Creative media

YouTube animations

YouTube animations, was a fun assignment. We found that there are different ways in which YouTube animations are used to interact with its user; play, narrative, educational, camping ins, promotion and websites. I grouped us with Rebecca's, Carlie and Gemma for this assignment. We decided to make our narrative about a group at a party and they are all having a drink, then there are options if the character Rebecca wants to say "yes" to drugs. Although the footage is not professional the message within the story has meaning. When we collected all out footage it was then edited on Premier. Then uploaded onto YouTube.This was a fun assignment again as we had the power of creating our own narrative and there was not to much pressure on us as the mini assignments were not being marked. Looking back I now see why we were asked to do these small unmarked assignments. To give us the ability to play around with each media platform and see what we like and don't.
Reflecting back if I were to redo this mini assignment, I would try to focus on the editing in Premier Pro as my weaknesses is editing, I tend to shy away from editing due to my lack of experience.  

Creative Media

Isadora

Isadora is software I have herded of but never looked into. This was the mini assignment I disliked the most and found the most difficult. I was not in for the brief of this assignment which did not play in my favour. Therefore I decided to go off and research about the software myself to get a more in depth feel about its purpose. I learned that Isadora is software used for graphics and used for sound, when researching I found projects people had created using Isadora and they looked really high quality and effective. Our brief was to create a short interactive narrative for users to be guided through. We then brainstormed as a group, we decided as Halloween was coming up we can have a spooky twist on the narrative. Our narrative was about a girl who misses her train home and then is murdered on her way home. When it came to the editing for this assignment we had no clear images that would have been suitable for editing for several reasons. Looking back this assignment was not my favourite, my missing the brief did not help and pushed me a little of focus. If I were to redo this assignment I would make sure I researched more and made sure I was in for the first section of the lesson.

Creative Media

Reflection on final project

First ideas

• Historical places in Liverpool
• Music around Europe
• The 4 seasons in the year
• A murder mystery

Reflecting back on the final assignment I feel I made a real effort. I found it to be both fun and educational. I used my own images I also researched friends I know who have travelled some interesting distensions in the world and used their images. I also researched online for video footage as I found it to be important. I really loved looking at different places in the world and reading what people like to do when they travel there. 

Issues raised
A problem I found was getting video footage that was my own or from people I know, therefore I had to use YouTube footage. Although the footage was not my own it was not a massive problem. I searched for videos that were appropeate for the QR codes. Meaning not to long and action packed. An example of this is the sunset between Australia and Newzeland. I felt this looked more effective than just and image. Another element I had to think about was the design of the QR codes. When I originally created my QR codes they were large black and white codes. I found this to look messy and the codes to be to large for the map. Therefore I edited the codes to a smaller scale and colour coded diffrent destinations and example of this is America is all dark green. I felt this looked more clean and presentable. I made sure I tested all my codes out at the smaller size for my presentation.

Presentation
For my presentation I brought my interactive map and made a short Prezzi. The presentation went well I was able to answer all questions asked and was very honest of both my strengths and weeknesses. 

If I were to redo this assignment I would make my narrative more strutted and stay on a specific subject for example music around the world. I feel this would have more depth and meaning. With that being said I still really enjoyed this assignment and learned a lot about working alone and I feel I work a lot better alone.

Creative Media

Project Ideas

We were asked to create our own person narrative using one of the media platforms that we had used throughout the last few weeks.  I decided to use QR codes. I had a few small ideas such as a beauty magazine with QR codes on each page which linked up to videos and websites. The videos would have been beauty tutorials and the websites would have been beauty blogs and sites were to buy products. The issue with this idea was I would not have been able to create both a magazine and the footage for the QR codes in a short space of time. Therefore I decided I wanted to create an interactive map. My idea was to have a map with QR codes located all over the world; each QR code would be either an image or video of a traveller around the world. I wanted to make sure the material on the QR codes were not of typical holidays but of unique activities around the world such as cliff diving in Mexico and dog slaying in Lapland. To make my final piece of work look presentable and tidy I decided to buy a large map of the world rather than print one. I also colour coded each county to help the QR codes have a pattern. This assignment was one of my favourites as I was able to work solo and have the freedom to have control over the narrative.

 

Creative Media

Triptych

We were asked to create a Triptych using a narrative of our choice. I teamed up with Carlie and Coral. We decided we wanted to use Liverpool churches to our advantage. We also wanted to use 3 split screens to represent each person’s journey. I found Triptych to be very artistic and photography like. I found the imagery of using Triptych looked beautiful and creates a metanarrative within the story. This is why we found using both the Anglican Cathedral and the Metropolitan Cathedral perfect for this assignment. They are both beautiful buildings yet diverse. Therefore the contract between the two works perfectly on a split screen. Getting the footage was the fun part I feel in my element gathering images and footage. The idea of spilt screen really got me thinking in a artistic manner, and how multiple narratives can be told at the same time I found this fascinating. I found this        Particular assignment the most artistic although difficult to project.  

The editing aspect is the difficult part. We began by using After Effects this did not go to plan therefore we changed to Premier, although the final result was not what we was expecting we still had something to show and we learned a lot.

Reflecting back I would say I would make sure we had a sturdy narrative as we were very impulsive with what we wanted to capture. I would also make sure I learned more about the editing software available. Overall this was a fun assignment.  

Creative Media Practice

Creative Media Practice

QR codes

We were asked to create a narrative using QR codes on QRStuff.com
The website was very stir hat forward and easy to use. Once we were shown how to use this site and what app to download to our smartphones or iPads, I found myself scanning bar codes on anything I could find. I found it very addictive. Before this lesson on QR codes I never took notice to codes. But now I scan codes thinking there is going to be some sort of interesting story behind it. I began to understand the power of the QR code when researching into it a little more. People feel intrigued by the mystery behind a QR code and will want to scan one when they see a code to see what the story is behind it. I see QR codes as a window and when scanned the window is opened. 

I paired myself up with Coral and we decided to create a simple narrative about a cat. We wanted to keep the narrative simple as we wanted to play around with the QR codes. We used images and YouTube footage to create a short narrative. Using QR codes was a fun way to create a narrative without too much difficulty. When playing around with creating QR codes I came across some issues within the creation stage. For example I wanted to create a QR code from a Facebook video that was my own. The problem was when the QR code was scanned Facebooks home page was the only thing that appeared therefore and images or videos I wanted to use for QR coding has to be uploaded onto either Flicker or YouTube.

Essay

My first essay of the year

3000 words on cross plat forming seemed a little overwhelming at first, although once I started my research and spoke to other people out of my class I found it to be rather enjoyable. I created a number of questionnaires to gather information for my essay. People in my class really helped me by answering the questions I provided. I also read a lot of online articles about social networking, advertisements and reality television.

As an overall I hope I get a reasonable mark on my essay I as feel I made a effort to try my best to catch up and research a lot.