Golb Bew -- (Interactive Digital Design Web Blog)

IDD 480 - Print Portfolios

2007-04-04T22:38:00.000-04:00

While my intentions of a print version of my portfolio are not at the top of my priority list. I did take trip over to Hull's Art Supply in New Haven to see what types of ways I could bind a print portfolio when I actually have time to get around to it. Unfortunately, my options are quite pricey for what I would consider just a fancy binder. Although, after reading in the book, I found that there are other options to creating a portfolio and packaging it in a nice neat way without it being expensive. Portfolios ranged from about $35 to several hundred dollars. Perhaps when I am no longer a student and am making very fine work I'll display it in an expensive portfolio.

Some of the ways I saw portfolios displayed in the book included cloth boxes, magazine holders, metal boxes, bound books, a variety of objects in a FedEx box., a suitcase made from cut-up coffee cans, and clever ways of packaging everything into a unique folder. The variety of objects in the FedEx box struck my interest. This was created by Modern Dog, a design group from Seattle. A couple of the items actually contained in it was a breath spray called, "The Original Liar" and a package of gum called, "Be Nice Or Leave Gum." The effect this had on me from just looking at the photographs on the book was quite interesting and definitely grabbed my attention. Now some of the other items in the portfolio is borderline and might offend some people. This topic does get discussed in the 9th chapter of the Digital Portfolios book.

When selecting work for a portfolio, especially as a student, I feel it is important not to step off on the wrong foot. Modern Dog's portfolio is not for everyone. We need to keep in mind that we don't know what type of morals, ethnicity, race, etc. the person on the viewing end of the portfolio has.

Whether we are writing our resume or providing captions for the work in our portfolio, we need to write in an educated manner. Spelling, grammar, and typos need to be perfect. Bad writing will make anyone will look bad and it doesn't matter who they are. Humor, can be important, tricky, and dangerous. Humor needs to be safe because we don't know who will be viewing it at the end. To some, it could be hilarious, to others, it might offend and they could want nothing to do with you and your work after that. One last thing to consider is paying attention to the audience of the portfolio. Who is going to be viewing the portfolio? Or who is more likely to view it? Catering the text and the language to them and more of your true personality can be exposed.

IDD 480 - Creating Interactive Portfolios

2007-03-29T11:22:00.000-04:00

Often times, the first thing a potential interviewer will do is visit a designer's website to take a look at their work. This gives them a quick and easy way to view the work at any time of the day or night. It also shows that a designer is serious about their work and eliminates a lot of barriers that are involved with sending print portfolios. A lot of successful design studios redesign their web sites as often as once a year to maintain their good reputation, stay current, and give a reason for visitors to come back to the web site.

For some designers, a web site is all that is needed, for others, it won't do the designer justice. Book designs, annual reports, and other things that might have heavy typography or a lot of pages to review aren't viewed that easily on a web site. The case where all a designer might need is a web site portfolio holds often true with interactive designers and photographers.

Motion graphic portfolios are often provided on VHS, CD, or DVD and vary in length. They usually have music that accompany them. Most are usually less than 1 minute in length but there is no magic number for length.

Motion can also be shown with stills such as with the traveling exhibit film called Logomotion. The concept of animation with the famous logos is quite evident and we are able to see how they would look in motion.

Another thing to consider when creating a motion graphic portfolio for the web is optimizing them for different formats so that there is a high level of cross-compatibility. Quicktime is the most common format that is used with designers. I, however, think that perhaps Flash with its new video encoder features may take over with its perhaps even higher probability of being installed on someones computer. Not to mention files are smaller and can load quicker, but some quality is lost. But down the road I think this could prove to be useful and I may even try implementing it as another option into my website.

IDD 480 - Presentation is Everything

2007-03-20T21:23:00.000-04:00

If there is one thing we've all learned throughout our 4 years in this program, it should be that presentation is everything in this field. Whether we are presenting a print portfolio, walking into a job interview, talking on the phone, or sending a resume; our presentation of it, is very important.

When we present our design portfolio, everything down to the box we carry it in, needs to look good. When making a live presentation, we are the MC. We get to adjust and cater the presentation to our audience however we see will best benefit us. It could be lingering on specific works longer or going over other pieces quickly. We set the tempo and the rhythm. One thing to keep in mind about print portfolios or any portfolio for that matter, is not to show your best work first. Show a piece that will get them interested or engaged into the portfolio. From what I understand, I feel that a portfolio should build up to your best work, even though in this field, it is all a matter of opinion.

When going to a presentation, first impressions are everything, right down to whether or not your shoe is untied or not. Don't arrive 30 minutes early, but also don't arrive late. 5-10 Minutes early will be quite adequate to show punctuality. If you are going to be arriving late, call ahead to let them know, but if you are calling with a casual excuse such as you over slept. Don't even bother, you'll have already lost the job. During the presentation, as a new graduate, make sure not to discuss how a project was for a class, but rather point out why you enjoyed the project and what you learned from it.

This chapter was loaded with information. It has a long checklist for making both cold calls and resumes. For example, when making a cold call, keep the conversation polite, brief, and on track. Always leave on a positive amicable note. When making a resume, avoid type that is too small or too pale. Font should always be legible and don't follow a standardized resume format at the expense of good typography. It should look like a designer created it.

When creating a portfolio, also take the time to go back over the work and clean it up. Get rid of any artifacts, adjust the color levels, and fix typography.

IDD 480 - Building a Design Portfolio

2007-03-08T11:17:00.000-05:00

This week we started reading another book from our collection titled Building Design Portfolios by Sara Eisenman. The first chapter started to be just a bit overwhelming. The amount of varieties of portfolio cases and ways to present a portfolio are a bit overwhelming. Especially with the amount of wonderful portfolios shown in this book. Here are some of the things I managed to get out of this while being overwhelmed and hopefully it will slowly break down the process for me.

Tone - it is the overall feel for your portfolio depending on your design goals. For example, if you want to design corporate work, it should be an elegant and formal portfolio suited for the audience.

Range - After the tone is determined, it is important to show a variety of design work in the portfolio to show you as a well rounded designer.

There are many different formats for portfolios. Some of the one formats I will be covering for mine will be a web site, a DVD, and a demo reel. The concept of a portfolio in a book format is also a nice way to display your work in a professionally bound way. The design of the book also becomes an added piece to your portfolio collection. Another important thing to show is your design process and how you derived at your final design. Although in one of my readings, it was suggested that this section be removable and shown at the request of the portfolio viewer. Flexible content is also another suggestion to keep in mind depending on who views the portfolio. Being able to rearrange and adjust content make portfolios very versatile in gaining clients or jobs.

Along with different formats, there are tons of different types of ways that the portfolio can be presented. Packages range from bookcase portfolios to aluminum presentation cases. After the case is chosen, the presentation inside counts just as much. Materials inside need to be secure with enough room. Foam core and mat board can be used to display the artwork.

Our other reading included a lot of information about digitizing artwork. The most relevant information to me will pertain to photographing a couple of objects as well as scanning photographs. When photographing objects, make sure to have enough light and the proper light so it doesn't change the color of the objects and eliminates shadows. When scanning objects, scan in mind with the final touched up image being about 400 pixels wide. Take the time to touch up and make sure that everything is level and square in Photoshop.

IDD 480 - Creative & Organized

2007-02-27T23:24:00.000-05:00

Do those two things run together? Well, perhaps with a little practice they will in my world. All design jobs that start in the creative process have some sort of design brief. They can come in many different varieties. Whether it is written, verbal, just a picture, etc. It can be given to you from the client themselves or it can be written up your own. Not having a design brief makes the designer vulnerable to the client. My favorite line out of this entire reading is: "Graphic designers need briefs. In fact, although designers constantly demand freedom, the really crave constraint. It's a little recognized fact, but designers are only happy when they are battling with restraints."

Before starting a job, designers often sit down and go through a pile of books, magazines, and the internet scouring for ideas. An important aspect of being a designer is having cultural awareness. Clients also like to have designs better than their competitors and urge the designer to study their work as well.

Typography, typography, typography, infact that can't be said enough. Unfortunately, it is one of the tougher areas to master in graphic design. OurType has one of the most intersting ways of displaying different fonts to purchase on their website. The typography of it is so intersting that you get sucked into reading the different phrases that the different type layouts use. In fact, I almost forgot that I could purchase some of those fonts that they displayed.

The design process for everyone is different. Some people like to dive right into working on the computer. Often times I like to make simple sketches to give myself something to go by and then go to a computer screen. One very important thing to do in the design process is to look at the work from a distance, which is hard to do when it is on a computer screen. So if possible, print it out, put it on the refridgerator, and then look at it up there for a couple of days. Of course this assuming that designers have a lot of time...which we all know that we don't. In that case, we can just put it on the refriderator, step back, and avoid leaving it up there for days.

In the chatper in Baron's book, she discusses ways to organize your work. A lot of it is common sense that is pointed out to us and being smart about storing and backing up work. The five main disciplines to organizing files are: Group, Name, Show, Weed, Backup. The two that didn't stand out to me after first glance were Weed and Show. Show just means to use thumbnails to catalog our work, since we are primarily visual people. Custom folder icons can help with this. Weed means getting rid of things that aren't needed. Put process ideas in their own folder and throw out any error files. Make sure to dot his while the project is still fresh in your mind. The last thing I can say is.... Backup...backup....backup.... While I do have backups of my current work, I can't access them at the moment because I didn't make enough backups. Such as back up to a CD instead of just another hard drive.

IDD 480 - I can't think of a good title

2007-02-22T10:51:00.000-05:00

In this weeks Shaughnessy's reading, we read about dealing with clients and self-promotion. Dealing with clients is more familiar to me in the pseudo-design studio setting from when I personally dealt with clients while I worked at a sign shop. Keeping clients (happy) and developing new clients is usually what happened while I was working there. In fact most of our business came from repeat customers. The book talks about 'first job syndrome,' which I can't say I ever saw first hand, that happen to us. Although, now that I think about it, there were some clients that were a little more difficult and demanding than others. Usually they didn't understand the wait time involved and wanted immediate products, just as if they had gone into Wal-Mart and PRESTO there sign was all done the next day.

Developing new clients was always important in that business. Luckily, the company I worked for was one of the few in the area and benefited from the "Location, location, location" aspect of business. By default, most people came to that company because it was one of the few in the area. I did witness my boss maintaining communication with clients that had not requested any new business from us to generate work. In the beginning, my boss said that he would actively attempt to develop new clients by going out and looking for work. He would create signs for smaller businesses that needed signage.

In Baron's reading, she talks about the different formats for a portfolio. She starts by talking about portable media. The first topic almost made me laugh as she gave a short paragraph about Zip disks. I haven't heard of people using zip disks in years! I guess, however, that some people still use them for storage and wanted to make it clear not to use them for making a portfolio portable. Out of all of the mediums she discussed, I believe that it is safe to say that CDs, DVDs, websites, and perhaps a laptop (if absolutely required) are acceptable mediums for a portable portfolio. If creating a demo reel, I would make sure that it is easy to create a VHS tape on the fly if that format is requested, but I would not to waste the time in converting an entire demo reel to VHS tape in the beginning. DVD players are probably at this point more common than VCRs are since they come on just about every computer these days.

The book also mentions the site Sharpe Online and after visiting it, I encountered that it has changed since the book was published. In fact, each associate no longer has their own personal feel to their portfolio and they all follow the same format now. This could possibly be a sign of the company changing and perhaps changing internally or even growing since the associate list is longer than the original 7 and some names are no longer there.

IDD 480 - I'm the next CEO

2007-02-12T21:03:00.000-05:00

Okay, so maybe I'm not the next CEO of a design studio. Perhaps I will be down the road, but in the process of learning how to run a design studio; I have learned how they operate and now have a general idea of what it might be like in a design studio and what they are looking for in new employees. "The secret of success in running a design company is treating the people like gods." and "Always employ people who are better than you." Those two lines stood out to me. The first one makes perfect sense, employees should be treated well so they have a high morale, make good work, and hopefully stay for a while. But the second line made me think at first glance. Why would a company want to higher someone better than them? And if that's the case...I'm never going to get hired!! Well, it got explained why they would hire someone better than themselves in the reading, and I've determined that I have a lot of work ahead of me. Also discussed in that chapter was the different staff that comes with a design studio and when in general it is needed (depending on the size of the studio).

Graphic design is every where and the demand for it is constantly expanding (unless the economy isn't doing well). The book mentions signs that were neatly designed on a hiking trail in the woods. I for one, can testify that signs end up everywhere and are just as neatly designed since I have spent the last three years working for a sign shop. Typography is especially important when it comes to signs. They need to be legible, easy to read, and often from a distance. Finding work can be hard work. Utilizing one's contacts and creating a database of clients is very important. One way to obtain clients is to target companies and institutions that need design help.

When it comes time to displaying your work, it doesn't need to be in a typical black portfolio case. Today they can be in several different media forms. I, however, will hopefully have several different forms that I can use to display my portfolio. When I design my portfolio I'm going to attempt and cater it to the audience that I think will be viewing it the most. Which at the moment is potential employers. I think I'm going to go for an overall simple look to show my work. When thinking about the audience, thinking about specific companies and organizations that I would want to work for come to mind. At the moment, being a soon-to-be graduate, I'll work for almost anyone and go almost anywhere. I do have a particular type of design I would like to be doing, so that is going to narrow my search down.

One chapter said to exhaust your personal contacts when trying to find a job. So in that case, does anyone know someone that might want to potentially hire me out of school? Some places to look for other professionals in our area would be the local chapters of the AIGA. The Boston and New York chapters are probably our best bet.

Week 2 - Craziness Ensues

2007-02-08T10:00:00.000-05:00

In Chapter 2 of Baron's book Designing a Digital Portfolio we begin to read about adapting our portfolio for the work and direction we would like to head in. It starts with a self-assessment checklist to point out out strengths and weaknesses. Included in the checklist is our education, work experience, software knowledge, etc. Then in the checklist it starts to ask questions regarding our different goals for our portfolio. My reasons for creating a portfolio as per the checklist are because its required for school, need the experience, unemployed and looking for a job, need the experience, and a creative outlet. The checklist also has our questions about our work ethic and personality. Finding the personality of my work is going to be a hard task. Since most of the work has been assigned, it doesn't describe accurately my work. A few words that I can think of to describe my work would be: playful, sarcastic, and funny; but that only applies to a few pieces.

One of the elements for a digital portfolio is personality. The personality of a website is immediately prevalent as soon as it is visited. Jeff the Designer's website has changed since it was published in the book, but it still has a similar feel with its images and layout. While I wouldn't describe this as the best portfolio web site I have seen, it definitely has some quality work within it. It is evident based on the portfolio work that websites are not his forte either.

When I read about some of the goals for a digital portfolio, it starts the second paragraph for it with, "It's not enough to say, 'I need a job!' A job is a financial requirement, not a goal." Well this is true, and I know I have said this several times, "I need a job!" Getting a job after college is important to all of us. And I for one, know that I would ideally like a job doing what I enjoy, or at least be on a reasonable path to ending up with a job I enjoy.

While reading this chapter, I was finally able to stop scrambling to find as many portfolio pieces as I could to throw into my portfolio and decided that it would be better to have less pieces with a higher caliber of work. I want pieces in here that will stand out and be remember (for good reasons) to anyone who views it. With that said, I will probably spend a lot of time reworking a few older pieces to get them up to par.

After I read chapters 3 & 4 of 'How to be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul' I determined that freelancing is not something I want to be doing out of college. I would consider doing it part-time to build my portfolio some more and to stay active in the field, but I don't think that it is a reasonable option for me out of college. Perhaps it could be down the road, but I would rather start up a design studio with other designers instead of flying solo. I like the idea of working with other like minded individuals and building a reputable name that others can be a part of as well. I did find it amazing that out of 500,000 designers in the U.S. nearly 1/3 of them are self-employed. To me, that is a staggering amount. It shows how competitive the field is as well.

While reading about creating an identity for setting up a studio, I found a line of sympathy for all of us. "We are generally bad at designing for ourselves. Designers spend their working lives telling their clients how to cultivate an appropriate image, yet seem paralyzed when they have to do it for themselves. " I saw that and thought to myself, "I knew it! Finally, someone agrees!" Of course that didn't make matters any better, I still have to do design a portfolio for myself.

IDD 480 - Final Round

2007-02-01T11:19:00.000-05:00

Welcome back into the spring 2007 semester, the final semester and edition of Golb Bew. IDD 480 is my Senior Seminar and Portfolio class where we will be worked for every ounce of creative juice that we have. On top of all of our creative juice being squeezed out of us, we will need to then organize it into a nice neat resume, portfolio, letterhead, business card, etc., and etc.

This weeks weekly reading opened my eyes and told me just about everything that I needed to do/be that I am not already. In fact, it raised my stress level just a couple notches. The books that I'm reading for the next few weeks are:

Designing a Digital Portfolio (Voices That Matter), by Cynthia L. Baron,

How To Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul, by Adrian Shaughnessy, Stefan Sagmeister

Some of the things I learned in Shaughnessy's book were very interesting. Some of them might be common sense though, such as when showing the interviewer your portfolio, make sure that they are the ones looking at it. Often times graphic designers fail to turn the portfolio to make it easy to view for their interviewer. Another thing that I didn't think of that is more specific to the area that I'm going to go in to, is in addition to having a DVD with a demo reel of my work, is to include stills from different frames of the project on paper so that it makes it easier for them to view. Not all interviewers have time to watch DVDs and demo reels right away.

There were tons of useful bits of information in this book just in the first few chapters as far as how to go about all the important little things that get over looked. From how the letterhead should be simple and not vary too much with font. To requesting interviews at design studios instead of a job.

Baron's book discussed the different types of portfolios based on the different professions that require portfolios. For motion graphics, a "formal" portfolio may still be a videotape/DVD (aka. demo reel). Although a digital portfolio (website) is growing increasingly fast as another type of portfolio since some work is being designed explicitly for the Internet. Baron's book is going to go more in depth to each of the different purposes of a portfolio. Whether it is to get a full-time job, to gain clients, etc.

This semester has got a lot in store for us and we have a lot of work ahead of us. Here's to making it through the semester and getting a job in one piece!

IDD 400 - Analysis of sheTV Spot

2006-04-24T02:09:00.001-04:00

This week's analysis is of the promo spot for sheTV is by Suk & Koch. This is a Japanese television station and includes two 10 second clips or so that are back to back. The color palette for both spots are simple. They appear to be shot over a light box and give off a white glowing background to the hands and paper that is being folded into origami. The first shot has a blue sheet of paper and uses a slight blue hue over lay to parts of it that is moving and changing as if it were a silhouette of the paper being folded. The second spot follows suit except has a golden rod or yellow hue to it since that is the color of the piece of paper.

I can count about 3 or 4 layers for each spot. In the background is the shot of the hands folding the paper into origami pieces. Next is the outline of a polygon shape that is moving, changing shape, and rotating. The following layer is the same style shape, but instead of an outline, it a solid shape that is translucent and the same color as the paper, providing the colored hue to the scene.

The background shot of the hand folding the origami is quickly jumping through the process of the hand folding the paper into either a swan or a frog. It is also jumping with the beat of the music and changes about 11 to 12 times in each promo spot. Sometimes the shot is close up and slightly out of focus as well. Once the origami is finished, it is put down and then faded out with a blur and the channels logo comes on screen and appears to fold out into two halves.

IDD 400 - Analysis of sheTV Spot

2006-04-24T02:09:00.000-04:00

IDD 400 - Analysis of "Role Reversal"

2006-04-03T10:27:00.000-04:00

This week is a short promo piece for the show "Role Reversal" done by Spark for A&E. This a simple/clean looking piece that has a lot of things moving about on the screen to keep with the upbeat music. Starting off in the center is a what looks like a window with two people standing in it. One man and one woman. The frames of the window break their bodies into 4 sections for each body. During this clip the different sections are changing very rapidly.

The rapidly changing sections include extremely short video clips as well as stills. The text for "Role Reversal" appears a couple of times off to the left side of this window with some of the letters being reversed. As the clip continues the window with the changing sections hops to the left a little to make it off center. Going through the changing sections are several small thin bars that are moving from side to side. In these bars are the changing clips as well. This effect was easily achieved with a moving matte.

In the lower corner about half way through the clip a smaller version of the window with the changing sections appears. This was done by having the larger one be its own composition and embedding it twice into the main composition. With the other one scaled down to a very small size. Having this off to the side keeps the piece balanced well.

IDD 400 Analysis of 'Air Zoom Generation - Nike'

2006-03-27T01:52:00.000-05:00

This week I took a look at EyeballNYC's 'Air Zoom Generation - Nike' commercial. The commercial uses only 4 stills that Nike gave them plus a their white background that they created that looks boxes or walls, plus the 3D shot and effects on the rotating shoe that they are advertising. The 4 shots are of the young basketball star LeBron James. Some of the effects that are seen are currently beyond our level, however, there overall movement and of the camera seems to be something that could be figured out.

There is a lot of movement to the beat of the music. A lot of the movement is a back and forth, side to side, and zooming around the environment that they created. The movement is very quick and things are often being blurred and put in and out of focus as they are moved. It doesn't stay on any one shot for a very long period of time. The longer shots often have a rotating shoe, but even the movement of the shoe is jerky and get put out of focus while some text comes up to say some of the features. With it setup properly and most likely with a plug-in within After Effects to accept 3D environments created in other programs, the 3D cameras could have been used to create the movement. The shoe and environment has a 3D feel to it but it is quite clear that the photos of LeBron James is two dimensional and very flat. I feel like they are those life-size cardboard cutouts often seen at fast food restaurants.

Within the background there is a lot of movement as well. The walls are changing color and appear to move up and down along with the beat of the music. Red and black bars can be seen moving up and down and along the walls taking their own path during the movement throughout the environment. Sometimes the photograph is placed onto the walls or even a silhouette of James in the background. Never is the entire scene completely in focus. There is something always out of focus and moving very quickly.

IDD 400 Analysis of 'Lenovo Thinkpad - Long Life'

2006-03-06T00:56:00.000-05:00

This week is the analysis of the Lenovo Thinkpad - Long Life commercial done by Motion Theory. The overall point of the commercial is to show that this laptop has a long battery life. The commercial starts with lid to the laptop opening in an office setting. While it is opening we see in the background the light changing to dark and things flying by very quickly. As the background flashes and comes back in we see a dark rain forest type of setting. There is then a cut transition and it shows the corner of the laptop with the Intel Centrino logo and a centipede crawling over it with vegetation in the foreground. Then the background seems to "woosh" forward almost like we are traveling in time and we see a butterfly in the foreground. The butterfly is shown in only a few places as if that the current type of video footage is more of a time lapse video, and looks like something we would see in a documentary on the Discovery Channel or something. Along that same time lapse sequence we see a vine grow and over come the laptop. It isn't your normal time-lapse footage, however, other parts of the footage are smooth such as the camera's rotation.

Then winter seems to come into season and we snow and ice start to form and then there is a gust of snow that is used as a transition to move the camera to a closer location. Occasionally the camera won't be a smooth movement and it will seem to jerk back a tiny bit to a previous location and then continue on. All of these effects really help to get the point across that there is a lot of time taking place. The scenery continues to change a couple more times until we are brought back to the original office setting and the lid to the laptop closes like it is the end of a work session. A voice then comes over saying, "Epic battery life...yadda yadda yadda" and the screen fades to black. There is then a simple white sans serif font saying what model laptop we're looking at and then we see the appropriate logos afterwards which are very typical of all commercials like this.

The color palette is dark and has a feeling that the person used this computer in the middle of the night. The audio is music with sound effects that move quickly to correspond with the feeling that there is a lot of time going by. My only complaint at the moment is that this website was horrendously slow.

IDD 400 Analysis of 'The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio'

2006-02-20T02:48:00.000-05:00

"The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio" was another film that the main title sequence was done by Imaginary Forces. The music in the background sounds very light and natural. It has a very light melody to it. The background of the title sequence is an old piece of paper with water stains on it. The animation is simple and seems more like a slide show. The text for the credits are done the 1950's script-like font as well as a wide serif font. The main actors are done with the script type font for their first name and the serif font for their last name. The other credits have the job description in the script font and the names in the serif font.

The beginning of sequence has coins falling, but they aren't falling smoothly. They start in one location and then fade to a slightly lower location to give the illusion that they are falling. The fades are slow and smooth. Then there are bunch of kitchen appliances that appear and then all line up next to each other. The kitchen appliances are from the 1950s. Then other things start to fill the screen such as the coins being stacked, old radios, and other vintage items. There are other words that say, "Win," "Prizes," and "Enter Now" giving it the feel of a contest that you should enter because these are things that you could win. Then the title of the film appears with the screen filled of what looks like luggage, radios, cameras, and a record player peels away from the middle in a slow fade revealing the title. The title has the word 'Prize' in three different colors and in all uppercase letters to keep in the scheme of things. Eventually, old contest flyers that appear for many different contests that could be won. At the end all the items that could be won are showed on the screen and slowly start fading away one by one until the last item left is a chair with the director's name next to it for the last credit. The chair is still on the water stained, old sheet of paper background.

IDD 400 - Analysis of Masterpiece Theater TV Main Titles

2006-02-13T08:36:00.000-05:00

Imaginary Forces's TV main title sequence for Masterpiece Theater consists several key features that it maintains during its sequence. The music is a capella and has a quick beat to it but is melo as well. We first notice an upclose shot of a book with pages turning. This pages are hand written and in a scripty font. The color palatte is very warm with an almost sepia feel to it with some dark shades of blue. We can see the old style pen writing in the pages of this book. The transitions to this are smooth and long. Page turns in the book are often transitions. The shots for this are always panning slowly in one direction or another and it feels like this is almost all one long smooth shot. There are silouttes of what appear to be excerpts from different stories in the background. These silouttes have an American feel to them with one of the first silouttes being the Statue of Liberty. Others include farm land, steam boats, and people interacting. Even the pen that is being written with has a star on it which adds to this American feel. It definitely continues the theme of books throughout the titles as there is a visible bookshelf as well which opens up into the siloutte of a city and people talking.

About 2/3's of the way through it we start to see titles. The first title being the "American Collection" followed by the show's sponsors. This sequence has a very calm and soothing feel to it almost and is very relaxing and easy on the eyes. The end comes back to that pen that we first saw and writes out the final sponsor, "Viewer's Like You" and ends there smoothly.

IDD 400 - Analysis of Nokia 8800 Commercial

2006-02-05T12:52:00.000-05:00

Over at Nexus Productions they have a nice selection of reels from their works on their website. After viewing several of them, the commercial for the Nokia 8800 left an impression to me in my mind. When I started to view it I felt as if I were watching a commercial for a high-end luxury car. The black background and the highlights of only certain surfaces of the object make it look sleek and luxurious. The shots are close up and the object is presented as a fine piece of machinery. The color palette is almost monochromatic in black and white, but with a neon blue. The movement has some slow pans and quick movements to transition to the next part of the phone. Part way through the commercial instead of making a highlight on the phone, the letter O in the Nokia logo gets highlighted and this is when we start to associate the logo as to what this object they're showing could be. At the end of the commercial the Nokia logo and the model number come onto the screen and then just the Nokia logo and slogan come on to screen after the previous one slides out. The music is slow and suspenseful in the way it gets the viewer to wonder what this sleek and beautiful object is. It sounds like a keyboard with a slow techno drum beat and modern and futuristic sound effects.

I like this commercial because the first time I saw another one on television that was the same style and just a different model phone, I thought it was a commercial for something completely different such as a luxury sports car. This commercial completely changes the way that we are looking at cellular phones.

IDD 400 - Advanced Motion Graphics

2006-01-30T18:06:00.000-05:00

Welcome back to another semester of stunning analysis of motion graphics. The book for this semester is Motion Graphic Design & Fine Art Animation by Jon Krasner. This book starts off with a brief overview of the history of animation and what some of the first inventions were to view moving pictures. During the first chapter it talks about different key people in the history of animation and motion graphics. It then comes to Saul Bass who revolutionized the way that credits and title sequences were done.

One film that stands out in particular to me is "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" done in 1963. Saul Bass did the title sequence for this film as well and lasted about four minutes. The color palette consisted of black, white, and shades of red. The background is red and is Ultra Panavision and makes full use of its width. The music in the background was a very light and comical type of melody that suits this movie well. The entire sequence was done in a very simple illustrated animation. The text often times plays an active role in the sequence moving around with the character and reacting to it. This sequence also seems to touch on almost all of the basic comedic routines, such as people falling, getting trampled over, getting stuck in places, etc. The end of it fades into a car speeding down the road which is the opening sequence to the feature film. Overall, there are some things in the title sequence that only relate to the film in the sense that they are comedic and that is the nature of this film.

Initial D DVD Analysis

2005-03-20T01:32:00.000-05:00

The Initial D Volume 4 DVD opens to its first menu with two main options, either a vintage Japanese license plate with some Japanese writing and the word “Classic” or a newer looking American plate that says, “Tricked Out.” Underneath the words on the plate it says the audio setting, the type of video it is, and the subtitle setting. There are two active selector areas on each plate where the license plate expiration sticker goes. It is a red circle on the ‘classic’ plate and a red rectangle on the ‘tricked out’ plate. When the selection is made it turns to a pale reddish color.

The main menu for each type of video is the same. The top 60% or so of the screen is short clip in what looks like a night vision setting with a car’s speedometer and tachometer overlaid. The dividing line is a faded yellow and black construction bar. Then there is the menu off to the right with the front of a car on the left. The background is an asphalt color. The menu has four items, “play, setup, scenes, and extras.” The selector for each one is a three sharp turn arrows pointing to the item. It turns to a red when selected. The setup menu is the gauges on the car. The item you want selected will highlight in red and when it is selected the needle on the gauge will point to it. There are audio, video, and subtitle settings. To go back to the main menu the odometer becomes highlighted. There are short little motion clips leading into each menu. The scene selection menu has a background of a moving wheel with all the scenes in a line and at a slight perspective fading off to the right. There is an “Opening, Part A, Part B, Ending, and Preview” for each episode. There are also three episodes to choose from. When selecting a scene there is a huge sharp turn arrow in white above each scene.

The color palate is dark, using greens, red, white, and grays. The audio is the sound of a car on the road with a slight beat in the background on the main menu. There is no sound on the other menus. The sound is, however, from the clip taking place on the top portion of the screen. The typography consists of a lot of all lowercase words and white font. The text is sans serif that is kind of blocky but with rounded edges. Overall, I like the menus a lot and the first menu that is seen is rather creative. This type of menu is definitely something that our class could do.

Analysis of Anchorman

2005-03-18T19:31:00.000-05:00

The main menu screen of Anchorman has a dark blue channel 4 news-like wallpaper in the background. In the center of the screen is an old television set with dials. Displayed on the television are all the four team news members jumping up and down making silly looking faces. At the bottom of the screen are yellow bars with the thickest being at the bottom containing the menu items. The text is in white and all caps. Not quite italics, but slanted to the right. The menu items consist of “Play Movie, Scene Index, Setup, and Special Features.” The music in the background the theme music with a slight news like feel and a 70s beat.

The transition to the setup menu has the same yellow bars at the bottom and has two of the main characters slide across the screen. There is no transition going back to the main menu. The transition to the Special Features menu has a video clip of one of the news team members doing a dance and then stopping with the yellow bars sliding in along with the menu. When selecting something there is a little white arrow pointing to it and then the arrows change to black when selected. The audio has a very news-like feel on every scene and it varies. Each menu has the yellow bars slide in. The scene selection uses a white border to highlight each scene.

Overall, this menu works really well and is very easy to read.

IDD 300 DVD Project Due Date

2005-03-04T10:57:00.000-05:00

Just a reminder, the DVD project must be completed to be turned in for Wed. March 9th. Don't forget to blog as well on a DVD.

Analysis of "The Bourne Supremacy"

2005-03-04T00:55:00.000-05:00

When first coming to the menu in the DVD movie “The Bourne Supremacy” it appears to look like a computer interface with computer-like text. There is information or data scrolling to the far left of the screen. In the middle of the screen are clips from the movie with visible interface lines. There are also two smaller clips of equal size playing just to the right of the main clip. They are stacked one on top of the other. The top one is a monochromatic black and white. The bottom one is monochromatic blue of the same thing with a tiny delay from the first one. After it runs through the clips you see Jason Bourne’s bio stats. The menu is at the bottom in a small font, I wonder if it would be too hard to read on a smaller TV. The music is a slight techno, intense, upbeat feeling. There are sound effects going on in the background for some of the scene changes.

The selection of each menu item is a yellow box with a heavy left side of the box around each item. The main menu includes, “Play, Scenes, Bonus Features, and Languages” all in caps and all in white. The title of the movie is not displayed anywhere on the main screen. At the top of the screen it says, “Wanted: Jason Bourne” with a flashing cursor over the last letter of his name. The activation of a menu item is a red box. The transition to the Scenes menu is a sequence which deletes all the text from the menu and then enlarges the main clip playing in the middle and then it splits into four windows with stills from each clip. A yellow border shows which scene is selected. In the middle of the screen is where the user can jump to a different group of four scenes. The background music is fast paced, low toned piece. There is no transition when heading back to the main menu. The background of the scenes menu was dark blue computer image. The text is a very modern, sans serif font.

When switching to the bonus features menu, it uses the same transition as before but then comes to a yellow, green, and black color palate in its background. It has Bourne in a fight with all sorts of effects, colors, and feathers around it. It uses the same text, but the menu is at a negative angle and has an oval around each menu item in gray with a lighter gray border. The border changes to yellow when it is selected. At the bottom of the screen is a “Menu” button and a “More” button with a dark red background. Each background on the bonus features section is different but sticks to the original theme. The music is fast paced and lively, but still feels like the same genre as before. There are no transitions in between each page.

Overall, this a descent interface. I think they should have kept a closer relationship with the backgrounds in each menu to the first. It loses the computer feel for it a little in each sub menu.

Analysis of "Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark

2005-03-04T00:51:00.000-05:00

The DVD for Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark starts with an opening clip that goes to a brief title screen then the appears across the bottom of the screen. Going on in the background is a composite of several scenes form the movie with transitions consisting of things like an airplane, truck, boats, etc. The composite seems to have paintbrush effect over everything with certain things like characters standing out more with more vibrant color scheme. In my opinion, the paintbrush effect seems a little cheesy. The audio clip in the background is the theme song for the movie.

The menu at the bottom looks like a strip of paper from a map with torn edges. The menu text is in all caps and in a black text. The menu consists of “Play, Set Up, Scene Selection, and IndianaJones.com.” The highlight text color is red. When transitioning into the Scene Selection menu, there is an airplane that flies in and off to the right. When transitioning out of the menu it flies out to the left. The name of this menu appears in the Indiana Jones title font in the same orange to yellow gradient. This menu has four different small clips running with the name of each scene under each. Off to the left hand side is list of all the scenes broken into groups of four with a Main Menu, menu item. The highlight text is still red. Each of the scenes displayed appears to have a mask over it to give the edges a look like they are displayed on a piece of canvas or something. In the background is a side scrolling map that fades into what loks like a temple. The color scheme consists of yellows and browns. The audio in the background is a short, mysterious sounding clip. The text on this menu seems a little small, but readable. On a smaller television this could be a problem.

The transition to the setup menu also has an airplane, but a different one and a short clip that goes into what looks like the fountain of youth. The Set Up text is in the same Indiana Jones font, but the sub menu items are in a dark red. Audio Options and Subtitle Options are here, the end of “Options” on “Subtitle Options” is a little difficult to read, as well two of the subtitle options.

The menu for this DVD could have been a little fancier, but it works, and the main menu is really simple and straightforward.

Analysis of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King DVD

2005-02-15T23:29:00.000-05:00

The Main Menu of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King starts off with an opening clip with the inscription that's on the ring written on a piece of paper in its native language. The paper is old with a slight yellow/gray tint to it and the ink on the paper is a dark brown. There are clips from the movie being played in the center of the ring with a feathered border so it blends in. After the clips are done playing the text from the ring slowly fades into the menu, which has only three different menu items (Play Movie, Setup Screen and Sound Options, and Select a Scene). Underneath each of the menu items is an eight-pointed star. These will become the same color as the text (an off-white) when it is selected; otherwise they are faded in the background. The text is a serif font that resembles the native type family in the movie. When making a selection they turn to a pale yellow color.

In the center of the menu items are clips from the movie being played with a feathered edge. The background is pencil drawing of gate being opened with an army behind it. The army fades out as the movie clips star playing. On top of everything is what looks like a moving cloud layer that moves very slowly and has a very low opacity level.

After a selection is made, such as for the scene selection, the menu will transition with those moving clouds in the background and then head into a building with archways (also pencil drawn). A still image of the scene is played underneath the arch in the background as the different scenes are selected. Four scenes are listed in the middle with titles underneath of them in the same font as on the main menu in dark brown. The same highlight and selection features are carried over with this menu and the others as well. Down each side of the four listed scenes are a total of 14 (seven on each side) items listing scene selections so it is possible to jump to a later point in the menu. Those are in the same font, but in a dark, pale blue or violet. The left side also contains a “Main Menu” menu item. When reaching the last item in the menu and if you press down on the remote an extra time it goes to the next set of four menu items.

The audio in the background is music from the soundtrack of the movie and varies depending on the menu are in. The music does not continuously play on the scene selection menu, but does on the Main Menu slightly longer on the Screen and Sound options menu (it seems like it plays long enough for the user to make their selection).

Analysis of "The Beach" DVD Interface

2005-02-08T21:51:00.000-05:00

“The Beach” DVD menu interface is so far one of the better flowing menu interfaces that I have viewed. Once inside the main menu there are several things to look at. The background is the map that is used in the movie to get to the secret beach. On either side are the two main characters, one being Leonardo DiCaprio. In the center is the title, “The Beach” in what appears to be handwriting with an arrow pointing to the beach on the island. After a few seconds, the title fades and movie clips start playing in its place and they are over-laid the map with a slight translucency so the map is still visible underneath. It appears that the movie clips playing in the center are masked because there are hard edges that follow the two main characters along with a heavily feathered border s o it blends right into the background. The overall masked shape appears to be an oval.

When making the main selections the all caps serif font highlights in a light blue with the original color being white. Along with the text being highlighted, the individual islands on the map are also highlighted in a light ocean green color. After making a selection, the whole entire screen seems to scroll either to the left or right. There are however, at least three different layers that scroll at different rates to make it seemed layered. Two of the layers consist of characters through out the movie along with a background layer containing the menus and background images. When making a selection the text will change to a goldenrod color and everything will start scrolling. If the menu is further to past the different selected items, it will slow down at the other menus, then continue to your desired menu. It seems to be one really wide image with different menus that slide into place. The other layers that move at a different rate containing the other characters really tie it in and make the scrolling side-to-side work.

The color palette is mostly bright earth colors, consisting of browns, blues, greens, and yellows. There is a soft, semi-upbeat music being played in the background that I believe is the theme song to the movie.

Analysis of Family Guy Season 1 DVD

2005-02-02T01:29:00.000-05:00

For my first analysis for IDD 300 DVD Interfaces, I chose to do the Family Guy Season 1 Disc 1 DVD.

When you reach the title menu, Peter Griffen is standing there with a silly grin holding a sign that says, "Disc 1" and occasionally you will see him blink. The background is a bright light blue and yellow. The overall theme for this title menu seems to be bubbles. There are bubbles floating up in the background. The larger bubbles have small scenes from the episodes in the background and you can hear the voices in the audio. The overall background music is the Family Guy theme song.

The text seems to be a very easy going and carefree font that is highlighted along with a drop shadow behind it. They are on a slight negative angle. The Family Guy logo is in the upper left hand corner behind Peter's head.

When selecting something from the menu, it uses a cartoony TV as its selector icon. With each one you select it alternates which side of the menu item it is on. The menu consists of 7 different episodes, a "Play All" feature, as well as a FOX.com promos item.

When making a selection the TV selector icon will change from its yellow to a light blue and load the next menu. Off to the left or right hand side are characters from the series and it looks like its an except from the show. The title of your selection uses small caps and seems very comic book like and is in yellow with the blue background.

The Scene Selection menu uses an image from the scene with a number in the top left corner just outside an oval with the scene image inside. It still uses the TV as the selector icon but this time it moves the TV viewing part to highlight the number of the selection. At the bottom are the Episode Main Menu and Resume Episode buttons in the same font as the title.

Bobby Computer [IDD 250]

2004-12-13T04:35:00.000-05:00

Here is my last post for this class. It is the link to the web site we designed and researched for our final project. It is a computer building site geared towards people who know nothing about computers and stuff about cooking.

Bobby Computer

Stop Action Photography Animation Test

2004-12-01T02:29:00.000-05:00

While brainstorming for a storyboard for my IDD 301 class, I got side tracked (as usual) and thought it would be a good idea to see if I should plan to use any techniques we've seen in class. I was particularly fond of the stop action (stop motion) photography. If you've seen "The Nightmare Before Christmas" you'll know what I'm talking about.

In my experiment I took several pictures of the little bottle of Purell Hand Sanitizer with the idea in mind that I want it to appear to rotate in a movie.

In the short video clip there are 32 photos and at 15 frames per second it makes it just a slight bit over 2 seconds. I accidentally had the flash on my camera go off once which made it look like something went wrong in the movie clip. To help me in my process I used a mini tripod that I purchased for about $5 from Wal-Mart. This thing is probably the best $5 I have ever spent and makes doing things like this a breeze.

Here is a link to the short clip.

Rotating Hand Sanitizer (Quicktime)

Analysis of Jaguar XJ8L 'Sins' commercial

2004-11-30T23:04:00.003-05:00

This week I chose to watch the Jaguar XJ8L "Sins" commercial from Trollback and Company. The commercial uses black and white footage of close ups and pans of the Jaguar so know that it is a car, but you're not exactly sure which one until the end. It has a lot of smooth quick transitions that fade out the current footage and fade in the new footage. Occasionally is uses a flash of color in the transition. An example of this would be when the sin "No2. Envy" is listed. It starts with a flash of green that fades into the interior of the car and the text appears to be flown in onto the screen and the letter V is in green.

The music makes the viewer feel like they are anticipating something big and extravagant. Some of the transitions are timed to the music. There are also sound effects that add and emphasize the sins that are shown.

Analysis of Jaguar XJ8L 'Sins' commercial

2004-11-30T23:04:00.000-05:00

I chose to watch Trollback and Company's commercial for the Jaguar XJ8L. The main footage for the commercial was shot in black and white. The footage consists of a lot of close ups and pans of the car itself. It has a lot of smooth transitions where footage will fade out and the new footage will fade in. Along with the footage is text listing off each of the sins of the XJ8L. Occasionally, a flash of color will be shown and used in a transition. One of the transitions starts with a flash of green and a transition to the new footage and it says, "No 2. Envy" in a fancy serif typeface. The letter V is also in green giving it a spot of color.

The music in the commercial gives it the feeling of something big and important that we are waiting to anticipate. Some of the transitions are also timed to change along with the music. There are also sound effects that give it a sense of power with the text to emphasize each sin.

Analysis of Gattaca Main Titles [IDD 301]

2004-11-17T09:49:00.000-05:00

I took a look over at the movie Gattaca’s Main Titles this week over at Imaginary Forces (It’s a flash site, so no direct links, sorry.) It starts with a bunch of macro shorts in a cold blue tint showing finger nails, hair, and dead skin falling to the ground and bouncing like these objects are huge and weight tons. Each new clip slowly fades out while a new clip fades in rather seamlessly. Overtop of each clip are credits. Each slowly fading in and out with the four letters G, A, T, and C being in bold and a sans serif font, while the rest of the word is in a serif font. Those four letters are the first to fade in as well. The music in the background is very slow, sad, and soft.

As it progresses through the titles it pans what has fallen and fades to the main character, panning over him, and fading in and overlaying clips slowly. The text that fades in also appears to go from being blurry to sharp. The few cut transitions are when it cuts to a warm orange tinted exterior shot of what appears to be a large business building.

Analysis of 'Change' [IDD 301]

2004-11-10T13:57:00.000-05:00

This week I watched a poetic animation called 'Change.' The animation follows the lines of poems giving visual interpretations of it. The moral of the poem is telling us to break away from our everyday routines and make a change in the world since this is the only life we have.

Although the art in it is a very simple line art, it works very well and the theme is carried out well throughout the whole animation. There are only a few cases of spot color that appear briefly. The rate of the text is perfect and flows very well with the animation. The font choice works, but I wonder if there is anything that would work better?

In the background there a is a mellow classical piece of music playing. This isn't a sad piece of a music and it isn't an upbeat piece of music. It runs along the line of an inspirational piece.

The author of this film also puts it a 'widescreen' format instead of the normal square stage and works very well.

Devils Tramping Ground [IDD 250]

2004-10-31T22:11:00.000-05:00

I went over and looked at some of the interactivity that is on Devils Tramping Ground and how Ed Bain tied it in to his story.

The first one on the list is probably the most interactive in his story. It is a tour of Tramping Ground and it shows you the area. An unfortunate side effect of the movie is that it has a disclaimer letting people know it is interactive and that they need to use their mouse to interact with it. It isn't an assumed interaction with the movie. This is most likely due to the overwhelming number of movies that aren't interactive.

In the interview that was in the Pause & Effect that Meadows had with Bain he says, "I didn't want people to linger particularly long." This meant he had to keep the transition between things relatively short and the story line linear. In fact, Bain says, "It's pretty linear because the interaction is part of the story." This is due to the medium that Bain chose to use for his story.

The internet is a fast paced medium and if something doesn't change relatively quickly, people will lose interest. Most of the movies or animations designed for the internet as the medium are short with most of them being less than 3 minutes.

Analysis of 'Corporate Puppet' [IDD 301]

2004-10-26T22:15:00.000-04:00

Corporate Puppet is Tony Bailey's perception of what the 'daily grind' in the corporate world can do to you.

The story is about the everyday person who gets a job with a large corporate company in the city. He has a house like everyone else and goes to work the same way everyday. At his first day on the job he meets his secretary who greets him and then he goes to his office. Upon arrival the boss comes in an yells at him. He follows him back to his office and kisses his boss' ass (literally) for 30 years. Finally he gets sick of this and climbs to the top of the huge office building and jumps off, ending his life.

The style for this is to resemble old light puppets that are held up by sticks to move around. The flickering light in the background resembles a light seen on a film projector. The color palette for this is all yellow and grays. The color palette changes at the end to grayscale after he jumps, to full color with the lifting of the screen that the puppets are projected on to. When the screen lifts behind it is a drawing of a bloody man who is laying on the ground with the large business building in the background.

The animation attempts to simulate a puppet show with the way everything in the animation moves. It is a simple and effective.

Interactive Design Portal/Homepage [IDD250]

2004-10-25T03:44:00.000-04:00

Here is the homepage for all of the past webpages I have made.

Interactive Design Home

Pardon my grammar on this home/portal page, I'll fix that.

Analysis of Xiao Xiao 3 (Stick Figure) [IDD 301]

2004-10-20T11:45:00.000-04:00

I'm sure some of you might remember this animation. It is called Xiao Xiao No. 3. The story line in this is plain and simple and setup in an old video game type of way. Our hero (the black stick figure) is in a building trying to fight his way through all the hooligans to get to the final boss. He goes through the three levels in the building defeating them using various weapons that the boss' hitmen drop. Then when he finally makes it to the boss he fights him and wins.

The scenery in this is plain and simple with very little detail and just black lines. A 'stick' background shall we say. The characters, however, have nice fluid movements to them which draws our attention in. Not to mention the plethora of ninja-like moves that this stick figure accurately demonstrates. When our hero uses weapons they all leave a slight motion trail adding to the effect and drawing our attention to them.

There are a couple of shots where the characters also leave motion trails in a slow-motion type of effect. With the camera zoomed in on these characters we feel a sense that in this 2D world they are having 3D movements.

Finally, in the very last scene it uses the famous Matrix style slow motion camera rotation while our hero is up in the air for his final kick. This is where we get a true sense of this three-dimensional world in this easily 2D one.

Saccadic Eye Movement [IDD 250]

2004-10-18T02:50:00.000-04:00

I made a webpage briefly discussing Saccadic Eye Movement with two web examples.

Saccadic Eye Movement & Web Sites

Analysis of 'Auld Sage' [IDD 301]

2004-10-13T01:39:00.000-04:00

This week's analysis has me looking at Adam Phillips' - "Auld Sage" short animation. This was inspired by an untitled bonus track on Coldplay's - Parachutes album.

The color palette for this animation is very good, consisting of mainly dark blues and greens to give it a night time feel.

The animation starts off with a naked big foot creature walking out into the open from behind a bush with the moon casting his shadow. As he walks he is singing the song that is playing along. All the animations for the walking (including the shadow) and lighting on his body while he is walking are movie clips.

One of the key things that makes this animation a good one is Adam's close attention to detail. An example of this would be his facial expressions while he is singing and the body movement while he is walking. His arms are moving and his head is turning to add emotion and expression.

Another interesting effect that Adam did while paying attention to detail was to capture the way the moonlight looked as he walked across it and blocking off part of the light. (I'm not sure how this was achieved, but I'd like to know.) It is definitely the little things in this animation that make it stand out.

Perspective & Games [IDD 250]

2004-10-11T08:17:00.000-04:00

Perspective & Games. Don't forget the MUDs!

Analysis of Strong Bad's Email [IDD 301]

2004-10-06T04:57:00.000-04:00

I'm sure I won't be the only one who chose to analyze one of the ever popular animations from the Homestar Runner series. I chose to take a look at the latest Strong Bad's Email - Time Capsule episode.

The episode starts with an email to the character Strong Bad asking him a question. In this case, the fan was asking Strong Bad what he's going to do for when he dies because the fan that emailed him looks at him as a popular person. Strong Bad says he's going to make a time capsule and fill it with cool stuff. While he's answering the email Homestar Runner comes by and asks if he can put his old and disgusting wig in the time capsule. Strong Bad tells him no because its old, disgusting, and not cool. Strong Bad then has visions of what the future might be when they find the time capsule. He finishes his email waiting for the groupies to appear after he put his #1 singles cassette tape in the time capsule.

The majority of the animation shows Strong Bad in front of the computer screen typing his email. There are keyboard typing sound effects and a voice over of him narrating what he's typing. He has slight head movements while typing to show that he's talking. If you watch closely you'll see the movements repeat themselves. His reflection in the monitor is also visible and is mimicking the movements seen in the foreground. The text on Strong Bad's monitor appears to be coming up as it is typed. When Homestar Runner appears, the first thing you notice is that he has no hands or arms. Everything he holds is just floating in space and moves with the suggestion that he has arms and hands. This technique would definitely speed up the animation process.

The scene of the future has more animation in it, but nothing overly complex since it is a short scene. The animator did have to draw two more characters for this scene, but they are similar looking to Strong Bad and Homestar Runner.

The email then ends and has a button to all of Strong Bad's emails. By the looks of things these types of animations don't take too much time for the author to complete since there is a great number of these animations compared to everything else.

Scared & Confused [IDD 301]

2004-10-06T04:28:00.000-04:00

Well, I have finally completed my first animation for this class. If there is anyone out there that is on a slow connection (dial-up), let me know how the preloader works. It's only 45kb so it should still download quickly. I had fun making this and seeing the progress of it. I have a few techniques that I haven't quite figured out how to get to work, such as zooming in & out with multiple groups and symbols on the stage. I shall soon figure that out. Anyway, take a look and let me know what you think. Make sure the volume is on, there is minimal sound :-)

Scared & Confused

Elections as an Interactive Narrative [IDD 250]

2004-10-04T01:58:00.000-04:00

This week's web page I created talks about the election process as real live interactive narrative.

You can see it by clicking here.

Analysis on Sam Bisbee's - "You Are Here" [IDD 301]

2004-09-28T22:47:00.000-04:00

I decided to take a look at Sam Bisbee's music video for "You Are Here." This video is quite different from the other videos and animations I have been analyzing. This video looks like it wasn't necessarily made in Macromedia's Flash. It could have been made in any number of animation programs.

The video incorporates a couple different techniques in it. The majority of the video is a 'frame by frame' animation. They use this technique in a very interesting way. A series of several photographs are placed on top of each other to create motion within the photographs. The video also has full motion video as transitions. One of the transitions a hand comes into view and grabs all of the photographs and takes them off of the table so more photographs can be stacked again.

The frame rate of the 'frame by frame' photograph sequences are also in sequence with the beat of the music. This helped tie the two together.

The technique with the photographs was incorporated well into the video, however, I think that if this were any longer it would have soon lost my interest. The different transitions different camera angles within the photographs kept my interest. Without the variation the technique would lose its effect quickly. The director managed to keep a descent balance of everything throughout the video.

Interact here [IDD 250]

2004-09-27T01:25:00.000-04:00

Interaction is all around us. You could say I'm interacting with you (the reader) right now. Of course, you think to yourself, "Yeah right." So just click here. Or here. Or here. Now I have you interacting with my blog and you can choose which 'here' you would like to click.

Analysis of Hitch Hiker Part 2 [IDD 301]

2004-09-22T01:15:00.000-04:00

First off, I'd like to complain about how long it took me to do this due to the simple fact I spent 70% of my time waiting for each page and Flash video to load because the network here at Quinnipiac University is the equivalent to my old 33.6kb Dial-up Modem at the moment. I'd go as far as saying its the equivalent of an old 14.4kb dial-up modem, but its not that bad. For those of you on campus, you will understand what I mean. If not, I'm sure you remember our previous class waiting desperately for each video to load. With that said, I can go on to do what I'm supposed to.

For this week I chose the Flash Forward Film Festival NYC 2003 winner from the Cartoon category, Hitch Hiker Part 2. It is a two part series and I'm only going to talk about the second part.

It starts off with a young boy and older man with lots of hair and beard who looks like a typical scary hitch hiker. He states that his motorcycle is broken and that they have a better chance of getting a lift if they stick together. The hitch hiker has a unique way of attempting to get a vehicle to stop for them. The technique unsuccessfully uses through the film is to run out into the middle of the road, yelling and screaming with his arms in the air. When they are unsuccessful they keep on walking.

Every so often the boy has a vision of the hitch hiker hurting him in some way. His first vision involves the hitch hiker grabbing his face with his hand. The next one comes after they setup camp for the night and the hitch hiker puts his knife out. The boy dreams about the hitch hiker coming over and stabbing him to death in the middle of the night. The boy who is very scared packs his things and gets ready to leave.

As he is packing his things the hitch hiker wakes up. After he wakes up the boy starts running down the road in fear. The hitch hiker grabs his knife and starts running after him. When the hitch hiker finally gets to him and grabs him, the hitch hiker has a concerned look on his face and asks him who or what was there to scare him away. This is where the film ends. It seems that the hitch hiker is just trying to look out for the boy's safety.

This film is a little more complex and uses some techniques that I don't fully understand yet but plan to as the course progresses. One of the first things I noticed is the use of 3D vehicles and camera shots. To do some of these shots by hand would take a long time. Fortunately, there are a few links on the page that tell what the author used to create the 3D camera shots and animation. The author also has a link to the 3D models of the vehicles he uses. The use of the Swift 3D plug-in for Flash that the author uses greatly helps in the 3D techniques in this film.

Within this film contains a lot of one-point perspective shots. Each of these shots represent the time of day and the loneliness of the open road. The shots always have the two walking off into the distance or walking towards you from afar.

The colors in this film are very representative of the time of day (or night). Another interesting color trait I noticed was the color of the boy's eyes. The eyes were all green. Does this color suggest fear? Or perhaps the boy's insecurity?

These are just a handful of the things I noticed compared to the simpler animations I have previously talked about and are on a completely different skill level as far as the animation process is considered.

Narrative what? [IDD 250]

2004-09-19T23:57:00.000-04:00

Narrative? Narrator? Interactive Narrative? What is a narrative? Well I take a stab at explaining what it is and where they can be found. Here is a simple web page describing it.

Analysis of 'Whoop Demo' [IDD 301]

2004-09-14T22:47:00.000-04:00

For my second analysis I chose the "Whoop Beverage" animation because it is relative in length to the animation we have to create.

The story of the short starts off with a young boy guzzling a can of this special soda. When he finishes the soda something happens in his eyes and he jumps up and starts to glow. After he glows he is able to fly and has super powers. Next the animation cuts to a monster destroying a city and the young boy flies in to beat the monster. With a swing of his fist he destroys the monster. Then the word "WHOOP" appears across the screen as he hits the monster.

The sound track is just a few continuous loops. There are also a few simple sound effects for the few major actions such as the punch and the transformation to the super status.

In the beginning the animation pans up along a static image with the head shaking to give the impression of swallowing the soda and short continuous loop of the soda pouring out of the can. The arm then swings all the way down and disappears off screen to show that the boy is done with the can of soda.

The camera then zooms on his eye and then probably the eye changes color and rings orbit around the eye until it has finished its color change. The eye then blinks and cuts to him jumping up in the air.

To achieve the effect of jumping the camera pans out from the boy and the background has lines that spin around the center. The silhouette of the boy changes to a complete yellow with a white outline. The silhouette is then squished or transformed into a narrow shape and pulled off screen very quickly. While the boy is flying he starts in the lower left hand of the screen and his legs are now a yellow beam of energy there are action lines continuously moving to show that he is flying very fast.

The next scene shows a monster terrorizing a city. The monster's body is static and his arms move up and down and the monster's lower lip is moving up and down to show that he is growling. To show the boy flying in there is a motion trail left behind from the energy beam.

Next he comes face to face with the monster and the boy is floating in the air. When the boy is floating in the air he is a static image and is rotating slightly back and forth. The monster's only movement is his eye that blinks. As he swings for the punch there is one image to show the wind up and then another to show the swing, followed by the word "WHOOP." Each of the letters shake and then disappear. That ends the animation short.

Interested in 3D Animation?

2004-09-13T01:50:00.000-04:00

I'm sure that this information is given out while taking the 3D animation course, but I figured that some of you are probably intersted in 3D animation now, and if you can find any spare time I'm sure you would want to check this out. Alias provides the Maya Personal Learning Edition for free. So if you want a head start on that class, I'd recommend taking a look at that.

If you are geared more towards open-source software there is also a descent alternative that I heard is similar to 3D Studio Max. It is called Blender 3D and is also available for free.

There are tutorial guides available for both programs on their respective websites and both of these are legal.

Interactive Narrative & Perspective [IDD 250]

2004-09-12T23:04:00.000-04:00

A lot of my following entries to this blog will be in response to the book Pause & Effect by Mark Stephen Meadows (How much did you pay?)

I would have to say that the best way to describe (and my personal favorite) an interactive narrative would be video/computer games. They combine story telling with art (the awesome graphics we see and rave about) and interactivity. The best part about interactive narratives is the users ability to change what might happen.

As you play the character Mario attempting to save the Princess from the evil Bowser who has taken her away from her kingdom you fail to make that giant leap across burning hot lava pit and fall to your doom. You die and the Princess is gone forever, had you made that leap you would have had a chance to save the Princess from the evil claws of Bowser. Interactivity at its finest! With your characters death so ends the narrative.

Along with narratives there are different perspectives available or other points of view. They can be emotional (or cognitive) and dimensional (or visual) perspectives. Each of these perspectives can be intertwined. An example of this a camera shot looking up at a gigantic monster making it look larger than life. This would give the viewer a sense of fear and that the monster is very powerful and dominating. Now what if we reversed the camera angle so that it was looking down on this monster, as if we were as tall as the Empire State building? The monster would appear small and puny like just a toy action figure. We wouldn't fear it or even think of it as this powerful creature.

One of my classmates brings to our attention other very common forms of perspective that we see on a day-to-day basis. Valerie talks about the different perspectives that the media offers us like the tabloids and newspapers. She also relates to her own perspective and the difference she sees and feels just by putting on a pair of shoes to simulate a perspective of someone who is significantly taller than her. This shows that we each interpret perspectives differently as well. We always wonder what it would be like to look through the eyes of a dog, a cat, Shaq, Mr. President, and even our own parents so we can see what they see, however, all we can do is interpret and analyze it the best we can.

Analysis of Trick or Treat [IDD 301]

2004-09-08T02:11:00.001-04:00

I decided to take a look at some animations by Todd Gallina to see if I could notice any of his techniques about the way he animates. I chose to watch 'Trick or Treat' a million times to see what I could notice.

In the beginning of the short three characters are shown walking outside at night on Halloween. I notice first off that the last character is a static character and 'appears' to be walking by moving up and down and sliding to the left. The middle character has his arms changing positions and has his head tilt back as he slides across the screen. The first character has his arm move ever so slightly back and forth to give the impression that he is walking although we never see their legs until the first character "hops" onto the stairs. There are also only two scenes in this animation and a variation of the second one. There is one variation with the door open and the owner of the house along with a close up of the first character in red while he knocks on the door with a simple back and forth movement of his arm.

When they start throwing the toilet paper onto the house each character has a simple launch and release movement to make it appear like they are throwing toilet paper. The toilet paper is also repeated several times and mirrored back and forth to give the allusion of it flying upwards.

When the owner pops out it is just a static image other than the tentacles on the Medusa head moving back and forth with screams as background noise. When the three characters deposit something into their pants they each have the same animation just with a variation in color to match the costumes.

Each character is then redrawn appropriately and given a simple animation to reach for the much needed toilet paper that they threw all over the house. The motion of reaching is repeated several times for each character until they end stop, each with a different ending.

The sound effects in this animation add the feeling of movement so the animation doesn't seem static.

My Attempt at Sketching/Drawing [IDD 301]

2004-09-07T01:27:00.000-04:00

It was recommended that we have the ability draw (or be able to 'wing-it') for the animation class. It had been a long, long time since I had actually just taken the time to sit down and draw something. The last sketchbook I used was in elementary school. That's if you don't count every single notebook for each one of my classes throughout high school. So I said to myself, "I'm going to sit down and draw whatever is closest." It just happened to be a teddy bear I had given my girlfriend for Valentine's Day. This wasn't exactly my cup of tea, but its good to draw things you might not necessarily obsess about. This was drawn on a piece of computer paper with a .7mm Bic mechanical pencil. If you ask why the bear's foot is cut off, that's because I ran out of paper! If you want to see what the teddy bear really looks like, you can click here and see a photo of it.

Attempted Sketch to see if I can really draw.

Blogging, The World, and the Guy Writing this [IDD 250]

2004-09-05T21:07:00.000-04:00

If you were to ask me what a 'Blog' was a couple of weeks ago my response to you would have been, "I dunno, another internet thing with a cult-like following." It was clearly something I didn't know about or follow in any detail.

Now if you ask me what a Blog is, I could tell you several things about what it is. Since I'm new to blogging, I'll take a stab at where I think the word was derived from. To me...it sounds like "Web Log" and people being the way they are, shortened it just like everything else. Either that or someone misunderstood what someone was saying and thought they said 'blog.' In short, a blog appears to be an online log (of any kind). Blogs usually also have software available to the authors that make it easier to make a log. This way the average computer user can easily use and maintain their own blog without the hassle of learning a lot of HTML and/or programming.

I would go as far to call a blog a message board, a forum, a journal, a diary, or a news page. Essentially, a blog is just another way to publish thoughts, announcements, information, or just about anything else that can be communicated. My local news web site I would consider a blog, just with the Comments feature turned off. I'm sure some of you would say, "No...thats not a blog" but why not? The only argument against it that I can see would be that it doesn't give information out on a more personal level. After reading a few blogs I noticed that authors often write at a more personal level than your average newspaper.

I think the term 'blog' has developed into more of a specific term. We can all look at a site and recognize that it is a site that has been blogged. Right now, they all have a general look and feel about them. We can also look at another website and clearly identify that it is a forum. However you look at it, blogs, forums, news pages, etc, are all places that we read, gain knowledge, and discuss topics at or about. Just another form of online logging of information...or should I say style? Or form?

Edit: With all that said...This 'Blog' should probably be called, "Gol Bew -- (Interactive Digital Design Web Log)," right?

Globble

2004-08-30T13:35:00.000-04:00

globble globble.