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Photography has a huge influence on our daily lives in this generation as it captures a certain moment that could never be created again. In this video it explains this exactly and how the invention of cameras have changed our perception in life. With advertisements and social media constantly feeding us information on how to think or how to live our life it is using the manipulation of photography as there are angles and light taken into consideration. This links to our project as it conveys that without these images, there would not be the effective advertisements there are to this day, then with this aspect taken into consideration there would not be this 'normal stereotyped lifestyle'. It all links together and this is what inspired us to mock this ideology using star-bursts with this important element in life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZhJjP8kiqE&hd=1

Cog (The metaphor of our project)

The cog 

This object in a watch appeared to be the metaphor of our project as it is the compartment that causes the watch to work. Therefore relating to our project of mocking the stereotypical normal lifestyle the cog appears to be the media in a sense as it is the element that creates these 'perfect and normal' lifestyles. Without the media, this lifestyle would not necessarily be the preferred one. Just like if the watch did not have the cog, the watch would not function.

Ways of seeing John Berger (1)

"In the cities in which we live, all of us see hundreds of publicity images every day of our lives". (John Berger) This quote most definitely relates to the project my group and I have put together. The reason being that it focuses on the idea that advertisements on social media, television and music videos enforce us to think in a certain way. We based our project on the theme of advertising causing us to believe we should not only think in a certain way but live in a certain way. As it appears on the media that if you don't go to school, go to university and get a well paid job you are a minority. Although this isn't true people still feel obliged to go by these tasks in life and the quote that was mentioned before conveys that images bombard our lifestyle and cause us to believe that if you don't complete all of these things in life you won't be accepted. Which is why we wanted to make a project out of this using sweets to mock this ideology. 

Our final project

This was to convey the difficulties of uploading this video and the struggles with technology that our group and I encountered. Overall this is a representation of the extreme problems we had with the computers and putting this project together.

Presenting our final product

There were difficulties when putting this video on this blog therefore I thought of alternative places to upload it so the rest of the public could see it such as:
Youtube
Facebook
and the pictures of us creating the project on Instgram.
The reason why we are choosing these places to upload it is because we could get recognized for our creativity and social network sites are a great way to communicated different ideas to one another in this generation.

To crop the video we used this tutorial to help us

Commentry on the use of CD's

Positive aspect of using a CD for the final Product
- Having a hard copy
- It is cheap to buy a blank CD

Negative aspects of using a CD for the final product
- Difficult to put the project on the CD
- The CD can get scratched
- People can overwrite the CD with something else and therefore the project would be lost
- Some videos work very slowly on the CD
- It takes a great deal of time for it to get copied on a CD

I personally found it a bad idea to put our final project on a CD as it seemed very ironic to do so considering we do digital media foundations as a course yet we are using a very old way to turn in our work. I personally think for the future it should be uploaded online.

Choosing the sound for the Project

While creating the project we came across some difficulties choosing what sounds we wanted for our project. The reason for this being that are group decided on different things. As I wanted to just use one song for the entire project as it would be easier and it wouldn't be choppy for childish although the rest of the group thought otherwise. They decided to have a mixture of a songs and sound effects, as it would appear that we tried different sounds and experimented with the sounds, I finally agreed with their reasons to have a mixture and ended up doing it for our final piece.

For Primary School Scene: Children talking and playing
University: Older voices talking over each other
Getting her first job: Cars going by and beeping
Falling in love: A cheesy song
Getting married: The wedding song
Dying: The sound of a heartbeat going faster and faster
The funeral: Morbid bells playing

Art Collaboration

Our group and I went through a process to choose the most suitable backgrounds for the different scenes. We began with the idea of utilizing a variety of sweets as mentioned in my previous blog posts but that turned out to be too financially difficult and impractical to create. The second method was to pick cartoon styled images from the internet for the different stages of lives for the multiple scenes. Although this appeared to very easy and there was a lack of a challenge to complete it for our project. We therefore finally chose to do a collaboration with an art student, we asked them to do an illustrated style of drawing for the different scenes. The reason for this being that the project aimed to be fictional and this added to the theme of the project. The images turned out to be very effective and it was interesting working with someone (Chloe Farrar) as she is from a different course, therefore gaining more knowledge about the project.

Evaluation

My group and I decided to focus on a stop motion animation video using star-bursts as the characters and hand-made drawings for the different scenes. Our aim was to convey a stereotypical ‘normal’ lifestyle, that we are all expected to live by. This storyline would be effective because we have been forced to believe that this certain lifestyle is the right one to live by due to the different advertisements that bombard us everyday on social media networks, television and music videos. My group and I created a storyline consisting of typical major life checkpoints.

This project motivated me as its purpose was mocking the idea of a ‘normal’ lifestyle. There were various ideas that were explored to get to the final product. It was a decision between doing a makeover on a girl to make them look like they don’t have any imperfections using technology, or using sweets to create a storyline. Either way, we were convinced in following the theme of advertisements causing us to think and live in a certain way. When we came to the final decision of utilizing sweets, there was an idea to use an assortment of sweets for each scene. The group and I wanted to do a trial run of the stop motion images with different sweets but we realized that this was impractical due to financial reasons. The next logical step was to use images off the internet. It was recognized by the group that the images off the internet did not achieve the attended effect. A collaboration with a Fine Art student, Chloe Farrar, appeared to be beneficial for our project as she drew the different scenes in a cartoon style to add more impact to the fictional element of the project.

We used YouTube as a resource medium to find effective stop motion animations. There were a great deal of successful videos although the fictional elements tended to have more of an impression, hence us choosing to use candy to create a storyline.

When choosing the sounds for the video we tried to relate it to the aim of the product, to entertain the audience. Therefore we decided to combine sound effects as well as humorous songs for the different scenes.

We came across some difficult situations during this project, such as technical problems due to the lack of knowledge on using Premier Pro. There was also a lack of communication within the group which made it a struggle to complete basic tasks.

Finally we would present this post on the popular social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to increase the popularity of the video. Doing this project in this present time is effective as technology users are at its highest and so more people have a chance to watch it.

This video met our aims although we could have benefited from starting earlier as the pictures could have been edited more effectively. 

Reflection of the Logo: Photoshop skills

While working on my final logo I utilized a much more simple method than I should have done and that has resulted in a complete yet unsatisfactory logo. We are advised to use Photoshop yet I thought it would be interesting to combine both Microsoft Word and Paint to complete the task. I had realized that there were a lot less options to manipulate the text and the design. Therefore I have decided to focus more on Photoshop in Lynda.com.

Logo

This image consists of my final logo for my project that I have been undertaking in the past few weeks. There were certain decisions made which resulted to this final piece.
The reason for the smudged yet perfected lined arrows aiming in the same direction is because it is a metaphor of life being continuous as well as resulting in some issues during the way.
The idea of having a clock as a background is the reason of it demonstrating your life just going by time and every good or sad moment just slips on by and the next event occurs.
The L.O.A stands for 'Life Of A'. I manipulated the bold text for it to jump out to the audience as well as using the same yet opposite style of the actual star-burst logo.
 Then of course I used the actual star-burst title to give credit to the sweet company.

Materials needed for the scene

Progress on the Project witht he group

This week we would have had all our sweet bought.
The two lamps and the two A3 pieces of paper would be ready.
We would start taking the stop motion pictures this week and hopefully finish with all the pictures.
Therefore we would be ready to edit the pictures using a variety of different programs.
The following week we would be putting it on Premier- Pro and editing it the final piece.

Handwritten storyboard

The previous post consisted of an example of a digital storyboard and this one consists of a handwritten storyboard. The reason for this being that I want to compare and contrast the pros and cons of them both for my own project. I have realised that it would be a lot more effective to go it digitally not only will I gain experience technically but I can find the specific objects off the internet for my project and it would be a lot more efficient as it would be faster to complete it.

Digital Storyboard

In my past posts there is evidence of a tutorial video teaching the public on how to create an effective storyboard. Therefore I have enough information on how to create an effective storyboard yet I have not decided If I want to make a digital one or a hand made one. This example that I have posted is a digital storyboard and it would most probably have the exact equipment in the pictures that is needed for the narrative to be created. Not only that but this method of making a storyboard would be a lot more efficient as typing out the directions of what needs to happen in each scene would be a fast way to do it. 

Lynda.com: VFX Techniques: Space Scene 01: Maya Animation and Dynamic Simulation

Although our group and I are planning to do a stop motion animation using sweets and has very little to do with Space, I still found it an eye-opener for ideas for the future or even opening and closing scenes of our current video. One of the main aspects that a video needs to sustain is entertainment from the beginning to the end. Therefore I thought it would be an interesting idea to use digital techniques for the opening and closing scenes and I came across this video which contained a variety of ideas, therefore being a very helpful guide for my overall project. These specifc animations would grab the audiences' attention straight away which is our main aim, for the audience to feel a want to watch and finish our video.

The URL of the video: http://www.lynda.com/After-Effects-tutorials/VFX-Techniques-Space-Scene-01-Maya-Animation-Dynamic-Simulation/155265-2.html


"Topics include:

• Animating the spaceship and asteroid
• Animating cameras to follow the action
• Setting key and fill lights
• Creating layers for the sun, stars, and planet
• Setting up shadow and lighting layers
• Creating mental ray render passes
• Exploding geometry in a dynamic simulation
• Attaching nParticle emitter to bodies
• Batch rendering render layers"

Lynda.com: Foundations of Audio

My project is a stop motion animation, we decided as a group that there are going to be limited sound effects in the video although prominent ones. It seemed to be a good idea to avoid actual people talking as it takes the imaginative ideology away from the project. Therefore I researched audio videos on Lynda. com to get more ideas for my projects related to sound and I came across this video; Foundations of Audio: Delay and Modulation.
"Topics include:

• Adjusting the delay time, level, and feedback parameters
• Utilizing a low-pass filter and polarity reverse
• Setting up an effects loop
• Setting the delay time by tempo or by ear
• Understanding the distinct uses of short, medium, and long delays
• Adjusting modulation rate, depth, and shape
• Adding double tracking and spreader effects
• Manipulating tone with constructive or destructive interference
• Creating a comb filter and flange effect"

Alex U (the author of the video) mentions specific special sound effects that could be perfect for our video and it will be a piece of information that I will be referring back to to complete my own project due to it's effective guide. 

Lynda. com: Web Motion for Beginners

There is a previous post on this Blog that consists of a tutorial that demonstrates the techniques on how to make a stop motion animation using the computers tools on the adobe program. As mentioned before it has a great insight on how to use it effectively as he was extremely clear on what he was saying. Although I have managed to find a more academic and detailed video that explains specific steps on how to use it with additional information for the video to be effective due to its academic source. I keep on trying to find legitimate tutorials on how to make a stop motion video as that is what I am doing my project on and I need to gain as much knowledge as I can on how to make it successful.
This particular video focuses on the additional information, Parallax motion. I am unaware of this technique and therefore very interested about it as it could be useful for my own project. The video introduces with this fact,  "Parallax is an optical illusion that gives 2D objects a sense of depth". This video could be extremely useful for future projects although for my particular aim, I won''t be needing this technique.

Web Motion for Beginners URL: http://www.lynda.com/Edge-Animate-tutorials/Web-Motion-Beginners-Create-Parallax-Effect/149120-2.html

Lynda.com : Lighting Design for Video Production

It appeared to be essential to engross myself into this website as I have not done so in the past. This particular search engine is an academic site which is extremely helpful for digital research. There are quite a few topics that I am not familiar about in the Digital Media Foundations workshop as I have not encountered advanced technical information before therefore this website will be a very effective guide for myself to excel in this module.
My project is a stop motion animation utilizing various sweets to create a 'realistic lifestyle' of a particular sweet, a Starburst. Therefore my group and I have decided to create this narrative on a A3 piece of paper so the colours of the different sweets catch the audiences' eyes. It is also important to manipulate the use of light for our project to have interesting images. Keeping this in mind it seemed intriguing to research lighting designs for our project and there was a video focusing on this particular tool. It does relate to our project yet it also has an insight on future projects that I might want to focus on.
"The essence of stills and motions are light", this was mentioned in the video and I agreed with this concept, it appeared to be very accurate while working on my own project. This lesson taught me the techniques for using natural and artificial light and this has helped me come up with new ideas for my stop motion animation.

"Topics include:

• Understanding the role of lighting
• Lighting interior and exterior scenes
• Directing the viewer's attention
• Enhancing mood in a scene
• Achieving great light under harsh conditions
• Deciding on the right lighting style for your story"

The URL for the Lighting Design For Video Production:
http://www.lynda.com/Video-Filmmaking-tutorials/Lighting-Design-Video-Production/153125-2.html