 |
| Just my view on the learning process :D . But don't get me wrong, I see it as a necessary part of learning. |
There was meant to be a lecture this week, but the lecturer was sick. I thought university lecturers were meant to be inhumane paragons. I'm disillusioned now :) :P . I'll comment on the lecture material next week, since it should all be put online by then. Yet for this week, I will be commenting on the presentations of the "Future Echo's" projects.
Project 2 - Future Echo's (Week 4 of 4)
 |
| One of the images for our project made by the other drawer in our group. |
This week was the final week for our group project. Just to recap, our objective was to produce a 4 minute video that makes a prediction of what things might be like 20 years in the future. Our group went with the idea of a post apocalypse polluted future, where everyone needs to wear gas masks.
 |
| One of my pictures for the project. |
Final Work on Our Project. In the last tutorial session, I was happy that my group seemed to finally be working together as a complete team. This trend did continue in the final week. It wasn't just a case of any members being subservient; all of us contributed equally in our own individual ways, with our own creativity, to produce a final result. This is more what I had hoped for, for the first group project. At least it happened for the second project. Of course, that doesn't mean that I was totally happy with the video that we ended up with. As it was, the video lacked much that I would have liked to be there. If we had more technical skills, or had more time, then possibly we might of achieved something better. Yet it still had promise, and was not what I envisioned in a good way, since it was a true collaboration.
 |
| Dead Guards; not really visible in the project video. |
Of the four members in our group, two of us worked on the drawings/pictures. While I would have liked the other artist to have lined her drawings in with pen, our images did otherwise compliment each other. One member who had not contributed much in the past, they not only provided the start of our video, but did much of the video sequencing using Flash (with what knowledge they had). I liked watching some of the development done by that group member using Flash. The final member finished off the video work, and supplied and added the music and sound effects utilising iMovie. Unfortunately, when merging the flash section with another video section using iMovie, the bottom part of the Flash section was cut off. This meant that you could hardly see the dead guards that I drew. So I've put that picture here on my blog. Also, the conversion made the Flash section less smooth in it's transitions/scrolling. Once again, if we had more technical knowledge, we might have been able to correct that.
In terms of iterative design, there where many little revisions made despite the very short production time. As I've said, I played around modifying photos to get the effect I wanted. My drawings changed at little bit, but not dramatically. The other artist in our group revised her drawings on seeing what I had produced, adding backgrounds to some and trying to add smog effects. Some of her modified images were not included in the final video, which might have been good since adding fog to pencil pictures would have just washed them out more. She just needs more experience. The beginning of the video was refined, replacing the stick figures that were originally there, and refining the text displayed. Also the video sequence went through a number of changes and additions. The music that I originally suggested was not used, with the team member being in charge of sound, finding something of similar tone, but better. Their voice acting was good too. I would have liked it if we had got stuck into things sooner so as to allow more production time, but there was still a development cycle, even if we were pushed for time. In some respects, it's a pity that this is the last project that we are working on together, since I think we would be more unified now. However, the fact that I say that means that an objective has already been achieved, and we can move on.
Our Groups Presentation - Group 29. One of the tutors said our video was like an art piece. Although I like to be humorous, as a group, we thought that a more sombre and stylised approach would better suit this grim future. Personally, I thought the tutors were generous with their reception of our video. However, as I've said, in terms of team collaboration, I thought we had done well. Unfortunately, some of the images did appear washed out when the video was projected in front of the class (ahem... no pen work). I was asked about the last section that was in first person, where I had individually altered every single frame. I did so, since I wanted to put the viewer themselves into gas mask world, in the appropriate style. I of course knew that there must exist software that would make that job easier, and the tutors indicated this. I'll have to make a point of asking them about it next time, since I was a bit too phased at the time. After all, I'm here to learn. If I had not spent so much time on the end section, I may have had time to improve other sections so as to be more to my liking. All in all, I can't complain if we got a reasonably good mark. I'm just always going to expect more of myself (and hence my group).
 |
| A picture I didn't include in our final video, since I thought the building in the foreground looked too nice. |
Other Groups. Comments from earlier weeks are in red italics.
 |
My own version of the idea of
group 26. Technology changes,
but things stay the same :P |
- Group 26 - Profession Hats - essentially 'hats' that give you the skills of the professions encoded in them. Developmental steps have now be set out. The possibility of Hat Hackers have been included to create drama. The video consisted mainly of a few simply drawn pictures where the mouth of a character was made to move as a speech was being delivered. To be honest, I found this technique not to be the best, since it was lots of verbal information with little visual component. This group seemed to have no artists amongst them. They may have been better served by using collage (or live action footage) instead. They dropped the idea of 'hackers' from the final product, probably due to not having the time to incorporate it. It remained a good concept. It should be noted that this group had the fewest number of team members.
- Group 28 - Underground Religion - religion being outlawed and going underground (USSR style). Focus is more on hyper science society, with less moral regulation. For example, cloning is done without regard or conscience. Religious organisations are rebels. This idea was presented using live action video. I thought it was clever to have a character selecting news reports to convey their message. Obviously, they thought that a science focused future would be very boring, since that was the main message that they were trying to convey with a dry comic style. In a way, it was intentionally boring :P . While cloning was still there in the final product, it was not as strongly presented as previously indicated. It was well done. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PID9I9xrQiU&feature=player_embedded)
 |
| The science logo in the video for group 28. |
- Group 25 - One Currency - the world only has one united currency. A tutor said "like the Euro" :) . An implanted chip contains monetary info, and also affects status in society. The group seemed resistant to the tutors suggestions of expanding on the chip storing other info, or making the story more complex. This group had a very well made animated feature as their video. Their story remained unchanged. Luckily for them, they had a Flash expert on their team. It was stylised and very well done, making good use of dramatic scene changes and close ups. If anything, the brief live action segment in the middle of their animation seemed out of place. The story was simple but well executed, using most of the segments they had shown in previous tutorial sessions. The music complimented the comedic story. Fairly professional.
- Group 27 - Limited Resources - with increasing population and declining resources like oil, many options here. "Do you want cricket fries with your grubs?" (Although that's already the menu in some places). This group now presented several ideas. 1) One was scanning ID via fingerprints, with this process being a requirement to do almost anything. 2) Another was close to the original idea, with the rich hoarding whats left of limited resources, but end up worse off since they do not embrace renewable resources like those who had to. 3) An idea very similar to the animation 'Wall.E'. 4) I was confused about the forth idea. This group ended up going with a general financial collapse (GFC2) as their video theme. It was all live action footage. I thought it was good how they stepped through time in 5 year intervals, showing a gradual progression. I also liked how they showed newspaper reports to give some background, which was similar to what I had proposed to my group. However, their newspaper articles were shown to be on pages of newspaper covering a homeless person, which I thought was great follow through. Their music, with it's changes to match events, was also interesting. Well done.
- Group 24 - Technology Trouble - I didn't comment on this group last time. They had three ideas of which I remember two. 1) Piracy (downloading) is out of control. The government cracks down harshly. 2) Google Glass is a vital fixture in society. Looks at life if you break your all important glasses - lose the ability to effectively communicate. This group used live action footage to convey their 'Piracy (illegal downloads) Severely Punished by Death' idea. Of particular interest was their voiceover of footage of Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and their incorporation of the "Piracy is a Crime" video that can be found on DVD's. It was kind of like watching something from the 'Chaser' group on channel 2. Funny and well done. Good camera work.
 |
| Original storyboard for Group 24. |
Final Thoughts. Personally, I didn't feel any of the videos (including my groups), where echo's of the future. But then you never know I guess :P . Also, why do most people seem to have such dire visions of the future? I'm going to remain optimistic. Anyway, this concludes the second (and last) group project for this subject - 'Introducing Design".
No comments:
Post a Comment