Video blogs

Recent problems

As some might know, the last month or 2 has not been a great time for me, lots of personally problems in my life that I had to sort out, alot of stress kicking off which led to my motivation in everything to drop drastically.

But I'll like to say everything is fine now, and that its all well and I'll be working very hard to get back on track and up to date with my work. I need say thanks to all those who stuck by me and helped me out during the times when I was down :) You know who you are, no need for names :)

Editing More Knives

I am the editor for our production More Knives , I've been working on the edit for about a week or so now, first part is obviously too get all the right footage together to develop a rough edit and then the next part is tidying it all up. This consists of making sure all the footage is clear and usable, any tweaks like brightness and contrast and colour is undertaken in this process.

Next, after all the footage is good, we then get all the sound levels, backing tracks and any sound related problems fixed. This is really important because many people usually miss out the importance of sound which usually leads to a unsatisfying edit for the audience.

I would say that everything is going well so far, just needs going over and over again to make sure that everything is perfect. For people who know me, I am a perfectionist in a sense so I do pick our really small things and spend an awful lot of time tidying little things up.

Hopefully it will all go well.

News on PSP GO!

Okay so another good point about the psp go! has been found, Sony has brought out a reward scheme for people who are upgrading from psp to psp go! You get 3 games from choice of 17 to select and download, there are new games and old games in the selection but I must say that it is a very bad list of games, that is my personal opinion though, heres the list.

Killzone: Liberation
MediEvil: Resurrection
WipEout Pure
Buzz: Brain Bender
Buzz: Master Quiz
SOCOM U.S Navy SEALs: Fireteam Bravo
Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters
Everybody's Golf
Resistance: Retribution
Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror
Lemmings
LocoRoco
Patapon
Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow
echochrome
Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice
Daxter

You have to have your old PSP to do this! so this throws the "selling old psp to get new one cheaper" idea out the window, You'll need wireless connection, you first register your old psp, register an old game then you get an email then you register your new psp, then you use the redeem code that you get with the email and YES! you finally get to download some stuff!

Bad points already, PSPs dont have the "download in background" function, that means you have to just sit there and wait for your PSP to finish downloading a game before you can do anything else, so make sure youre entertained, because it takes a while!

Secondly don't download it onto your PS3 first then transfer it over, yes it maybe quicker, and you can play on the ps3 whilst downloading, but, rumor has it that if you download it off PS3 first it doesnt work, so I won't risk it.

Apart from that I think that the scheme is pretty decent, just a bad selection of games which could be tidied up and I also think that you should be able to transfer all the games you bought for the old PSP onto the new one.

After all this you can finally sell your old one to get a bit of money back!

Production photos

PSP GO! review

I recently bought the new PSP GO! let me do a review here for all you contemplating on buying a PSP.

First things first, the pain of carrying games around with you all the time is gone because the new PSP cannot accept UMDs! this is because all the games are stored on the new 16GB built hard drive. first problem, you only get 14GB because 2GB is already used for system files etc. So thats at least 2-3 games less that you can store!

The new PSP is alot smaller so it actually fits into your pocket, unlike the old PSP which was literally the size of a brick, the new one is also alot brighter, longer lasting battery and faster WiFi. The screen on the new one is smaller but the resolution is the same so no loss of graphics or quality.

The major downfall so far is that all your old games for the PSP is no longer usable of course and the old one doesnt sell for much either so if you wanted to trade in old for new you still have to pay abit for it!

The new one is £224 from GAME, you cant use you student card for discounts though! which was a big let down for me when I found out, its the same price in HMV but comes with a case! haha what a deal!

I got mine from CEX which is £190, second hand but never used, due to people selling them as soon as they get it free with a contract phone, so its practically brandnew.

They take in the old PSP for £65 trade-in which is more than what the other stores take in for, and they sell it cheaper so its the only place to go really.

The other the downside is obviously the games, if you buy games from stores you can get discount from student cards, which was always nice, but now you buy online you cant get any discounts at all! not can you buy second hand games which is kick in the balls!

Good sides are that the new one is really slick and good looking and easy to carry around and also you dont really need to spend money on memory cards.

I dont believe the price will go down too much niether will there be deals because they cant come with games! There is a good deal though, if you own the old PSP then you can get 3 games free if you buy the PSP GO! which is quite a deal before you realize that you can only choose from a selected list.

In conclusion, if you have many games for your PSP and if your old one is not in very good condition then I would stick with it for a while to see how it turns out, but if your a big gadget fan like myself then I would advise to get it since it is nice!

More Knives Production

So yesterday we went to film our short film, the production was delayed by an hour due to having a new actor last minute, and the sound on the camera messing up, we spent the first hour rehersing and fixing the problem on the camera.

But then we redeemed ourselves by speeding through it all straight away and actually ended with 1 and half to spare and even fitted in the lunch break on time.

Everything went smoothly and I can say the sound, lighting and framing were all very good.

When we were all very content with it all we came across something that wiped the smile straight off our face. The camera was not on HDV! we were too far into the production to have actually refilmed when we realized, we had a discussion with the director and producer and decided to continue with filming in DV.

When we met and discussed with Deborah Tuck she said that it was the right dicision but we were still total idiots for not realize which is too true!

We will learn from this and edit the film into something fantastic even if it is in DV!

production pictures will be up very soon.

Viral

I heard that This was clover viral or a games viral, not sure which one, but it looks good to me :)

Fairy Tail Revised

after watch a few more episodes, my opinions of this anime has gone down abit, due to the fact that I'm seeing alot of characters being copied from other animes.

In episode 4 theres a character in Fair Tail called "kageyama" the first thing that came to my head was that he looked like "Shikamaru" from Naruto.

I thought ok, fine theres characters that look alike, although there were very alike they still could be very different, but then when he used his powers, which were shadows, its the exact same as "Shikamaru"!

Also theres a character called "Loke" who looks very similar to "Ichigo" the main character of Bleach.

I mean its good to get influence but not to copy, uncool!

The Fourth Kind

The trailer looks quite good, and its based on real studies, not quite sure how it will be but I want to see it.

The fact that its supposed to be based on real events and footage intrigues me alot, although it seems its already had a lot of bad reviews from "Rotten Tomatoes" and "Metacritic" scoring "15% and 34%" respectively.

New Anime!

Theres a new anime series out called Fairy Tail and its really worth watching :) The drawing style quite similar to the old series "Rave Master" but I think the storyline is better.

They seems to have used some same characters from "Rave Master" in this new anime, which is quite nice to see for fans :)

Still not as good as the good old ones such as "bleach, One piece, Naruto! etc but I would recommend anime watchers to have a look into it :)

MALac filming

The filming in general was fine, but the lighting was tougher than we thought, we wanted a dim lighting to make the whole piece look spooky, but it might have been too dark, but it still looked pretty good at the end, heres some production pictures.

another problem that we had was the actors that we meant to be using were busy so me and james had to do the acting for it, which was fn in a way since we havent really acted before.

the editing is yet to be completed but I'll post once its done

Film Review - Sorority Row 2009

Ok here it goes, watched this film the other day, one word can sum it up, and excuse my language, WANK.

This film was terrible, not only does it lack in a strong storyline the actors were worse than primary school actors. seriously extremely dissapointed about this film.

I'll now run through it quicky and point out all the bad points and any good points I can think of.

So at the start, the film already is just boring, long intro sequence of a party going on not much to see, then it introduces the characters in a very bizarre manner, just basically, the characters are explaing why they love eachother etc. Then the horror kicks in, they try to play a prank on someone by faking a girls death and blah blah blah, at this point you think it could be good but then the real horror ( which is the storyline + filming of this film )kicks in. they started scaring this boy sayin "o we killed her we need to cut her up etc" so the lad not knowing what hes doing goes to cut her up with a car tool? makes no sense that he used that also no sense that he goes straight for the chest, so now bad joke ends in tragedy one dies, they throw her body in a well to hide it etc but during that scene no seem to realise they killed someone, they acted like they just seen a dead pigeon rather than a human, extremely bad acting apart the geek who managed to squeeze out a drop of tear.

What I particularly dislike is the blonde one aka the bitch, her acting is that bad and cheesey it makes cheddar smells like flowers. no one ever in history could really act as calm as she did when seeing a person die, not only that, she manages to squeeze some sarcasm into it.

anyway, all goes well they hide the body, say that the dead girl just went missing and managed to stay out of prison. they all get boyfriends, some of them tell them and so on so secrets not only between the girls now.

story goes on, people dying, they think its girls ghost blah blah blah, obviously not, they then introduce the dead girls sister... woah! person who most likely been taking revenge? well you would like to think that but it ends up being a twat who goes out with one of the girls, and cause he dont want her get caught he starts killing people off...NO ONE EVEN BROUGHT THE EVENT UP FOR A WHOLE YEAR TILL THAT DOUCHE BAG STARTED KILLING PEOPLE! totally uncalled for.

Another bad thing bout the acting is that I reckon all the actors were failed models since they refuse to walk like normal human beings, they all had to do the whole cat walk thing where they put one foot right in front of the other and shake their hips about etc. ok its sexy, but really no need, especially when they're walking on their own with noone around. second the obligatory showing of the boobs! not that the male species will mind at all seeing that but its irrelevent to the plot! its almost as if they put it in just to attract the men to watch, but let me tell you now, I would rather watch a dog doing it with a tree than watch that again!

now it comes to the climax most people dead, killed with the tool they first killed the girl at the start with...dunno why they had to use that becuase first it dont have any relevant and second he altered it so it had knives and hooks! WTF?

and also seem to have an unlimited supply of them too, he also throws them like batman which pissed me off immensly.

so they reveal who it is all the girls are shocked and the guy now wants to kill them all off, so he runs around and all this jazz and the owner of the house, an old lady comes through with a gun and starts acting liek rambo! that part just made me cringe.

so the old woman dies and the house is on fire, and the actors still doesnt see it as a problem, with the floors collapsing they still yet to reveal any fear, only calmly saying to eachother "we need to get out" for fuck sake the house is on fire! the floors are crumbling! at least act scared.

now the guy falls through you think he dies and blah blah blah, house explodes and burn to the ground o and the worst is just now. 3 girls, model like, not much clothing strutting out of the house, everything slows down just seeing these 3 attractive girls come strollling through, THEY NEARLY JUST DIED, HOUSE BEHIND THEM IS ON FIRE! any fucker with common sense will run. And yes I was swearing alot whlist watching this!

so right at the end the next year party is on and you see a hand with the same tool walk into shot only bearing a few scars....omg....hes a alive *clap* clap *clap* did not see that coming.

no offense but shit like this should not be allowed to be shown, the camera shots were nothing special, most of them were hand held, seems like they have tripod-aphobia! poor lighting, nothing special about the sound or sound effects, bog standard suspense and ambient backgroudn noises, the supsense was also appauling, didnt even make me jump and I jump easily!

in general terrible film if the cast, or filming crew ever get to read this then it is my pleasure to tell you that you suck!

I'm too angry to write reviews haha

Reviewing the film - Orphan

The film orphan struck me as being very weird. you watch it all the way through thinking that its one thing but then the twist at the end is a real shock, in general a good film but extremely creepy.

so the story is basically a mother who is an alcoholic coping with the loss of a child due to her alchoholism, the husband is also a cheat which doesnt really add to the storyline but there it is.

her drinking also caused her to fail in saving one of her other child quick enough whilst she was drowning which led her child now to be mute and mostly deaf.

so she loses her child and wants to make up for it by adopting, they go to a orphanage and gets attracted by a russian (or something liek that) girl who seem alot more mature than most others. they adopt her, the daughter loves her new sister but the son dislikes her greatly.

as she settles in they notice that she wears ribbons continously round her neck and wrist, no one knows why at this point but when the adopted girl goes to school she gets bullied by her dress sense and her ribbons, and when one of the bullies try to remove them thats the first time you see this adopted child to be crazy as she screams uncontrollably. she also has a bible looking book on her most of the time.

so as time goes on, the girl settles in, things goes smoothly until one night when the mum and dad get it on she walks in, when the mother tried to explain to her what was going on, she calmy reply "you fucked". really unexpected at this point, child barely 10 using such language an all that.

at the start she also said that she didnt play piano, whereas the mothers very good, so she takes lessons with her. when one day the mother walks in a finds that the girl in fact is playing at proffessional level on her own, questions start to arise.

at this point the girl is also answering back alot and starting to act up to the mother but staying a good girl to the father.

so far the film is nicely shot and the suspense is good, everything is working nicely.

you then see the adopted girl mercilessly killing a bird off that the son shot with a pellet gun saying that "we need to put it out of its misery" still strange for a young child to do.

now the real shit comes in, the nun from the orphange comes along trying to inform the parents that somethings up with this child and she ends up killing her and hiding the body, sweet talking the poor sister to not tell anyone.

and then more crazy things happen, she threatens the son and end up cauging him to fall from his tree house injuring him serious and the mother starts to really hate this child and and wants to find out about her past more. this is the part when the mother finds out that she came from a mental asylum and that shes actually a midget! shes actually an adult posed as a child who tries to suduce the father of the family by driving away the mother. this is the time when you find out that all the paintings she been doing are all satanic under UV light and everything just goes really far, she kills the father off mother comes back, has a massive fight with this midget, saves her daughter, but her sons now in coma in hospital and her husbands dead..very grim ending and the midget sinks into a deep pond.

in general and well made film but seriously where did they get the storyline from?

6th - uni soon

o yay uni starting again, it is quite boring without it, and it seems that we payed all that money to have little education time is pathetic but o well, i get a degree out of this, who cares *shrugs*

I might socialize with more people this year....maybe :p

5th - coping with loved ones moving

now with the new uni term starting few mates going back to uni, some moving away including my partner.

shes currently in newcastle and its difficult to have her so far away but things will be fine when my loan comes through so I can afford train tickets to see her haha

I'm sure good few people will have similar problems, not nice is it :(

4th - the band

well my bands (with silent eyes) been going ok but since I came back from holiday it seemed to have slowed down and everything was falling to pieces, our practise place got knocked down, we havent practised in a month and people were out of contact.

After some meetings and looking aroudn we found a new place and is now happily pracitsing there with a few good gigs behind us we're ready to move forward again. New songs been write and in process of writing more new ones, new recordings to be arriving soon, and merch to be out on sale very soon too.

if you like your metal, hardcore, metalcore etc then visit our myspace :) we'll be playing notts soon too so come see us :D

www.myspace.com/withsilenteyesband

p.s merch designed by me obv (Y) ;)

3rd - holiday

whilst on my break I've been around the U.K abit and went to france, Normanide. really opened up my eyes seeing the remains of the D-day landings such as the floating habour and war graves etc. Also had a chance to try out some exquistit french food which I'm very happy about. About from that it was lazy holiday which consisted of me cooking alot, but I love cooking so its all fine :)

photos from france would be up on my facebook and also my flickr account

www.flickr.com/photos/jylphotography

2nd - Company

I recently teamed up with my friend back from college to help him with his company "ctrl alt defeat". It's a T shirt company, we've recently got the website up and running so everything is all good :)

www.ctrlaltdefeatclothing.com

On top of that I've been selling alot of my work too which is all on here

http://emptees.com/people/14151-joewse

and topped up my photography on flickr and heres the link to that

www.flickr.com/photos/jylphotography

thats about enough

1st - T-shirt designing

First of all I'll talk about my new found income making hobby. I have first discovered that I can draw when I was about 3 but never really put it to good use until a few motnhs back. I started looking into T-shirt designing and found a website called "emptees" this website is a collabaration of artists work and is really useful for rookies like myself to have they're work reviewed and criticized.

I started off by posting a few old re-vamped designs up and starting really hooked onto improving which lead to endless nights of working into early hours of the morning. As weeks went by I can already feel that my skills were improving as a designer and so I took a step further and bought myself a graphics tablet which is now essential for my drawings.

This lead onto competing with big desginers on that website. theres a award everday for the best design called "T of the day" and ive been wanting to win that award for so long but still not good enough yet. I've come close to winning top tees ( which is awarded any other designs that are extrodinarily good that day but still not achieved it yet.

After continuos failure at achieving any awards I started feeling down and had a massive debate online about how only the popular designers get awarded not even for their work but for the populariy etc. This lead to many insults and critcism. Now I think back and realize it was really dumb to say it so I've just decided to keep creating designs everyday and improve till I get an award :)

It's not like my designs arent good because I've been making a steady income from selling them so I'm all happy again :)

It's been so long

Right to start things off, hope anyone whos reading this had a good summer holiday, if not then tough, try better next yeah.

A lot has happened in my summer holiday, got a business going, started down a new path, which is currently really successful, been continuing my photography, band and so on, seen alot of new films and old films etc. too much to talk about in one go so I will break it down into a few entries to try and cover it all.

Really have been too busy to keep up with this blogging business.

Laterz

Thirteen

I've finally been tied down to watched this "Thirteen" film my partners been yapping on about for ages, and to be be very honest, I was right about not wanting to see it in the first place.

ok its not that the film is bad, its fine but just not my cup of tea. the film is another one of them deep meaningful films that portrays girls in America and how they want to be popular and all that, its an autobiography so we can't really fault the storyline but you're watching it and you're there thinking...."just hit the slag" kinda thing... mind my language but those were exact words that came to my head. I think its good though how it can deal that sort of impact onto the audience, its nice how it plays out and demonstrates how kids can grow out of their
"sweet mummy's girl" into drug using street whore just by hanging out with the wrong people and the craving for attention. very deep film...very deep

worth a watch...just one watch though, nothing more

Da Vinci Code

Right, I've heard alot about this film and so i thoguht i might give it a chance and watched it the other day, not the best film, not the worst, in terms of the visual side of things, it was great, loved the shots, loved the edit, but didn't quite follow the storyline.

The whole concept was good, it was believable that something as such could happen but the point was that everything was just abit out of hand, as in some things they do was way far fetched and how he solved the clues and mysteries was just weird.
It's portrayed as a real life film but things in that make it seem too unreal....Maybe just me being a prick about things but it seemed like "ooo look at this banana lying on the floor, its just a banana but I'm sure it has a deep meaning that can lead me somewhere and bang! there it is, solved everything" not quite like that but im sure you get what I mean. And when he used the bullet to stop the van door from closing? come on!!! would anyone really think of that? seriously.

good film though haha

designing

ok....week off, what to do? I know! something unrealted to university work lol, well anywayz I've been designing T shirts on a website called "emptees" and been working on stuff for a few weeks now and heres the work for you to look at at :)

http://emptees.com/people/14151-joewse

follow that link and have a gander at my work :D

target audience

Music video target audience

The research I took allowed me to basically come up with this conclusion my target audience, my target audience aimed mostly at teenagers, because there is violence in the video so parents won’t appreciate children watching it, but apart from that it also aimed at anyone who enjoys this genre of music, you’ll see videos like this on MTV and people ranging from age will watch whatever’s on.

Videos in my box

just in case the videos won't load in my box i will upload them all here for you to watch :)

Too much work

leaving work to the last minute aint fun i tell ya, its all becuase that stupid flash box being a prick and won't work half the time, finalyl got it done though now so still quite happy about myself :)

Interactive showcase

heres my interatcive showcase, I'll advise you to leave it for a little while after its loaded before using, because the files so big, it will take time to properly load.


Interactive Showcase by ~Immolated-angel on deviantART

cheers

Personal skills audit

Skills Audit for music video shoot

For this music video are crew has to be aware that each one of us has to play an individual role in the process, so to ensure that we will have to assign each one to their most suited position.

Here are my skills and why I have been chosen to be an editor

Camera work – I have had quite a lot of experience in camera work, I have been studying at Chesterfield College for 2 years in Media (moving image) but since I will be doing the acting in this camera work for me is no good.

Directing – Personally I have good ideas and know what I want when making a production but I don’t like having to tell people what to do, I feel uncomfortable and I prefer keeping my head down whilst working so directing is not too great for me either.

Editing – I have been interested in editing ever since college, it seems to be the right job for me because I have the patience to be sitting behind an editing suite for days and continuous working on the same thing. I am quite creative when it comes to editing and I can work quite fast too. I’ve had previous experience with Final Cut Pro on the Mac suites but this is my first time editing a big piece on premiere, so im quite excited about it.

In general editing is the only job that’s suitable for me in this production so I’ll be taking that job, but I won’t mind taking on one of the other roles during future projects. Also I won’t be working on the editing alone; the others will be helping me along and giving their input during the process.

Risk assessment

Risk assessment for music video shoot

Location is Walton Woods assessed by me.

As it is a wood, the obviously would be plants tangling feet, nettles etc. but since we’re not too sure what could actually be there, there could also be things like used needles, you’ll never know, so we preferably need to wear trousers and keep legs covered, and maybe even hard boots or just shoes with good soles to not let anything go through the bottom easily.

Slipping and falling can always be a problem, there are fallen braches and stumps with moss on them, if stood on would make you slip right off.

There’s a golf course very near by, on the off chance there could be a golf ball flying across, a very small chance but you’ll never know.

If any small item is dropped in the woods it will be hard to find because the woods are quite dense and the floor is covered in leaves, twigs and tall grass.

Recce report

Recce Report for music video shoot

The location is Walton Woods near Chesterfield

There are no near power sockets so extra batteries will be needed, no lighting, natural lighting only, might consider generator if possible or torches.

Refreshments are available in the near by petrol station but there’s no toilets.

Accessibility is low, the car park from the actual filming location is about 5 minutes, with drum kit and guitars would double that, so I would give it extra 10 minutes in schedule for transportation of equipment.

Permission to film is not needed, the woods are unattended and barely anyone goes through it.

This place is perfect because the drum sound won’t affect anyone this far in.

There are also no interrupting sounds that could affect our filming process.

Proposal and treatment

Proposal

We propose to make a music video for a metal band With Silent Eyes, for the song Never Be Forgotten; the music video will be filmed using 2-3 cameras, with mini DV and mini DVD. The footage will be edited using Adobe Premiere.

The estimated budget will be around £20. That included price for props and petrol with money to spare. Equipment will be our own or borrowed from university.

Treatment

The basic storyline of the music video is that a male character is burying a female character after killing her in the woods; this will consist of chase scenes, killing scene and scenes where the male actor is preparing to bury her. The band will be filmed at many angles to try and get a good variety of cuts in. the footage will be edited in a non linear format so the viewers are lightly disorientated but still get the storyline through watching. The cuts will be rapid and fast to keep the viewers attention. The colours of it will be edited to make it look dark and grimy to give it a more gritty feeling.

The cook, The Thief, His Wife and her Lover

I watched this film last week and I really enjoyed it, theres something about it that makes you want to watch more, theres so many little messages in the film that I cant quite get the meaning of.

I like the way how the Wifes dress changed to white when she walks in the toilet, white signifies cleanliness and purity in a way but she goes into the toliet to cheat on her husband so thats quite nice contrast. I think the purity in that is the love between the Lover and the Wife though.

I still need to watch the rest and maybe watch it again, but I do find it very intersting.

Editing the music video

Woah! finally down to the editing, I cant count how many hours I've been staring at that screen in 105 for now but its a lot. I love editing but I do get pissed off when premiere freezez for no reason and delete things for no reason, its happened a few times now, its not as if I dont save often, but it just decides to delete random things or take it back to a earlier save. Getting really annoyed at it at the moment but it will look amazing when its done :)

I get more and more excited as the video progresses and develops, its nearing the end now and I really hope that viewers will enjoy it, especially the band since they're picky bast*rds!

Hopefulyl it can help them out alot :)

Planning and other evidence

At the moment I am very busy with finishing Jool's essay and my identities project, I will have all the evidence and planning put on here in a short while, it jus needs scanning in and typing up, hopefully will be up in next 2 days.

Filming on the 5th May

the second day of filming, that days main aim was to get all the cut shots filmed and get planty of it too. In general it was a success, I had all the equipment and props prepared days before so I knew exactly what to bring etc.

Everything went well and again it was a nice exprience, only downfall was the walk from the car to location, always a tiresome walk, it wasnt as bad this time round thought, since last time we had to carry drum kits and guitars down the little muddy road, this time was jus a few garden tools and backpacks.

We thought we knew exactly what we were filming but then inspiration bloomed on the spot and we started debating about shots etc. this made the whole process take alot longer than it should have. On top of that, we thought we had filmed alot but it ends up that we only filmed about 10 minutes worth of fottage which was quite dissapointing.

In general it was still a good shoot, everything went more or less to plan and we got what we needed so its all down to me in the edit suite then :D haha

Filming on the 3rd May

Right first day of filming, that day aim was to film the band a few times at different angles and get some individual shots of each member, it went according to plan at the end but the start was like working with children. The band refused to co-operate at start and messed about for ages before we could get some decent footage, not only was it time wasting but also getting the crew fed up and demotivated. The cameras we took was also running out of battery and although we had a car charger to charge it up, the car was parked quite a while away so time was tight.

In the end it got done but not as smoothly as it could have been, the crew worked really hard and helped eachother out. It was a nice day in general to film, we got some decent footage, only shmae was that the footage from each camera looks different in colour and exposure which could have been sorted with more care in white balance and camera setting. that was probably the only error we made, apart from that, its not really us to blame that band was immature.

Massive F*ck Up

At the moment I am absolutely fuming after finding out the band has let us down having not rearranged their times and having some members working on Sunday, the day of filming. After finding that out I quickly decided to have a chnage in plans to do some other filming on the sunday but it happens that the actress is also busy that morning so we couldn't do that either.

After alot of shouting and stressing, we found out that the 2 members should be free after 4pm, so therefore we plan to film at 4pm onwards, quickly move ourselves to location and get it out of the way. I have already checked the Weather for Sunday, it says it will be sunny and it shouldn't go dark too soon.

Tiday it was still bright when I last looked at the clock it was 7pm, so it should be fine...I hope.

I tried organising it to the next day, Bank Holiday Monday, but the crew can't make it this time, so as the main organiser of the shoot I'm about to hang myself.

Idents

The past few days I've been working hard and created a few pieces of work including my idents :)heres 2 I've already finished, working on somemore soon.

This first one is a pixilation very, very simple made up of 15 images but it works well :)



This second one is the newer one and is made in flash :) really nice and comical :)

Stop Motion Influence

A few days ago I came across a very interesting piece of work on youtube, by a japanese practitioner called "Takeuchi Taijin" his piece of work really inspired me and made me think a little more about how I can approach pixilation/ stop motion in a different manner.

This piece of work is a 3 part pixilation, the image in the photo, the photos themselves and the movement of the photos around the room, it is fancinating how someone came up with this. Absolutely stunning to watch :)

Pixilation

Finally finished abit of pixilation work, I called it "my typical mornings" and no joke, thats how my mornings usually are like, here it is anyways, enjoy.



I think it still could be alot better, liek weirder and crazier stuff, but I do like my first person view pixilation, abit different to others I guess.

Demo Filming

Today me and Ben Thorpe went out to the woods to do some demo filming for the Music Video, intentions were to try out the colours and lighting etc but when we got there the camera batterys died before filming coul be done, we had also brought with us alot of the items for the scene including pick axe and spade so we were determined to get something from it.

Thinking on the spot I realised my Mobile Phone camera was a 5Megapixel camera so we filmed with that and I went home and edited a demo intro for the music video, and to be honest it actually looks good :D

and here it is

Today

Today I had a few talks with Debs and Jools about equipment and the shoto in general and recieved some good advice, from then on me and the crew started planning out shots for the music video and completing the list of essentials etc.

I will be writing the proposal idea and treatment soon and blog it on here, for the time being when I'm not workign on the group prject I will be continuing private work such as the box, avatar and idents etc.

experimenting with my camcorder at present and will upload any interesting footage when I can.

Research

Now that I have decided to do a music video for my AV piece Ive been doing some research into other music videos.

back in college I have already made a music video before and it went really well so I have confidence that this one will go just as well.

The music video I'll be making is of a full band so the transportation of the the musioc instruments is needed, therefore that needs to be organised. We were comtemplating if the guitar amps are needed within the music video, some videos do use guitar amos and only the big stack amps too because they look a lot more impressive but the band only has small amps, so we're not sure about using them, maybe we can borrow some big amps from someone, but that is yet to be confirmed.

I've been watching a few other videos that are same genre to the band im filming, and the basic rule for it is to keep the video very active, theres abour a cut every 2-3 seconds, but I guess thats the same for any fast music. I'll keep researching to develop more ideas.

So far I have discussed with a crew member about the items and equipment we need, and we're going to look at the availability tomorrow with few others.

I'm done now, will blog tomorrow.

Videos researched -

Still Remains - The Worst Is Yet To Come
In This Moment - Prayers
Sky Eats Airplane - Numbers
Cancer Bats - Pneumonia Hawk ( This ones especially important because this video is closest to the style I want mine to be filmed like )
Parkway Drive - Boneyards

It's been a while

Its been a while since I posted a blog but it doesnt mean that I havent been working, infact its quite the opposite, I have been bsy with a lot of things recently, from my freelance photography work to my band and obviously the identities project.

I have decided to make a music video for my band so planning for the shoot is undergoing at the moment, I have found locations and actors for the shoot, just needs to be fully organised and it can be shot.

all my recent photography work has been uploaded to my myspace and flickr account so if you're interested please have a look :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/36842944@N03/
www.myspace.com/immolationinprogress

avatar complete

This is my avatar, the design was based among several things, my clothing style, my accessories and my logo that I designed.

the face is primarily the logo's face just without the crossbones.

the outfit hes wearing is something that I would usually wear and I think it quite resembles me, the cigarette in the mouth, the stretched ears with the red plugs, the jacket, skinny jeans and pumps.

only differnce is the face obviously, but even the idea of it was taken from an anime series I talk about often.

the only thing left is for me to give it some movements which will happen shortly

box designs

Here you see the drafts of ideas i came up with for the box.

There is the idea of a ship wreck, all the treasures get washed ashore, and thats the objects you can click on for the interaction to lead on to my work.

The next idea was a plane flying in the sky, the comopany logo would be the logo I design and the objects to click on would be the passenger windows which would disply different items relevant to what it leads to.

The next idea was for a seed to grow into a tree, and the fruits of the tree will be the objects to click on.

At first I thought it will have to be the first 2 ideas because I couldnt think of a way to link my logo to the latter, but then I decided to have the logo as the logo for the seed packet which now works really well.

I like trees and the ocean anyway, and in this design I could link them both together which I'm very happy about. its also got the cartoon feeling i aim for too.

so far i have used a TV and a hanging person as objects, as well as the logo on the tree. these might still change, I'm sure as of yet though.

will update if anything changes

curiosity box completed, avatar also completed

the box has finally been completed on flash, didnt take too long to make, it was the design process that took longest i thought.

had alot of decision making for it, and also changing my mind after having started on an idea already etc.

i did lots of brief drawings in my sketch book before working on them on software. i feel that it helps me get a feel of the idea better if i draw it out before hand.

also my avatar have also been finished...ish, its not animated et but the sculpting of it is done so hopefully it wont be too long till it is all walking and running etc.

will post the drafts for my designs up very soon

Ideas

lately ive been working hard to come up with ideas for my box, finally narrowed it down to the few possible ones, now currently working on them ideas to try and finalize it by tomorrow.

I've also redone my logo so its in good resolution to be printed at any size, more on the matter soon

Im off to bed now, too tired

Avatar - part 2

Here in part 2 im going to be talking about a alot simpler system for avatar making. It is the nintendo wii system, the "Mii".

In Mii making avatars is not easier but just alot more cartoony so its abit more difficult to make a character resemble you.

This is my me, it sort of looks like me, with a bit of imagination, but the features provided are limited so its difficult.

although saying that, it is also a major point about Mii Channel that you use these limited supplies to create something amazing with imagination and creativity.

These are some characters made by adding random bits together, it is really difficult to make so Nintendo even brought out a contest channel for peopel to enter their proud creations into.

There thousands of funny characters made that freakishly resemble actors, cartoon characters etc, it just shows how far you can go by that little bit more of effort.

Avatars

Whilst designing for my avatar, I looked into other places where I have already got a avatar to compare what Im going to do for this project. Im also looking into the environment it's in.

Playstation Home

This is my character on playstation home, it highly resembles me (apparently).
Theres lots of choices on the edit screen for facial and body features so you can make it look quite like yourself, or exaclty liek yourself, if you have that much time on your hands to go through it all.

here we see the edit menu where you can edit your character to how you like, if you was to enter the head or torso section you will find precise editing controls for individual features of that part.


here is a shot of me standing in the virtual city of plystation, around the city and in the shopping area there are little entertainment gimics laying around for users to enjoy.

here Im standing in front of the bowling arcade, theres not also bowling to play but also pool and arcade games such as asteroids etc. this shot also shows a text conversation going on at the bottom left of the screen.

here is a chess game that can be accessed through tables around the environment, inside shopping areas, in the park etc.

here is me dancing with random people in the shopping centre, there is also alot of other little gimics you can do, such as hand signals and other body language.

logo

These are versions of my logo im workign on, the basic design is same as before, ( jolly roger ), heres the first version -

this is the basic layout of the logo, quite simple, on 3 of the 4 bones tickign out there are my tattoos on the end, just to add abit more personality to it, the hair and the stretched ears also add to the effect. thought on it for a while about the cigarette, and i thought since im do smoke abit, i might as well add it on. the smoke is just to look pretty :D

this is the the edited version of the first one, a scarf has been added on to give it more colour and also i do wear scarves often so i thought it would be nice to add it on.

this is the third version, the only thing added on is headphones, i think it just makes it look that little cooler than before. i'm not sure if i might do variations from the first design, if not then this third design might be the chosen one.

moodboard

well heres the first attempt at a moodboard, hopefully I've done it correctly, alterations will be made later on after I get some more opinions on it

Identites

We went through deisgn a avartar and a logo last week and ive started coming up with some ideas now for the logo side of it.

I was thinking along the lines of either a crest, or jolly roger to represent myself. Both of these are down in history of items to prove your identity so I see them as befitting for a logo, I did think of a flag but I thought it was less appropriate because I think it represents a group of peopel ratehr than an individual.

Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari

Last week we watched the film - Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, this German Expressionist film is one the earliest examples to tell a story through flash back.

This film is also very influential to films made after, Tim Burton being one that has taken the style of this film into his work. Although this film is a silent movie, this film gives the viewers as much impact as if it would have had spoken dialogue. The intertitles work well with the peice, especially by the font they have chosen.

The of color and eerie backing tracks creates the tension and the surreal environments used for set is amazing. The shadows are painted for this film makign actors walk on set to the already laid down shadows, this is the first itme ive seen a film using artificial shadows.

The actors make-up is als overy interesting, especially on Cesare the Somnambulist which is now seen as Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands.

In general this film is very ionteresitng to watch and is said that everytime you watch it you can pick something new up.

Lasse Gjertsen

Lasse Gjertsen is a norwegian teenager famous for a few videos he made on youtube, his most famous piece probably "hyperactive" which is a mixture of beatboxing and pixilation.

The work i want to discuss though is the piece he labels as "self portrait"



This is made with green screening and animation, it not only tells the viewers who he is, it also let the viewers in on his thoughts on society and his other ideals etc. I feel it is a powerful piece and works really well with the narration, especially with the echo effect he has on.

He is one of the people who inspire me becuase i jsut really liek his style,the other work he has done is also very worth watching, his editing skills and excellent in "hyperactive" and "amateur".

Identities

on hearing about the online 3D environments, and creating your own avatars, it made me think of Playstation 3's new software known as Playstation Home.

Playstation Home is an online 3D environment in which you can communicate with friends or strangers in the virtual world built for PS3 owners. In this world you can design a character to resemble yourself and go around the town to buy new things for you house and play mini games around the city. This is very similar to the secondlife 3D online environment.


This is a screen shot of people in a group having a chat on Playstation home, it also seems that some of them are dancing. Speech bubbles pop up above your character when you wish to communicate with others.


I think that this software is great on terms of individuality, when creating your chararcter you can edit the physical appearance to a very detailed degree, you can, if made right, look alot like yourself. The lack in choice of clothing and accessories can be fixed by going into town to shop for new clothes, I haven't tried out that function yet, but soon will. apart from appearance, all characters created have set movements, not much else you can change.

you can check other players information althoguh it is only very brief due to laws on not exposing too much personal details etc. This mostly tells others about games you've played and achievements you've made, at the end of the day, it is a gaming environment.

more to come soon...