Vid diary 1, more knives

Malac Shoot

Today we shot the script of Malac at a member of my groups flat. we shot the whole script numerous times from three different camera angles, one angle per character and the one in the middle with both characters in shot.We also did close up shots on things such as the brief case and the victims tied hands.

i feel that as a group we suffer with a lack of organisation, this is a problem we will need to address in the preparation before the shoot of course work three. i think our final Malac film will not be as good as it could be because of lighting. we planned to light the set with candles but were aware that we would still need some electric light as the room had no windows. however the ceiling light in the room was far to bright and the only other light source we had was a LED torch, i assumed that there would be small lamps or a few different bulbs to choose from at the location. this is something we need to pay more attention to and be more prepared for in future shoots.

overall i think the shoot went well and i am looking forward to seeing what can be done with the footage. when the film has been edited and finalised i will upload it to this blog under the title of Malac.

Favourite Script

i have just spent quite some time reading the the three scripts for coursework 3. no contest my favourite script is bogdan. i think the script touches on an interesting issue. the sort of locations needed for this script wont be to difficult to find, and whilst reading i instantly began thinking of ideas, especially for the grass verge scenes. another thing that struck me about this script is the very little dialog, this will leave room to tell more of the story with the moving image as apposed to the spoken word.

Broadening

the more diverse your knowledge the more interesting the interconnections, we can boost our creativity simply by learning interesting new things.
to properly discuss this point i would like to touch on something taught to us last year, the differences between design and redesign. redesign is when a creation is taken and perhaps updated or to use a metaphor shot from a different perspective. whereas design is supposedly completely original. however in my opinion nothings completely original, every creation is in affect a summary of the creators inspirations, so it stands to reason that the more diverse a persons knowledge of interesting things the more inspiration that person has. i have a personal theory that when a person is made interested or intrigued they simply begin to think faster, thus generating more ideas.

location scouting, Risk assesment and Health and safety

Today's location scouting seminar made me realise that there is so much more to location scouting that finding a place that looks the part (thanks to health and safety). many aspects of a location have to be pre considered, eg weather conditions, light conditions, traffic conditions, permission to use, potential health hazards such as slippy floors, structural integrity of set, trip hazards and the list goes on.

my personal opinion on health and safety legislation is that the worlds gone mad. health and safety is the system we put in place to protect ourselves from the American suing culture we seem to be slowly adopting. almost one in five television adverts are about suing people because u were not looking where you were going or because you went up a ladder that you knew was the wrong type and fell off of it. its a joke. personal feelings aside ill do my best to fill out detailed risk assessment forms when planning a shoot.

Driving School Web Site

Over the summer months i set myself the task of designing and creating a website for a Small driving school owned by a relative of mine. my two main aims for this web site were.

to put across the necessary information in the most user friendly format possible.

and to assist and educate a learner driver.

to view the finished website click the following link

http://www.drivesolouk.yolasite.com/

i chose yola to make my site because the page layouts look professional and its free

Keytar MIDI Controll

over the summer my side project has been to design and make a keytar MIDI controller, i have now compleated this. the keytar is made from 3 thicknesses of 18mm MDF for the body and 1 thickness for the neck and head, i also salveged parts from a broken keyboard. the keytar is ideal for both stage and studio use and can give a keyboard player the ability to strut around a stage with the carisma of a guitar player.

Keytar features.

connects to a computer via USB

2 octive keypad with full size keys

master volume controll

modulation and pitchbend wheels located on the neck

sustain botton located on rear of neck

transpose up and down buttons

assignable Knobs x 4

i will upload a video of me playing the keytar in the near future to demonstrait the keytars musical ability.

Ska Band

the ska band we got together over the summer has now written and recorded our first own song, have a listen and see what you thing. we have also decided on a final name, Thanks to Phil, we chose this name because we were all taught music by the one and only Phil smith.

SKA Band

back when i was at school and 6th form i played the saxophone for a variety of groups bands and shows. since i came to university there hasn't been much opportunity to play anymore. however this summer me and a bunch of my mates are slowly forming a ska band, we still need to find a permanent singer and perhaps another horn and guitarist. this is a set of videos of a small gig we did for the year 7s at our old school.

new camera

the other day i bought a new stills camera and i was told the best way to test a new camera is to photograph flowers, i feel so un manly. iv still got a long way to go before i can call myself a photographer.

Tattoo designes

heres 2 more tattoo designes for ya

Clocks

this is a dance arrangement of clocks by coldplay, i took the main piano riff and two main vocal melodies and arranged them into a dance/club piece. i hate dance music so much, but ill try anything once if you are unfamiliar with the original clocks click the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbI1FpLd4Vk

Unintended

this is a cover i did of unintended by muse, my mate Matt played the guitar, my other mate Scott sang and i did everything else via MIDI keyboard and recorded and produced the audio. if u are unfamiliar with the original of this song click the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYJEKh9OqEY

We Are The Champions

This is a Latin jazz arrangement i produced of We are the Champions written by Queen, i took the main riffs and melodies from We are the Champions and added a few jazz riffs of my own to produce a version that can be played by a small jazz combo. for those of you who are unfamiliar with the original of this song click the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi0s19M2mN4

The Fire

this is one of the videos that i made to go in my interactive box, this video is supposed to represent the utter randomness of my identity, and my reckless side which will probably kill me one day. i wanted to do a snowboarding video to represent that side of my identity but i couldn't afford it, maybe another time.

The Wanderer

this is one of the videos i produced to go into my interactive box, and probably my favourite part of the box. the audio to this video you may recognise as i uploaded it to this blog in a previous post as soon as i finished producing it, i haven't given a title to this piece of music yet. this video is supposed to represent my love of driving and the whole free spirit open road idea. wish i could explain it better
the video suffered a big loss in quality when i uploaded it. i will look into getting a better video format to upload.

Finnished Avatar

this is my finished avatar he wears jeans and skate shoes (because there so comfy)
he has long blond hair (because everyone should have long hair, male or female.)
he wearers goggles (just in case he gets a chance to do abit of snowboarding)
he has a shot gun/flame thrower/ rocket launcher on his right arm (for long distance attack)
and a a chainsaw on his left arm (for close encounters)

any questions

Final Logo

my final logo design is a very simple design, i used my initials in a particular type of text with a star next to them. this simple design allowed me to experiment with it which proved very useful when producing indents to go with my videos for the interactive box. the video below will demonstraight what i mean.

logo thaughts

howdy, over the last few days i have begun thinking about my logo for the interactive box, i have decided to play around with my initials JW, for this logo, but at the minuit i am struggeling to present them in a way that represents my identity, i guess i dont know myself that well, lol. here are a few starter idears i have produced so far.

Music Composition

Here are 2 musical composition written and recorded by me, i wrote both of them with the moving image in mind. when i have completer the 2 videos to go with these two pieces of audio i will use them in my interactive box.

my musical influences were Danny Elfman, Mike Oldfield and Muse. the software i used to record was Logic Express 7

half me half bat

this is the figure i created as part of the identitys journal tasks, i decided to give myself wings to represent my longing for compleate freedom, and desined the style of the wings and picture to represent my darker side.

i would like to make a video of this charicter and see him in action. if i can do this i will make it part of myinteractive box

Portrait task

after debating many ideas the idea that i thought would represent my identity the most was simple a photo of a corner of my bedroom with abit of added photo shop, i think i was correct. i will use this portrait as a mood board when thinking about my box.

the shape that represents me

I'm still not sure how you can represent your entire self with a shape, to me its just not that simple, but here's what i made

My Creativity

when i started to think about my creativity and for what purpose i use it i couldn't just put it into one box. the conclusion i came to is that i create for two reasons, either because I'm set a project brief at NTU, or just for a laugh because im bored. after thinking more about this my best work in my opinion comes from when im creating just for creating sake. however after looking over some of my work i noticed that the work i do with NTU is produced much more professionally and alot better quality. so concluding my thaughts i prefer the quality of my NTU creations however i think the material is better in my piss about creations, so maybe i should spend more time over the quality and professionalism.

worm seminar

this is the worm i made in a 3D max seminar, im hope ing to get better at makeing them because iv always wondered how to go about animating a talking mouth. so now i know i can finnaly put a few of my project ideas into practise, im glad i diddnt stay home because of the snow today.

3D animation

this is an Alien i made in a 3d max seminar

3D animation

this is the first 3D animation i have ever made, it was made in practice of using the 3D max software which we will be using for the project this term which is to create an avatar. I'm hoping to make my avatar as much like myself as possible, it may even have a snowboard, ill see what i can do.

My Practitioner Development Activity

when asked to write about my practitioner development activity i didn't really know what to write about. its not that i don't do anything outside of uni, but out of all the things i do i wasn't sure if any of them where that relevant. so in this post i will write about the outside activities i do that seem most relevant to the development of me, a multimedia practitioner, sorry i just like saying that.,

drawing
i spend alot of my free time drawing, mainly tattoo designs i hope to scar to myself one day. i understand that tattoos are not that closely related to multimedia. however i beleave the process of designing and drawing a tattoo is all good practice. a wise man once said to me "design is design, whatever the intention". actually i just made that up but there maybe some truth there

software experiments
i am very interested in what can be achieved with different pieces of multimedia software, and i am even more interested in what can be achieved when you use two or more pieces of software in conjunction with each other, or in conjunction with camera trickery. even though i very rarely produce i piece of work from these experiments the knowledge and information gained from these experiments help me when it comes to project work.

watching films
don't ask me why i count this as an activity, because i don't know. however an excuse to sit on my ass and call it work is an excuse to sit on my ass and call it work. plus there is no such thing as to much inspiration.

im back baby

howdy all, its been i while i know. sorry about that. just recently i have been rather busy at my place of work. i work at a school as a performing arts tecky, mainly in the studio and theatre, the reason for my recent busyness is because the school puts on an annual show every February. this years show is We Will Rock You and for this show i am designing and building the set, designing and rigging lights and operating the sound on the five days of the show, if anyone would like to come and see it feel free and ill keep you posted about it. its good to be back.