Title - Date/Year - Country - Production Company
Terminator 2: Judgement Day - July 3rd 1991 - USA - Studio Canal
Back To The Future - July 3rd 1985 - USA - Universal Pictures
Planet of the Apes (1968) - April 3rd 1968 - USA - 20th Century Fox
Predator - June 12th 1987 - USA - 20th Century Fox
Aliens - July 18th 1986 - USA - 20th Century Fox
Superman II - April 19th 1981 - USA/UK - Warner Bros. Pictures
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure - February 17th 1989 - USA - Orion Pictures Corporation
Inception - July 16th - USA/UK - Warner Bros. Pictures
Blade Runner - June 25th 1982 - USA/Hong Kong - Warner Bros. Pictures
The Butterfly Effect - January 23rd 2004 - USA/Canada - New Line Cinema
Paul - February 14th 2011 - UK/USA - Universal Pictures
Total Recall (1990) - June 1st 1990 - USA - TriStrar Pictures
The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) - September 18th 1951 - USA - 20th Century Fox
The Time Machine (2002) - March 8th 2002 - USA - Warner Bros. Pictures
Avatar - December 17th 2009 - USA/UK - 20th Century Fox
Hot Tub Time Machine - March 26th 2010 - USA - Metro-Goldwym-Mayer
Men in Black - July 2nd 1997 - USA - Columbia Pictures
Independence Day - July 3rd 1996 - USA - 20th Century Fox
FAQ About Time Travel - April 24th 2009 - UK - BBC Films
Tron - July 9th 1982 - USA - Walt Disney Productions
The Matrix Reloaded - May 15th 2003 - USA/Australlia - Warner Bros. Productions
Thursday, 22 September 2011
Wednesday, 21 September 2011
Callum's Work - Unit 6: Critical Approaches to Media
Monday September 12th:
Today has been our first lesson with Callum. We were being told all about what we are going to learn about with Callum and what we will be covering in these lessons. This 2 hour lesson is the only lesson of the week where we have Callum. I took notes about what we will learn and the learning outcome is to understand how media producers define audience for product, understand how media producers create products for certain audiences.
Questions were brought up in the lesson to discuss such as "What is audience classification?" and "Which creative media producers may use this process?". The answer we all discussed in class was almost all kinds of media producers like film makers, TV shows (whether it's day time TV or prime time TV), magazines, websites such as google or clothes companies.
Another question was "What are the categories a media producer might use?" as in what kind of people like age (kids, teenagers, college students, adults, people over 65/retired), gender, sexual orientation (gay, straight or bi) and socio-economic groups.
The next we all discussed was "Why creative media producers may classify and categorise audiences?" this answer was simple; Because media producers will need to know WHO does or WILL like their product so it can be a success to sell. They don't want it to be a failed product and waste money. And because of other obvious reasons like consumer breakdown and to determine WHO is the audience.
The final question was "What different research methods may be used to classify audiences for creative media products?" which were things like questionairres, ask in the street, primary, secondary, quantative & qualitative research, focus groups, sample viewings etc.
Monday September 19th:
Today in Callum's lesson, we've been "defining audiences". The aims of today were to discuss different types of audience research and to analyse companies that conduct audience research. I learnt a lot today and had a recap on last weeks lesson and went into further detail on some stuff we did last week. Such as "Why is it important for media producers to define audiences?"
What I've learned from this question is that so they know who to aim their product at like age, gender, occupation, socio-economic groups, sexual orientation. Other reasons like they don't want to waste money on a failed product, so they can DETERMINE WHO is the AUDIENCE. Also things like so they can make changes or improvements for certain areas of their products. And consumer breakdown -who's buying, change their marketing strategies, they need to know who the audience is and their likes/dislikes. They want their product to be successful and profitable, therefore they must ensure that they are targeting their product to the right audience and that they will respond in the desired way.
Other questions we answered: What methods do media producers use to help define audiences? The answer was primary, secondary, quantative & qualitative research. And a market research website I first heard about today which is called ipsos.com. We also went into further detail on the definitions of "Quantitative research" and "Qualitative Research".
Quantitative research is research based on measurable facts and information that can be counted, producing numerical data.
Qualitative research is research based on opinions, attitudes and preferences rather than facts and figures e.g. Focus groups, interviews, questionairres, open questions, market research.
Then we learnt about RAJAR and BARB and spent the remainder of the lesson doing the tasks given which involve writing about BARB and RAJAR and then had to do a questionnaire.
Monday September 26th:
Today I have been learning about the codes and conventions of sitcoms. I also learnt about the differences between a traditional and a non-traditional sitcom. I learnt about codes and conventions of sitcoms like limited characters, limited sets, catchy theme tune (that often introduces all of the characters), canned laughter, catchphrases, linear narrative that uses equilibrium, disruption and then returns to equilibrium, and the use of small social groups like family, friends and work. Now our task is to watch a traditional and a non-traditional sitcom and write about them, giving reviews on both of them and how the codes and conventions are similar or different. I will be looking at The IT Crowd - a traditional sitcom and The Inbetweeners - a non-traditional sitcom. Callum has noted that we can only do British sitcoms and that if we are going to write about Inbetweeners then we cannot mention anything about The Inbetweeners Movie because we are supposed to be looking at TV sitcoms and the movie is falling out of the category.
Monday October 10th:
Today I have been looking at "The Effects of Media" and have been discussing in class and the effect of exposure to explicit content. We discussed theories that relate to the effects of explicit content on audiences and had debates about censorship. We looked up news stories that had been blamed on the media such as the 1999 Columbine High School Massacre which was blamed on violent video games and Marilyn Manson. There were many more stories that we looked at such as the 1976 film "Taxi Driver" starring Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster as a 13 year old prostitute which made a fan called John Hinckley Jr attempt to assassinate the then-president of the United States, Ronald Reagen. Also looked at "A Clockwork Orange" made by Stanley Kubrick. This film made people commit murders in the same way as they do in the plot to the film and even wearing the same costumes as the characters in the film, Kubrick did not allow this film to be released in the UK and was banned in the UK until 2000 when it was unbanned the year after he died. This then made us look at other films that have been banned and censorship.
Monday October 17th:
Today in Callum's lesson, we have gotten feedback on the work we submitted 2 weeks ago. None of it has been graded, there's just a "status" on what has and hasn't been submitted. It will say either "submitted", "not submitted" or "submitted, missing folder". Callum showed us what we missed out and gave us improvement plans for what to do when we resubmit this. We have 2 weeks today to resubmit this.
For the rest of the lesson, we looked at "Developing Responses to Media texts". We looked at "What textual analysis is. Textual analysis is when you deconstruct and critically analyse key elements of a media text.
Analysing the meaning of a test
Analysing Media texts
Analysing for a text can be persuasive
Critical
I learnt today that genre's and generic conventions are important for audiences because audiences gain pleasure from codes and conventions by having their expectations of media products fulfilled and by being able to predict what will happen.
We then looked at reality TV show's and learned about the types of codes and conventions they have, such as:
Stereotypes - Bimbo's in Towie and The Only Way Is Essex
People from different backgrounds
Single community - real locations
Obstacles
Real life situations
Eddentric - people who act up - every day people
Drama
Monday October 31st:
Today we were learning about "Representations in the media" and the definition of "Representation". It is:
The way media producers portray characters in fictional works
Artificial versions of the reality we percieve around is
It is important to note that in the media representations are composed and constructed
Representations are mediated
Representations are composed of signs and symbols that are easily understood by audiences
Representations help audiences make sense of the media they are consuming
With media representations, audiences perceptions of the world around us would be very limited. Media representations mediate our view of the world by providing audiences with information.
Who: Audience
Why: To create ideological purpose in a way that furthers producers arguments
In the remainder of the lesson, we learned about "stereotyping". Today I learnt that the main cause of stereotypes is because of the media like movies, TV shows, the news etc. Today I was learning about how stereotypes worked, they're widely circulated ideas and assumptions about a particular group of people. They involve categorising groups based on qualities such as age, gender, code of dress etc. and evaluating the group being stereotyped. They emphasise easily grasped ideas and features of certain cultures/social groups.
My homework is to identify representations and stereotypes being used in whatever reality TV show we looked at for last weeks homework. I looked at "Young, Dumb & Living Off Mum" and before we were set this homework, I noticed a few stereotypes such as a girl from Stockport who talks like a chav, it could give people the impression everyone from Stockport talks like that. And there was a gay character who was an even more perfect stereotype which I will write about in my homework where I will need to deconstruct and analyse how certain people are represented.
Monday November 7th:
Today I have
Monday November 14th:
Today is the final submission day for all of our work and the homework we were given a month ago to write an 800 word article about something that has been blamed on the media. I wrote my article about A Clockwork Orange which influenced people into murder the same way it was shown in the plot. And the other task (task 4) was to fill out a textual analysis table on a reality tv show and write an essay about the codes and conventions of it including stereotypes shown and how they are represented. I spent the lesson getting all this finally completed and ready for submission by the end of the lesson.
Today has been our first lesson with Callum. We were being told all about what we are going to learn about with Callum and what we will be covering in these lessons. This 2 hour lesson is the only lesson of the week where we have Callum. I took notes about what we will learn and the learning outcome is to understand how media producers define audience for product, understand how media producers create products for certain audiences.
Questions were brought up in the lesson to discuss such as "What is audience classification?" and "Which creative media producers may use this process?". The answer we all discussed in class was almost all kinds of media producers like film makers, TV shows (whether it's day time TV or prime time TV), magazines, websites such as google or clothes companies.
Another question was "What are the categories a media producer might use?" as in what kind of people like age (kids, teenagers, college students, adults, people over 65/retired), gender, sexual orientation (gay, straight or bi) and socio-economic groups.
The next we all discussed was "Why creative media producers may classify and categorise audiences?" this answer was simple; Because media producers will need to know WHO does or WILL like their product so it can be a success to sell. They don't want it to be a failed product and waste money. And because of other obvious reasons like consumer breakdown and to determine WHO is the audience.
The final question was "What different research methods may be used to classify audiences for creative media products?" which were things like questionairres, ask in the street, primary, secondary, quantative & qualitative research, focus groups, sample viewings etc.
Monday September 19th:
Today in Callum's lesson, we've been "defining audiences". The aims of today were to discuss different types of audience research and to analyse companies that conduct audience research. I learnt a lot today and had a recap on last weeks lesson and went into further detail on some stuff we did last week. Such as "Why is it important for media producers to define audiences?"
What I've learned from this question is that so they know who to aim their product at like age, gender, occupation, socio-economic groups, sexual orientation. Other reasons like they don't want to waste money on a failed product, so they can DETERMINE WHO is the AUDIENCE. Also things like so they can make changes or improvements for certain areas of their products. And consumer breakdown -who's buying, change their marketing strategies, they need to know who the audience is and their likes/dislikes. They want their product to be successful and profitable, therefore they must ensure that they are targeting their product to the right audience and that they will respond in the desired way.
Other questions we answered: What methods do media producers use to help define audiences? The answer was primary, secondary, quantative & qualitative research. And a market research website I first heard about today which is called ipsos.com. We also went into further detail on the definitions of "Quantitative research" and "Qualitative Research".
Quantitative research is research based on measurable facts and information that can be counted, producing numerical data.
Qualitative research is research based on opinions, attitudes and preferences rather than facts and figures e.g. Focus groups, interviews, questionairres, open questions, market research.
Then we learnt about RAJAR and BARB and spent the remainder of the lesson doing the tasks given which involve writing about BARB and RAJAR and then had to do a questionnaire.
Monday September 26th:
Today I have been learning about the codes and conventions of sitcoms. I also learnt about the differences between a traditional and a non-traditional sitcom. I learnt about codes and conventions of sitcoms like limited characters, limited sets, catchy theme tune (that often introduces all of the characters), canned laughter, catchphrases, linear narrative that uses equilibrium, disruption and then returns to equilibrium, and the use of small social groups like family, friends and work. Now our task is to watch a traditional and a non-traditional sitcom and write about them, giving reviews on both of them and how the codes and conventions are similar or different. I will be looking at The IT Crowd - a traditional sitcom and The Inbetweeners - a non-traditional sitcom. Callum has noted that we can only do British sitcoms and that if we are going to write about Inbetweeners then we cannot mention anything about The Inbetweeners Movie because we are supposed to be looking at TV sitcoms and the movie is falling out of the category.
Monday October 10th:
Today I have been looking at "The Effects of Media" and have been discussing in class and the effect of exposure to explicit content. We discussed theories that relate to the effects of explicit content on audiences and had debates about censorship. We looked up news stories that had been blamed on the media such as the 1999 Columbine High School Massacre which was blamed on violent video games and Marilyn Manson. There were many more stories that we looked at such as the 1976 film "Taxi Driver" starring Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster as a 13 year old prostitute which made a fan called John Hinckley Jr attempt to assassinate the then-president of the United States, Ronald Reagen. Also looked at "A Clockwork Orange" made by Stanley Kubrick. This film made people commit murders in the same way as they do in the plot to the film and even wearing the same costumes as the characters in the film, Kubrick did not allow this film to be released in the UK and was banned in the UK until 2000 when it was unbanned the year after he died. This then made us look at other films that have been banned and censorship.
Monday October 17th:
Today in Callum's lesson, we have gotten feedback on the work we submitted 2 weeks ago. None of it has been graded, there's just a "status" on what has and hasn't been submitted. It will say either "submitted", "not submitted" or "submitted, missing folder". Callum showed us what we missed out and gave us improvement plans for what to do when we resubmit this. We have 2 weeks today to resubmit this.
For the rest of the lesson, we looked at "Developing Responses to Media texts". We looked at "What textual analysis is. Textual analysis is when you deconstruct and critically analyse key elements of a media text.
Analysing the meaning of a test
Analysing Media texts
Analysing for a text can be persuasive
Critical
I learnt today that genre's and generic conventions are important for audiences because audiences gain pleasure from codes and conventions by having their expectations of media products fulfilled and by being able to predict what will happen.
We then looked at reality TV show's and learned about the types of codes and conventions they have, such as:
Stereotypes - Bimbo's in Towie and The Only Way Is Essex
People from different backgrounds
Single community - real locations
Obstacles
Real life situations
Eddentric - people who act up - every day people
Drama
Monday October 31st:
Today we were learning about "Representations in the media" and the definition of "Representation". It is:
The way media producers portray characters in fictional works
Artificial versions of the reality we percieve around is
It is important to note that in the media representations are composed and constructed
Representations are mediated
Representations are composed of signs and symbols that are easily understood by audiences
Representations help audiences make sense of the media they are consuming
With media representations, audiences perceptions of the world around us would be very limited. Media representations mediate our view of the world by providing audiences with information.
Who: Audience
Why: To create ideological purpose in a way that furthers producers arguments
In the remainder of the lesson, we learned about "stereotyping". Today I learnt that the main cause of stereotypes is because of the media like movies, TV shows, the news etc. Today I was learning about how stereotypes worked, they're widely circulated ideas and assumptions about a particular group of people. They involve categorising groups based on qualities such as age, gender, code of dress etc. and evaluating the group being stereotyped. They emphasise easily grasped ideas and features of certain cultures/social groups.
My homework is to identify representations and stereotypes being used in whatever reality TV show we looked at for last weeks homework. I looked at "Young, Dumb & Living Off Mum" and before we were set this homework, I noticed a few stereotypes such as a girl from Stockport who talks like a chav, it could give people the impression everyone from Stockport talks like that. And there was a gay character who was an even more perfect stereotype which I will write about in my homework where I will need to deconstruct and analyse how certain people are represented.
Monday November 7th:
Today I have
Monday November 14th:
Today is the final submission day for all of our work and the homework we were given a month ago to write an 800 word article about something that has been blamed on the media. I wrote my article about A Clockwork Orange which influenced people into murder the same way it was shown in the plot. And the other task (task 4) was to fill out a textual analysis table on a reality tv show and write an essay about the codes and conventions of it including stereotypes shown and how they are represented. I spent the lesson getting all this finally completed and ready for submission by the end of the lesson.
Simon's work - Unit 34: 2D Animation
Monday September 12th:
Today I have had a lesson with Simon and about how we are going to use Adobe Flash. We will soon learn some techniques and that some will be harder than others. I was also told we had to be able to handle the basic techniques in Flash. In a few weeks I will be producing a 2D animation with a soundtrack. What I will learn is to understand and develop the techniques of 2D animation. I will be able to devise a 2D animation with a soundtrack, generate ideas, understand audience, planning, mind maps, storyboards and sketches. Be able to evaluate audience and response to feedback.
As this is my first day back to college, we have yet to officially enrol on to the course. We will be enrolling later this week. And as we need to start doing research on the history of animation right now but we do not have our computer login’s, so we have all gone to spend the majority of the lesson in the library to do research on the history of animation in there and take notes etc.
I think that it is good that we are doing this because these days, we rely too much on the internet and when we finish our essays with a bibliography at the end, they will all be internet links. And I have found some very useful information in the library from a book called “Introduction to Film Studies: Fourth Edition” by Bill Nichols and Jill Nelmes. ISBN 978-0-415-40928-5.
Friday September 16th:
This day of the week is when we have a 1 hour lesson with Simon. As we don't enrol until later this afternoon during Harry's lesson, we spent the majority of the lesson in the library again. I found even more useful information which I wrote down in my notepad from the book I was looking at on Monday, “Introduction to Film Studies: Fourth Edition”. Then I found another useful book called "Film Art: An Introduction-Eighth Edition" by David Bordwell and Kirstin Thompson. However, there was no more time and we had to return to class so I made a note in my notepad of the name of the book and I decided that after I enrol this afternoon, I will take the book out of the library for the weekend (as I have not enrolled yet, I cannot take books out of the library either.
Monday September 19th:
Today had been the first lesson with Simon where we can now use the computers now we have our logins. So with all the notes that I have been writing in my notepad, I can now type it in on Microsoft Word. The task is to write about the history of animation in chronological order. While I typed it all up, I expanded on my notes by finding out additional information on the internet and pictures of animation and inventions such as the praxinoscope, the zoetrope and the phenakistoscope. This is my bibliography so far:
Friday September 23rd:
Today we have been told about doing a skills journal and have taken notes about Adobe Flash, the program we will be using to make our 60 second animations. Notes such as FPS which stands for Frames Per Second and we were recommended to do 25 frames per second, crossheads for the animation, F6 = end frame/new key frame, the enter button on the keyboard is a quicker way to press play. Also learnt about colour codes like Black being FFFFFF and White being 000000. Also noted about the library which like Photoshop is the files/images that are stored, we were also shown how to drag and duplicate objects.
Friday September 30th:
Today we had a tutorial on Adobe Flash on how to make a ball move from one side of the screen to the other. It reminded me of last year when I had a tutorial in Adobe Photoshop on how to make animation on that.
Friday October 7th:
Today was another lesson witth a tutorial on Adobe Flash. This lesson we learnt about importing audio and video into Flash and that for audio, only mp3 and wma files work and for video, only avi and mov files work. These are skills that I am certainly going to use when I make my 60 second animation because of what idea I have wrote about in my justification document and done on my storyboard.
Monday October 10th:
Today I have started on making my production schedule for the 2D animation project. Then I went to improve/expand on my skills audit.
Friday October 14th:
Today I have been looking at animation videos on YouTube for the task where I need to look at three animation analysis aimed at my audience. I will look at The Simpsons, Simon's cat and Futurama.
Monday October 17th:
Today at the start of the lesson I got feedback for the work I submitted a few weeks ago on the history of animation and the planning/pre-production for making my 60 second animation. . My action points in my improvement plan is to expand and improve a lot more on my mind map and Simon suggested that I could make it on the computer with Photoshop or Powerpoint or Word etc. and possibly do it in A3. My other action point is to reformat the bibliography section in my essay about the history of animation. I got a hand out about how to do it and before this I never realised that I had to write bibliography links and referrences in that way. I just simply copied and pasted the link to the website or (for books) write down the name of the book, the author and the ISBN number. So that's something new and important I have learnt today; how to refference in a bibliography. Simon also suggested that I write in the "I need help with...." section of the improvement plan "Lighting effect in Adobe Flash" for the idea I am doing.
I have been continuing to look at animation that is aimed at my audience, I am now writing about the "Simon's cat" short animated series on YouTube, The Simpsons and the "THINK Road Safety" adverts with the singing hedgehogs. I asked Simon for suggestions and he mentioned the "Charlie says..." adverts which were around in the 70's and are the equivalent to the Hedgehog Road safety adverts. Instead of doing "Charlie says" I found the hedgehog road safety adverts and I'm going to write about them. I am not going to write about Futurama now. Just The Simpsons, Simon's Cat and the Hedgehog Stop think go adverts.
My homework that I am setting myself over half term is to complete this and do a detailed storyboard for my idea. That way, when I come back to college (Monday October 31st) I can start straight away in Adobe Flash on my animation as the deadline is Monday December 5th and I want to get it done by Monday November 28th so I can use the last week of this project (monday November 28th - Monday December 5th) to do sample viewings and my evaluation.
Monday October 31st:
Today I got feedback for how I should do my detailed storyboard and what is missing with my skills audit. For my skills audit, I need to add some more screenshots and a lot more detail, and when I write the detail I must write it to explain how everything works, as in if someone was to have a copy of my skills audit, they could follow the steps easily in doing things. Being told that, I know exactly how I will now word this as I write about it. I have been told that for my storyboard I need to
1. decide how to split the storyboard up
2. Drawing - either drawn hard copy or in Adobe Photoshop
3. Add colour - and/or annotate
4. FPS, flash transitions, masking and techniques
and 5. Identify how many particular key frames in the sequences - light switch sound effect.
Missing skills:
Rolling ball
Motion guides
Easing
How to group layers to folders
Timeline effects
Importing images
Masking
I spent the lesson doing my detailed storyboard, the teacher suggested the idea of making my storyboard using Adobe Photoshop or some other program to make it but I thought I'd be better off doing it hand drawn. I printed out a storyboard template but then I just thought to myself that I might as well do it in Adobe Photoshop because I am terrible at drawing so I feel that if I did do the detailed one hand drawn, It would just be a copy of the original storyboard. It'll also be much easier to edit and manipulate/change the size of the text and colours and content etc. My plan is to now get these done and printed, then I will add some annotation wherever it is needed so it is easy to follow and I am going to write the text below the images on the paper when it is printed and the duration of that shot.
Monday November 7th:
Today I brought in my detailed storyboard that I have been doing for the past week. I finished doing it on Adobe Photoshop. printed it out and I am now annotating it and writing detail on what is going on in the storyboard like the transitions, the colours, the images, the duration of each shot etc. I have started making the first shot in Adobe Flash.
Friday November 11th:
Today I made a beginning title sequence saying "A history of Animation by Danny Barry". It was suggested by the teacher that I make one. So I did. I also learnt a new skill I should put in my skills journal - that you need to use the "static text" option if you want your text to have a transparent background - which is now gonna be more than useful for half of this animation. After this I started to make the first slide. My background is now red curtains with three lights shining on the screen in the middle of the curtains like a theatre.
Monday November 14th:
Today I had finished with the first slide and had both the text and the image of the phenakistiscope turned into a transition of it entering. I made sure the duration was long enough and to make the effect of the lights switching off and back on - showing a new slide - I Copied the layer of the curtains in the theatre with the three lights at the bottom, I photoshopped it by removing the lights & making the screen black. Now I have added this layer into Flash, I will have this up for 10 FPS and then cut back to the next slide about the zoetrope. Now I need to add the sound effect of a light switch turning off & on but I will add the audio at the end.
Friday November 18th:
Today I have got up to 20 seconds into my animation so far. I am now 1 3rd into finishing it.
Monday November 21st:
Today I have been doing my aniumation and have got to 30 seconds of the animation and I am now half way there from finishing my animation.
Friday November 25th:
Today I have got up to 45 seconds of my animation - my target is to get this finished by the end of Monday and have the audio added.
Monday November 28th:
By the end of today's lesson I had finally got the animation up to 60 seconds long precisely. However I have not yet added the audio and I might rearrange the duration of some parts - make some bits longer and some bits shorter.
Friday December 2nd:
Today I have now officially finished with making my animation and I have added the sound to the video. The audio that I have used is the song "Rods and Cones" by Blue Man Group - the instrumental version of the song - and the sound effect of the light switch. I had to make seperate layers for the sound effect of the light switch and the music as it was complicated to have them on the same layer. Now that it is officially finished, I will save it as an mov file and upload it to YouTube. I will need to create an account to upload it and send it to my teacher. I also found a website called surveymonkey.com
where I shall make my questionnaire. I have been told by the teacher that the minimum number of people I can ask the questionnaire to are 6 people. These people must be my target audience - ages 14 - 16. I know enough people who are that age, they are mainly from my school and half of them are my friends brothers/sisters who I can ask the questions to. I will ask them over Facebook. Also as the deadline is getting closer and I need to write my sample viewing feedback and evaluation, I will have to start pestering these 14-16 year olds into viewing my animation and filling out the questionnaire as soon as possible. I can get the evaluation done on Monday. The deadline is 5pm.
Today had been the first lesson with Simon where we can now use the computers now we have our logins. So with all the notes that I have been writing in my notepad, I can now type it in on Microsoft Word. The task is to write about the history of animation in chronological order. While I typed it all up, I expanded on my notes by finding out additional information on the internet and pictures of animation and inventions such as the praxinoscope, the zoetrope and the phenakistoscope. This is my bibliography so far:
The Cinema Book Third Edition by Pam Cook ISBN 978-1-84457-193-2
Introduction to Film Studies 4th Edition by Bill Nichols and Jill Nelmes
ISBN 978-0-415-40928-5
Monda
Friday September 23rd:
Today we have been told about doing a skills journal and have taken notes about Adobe Flash, the program we will be using to make our 60 second animations. Notes such as FPS which stands for Frames Per Second and we were recommended to do 25 frames per second, crossheads for the animation, F6 = end frame/new key frame, the enter button on the keyboard is a quicker way to press play. Also learnt about colour codes like Black being FFFFFF and White being 000000. Also noted about the library which like Photoshop is the files/images that are stored, we were also shown how to drag and duplicate objects.
Friday September 30th:
Today we had a tutorial on Adobe Flash on how to make a ball move from one side of the screen to the other. It reminded me of last year when I had a tutorial in Adobe Photoshop on how to make animation on that.
Friday October 7th:
Today was another lesson witth a tutorial on Adobe Flash. This lesson we learnt about importing audio and video into Flash and that for audio, only mp3 and wma files work and for video, only avi and mov files work. These are skills that I am certainly going to use when I make my 60 second animation because of what idea I have wrote about in my justification document and done on my storyboard.
Monday October 10th:
Today I have started on making my production schedule for the 2D animation project. Then I went to improve/expand on my skills audit.
Friday October 14th:
Today I have been looking at animation videos on YouTube for the task where I need to look at three animation analysis aimed at my audience. I will look at The Simpsons, Simon's cat and Futurama.
Monday October 17th:
Today at the start of the lesson I got feedback for the work I submitted a few weeks ago on the history of animation and the planning/pre-production for making my 60 second animation. . My action points in my improvement plan is to expand and improve a lot more on my mind map and Simon suggested that I could make it on the computer with Photoshop or Powerpoint or Word etc. and possibly do it in A3. My other action point is to reformat the bibliography section in my essay about the history of animation. I got a hand out about how to do it and before this I never realised that I had to write bibliography links and referrences in that way. I just simply copied and pasted the link to the website or (for books) write down the name of the book, the author and the ISBN number. So that's something new and important I have learnt today; how to refference in a bibliography. Simon also suggested that I write in the "I need help with...." section of the improvement plan "Lighting effect in Adobe Flash" for the idea I am doing.
I have been continuing to look at animation that is aimed at my audience, I am now writing about the "Simon's cat" short animated series on YouTube, The Simpsons and the "THINK Road Safety" adverts with the singing hedgehogs. I asked Simon for suggestions and he mentioned the "Charlie says..." adverts which were around in the 70's and are the equivalent to the Hedgehog Road safety adverts. Instead of doing "Charlie says" I found the hedgehog road safety adverts and I'm going to write about them. I am not going to write about Futurama now. Just The Simpsons, Simon's Cat and the Hedgehog Stop think go adverts.
My homework that I am setting myself over half term is to complete this and do a detailed storyboard for my idea. That way, when I come back to college (Monday October 31st) I can start straight away in Adobe Flash on my animation as the deadline is Monday December 5th and I want to get it done by Monday November 28th so I can use the last week of this project (monday November 28th - Monday December 5th) to do sample viewings and my evaluation.
Monday October 31st:
Today I got feedback for how I should do my detailed storyboard and what is missing with my skills audit. For my skills audit, I need to add some more screenshots and a lot more detail, and when I write the detail I must write it to explain how everything works, as in if someone was to have a copy of my skills audit, they could follow the steps easily in doing things. Being told that, I know exactly how I will now word this as I write about it. I have been told that for my storyboard I need to
1. decide how to split the storyboard up
2. Drawing - either drawn hard copy or in Adobe Photoshop
3. Add colour - and/or annotate
4. FPS, flash transitions, masking and techniques
and 5. Identify how many particular key frames in the sequences - light switch sound effect.
Missing skills:
Rolling ball
Motion guides
Easing
How to group layers to folders
Timeline effects
Importing images
Masking
I spent the lesson doing my detailed storyboard, the teacher suggested the idea of making my storyboard using Adobe Photoshop or some other program to make it but I thought I'd be better off doing it hand drawn. I printed out a storyboard template but then I just thought to myself that I might as well do it in Adobe Photoshop because I am terrible at drawing so I feel that if I did do the detailed one hand drawn, It would just be a copy of the original storyboard. It'll also be much easier to edit and manipulate/change the size of the text and colours and content etc. My plan is to now get these done and printed, then I will add some annotation wherever it is needed so it is easy to follow and I am going to write the text below the images on the paper when it is printed and the duration of that shot.
Monday November 7th:
Today I brought in my detailed storyboard that I have been doing for the past week. I finished doing it on Adobe Photoshop. printed it out and I am now annotating it and writing detail on what is going on in the storyboard like the transitions, the colours, the images, the duration of each shot etc. I have started making the first shot in Adobe Flash.
Friday November 11th:
Today I made a beginning title sequence saying "A history of Animation by Danny Barry". It was suggested by the teacher that I make one. So I did. I also learnt a new skill I should put in my skills journal - that you need to use the "static text" option if you want your text to have a transparent background - which is now gonna be more than useful for half of this animation. After this I started to make the first slide. My background is now red curtains with three lights shining on the screen in the middle of the curtains like a theatre.
Monday November 14th:
Today I had finished with the first slide and had both the text and the image of the phenakistiscope turned into a transition of it entering. I made sure the duration was long enough and to make the effect of the lights switching off and back on - showing a new slide - I Copied the layer of the curtains in the theatre with the three lights at the bottom, I photoshopped it by removing the lights & making the screen black. Now I have added this layer into Flash, I will have this up for 10 FPS and then cut back to the next slide about the zoetrope. Now I need to add the sound effect of a light switch turning off & on but I will add the audio at the end.
Friday November 18th:
Today I have got up to 20 seconds into my animation so far. I am now 1 3rd into finishing it.
Monday November 21st:
Today I have been doing my aniumation and have got to 30 seconds of the animation and I am now half way there from finishing my animation.
Friday November 25th:
Today I have got up to 45 seconds of my animation - my target is to get this finished by the end of Monday and have the audio added.
Monday November 28th:
By the end of today's lesson I had finally got the animation up to 60 seconds long precisely. However I have not yet added the audio and I might rearrange the duration of some parts - make some bits longer and some bits shorter.
Friday December 2nd:
Today I have now officially finished with making my animation and I have added the sound to the video. The audio that I have used is the song "Rods and Cones" by Blue Man Group - the instrumental version of the song - and the sound effect of the light switch. I had to make seperate layers for the sound effect of the light switch and the music as it was complicated to have them on the same layer. Now that it is officially finished, I will save it as an mov file and upload it to YouTube. I will need to create an account to upload it and send it to my teacher. I also found a website called surveymonkey.com
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