Hopefully Portfolio

Ideas for Interactive

2012-02-27T16:17:00.000-08:00

For some reason I am having a hard time understanding the technical issues with my wannabe-website, as, in fact, one does not yet exist :D God, I don't make sense... But here is a bit of a research on the design part of the assignment.
As I am, quite certainly, going to choose the Moving Image pathway for the following two years of study, I figured that my Portfolio Webpage would have to feature an easy interface that would quickly lead people to the films I make, their promotional and still shots, and other relevant information I have chosen these two websites as my main inspiration. Behold - RockstarGames & Chanel:

the backgrounds in this image are mixed from 4
of many backgrounds the website features

Both feature a great way of showing off their projects, their current works, main focuses, and, in Rockstars case, a social aspect. Having a distinctive style also helps with "selling the feel". As Chanel has some dynamic image change and a very conservative feel, Rockstar goes further, actually showing the concept art of their games as a background. In Rockstars website the background changes almost every time you refresh the page. In the top picture I actually mixed 4 different backgrounds, the mono-background images are below.

this is how the website looks with one of the backgrounds

I like the way Chanel keeps the most focus on its products, basically with no menus coming in the way, yet before Rockstar shows their projects in detail, they do an astonishing job showing of their best of their many titles. The following images show a brilliant video section of Rockstars website and its amazing feature that makes watching videos a great experience.

when the LIGHTS options is pressed the whole screen is
being covered in black, unlike on this shot, as I wanted to show the contrast

The video viewing is enhanced by two options that are as white squares on the black background. LIGHTS and 720 are two great options, one of which enables and HD mode for the video and the other one dims the website so that the content can be viewed with no distractions.

With those things in mind I've made a few sketches of my vision. My first idea was to create something different to the standard model, placing everything in the middle of the screen and making it pop-up as pressed. It is a bit too ambitious and I am not convinced I could come up with the code that would make it pop out, but never the less here it is:

as a window (as VIDS here) is being
pressed it jumps out & covers the rest

The second idea is a bit more basic. It features the menu system from Chanel and a product showreel of Rockstar Games website. Maybe I could even get my hand on the LIGHTS and 720 options for my videos.

this is a bit of a variation of the previous FILMS page

Well, here they are. Now, to get some technical skills on Dreamweaver, as I am not even remotely sure how to do all of this. Quite unfortunate. But since this is mostly out of the way, I might crack on with the technical part.

Thanks for reading this far guys. Have a good, whatever the time...

National Media Museum & a bit about Visual Essay

2012-02-23T09:42:00.000-08:00

15/02/12

National Media Museum? MONKEYS! Well, also elephants, 3D, "Outposts" and a Dalek. That is what the National Media Museum in Bradford is all about. BOOM! Cute little baby monkey!
Alright, to be fare I did not expect anything particular out of this trip. A bit more, well, a lot more stuff to read I guess. The fact that we had to find 3 practitioners there now sounds even more unrealistic than before as the place had hardly any. With that said I definitely think it is still a great site to visit. I thought the place is great for what it was, probably, created for. It introduces people to the media industry without going into huge details. It hooks up young minds and just makes them want to be film makers, animators and/or TV producers. In fact there were a lot of children there when we visited and it made it quite stressful to get around and find what you need. I do love children though, and so, in order to make the most of our trip, some of us left the building for an hour, and, since we all were very hungry, we went to a restaurant, ate, returned, and what do you know, the place is pretty much free. Great. Unfortunately some time was lost and we had to make haste. That was the time I realized there were more things to consider looking at. Cinema research labs and TV booths where you could book an old TV program and watch it on your own or with a friend. Unfortunately it would take a lot of time so I had to pass. Either way, we've already been to the IMAX to see monkeys and elephants, and boy oh boy, was that great. And I took some 30 minutes to watch commercials on a small screen in the TV section. After all, one of the ideas for my VE was to do something with commercials.
The museum turned out to be a pretty interesting and engaging experience, but my job was to find some practitioners for my Visual Essay. I found three. Two were had interesting ideas I might use and the other one had an interesting visual style:

First it was Donovan Wylie, a photographer that had his own exhibition. There I found a video of him talking about the "Outposts" project (photographs & video are at the bottom, number 1). At the beginning of his talk Donovan talks of his fascination with the power of the visual aspect, how fortifications are built not to last in the fight, but to prevent from attacking (that's what I thought it was). I might not use him as a practitioner in my Visual Essay, but I'm certain I will use his idea as one of the bases for my project.

Second was Daniel Meadows, who also had an exhibition of his early works. I liked his visual style, the vibrant colors that were present in the pictures he made (the ones that were in color of course) (photographs are at the bottom, number 2). http://www.photobus.co.uk/?id=1 was his early project and attracted my attention. It seems that it was doing something for the people of his generation what the internet is doing for us today - a chance to express ourselves. I might be wrong, but I will look up his photographic style and his early project and maybe I will find something.

The third person that interested me was Bill Kroyer. He was quoted on the wall of the animation section next to a shot form "Tron" (1982). It stated - "If you can't make it good, make it loud and fast". As I found out Bill was actually in charge of the storyboard production (later I found out he was unofficially a visual effects animator) for "Tron" (1982). With that said I found our, in the same animation section, that the film was a commercial disaster. Quite weird as it was the first film with actual computer graphics and even had a sequel after "Tron: Legacy" (2010). Further more - I really liked both of them. Keeping that in mind I am interested if Kroyer was speaking ironically, because "Tron" (1982) is quite an action film, or was it something else. Still, for me, that is a great idea to base my VE on, as "loud and fast" movies are now all over the place and some of them are really good both in visuals and story, and everything else. So I am going to look forward into Bill Kroyer, as he was a Visual Effects Animator, Animator, Writer and Film director. I like his idea, and maybe I will go from there. (photographs are at the bottom, number 3).

I didn't learn a lot form the museum itself but it definitely gave my VE progress a push. I will start from there and we'll see where it goes.
Thank you for your time, Ed.

Moodboard for Interactive

2012-02-18T08:30:00.001-08:00

This is a so called "Moodboard" I created for my Interactive assignment. This collage represents the colors and fonts I like and prefer, the style that makes me comfortable and makes me feel like I want to feel, and how I want people to feel when they visit my Portfolio Website. Probably the main theme here is the colorful sunny warm feel of the 1980's Florida. This is a very nostalgic theme as it brings out pleasant memories to people of almost all ages. For ones its the time when they actually lived, for the others it is the movies as "Starsky & Hutch" and/or "Miamy Vice", and for my generation it is usually an epic video game, the favorite of many - "Grand Theft Auto Vice City", that made many young people to fall in love with 80's theme, style and music. Even if we forget the theme and just pay attention to the fonts, colors and style then we are still left with a warming feeling of a yellow and red morning sun and the cool, smooth ocean blue. Straight lines, silhouettes and a modesty in the number of colors used but no restrictions in the different types of the same color (if I make sense :D). There are also big bulky and curvy fonts with purple stripes all around. Awesome.

I love it, to say the least, and I am very excited to see how the website is going to turn up.

Thanks for reading this, guys, have a great weekend, or whenever you are reading this,

"Clowning Around" edit by Edgar Kazak

2012-02-17T17:21:00.000-08:00

And here it is, the final project. The result. Check it out and tell me what you think.

The top version is a YouTube player and the bottom one is Vimeo.

Thank you for your time,
Ed

DP2 film project - entry three - The edit

2012-02-17T12:58:00.000-08:00

I started editing right away without deleting the footage I thought I will not net, as it proved in the end, even thought I checked the shots I thought I need it turned out that there were many other things to add, so I added as soon as the need came up. Thought this was not just a head-straight jump into action, I made some crucial data management regarding my folders and their lay-out. Those were not the only obstacles I have overcome. The next images show the highlights of my progress highlights:

Data management:

Problem detection & solving

1st draft project file, quite messy

Final project file, organised & easy to navigate

After Effects post-production

Final cuts:

The white highlight you can see in the second picture represent where I made the crucial cuts I made to the edit.

Font research:

Berlin Sans FB Demi
Giddyup Std

Century Gothic

Jokerman
Cooper Std Black
Kristen ITC

Curlz Mt

Rosewood Std Regul
Forte

Script MT Bold - this was eventually chosen.

Thank you for getting to this point,

Ed.

DP2 film project - entry two - On set

2012-02-16T16:38:00.000-08:00

These 3 days of filming were fast but, i must say, quite stressful. Not because of the crew or the equipment, but mostly because I felt that I'm failing to achieve the amount of quality I assumed I can achieve, and the lack of control over the situation drove me crazy. However, believe me, I think we did great.
First, the things that were redone, improved and had a result on, or just before the filming:

New storyboard:

Costume match:

Drawings by Jasmine Leung, Top picture -
http://tvlistings.zap2it.com/tv/dexters-laboratory/photo-gallery-detail/EP00176555/296553

Character Bios:

Karen – a young housewife with her husband Brian and three children. Karen is the only one who works in their family as Brian struggles to get some money now and then. Even thought she has not the best payed job in the world they seem to have everything they need. It is due to Karens parents who generously donate maney to their family. Karen was in a relationship with a character named Tommy but left him for Brian because, even thought she sometimes thinks he is useless, she likes him, and care for him. And they have got kids. Although sometimes Karen is a bit tricky to understand as she sees no crime in having an affair.

Brian – an unsuccessful, weak willed actor, father of three in a young age. Back in high school he had a friend called Tommy and both fancied a girl called Karen. Later Brian and Karen became a couple but after a month he found her in Tommy’s arms. Friendship ended, rivalry began. Karen switched sides a few more times as she liked Tommy’s confidence but at the same time Brian always cared for her… At least till she became pregnant when they were in the college. And then the wedding.

Tommy – a self-employed actor for kids parties. Cocky, does not care about anything or anyone. Likes to show that he is a powerful person, but when in an actual fight tends look for a compromise, because is afraid of being beat up.

The Policeman – smart looking guy. Maybe not going to be a high rank officer, but sure knows his way around women. He is sarcastic, into fun and one night stands are his specialty. Also very confident and wears a uniform – exactly what Karen was looking for. Just for a bit. While Brian gets his things together.

And now to filming days:

These days were fun, interesting and educating. As our tutors warned us many things were changed on the set, many shots were removed and lines added. We also required an extra day for our shoot but expecting that we had already booked the equipment for an extra day and our location was given to us for whole four days of testing and filming.

I got up early every morning and went to sleep late the following night as I was planning the next day. As a director I learned a lot on my mistakes, as I wasn’t prepared properly for the second shooting day without a proper shooting schedule and so that day turned out to be a stressful nightmare for my whole crew. However day three was fast and smooth as I had a whole schedule prepared the night before and even the fact that my assistant Phagun Shah and our “Sound guy” Nima Hedayati had to be late for the shoot we had no trouble shooting the scenes.

In terms of having an assistant director in such a small group there were a few things we had to overcome. We have managed to get two actors out of four but unfortunately our contact, who we got in touch with in order to get actor for our film had left us with no response after a few interactions. He also had other people who agreed to participate in the filming process but they were forced to quit at the last moment due to person issues. We had to improvise and I was chosen to play Brian - the main male character. I thought directing on its own would be a challenge and this seemed a bit unreal, but nevertheless, I decided to give it a go as we had no other options.

I had to split my focus in two so that I would not lose control of the situation and also keep the character I was playing as believable as I could get him. I kept on top of most of the things - the crew, actors, location. Assistant director kept control of breaks and sometimes I the shooting process, and saying “it’s a rap” in the end of every shooting day. In fact Phagun took over the filming of the second day as it was a bit of a mess and I had to keep my focus on the actors and my own acting as my assistant took care of the camera, silence on set and the schedule. Off course every time she had a hard time with the misbehaving crew or her own nerves (yes, day two was a nightmare) I took full control of the situation.

The most important things I learned on those days as a Director were that keep your management up-to-date, keep your crew happy and warm (as long as you are not paying them :D) and It is always better to stop, think, and, even if everyone else around you are whining, be The Director, say - “ok, now everyone is going home and we are reshooting this tomorrow” – because there is no need to have bad footage and unhappy crew.

This is the end of the second part of our filming of "Clowning Around". Next thing - editing.

Thanks for reading this far,

DP2 film project - entry one - Pre-production

2012-01-31T17:44:00.000-08:00

It has been a few weeks since we were presented with the script on a film we were going to shoot and since then our group has done quite a lot of pre-production.
Without delay we started working on our project by assigning roles we wanted to have in the production of our short or the ones we thought suited some of the crew the best. And so, after a short discussion - our crew:

(positions colored like this became needed and were established on the filming days)

Alex - Producer
Phagun - Producer Assistant, Director's assistant
Edgar (me) - Director, Actor
Kamil - Director of Photography
Nima - Sound & Audio
Kieran - Lighting, Actor
Jasmine & Jing - Costumes, Makeup, Props, Camera Assistant

After we went on and started planing what is going to be done. All we knew was our own experience from DP1 and what we want to have as an end project.
We met the following tuesday and the guys started trimming the scipt to the size and content we needed. Unfortunately I couldn't help them at first because I had to solve some personal problems. When I turned up a few hours later there already was a a draft or a storyboard and shots we wanted and a fairly trimmed script. With that done I went to the Student Unions office and got a Drama Societies heads contacts so that we could find actors for our film. Unfortunately, even though we did contact them, talked on the phone even, they did not reply to our email and ignored our calls further on. The good side is, that so far, this was the only downfall we had. Later that day we paid a visit to a location Jing proposed as our filming site. She made a whole arrangement for us to come and see the place her friend rented. And I must say it was a great place, but unfortunately we needed something a bit different, more of a house than an apartment. At that point we realised we want something home-like and more of a blank canvas so we could put more of whatever we wanted there rather than removing everything that could be in our way. We decided that everyone who thinks he knows a place that would suit the cause will post photographs of it on our facebook.com group that we started to communicate and share our ideas.

Storyboard draft by Nima Hedayati, day TWO:

Location suggestions, day TWO:

Day three, which was wednesday (must say, work went fast the first week), to me, was a great example of determination shown by my frew. On the day before we were thinking that probably we've made enough progress already and, since we were still having a film lecture on thursday, we could make a little break. However, to my surprise, there were not many refusals after I've put through a thought that we should, in fact, not wait and meet up on our free day and maybe go even further. And so, wednesday, we were all a Phaguns place. Trimming, timing the sript, contacting the drama society, finding most of our costumes, bookijg tye equipment - all that was done in that one day. With this progress we thought we are going to start shooting in a few days. But on Friday lectures are plans have been heavily changed.

Script changes, day THREE:

Costumes, day THREE:

Friday was the day we knew that there were so many other "legal" things we had to do before we even start filming, such as: location visit and risk assesment on location, call sheets, storyboards and location release forms. By that point, just a week after we got the the assigment, we already have booked the equipment, planed a location visit and ect. The only thing we didn't have, and unfirtunately didn't have till the day of tge shoot itself. Everything else was there, but sinse we had so many documents to fill, the group decided to postpone the shooting till next weeks weekend, get everything signed, test the equipment and overall get everything right. The following next went a bit slower, with me developing a storyboard and cutting the script to scenes. Everyone was doing their research on their own and basically that was how the whole week went. With a little diversity as shooting days change (to Monday and Tuesday), and an exciting lighting tutorial on Fridays lecture. This is the first segment of the three-part coverage of our DP1 film project. Pre-production done, now - shooting...

To be continued...
Ed.

THRESHOLD CONCEPTS - interactivity

2012-01-26T20:53:00.000-08:00

Task1:
Write down all the elements you as a viewer need to enjoy a film?

I enjoy a sense of thrill and emersiveness very much.
Unlike many other viewers I don't enjoy open endings. Conclusion is crucial for a good film to be good. I can cope with it being slightly open so that you could guess the ending of some back-story. It is something like a conclusive ending but still giving you a bit to think about.
A character that I can relate to, or a believable one who could make me fell his emotions as my own.
Visuals are a very powerful tool so I expect a good movie having great visual style. Not the CGI or stunts, but the artistic style of it: distinctive colors, props, etc.
A story with twists and turns. Its hard to enjoy a story without a getting a thrill of whats going to happen next.

Task2:

Devise a plot that tries to introduce these elements through a series of scenes. Come up with

four scenes minimum

What storytelling techniques would you need to employ to get the sense of enjoyment if you can't

determine how the user experiences the scenes?

How much control do you retain? How much do you give away?

One of my old ideas. The film would be based in the first years of 2000's somewhere in Mid. or Eastern Europe when many lives have just been ruined and some just established by recessions and constant change of governments. People knew a lot about the worlds newest technologies but not many had them in their homes, so eye to eye interactions were the main method of communication. Sorry for saying this as if these parts of the Western World were in the dark ages at those times, but I just want you to imagine the grey-ish, brown-ish colors of the indoors and the bright green, blue and gold of the outdoors. Yet not in this first scene.

Scene one is a slow-motion scene of a young man falling. All you see is him and the sky. His face is pale and there is no emotion whatsoever. The voice-over, which is his voice, explains a situation as highly depressing and quite bad. He invites us to look onto some moments of his life to explain the whole falling situation.

Scene two is a prequel to scene one and shows him arguing with his single mom on very high tones and what it tells us that he is being oppressed with no good reason. She blames him with everything there is to blame.

Scene three is him explaining something to his friend very persuasively, but the lad will not listen. There might be a back-plot to this story because you can shift the last two scene and the following one around, maybe making it all interactive, putting some explanations that are presented in a form of the first scene.

Scene four would be of him and his girlfriend talking, trying to figure things out but it obviously doesn't work out and she leaves. Again, this can be turned into an interactive experience because all these people could be presented as his last resort, the last ones he could trust. The main thing is that however you change their place, there is no way you can affect the main plot, which is...

Scene five is him making a conclusion of everything that we saw and basically ending his own life by falling to his death... But thats what the viewer thinks. He is not actually a pushed around emo kid. The next image we see is the water and a body that drops in it. We can see someone swimming to the sunlight and then we see him on the surface smiling. All those people are around him, in appropriate places of course (like his Mom and his girlfriend both with him in the lake all wearing clothes is a bit less believable.)

Scene six is when he explains his views on the world. He says that (depending on what happened in the prequels) he is being forgiving or the people are forgiving him... blah blah, he understood the meaning of life. Something like that... Sunshine, love and credits.

I do love happy endings.

As of directors control, this would be a movie a person creates for himself (if its interactive) but there surely would be a central path to always refer to.

Thank you for reading this far, have a great day,

Cheers.

Ed.

P.s. Sorry for the layout, Bloggers' been buggy lately.

Narrative and Authenticity

2012-01-19T19:57:00.000-08:00

As most of the discussions, in which many participants are Doctors or Professors who speak their own "language", this one, for me, had little or no consensus.
The talk went mostly about the authenticity and how can one achieve or measure it. The points were that narrators telling their stories often lie to make their story more attractive or suitable for the audience. Others called it adaptation to the situation, your surroundings in your present because you cannot fully relate to the experiences you had in the past, just because it is the past, and now the situation is different. One very interesting point stated that in religion, or how it was said, culture, repetition is a key element, thus repeating your story from time to time changes your feel of it, changes its narrative, because you yourself have changed. And that is not lying.
Changing of one and not being able to sum up your own narrative, as see your whole authentic self, would be, kind of, impossible, because for that you will have to die and look back on your own life, were the only ideas that came to some conclusion.
I liked the idea that said - being authentic, does not mean being different form others. All began with the discussion of notion of culture that actually shaped us and gave us words to express our narrative in the first place, thus, already, giving us all the same base to start with, then went to the idea that we often chose the same paths, and then again many end up with their own thoughts, ideas and feelings, all of it excludes lying, and turns it into referring to someones' experiences as our own. But is it a lie if people actually had same, or very similar experience?
There were many interesting ideas in this discussion, and to many of them I can relate. In fact, all of those I can relate to I have already described earlier. I guess you remember only something similar to your own thoughts. I do believe most of the people in this world are authentic and the stories they tell too. Unfortunately all of them tend to catch a noticeable amount of foreign influence, but some just are better of putting them through as their own (with no intention whatsoever), though we all are in danger of changing our stories according to the audience. When speaking about stories changing from time to time, I think, it is a normal process of growing, rethinking and reacting to the present situation, and does not damage your authenticity in any way.

P.S.
I have to say, I am writing this just after hearing this discussion, and this is a hell of a job remembering everything, but, yeah... here we go. Thanks for reading this far,
Cheers,
Ed.

Superhero School - Animation

2011-12-07T22:42:00.001-08:00

   Superhero School is a 30-seconds animation I've made. Enjoy


This animation was born as an idea the very moment I heard that we are going to have to use still images for our animation project and put them into, what had to seem as, 3D space. The pictures were made without my presence, but it didn't effect my ambitions much. I knew I wanted to do something like this and I carried on.
I've done some After Effects animations using still images before, here is a playlist of some examples:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF8D7FE1105D3F241&feature=plcp

In this animation I wanted to do something new, and I set out to do limb animation to make some movements more believable. The firs time you see it in the video at 00:04 and you can clearly see how girls arms and legs move as if she is trying to balance her self upon falling. This is an enhanced version and I've made a draft some time ago to show people where I want things to be in the Master edit. Here is the Draft version:



Funny, but the biggest struggle in this animation I had was with the soundtrack.(http://ccmixter.org/files/wired/91)
I wanted it to be spot on, but it just wouldn't fit. And I had to use it, it was part of the assignment. So I've made some tweaks to it, changing to a faster speed and a lower pitch, adding some effects on Adobe Soundbooth, to make it "spicier" and here it was, a version I thought might work. Adding some addional sound clips did the job nicely,
The other thing was the background for the last scene. It was hard to compile everything I needed for it to look at least good. A lot of work in Adobe Photoshop. Custom signs for the school on the walls and gates to sell the look of an expensive, sort of X-men themed, mansion.
I had a lot of fun working on this one, and put a lot of effort to make it look as it looks. I would go back and fix some timing issues and work more on some VFX for them to look crispier. But overall I'm very pleased with the result, and, judging from the feedback I got, so are the viewers.

Thank you very much for reading all this,
Ed.

P.S. Here is a clip of the very first animation I've made a few years ago. Lots of Photoshop and a little AE animation:

"The Shoe Case" or "Shoe Done It"

2011-12-07T20:06:00.001-08:00

Here we go. My edit of our "Shoe Done it" film project is here. Ladies and gentlemen -
Funky music, vivid colours and some computer graphics - this is "The Shoe Case"

This creation started in a group of six people and the agreement on the choice of the genre we wanted to shoot in was achieve fairly quickly. The genre of Comedy was interesting, challenging and unique, in comparison with the choice other groups have made.
The story had to have a girl that lost a shoe and a police officer. We decided to introduce two detectives and curve the story around them. That was how Detectives Cole and Kopowski were born. Although I had ideas of my own and even wrote a script featuring other characters and a slightly different story ( this is the script http://edgarkazaksecond.blogspot.com/2011/11/little-red-robin-hood-or-shoe-done-it.html) we chose to stick with the 70's, 80's "Good Cop, Bad Cop" style. We also had some other things to be included in the film:

1. An interview with a witness in a location in or near the Arboretum
2. An establishing shot, a long shot, a mid-shot and a close- up shot of the interviewee.
3. A range of appropriate shots for the flashback.
4. A flashback, depicting what the witness saw.
5. A graphic showing the interviewees name
6. A graphic showing a map showing the location of the witness and the scene.

We had a rough storyline, just a glimpse of what we had to do. That was because we decided to shoot the film with an improvisational manner. That, in my opinion, happened because we didn't have a leading person, or a consensus on what exactly we want to do. Everyone wanted something of their own in the film. I had my own thoughts and introduced some storyboards and script additions and/or alterations, too. Luckily for us, comedy is a fairly flexible genre and we had a fair material to work with in the end. Unfortunately, due to a hectic timetable and "not planned out" shooting days we missed a lot of opportunities to capture good shots and camera angles. This was and stays my biggest concern. I wish I had been more persuasive in terms of pushing my own ideas forward and more demanding in terms of keeping the team up to pace. After all we all were responsible, and my fault was that I couldn't provide the right explanation of things I had to say. This was a good lesson for me.
Although the filming experience didn't live up to my expectations (I did't really get a chance to do any technical things, but that was generally because I was always one the other side of the camera. ) I was really looking forward to editing the film. I did a whole bunch of editing in the past years so I was aware of the fact that no matter how bad the material is (our material turned out to be way better than I expected, and here I am very thankful to Kalab Khaliq, Jasmine Leung & Kamil Manysiak. I should have had more faith in my team. Sorry.), you can edit it into a great video. The pieces fell together quite well and the core script worked pretty good. The biggest challenge, however, turned out to be turning it into the 70's, 80's themed film. The right music, colours and fonts were crucial. Here is the video that sums up all my research and choices:

The music I used:
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/435837
and
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/411826
was a great addition to the film and really gave it a great 70's and 80's feel. I tried to do the same with the visual portion of the film and I was successful in the most part. Though not everything was achieved. I failed to implement the transactions popular in those days. Although the classic "CUT" was pretty helpful, the other, "fancy" transactions just didn't fit for me, and I abandoned the idea. The colour correction nearly suffered the same fate, but I found a way around the problems and was very happy about it. I thought that correcting colour in Adobe Premiere was a very tough thing to do because it had less control. But the problem was that when I tried to do it in After Effects, it was even less controllable, thanks to the live convertion to Premiers sequence line. I had to turn the editing program off and try to do edit the colours in After Effects separately, but it would include a lot of transferring and rendering, so this option soon became obsolete. Everything was close to falling apart, nut I discovered that CS5 version of Premiere had a great feature - layer blending (previous versions like 0.7 and CS3 didn't have this option). And so I added a Ramp effect, added some funky purple and orange, reduced opacity to 34% and turned on the Overlay and it was done. I used the same technique for the title and credits backgrounds, only without blending and with some animation to the key frames, so that colours would switch places.
My last concern was that we didn't add a "graphic showing a map showing the location of the witness and the scene" in our film. Here I did something I've tried before once, but it was still high tech. Here is the clip I made before showing a compilation of completely different scenes in one. Here is the guy entering the room. He isn't actually entering a room but a dark corridor and from outside the house. The other shot is him entering a room with the girl but from a poorly lit corridor. The goal was to combine it together so that it looks like he is entering a room from outside the house. It uses a lot of AE motion tracking, layering, masking and colour correction:

I used the same techniques on "The Shoe Case" and inserted a map of Arboretum with a red "X" on it onto the wall of Detective Kopowskis office. You can see it 00:08 and appears again in 03:34.
After that the film was done and I was more then happy with it, and still am. A classy soundtrack, colours, some cheeky edit to spice up the comedy and here we go, a nice short film about shoe theft.
In the future I would definitely try to make most of the pre-production and try to be more involved into the filming from behind the camera. I would love to do that. I like this edit but there are some "bugs" to fix, such as fast cuts of music and the titles that appear too early. Also some colour correction where the map is inserted to make it more believable. Some cuts in the video were too jumpy ( the main concern of people giving me feedback) and I am sure I can fix that. But overall I like what I see, and I hope it will continue being an enjoyable thing to watch.

Thank you for reading this far,
Ed.

"Little RED Robin Hood" or "Shoe Done It"

2011-11-26T15:54:00.001-08:00

Little RED Robin Hood

the interpretation of "Show Done it"

Detective Guy Gisborne - 1

Detective Jack Hunter - 2

Miss Carly Reed - 3

Robin Wolf “Thief” Hood - 4

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WHY ARE THEY CALLED THIS WAY

Detective Guy Gisborne - Guy of Gisborne - Legend says he was the Robin Hood's greatest foe.

Detective Jack Hunter - as a refference to The Hunter in the Little Red Riding Hood who saves the girl from the wolf.

Miss Carly Reed - Carly (latin for "little") , Reed - ReED

Robin Wolf “Thief” Hood - Robin Hood & the Wolf - 2in 1

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2- The city is in danger. People are in panic. The winter colds are near and everyone is getting cold feet.

The only ones they can trust now are the two private detectives who swore to solve this mystery.

1- You are over reacting, man. The women’s shoes were stolen, big deal.

2- I am totally going to write a story of our first assignment on my blog.

1- Jack Hunter!…

2- What?

1- Remember, we are PRIVATE detectives!

~THEY WERE APPROACHING THE ARBORETUM ~

1- Hello Miss Reed

3- Hi, thank you for answering my call, the police refused to help me, saying that this was no serious matter and…

2- We are on top of your case, mam! We have put aside everything we had on schedule to help you.

1- Yeah, yes, indeed. Lets proceed, shall we?

Hello Miss Carly Reed, I’m private detective Guy Gisborne. Please tell us about the day your shoes were stolen.

3- Well… [fashback], I entered the park on lunch time, sat on the bench, felt woozy and fell asleep. And then my shoes were gone. [flash-forward]

1- Alright, lets try more details, did you see anyone else in the park?

3- Well… Yes, [flashback] there was this guy…

4- Hello miss, my name is Robin Wolf, I collect contributions fot “Adidas Charity”? [flash-forward]

3- He was collecting charity. I told him that I [flashback] don’t have any money.

2- Continue…

3- Am… A few minutes after….

4- Hello Miss, sorry to bother you, but would you like to contribute to the “Adidas” foundation here in Notts?

3- No I don’t! – I said and pushed him on the shoulder slightly when I was leaving. [flash-forward]

1- What happened next?

[flashback]

4- Mam, where are you going?

3- To my grannie’s house to bring her some God damn pastry! And you know what?! I have got so much money… Too much, in fact, and I will not share a penny with your stupid charity! Now piss off! [flash-forward]

2- Wow…

3-Give me a break, I had a terrible day…

(optional)

[flashback]

2- And after that you fell asleep on the bench and woke up naked…

1- No shoes.

2- Exactly…

(optional)

[flash-forward]

1- Great, thank you Miss ____________ . I guess our next move is finding this charity man and asking him some questions.

2- No problem in that, here he comes…

4- Hello gentlemen, nice to see you, mam. Would you like to…

3- Hey! Those are my shoes!

1,2- Where?!

4- In his bag!

~THE GUY RUNS OFF DROPPING THE BAG~

1- Quick, get him!

~ONE DETECTIVE IS LEFT BEHIND WITH THE CAMERA AND THE GIRL AND TRIES TO QUICKLY DISSASEMBLE THE TRIPOD. THE OTHER RUSHES AFTER THE THIEF~

1- Stop! Stop you bastard!

~THE THIEF IS CHASED UNDER THE BRIDGE WHERE HE IS BLOCKED BY JACK, THE SECOND DETECTIVE, WHO JUMPS DOWN ONTO HIS PATH~

1- End of the road, man.

4- Wait, you don’t get it! Yes, I stole some shoes, but they are for the poor. That girl can buy some more, but the people I give them to need them more… I hope you understand…

2- Hell yeah we do! Get him boys!

~AWKWARD SILENCE~

2- I always wanted to say that.

~ROLLING THROUGH 20 POUND NOTES~

2- I hundred quid for our first job, not bad. I guess she was pretty rich.

1- Yeah, kind of greedy too. Didn’t want to pay double for the “super fast work” we did.

2- Good thing I never introduced myself. Saying it was too easy… Who is she to say that?

1- Yeah, too bad we couldn’t do anything about that Robin Hood Dude.

2- That would be legal...

1- It won’t be long until he is back to his dirty tricks…

~THEY LOOK UP AND SEE THE THIEF RUNNING AWAY WITH A SHOE FROM SOMEONE LIMPING WITHOU ONE~

1- Oh sh / oe…

2- This is so going on my blog.

[part of the last phrase after “/” appears after the credits]

Thanks for reading this guys,

Ed.

Animation (Rough Cut Version)

2011-11-12T19:14:00.001-08:00

Right. So I've been a bit busy the past weeks. Working nights and days, being sick and all of that and I guess I fell behind on some assignments at the Uni and even missed all the lectures last week. That is most unfortunate, because I really enjoy the work we do and the things we learn. So, yes, in a few days time I managed to get together what was supposed to be my animation project and I really gave a go to some animation techniques I haven't tried yet. Tomorrow I'll be adding some effects, as fades, color correction, backgrounds, particle effects, sound effects and some fancy Action Movie Essentials Pack stuff... Should be fun! So I expect this to be ready by Monday and I hope that not getting the initial feedback from the tutor will result in... well... Ah... We'll be fine! Alright, here's the video of a rough cut, first version, enjoy!

Thanks for reading and watching,
Ed.

"The Rule of Thirds" or how hard to find any good pics I made

2011-10-24T19:41:00.000-07:00

So as I was unfortunate enough not to attend to the seminar where the Rule of Thirds was presented to our attention I had to sniff about on the web to find out what it is all about. What I found was interesting, because as many genius things it was beautiful, simple and so obvious that it would never come up to your mind as a background for a theory (rule).
The Rule of Thirds, in my humble opinion, is what teaches you that asymmetry is beautiful, and then puts it in a grid and makes it symmetrical, although still beautiful. It explains the beauty of most of the images.
It took me a while to find a good picture that I made myself, and I finally got to my old DeviantArt account where I found this:

This photograph with a reaching hand is mostly played on the contrast and we can see the most contrast, and the main character, lets say, on the left side, in the exact position of two crossovers. These are the highlights. But the interesting part is a third object in the picture - a shadow, which looks so thick you can assume it can grab you. Its pinnacle, its brightest point merges perfectly with the top-right crossover, thus making this image even more beautiful. The final, bottom-right crossover points out the blue of the ceiling making more than just a background. It seems that you mind should insert something of its own into that seemingly empty space for the hand to grab.

I think it is a great example of the composition that features only two real objects, but lets you add many of your own.

Thank you and good night,

Ed.

P.S. a websit I found - http://www.shutterfreaks.com/Actions/RuleOfThirds.php#Download

"Stasis Session" interactive project COMPLETE

2011-10-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

Now I've just finished working on my interactive story project and boy, oh boy it cost me an arm and a leg. Then again in the end I think it was totally worth it and these last 2 days that I didn't sleep will pay off.
Deciding to make this project was a big step on its own, despite the fact I've never seen an HTML code before, I knew I was making something huge here. Huge in terms of scale, though I hope the quality will stand out too. After all, a free-roaming game? Eghem...
This piece of work made me think. A lot. I had to come up with new ideas of how to arrange everything in order to make it work and make it look as tidy as possible. It also reminded me of a great saying - "quality over quantity". As it turned out I've worked so much on quantity I forgot about the quality, although looking on the result makes me feel warm inside.)
Here it is, I hope the link works and I'll list the specifics below.

"Stasis Session" >> http://edprojects.netai.net/

P.S. It seems that the whole thing was taken down by the hosting, so unfortunately, currently there is no way to check it out online. I'll try to figure something out, maybe post it on my real web site when that is done after the interactive DP2, but 'till then, there will be no access to the content. Sorry.

The ending product is 134MB of volume and uses 100's of photos and their copies.
1,978 files overall.

For all this I had to come up with the "bubble" system.

The main idea of this adventure map/game is free-roam where you can openly explore big areas a long as you want and when you want. So to keep this in order and making tell a story the "bubbles" became crucial.
"Bubbles"are folders containing the information about a certain area in a certain time of the story. When you reach a key point the "bubble" changes to another one so you can explore more territories and progress through the story without stumbling upon an old "cutscene", for example. This was my main challenge and I'm more than certain that with the help of "bubble" system I've beaten it.

By the way this is the free hosting I used and it definitely the best one I tried so check it out. And download FileZilla for file transfer, because it is way easier. Hope this helps.

Thank you for reading till this very point,
Good luck and good night.
Ed.

My Design Process or "My mind is an over 9K TB HDD"

2011-10-09T13:44:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since I last made something that I could show to the world and be generally proud of it. A 1 minute and 11 seconds long animation done entirely in After Effects with a thin line of Premier Pro editing. Shall we begin.
The project that I eventually called "Just a Reminder" was initially a try of one animation technique. It started of with an idea of zooming down to Earth and even inside of it to, eventually, get to its centre where you could find something interesting. I started doing that with no sketches, just watching tutorials on the go and keeping everything inside my brain. I soon understood that this is going further than just a trial and that it might have an idea that could impact peoples hearts in the end.
The project required lots of pictures that you could find on the web for free. While searching for some particular picture of Earth I stumbled upon an image from a video game called Mass Effect. The game took place in every single corner of our galaxy about 150 years form now. I did not find the picture but I became obsessed with the idea of making a social commercial for people living in a far future. As I assumed in 150 years, especially if the events would follow the pre-Mass Effect scenario, human race will be scattered all over the Milky Way and remembering where you are originally from would become a social, political, religious and a very personal issue. It is crucial not to forget your roots. So this is what the project was all about. Remembering.
By working hard, day and night, non stop for two weeks I finally made this, a video that made its way through time and space and now is somehow registered on planet Earth in 2157. Take a look:

The initial zoom project

98 layers in AE & 3D Cam

Fast fall to the city of Milan

The Heart of the Earth

You can see the eyelashes in top-right

STATISTICS:

Max layers -98
7 sequences
40 images (aprox.)
2 weeks hard work
71 second result
1 QuadCore 8GB RAM computer - nearly fried

First Contact War. ME. 2157.

This is the tutorial for the original technique I used:
http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/earth_zoom/

Thank you for getting this far.

Cheers,

Awesome Inspiration & a "Wanabe" Project

2011-10-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was at the NUT's War Gaming and Role playing society's first meeting. It is not yet fully established but you have to give them credit for being highly enthusiastic at what they do and I am sure that in just a few months or even weeks time these guys are going to be fully operational and running.
However my fascination lies in the idea I got just after I left the meeting. Thinking of them being so enthusiastic about what they do and love I stumbled upon my own little wimpy dreams. I love short films, music clips, little stories that you can find on youtube and vimeo and I am blown away how that can become your life, work, a great hobby and a superb portfolio. So far couldn't find myself in an environment that would appeal to that or surrounded by people who would say that they would love to do the same, till this point. And this is where we finally got to the inspiration part.
I generally thought that there are not many people on my course who came here knowing much about production of all sorts of things that we do, and will do, and maybe they are not really interested in this stuff since its just a start of the course, but how horribly wrong I was and I am very sorry for that! Going through blogs of our guys and girls on Reflective journal I turned round some great works and ideas and found a general enthusiasm about their future works and jobs and that made me think, even dream possibly. Guys, I want to make a proposition. How about we create a "Short film, music video and all sorts of our Multimedia arts field's making society sort of thing"? Through this we can escalate our works, teach each-other, learn new skills and gain lots of experience. This would help create great portfolios and maybe even workplaces when we eventually could end up working with TrentTV, Fm or even become youtube partners. This is a pretty big and ambitious idea but I am pretty sure we could make it. We still got 3 years of work here and all the facilities we need so why not use them.
Thank you if you read to this point and I hope you agree with me.
Also a big thanks to you guys for inspiring me either thorough your work, blogs, or just general involvement:

Deano
http://deanoparker.blogspot.com/
Bartholomew
http://bartholabazaz.tumblr.com/tagged/ntumultimedia
Joshua
http://joshesuniblog.blogspot.com/
Kalab
http://kalab92.blogspot.com/
Kamil
http://kamill.wordpress.com/
Kieran
http://kieranm1992.blogspot.com/
Nick Rood
http://nick-rood.blogspot.com/
Nima
http://nimahedayati.blogspot.com/
Rachel
http://rachelgman.blogspot.com/
Beckie
http://beckypike.blogspot.com/
Tom
http://thomasmroberts.blogspot.com/
Zoe
http://zoestroud90.blogspot.com/

Thank you once again. You do understand this list doesn't particularly mean anything but my appreciation for your work and a big thanks and I am sorry if I offended someone in any way.
Yeah guys, I hope you'll think a bit about it.
Cheers,
Ed.

Late Notice

2011-10-08T07:58:00.000-07:00

Well I just went through the posts and blogs of my fellow classmates and understood that I've missed an important part of Uni's start. I totally forgot that we've went through some interesting stuff during our induction week. And I am talking Pinhole Cameras and Whiteboard Animation. The embed video is going to show our animations that we've done in groups of 2 or 3 people using whiteboards, special markers and Cannon Powershots. Although my first pinhole camera experience wasn't at least partially successful and did not produce any decent part of work, I am certainly glad my first whiteboard animation looks nice and somewhat organised. So here they are, a Whiteboard Animation Video, and an article by Rachel Man on her about the Pinhole Cameras that we did. Enjoy.

Rachels blog:
http://rachelgman.blogspot.com/2011/10/pinhole-camera.html

P.S. I've just stumbled across a great source of inspiration and I'm very much thrilled to shout about it in my next post!

Ed.

Inspiration - "Stay hungry, stay foolish" (c)

2011-10-06T18:43:00.000-07:00

I just came across one very interesting video on the main youtube page. Its basically just an ad getting people into using google products and so on... And then again it is very inspiring on its own. Not even a point of it being obviously and intentionally inspiring but the fact is that people care and bother to tell you that YOU CAN and that SOMEONE CARES makes it feel even more powerful and inspiring.

And this brings us to the point.

Inspiration - a much needed resource for us to be productive, successful and, most important, at least shortly, but confident.

And this is where I shut up and actually share some links that I think are most inspiring.

The one I was talking about in the first place:

Dr. Randy Pausch - a man of great wisdom. You might find this inspiring to say the least:

Steve Jobs - well, no need to explain:

So yes, I guess I will be adding some more when they come along but till then,
Thank you and goodnight.