PRESENCE

Here is the finished Video! I have spent the last two hours faffing about with the noise filter, but have decided the video with less noise is better as we will most likely loose quality on a bigger screen anyway. In fact I wish I had the version without noise now!

RUBBERDUCKZILLA!

I F****** love this tv ad! it's hilarious! 

one minute video

So today we began filming! I decided not to be a ghost in the video, as I didn't feel my face looked right for the part and that gave me the perfect opportunity to get behind the camera instead, this way I was able to direct the actors and control the camera at the same time. I felt alot more confident with using the kit this time around, and feel it was used alot more professionally in comparison with last time I used it.

I still wasn't sure what I was doing with the white balance and settings etc but Katherine was a great help to me with this, taking care of the settings for me. I am a little  disappointed  that over the year I have not had tutoring with this, I would have thought that the second time round we would be shown advanced techniques, however all we got was a ten minute "presentation" on how to set up the lighting on green screen, nothing practical and no advanced editing tips.

But anyway, I did Hoi Kam's make-up, (she was now going to take-over my bathroom scene) And we got to work! filming went really well for the day especially considering how busy the college was, people were walking past constantly in the hallway, a guy even walked past right in the middle of filming and we had to cut! but side from that one ignorant person the rest waited for us which was nice, and the teacher for the room at the top of the stairs we were using allowed us to occupy the space for a while. 

It was fun having Hoi Kam as a ghost walk around the college, she got alot of looks and one guy jumped when he saw her on his way out of a classroom! that was funny.

The last scene had Hoi Kam quite far in the distance so I had to shout "action" for her to come into the scene quite loudly! (i felt a bit stupid doing that but oh well!) Here are some pictures from the days shoot! (above)

Make-up designs

I have been thinking of some ideas for my ghost character, and started by covering myself in powder! after ten minutes of powdering my face I gave up, it wasn't going to get as white as I wanted it with just talc!

It just didn't seem enough, so I darkened my eyebrows... then I added more blackness to my eyes, and more. but still look like a twit and not a scarey monster! 

 Maybe if my hair was still long and black it would look better, I can't possibly be a scarey ghost with a new haircut and color! lol

brought out the red lipstick for blood! a little better I guess, maybe the pale ghost looks just doesn't work on me, so I can be the "clown" ghost and Hoi Kam the "pale" ghost! 

well hopefully we will be able to edit the video afterwards to make it scarier.....

(will add pics tomorrow as server keeps crashing)

Stage one, still not scarey enough...

OK, so I add more "blackness" to the eyes, still not scarey...

Maybe some blood to the lips? nah still doesn't look right!

Scared yet? hmmm. maybe you are, but it's still not the right look! am glad I decided to "opt out" of being a ghost and let Hoi Kam do it all because she was Awesome and had the right look!

New Storyboards!

Here are the finalized scripts! here is the script we are going to be following: 

(Hoi Kam is the camera in this scene)

Camera: set up opposite door in Ladies toilets, facing door.

Action: Katherine comes in and walks across the room toward the mirror closest the camera, here she stops and fixes her hair in the mirror.

Camera: camera pans toward katherine, (from behind, but staying at an angle so that camera is not caught in the mirror) now Katherine's reflection can be seen quite clearly.

Action: Katherine looks down to wash her hands, at which point Kelly ghost will appear in the mirror and be seen to be looking at her, (jump scene) Katherine does not look in the mirror again but turns to dry hands, (hand dryer is to the right of the mirror)

Camera: camera will pan slightly to show Katherine drying her hands, but at the same time the reflection of ghost kelly will still be there (out of focus, focus on Katherine) staring at her.

Action: Katherine turns and walks straight toward the door without looking back in any of the mirrors. Kelly ghost will follow her from her initial place to the last mirror, (she cannot go any further as she is only in the mirrors) Kelly ghost will glide behind her on roller skates.

Camera: the camera must only follow the mirrors at this point, the actors cannot be picked up in "real" life as the viewers will then see kelly ghost out of the mirror and she is only allowed to be seen in the mirror for the effect to work.

The camera will need to be inbetween the actors and the mirrors but also at an angle following or in front of the action so as not to be picked up in the mirrors.

Action: as kelly ghost and Katherine get to the last mirror, kelly ghost reaches out and touches katherine's hair, (all seen in mirror) Katherine turns but no-one is behind her, Kelly ghost is stood staring at her from the last mirror but Katherine never looks in it.

Camera: Camera will need to be stopped and adjusted "before" the hair touch part so that it only picks up the hand touching the hair, this is so that when the hand pulls away kelly ghost has a chance to get out of the scene into a cubicle without it being caught on camera, even if the camera is stopped it still won't explain her being there one minute then gone the next when the camera is turned back on, so it's better to use the hand only for this bit then when it pulls away, (just before Katherine turns) there is no issues with continuity. 

Action: Katherine leaves the room.

Camera: cut scene as door shuts.

Scene 2! (Kelly is the Camera in this scene) 

Action: Katherine is now walking down a long corridor, midway down she stops to look at some posters on the wall to her left. (we will need to put these in place) there are 2 small windows just above this area with steps behind them. 

Camera: Camera will be following Katherine down the corridor (hand held style to give the feeling that she is being followed) and will stop and pan follow her when she is detouring to read the posters.

Action: Hoi Kam ghost appears in the first window above Katherine, Katherine does not notice, Hoi Kam ghost stares at her, when Katherine moves slightly, Hoi Kam ghost moves across to the next window and opens mouth? (we could make this look all black and scarey using special effects)

Camera, same position, just follows the action.

Action: Katherine turns away from the posters to continue on her route, however Hoi Kam Ghost is now stood with her back to Katherine at the other side of the corridor, (eye lift scene style) Katherine does notice her but avoids her and keeps walking, Hoi Kam ghost turns slightly with awkward cracky movements.

camera: follows Katherine again but focus is more on Hoi Kam ghost who is directly in the camera as it turns, (jump scene) after filming hoi Kams turn with Katherine walking away out of focus Camera turns back to Katherine, full focus.

Action: Katherine is now a bit further down the corridor when her phone rings, Katherine gets her phone out of her bag.

Camera: fades to black as Katherine is picking up her phone.

Voice 1: "Hello?"

Voice 2: "ggggggggggggaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"

Tone: "beep beep beep beep"

the credits for the film will be playing at the same time as the voices, credits fade in and out, eerie music in the background.

For sound we are going to cut all sounds out and have an ambient musical score playing softly, with bangs etc for jump scenes. the sound will fade at the end for the voices.

Breathing Pets!

when I first saw these I thought they were hideous, they freaked me out as they looked like dead stuffed animals, I thought they were a little morbid, then when I saw the breathing ones I thought they were just bloody ridiculous, but then something strange happened, I saw one in the corner of the room in it's bed in someone's house and thought it looked fantastic! (they look better in the corner of a room than on a stall with hundreds of them!) I couldn't take my eyes of it and decided there and then I was going to get one because I'd like a dog but can't get one because i'd never be able to look after it! and not too long ago I was looking at robotic pets but they are WAY too expensive, so here is a nice cheap alternative! Oh I forgot to say that that they "breathe" up and down to look like real sleeping pets! weird huh? but they are so cute!

New Animatic

Here's a new animatic I have done for the one minute horror video, this time with the girl walking down a corridor, I really enjoyed making the animatic, more for the editing, I love putting things together! the only qualm I have with this one is that I made the girl go too far down the corridor for the final effect so it is very tiny to see as a result! but I can't be assed doing it all again! but I might continue to make these little horror animatics as I really enjoy doing this kind of thing! It get's all my creativity flowing again, something that hasn't happened since the interactive brief. :-(

Of course I have strayed a bit from the plan as there's no way we can pull off the end bit, but it's just to give viewers a feel for what we are hoping to achieve, so the final film will be similar but not "exactly" the same.

One Minute Horror!

This was my initial idea for the 1 minute horror movie, basically, a girl sleeps in her bed with her back to you, her door slowly creaks open and as the lightning flashes, (ala frankenstein) a hand appears at the doorway. The hand scuttles across the floor and quickly dives under the girls bed. 

The camera then pans toward the mirror on the wall, in the darkness nothing can be seen until another flash of light reveals a hideous ghostly face in the mirror, after another flash it is gone.

Suddenly footsteps can be heard, the camera is switched to the other side of the room where a stop motion effect creepy ghoul is walking toward the girl in the bed, (I planned to do this using stop motion but playing it backwards to create an odd effect and having it deliberately jerky, parody to the ring) the idea is for this imagery to flicker on and off the screen, (by cutting frames) and when she is leant over the girl the girl wakes up and the ghoul disappears...

We have now decided as a group to film this in the college as none of us really have large enough bedrooms at home to pull it off, so it is now going to be a girl walking down a corridor for the entire minute, we will have the same ghouls trying to scare her along the way, we still want to have it dark with flickering lights, this will have to be achieved using special effects.

We plan to start filming on a quite day or evening when most students will be at home.

We will need a large mirror, or if not possible we will have to have our main girl going into the toilet which I don't really want, as I wanted it to be a straight walk down the corridor, but we will just have to do whatever is needed to make it work.

We have been watching Horror scenes from alot of Japanese horror movies for inspiration, well we are actually "ripping" them off as a parody and hope to fit as many characters in as possible!

Second life podcast

I forgot to put our podcast up earlier, so here it is! (not very good quality but you get the idea)

Finished! word summery/ evaluation

well I've made a design for the outside instructing people on what we are and what we do and how they can get the most out the service, I felt a sign would be easier and more eye-catching than a basket or a box with instructions in it.

Katherine has managed to find some mannequin dummies and scatter them around which is brilliant! I wish we had found about this earlier because I had ideas of having all the characters really funky and bizarre but plain and simple is better than nothing I guess!

I'm not sure if we have to write a word summery or not so I will write one anyway, (I hope we do have to write one after me now wasting valuable morning time to do one!) 

Evaluation/first thoughts:

At first I didn't really care much for second life, seeing it as a "glamorized" chat room for people who didn't get out much! (I'd been on it once or twice a couple years ago and it was full of strippers and Chav's- from the impression I got from the way they were speaking and the strippers said they were strippers in real life and second life!) and from that I just couldn't be bothered with it, I never really knew about all the building and stuff you could do.

Anyway at the start of this project we were shown how to build basic items and script, but unfortunately I was catching up on another brief for the first or second session, (because due to my old hard-drive crashing I lost half of my previous project) so having missed that session I was clearly behind and that kinda through me off track and it took a while for me to get on board again.

I didn't really get into modeling until we got into our groups properly and started making it, before that I had just been throwing ideas about and doing research- petrified of actually going into second life and probably delaying the process for as long as possible!

Objective:

Perhaps I should outline what our objective was, we had the choice of healthy living or health and well being from the direct gov website and we then had to use second life to build a 3D environment based around the chosen area. My group chose health initially focussing on general health and our plan was to make a virtual doctors surgery with different rooms for different problems but after a talk with Anna we realized that it would be better to chose one specific area, and I had been toying with the idea of sexual health anyway, so we all agreed that to make it a sexual health clinic, and that it would have the most use for second life users. 

It is often an embarrassing  topic for some and obviously can be quite sensitive, so we felt users would benefit from having a confidential place where they could go for advice and information if they needed it without the awkwardness of being face to face.

We started by developing leaflets and undergoing market research- by asking people to fill in our questionnaires, from this we found that people were thinking along the same lines as us anyway so that was easy! of course a few mentioned the elderly, but I can't really see them using second life or needing sexual advice...

 

Building: 

At first Hoi Kam had built some sort of romanesque looking thing, which I found quite daunting, if she could build that in 5 minutes what could I do?  that kinda put me off for a while, as it was already in place, I didn't know what to do, but then we got our heads together and decided exactly what we were going to do and the next time I visited 2nd life there was a nice big empty space for me to work with, the building had already been made, minus the ceiling and floor! so that inspired me to start something, and then I spent the whole day making a floor and a tunnel into the outside near the sea! (It sounds simple but for a novice it wasn't and I had to mess around with the terrain, textures etc for a while) the next day I started making simple things like block benches, inner walls, I had ideas to hae a gazebo and chairs about the place but couldn't make them for the life of me so I improvised and went and found some freebies! including a water fountain!

Outcome:

Our finished product is fantastic! we are awesome! that's all I have to say. sorry that was a joke, you will have to endure more of my writing yet! The outcome looks great visually and we have the posters with the info and the links, we have freebies and blog links which is great, we have dummies everywhere, (thank you Katherine) which look great too, but of course there are things missing which prevent it from being what it was supposed to be, BUT these things are not possible to achieve as a college project, however if this really were a government funded operation then the following could have been in place: 

A) Interactive nurse, that can respond to simple Q&A interactions

B) Private rooms for consultations, (we have these but they are not "protected" so that conversations therein cannot be picked up)

C) Actual human health officials to control avatars so that advice given is from an authority, (however this would NEVER happen! but it's a thought! and it would never work because no-body would take it seriously and thus the "officials" would be wasting their time)

D) Appointment system, I have written this on the welcome board just for the purpose of this brief, but of course this isn't going to happen without the "staff" and a drop in would be nice too. (this is getting rather silly now so that's enough of my alphabet bullets, I think I am taking myself too seriously!)

Conclusion: 

I'm really pleased with what we have accomplished, I'm happy that I did some scripting and designed the posters and welcome sign, I love what the 3 of us have done, and am really glad we all got to work together! the only thing I would have liked to be different is my confidence in modeling, I would like to have been able to make more in terms of furniture etc. but I don't feel that I didn't contribute, I still feel like I did as much as possible for the capability and limited skills that I have! (for example I made blog links and gave out alot of ideas) Katherine and Hoi Kam were fantastic to work with, and I doubt this project would be what it is now if we hadn't all worked "together". I certainly enjoy 2nd life alot more now from this experience and can see how useful it can be from many different angles, I will definitely consider using 2nd life alot more from now on, (not professionally!) mainly to practice building and perhaps to make my own projects around?

Words...

I found some "words" from the constantine graphic novel that I liked, I can't for the life of me remember what they're called, damm my bad memory. I spent 12 weeks on a creative writing course and passed with a distinction but I can't remember the "official" names for things!

like verbs, subverted verbs, etc. so I don't know what this style of writing is called but we did alot of it in class, maybe if anyone is reading this and you know what they're called you can leave a comment and let me know? (I never get comments so it would be double awesome! lol)

Aha! just this second it has come to me! METAPHORS! I found some interesting metaphors in a comic and wanted to put them on my blog! here they are:

"The streets are hardened arteries leading to the city's dead heart"

"Ignoring the queasiness which quakes my stomach like an uneasy swamp"

"I turn my collar up against the toothless gnawing of the early november wind"

"A steetlamp winks it's sickly, yellow eye as I pass"

Writing this reminds me of sin city, I didn't really realize it was full of metaphors at the time, I probably wouldn't have taken much notice of them, I just thought it was an odd way of speaking! lol even though I use them myself without noticing, but now I notice them all the time, but I think they work the best in comic books, especially detective type stories.

Second Life project!

My avatar wearing the uniform Katherine made and the hat Hoi Kam made!

(boxes with freebies and blog links)

(inside one of the four consultation rooms)

So now we have our STI clinic almost finished! we did a 5 minute podcast tour of the clinic on tuesday, (see video) and from the feedback we got as a result of that we found that we may need to include instructions for outside users on how to use this space, I plan to write something up and have it outside in a box or as a medical leaflet that you are required to pick up.

I designed some posters last week on photoshop and have put them up around the clinic, I just need to figure out how to put links on them to relevant sites, (we only did a few sessions on scripting and I was trying to re-do my interactive story at that time as it had been lost on my piece of crap hard-drive at the time! so I missed out on alot of the sessions so it seems I have to work it out myself!) I also made some neon 3k boxes in a room in the sky that will give out freebies but again I haven't been able to figure out how to do this yet, I need someone to show me step by step how to do it, at least the first time! I've got the script but what good is that if you don't know what to do with it? Hoi kam made a hat which is in one box but of course seeing as I don't know what to do it doesn't work! and Katherine made a T-shirt which I plan to put in another box but she has it set on no copy no modify so I can't do anything with it yet so will need to ask her to change that and re-send to me.

I plan to provide links to our blogs, once I've been shown how to do it with the websites or figured it out then I should be able to do it with the blogs then we need a dummy avatar for the nurse/receptionist! god knows how to do that! Anna said you can get free ones but I'm not sure where to look or what to look for so will need to find out more about that too. so much to do and so little time! gah! 

here are some more up to date pictures:

(Private consultation rooms, above)

(To the right of the reception, consultation rooms can be seen behind)

(some posters, below and above)

Y the last man

I have just finished reading all ten trade paperbacks of "Y the last man" which I paid about £100 for without even reading a sample of it, I just read the "premise" and wanted to read it! turns out I made a good choice this time I couldn't put the books down! (unlike the "swam thing saga" I forked out for a few months ago) I read the whole lot in a few days, the story was amazing! It wasn't what I expected, and the character development was what kept it going, I wanted to know what was going to happen with certain characters and what they were going to do next etc which is what kept me reading. It's basically about a guy named "Yorrick" and his pet monkey who are left the only males on earth after a plague suddenly breaks out and wipes out all males on the earth at the same time causing  instant death.

The females are left to deal with everything, politics, food, energy supplies, entertainment, wars etc. Some go crazy and become "amazons" cutting off one of their breasts and burning down sperm banks thinking that "god" wiped out mean because they were the inferior race...

except yorricks sister becomes one of these amazons and when they hear of the last mans existence vows to hunt him down and kill him.

there are also an abundance of women dressing up as men to please the women that miss them and can't live without them, and countries are at war- even worse than before!

Everyone seems to be after the last man, however yorrick has help in the form of agent 355, a secret agent sent to protect him from the "Culper ring" she is also my favorite character in the whole thing, then there is Dr.Mann- a cloning specialist who teams up with them to try and save the world- a character I didn't so much like, and all the while yorrick is obsessed with finding his girlfriend beth who is at the other side of the world! I think i've said enough, but the good news is they are making this into a movie! it will make a brilliant film i just hope they do it right! there are rumours of "Aleesha Keys" set to play agent 355, but I think "Jada Pinkett" should do it, then for Yorrick they are saying "shea lebouf" which i can see as him but i can't see him working with Jada or Aleesha keys? either way I can't wait for the film!

speaking of films I went to see Coroline in 3D tonight! it was everything I hoped it would be and more! I was suprised to find out it had nothing to do with Tim Burton however! it had his name written all over it in terms of visual style and story-telling, but it was actually based on a graphic novel by Neil Gaiman, (sandman) I'm now in the process of buying this and the sandman books, however there are so many of them! I think it's over 100 books! so i am going to go for the pricey option and get the special edition volumes that contain 20 novels in each one, I wish I'd thought of this when I still had my student loan! don't know how I will get them now, there are 4 so far at £48 each on amazon! but I always find a way to get the things I want...

Second life project!

(My sky room)

(the new rooms that have been put in)

On Friday I met up with Katherine (in second life) and we made some changes in order to make the place more "Japanese" as was our original plan, we made the floor darker and the logo panels white lights, I also made an enclosed area with the 3K logo as the walls and changed the tunnel into a bridge! which I am very pleased with! I made a big sofa with 3K logo on it and put various leather sofas and tables here and there, the outside area was made into a funky little pod/garden!

and over in the right there are Japanese silk screen panels and another waiting area, Katherine wanted an "outside/in" area in the middle of the room so I suggested a fountain, we then put a wooden oriental style "hut" (can't remember the correct name) over it and added flowers and trees! Katherine put the reception in front of it and some rugs on the floor. all we need now is posters putting up and links to websites! we also need to design a nurse avatar and a receptionist.

Second life

We needed furniture, I was thinking "chairs" we had a reception desk outside, but I couldn't make a chair, I never got the hang of it, my chairs were pathetic lumps of wood. I decided to go on an adventure to see if I could find any...

(Needed a new outfit!)

(In the "sex" gazebo)

(Gazebo I got but it turns out to be a "sex palour" type thing with different sexual positions scripted into it for when you make your avatar sit down, people really have some time on their hands! we are a sexual health clinic but don't think this is really appropriate! so we either have to re-script it or replace it!)

(Dancing!)

I like this tree, I was thinking we should have trees like this in our place!