The aim for this project is to write, film and produce a short film with a duration of 10 minutes approx. The plot has already been written for us and split into the perspectives of six groups of characters. Our class has been split into six groups and each group has been assigned one perspective to write from. These groups consist of Documentary, Lecturer, Police, TV News, Students and Terrorists.
Our group has been given the role of the Terrorists.
The story shows a lecturer teaching his class about the dangers of mass surveillance whilst the police demonstrate the power of their surveillance equipment. The tv news shows the terrorist’s demands to release prisoners kept without trial under the anti terrorism act. The terrorists then abduct the lecturer in front of his own students and convince him that their cause is right, all this time the lecturer is keeping secret video logs on his phone. The police study the CCTV footage to try and identify the kidnappers. The lecturer believes in the terrorist’s cause but not in their methods. After debating with the terrorists for a while the lecturer begins to relax and joins the terrorists in wearing a mask. The police then raid the terrorist location and kill the lecturer, believing him to be a terrorist. The police then find the phone on the lecturer’s corpse, thus revealing his true identity.
We have decided not to conform to the stereotype of a middle eastern islamic terrorist as we believe this is too common, as well as the irish terrorist stereotype. Instead we are characterizing our terrorists as cyber-terrorists.
The aim for this project was to create a 3D animation to suit a sound of our choice, using Autodesk Maya.
For this I decided to create a beer can and record the sound of a metal can being dropped onto a desk.
To create the can I first created a cylinder object for the main body of the can. I then made a Torus object for the rim, both at the top and at the bottom of the can. I then used a series of extruded cubes to create a ring pull shape and smoothed the edges to give it a rounder shape. After this i grouped the objects together in order for it to act as a single object. For the skin I downloaded a picture of the Stella Artois logo and designed the rest of the skin based on a can. I had to refresh and adjust the skin several times before the location of the logo and font was correct.
Once i’d created my can I created a plane and rotated it onto a slant. I then created a group of cylinders to act to provide greater interaction with my can. I then assigned new materials for these shapes, using Lambert. Once my objects were created I created an active rigid body for my can and a passive rigid body for my obsticles and floor. I then created a gravity field, allowing for my can (active) to be affected by gravity and for it to bounce off my objects (passive).
I then aligned my camera and rendered my footage.
Once this was done I imported the video into Adobe Premiere. This didn’t work however as the file format was incompatable with Premiere and was displayed as a blank screen. I then changed the codec I was using for my Maya render several times to find one that would work but they were all displayed as a distorted image once imported into Premiere. I then noticed that I could re-encode the source footage using windows movie maker, at the expense of quality reduction. The .WMV format worked in Premiere without fault.
I then used a directional microphone to record the sounds of a can hitting a hard surface and truncated these sound clips within Premiere to correspond with the footage.
When this was done I exported the footage within Premiere with the Cinepack encoder to reduce file size, resulting in my final piece.
In my opinion this piece could have been longer with a lot more depth. However my limited knowledge of Maya restricted my creativity as I did not know fully how to convey my ideas within the program.
The aim for this project was to produce a viral video to be posted and viewed on the internet. I believe that we achieved this well as the video has received nearly 200 views already as well as several positive comments, suggesting that the video has been popular within it’s audience.
Our idea was inspired by the popular viral videos created by Lasse Gjertsen. His methods of creating music using video recorded sounds and stop motion style editing are fresh and innovative, making him a recognized talent on the internet. We intended to make our own video taking influence from Lasse Gjertsen’s style, but expanding it to the use of 6 separate characters as opposed to just one. The relation between the two can be seen at the start of the video with the real-time introduction, showing the character’s musical inability when not playing in stop motion.
The music for our video was written by Gina, one of our group members. We shot the main body of the video by filming each member of the group playing each instrument and on each of these instruments playing the separate notes that appear the song. For each of these notes we also filmed each member holding a pose or changing their facial expression to create a variation within the video.
The video shows that anyone can create music even if they aren’t talented with their musical instrument. This idea is reenforced by the style the video is shot it. We used a mini dv camera over a HD to give the feel of an amateur production as well as shooting half of the scenes in a house, suggesting that the musician is filming from their home and further enforcing the amateur theme. However it was not possible for us to film the drums and bass in a house due to lack of time and room. We were able to shoot these shots in a music room which gave the feel of an amateur band practice.
If we were to shoot this project again I would use a boom microphone or a direct input into the computer for recording the sound, as the quality of the recordings were poor in places. The bass and drum kit we used were not to the greatest standard as the action on the bass caused the higher notes to become distorted and the loose snare drum caused it to rattle. We were able to solve this problem by dubbing over the bass sound with a computer generated bass line and the snare drum by shortening the sound to make it more ‘snappy’.
Also the initial idea for our video was to have the four instruments being played at the same time and for the musicians to switch between the instruments in a clockwise direction around the screen. However this effect was not conveyed in the ideal manner as the various rhythms on each instrument made the synchronizing of the rotation very difficult. Despite this I still believe the movement of the musicians between the screens creates interest for the viewer.
In conclusion I believe this project was successful as it suited the brief and has received nothing but positive feedback.
The aim of this project was to produce a 2D animation to represent my personal view of what a night out means. I decided to show a group of people finishing work on a friday night, then from there, going straight out for a night on the town. The aim of this was to show how people use a night out as a reward for a week’s hard work, or as a way to forget. It was also made to show how much money people spend when they are out and how this can be ironic if they see going out as a reward for earning this money.
To achieve this I built the scenes for this animation in Adobe After Effects. First I designed a series of nets for the objects i wanted to create in Adobe Photoshop. These nets would consist of several layers, acting as either the X, Y or Z axis of the final 3d shape. I then imported these images into After Effects as seperate layers. These layers would then be rotated and pieced together to form a 3d object.
Once I’d created the objects for my background I created some lights, a camera and some 2d images of the characters. I then used keyframes to animate these characters as well as select background objects that were required to move. I also used keyframes to move the camera whilst my animation is playing.
I believe my animation was based on a good concept however I feel that the final product required more time and attention. I wasn’t able to include basic parts such as the money falling from the character’s pockets or pictures of clubbers groping each other. I would also have liked to have included more characters, such as people dancing in the background in the club and bouncers. Cutting around the characters was difficult as the background I used for the photographs was too similar to the characters in the foreground, using a green screen would have made this process alot easier. I would have also included the final scene showing everyone leaving the club looking like a stereotypical homeless person, stripped of their cash.
These are the production and shooting scripts for the viral video project.
These will allow us to shoot our footage efficiently and also ensure that we don’t miss any shots out.
The scene starts with a group of average looking people leaving work and walking across the street to a club. Upon entering the club’s doors the sound of a till is heard.
The people walk to the bar and buy a drink, Another till sound is heard and the camera zooms into the drink.
The camera then zooms back from the pint and the room is pixelated like an old game. This is designed to represent the feeling of being drunk, being in a world where there are no consequences and to also represent the childishness of drinking.
The club is then shown to be full of people fighting and groping each other. Coins are consistently falling from their pockets.
Scene cuts to the end of the night where all the characters gradually un-pixelate and are revealed to be bums, now drained of their money.
