Week 11 Wednesday November 24th 2010

Today in Harry's class we have been learning a few things about keeping on track and up to date. He has said to us about how we need to find help for ourselves instead of ask him, for example, if we were stuck on adding animation from Photoshop into Encore, we should go to google and look it up, watch video turorials about it online, read photoshop/encore guide books, take notes in class etc. I found a website to help me with my rollover effects which is http://digitalproducer.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=25879 Harry has said about if we ask him or one of our classmates for help on doing things like these, that is a form of plagerism because it is them doing the work not me. It is like saying you can't write something so you get someone who can to write everything for you.

I think that at this point, I will not be able to finish everything in this unit by next Friday, December 3rd. So this si why I am going to come into college on my days off and do work then. I am already coming into college tomorrow anyway because I do GCSE English from 1:15 - 3:30. I may come in either a few hours before 1:15 or stay behind after 3:30 in Open Access to do work.

Week 11 Tuesday 23rd November 2010

Today we started a new assignment with Andy, we are going to do a 30 second advertisement for a brand, we did some research about primary, secondary, qualitative and quantitive research. We are already doing some research for Doug for similar things so I got some of my stuff I already wrote about from  there

Week 10 Friday November 19th 2010

Today I came into College an hour late because I had to go to the doctors. When I arrived, Andy told me the work I needed to do, he also noted that "I had not been keeping up to date at all with my blog", I knew this was untrue because I know I have been writing on my blog every week. However, when Andy went to my blog, nothing appeared. i realised all this time I have been writing on this blog but nothing has appeared because I made the blog wrong and gave a wrong blog address because I made a brand new blog for every day. So all the stuff I did write, I copy & pasted it into a new blog post with a new link. I have now sent an email to Harry and Andy asking them to delete the current link to the blogger under my name and replace it with this new blog link.

Later on today, I had my feedback from Simon for what I need to do or improve. Simon showed me my production diary and made me look through my red folder which had all my work and tick off everything I have done. The things I have not done were what I had to write down in my action plan. These were to write about "Initial aims - final idea (detailed)" which was where I was supposed to write last September about my final idea for a movie idea/film poster idea. I won't have a problem writing that because I know exactly what i am going to say in it. I will say a summary about The Invisible Pervert. I was also told by Simon that I need to update my contingency plan document because since I write that and printed it out, I have faced a few problems since that I didn't think of or wrote in my contingency plan document. I also got told to expand more on my blog (Simon saw this entire blog after I sorted out the problem and rewrote it) by adding more detailed information and screenshots or just images of my work such as my film poster and screenshots of my DVD menu so far. I also finished my animation for my DVD menu.

The last thing I was told to do that wasn't in my folder and have not done at all was a moodboard for my DVD menu where I make a moodboard based around DVD menu's. I am going to write up my initial aims - final idea, update my contingency plan and re print it, expand a bit on my blog and find images to use from google images or from screenshots of some of my DVDs for homework to be done by Tuesday. I will make the moodboard in class next Tuesday once I get some images to use over the weekend. I also don't have Photoshop at home.

Week 10 Wednesday November 17th 2010

Today I did some more work on my DVD menu and focused on the animation. I have almost figured out how to do it and I am learning more how to use it. Because of this I will need to ask for more help on exporting the animations i make in Photoshop into Encore.

Week 9 Friday November 12th 2010

This week, we have been creating our DVD menu pages in Adobe Photoshop CS3 and have then added them to Adobe Encore to link together. I found this enjoyable but there were a lot of problems. I found it hard to follow the process of adding the codecs but I asked for help and read the booklet numerous times and eventually got it, I added buttons and I got them working in Encore by linking them to other pages but the rollover effects didn't work. I tried everything but it was still not working, I asked for help but even Simon couldn't figure it out. Eventually, we realised that it was because of the blending options. So I removed the blending options and it worked but it wasn't the colour I wanted it. After doing a few more adjustments, it stopped working again and I don't know why. For now I'm going to work on the rest of the menu and save the rollover effects until last.

Week 8 Friday November 5th 2010

Today, I continued adding images into Adobe Photoshop CS3 and added text for the buttons that I would use in my DVD menu, for the main menu I have now added some animation of an iPod floating in the background from the left side of the screen to the right side of the screen. The image of the iPod I used was the same iPod I used in my film poster of The Invisible Pervert. I was actually the one who took that picture of that iPod and edited it out in Photoshop and I have mentioned this a few weeks ago in a previous blog post, I did not take any images from Google Images like I did for all the other images that I used in my film poster because that was an excercise. Because I took the photo of my iPod, that is original photography that I can still use in my DVD menu. My DVD menu is only allowed original photography and no images on the internet. I have not yet finished doing all of this and I will be doing it as homework to be done before next Tuesday.

Week 8 Tuesday November 2nd 2010

Today I uploaded my photos on to my computer and added them into Photoshop to use in my DVD menu. During my week off at half term I took some original photography with my camera. I uploaded them today and I have now added some text for buttons like "play", "scenes", "set up" and "extras". I also finished my proposal during half term and what I need to do now is to make these into buttons for when I add them into Adobe Encore. So far, I think that all of my work in my red folder for Simon & Harry is up to date.

Week 7 Wednesday October 20th 2010

Today, I started to do my proposal, I have currently not finished it yet but I am going to do it for homework. Today was the last day and this Friday is an inset day so we do not need to come in for that day and we also have half term next week so we do not return to college until Tuesday November 2nd. This will mean I have almost 2 weeks off and I can use that time to catch up on any outstanding work I have yet to complete. After going to break, we all got a tutorial by Harry to show us how to make animations on Adobe Photoshop CS3. I managed to make a fish and a snail race each other and just had this on a loop. I originally put an apple racing a snail but having a fish made more sense. It was strongly amusing to me and my peer.

Week 6 Friday October 15th 2010

Today I have been continuing doing the planning, sketches and my powerpoint presentation for my DVD menu. I scanned my sketches on to the computer by using a scanner and changed the settings to make it viewable and then I got it into Microsoft Powerpoint, I can now talk about the sketches I drew in my powerpoint when I present to the class my idea for my DVD menu.

Week 6 Wednesday October 12th 2010

Today, I continued to use Adobe Encore. I learned more about how to use the software and Harry was giving us some tutorials on how to do certain things, we got shown how to make the homepage of a DVD menu by using Adobe Photoshop CS3. We also had to get our note taking material out and list down all the things that should be in our red production folders right now. I also continued to do my "Research into final product" and I finished the planning bit where I had to do 6 sketches for my DVD menu.

Week 5 Wednesday October 6th 2010

Today, I spent the first two hours making my moodboard and printing it out, that is now complete. My moodboard was relevant to the type of genre for my film poster, a type of Comedy/Drama/Thriller. I now learned how to use Adobe Encore and mess around with it. Adobe Encore looks easier than I thought it was going to be and I have got an idea on what I am going to do for my DVD Menu, I just need to do my planning & sketches for my menu.

Week 4 Friday October 1st 2010

Today, I finished making my film poster for Harry and Simon, the film poster is "The Invisible Pervert". I came into College yesterday because I do English and after English was over, I went into Open Access to do some more work then. I stayed until 6pm because that was when my friend finished class. So I stayed in open access to do work for over 2 hours. I did some original photography for the picture of the iPod I took. I actually took a picture of it laying on the floor and I placed the headphones in a place where someone would hear it. I took the picture and when I got it in Adobe Photoshop CS3, I took out the background to make it look as if it's floating in the air being held by the invisible person (or should I say, The Invisible Pervert). Today, I completely finished the poster and now I have moved onto the part where I need to do research into the final product.

Week 4 Wednesday September 29th 2010

So far in the first hour in this class with Harry, we have been tested about the things we have learned in the last few weeks, we needed to write down 3 things that we need to write down in our blogs every week, 3 things that we have learned from the Adobe Photoshop tutorials we've done since last week, and 3 things that we needed to consider thinking about for our own film posters which would be about the iconography, colour & composition and the set up of the canvas. He timed us to write down/answer these questions for 15 minutes, I did ask for help with the iconography and what it means and colour and composition but it was still good to ask so I could have a clear understanding of these tasks.

For the rest of this lesson, I had to get started on making my poster for my movie idea. I got my images from google images but there are some which I will need that I could not find on the internet so for my homework that I'm setting myself, I will do some original photography at home where I will take a picture of my iPod with headphones plugged into them. I will place the headphones in a certain place and take the picture from a certain angle, when I take the picture, I will edit it in Adobe Photoshop CS3. The main thing I will need to do when I edit it is to take out the background. So far I am half way finished making my film poster. I am also coming into College tomorrow even though I have no media lessons because I'm retaking my GCSE English and I need to come in from 1:15 - 3:45, I will stay after 3:45 in open access where I can use photoshop to do my film poster. I may even come in earlier instead to get more done.

Week 3 Friday September 24th 2010

Today, I brought in the homework that I finished yesterday where I had to finish making my moodboard so I could scan it on the College scanners today and upload it into Photoshop. In photoshop, I had to annotate the moodboard to say the reasons as to why I put those images/text in there. I put them in because my idea was about a person who love music and magazines and finds out how to become invisible and uses his powers to steal things and scare people. I preffered doing my moodboard at home because here at college, there was not that much glue or magazines to go around but at home I had some magazines I could use and I also had glue at home. The one on top is what is looked like first, the one below it has the annotation I added.

Week 3 - Wednesday September 22nd 2010

Today, I did the film poster analysis on the computer so all I have got left to do now is to finish creating my moodboard which I will take home to finish. It will also be easier to do it at home because I have glue and lots of newspapers/magazines to use for my moodboard. I will have it completed by Friday for when I see Simon. And I also got a bit more experience with Photoshop.

Week 2 Wednesday 15th September

I have used Adobe Photoshop before because I did a media course last year which involved using Photoshop, I have since then known exactly how to use all the features on it.