Pin Hole Photography

Over the last two days I have been using a beer can to take photos. No! I haven’t been drinking, apart from one can that is, Rob and Danny shown me how to make a pin hole camera out of a single beer can, a piece of black card, and some tape. Sounds simple, well it was. After being told that we were to make a camera out of a beer can I was slightly sceptical, however, having made it and tested it, I discovered it does actually work!

The can took about 5 minutes to make and then I was ready to go. I simply popped in a sheet of photo sensitive paper and then went out side to take the picture. The hole on the can was covered by a piece of tape and in order to take the image the hole had to be explosed allow light in. Depending on the amount of light outside depended on how long the exposure was.

The photos were developed in a dark room lit only by a safe light so that no more light can be exposed onto the photosensitive paper. To develop the photo I placed it in the developer, which makes the latent image visible. After a couple of seconds the image starts to appear, as soon as this happens the photo has to be placed in a stop bath, which stops the action of developer - typically a dilute solution of Acetic acid. It is then placed in the fixer which made the image permanent and light-resistant. Finally the photo is dipped in clean water to remove any fixer and the photos are then dried. This whole process takes about 5 minuets.

Here are some of the photos that I took over the two days:



My very first image I only exposed the light for a few seconds, which was not long enough as the image hardly appeared. However, it still looked quite effective and the part of the image that did appear was very clear and sharp. I inverted the photo in Photoshop and adjusted the brightness and contrast to give the final image.



The next two photos had a longer exposure time and more of the image appeared. What were common on all the photos everyone took that day were the blurry spirals. It was later discovered that this could have been caused by the "safe" light, which was not as "safe" as we thought.






The next day we had a new safe light and the photos turned out slightly better.

Broadway Cinema

This Week our narrative was shown on the big screen in front of the whole group. For the first time I was able to see other groups narratives. Overall I was impressed with the quality of the films and enjoyed seeing how the other groups approached their narrative. It was interesting to see the wide range of different genres used within the group and how the groups had very different ideas for their narrative. The following narratives really stood out for me:

Group 2: 'History of the Chaise'

Group 2 had a simple informative film about chaise (chairs). At first I thought the subject matter was slightly bizarre and took me by surprise. I thought that the group was very brave to attempt a documentary style film about chairs as, to a young audience, the subject could have appeared dull and boring. However the narrator clearly had a good knowledge of the subject and his enthusiasm really came across which helped keep my attention. Visually, the narrative was very simple.

Group 3: ‘Cinderella Did It Again!’

I can imagine this would have taken a long time to make. I thought that it was a very good classical style narrative and, although the story had been modernized, I could see all of the traditional elements that make a good fairy tale story.

Group 6: ‘9 To 5’

Visually, I thought this film was brilliant. I’m not sure what program was used but it looked super. The way it switched between real life, and cartoon strip for the dream was a very good idea. We wanted to use a similar method in our narrative when the trainers have flash backs of when they were new.

Group 8: 'The Death of Office Man'

The use of sound in this narrative was very clever as it really made me stressed and annoyed, just like the character in the film. This made me sympathise with the character a lot more.

Group 10: ‘Post It’

I thought that the music in this was fantastic. The short samples really helped create a mood and really added to the humour of the narrative. The shots were also really well thought out and it looked really professional.

Group 13: ‘What Does Discrimination Mean To You’

I thought group 13’s narrative about discrimination was very interesting and looked very professional. The dramatisation along with the voice over’s made the narrative look really professional. The acting done in the dramatisations were done really well and made it look very real. The way the narrative used shock tactics in Hannah’s opening story really caught my attention.

Group 14: ‘Day One’

I really liked the comic book effect used in this film. It was very simple, but effective and was really easy to follow. It also made be laugh, especially Simon Perkins debut (the voice was exact).

Interactive Narrative Evaluation

Over the last 7 weeks I have been working on my interactive narrative with Simon Perkins. This was the first time I had ever used Dreamweaver and worked with HTML/Java Script. Although Simon had shown us the basics of Java Script programming, in order to increase my knowledge of Dreamweaver, I had to do a lot of experimenting and research myself. This involved a lot of problem saving in order to deal with any problems that occur whilst designing and making the narrative, which is a key element of being a multimedia designer.



The narrative brief was very broad, which allowed us to be as creative with our ideas. The only requirement limitation was that the interactive narrative had to be a place that was deemed special to us. Here in Nottingham, that 'place' was my room at my halls as it is the only private place where I can relax and has "personal identity" which has "vital entities, with ownership and belonging". This is what was defined as a 'place' according to Marc Augé, which was mentioned in our narrative brief.

Although the room was personal to me, I felt that it would make very boring narrative if all you had to do was look around the room; after all, there are only four walls. As it had to be interactive, I though it would be good to control certain objects such as turning the lamp on and off and opening draws to allow the user to explore the room in more depth and give the user more control of the narrative. I then developed the idea further, and decided to make an interactive narrative game, where the user had to search the room for items. I thought that I am always loosing things and am always late in the mornings because I can never find anything. Therefore, to make the whole narrative a personal account of me, I decided to base it on me, and allow the user to be me as they try and find the items. The idea was slightly based on the 360 degree photography that allows you look around a certain area from all angles. Some examples can be found at http://www.360spin.co.uk/3sixtyMedia/soapstar.htm which lets you look around various television studios.



I had little trouble designing the narrative however, one problem occurred when I used the roll over function. I used java programming to create roll over points which meant that if you roll off the side of the page, then the next section of the room will be shown. For example, if you move the mouse to the far left of the image, the image showing the next part of the room will be shown. Also, if you move onto the TV it would turn on, and as soon as you move off, it will turn off. This created many problems and it became very frustrating to navigate. If you were to move the pointer completely off the image, when you moved it back on the image would change again as you roll over the sides. Also, when you went to click on the lap top for example, you might accidentally roll over a draw. Movement had to be very restricted; therefore I changed it back to clicking on the objects.

Another problem occurred once the narrative had been uploaded onto the lab constellation website as some of the images did not load correctly. (This problem is not yet solved and I am currently working on a solution).

One thing that I wanted to do was to create a time limit for the user to find all the items, however this was not possible to do in HTML, because as soon as you clicked to the next page the time would start again as information can not carry on to other pages. To do this, I could use flash as you can have a time limit running whilst navigating.

Another idea that I wanted to do was to create a final screen that would allow the user to enter the location of all the items once they had found them all, which would take them to a final ‘congratulations’ screen. Simon and I experimented with various methods which could potentially have worked but would take a lot of time and involve some complex programming, which was perhaps too advanced for a learner like me. One step at a time eh! One solution involved various drop down menus for each of the four items, which contained various possible locations. Once the correct locations were selected, the ‘congratulation’ screen will be shown.



Overall the narrative works well. The only small problem is that it does not run as smoothly when posted on the internet. As each image has to download, there is a slight delay between each image so it’s not as continuous as it is when all the pages are downloaded on to the computer. If the narrative was done in flash, this problem again, would be solved.





Overall, I enjoyed this exercise and I have learnt a lot about java programming. I have also increased my problem solving skills and improved my photography skills have also developed. Finally I now have a greater understanding of what the limitations of HTML are.

Narrative Evaluation Report

Here is my rather long narrative evaluation.

Stage 4 - Narrative Evaluation

During this narrative module, I have developed a wider range of skills and have increased my understanding of film production. During the seminars I have learnt the basics about film structure and processes that I managed to put into practice during this module. I have had practice using the equipment such as video camera’s, and have been trained on how to use the lighting and sound recording equipment. I have been shown how to use design and editor programs such as Photoshop and Premier, most of which, has been completely new to me. I have also learnt the benefits of team working, and how to work well within a group.

The very first challenge I was faced with was to introduce myself to the rest of the group. The first person I met was Aaron. This was a huge relief, as I knew that at least one person in the group was as enthusiastic about the project as I was. Soon after E-mailing the other members of the group, I met Sophie, who was also passionate about the project. This was a huge comfort as I felt very relaxed and found it very easy to discuss ideas and talk to both of them.

In our first meeting, we discussed various ideas for our narrative. After listening to Deborah’s introduction to the narrative module, we had come up with an idea which involved a pair of shoes that go on a journey and fall in love with a sexy pair of high heels. The lecture was very useful for me as I learned a lot about the art of story telling and the different techniques involved. A lot of these techniques we tried to use in our own narrative story. Our narrative followed a classical structure that followed a linear storyline. Lives were affected and the main character went on a quest which involved a ‘problem’, as the shoes were separated, a ‘complication’, as the shoes realised that they have been cloned and are very old and dirty in comparison. The narrative then ends with a ‘resolution’, as the trainers decide to end their life. The narrative also has a clear, beginning, middle and an end. These narrative techniques were all mentioned in the seminar, which was very useful as it gave us a lot of inspiration for our story.

Creating the stage 2 PowerPoint presentation was the first task we worked on as a whole group. This allowed us to share all our ideas for the narrative. I thought we done this quite well. We did have a lot of trouble trying to find the two other members of the group, Neil and Kamal, dispute the many e-mails we had sent. Their lack of attendance at the beginning of the course did make it difficult to make contact with them. However, we still managed to find them in time and work together to create the Presentation on time in order to deliver it to the group. We decided the best way to collect the information was for each person to work on different parts of the presentation and bring it all together. This way we could research in more depth and gather information quicker which would make effective use of each member of the team. It also allowed each member of the group show they can deliver what has been asked of them. Pleasingly each member of the team was able to show what was required of them. As I was confident in using PowerPoint, I was elected to put all the information together and design the slides. Although I hadn’t used PowerPoint for a while, by doing this exercise, I was able to familiarise myself with the program.

Disappointingly, Neil and Kamal never shown up to the presentation, dispute us rehearsing it the day before. Not only did this look bad on the individual, it also looked bad on the group as a whole, as it could have reflected that we wasn’t working together successfully, dispute the fact that we were. I was very nervous about the presentation as I feet uncomfortable speaking to an audience. I spent a lot of time rehearsing the presentation so that I would not have to use my notes. This exercise helped me gain more confidence in speaking out loud to an audience without the aid of notation.

We did get some criticism over the content of the presentation as we did not include any images of the shoes we were going to use, and also, some of the slides were overcrowded. This was partly my fault as I was the designer of the slides and I will take the feedback into consideration for when I design my next PowerPoint presentation. The overall feedback from Andy and Deborah was extremely helpful as they were able to aim us in the right direction and make us aware of any problems with our ideas at this early stage. Our target audience was one problem which was brought to our attention. I had mentioned during the planning of the presentation that the target audience may have been too young, as the plot involved a love scene, and a suggested death at the end. Both Andy and Deborah agreed, and explained that by increasing the target age market, we could make a more mature love scene as it would be difficult to execute this scene to a young audience. Andy explained that there is a fairly large market for adult cartoons, and therefore it would be just as appropriate to aim the narrative at an older audience.

The style of our narrative was heavily inspired by the 2005 ‘neo-noir’ film ‘Sin City’. We wanted our narrative to look different and appeal to an older audience. Although the actual plot of the story may appeal to a younger age group, we felt that by presenting it in film noir, this would attract a more mature audience. By using still images would also give it a comic book appearance which may interest audiences of all ages. In order to go about creating this effect, we had to research film noir and find out how we can achieve this effect. Having not seen Sin City and not knowing much about film noir, I found the most effective way of understanding the genre was by watching clips of the movie. The official website [1] contained video clips as well as behind the scenes images showing how they created the exposure of colour within the black and white. This helped me to gain knowledge of film noir that helped me envision how the narrative would be presented. Sophie had a much better understanding of film noir and was able to share her knowledge of film noir in order to help me with my understanding of this particular cinematic style. This knowledge could also be useful for future projects.

With knowledge of film noir, I began to think how we would go about creating this effect. Luckily, Aaron had an idea of how to go about this in Photoshop. I already had a reasonably good knowledge of Photoshop as I had used it during my A-level graphic course, however the features Aaron shown me, I had not really used before. I thought of using two layers and reducing the saturation to make it greyscale, and then with the above layer, erase selective areas to expose the colour. However, Aaron showed me how to use selective colour to enhance the effect and create a greater contrast between the black and the white which is a crucial feature of film noir. The images below, show how the selective colour made a difference to the image. Again this showed one of the benefits of working in a team as I was able to increase my knowledge of Photoshop, from the expertise of another member of the team. Equally, I was able to assist Aaron, and other team members with my knowledge of Photoshop.



I helped Neil and Sophie complete the editing as they had a lot of trouble with Adobe Premier. Upon completing the first edit, Sophie lost all her work. I therefore decided to help Sophie and Neil with the editing as time was running short. As a team we were able to assist each other and work together when workload was high. Premier was very new to me as I had only ever used it few times before, during the seminar with Danny Kaye and during the You Tube post. By helping Neil and Sophie, I learnt how to use Premier and more about the editing process. I decided that we would need a removable storage device so that we can have backups of the work to avoid us losing our files again. This has made me and the rest of the group understand how important it is to backup work on different removable storage device encase one fail.

One of the main things I have learnt from this project in the important planning. Although we had a storyboard and a clear script, we did not consider the timing of the narrative as there was a lot of material we couldn’t use due to the time constraints. Better planning would have avoided a lot of time spent on key scene that did not make the final cut. We had a lot of scenes of the character playing in the park, in order to add humour to the story; however we struggled to fit it in.

One of the things I did struggle with as a group was communication. Only half the group regularly attended the production surgery sessions, and the regular meetings. Also the rest of the group did not regularly check the narrative group forum. I did use it a few times; put did not find it as useful, as it was rarely used by the rest of the group. Therefore we relied a lot on text messaging, e-mails and phone calls, which was reasonably effective as you often got a reply instantly. However, in future group projects, I will defiantly encourage the rest of the group to make better use of the forums, as it would be a better way of keeping the whole group informed on the developments of the project, and everyone can contribute to the discussion, rather than sending private text messages and e-mails to select members of the group. I did realise that other members of the group viewed each others Blog on a regular basis, which encouraged me to keep it updated with all the developments on the project.

Overall I really enjoyed the narrative project and the final film. My main concern was whether people would understand the story. However, the people we have shown the narrative too really enjoyed it and were able to understand what was going on. I would change very little on the narrative as I felt that it matched our specification and covered what we set out to do which was to tell a story, about a pair of shoes that go on a journey, filmed in the style of film noir. However, some scenes in the narrative are quite boring as it simply relies on a series of individual still images to tell the story. I thought we could have added more stop animation to make the narrative more visually exciting. Overall the project has been an interesting learning experience which I have benefited from it in a number of ways. All the skills that I have learnt over the last few weeks will help me with future projects which will help me to work to a higher standard throughout the rest of this university course.

Bibliography

[1] Sin City (2005) [Buena Vista Home Entertainment Inc], Retrieved 2006/12/04, http://video.movies.go.com/sincity

Space Centre Visit

Today we visited the National Space Centre in Leicester. We visited the space centre to experience the range of interactive displays using different aspects of multimedia.



One of the most exciting displays was inside the space theatre, which is a huge state-of-the-art, multi-media, domed theatre. In here, we watched a magnificent space show presented in 360 degree 3D. The space show used a number of different multimedia elements including 3D animation, surround sound, and stop motion animation. Visually, the film was fantastic and made the audience feel as if they were actually moving.



I was very interested in finding out more about the making of this film and I found a brief step by step of how they went about filming and creating this extraordinarily complex film. Obviously, because no footage of space had been shot in this format, all the footage had to be animated and created digitally using a 3D modelling animation software package called 3D Studio Max.



The music and the sound effects really helped the overall mood and added to the realism of the film. The film was presented in surround sound and sound effects were cleverly heard from all around which added to the realism and demonstrated another clever use of multimedia elements which increased the films dramatic experience and help the audience engage I found that this film increased my understanding of space travel in a whole new way as the multimedia elements kept my attention through out the film, without distracting my attention too much with the visual effects.

Another interesting display used green scene technology to project you onto a space background. The idea was that you had to lie down on a board and push yourself up which, on screen, made it look like you were floating in space. Similar multimedia elements were used in another display which allowed you to present a weather forecast in front of a blue scene which had a changing weather map being project on screen. This was a very effective way of learning how weather forecasts are done by allowing you to actually have a go at presenting the weather in a mock up studio, using similar technology used in real weather studios.

One display that I was disappointed with was the astronaut training game. The display used touch screen technology to allow the user to interact. Touch screen technology is an established and common way of interacting with the computer and is a simple way to communicate with the display. However, the display was very difficult to do the challenges that were asked using touch screen. One challenge involved pressing buttons on the screen as soon as they lit up, in order to test your reaction speed. However, the majority of the time it would not respond quickly enough to my reactions and I often had to click twice until it finally recognised the command. From a user’s point of view, this was very frustrating. I thought that it was using technology that was not really suitable, and it could have worked better using real buttons that lit up instead that could respond quicker, when clicked once.

"The Getaway" Narrative Finished

After several weeks of hard work the two minute narrative is finally finished and I am delighted with the final result. The final film will be shown at the broadway cinema next week but if you can't wait till then, the finished film can be seen now on my blog.