, I say that, but I still fully expect to take several more this afternoon. I'm like that ; I get ideas at innapropriate times. This afternoon, I plan to select the best from my existing images, and edit the ones I shall be uploading to the site. All nicely in time for the limit, even if it means a slightly later bedtime than I would like tonight. So be it. That'll teach me to get stuff done earlier in future.

I am supposed to be able to show an understanding of the types of files that are available, and disucss why I would or would not use them. Well, that is simple. Since my camera takes photos in the jpeg format, and since BigStockPhoto asks us to upload images in the jpeg format, then it's a no-brainer. Which is fair enough, because the format itself is good at lower compression rates. But, personally, I would use Portable Network Graphics, or png. Superior compression, without loss? It is a shame that BigStockPhoto does not accept the format yet.

The only other format worth considering would be bmp. Now, I have always been a fan of the format, purely because of the superior quality, but it does lead to problems with editing. And, since it is very much a Windows proprietary format, then you may well find your image unable to be used by some potential customers. And as for gif ... well, let's just say that a 255 colour limit simply does not bear thinking about! The images themselves would be FAR too blocky!

So, jpeg, whilst not the ideal format, is good enough. Hopefully my stock of photos has some that are interesting enough to upload!

Of broken promises.

2006-10-24T07:01:00.000-07:00

Typically, when I start a blog, I update like mad for the first day or two, and then something weird happens. Generally, I just get bored, and stop posting.

This blog is part of my university coursework. So, I promised myself I wouldn't let it go that way. So, why then, did I?

Regardless, I still have a chance to put things right. SO, that is what I shall do in this post. Starting with the details of my 2nd photoshop tutorial. In this, we were given several images to play around with. Some of them were old and therefore slightly oddly coloured, and some were damaged. Every photo needed alteration of some sort. Whilst some were handled by photoshop's 'auto contrast' feature, others needed a little more work. Perhaps the most spectacular examples are the ones I shall outline now.

We were given photographs that literally needed repairing. One of them, of a mother and her two daughters, had been chopped up. The original is presented below :

This was fairly straightforward. First of all, I used the polygonal tool to select each of the three regions that had been torn off the base. By cutting them and pasting them into a new layer, it meant that I could relay the pieces as closely together along the tears as possible. Sadly, this left a lot of the tear visible. In order to disguise this, my major technique was to use the clone stamp tool. Alt+click onto an area of the picture selects that area of the picture as your brush, so to speak, and then you can paint onto the picture with this new pattern. Obviously, one has to be careful not to paint with too big a brush, lest one paints the damaged areas back on accidentally. My edited version is below :

The next task seemed a lot trickier. Here, we were being asked to colourise a black and white image. Namely, this image :

Again, the polygonal select tool was my saviour. This tool allows you keep on selecting new points, and eventually you join the points together to make a selected region. Now, as long as you have 'add selection' checked on the toolbar, a new click will select a new region, but not lose the first region. So, I selected evry single one of the stripes. With them all selected, I opened a new layer, and bucket filled it in red. Naturally, this led to all the stripes being a unifrom red. So, by lowering the opacity and fill level for the new layer, I allowed the original background layer to show through. I then did the same for the blue in the corner, and to show the difference it makes, also selected every star. The corner layer was blue, and the stars were white, each layer filled to roughly 50%, and roughly 50% opaque. The decision to use these percentages was more based on art than science, because they just looked right. Finished image is once again presented below :

(There were other pictures to alter, but these 2 are the most striking, in my opinion.)

The following lecture told us about vector animation, and showed us some examples of flash from both the web and TV. We will be going into flash in some detail next year, apparently. Now, I am no expert, but I am already comfortable with flash. I have created several short movies over the years, as intros for websites. In fact, my most recent, and therefore best, can be seen by clicking this link here!

The course remains as interesting as ever. Especially since we have now had to sign up to BigStockPhoto in order to attempt to sell some of our images. Making profit? That is MY kind of assignement! Signing up requires you to read the tutorials, and then pass a test. Amusingly, it is impossible to fail the test, as I am told an incorrect answer gives you a pop-up box telling you your answer is incorrect. I guess they don't want to limit their potential for subscribers too much!

Another lecture, another blog post!

2006-10-11T07:21:00.000-07:00

Today's lecture was all about landscape moments in imagery. So, we were told about the invention of the camera. A potted history that we could have picked up from Wikipedia and Google, if we really wanted to. However, we were also told about other parts of image history that might not be readily apparent. For example, before today I was unaware of the work of Joseph Brady, who apparently staged war scenes in order to make better photos.

Also, we were told about the Rodney King footage, which was ruled inadmissable in court, because it was apparently 'out of focus'. To be fair, the judge had a point.Regardless of his decision leading to the LA riots, he did the right thing. Not being able to see what happened before the police started assaulting Rodney means that the footage itself can not be viewed objectively. The majority of people who did see it were extremely angered by it, but how many of them cared to wonder about what happened prior to the record button being pressed?

Why discuss these things? I can understand how Leica's introduction of the first 35mm camera was a milestone moment, as could anyone. But, why do we need to know about Brady? I think the point that John was trying to get towards today was that the presentation of media is of equal import to the actual media itself. (Of course, the truncated nature of the current timetable works against any kind of discussion time inside the lectures, which really is a shame.) As illustration, I offer this version of the trailer for one of cimena's most iconic movies , Stanley Kubrick's 'The Shining'.

Robert Ryang did more than just win a contest when he made that. He showed how our perception of information alters when it is presented in a different way. By ignoring such things as the river of blood, and Jack's conversations with dead people, coupled with playing Peter Gabriel's 'Salisbury Hill' as a backing track, our perception of the movie alters. Instead of one of the scariest horror films of all time, here we see a light-hearted and uplifting family movie. You have to have knowledge of the original movie to understand just why the new trailer is so clever. If you haven't seen it, you simply see a trailer for a movie that you perhaps would want to watch with your family.

Basically, our take on the information presented to us can be manipulated by the photographer/cinematographer. This is both disturbing and enlightening. As technology becomes more powerful and more accessible, enabling more people to present these framed realities, then the implications have to be studied. Personally, it is my hope to one day reach a similar level of ability. As to whether or not I should? Well, that is a debate I will leave for a future date.

Image manipulateration!

2006-10-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

So, my 'recognisable picture'. Yeah, it's the same as my University ID card photo. I figured that was the best one to use. But ...

It's a bit dull.

I got a bit bored, and decided to play about with it a bit. And, came up with 3 examples of how I could have done it. Each one has a different inspiration.

First, I just played about, and came up with this one, inspired by the manga/anime '3 x 3 Eyes' :

This led me to thinking about doing something more comical, pasting bits of another image on top. I feel this one still needs work :

And then, finally, something that is REALLY obvious :

I'm sure I'll do more, and do better, in the future. For now, these are just something I did in order to do it.

Enter blog #17868634834!

2006-10-06T08:52:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, ANOTHER little slice of the web with my name and photo plastered all over it, just what the world needs.!Well, the world can shut its' collective mouth, since this one is actually essential. Whereas I can happily never update on MySpace, LiveJournal, 1up, or HG, here I am required to update. It's homework! (I know the correct terminology would be 'an assignment', but let's face it. 'Homework' has more comedy potential.)

To be honest, it is a great idea. Keeping a log of your work is always a good idea. And, when that work is for a module entitled 'Creative Technologies', then it just makes sense to do it in the form of a blog. So, I shall just have to remember to update this thing after every lecture, after every workshop, and then also at seemingly random times in between.

First things first, I shall share my impressions of what turned out to be my first ever lecture at University. I have to say, things did not start out all that well. When 188 students try to cram into a lecture theatre that has seating for 150, then things are bound to go wrong. What was an expected 2-hour lecture turned into a 1-hour lecture, which was then repeated for the benefit of the 35 souls unlucky enough to not find room to sit. Happily, I got into the room early enough to be in the first group.

So, sitting through my first lecture was reason to be nervous. I pictured the lecturer to be some dry, old, and boring Professor. How wrong I was. What I got instead was a guy who seems ... interesting. And, when I got an assignment as broad in scope as "Set up a blog", I realised that I am exactly where I am supposed to be! If ever there was a medium that I was born to broadcast in, it is this one.

So, here we are. As things stand, I am on the verge of potentially the most exciting 3 years of my life. Now that the teething problems that my high-speed application and enrolment process caused are sorted out, and I am able to not only find my assignments but also retrieve my email and timetable, then I feel it is safe to say ...

BRING ON THE WORK!