Assignments

Assignments 

So now that I have completed my Creative Media Practice module, I now have to focus on; 

• Final Project - Website/interactive documentary on ‘Fear Itself’.
• Dissertation - On Reality TV; Formats and Second Screen.
• Independent Report -  4000 word report focusing on a media company; Mocha TV.
• Wow Statements 

Final Project;

Thankfully I am working within a group for my final project and the group I am placed in we work really well together so, we should really enjoy this task. We have a plan of what we need to do so we just need to research and finally schedule our filming and editing to fit in with our other modules. 

Dissertation;

I am currently researching for my dissertation reading a few books and finding some information that may help when coming to type up my dissertation, I’m looking forward to my tutorial meeting next week as it will give me an idea of what I need to focus on next.

Independent Report;

I have already had a meeting with the company and got the information needed for this report, also if I need anymore information the owner as explained I can always email him and he’ll get back as soon as possible, which is another bonus to this module. I am currently working on this report as I go along with other modules, I have typed up at least a quarter of this report already.

Wow Statements;

I have currently completed the first Wow statement focusing on reflection;

-Self Awareness

-Personal Values, Motivation, Drive & Energy

-Relating to Others

-Emotional Intelligence

Before I send the statement off I just need to read over to make sure I have mentioned all I need to say for each area in the statement. Once I have booked a slot for my statement to be marked I will then move onto the next statement that goes alongside my independent report. 

So as you can see got a lot of work to be done, and not a lot of time to do it all, it seems there’s not a enough hours in the day, this year is flying by where already in November! 

Creative Media Practice: Final Project

Final Project

Friday 1st November 2013 - Friday 8th November 2013

So after a stressful week last week, this week began great as I had already created some QR codes and I decided to plan out the tasks, I needed to complete such as; filming, editing, completing my presentation and also creating a leaflet to go alongside the presentation. 

Monday - I decided to film the locations, that I had decided would have videos attached to them such as; St Luke’s, Ayrton Saunders Buildings, Bold Street. I found filming the locations really easy as I had the shots I wanted in my mind before so filming didn’t take to long. 

Tuesday & Wednesday - On both days I made sure that I focused on editing each clips and adding the information to each clip. So on Tuesday I made sure the two locations that would contain the footage and text where completed which thankfully I completed on time. For the two videos I used Adobe After Effects which I thought was easy to edit with until I began editing on Adobe Premier. 

So on Wednesday I decided to edit the last clip with Adobe Premier, this clip contains audio along with the footage. I thought editing this clip would be stressful, I was completely wrong as I found editing in this software rather easy. I felt using this software made everything fall into place, and made sure I had enough time to complete all the other tasks before my presentation time on Friday at 12.45pm and also to create the rest of the QR codes needed.

Thursday - As all the QR codes had been created the day before, I spent the day completing my presentation on prezi, I made sure that I had explained each locations properly and also discussed positives, negatives, developments and areas for improvements. 

-An example of a positive would be that I found a lot of local history out that didn’t even know myself and has made me want to learn about more history of our city. 

-An example of a negative would be that I didn’t use my time wisely for this project leaving everything till last minute and not being in the right mind frame on certain days.Another a negative of the project would be that I had the project all planned out in my head, but unfortunately the project did not look or work out the way I thought. It had the features I plan but the presentation was not as I planned in my head.

-An example of developing and improving this project would be expanding the the QR codes and stories, finding different locations outside of the city centre. Another would be using a range of media instead of just using; YouTube videos, Voice notes, Texts and Web Links e.g. I could of created a website containing all the stories and history for the locations. 

I also created a leaflet contain all the images of the locations and QR codes so that it would be easier for anyone to scan the codes instead of trying to scan them off the presentation on the big screen. Along with the leaflet I also created a word document containing all information of my original ideas, proposal, outcomes, positives, negatives and also the developments. 

Friday - So Friday was my presentation day, it began smoothly but for some strange reason I started to get nervous just before my set time. I think I started to become nervous because I wanted my presentation to be perfect and to run smoothly, thankfully my presentation ran smoothly without any hiccups. Also all my QR’s worked and my tutors could see all the media connected to them, which was another bonus!

After the presentation I received some feedback about what I could have done to the project, the feedback I received I agree with e.g. actually going to the locations and placing the QR codes on them, I would of done this with more time. I would of made a short video of somebody walking up to all five locations and scanning the bar codes, as this would explain who the QR codes work.  

Altogether I have really enjoyed this project, I think I picked the right option of creating a project using QR codes and given the option again I would pick the same. 

Below is the link to my Prezi presentation which consists of all the QR codes, make sure you have a smartphone that can scan QR codes so you don’t miss out also make sure you have headphones you may need them. 

Other Side of Town QR Stories - Presentation

Creative Media Practice: Final Project

Final Project

Monday 28th October 2013 - Friday 1st November 2013 

After coming up with my final project I spent the week researching different locations to use for this project. 

My idea of locations changed all the time throughout the week but I finally decided on a number of locations, instead of doing each location on the presentation I picked five main locations to focus on;

-St Luke’s

-Elevator Studios

-Ayrton Saunders

-Philharmonic Hall

-Bold Street

For each of the locations I researched background history of the buildings e.g. what the building was used for previously and what it may be used for now. Also who helped create the building e.g. John Foster snr & Jr. 

After collection research information for each location I then had to come up with what each QR code will connect to videos, voice notes, images, websites.

-St Luke’s will have two QR codes one connecting to the churches website and the other to a short video with footage from around the church and also some background history of the building.

-Elevator Studios will have a number of QR codes placed around the outside of the building, a number of QR codes will connect to voice notes which give brief notes about the history of the building. Other QR codes will connect to the elevator studios and baltic triangle websites. 

-Ayrton Saunders will have a QR code which connects to a YouTube video which will contain video footage and still images of the building, the video will contain audio explaining the history of the building and also a personal story of working for the company.

-Philharmonic Hall will have three QR codes outside the entrance to the hall, one will connect to the halls official website which contains back ground history of the hall. Another will connect to a YouTube video which the Philharmonic Hall have created and posted themselves. The third QR will connect to the ‘People’s Stories - Liverpool Lives’ website which contains stories people have posted about the Hall. 

-Bold Street will have QR codes placed at the bottom, middle and top of the street, each QR code will connect to videos containing facts about the street and what it was used for. 

After building up research I have started making a few QR codes for a number of locations. To present my project I am going to use prezi so that everyone can get the idea, and also so that they don't have to go to the locations themselves as the presentation will explain it to them. Now that I have started creating the QR codes, I’m moving on to create the presentation the best I can. The only problem I have had during this project is that I have felt stressed with other deadlines that now I feel like I haven’t left myself enough time to create all the media on the QR codes perfect, but this point will help me when completing other deadlines making sure I manage my time better so that I am not rushing around last minute. 

Creative Media Practice: Final Project Proposal

Final Project Proposal

Friday 25th October 2013 

So todays session was about making sure we all had an idea, for our final project for this module. Weirdly enough my idea came to be late last night, I knew I wanted to do something with QR Codes as I found it really enjoyable when creating our location narrative for the mini brief a couple of weeks back. I also knew I wanted to base my idea/story in the city centre of Liverpool, my first thought was to use the iconic locations/buildings but after discussing with my tutor. Finding places that aren’t so iconic would tell a better story, which I intend to do with the QR Codes. 

Other Side of Town - Proposal

For our Creative Media Practice project, I am hoping to create a story tour of Liverpool City Centre. As we all at one time or another stood and looked at a building and thought how the building would of looked like years ago or what it may have been used for. Well I am hoping this project will fix this problem, by allowing users to scan QR Codes on their smart phones as they are traveling past the building and locations used in this project. 

The QR Codes will inform the users of history of the building/area and the story behind the scenes. When scanning the QR Codes users can either receive historical facts, videos, audios or still images.

The audience of this project will mostly be tourists to the city informing them of the areas that they wouldn’t normally go to within the city centre. The project will be free for the users as they only have to scan the QR Codes, businesses on the path of this story may gain clients who are interested in their business after the story being told through the QR Codes.

Along with history on areas and building, I am thinking users could find out people stories from many years ago, to do this I would link the ‘People Stories’ website to the QR Codes. Some people may want to add their own story. Hurricane films developed this idea so that anyone can add their own story, videos and pictures http://www.peoples-stories.com/index.php.

Examples of locations and areas that I am thinking of using for this project are;

-Hope Street   -Hanover Street/Duke Street; Ayrton Saunders   -Rodney Street

 -Bombed out Church    -Bold Street   -Everyman Theatre  -Renshaw Street; Grand Central 

Creative Media Practice: Interactivity with YouTube Annotations

Interactivity with YouTube Annotations

Thursday 24th October 2013

Since last session we have spent all our time possible editing our clips. To edit the clips we used Adobe After Effects, as we had used this software in one of the other mini briefs, I found it really easy editing and creating the start of the timeline. We decided that to make it fair we would each have a go at editing so we all had a try at using the software, as we will have to know how to edit for when creating our individual projects at the end of this module. 

So with having the first few seconds been created in the timeline we decided to learn how to edit the clips so that we could add video clips when the lift opens, we did this by using mask tool. Once the first clip was done, the others became easy and all where done in minutes. The only problem we had while editing in this session where; rending and also exporting the clips so that we could add them to our full timeline. A couple of times it felt like we had a hit brick wall, as we felt under pressure and couldn’t remember how to do certain tasks, but after calming down and asking for help we sorted our problem and moved on. We added a few notes on certain part of the timeline to help viewers understand the annotations. So after completing the editing we then uploaded the video onto YouTube and added annotations putting a start and end time for each annotations and making the viewers have the option to go back and try another annotation so they don’t have to finish the experience so quick. As we focused on editing and trying to make the clips perfect we ran out of time so we couldn’t add audio to our video. 

As I said in my previous blog post if we had more time we would add more clips for each floor, also add audio for each clips that appear as the lift doors open, but while the character is in the lift they would have cheerful elevator music. Other than the problems we had I really enjoyed this brief, as I feel like its one of the ideas that we stuck will without changing the main idea. We only had to make a few changes to props etc, so I feel like it was a big bonus to see something work from beginning to end. To do this type of brief for our final project I think would be hard as theres a lot of work that has to be done and doing it on our own, I think would build pressure. Most of us are feeling the pressure with all the other university deadlines we have. 

But on a happy note below is the link to our; YouTube Annotations. 

(Just click on Elevator Adventure)

Elevator Adventures

Creative Media Practice: Interactivity with YouTube Annotations

Interactivity with YouTube Annotations

Friday 18th October 2013

This session of Creative Media Practice focused on Interactivity with YouTube annotations, so to introduce us into this task we watched our tutors prezi presentation which discussed the areas that can be used for interacting with YouTube such as; Play, Story, Education, Campaigns, Promotion, Websites. Some examples used on the presentation I found really enjoyable and could see myself looking them up again on YouTube such as the Tipp-Ex promotion interaction video as it allows us the viewers to re-write the story by just typing in a simple word. 

Check out the link below to the prezi about Interactivity with YouTube Annotations;

http://prezi.com/inh1_fnvpujw/interactive/ 

So after the presentation we where set our brief to come up with an idea for our own YouTube Annotations, so we chose our groups and began to come up with ideas. Each member of our group had ideas, but we all agreed on one ideas! Our idea is that a character will enter into a lift and then the viewers can decide on which floor the character will go onto, but the lift is not any normal lift as the floors are all different locations and settings, you could call it a ‘Magical Lift’. Plus each time the viewers/character are taken back into the lift each floor are given another variety of locations/settings, so you don’t get taken to the same locations twice.

We decided that the viewers can pick from five floors, each floor will have three different locations/settings. 

The locations/settings picked are;

• Liverpool Docks    -University    -Crowd of People walking towards character
• Field    -Buckingham Palace    -Eiffel Tower    -New York    -Jungle    -Desert
• Sydney    -A Mountain    -A Boat    -Hurricane    -Taj Mahal    -Space

Thankfully we where able to film and download all the clips we need for our idea, which means that all we need to do during next week is to edit everything and then place them together in a timeline. So as a group we have decided to spend Wednesday & Thursday morning next week completing this task for our deadline. 

This mini brief has been one of the best, as its so simple and it allows our viewers to interact with our work and not just sit and watch as we all know can get boring after a while. I think if I am going to pick this kind of brief and idea for my final product I think the idea could be expanded a little more maybe by allowing the viewers to pick which lift they want the character to use along with the different locations, another idea to expand this idea would be to have a larger amount of locations which could vary in each lift. One key point to this task would be to make sure I had enough time to find clips and edit them all into a timeline, if you run out off time and rush the product never looks as good as it should. 

So make sure to check back to see our finished product! 

Creative Media Practice: Isadora

Isadora

Friday 11th October 2013  

Our third task for this module is focused on Isadora and interactivity, we had a background story of the software where it started and why. Isadora is an open ended interactive media presentation tool. There so much anyone can do using the software as there is over 250 basis building blocks that can be connected, to create manipulate stunning visuals, sonic environments and media intensive theatrical experiences. 

In small groups we where given our mini brief, to decide on a short interactive narrative experience, that users can explore and engaged in the narrative. As it’s October our brief for this narrative is based around ‘Halloween’. So as a group we’ve decided to use materials such as; audio, stills, movie clips to create our interactive horror/haunting experience. So we’ve started planning our idea and research the internet for the materials where going to need but also to test to see if our narrative idea will work. 

Our Narrative Idea; 

-A Bates Motel still image at the start of the experience.

-Users will interact by making noises e.g. footsteps, knocking.

-Using & moving mouse will allow users to interact with some movie clips e.g. psycho shower scene. 

So the list of material things we need for our Isadora narrative are;

-Doorbell Noise     -Scream Noise     -A person in a window clip/image

-Howling wind Noise     -Creaking Door Noise     -Door Opening clip

-Bats flying Noise     -Whispers of People Talking     -Shower Scene from Psycho 

So from this week till next week as a group we need to collect the materials and also spending time getting use to the Isadora software.