Shape and Name GIF's

This week in Interactive we were set the tasks to create two short GIF's. One of the GIF's we had to make had to show a shape changing into a different shape using one of the tools provided on Flash. I found this to be a very simple task but it took me a while to understand how to do the animation properly. It still looks a bit cranky now but it does look a whole lot better than my first attempted.

The Second task we were set to do was to use type and make it move in the GIF, this ended up being a whole lot harder than the shape GIF because it used a lot of layers. We had to change all of the letters into icons so that we could move them in the GIF. I was going to try and make the letters fly off the GIF but I had run out of time before I could finish it. 

Steve was not in this week so we did not have an examples that we could take information from for the shape GIF. We had to use the information that Steve had wrote down to create the GIF's. This seemed to be quite a hard task but it allowed us to be independent and allowed us to play around with the features shown.

What I have looked at so far...

Representations of gender in TV and Film

In our first media theory lesson this term we looked at how men and women are represented in TV and film and how they are represented differently in each. We talked about how men are presented as quite unintelligent when featured on TV. They are usually the people who add the comedy to the TV show, whereas women are shown as being quite intelligent and are usually the person who has to look after the male. A good example of the could be, 'The Middle' and 'The Simpsons' both of these show a family where the males (son and the father) are not very smart and are the cause for the problem in the shows. The females (daughter and the mother) are the responsible ones who are usually the people who have to solve the problems that the males could have caused.

In films men and women are represented very differently, men are usually the main role of the film and are usually quite muscular and smart. They tend to control what is going on in the films and they stereotypically the hero of the narrative. Women on the other hand tend to be a supporting role that may help the male with their task, they contribute a whole lot less to the narrative but they usually look up to the male. A test was created to try and get women to be more of a central role in the film, this test is called the 'Bechdel Test'. In order to pass this test the film has to include two different females that talk to each other about something other than a man for over 60 seconds.

YouGov Profile

   

Another thing we looked at on our first lesson was newspapers and how they write articles to appeal to their specific audiences. To found out what kind of audience they were targeting we went on a site called, 'YouGov' as seen above, it gave us an overview on the people most likely to read the newspaper. The Sun are known for there over exaggerated articles that tend to not tell the complete truth. Looking at their YouGov profile we found out that their audience tends to be of the young adult variety and are quite argent, this might be one of the main reasons why The Suns articles are the way they are. I think that information provided by 'YouGov' is not reliable due to only around 100-1000 people putting forward their data on each newspaper.It states 'Top Regions' however that may not be the 'Top Regions' and may just be where they received the most information from.

Debate

In our second lesson this term we were told that we were going to do a debate that argued about, 'Can anyone be a journalist?' for this debate we were arguing 'for' the statement. Our group decided that we should go to local library to try and find some information to back up our argument. After a few minutes of trying to find some books that were relevant to what we were talking about we decided to read up on what some people had to say. 

When we finally came back to college to start our debate, we had realized that we had forgotten to write down notes. This put us at a massive disadvantage, one top of that we realized that we had gotten confused and read up research for the arguing against. This being a silly mistake on our part, we had learned that for our next debate we would have to make sure we know what we are arguing for and to write down quite a lot of note so we are prepared for the debate. To no ones surprise we didn't become victorious in the debate but we did learn a lot from the experience and will be more prepared for our next debate.

Character Profiles

Jerry (Scientist)

Jerry is a very smart and cunning person, he tries to use his knowledge for good. He puts others before himself because he feels like he has to give something back to the world. Jerry takes things very seriously and is very sensible when it comes to making decisions. Even though Jerry is the one who brings in the most money to the house hold and is currently paying off his and Frankie's university fees, money doesn't really seem to be a big deal to him and he feels like they are doing quite well for themselves. Jerry has been in education most of his life, he left University at age 21 with the right grades become a scientist. He has always wanted to be scientist and has always wanted to create something that everyone could use and enjoy. 

Frankie (Jerry's Girlfriend)

Frankie is the sort of person that puts herself before others, because that was what her parents taught her at a young age. Frankie and Jerry's relationship up to the point in the film has been very confusing. They have had their fair share of problems however Frankie is the one who starts most of the conflict. Frankie depends on Jerry a lot more than he does to her. This is because Jerry is usually the one who makes the most sensible decisions. Frankie is quite greedy, she tends to keep things that she owns to herself and doesn't like to share things with other people. Frankie was a very spoilt child, if she wanted it most of the time she could have it, even though here family were always struggling for money. Frankie decided to go to University at age 18, she didn't spend much time studying and mostly went to university for the social aspect. Frankie and Jerry met each other at a party when they were 20, Frankie liked Jerry because he was a nice person that had potential. Jerry like Frankie because she was an outgoing person with a big personality.

Rick (Frankie's Brother)

Rick is a very mysterious character, he likes to keep things to himself and gets the job done. Rick always puts his clients first and keeps everything about them very confidential. Rick is very sly, if he sees money in something, he will usually take it for himself and keep the profit. It isn't said in the film but there are a few clues that lead to this happening in the film. Rick has never really been close with his sister due to him always doing things for his work. Jerry and Rick do not like each other and this is because Jerry feels like Rick should spend more time with his sister and Rick feels like Jerry isn't the one for Frankie. Rick is the oldest out of the three because of his history with taking item and taking them as his own, Rick is wanted for his offences. However no one knows that he is the culprit not even his family. Jerry has always suspected Rick of doing these things but has never found any evidence to prove that it is him.  

Animation

Todays lesson was about animation, we were taught the basics of Flash and were shown other peoples animations.

Steve set us the task to make our own animation and we were given the task to animate a ball bouncing. We could add whatever we wanted to the ending of our animation. I decided that I wanted my animation to loop so I came up with the idea of a man kicking a ball to where it once began. I thought this worked affectively and it added some humour to my animation. 

Sensationalism in News Stories

Sensationalism - Over hyping a certain topic or over fabricating it, I have told you over a thousand times could be a type of Sensationalism.

As you can see above, one article for the 'Daily Mail' uses the words, "The most heavily guarded British Football match ever" to over exaggerate how guarded the football match actually was. This could have been used to try and catch the readers eye and entice them to look at the article. Techniques like this are used a lot in newspapers because they can entice people to look deeper into their articles, newspapers like 'The Sun' use this a lot and this is why they have the representation they have now a days. Sensationalism can also be used in articles to make them sound more interesting than they actually are, no one wants to read an article based on something uninteresting, using this technique works around this.

Media Wise

Media Wise give advise and assistance to people who have been affected by 'inaccurate, intrusive, or sensational media coverage'. They also deliver 'use-of-the-media' training for the members of the public.

Media guideline for Reporting Children

When it comes to reporting about children there are many things that the reporter has to keep in mind. Stereotyping is one area that reports have to be carful about, they have to completely avoid using stereotypes in their work for their own benefit. Security also has to be taken into account when reporting a child, before you start reporting the child you have to ensure that you have assured their guardian of how safe the child will be.

SWOT Analysis

Time, weather, clothing + issues encountered with each

Time: If we are going for a neutral or sunny setting we will have to go out at mid-day when the sun is at its highest. This would work fine for the Crescent and the Royal Crescent, however the park would not work so well, due to the vast amount of trees on set. The Royal Crescent may present problems at this time of day, due to the amount of tourists which may cause an issue when trying to get silence when filming. In addition, it may take at least 10-20 minutes to get down to the set and so we will have to plan ahead when it comes to those sorts of things.

Weather: Time is a big issue when it comes to particular parts of the film as we will have to have a certain weather type including: cloudy, sunny, rainy or neutral. This is very hard to get right with British weather and with winter coming up, it could mean that it will be more dark in the morning and in late afternoon. We will have to make sure that we come on set at the right parts of the day and ensure that we get the right type of weather for the mood of the scene.

Clothing: When it comes to clothing we may use a wide range of clothes with a wide range of colours. This may affect how the shots look but we should try and keep to the theme of the site - no bright over colourful clothing that may look out of place. When filming in the royal crescent we will be shooting at around 12 o'clock to fit with the time in the film, so clothing colours should not be much of an issue. 

Issues: Car plates are a big issue - we will have to avoid getting them in shot so it becomes a little easier when it comes to editing the film. This is the same with shops, we will have to ensure that the logos are not in shot when filming. Hopefully when it comes to the shots that are going to be used in the film no car plates will be visible in the shot and if they are we may have to use a different shot angle.

How I came up with the design for my board game

Our board game has to appeal to people between the ages of 14-21 year old, we had to try and find a design, colour scheme and font for our board game that the sort of age group would like. We had to try and find common interests that this sort of age group are into and incorporate it into our game.

Simplistic looks seem to be very popular at the moment, 'Google' had recently changed their logo to a more simple look, completely getting rid of the serif they use to have on there logo and making the whole text more round. Apple also had an update to their IOS that simplified the icons making it look nicer on the eye and more presentable. These are two companies that are used mainly by the people I am aiming my game at, both of these changes hasn't caused any sort of uproar because most people have actually liked how these changes look. Clothing sites like; River Island, Hollister and Topman all have a sort of grid design on their website that makes it easy to find where everything is. None of them were overly complicated when it comes to their web design and I think this is another factor that I have to take into account when making my board game.


The simplistic look is something I want to achieve in my work because I know it is something people in my age range like and it also looks very eye catching. Adding simplicity to my board game is something that I has worked with other companies and I think it will work with my game. Having an overly complicated looking game may make people turn away from my board game and not show any interest in it. People always say that teenagers are lazy and after looking at all of these different companies designs I think I now agree with this notion.

Location Scouting

Green Park

On visiting Green park, it looked like a very good place to film. It offered a variety of ideas due to the site including: rocks, benches, pathways and trees. Out of the three locations, Green Park can give us the most options on what we want to do. It is also next to a river and this can be used for dramatic scenes as seen in the pictures.

However, there are a lot of negatives to this location. The first one being that the traffic is very loud and may cause the audio in the film to be unclear and therefore unprofessional. Secondly. there is also a lot of litter in the park and we cannot use shots that include litter in the background because it will look messy and will not fit with the theme of the show. Thirdly, the fact that this is a public park, means that there will be a lots of noisy people who may also be using the children's park on the site. In addition to this, there is also a lot of street art on the walls of the site and if this is shown in the shot, it will not fit with the futuristic theme of the film and will cause a controversy.

Crescent

The Crescent was a very large location which could allow us to film on a bigger scale - this could be particularly useful for the first scene, when the two main characters are introduced. The whole site looked very appealing due to the greenery and the row of old houses within it; it could be used to signify a main location in our film. The whole area was very quiet and could allow us to film without many disturbances and unwanted mic pickup. Another positive about this particular location is that we don't need to get permission to film there because it is owned by the government, not the home owners.

On the other hand, the Crescent building is actually home to some of the people in Bath and with it being a busy place, it could be very hard to get the home owners to move their vehicles. I also noted that there were not a lot of objects on the ground of the Crescent and this could prove to be either good or bad for the scene we will be shooting, depending on the level of distraction we require.

Royal Crescent

The Royal Crescent was very similar in layout to the other Crescent, however this location has a bigger area and gives us the opportunity to film very long shots. I found this location very memorable and therefore it could be effective in creating a connection between the place and our film for the audience. There is also a very long pathway that we could use for particular moments. The Royal Crescent fits very well with the whole futuristic vibe that we are trying to replicate in our film.

Unfortunately, there were not a lot of natural objects like rocks and tree stumps etc. on the ground in the Royal Crescent and this could be a downfall if we want to use such items in the film. In addition to this, The Royal Crescent is next to a park which could mean a lot of people passing by that may cause a lot of noise and disturbance when filming.

Gifs

Today we were set the task to make our own Gif and were show a different part of photoshop that we had never used before. We were shown a few example of Gif's that Steve had done in that past to give us some inspiration when making our own.

I decided to take inspiration from one of the Gif's Steve showed us and use paper with draw eyes and make it look like they are moving using stop motion. I thought that it ended up working quite well however the background in my gif looks very weird and take the audiences attention off of what I was trying to achieve in my gif. Gifs have always been something that I have always been interested in using because they show more than what a simple picture displays, Gifs can also show personality better than what a photo can. 

This was the first time I had used stop motion to make my own Gif and I really enjoyed using photoshop to make one. Next week we will be using a piece of software that is made for making Gifs so we will be able to make more complex and longer Gif's of our own.