One shot film Project

Original Footage from Mark Boam on Vimeo.

This was our first edit of the footage, i feel it works pretty well but things i would have changed are that:

• I would have added a fade in and out
• I would have liked for there to have been a longer delay in the action taking place's, i feel it starts off to quick.
• And if given more time i would have liked to add a voice over to add more of a story.

Behind the scenes pics can be found here http://richardbenedwards.blogspot.com/2010/11/urghh.html


One shot First Edit from Mark Boam on Vimeo.

EPICNESS!

The LightLine of Gotham from seeper on Vimeo.

Short Films

I have been looking over some short films, some one shot some just generic short films. Ill post the ones i enjoy, like and have taken ideas from here.



I like this video because it dose get the idea of a compulsive mentality over with the repetitiveness of the music and the lift voice.



I liked the short film as i liked the style and look of it, it really creates a senses of terror with a comical outcome.


This reminds me of the idea created one one of the other groups videos i saw ill look and post that when i get chance.



liked this, had a hidden message.



This video is one that our group has taken its ideas from for our project, over the week we will see what we can come up with xD

Vimeo Award's 2010

I have been watching the Winners Award's Videos on vimeo and found nearly all of them to be very inspiring and very much enjoyed watching them.

The Motion Graphic's winner blew my mind, i loved it.I hope to one day be able to create something as good as this

TRI▲NGLE from Onur Senturk on Vimeo.

Love it!

I found this when waiting for my Animation to be processed on Vimeo, its very inspiring and i found it very enjoyable.


American Software from Partizan Darkroom on Vimeo.

Your station Ident

So... its hand in date for my first DP1 module project in animation. The brief I found to be very enjoyable, although i did underestimated the shear amount of time you need to put in to the rendering process.
My first idea for the Animation idea i found was much to complex and if i had attempted to create it, lets just say i might have still being working on it now... My final idea came simply from looking around the net seeing what people had created using 3Ds Max, and I came across this video.


 I found that 3Ds Max had a very nice 'Hair and Fur' generator built into it, so I though to myself, 'that looks nice and i could create something simple yet beautiful using this.'
Seeing the short youtube animation and the power of what the plug-in could generate, I was reminded of a Pixar making of video that I saw on the creating of Monsters inc. The monster Sully was created with millions of individual hairs and took a heavy amount of time to render his movements. Taking this into account and knowing that i am new to animation I though that a simply 'Hair ball' would be a starting point for getting to grips with the software and its workings.
I wanted to give the hair ball some what of a personality and a noticeable character.

Giving a hair ball a personality I feel I did pretty well. I had the hair ball always moving, trying to give the senses of excitement and curiosity. Knowing that sound is a very important element when trying to give and animation life I tried to get sound clips that get a senses of mystery and interest.

Overall I really enjoyed the Animation module and I am very interested on what our next project will Intel.

The final Video
After rendering the video out I found that the Edge of the 'Plain' was showing through the hairs on my 'Hair ball.' After talking to Andy he says adding a 'Wall,' will help to solve this problem. I will be uploading a cleaner version as soon as.


Animation HD from Mark Boam on Vimeo.

Here is the cleaned up video, I am very happy with the out come and feel that for having no previous experience in animation, I have created something i am proud of.


Finished Animation HD from Mark Boam on Vimeo.

Animation test's

Short ident idea, well be developing this further

Short Ident test from Mark Boam on Vimeo.

Hair ball test 2
Render messed up a little, but now hair has a bit more life to it.

Test 2 from Mark Boam on Vimeo.

Hair balls test 1

Hair Ball Test 1 from Mark Boam on Vimeo.

My Multimedia

As a gamer Microsofts new Kinect system really takes my interest. I have been looking into the system since information on it was first release, although i always had my doubts about the thing actually working well or even being an enjoyable experiences.

On Saturday (16/10) i got to see the system working, and to my amazement it actually worked really well. I was offered ago at using the kinect's controller but i turned it down as i felt like id look an idiot using it. This is where i feel the idea is a down fall. I know that its supposed to be 'fun and active' but i prefer the old fashioned hand held controller to this new found active work out. A deep action filled game i feel would not benefit at all for the invention of Kinect's much like the wii remote i just feel it takes the intensity out of a game and makes it a novelty, but for family fun i do see the kinect camera doing a good job. =]

3Ds Max on OSX =]

I managed to get 3Ds Max up and running on my MacBook. It has a rather long opening load time, but once its started up it seems to run fine. Although i have not done a lot with it as yet, i also installed Maya which will be there as a back up but i may need so training on this.

My Design Proscess

My last project was one I did to promote the release of the Chevrolet Spark. We were provided a brief from them and had to create an idea to sell the car for what it is.

• Do you sketch, watch, talk, delay?

Being from a moving image background I have had it drilled into that before any practical filming can be done I need to have a clear idea of what I want to achieve and for what I want the outcome to be. I start my design process by getting general ideas out and written down.

After I have me basic idea I would develop that until happy with it and I’m at the stage to start designing storyboards. The storyboard process help me to have a clear understanding of my vision and helps to make sure I don’t miss anything out in the production stages.

• How do you develop the original idea?

Often I’ll discuss my ideas with other’s, talk out what outcomes we would like to see, how we would like to reach it etc. I am also aware that idea’s can many times not go to plan in the production stage i.e. things don’t go as expected, weather, people don’t turn up or even time problems. This means that sometimes you have to re shot or just make do with what you have.

• How is the idea tested?

Normaly the idea would be pitched to my tutor and they would give feedback back to me. The feed back would be to make me question my ideas giving me a chance to prove my thinking.

• How often do you look back?

Honestly? not that often, only really when i need to, to remind me of what iv tried and what worked well.

First week done, new one begins.

The first week was rather interesting. It was how i imagined it would be, met and great kind of thing. There where to 'team building' activities that were incorporated into the week which were rather simple but also engaging.

Tuesday 28/9 - white-bored animation. The group were split into smaller groups of 6 to produce a sort ten second white-bored Animation. As we were using a Digital SLR we needed to animate the peace by taking many still photos to in the end give the perception of moving video. Each 12 photos would work out at 1 second of video which meant that a 10 second animation would need 120 shots. I think that the final piece came out pretty well for saying we had know idea where we were going with it. =]

Our animation is the first in the 2010 animation video which can be found here:

http://dig-narratives.blogspot.com/2010/10/whiteboard-animation-ntu-multimedia.html

Wednesday 29/9 - Can camera. We were all asked to bring in a 500ml can to use as a 'Pin hole camera,' the idea was that by letting light in through the pin hole it would leave an image on the photo paper inside the can. The can needed to only able to let like in through the pin hole (lens) so in was crucial that we made a shutter to stop over exposure.

Depending on light conditions we would have to decide how long to keep the shutter open, on a good day  with a well lit setting 8 seconds should be fine but as on this day the weather was pretty bad we were told to try about 12 seconds.

My prints came out ok but not to well, id like to get hold of the to see how they look after a bit of a touch up.

Here is a picture of my 'Can camera'

I would like to try this again to see what i can come up with as i feel its a very simple way of creating something very interesting.