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The future cinema project was the first project of the year. In many ways I tried to look at is as a chance to try my secondary passion which was film making. My working partner designed a system that allowed users to talk about the content as it was stream, therefore the video needed to be different every time. Ultimately I felt it was important to do some form of crime drama as this was much more expansive when it came to doing multiple endings and turnings as well as ‘what-if’ scenarios. Realising that many students and tried and failed at this genre before I did my best to research how forensic groups work which was an integral part of the work. Costume and prop acquisition was paramount to a good production and thus a large amount of time was invested into it. This was an arduous process but it made me sure that this kind of research was hugely important to end result down the line. However, at the start of the project we were warned that a major issue from previous iterations of this project was that there was no clear divide between who did what. I unfortunately took this to the extreme and made sure there was a clear divide between my work and my co-workers. This meant that the content didn’t really sync well with his idea which set our marks back and lessened the impact of the project. What I learned from this was that its important to make sure there is synergy with both sides of the work and on top of that, let the blog define how the work was divided and instead focus on the production value of the project. I also learned that I still cant rule out working in a film environment rather than video games.

The performance video project was a very difficult learning curve for me. We had originally intended to do exactly that, create a performance video based on a musical interface for people to enjoy. We tried to make sure we looked at as many avenues of possibility and in the end we went with an instillation piece. I choose this path because I had yet to explore this type of work and thus it would not only be prudent but an experiment to see how I faired in the more physical side of building. Went built upon a childes’ ‘entertainment theatre’ which they could interact with, an could even tell stories. My role as build and set designer saw me building the final model to present, which in turned became a futile effort as my apparent lack of building expertise made a less than brilliant end result. It was not the bad decision in role allocation that was a downfall on this project but choices we made in the design. We tried to be experimental, educational, original and creative at the same time, which in the end resulted in our project not really following any kind of real direction or purpose. We needed to have a clear idea of what we wanted to achieve and we didn’t, which was the real reason we didn’t do as well as we’d hoped. Therefore on the following project I tried to have a much clearer idea from the start and to develop it rather than continually change it throughout.

Our research essay for this year was different from the other projects in that felt few mistakes were made. I attempted to approach this project as academically as possible, trying to take all advice under thought. I had originally planned a piece on visual effects and narrative but I felt it was better to save for a dissertation next year where more detail could be achieved. I thought it was important to stick with the case study first and then develop and idea from that. For me, I needed to focus on narrative regardless of what I did as its what is integral to a lot of my work. Once I had my theory I planned out how I would structure my essay as well as time planning so I could get it done well in advance of the deadline so as to correct any mistakes I may have made. This project showed me the benefits of thinking much more academically, at the very least it gave me a stronger base of knowledge of narrative structure but more than that it forced me to watch how I managed my work load and planned over time. Which was one of the contributing factors to what I believe was a successful professional project.

It was during my professional project around midway through, that I hit a realisation. I was concrete in my wish to work in a 3d environment whether it was film of video games, but at the current state my work was nowhere near the level necessary to get a job in the area I wanted. To rectify this, I have planned to work through as many tutorials as I can over the summer so as to develop my skill to a necessary level. In addition to this I hope to gain some work experience within a visual effects art department such as Eon or at “The mill”. The idea will be to create a visually stunning and diverse portfolio, some still renders of different environments and obviously what I manage to build during the third year. From the perspective of a prospective interview, I seemed to come out reasonably well. The only thing I really need to work on is my confidence in my skills and my portfolio. What I have is good, I just need to be at a level where I can portray this quality in a professional manner.

The professional project was obviously the main part of our second year, designed for us to showcase our respective skills to clients, build a good relationship with prospective employees and also build upon good work ethics. Our end result in many ways exemplifies these goals. Learning upon previous mistakes, the first action after acquiring a client was to sit down and carefully plan out how we would manage our time. Leaving good amounts of room for contingency was a good idea, as this allowed us to take on further projects mid way through. We learnt that a strong base of communication was vital to keeping the client happy not only by updating him often but also making sure any changes we did have to make he was aware of and acceptable. We encountered issues within projects including a cancelling of the first project. This type of freelance problem also reinforced my need to work within a larger company, with a much more structured and rigid work environment with greater job security. The fact that all of the work was heavily based in 3d design made sure that this was the type of work I wanted to do later on in life and whilst my skill level wasn’t yet at a required level I am determined to work within this industry. Finally this project taught us to take pride in our work, and helped break down some of the confidence issues mentioned previously. Tutorials and student feedback is constructive and does help, however receiving compliments from someone who has hired you to do a job to exacting standards is a great boost and has spurred us on to take our animation and story making to the third year.

Overall this year has been successful at the very least in developing the way I work within projects. Its also managed to push me into making a decision as to where I want to be heading at the end of university. It’s key to make the most of this summer, using it to act as a bridge into the third year, planning the major project and building upon it now so as to be able to create something high quality for the end result. Either by self tuition or work placement I intend to make myself a venerable 3D artist so that my future productions are something I can be proud to display and are also an attraction to potential employers. In closing it is by the planning and good communication that a project is built upon, the skills that are needed to create such a piece should come naturally.

Name: Felix Wright

Course: Digital Media Production Level: 5

Unit: Professional Project

Reference number: IMD513

Credit points: 45

Study hours: 450

Tutor(s): Liam Birtles, Phil Beards

Synopsis of study

My intended project is to help develop a 3-Dimensional system for a client that can be used to help design a lighting rig for different events, gigs and performances. In this specific project it will be the Armenian Theatre and a selection of performances from around 60 different artists. My part in this project will equate to building around 20-25 of these performances.  I intend to begin with building the theatre itself in Maya, using designs and schematics to make sure its to scale. In keeping it to scale, I can make sure that the lighting designs will be shown and displayed as close to the real life result as thus help visualize the ideas. I will use the best of my abilities to also include as much detail as possible for the same reasons as keeping it in scale. This will include indents in columns, window panes with reflective glass and if possible any statues that are part of the structure. I will also try to develop a much better understanding of texturing as the stonework and the lightings effect on it will be integral to what the end client will want to see. We have also been tasked with replicating the main building of AUCB and creating a new lighting display for it. This will include a need to show an aptitude in particle systems, scale moddelling and lighting. For me this is the key project to this year, as it will allow me to involve myself in the type of work environment that I would want to experience after my degree. The work environment is very similar to what would be expected of me when I would start in 3D design/modeling. The benefit of this project is that many of the difficulties of management are not applicable to what I will be tasked with. Whilst I would enjoy the prospect of attempting project management it does allow me more time to develop my 3D skills, something I feel is more important at this stage of my learning. My biggest issue in this project is going to be keeping all of the end video’s to the same quality, although the actual production will vary depending on what each client wants. Using the same methods, and sticking to similar steps to use on the lighting effects will help prevent this problem from being as much as an issue as well as making sure I allocate the right amount of time for each production.

Aims 

A1 To develop my creativity and my knowledge and understanding of professional practice.
A2 To develop and produce my professional standard of creative work in response to a ‘live’ or simulated brief.
A3 To prepare myself for employment, freelance work or further study.
A4 To develop my understanding of costing and invoicing in preparation for business.
A5 To encourage students to see critical reflection as a key element of creative thinking and practice.

Learning outcomes:

LO1 Demonstrate a professional standard of creativity and practical ability, including:

• Work that is technically comparable to that made within a specified genre.

• Work that shows an awareness of contemporary trends, styles and subject matter, within commercial contexts.

• Work that shows a high degree of creativity and aesthetic judgement.

LO2 Respond appropriately to the demands of a professional/self initiated brief, including:

• Appropriate creative outcomes to industry/work related briefs.

LO3 Demonstrate readiness for employment, freelance work or further study with confidence in the level of your creative, practical and professional knowledge and skills.
LO4 Demonstrate understanding of relevant costing and invoicing procedures, including :

• The various costing and pricing scales and structures within relevant commercial contexts.

• Timescales for payment.

• Legal requirements, copyright and syndication rights.

• VAT, National Insurance etc.

LO5 Reflect critically upon work and to use this as a springboard for the further development of ideas and creative practice.

Assessment Requirements

Body of professional creative work as identified in a learning agreement 100%

Assessment Criteria

Evidence of knowledge of concepts and contexts (a) – Project work that shows creative maturity and direction within a commercial context (LO1,LO2)
Evidence of understanding through research and analysis. (c) – Extensive research, and the application of it, used for the underpinning and final conclusion of project work (LO1,LO2,LO4)
Evidence of realisation through presentation (f)- Work is placed within a commercial context and appropriate methods of presentation used. (LO3)
Evidence of understanding through critical evaluation and reflection (e) – The objectives of the research have clearly been identified and used to inform project work. (LO5)
Evidence of realisation through technical application and skills (g) – A synthesis of creativity and professionalism is demonstrated in the conclusion of the project work (LO1)

Transferable skills

N/A

Action plan/time plan

1. Two create at least two bodies of work by the deadline
2. To manage the production within an appropriate time frame built in the form of a gant chart.

Our initial meetings with our client Mark Cunniffe, were at first a reasonably light amount of work. After showing him short clips of what we could do for him, we increased his confidence in us which meant we were given not only more responsibility but more work. The key with this was to that we were confident with our software platform whilst at the same time not over stating our abilities. We had summarised that these were real projects and that failing to complete them to the clients satisfaction would not only mean no payment (realistically) but would also ruin our reputation by word of mouth. We began our partnership with Mark by designing a 3D replica of the Yerevan Theatre, which he intended us to light for a series of concerts later this year. After initial successes we were asked to work on a project closer to home, creating a new lighting display for the main building at AUCB. In comparison to 3D work we had done before we had to get as close to the actual Theatre as we could which was extremely challenging as we had very little reference material to hand. We used a scaling system by finding out exactly how tall one column was and from that we could reverse engineer the other measurements. Ultimately, due to an increasing unstable situation in the middle east the concert has been put on hold indefinitely and thus our project was halted at a relatively early stage. This taught us several key points to remember whilst working with a client; that getting contracts stating that we would be paid for our work up until that point was vital as well as keeping an eye on any news that may affect work based overseas. This hitch in the project very much made us aware of the problems with freelancing and this resolved us to make sure that on our other jobs on this professional project we have a greater understanding of the risks and occurrences involved.

Therefore, when we began work on the AUCB project we were much more cautious with our design. We used the scale drawing the original architect had used as well as repeated trips to the actual building so as to get reference photo’s and detail shots of areas such as doors and windows. This early base of research allowed us to create a basic model much quicker than on the theatre production which showed us that a small allocation of time towards research and where appropriate on hands “experience” so to speak. It also came to be of even great use, as we were asked to provide basic backgrounds of the surrounding buildings for effect as well as use them as reference material for lighting. Thus a few hours of our time taking reference shots was in lieu of making repeated trips back to university to get further details.

A key part of the projects was a successfully managed system that allowed us to focus on the work whilst simultaneously making sure we weren’t over budget or behind schedule. The project management fell mainly to me. I learnt to use a gant chart to careful plan how we would allocate our time accordingly on both projects, including a small ‘contingency’ gap in case we needed more time in a specific area. Making sure that we had this measure of preparation was extremely useful as it meant we could follow our own strict schedule but also keep the client happy by continually updating them on progress. It was from this that I could design our budget that we were able to keep to throughout. Through designing the budget, I realised that this pre-planning would be vital were I to find myself in a freelancing situation as not being aware of certain expenditures and overheads could potentially destroy a small business cash flow which operates drastically differently to a larger organisation.

Around 8 weeks into this professional project, we were approached by a friend of ours to do some minor compositing on his FMP. The job was to create an automated turret based upon a US system, to be placed in a scene in the film. We used reference material to build and the scale the device properly. The main problem with this smaller project was acquiring the footage we needed to use, which was down to a lack of communication with the client. We found out that the issue was that we were essentially being sub contracted to do the work and thus had to wait in a chain to be requisitioned anything. This taught us a valuable lesson in being aware of when we are subcontracted instead of being hired directly, and that we needed to add additional time to our scheduling as we may not be a priority in the overall production.

What I felt was most beneficial was the liaising between us and Mark. At the start of this project my confidence with people within a work environment was relatively low, however needing to ask important questions and make key decisions sometimes without a clients direction became a vital part of the project. It also meant I had to be confident in the decisions made in case I needed to justify them to the client. This also encouraged me to evidence all the changes and reasons for said changes very carefully so as (at least in a professional environment) avoid any legal problems that could arise.

In conclusion this project has certainly helped me develop my outlook on how to handle projects from now on. This essentially means that I have tried to keep better documentation throughout this project not only for my piers and the client themselves but now I realise for future projects I might be involved in that require a similar skill-set. I feel that we have achieved our goal of expanding not only our skill-set but our potential work base as Mark may now have more work for us in light of what he deems a very successful project. We hope to use our lessons learned to develop our work in the coming months.

]]> http://uberwright.wordpress.com/2011/05/04/professional-project-evaluation/feed/ 0 uberwright http://uberwright.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/final-performance/ http://uberwright.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/final-performance/#comments Tue, 18 Jan 2011 14:05:36 +0000 uberwright http://uberwright.wordpress.com/?p=143 ]]> Attached is the video of our final piece in action. In the end, we have agreed that we want to show this as a child’s experiance. In a sense bringing the game world into reality. There is potential to even develop it into some form of a board game which would certainly solidify what we wanted to achieve.

When we were first given this brief on Tuesday, I had a lot of first thoughts. Firstly, this project would one way or another pose a definite challenge for me as my knowledge of musical theory and instruments is very basic. However I also realised the experimental nature of this project and the fun that could be had with it. We were shown a good few examples of the different approaches we could take. There were the obvious ones of building your own instruments and how the basics could help us build our own concept. Also there was using the environment your in to create music, something closer to Stomp perhaps. Also the visual elements (more towards the interactive media side) and how experimenting with this changed the music you were listening to. So I had to turn to my first concepts. I had figured that it was a better route to design something that was simple to build/create but could be put together to be something complex and interesting. There are a lot of solo artists and bands that do this now but the group im going to showcase are only two and they use a wide range of music in all their pieces.

This not only covers what I first came up with but it also looks into the next idea/concept. Someone remarked that certain members of the class would have a major advantage in this project because of their musical background. However upon looking at this I realised that if people who didn’t know how to play a musical instrument could play just one note at a time which should be easy enough. You could have a whole orchestra done by a single person. Although this would be something a little too far from what I could achieve within the time limit, something smaller such as just one tune would still be an interesting piece but also a challenge to make. The hardest part in all of this is justifying it to the brief and making sure what I’m doing is either creating a new UI (user interface) or a performance video. I may actually go back to look at my research from the Viral Video project as a lot of the idea’s that were coming out of the classroom originate from there. The example below shows a really nice way of doing music, and also the idea of sharing music with others (performance) and how their actions and who meets who moves what music is played (UI).

This next example is something that really interests me. The key thing to note is that there are no speakers involved, it is just the sound that the coils are producing. From the description I can see that is actually is something we could produce in the time frame. The more difficult part in doing a project like this would be the vast amounts of health and safety we would need (and in this case should) go through. But on the positive side, this idea would fit the brief very nicely, would be a real challenge to work on but ultimately produce something worthwhile.

Tomorrow we split into our groups and I may end up looking at either altering my idea or working on someone else’s. This isn’t too much of a problem as I’ve said before this is much more about experimentation and enjoying the project rather than attempting to create a good project (although this is obviously still important). I’ll update tomorrow as by then not only will I have a group but a good ground to begin work with.

Group start:

So I’ve now been worked into a group (or duo) and we have a bass idea to work from. Using music peripherals from the Guitar Hero series, we want to be able to control music in a less conventional sense. Our original idea is to have the theme from super Mario playing and the guitar from example changing how the music is played so its starts of as 8 bit style music but then changes to piano, or drums even vocals. This appeals to the brief and it also allows for a definitive split in the group. One side works on the programming on the instruments/music players whilst the other sets to work on creating the music to go on the system. If we pursue this idea, I will follow the route of music creation but may experiment with things such as Foley to create some of the backing tracks as well as looking into things like Blue Men Group. Mathematically it wouldn’t be too difficult to produce if each instrument played it in 4 different styles and there were 3 instruments that would be 12 reproductions of Super Mario. As long as I tried to make sure each set of 4 varied to some degree it certainly has the ability to be an interactive and fun piece. The only real issue I can see from moving with this idea, is that it may not cover the required 225 hours needed to justify the end result. The difficulty is that if I tried to do something more complex like actually composing the music myselfit could not work as I have nowhere near the necessary musical knowledge and experience to create something like that. That is not to say I will not explore this option, as I will experiment with music creation, it is more to point out the challenges we may face. We meet again on Monday to continue working on this project and it may be worth discussing the route this project is going and seeing if we might want to change our minds and follow a slightly different path. For example, we could stick with the Mario idea but go back to one of my previous examples with the tesla coils. As long as we could get a budget (and an engineer) to build the coils, it would not be a far stretch from an achievable goal. I will relate what happens on Monday and the next direction this project will take.

Concept change:

The discussions on Monday were interesting. Unfortunately my colleague was unable to attend due to illness so it mainly myself talking to our tutors. I related the possible new idea of a Tesla Coil system and they seemed positive but also a little reserved on the safety issues. However, I have studied what these entail and we should be able to do this project with minimal risk to all involved in the process. I’m having a long chat with my colleague tomorrow over the direction of the project at which we will have a definitive path we will follow. For the moment, I need to research the actual requirements in building a small one and see if it is still a viable option

Tesla research:

I have spent a while today looking at the process of building a coil and have unfortunately hit a small block. Whilst the actual skill necessary to build a tesla coil isn’t vast as it is only a reasonable knowledge of electrics, maths and construction it would be the materials where this project falls down on. The transformer alone required to power the coil even at the smallest level is around £200 and in addition to that there are certain key points in the build project where if due care is not taken you can fry the transformer thus requiring a new one. Even if we bought a cheap kit with everything in, it still comes to roughly £400 and it has to come from America which means shipping, waiting 4-5 weeks for it to arrive (the whole length of the project) and paying any customs charges it will most probably occur when it goes through the airport. This was one of my more favoured ideas for the project but with these issuesits almost completely unviable. I placed links below from certain sites all showing the build process as well as places that sell the kits necessary to build one (along with the costs!).

http://www.teslacoildesign.com/

http://www.amazing1.com/tesla.htm

http://www.easternvoltageresearch.com/

Group Discussion:

We finished having a discussion today about the progress of the project and the way we want to take it. We have obviously decided that as much as we want to do the tesla coil it is simply unachievable with the time and resources that we have. Therefore we have to look to a new way of doing this project. Going back to my previous mentioning we intend to look at multiple musical instruments playing at once but with only a few artists (for example, 15 instruments playing at the same time but with only 3 artists). This idea has a large amount of positives which are listed below.

-Simple to do quite a few videos in a short space of time

-Relatively easy to pull off but can look complex

-Good opportunities to experiment with different instruments

-Maintains a level of originality whilst building upon already solid idea

What we are doing at the moment is writing down a list of different instruments that we know we  can get hold of, we know people who can play them (or we can play them ourselves) and work with the chosen music of the super Mario theme. In keeping with this and to further the project interactivity we have a plan. Half of the musicians so to speak will be wearing red to symbolise Mario and half will be wearing green to show Luigi. The video’s will then be split into these two categories, and the viewer (at the current design phase) choses one from each to play. This means they can play around with plenty of combinations to create some interesting sounds. We also have plans to see if we  can do more than two videos being played, although this may need work to make sure they synch and also the controller being a peripheral from a music game such as Guitar Hero. Our group has already experimented with connecting such a controller to a computer to use as a UI and it works very well. Tomorrow we will be pitching our idea to our tutors so that we can get it green lit and we can begin producing. Even if we began filming and making next week, we would need to be doing roughly 3-4 video’s a week for the next 3 weeks to end up with plenty of musical snippets for someone to play with. Shown below are the combinations of already created concepts we wish to take elements of and in some ways combine. The channel 4 video, for its choosing of what words you want to see, and the B flat videos for their delivery system. The only issues we really need to worry about is synching in the videos. Whereas the Bflatvideos can be played at any time during the other video’s play through our Mario theme will all have to be started at the same time, an issue we will need to address at some point.

http://twist.channel4.com/words

http://inbflat.net/

Final reconstruction:

We have had another discussion today and have changed the direction of our project hopefully for the last time. When discussing it with our tutors there just wasn’t enough to fit to the brief for the guitar hero peripheral to work. There was enough interactivity but no originality. What we’ve now decided is to go back to RFID tags that was in the original concepts we had. Sticking to the Mario theme, we want to create something that not only is highly interactive but also adaptable as a piece of instillation. We’re not trying to create a musical instrument in the traditional sense but something closer to an interactive theatre production. A small stage will be built (around a metre long) to resemble a level from the super Mario game, and at varying intervals some of the props will contain RFID tag holders. A Mario figure will be taken through the stage and on the back of this model will be a RFID tag. As the model passes through the tags it triggers certain music, which in all likelihood will end up being the super Mario theme. We have yet to decide whether the different holders either trigger a different style of the super Mario theme such as a normal version, metal version, xylophone version etc. Or whether it triggers the music on or off or even raises or lowers the volume. Regardless of how this ends up, it is not part of MY development process. To help define both myself and Matt’s work separately we are clearly splitting the work evenly. I will be in charge of the physical work, ergo anything relating to the design or building of the theatre itself. This very much takes me out of my comfort zone and into a much more traditional design sense as I’ll have to draw up plans for the stage as well as thinking about transportation, cost and build time. I’ll plan to do the initial designs in Maya and then from there build up a scale. Once the scales achieved I can begin collecting materials and assembly. I can predict the hardest part of this project from my side will be the painting as I have never been the most skilled artist. However, I intend to get around this issue using two methods. Firstly I intend to make the scale of this quite reasonable, as this means a larger painting area and figures. Secondly I intend to stick to the original design of the level as much as possible. Because of limitations of graphics when the original was released the designs were relatively simple. Whilst this may appear slightly slack, I would prefer it to be seen as remaining faithful to the series. After painting it is the small process of designing and adding props to the stage so it looks like a 3D version of the game. I visualise that whilst most of this work will be relatively simple in practice some of it will be incredibly time consuming so I should have enough work to fit the brief. I’ll do some research posts next that look into this idea and offer some inspiration.

Research (Mario):

Below are 3 different examples of Mario levels that I’m going to use as inspiration in some of the design process. The first one is someone’s interpretation of the classic Mario game but at a 3D perception. The style and graphics remains much the same yet that extra level of detail adds a lot more immersion as people can see round the characters themselves. It also adds extra props and monsters at varying levels of the backdrop to further simulate a 3D environment. Whilst this is a nice addition, I would prefer to keep it closer to a single line of props that Mario would explore and traverse to keep it closer to the original concept. This also makes it easier to work with when using the RFID tags. However, any detail that could be lost by not putting in more 3D props I will balance out with slightly more detail in the backdrop of the production. One other thing that came out of this piece of research is how far do I want to replicate the Mario level. I’m certain I want to be faithful with things such as background, props and design but to what degree I should take it. Do we want the audience to think that this is a interactive stage from Mario, and that its close to playing the game or do we just want the atmosphere from the game and make the experience as much of our own as we can. The key example from this piece that I’m thinking of is the score board at the top of the photo. It may seem insignificant but it changes a lot of how our end product is portrayed if I put it in. At this stage I am preferable to leaving it out, and keeping the idea closer to a miniature theatre production. The second image is actually of a recent Mario game where it is possible to change the game into a 3D plane. This image is actually quite close to what I envision our end product to look similar to. As mentioned previously ours will most likely have a single line of props that Mario navigates to keep it simpler to perform with. I’m not sure whether or not to apply shadow in the final piece but it is certainly a possibility to consider. At this stage the main thing to focus on is what will be painted and what will be built. This is the main contributor to what will dictate the scale/size of the piece. It would be foolish to make it too small and then have trouble sources small enough parts to fit into it. On that note, to do with planning and constructing the props Im rather fortunate with the original material as a lot of the bricks, pipes and blocks can be sourced from a single outlet such as B&Q as they’ll have a wide base to work from. The last image is a diagram of the first level of Super Mario Brothers. This will be the platform for my design, and where I will get most of the design from. I don’t want a direct copy but as previously mentioned I want to remain faithful. Consequently I want to take the more recognisable elements of the level and franchise so that we get the biggest audience possible. The main elements that im seeing would make the greatest impact are; the blocks, the question mark brick, the Green pipe, the pyramid of bricks at the end of the stage and the flag to represent the end of the level. Im leaving out the enemies and creatures of the stage because as much as they make an impact to the real game I believe that when their either a prop or painted on their static nature will render them obsolete and possibly even tacky. The castle may be painted on at the end in front of the flag however it will depend on the rest of the painting process and whether I believe I will do the castle to a standard I am happy with and which will look good. Was I not working on my own I would also love to consider making an underground section that went through the pipe and also could involve more tags and the Mario underground theme (shown below as well). However I feel I must focus my time more on the main stage rather that produce something which doesn’t have the same finish. The only other thing that I may consider adding into the piece is the jumping sections/holes that Mario has to make. However this may make the build process exponentially more tricky for an extra bit of detail. The difficulty with the build process is that there is only room in the design process of the build before physical production begins, as experimentation whilst I’m building could result in huge delay if I decide something isn’t working and have to rebuild. Therefore I have to take extra care in the design process so that I’m happy to move onto production. The next post will be the final design of the piece, built in Maya. Hopefully I can then immediately start production and have a finished prototype as soon as possible.

Design Prototype:

Below is the prototype in Maya of the Mario stage I intend to build. It’s fairly simple but puts across the design I want to create. The amount of props within the model is what I intend for the final design as there’s enough to give detail but not too many to make it difficult to produce. The background is only for scale purposes, I’ll put a lot more detail into the final product. The scale of props isn’t spot on yet but it should be fairly proportional to what they’ll end up like. I quite like the design as it works exactly what we had originally envisioned provided I can replicate it in true form. I have a rough scale below provided that I can source the materials, its works out as a decent size as well and also allows for easy transportation.

Bottom and Back pane: 60x120cm

Side Panes: 60x60cm

I’ll now begin to build the prototype, which should take a couple of days. Hopefully there should be no problems there as I have the tools and plans to complete this design. I’ll document any problems with the build in my next post.

Build Process:

Shown below is a picture of the final prototype. It has the basecoat applied to it but no major detail added. The process was slow and a few issues arose. I struggled to cut the wood as I didn’t have the right tools for the job. Therefore there are a few issues with the finish around the edges. I should be able to sand them down slightly so as it doesn’t look horrible. I had originally intended to have the support columns outside the stage so as not to detract from the piece. However during the build it was apparent that the columns could not be put on the outside without having a small box on the inside to hold them. Even then it didn’t seem strong enough to keep itself together. I therefore decided to re-house the beams on the inside. The beams are small enough to not make much of a difference visually so it shouldn’t be too hard when painting them to make them as inconspicuous as possible. I’ll now begin to paint the prototype which will take a while to do. Again I’ll document how that goes and any issues that arise.

Painting Process:

Painting was an interesting challenge. The first major issue was that painting on top of the wood was difficult as the texture meant that several coats had to be applied. In addition the real issue I didn’t expect to encounter was timing. Painting was an incredible time consuming process. Each basic coat took on average an hour and a half, with more complex coats taking over 2 hours. The most difficult part of the painting was the brick pattern on the flow taking well over 6 hours. Whilst the pattern is a little off in certain areas the scale of the bricks is exactly what I was expecting. As I was doing the pattern on the bricks I experiment with outlines on the hills, which seemed to work well hence it was applied onto all of them. Despite a few rough edges on the end paint job I’m really pleased with the result. Now that this is done I’ll make sure that no more detail needs to be added to give it a professional look as possible. The last task I need to do is props of which the hardest part is acquisition. My next post will cover this.

Props and final dress:

As mentioned previously, it was difficult sourcing the parts. I ironically used the games design to get the parts as the pipe is from the plumbing section. I painted over it using a coat and then applied the right green to get it close to the pipe in the game, before adding highlights to make the pipe stand out. The next thing to do was the blocks. I decided that the 5 together would remain one block and I would paint it to make it look like several blocks. The pyramid scheme will all be single blocks and I will build and glue them together. From previous experience I know that painting would take some time so I made allowances for that. The final piece was the flag at the end, creating a base and pole was easy enough. I used an old method to make the flag closer to its in game counterpart but applied a washed down PVA coat and bent the flag. This gives it the effect of blowing in the wind, and adds that extra level of detail. I did however get the scale of the props a little off, and therefore their a little smaller than I expected. They’re not small enough for it to matter but it is a small mistake that I can rectify. Initially we had intended that the props would contain the RFID tag holders themselves but due to the small mistake of scaling them down a bit as well as the lack of holders to actually use, we will instead be placing the holders at the front of the stage for the user to play with. This slightly changes how we show our project at the end but it is still a very strong concept. Now instead of taking Mario through the stage as a user we are rethinking that we will take Mario through the stage and they will place the tags as he is going along. This brings us closer to something like an interactive theatre but it is still well within what the brief expects of us. I’m happy with the finish and will now begin writing up a conclusion of the project.

Conclusion:

This project has been an interesting development. We have had some interesting changes of plans through the design process which at the very least shows that we covered a wide range of bases and I believe thoroughly investigated each possibility. Our end result certainly fits to the brief and also gave me the opportunity to explore a new way of working as well as trying my hand at model making, set design and building.

The initial start was a little problematic as we weren’t sure which direction we wanted to take. Of our original ideas I know that none of them would have had the same amount of work in bar the tesla coil which was far too dangerous to build. The design process was fairly simple once we had decided upon our final idea and wanted a stage to be built it was a matter of applying the style to a template. I have tried to balance this project between designing something that I could definitely accomplish whilst at the same time creating a challenge and something I could experiment with. I believe I have achieved that goal as the end result contains plenty of variables that I altered and changed over the build. The reason I designed as I did was that any detail that couldn’t be built from the props such as the hills or clouds could be replicated into the backdrop instead and as long as enough detail was still on the stage then little would be lost. Apart from a few obstacles the build process was fairly problem free. The painting process was more time consuming than difficult but it interesting to be closer to the art side of our course and also allowed me to try my hand a set design. With the placement of the RFID tags and the music tie ins, the piece is now a finished project. We’re pleased in a certain way that it hasn’t turned out how we originally intended, but maintains enough of what we wanted that the experimentation adds to the final result.

Were we to make any changes to this project, it would have beneficial to have some extra help during some of the tasks. This is of no reflection to the diligence of my partner, it is a statement that had I an extra person to of helped with the menial tasks of the build it would have been done to a more refined finished. This makes no change to my view of the final piece, as im very pleased with what we have accomplished. Others opinions are also positive, and any changes that have been suggested we have taken aboard, looked at and implemented where we thought either necessary or useful. If we were to redo this project I would probably suggest that we try experimenting with either other games or possibly well known fables. As long as they were as recognisable as Mario then it would be a good route to try. The reason we choose Mario over others apart from his familiarity was that it brings back a sense of childhood which means that hopefully a wider range of people will get a similar experience.

Overall I’m fairly pleased with this project. We followed a structured a well thought out design process which allowed us to be diligent with our work as well as allowing for experimentation in our different fields of work. Our finished product shows off exactly what we wanted to achieve fits nicely to the brief. In addition we both worked hard to achieve each side of this project, Matt with his Mac-osp work and myself with the build. Hopefully this documentation is a good record of this and allows someone a deeper understanding of how our project has evolved over the past few weeks.

This review covers most of my efforts within the FilmFlock project. It also documents the production process and what was involved. This is a summary of events and should document enough to give you an idea of the how and why this short film was done.
Conception:
The idea was originally brought around from the theme we were given as a group; “Us vs them”. The first ideas that were toyed around with were largely political depicting some form of a resistance group and their struggle against a repressive government. As further research came about, it was realised that this idea was overused and would be very difficult to realise creatively. We expanded on this idea and moved to a more current problem which had potential but also difficulties in quality: Drugs. It could be seen from multiple perspectives (which was a major criteria for our end product) and also presented a challenge in making something that didn’t look like a student production and had more of a professional feel. In addition, given a appropriate storyline it would not require the same kind of locations that a resistance concept might and could be kept to within a single house. We further researched this and found it to be a feasible idea. With the concept created we then moved on to pre-production.
Pre-production:
Using the concept as a base we began to create a simple script. Sticking to the idea of multiple endings or pathways we designed the base of the script first where it would reach a point which could show in an obvious way that there were multiple pathways that the story could go down. We then worked on creating three different pathways the film could develop, all of which were significantly different. We also tried to input into the script the idea of morality, that it wasn’t just an action that changed the way the story was going it was the reasoning behind that choice. Actions such as a character stepping up for themselves, an unexpected and unfortunate ending and finally the arrival of a reluctant protagonist all helped to keep the film varied. This worked well with the “delivery system” we were using as it could work well in inciting people to talk and discuss the film as it was being shown. I tried to put large amounts of camera direction and scene detail so as to try and bypass the storyboard phase of pre production. This was done for two reasons: My inability to draw (or the time to take photo’s instead) and the fact that as I was in charge of script writing, camera work and editing there was less need for the storyboards to be done. I did however, create a shot list for production so as to keep that process as streamlined as possible. I next had to acquire actors to shoot with, unfortunately given the time restraints of this project I found people willing to play the parts I need. To prevent a poor production quality however I rewrote certain lines and parts of the script to better fit the actors playing them and thus allowing us to reduce the number of problems when it came to production. After this was location finding. I looked at a 3 separate houses to which I could use for this film and in the end I went with the closest one which also happened to have a big enough room to shoot in. It should be noted at this point that in the script it talks as though the film is set in the garden of a suburban house but certain scenes and actions could have caused problems with the council or even police and so I moved the setting to inside which did make lighting a much easier task to deal with as well as solving power issues, weather problems and sound equipment. Prop acquisition was the final thing I had to accomplish in pre-production. I started with the forensic scenes and began looking at what real scientists used. Ironically, they use much less that what is portrayed in thrillers and TV so to keep for the realism for the viewer I went for a more classic approach. I managed to obtain most of the props from B&Q which mainly came from the decorators section. For the night time scenes I used old props from a previous project to create the idea of two mob members so to speak. I choose to give them balaclava’s to wear as this reduced their worry about their own acting performances and also to increase the belief that they were who I was attempting to portray them as. This was all of the pre production done, I then moved on to setting a date for production and to begin shooting.
Production:
I divided the shooting into two days. One evening on one day would have the night time scenes and during the next morning I would shoot the crime scene. This was in reverse from the script to keep continuity errors to a minimum. I would note however, that creating a script with varying and multiple endings but only having one opening meant that I had to shoot it to generally cover all the three options and to make the opening crime scene look like it had come from all three rather than a specific one. The major issue was again timing (even with a reasonable and achievable timetable) and so I reluctantly had to miss out one of the pathways for the film. I choose the more “middle” ending in the sense that it was the more predictable which had the positive effect of making the first two options more polarised and seemingly “black and white”. Apart from this both the evening shoot and the morning crime scene shoot went very well and the quality of performance from those involved did not seem as too much of an issue. I changed one of the options visually to include a section where it was shot from the perspective of the captive. This gave the film a little more of an appeal to people as shooting a FPP (First Person Perspective) isn’t easy but can help the viewer associate with the character and the narrative. The hardest and most difficult then came with post production.
Post Production:
I will admit to having major issues with the post production. Firstly I had not anticipated the required time I may have needed for editing and visual effects. Luckily this was balanced by the fact I had not shot all three options and thus had reduced the amount of footage I had to deal with. I also learned a valuable lesson with DV tapes in that a specific brand cannot be used. This resulted for me in difficulties in capturing as well as the footage de-syncing from the audio in the second option. My choice of having the antagonists wear balaclava’s saved the option as I used the audio from failed takes and put it over the video of the successful one. Because of time, I kept the editing to a simple cut trying to make it look professional without experimenting with the software. I choose to do this because my experimentation and creativity lay with the narrative and multiple pathways and not visual experimentation. Whilst filming I had decided to take lots of smaller shots for use with a montage at the crime scene. This is to add a visual familiarity for viewers who had seen this sort of film before but I maintained the originality of the piece. After the editing was done I began work on the visual effects. Creating a fake flash for the forensic camera, blood spatters on the wall, blood spurts from a bullet wound and muzzle flash from a gun all had to be done to a good enough quality to be put into the film. On this point I decided to remove the camera flashes and the blood spats from the guns shots. The flashes were not coming up as believable, and they didn’t work within the scenes I was trying to use them in, so I took them out but made sure that the scenes still worked. To add a bit more realism to the piece I took away the blood spatter from the wall when one of the men gets shot as realistically a pistol of the calibre (even at that close range) would probably not create exit wounds. Once the effects were done I placed it back into editing and worked on the sound. I made the decision not to use ambient music for the piece bar during the montage as it retracted from the seriousness of what I was trying to do. Although many feature films include well designed OST’s something as short as mine would run the risk of looking more like a music video which I definitely wanted to avoid. I did however track down good effectual sounds such as a heartbeat during the FPP sequence where the captive realises he’s about to be killed as well as good quality gunshots and blood spurt effects. Once the sound was done I added titles, exported and passed the final “package” onto my partner for him to integrate the film into the website.
Conclusion:
The end result of this project was close to what I was expecting. It was not of an extremely high standard yet it could still reasonably be a standalone piece. I wanted to create a film with multiple pathways that also showed different moral choices. And ultimately this is what has been created. The story is relevant to today’s audience and the subject matter also provokes a lot of thought and discussion. It also has the added advantage that if it proved popular, follow up narratives could easily be written and created that built a tree of storylines that could be followed. This project was a great development for me, especially in time management as the 5 week deadline meant I had to keep on top of the schedule, which I am proud to say I have. Despite the slightly poor sound quality in small sections on this piece I am still happy with the end result as almost all of my production has been done singlehandedly. Overall I am pleased with what I’ve produced, its simple good quality and shows exactly what I wanted to do. If I were to redo this project I would perhaps try to spend a little more time filming so as to get that third option which would have made the piece better and also perhaps some more time so that I could create my own backing soundtrack. The integration into the “delivery system” should work well and our end piece should keep to our original learning agreement.

-A resistance fighter who has his heart set on fighting.

-A police detective who is simply trying to survive in the government

-Someone who is on either edge an cannot decide either way

Perhaps I could persue the idea of a crime scene from not only three different perspectives but from different times as well. The difficulty I see in this idea is that each perspective has to show the same amount of information so that no one user can understand more than another. Its also a fairly simple site to design if I just want it to stand alone, where I could put info of the characters up so that the user can see why thier side of the story is panning out the way it is. Obviously this need a little more development and some hard thinking before it becomes solid. But for the moment this is a strong idea and one I feel comfortable presenting at the pitch on Monday. I will post Monday evening to update on how this is recieved and get to work on improving it from there!

Idea 1: A changing film

This is one of my more ambitious idea’s but with careful planning could be scalled down to fit the brief. One of the main problems with films in general, not just at the cinema is repetitiveness. Not only in the sense that all films follow a set narrative and ironically alot of twists are expected and discovered before the film can show them in its own timeline. I’d struggle to make something that was unpredictable for a short film, as there would be little time to build up assumptions and statements for them to then be made eironious. However, I could make something interesting. My idea would be to show a film in 4 parts, each of those parts would have 4 different developments of narrative, but would be interchangeable and could still make sense. I’ll put a diagram below to illustrate my idea. And as the viewer watched, they could either choose which version they would like to watch or have the computer randomly choose one.

Part 1.a   Part 2.a  Part 3.a  Part 4.a

Part 1.b  Part 2.b  Part 3.b  Part 4.b

Part 1.c  Part 2.c  Part 3.c  Part 4.c

Part 1.d  Part 2.d  Part 3.d Part 4.d

So for example, the viewer chooses to watch Part 1.a, which is a man walking down the road who gets to a junction. Each version of part 2 (a-d) would show a different path that man would take. I understand there would be extreme difficulty in making all the parts work together (and perhaps that is why I have not seen this done before) but it is an idea none the less. Simply from a numbers perspective, if you let the computer randomly generate which versions you saw, there are 256 different variations on the film which would solve the problem of having a predictable storyline. As long as I kept to fairly simple storyline, this IS doable and would make for a great piece of work as well as having great potential to be adapted into an instilation piece. In respect to the theme itself, something revolutionary is always appropriate, so perhaps something to do with someone deciding whether or not they join a cause. Maybe the different versions, shows a culture coming closer to a regime whereas the other ones show it moving away. It could even be that the degree of the change could also differ from version to version.

Idea 2: Interactive film

This sort of idea has been toyed with before, but has not been produced entirely well. A couple of example below show what can be done, some of which work well. I will note, that a few of these examples are games and I must consider that it could be very worthwhile exlporing the gap between gaming and filming and how much that could close over the next few years.

From the game God of War, which shows a cutscene from the game at the same time as keeping the player involved (violent!)

The company O2 advertising “interactive cinema” which could be false, but has at least a unique perspective

“The murder” an interactive film about superheroes. Much closer to what I’d would consider doing in regards to this idea

Lastly, some snipits of Heavy Rain. Something that is a game but begins to blur the distinction between that and a film

Out of these, the murder idea is at the very least feasable. However my idea would be to have the choices come up during the film (with visual cue’s beforehand to at least prepare the viewer) and that if the viewer missed them then the film would end earlier than expected. Much like an old adventure book where if you choose the wrong direction, you died. The difficult part would be to first establish a connection between the main protagonist and the viewer so they actually have some urge to carry the protagonist through the storyline. This sort of idea would work well with a chase or action sequence and thus would work even better within the “Us vs Them” theme. Certainly something to think about

I will post more idea’s that come up this week on here with hopefully more examples to show. For the moment these two are fairly strong and both at least warrant further research and development. I may also like to think about developing a story and then looking at a way to project the idea unless my idea warrants a specific style of story.