last post

The project is done, the portfolio handed in and the video can be found on You Tube...all in all the module 'digital media foundations' is over and with it our group work. In conclusion I can say that Lotti, Mai and I were a great team, working well together, listening to each other and being happy to meet up and work on the project even though the creation was not always as easy as the imagination.
Unfortunately we also came to this conclusion when we finished the video and encountered problems with Adobe Flash. why we had to go back to our first plan: putting the video on You Tube to make it an interactive narration. To be honest I am not entirely satisfied with the outcome of the project because I hoped for it to be a great video representing exactly what we imagined it to be. Now I have to admit that imagination and reality is not always easy to combine and it was not possible to do it any other way. We are still happy to have finished the video in time and are not any less sure of the video's message and beauty, it might not be perfect but we are only first year students and willing to learn how to do it better next time. Here is the link to our project, I hope you will still enjoy it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEoQzfQq8FA&list=PLYXKqY4hv7ML4eMw1rhYmq74rBxU_erEU

individual evaluation

In semester two, we were told that we have to create a project for the course digital media foundations. I was looking forward to the group work where we could apply the theories we learned this year to create something practical. Due to this, students could see the link between theories and practical work. Furthermore the teamwork made us achieve new skills needed for media studies, such as individual research, working with different media and planning, all whilst keeping the project’s goal in mind. In the following text I am going to analyze how all these points added to our video’s outcome and in how far they still apply or changed during the process.

            First of all, I will quickly outline our project’s goal to explain its advantages and disadvantages for the target audience. The video we were creating over the past weeks has a simple but important message we wanted to share with people; it is a story about how one often goes through life without noticing the beauty of it. The end is supposed to tell people that they have to be positive about changes in order to end up happy. At first we thought that the target audience could be anyone but after having done some brainstorming we realized that children would probably not get the depth of it, although they will surely enjoy the interaction of the video. The target audience is therefore rather for people established in life or young people who feel unsatisfied with the path they are taking in life. At first users might need some time to understand the project’s meaning but they can surely identify themselves with the main character at times as people tend to get stuck between work, money and stress and forget about the important things. The video is about routine and how to get out of it and although it may not realistically help people to achieve this, it can push them to think about their lives which is the first step to change.

            From the beginning on the roles in the group were clearly defined. Lotti did the background drawings, I sketched the character and Mai edited them in Photoshop and put them together, so that we could get started with Flash and work on the moving picture. When all the drawings were done, we divided work again and decided that Lotti and I would create the buttons for the interactive part and Mai put the motion picture together.  Problems appeared when it came to creating the shop, outside and inside, with Photoshop as we wanted it to look as professional as possible and did not imagined it to be so hard to create something when you have a clear vision in your head. The time was another problem because in a group one has always to adapt to others and we underestimated the project at first. However we turned out to be a good group, we worked together, listened to each other and thus managed to get everything done in time and achieved to create something we are all satisfied with.

            Furthermore this project made us aware of how important the link between theories and practical work is. Without the knowledge of different media, we would not have been able to create such a project and hence, the use of tutorials, explaining articles and lectures form the basis of our video and were inevitable. The project does not only rely on theoretical knowledge mixed with practical skills, it also reflects cultural theory by dealing with today’s society. The fact that a video wants to make people aware of their way of living relates to the contemporary generation, viewing everything through a medium, even their lives. We decided to make an interactive video because it is a current media trend and the most popular way to get users’ attention these days. Moreover it combines a lot of theoretical knowledge we gained this year such as the use of Photoshop, Adobe Flash, stop motion and cultural awareness for example how media can influence the world. One can say through theories and tutorials everybody can gain practical skills and therefore those two elements are equally important in a process of creation.

            All in all, I am positive about both the development and the outcome of this project such as our individual evaluation during that process. This practical work made me enjoy media studies a lot more and I learned a lot, not only about different media, but also about teamwork and individual research. If we would have started earlier, we might have been able to improve certain aspects of the project but, considering everything, I think the project will achieve exactly what it’s meant to, as it is a simple but yet effective message.

sunny ending

some samples of how the street could look like when the character walks out again and sees his life from a completely different point of view. Let the sunshine in your life!

interior design

after having finished working on the character and the outside setting, we are now moving onto more precise work, like creating the different spices and ingredients which have to be displayed in the shop. These will be the ones the user can choose from afterwards to create his new life. I did some brainstorming on how our spices should look like and here's the result of my online search

presentation

today, basically about half an hour ago, we had to present how our project is developing and show the first outcomes. Here is the link to our presentation that we did on prezi.com:

http://prezi.com/pes2fgiajkgo/untitled-prezi/?kw=view-pes2fgiajkgo&rc=ref-34597965

We explained how we are moving on with the project, shared some background details about creating everything, showed some of our drawings and finally presented our opening scene to the class to give them a little idea how the final project is going to look like. Here's the little sneak peak in case I made you curious:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_wby-kAASbqRDF6V21yVDJPcUk/edit

We got very good feedback from our tutor and classmates, which made us feel confident about continuing like this. We realised that the three of us really do make a good team and are very proud and happy about our project. It has both a very creative but also good technical side to it and this was only possible with team work and our different skills. I am very glad to have Lotti and Mai as my groupmates and I am confident that we will be happy with the final project. Now all we have to do is keep our time planning in mind and not get distracted or fall behind the plan.

I am looking forward to sharing more scenes with you soon!

As we're all back from the break by now, we met up a few times and had another seminar where we could work on our project, show each other what we got done during the 3 weeks of Easter and discuss how we will manage to get everything finished in time. During that seminar, Mai tried to get used to a sound program, I finished off some drawings of the character and Lotti worked on her blog.
Here are some results of that seminar and the previous weeks:

a break from uni...or not?

So after deciding who has to work on what during the holidays, the three of us parted ways. Lotti stayed right here in Kingston, Mai flew back to Norway and I went back to celebrate easter and spend the holidays at home with family and friends, in Luxembourg. Even though it is called a break from university that doesn't mean we could leave all the work behind. To finish our project in time we divided up the work and everybody knew what has to be done for the next seminar in order to move on with the video.

As Lotti and I like to draw and love creative work, we decided to start making drafts over the holidays and sent them to Mai who would start fitting our drafts into the video by using different softwares. Mai is good at working with video editing programs and photoshop, her task was to get started on the digital backgrounds and once she had the drawings to see how it would fit in with her digital design. Lotti wanted to do the backgrounds which have to be drawn for example; "candyland" and I decided to draw the character from the video.

As days go by I find myself quite often starring at a blank page, a pencil in my hand and music in the background to inspire me. Well that didn't help much! I could say I got a lot of work for digital media done during the previous 2 weeks of break, but to be honest, it was only about 3 days ago that I finally got some characters down on the page, I didn't erase immediatly again. Artists (even though I doubt I could call me one) are complicated. Finally I was more or less satisfied with what I brought to paper and my first drafts of the character are finished! What a relief to know where you're heading! Now I can concentrate on the details and draw the character in every position we need him to be for the video.

here is a little sneak peek to how the character will look like:

I hope you like it! Keep checking the blog for more information on how our group will proceed!