Books for tutorial.

This week I have visited the library and taken out a couple of books I thought might proove useful for my course. I also read through one of my books, purchased for a hobby of mine, photography. This book is called "Digital photographers Handbook", and is written by Tom Ang. The other two books, one I have got through the library and the other as an ebook are both relevant to the subject of Multimedia.

Digital Photography Handbook - Tom Ang

Tom Ang is a developed photographer who has been around the world taking pretty much every type of photograph. The thing I like most about this book is the fact it goes into loads of details in improving the quality of the images taken by any standard of photographer. This book is useful in my course, as it combines taking photographs, displaying the end result in an attractive, appealing way, as well as showing us basic skills on how to create pieces of artwork, or alternative methods of using photographs.

One section of the book for example goes into much detail on the way we can output out work, considering all problems and aspects of this task. Such things as copyright are discussed.

The book has certainly aided me in the past with my A-level work in Applied ICT and no doubt will help me when developing images for any area of my Multimedia course.

The Photograph As Contemporary Art - Charlotte Cotton

This book, taken out from the Boots Library, shows how previous photographers and artists gathered unique ideas for the development of their work. The book has a range of photographs, which cant help but raise a smile on the readers face when seeing them, but when read about allow the reader to take a more serious approach to evaluating the true meaning behind the images or artwork.

One particular section has caught my eye when reading this book. The second chapter explores ways in which different photographers have explored surreal and fairytale like situations in their work. I found an image called "insomnia" and when reading through the VLP the other day realised this is highly relevant to the next stage of our narratives unit. The book shows a male character curled up in a ball in a rather dadgy looking kitchen. The objects around the male character suggest things which have possibly happened before this point, and the angles of the furnishings allow us to consider narrative and reflect on the events which may have happenend. Something to consider for the next section of the narrative unit I'm sure :).

Although I could not find books from the reading list, I have realised just how useful some of these texts could be in my modules for this year.

Thanks Scotty :)

Final Pixelation

Today...

yes today I've been messing with my animation and made something rather bizaare. I wish you could see it on my comp as the quality is so much better. Thats the Mothers eye that I used to apply my previous stop-motion animation to. I have found whilst carrying out my pixelation, I have a thing about making things going backwards, which can be seen in my design. I will continue to play around with my pixelation, and with some comments, will be able to change the animation to not just my preferences but others too.

Thanks Scotty :) x x x

Next bit...

First Draft part 2

Well I've completed a first draft of my stop motion pixelation animation. I have used Adobe Premeire CS3 for the production of my work. Because I have never used premiere before, I started by familiarise myself with the software, and below is the result. Today I have practised combining the audio with the movement of the images, and tried to combine them as one piece. I would like people to comment on this draft to see what could be done to improve upon my first draft ideas,

Thanks Scotty:)x x

First draft of pixelation

Motion still images

Right, All our images are sorted i.e. taken, and now its time to edit them to the correct sizes and preferences. Andy taught us a nifty trick on photoshop, using the "action" tool, making it simple to edit all of the images to the same specifications. I have used this method on my section of the images, to change the sizes of each image. It could also have been used for things such as desaturation, hue and colour modifications, however because I have specific areas in my images which need editing, I chose to do this individually. I have now put all the images together to form my section of the 30 second stop motion animation, all thats left now is to add audio and organise the sections accordingly.

Some ideas for animation...

Our pixelation animation has begun and we have some good ideas. We now need to move into different locations as all our work has currently been undergone in one location. We will be doing this on Wednesday afternoon

• Now we've started experimenting with ideas, to move from one scene to another scene, we could perhaps use a character throwing the chair and another catching the chair in another location.
• Different views and perspectives would be cool. Using some Matrix type sounds as the camera images rotate around a character would work well.
• Some tricks and effects such as balancing the chair on our noses would be clever, this could be done well in a low area with someone holding the chair from an elevated position.
• Add some humour to the project :)
• Do some stuff around the arbortum

:) James :)

Some of my photographs :)

Here are some photo's I have taken over the last year. Looks like everyone else is banging things on so I thought id join in :)

First tutorial, Start of project, Introduction to pixelation

Learnt some good stuff today. Firstly I began with my tutorial leson with Jooles. Sorted out linking this blog to the ntu bloggers webspace, as well as meeting the people who would be in my tutorial classes this year. After this I attended my first seminar with Andy on pixelation, where he summed up an interesting history of animation. This was informative and helped build a backbone to the type of work we were expected to produce this year. Finally, me, ollie, Kirsty, Katie and Craig were split into a group to carry out our first year module on animation. We began some basic ideas with moving chairs, with some pretty effective results :) We will be carrying on with this Wednesday which will be a fun day no doubt :) o yeh and I went up Notts for Georginas birthday. Happy Birthday!

Thanks, Scotty

Second Blog, Started Multimedia

For some reason my first attempt at making a blog failed so here we go again. Last week I met fellow students and staff of my Multimedia course. Throughout the week we were set tasks such as creating a pin-hole camera from a used beer can (not hard to find) and also producing a whiteboard animation. These tasks were awesome, helping introduce lots of new people and making new friends. The whiteboard animation can be shown below, ours is the non-detailed one, by myself Scotty, Ollie, Kane and Craig, who were really fun to work with. To create the animation were had to draw whatever we wished on the whiteboard, and then redraw it in a slightly different way, each time a shot was taken to create an animated series of images, much like someone flicking through a note pad reeeeealy fast, as on the new Orange advert.