CMP1014 Creative Technologies 2006

Lastly it was time to export the finished file. Under the publish setting the html and swf files are automatically clicked as this is part of the brief on the files to submit. I took of the loop icon on the html files, as I don’t want the whole thing to be played over and over again. I then clicked publish and got the files that I needed, the fla, swf and html. But the html files needed to be changed. I opened notepad and changed them myself. I changed the background to black to fit the theme, and then changed the padding and margins to zero so that it fitted in the browser without needing to scroll.

Implementation went according to plan for most of it. I created 3 scenes. Using the tutorial and the help from the workshops I quickly created the pre-loader. I made the document 700 by 600 pixels so that it would fit in the browser as this is one of the briefs requirements. The picture, i.e. the logo I imported and got form the website. If I was actually going to publish this on the website, I would have to download a fan kit or ask permission to use the pictures, but as it’s not going to be published and is not a requirement of the brief, I will not. I had a problem with the pre-loader at first with the bar not filling up as the percentage loaded and this I tested using the bandwidth profiler. I overcame this problem because I forgot to put the instance name of the bar to “loadBar” sot he action scripting to work properly. Other than this the re-loader went well.

Now the second scene. I recorded parts of Buffy using some software and edited it into Premier. I used a mixture of slow and fast shots but timed it to finish with the music that I edited in from the original Buffy theme tune. When the music stops, the Buffy title comes together and then holds for a few seconds and then a blackout, just to add a bit of tension to the user. Then it moves onto the interface. I didn’t want to add much again to this scene, the reason being I didn’t want the file to be too big as the user would be waiting around a while if they were on dial up for example to load up the flash document. I set the music to be synchronised with the shots but only to lay once, by selecting start at the beginning and stop at the end of the keyframe. When I didn’t do this the music track seemed to repeat it self once even when I set it to repeat zero times, it didn’t really make much sense but I overcame the problem like I said.

The last scene, the interface. I seemed to have the most problem with these. The buttons I created in flash as flash in a vector based system, so I tried to limit the use of importing pictures to a low, when I could create objects using flashes tools I did, in case it needs to be made lager or even smaller. The four buttons I decided to make are: - Home, Introduction, Actors, and Official Website. The last two are going to be links to the official website and the actor’s part of that website. The problem I was having and even the demonstrators didn’t know why was that they were created in exactly the same way, a button then a movie clip for when it was hovered over. The Home button worked when I tested it but the others wouldn’t. The problem was that the way buttons and movie clips but they were registered as being the opposite. The button had a button image in the library but had a registration of a movie and vice versa. It was really weird; it was simple to solve just change the setting, but no one knew why this had happened!

The pictures I added into the scene and looked at how long the song was and divided that by the number of pictures so that I could evenly place the pictures in the timeline and when it reached the end I simply put in the code to go back to frame one of the same scene, so it would loop the pictures, but then set the music to loop at start, not event or a new instance of the music would be over the top and therefore not exactly sound good. I choose the use the music of Buffy fighting with another person, as this started off slow but got slightly faster in the beats, jot over the top and then gradually reduce in volume ready to be repeated, as this is what happens when you look at movie title screens, they play then get quiet and then repeat, so I simply repeated this action.

All the buttons, music, sound effects, clips letters and words were each used in different layers and then positioned. You will be able to see this clearly when the Buffy.fla file is opened and the library is clearly organised in folders so that it made it easy to reuse the some icons, buttons, images etc.

Design

My idea that I am going to use is of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This is because I went on a run of watching 3 series! As it’s very popular and many people enjoy Buffy, I thought that it would be of a good topic to base my assignment on.

My flash assignment comprises of three sections, a pre-loader, a 10-20 second clip and then finish on an interface in which there are several links to other pages or external websites. I will for now, just use two links that will work linking to external websites.

My plan is to have the pre-loader having five things to make it quick to load up but to make it simple. This will have a logo of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, text saying “Loading” and then underneath the loading percentage ad I will be using action scripting to enable this, and lastly a bar underneath comprising f a bar that will fill u as the percentage increases so that when its 100%, the bar is full.

The next scene will be the 10-2 second clip. I decided on having Buffy clips that will be quick shots, from which I will edit in Adobe Premier and then export in a resolution to fit nicely on the page but making sure that it’s in 12 FPS to match the flash document. I will then import this into the library on flash. This scene will also have the letters B, U, F, F and Y scrambled around the page and will move while the clip in going until they align in the centre of the page. The words “The Vampire Slayer” will just stay in the same place. To make it look slightly better the words and the letters will be in black and gradually change into white, as the Buffy words are typically white. I will use part of the part introduction theme music to match the pace of the shots and also because everyone who has watched Buffy will know the tune.

The last scene will be the interface. I will keep this simple so that the users don’t have to fight their way around the site, they can simply go on and find what they want. There will be a background image, again that I will edit in Adobe Photoshop so that the images comprises of the logo in the top right with Buffy in the bottom right, but with Angel to the left with the words Angel underneath. I will black out the picture of Angel and the words so it’s just Buffy and the logo, as this could look very good, so that the buttons for navigation is in the top left which is black. It makes the page not look so cluttered.
I decided that in the bottom left of the page will be a circulation of the picture of the main actors throughout the series with a decent amount of time before the picture changes, like 3 or 4 seconds. The sound effects will be a click on the buttons and a sound track in the background, not sure on this but maybe of a fighting scene or some slow type of music, I will see which one suite it better. After the music stops it will quieten down and then repeat itself.

I used the lecture notes for compression, what to include and what to expect.

The virtual Campus for the deadlines and brief.

Websites for research:-

http://www.i-motus.com/video-encoding.htm#encodingworks
http://www.videomaker.com/article/8146/
http://www.videomaker.com/article/10103/
http://people.csail.mit.edu/tbuehler/video/codecs/avi.html#xvid
www.10secfilmfest.com

No books were used.

Knowledge from Media Studies A-level

I am not going to submit this 10 seconds film to the website 10secfilmfest. This is mainly due to copyright issues, which i will explain later. However if i did submit the piece there are guidelines that i have to stick to in order to submit it. So for example it needs to be in the following:-

MPEG 4 (compression)
720x576 pixels
25 fps
PAL

or to use Quicktime instead of MPEG 4.

These are the rules in order to submit and that everything else is also your own work and that it does not break the laws of copyright.

Now the reason i am not submitting is due to the fact that the soundtrack that i picked is from Linkin Park, called "One Step Closer". This is copyrighted so i cannot submit to the website due to this simple reason. I tried to search the internet for royalty free soundtracks, but my search for the right type of music and actually aquiring the soundtrack instead of buying a CD or subscribing proved to be too difficult so i stuck with what i had and found the right track to go along with the sequence.

In the future, if i was going to do this again i would aim to look and keep looking, or ask an audio student to help make my own soundtrack so that i get exactly what i want for a particluar sequence instead of editing an soundtrack that is already there and molding it to suit the piece. This is something i have learned throughout this project.

I think that it has gone very well. The piece has been imported and works both on DVD as well as CD. Also that the music molds well with the sequence in which creates the excitement as well as the tension. The way in which the audience can make there own mind up with the ending, many people i think might nt possibly like like, but i think that it is something different as its up the the minds of the audience, gives somehting different. So this could work out to be very good, or very bad, but i await to see how the presentation goes.

Many things i think could of gone differently. For example i could of done the sequnce slightly different by getting rid of like the corridor shot, the point of view and adding abit more shots to add to the storyline, because if the title was not there, as in the audeince missed it for example, it may not make that much sense to them. So i could of left the shot of the victims face and the bounty on the piece of paper on the desk could of done this well.

I was thinking of going down the route of comedy. I could of made the voice over say "His mission is to kill Bob", as the name Bob is short but the tone of the voice at that name could add abit of excitement. The increae in speed of some of the shots, which some already there such as the introduction of the hunter, the pan shot, the point of view shot would of made it very good. Some of the shots that i took i perpursly done, were to do this on purpose, such as the fighting scenes were down to be bad, just in case i did want to go down the route of comedy.

Lastly i considered as i said before about using AVID as another source of editing. I could of done the same edit in that program as well, not only to getuse to it, as it is a well known program, but to compare both edits to see the different types of transition, the types of compression through the different use of codecs. This would of then trained me up abit in both programs so i could compare but also to increase as i said the experience, if i have use both i could put down both on my CV to make me 'shine' out abit more from other people, allowing me if i didn't get the job i wanted, more wide ranges of jobs that is out there.

Exporting video onto CD and DVD.
Process: -

On Adobe Premier 6.0, click file export timeline, then movie. From there give a name and then click setting to change the codec compression, type such as quicktime microsoft avi etc. Then click next to change the other settings. Click ok and then it makes the file.

I did some research on the different types of compression, using codecs, the process of encoding and decoding. I used the following sites to make my decision on the type of ones to use: -

http://www.i-motus.com/video-encoding.htm#encodingworks
http://www.videomaker.com/article/8146/
http://www.videomaker.com/article/10103/
http://people.csail.mit.edu/tbuehler/video/codecs/avi.html#xvid

The main options i have is to create a Quicktime file format. It has a low compression ratio (2:1). It requires not hardware and keeps lossless compression. Due to the fact that it has low compression, means it needs a large capacity in order to store it, and also due to this needs speed, in which case its not ideal for a CD but could be fine to use on a DVD.

MPEG-1 which was released in 1993 (Moving Picture Experts Group) was a standard way of compressing video. It being very popular and also windows comes with a MPEG-1 decoder as standard. Its used for video on CDs and also easy to convert, which maes t a good one to use for the CD if the option is there.

MPEG-2 is also popular, used for high quality video in which would be very useful to use for videos on DVD, another option to use.

Also i have been told a different way of doing this. As it has to play on the university machines, why not be sure that it will play. I will create different coypies, but i have been told by a friend that leaving it uncompressed when exporting, downloading Windows Media Encoder 7.0, and then encode the file that was created using this software. This create a Windows Media Video file and then it can be played on any machine that has Windows Media Player, and as it comes standard with Windows, it should work.

I tried exporting the file this way. It was over 400MB, and using the Windows encoder, it compressed it down to just over 4MB, so there is a big difference. Not much Quailty has been lost when watching it, the sound is fine and will work fine on a DVD. I also tried it on a CD and ran straight of the disk fine with no problems and therefore looks fine. However to be on the safe side, i will create a second one which will have lower pixels and frames per seconds so that it diffiniatly work.

So i will try the different codecs, mainly the ones i have explained. I don't think i will use the codecs such as Xvid etc as these are not established on every machine and may reqired to be downloaded of the interent and therefore not be suitable for this project.

Final Codecs used.

Microsoft DV AVI
Microsoft DV AVI (changed the pixels and the FPS for CD)
Quicktime - Two different compressors for CD and DVD.
Uncompressed - Compressed using Windows Media Encoder series 9.

I did four different copies for each DVD and CD and placed them all on the disk, so that it will work if the file falls corrupt or doesn't work for some reason.

As I said I am going to use Adobe Premier 6.0 that is installed on the machines in the games lab to edit my video footage. I got a firewire lead from the support office in order to transfer the footage across. I turned the camera on and turned it to the video mode to play the footage and in Premier I did capture, then capture movie. I selected the model of the camcorder, selected the highest data rate, also 25 fps and at the start of the project selected PAL for windows, as I am going to create the footage using PAL so it can be played. I then imported the footage and came to about 5 minutes, and taking up nearly a Gig space on the hard drive, quite a large file indeed.

Creating Project.

Capturing Video.

Now because I imported it as one complete clip, I dragged the file into the video1 in the timeline in order to start separating the footage into clips. Using the preview window and the razor tool I cropped the sections that I needed, sometimes having to zoom in on the timeline in order to get exact frames, copied and pasted them into the bins and named them. I organised and created bins and named them after the number shot and what the shot was. Because I had more then one take of a shot I placed the number of the same type of shot under the same bin, giving a sense of organisation. This made it very easy to find the shots I needed and drag them into the timeline.

Image of the cutting and organising process.

I removed the all the footage off the timeline so that I can now place the right shots in order. I found out that when I extended the footage by clicking and dragging It just played the next footage that followed, so by using the razor tool, the in and out points where automatically place and extending the footage just moved the out point which is useless to me. I used the help feature and the internet to look up, and found out how to change the duration and the speed of the footage, simply by right clicking on the clip in the timeline and changing the percentage of the speed and the time in the duration if I wanted to change this.
I used this feature for the first shot for the paper which will have the victims face on it as the target, and as it was only 2 frames long I simply changed the percentage of the shot a lot lower so it would last that much longer. I also increased the speed of the introduction of the hunter and decided on the pan shot as this looked the best, increased it by another 50% so it would not take up much time. I then clicked and dragged the rest of the shots in order from the bins and then noticed it was 4 seconds over the 10 seconds limit, so some major editing was in order to make it exactly 10 seconds. I decided to cut out the image of the victim on the piece of paper completely, speeded up the pan shot slightly.
As I have put several blank title shots in between the punch and the knee shot I just changed them to make them a little shorter. Some of the middle shorts of the sequence such as the hunter walking in, the point of view shot as well as the walking through the door shot slightly shorted. After this it actually came to 9.3 seconds, lower than I expected. To correct this I simply just modified the blank video at the end and extended it slightly to make it a 10 second piece.

Image of the editing so far, with the shots in order and reached 10 seconds.

I then added the credits at the end and a title page at the beginning showing the title of the piece, which is 'The Bounty Hunter', after all i did take a while to come up with one, simple but effective. At the end, who participated, filmed ,edited and the music track. The way I have gone is done the more of a serious route in which a voice over will be added saying “His Mission Is To Kill”, in a deep slow tone to add tension, while the soundtrack is playing not so loud o it can be heard, and then the music kicks in, as in fast paced, again to add the tension, keep the audience excited, a common technique used in the media, espically in films. For the music i took the first part of the music of the soundtrack, and at the end decided to put part of the sound, the ending where it says break and then the music cuts for the black screen at the end, to top of the tension when its at a high. I cut the music, imported it twice to modify both, the ending where it says 'Break', timed to when both of them hit each other, but at the same time is synchronised with the previous soundtrack that is playing, took a while but i think it came out very well. I edited the sound of both audio clips, so that the voice over is louder, i amplified it as well as the second part of the soundtrack, when the beats kicks in after the voiceover so it makes more of an impact.

Image of the music edited in and finished.

I didn't use many types of transitions, actually ust the one, a simple cut, as its a fast paced sequence and when seen in films they just use the cuts, as its quick and keeps the pace of the sequence the same, and to add to the speed a few quick shots in between the longer shots, such as that when the hunter walks into the room, which is just a split second. Now that the piece is finished all that is needed to be done is to show a few people the sequence and then get some opinions of what its like and then to finally export it into a format using different codecs etc so that it can be played of a DVD and a CD.

The opinions of my friends say it works well, the music is well timed and sounds correct. However the only problem some people said that it may be abit to much going on, but i think that even though alot is going on, i think its enough for the audience in general to take in and understand, as alot is said in the title of the piece and can be put together in how the piece unfolds.

Well I got a digital camcorder out from the office as well as a tripod. I decided to try a range of shots, which followed the design that I showed as well as other types of shots, just In case I decided that that type of shot didn’t work out, therefore I could use different types. Also if I wanted to do more versions I could change the type of shot for variance.
The overall process went extremely well. Two friends who were living upstairs did the acting and I did the filming. One flat mate called Liam and the other called Craig. Liam was the bounty hunter and Craig was the victim. I asked Liam to dress up, and with that a white shirt, black jacket/ blazer and black trousers and shoes. Along with that I asked him to wear a gold chain around his neck and have the top button undone. This achieved the right expression as in a smart but seriously looking style. A look that means business and also a gangster /cool look, and I think it went well along with his hair also gelled up just to add to the look.
Craig I asked to dress like casual, wearing a t-shirt and casual trousers, as he’s meant to be in his home, relaxing and watching TV. This gave a look of a normal everyday person.

Liam

Craig

The actual filming went as follows. I decided to take a picture of the sheet on a desk of the victim, just filmed a blank sheet as I could add a photo later. I done three different views of the paper slighted different ways and then I could choose the better one later. I decided to take the next shot of the hunter outside for his intro by a door so that the light would shine out to give that slight look of importance, but also because it is dark outside! (As many scenes in the past use dark as murders, killings etc because black, darkness is related to evil, it’s where evil lies and therefore why I used the dark to portray this) I did a straight low angel shot looking up to portray power, a few shots of him with a serious face as well as a smile because at the moment I am not sure to go down the comedy look or to keep with a serious tone, I am doing both so that at the editing phase I could do both, or decide on the one to do. The last shot I did is a pan, which will be speedy up in the editing phase as after all it’s only ten seconds long. The movies such a The Matrix use this feature that works out very well; therefore this is why I am using it.
The next shot after this is the point of view of the hunter walking down the corridor and opening the door. I simply just did two shots of this as it is straight forward. All I did was to ask Liam to hold the camera and walk and make sure his hand was in the shot when opening the door so that it is clearly shown.
After this I then did a shot of Liam walking into the room from inside the room. I did a shot behind the door as he comes in, both a high angel as well as a low angle, however I then did a shot of him coming into the room while the camera is facing the door at a low angle, again portraying power, and decided then that this is the shot I will use, as it will only be a split second which will be a straight cut from this to the next.
The next shot is of the hunter seeing and moving towards the victim that he will have to kill, Again I did several shots of this, keeping with the normal eye level shot, a high angle shot and then a low angle shot. The directions that I took it from was behind the door so that the door behind him is closed so that the link between the last few shots flows as the door will be seen opening several times and look out of sink. But I did one with the shot with the door just to see how it would go when in the editing phase. All the type of different types of shots of the same scene is a two shot, so that both people are featured. Craig the victim was standing by the fridge getting some milk.
I then filmed the action shots, both people approach each other and Liam hit Craig in the stomach but no contact is made and I made sure that no one got hurt as a shot of the words “wack!!” will come up, just to break up the seriousness. This also keeps the audience at a distance, as in many films the audience is taken into the shot, but then distanced, to add to the tension, so I have done exactly the same, a shot bringing the audience closer and then a shot taking them away. I did several of the same shot so that I can choose the best.
I did exactly the same for the kick, however from taking different shots, I thought the one with kneeing the victim looked the best and therefore I think I will use this shot, again no contact a blackout with visual language used. I only did two more shots of the last scene, when both of them hit each other in the face. I was going to use a gun, but there was no toy guns lying around so I decided to make the decisions to just let them hit each other. I think it worked out better this way and people may just say that he could have used the gun in the first place so I will stick at it.

That’s the filming now done, and I thought it went particularly well. The next post will be of my editing, in which I have decided to use Adobe Premier 6.0 which is installed on the machines and don’t need dongles. But if I have enough time I will attempt to use avid as well to get used to it, but both programs are very well known programs and I have decide to use Premier.

Image of the sheet of paper.

Image of the hunter.

Image of the hunters POV.

Image hunter walking in.

Image of the punch.

Image of the knee.

Image of both of them punching.

This assignment is based on a 10 second film. Needs to be filmed and edited, primary using AVID, as this is a wide used form of editing software that many companies use, therefore using it will give me an advantage if i ever go into this filed of work.

After two weeks i have finally come up with a idea and done a shot by shot description of what will happen. The outline of the short story is based on a bounty hunter. This idead came to me while playing a Star Wars computer game, some irony because my course is Games Computing!

It will start with a close up shot of a book with a picture of the target at an angle, just to make it different, with the bountys price underneath with a small decription of like where he lives. Next it will then be a shot of the hunter, a freeze frame, possibly being black and white, not sure on that yet, (i will film this and see how it looks in the editing phase) for which then a point of view shot of the hunter walking into the room (colour fading in so its no longer black and white) and seeing the target. Next a low angle shot of the hunter going to kick the target, however you will never see the hit, a blackout will occur and then visual language of the word smack!, then a shot of him kicking him, blackout - word pow!. Then lastly you will see both of the people pull guns on each other, but a little twist, a blackout will occur and then a gunshot noise, therefore the auidence doesn't know who killed who, leaving up to the minds of the audience to conclude the ending.

A shot by shot description:

Shot 1:

Picture of the bounty target in a book, slanted with the bounty price underneath the picture with a description.

Shot 2:

Picture of the bounty hunter (black and white?)

Shot 3:

Then POV of the hunter walking in the room seeing the target.

Shot 4:

Low angle shot of the hunter swinging to hit him,

Shot 5:

Black out with the word smack!

Shot 6:

High angle shot of the hunter kicking.

Shot 7:

Blackout with the words pow!

Shot 8:

Both draw out a gun on each other.

Shot 9:

Blackout with a gunshot sound effect.