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.

You little star’s

 

I am very grateful for the support and help of JMU thank you it has really helped me and Carlie : )

The biggest thank you to all my friends at university who threw a surprise party for me as you are all amazing x

 

Overall year two at university

 

As and overall outlook on my second year at university it has been a big struggle. The start of the academic year was fine. I had to take November till January of as I was unable to attend; therefore I missed out on a lot of important lectures and assignment. Although suggested that I take the year of I decided not to, and due to this I have had to sacrifice my summer at Camp America to do some resits in the summer. I was very upset about this I felt like nothing was going the way I planned, but I had to stay in the right frame of mind and make a hard decision which would be the best in the long run. My work has defiantly suffered but I feel I am trying my best to pick myself up and carry on. Although I am still very proud of myself for coming back and trying and not giving up, hopefully 3^rd year I can up my marks

Digital Media Cultures- Group Work

 

I was in a group with myself, Carlie, Coral, Rio and Sinead for this assignment. We then spilt ourselves into two groups, to research books and online articles. Our subject was reality television, this was something I felt we had a lot to talk about reality television is something that we all have seen. I really enjoyed this assignment I felt the reading we done for it educated me. We were also giving a extension deadline due to me and Carlie having difficulties due to missing a lot of work. Although we were giving the extension we decided we wanted a challenge and submitted our repost with the rest of the class. I was proud of this I felt as if I was needed the challenge to prove to myself I am still capable and I believe Carlie did also.

Academic Writing

 

I attended an academic writing lecture; this was a very educational and helpful class. The lecturer went over all the basics of writing essays from how to structure to basic grammar. This was very helpful as the basic elements of writing are what people forget and we also pick up bad habits over the years.  I think we should have more of these types of classes thrown in our academic year; it helps boost our basic writing skills. This was one of the most beneficial classes I have been to in a while.

Animal Testing Social Networking .

https://twitter.com/AnimalorBeauty
http://www.facebook.com/tjandmurphy?ref=nf&filter=3#!/pages/Against-Animal-Testing/460078944061894

Convergence Media Teamwork- Transmedia Storytelling

We have now been put into groups for our next assignment Transmedia Storytelling. This style of assignment is something I feel very enthusiastic about. As we were allowed to choose our own groups and subject, this made the assignment more open towards our personal creativity. Our group decided to focus on animal testing and cosmetics. This subject is something our group feel we already have a lot of knowledge about. As a massive beauty junki I was intrigued straight away by the research. As a group we started to search the internet for factual sites on cosmetics and animal testing, this defiantly opened my eyes and helped me learn something beyond our assignment. We started to use mulit-platform media to give our assignment a boost. We opened a Twitter account and a Facebook page. The Twitter account straight away had other animal testing pages following our account. This showed how easy and effective social networking is.  

Back to school (again) …

Semester two I decided it was time for me to return to university, this was a very hard decision for me but I decided to build the strength and go for it. This decision was defiantly for the best I needed normality in my life to help me grow and become stronger. It was all very overwhelming both physically and mentality. There were a few meetings that I needed to attend, to discuss what needed to be done and what is the best root to take. Due to the amount of work I had missed I felt it to be a real challenge and still do to catch up with everyone else. I am optimistic and do feel I am more than capable of passing the year.  

?

 Unfortunately I do not remember a lot of first semester at university due to a bad experience, I do feel I have missed an awful lot of work that could have been beneficial to me, I also feel like I will be marked down on a lot of my work including the Blog as there will not be a lot of posted. I am hoping that in my 3^rd year at university I will be able to really get stuck into my work and bring my grades up.  

TJ and Murphy

Around the 30^th of October we had a television studio session with a band from Liverpool called TJ and Murphy. This was one of my favourite sessions of the module, TJ and Murphy played us six songs that they have wrote

1.       I won't be afraid

2.       Notes in the wine

3.       Good night Houston

4.       In a heartbeat

5.       Joe crazy rose

6.       Michigan

This was a lot of fun as a huge music fan I felt like this was a little treat. My favourite song was Joe Crazy Rose the song reminded me of myself. After they had performed we got into our TV studio groups and discussed which song we felt would suit our assignment the most. As a group we were all respectful of each other’s personal thoughts which made working with my group enjoyable. Personally I really liked TJ and Murphy I felt there music had a relatable and truthful feel about it, the rawness of a band but without a band made their performance endearing. Unfortunately  I was not able to work with TJ and Murphy on my assignment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv5BEKuUyOY

 

Second Year Began ...

 

After a nice long summer it was time for university to start again, I was excited to go back to university and carry on the education journey, we have for modules

1.       Digital Media Cultures

2.       Beyond the Camera

3.       TV Studio Production

4.       Applied Media Research

The Television Studio . . .

 

Second year we were introduced to the new JMU building which had a 1.1 million television studio installed. The studio was top of the range had all professional equipment and was all very intriguing. The first few TV studio sessions where to introduce the new equipment, I felt like I had learned a lot of the basics such as camera work, understanding studio setup and directing. I really enjoyed our studio sessions; it opened my eyes to the world of work. Although I enjoyed the television studio I was not able to finish the module therefore I feel there is a lot more for me to learn.