James Yeo's Blog

Placement Day 8

James Yeo — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 15:49:07 +0000

this is our last day! thaank god

Placement – Day 7

James Yeo — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 09:37:15 +0000

Today i was told to put the flash banners we had created together to make 1 big flash file that showed them all, to do this i just put them put them one after the other and then faded out as one ended and faded back in as the next one started, then i looped it. The rest of the day was the same as every other day. EXACTLY THE SAME! NOTHING CHANGES HERE! TIME STANDS STILL!

PPRD

James Yeo — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 09:26:01 +0000

When I started the course I understood that the briefs we would be given would be very open to interpretation and would leave us a lot of room to do our own thing and explore what we felt the brief meant. This was one of the main reasons I chose to do this course, as i felt this would help me progress and find what I the area I wanted to go into, which I feel it has. Throughout the year I have learnt how to use some software which I never thought I would be able to get my head around, and I have improved my skills using the software I already new how to use, I documented all of this on my blog (Appendix 1).

The first brief we were given was about viral videos, we were asked to get ourselves into groups and after looking through a variety of classic viral videos were told to come up with ideas for our own video which would be uploaded to www.youtube.com. I was in a group with 4 other guys, unfortunately with project we ended up arguing a lot about ideas. We hung around on a couple of ideas but ultimately couldn’t agree on how to approach them and they were ultimately scrapped. This taught me that I should pick the people I work with carefully as some of the people in the group were unwilling to compromise on ideas and in the end we didnt manage to come out with a piece that we felt reflected our abilities(Appendix 2). This view was shared by the lecturers marking the critique and we were asked to try it again. The second time we tried it I definitely felt as though we worked better as a team all getting behind one idea and working on things to do within the idea. In then end we managed to come up with 2 well shot short viral videos based around a competition to create an advert for BluTak (Appendix 3) They were made up of 2 extremely short videos depicting what BluTak wont do well then finishing by pointing out what they do do well, the videos worked well and their length really helped with their comic value.

The second brief we were given was something I had some experience in, creating a 2D animated piece to the theme of a night out. Because I have made a 2D animation, using a handmade style and drawing all of the frames by hand, before I decided I would step out of my comfort zone. I decided to create the whole piece using vector shapes and use after effects and the puppet pin tool to animate it. As I had never used the puppet pin tool before I struggled to get to grips with it, in the end I really regretted my choice to do it all digitally as my characters didn’t move right and it made the whole piece look a little amateur. I enjoyed this project as I really enjoy character design and was able to have complete creative control as I was working on my own. This meant from start to finish I was able to give the piece the look I wanted it to have. This I feel is its greatest strength, I love how the way vectors don’t have an outline. Overall i feel this project would of benefited from a different approach and if i were to do it again i would of definitely gone for a handmade approach. (Appendix 4)

The next brief we were given was one introducing us to 3D and Maya. Before I did this project I was always quite interested in learning Maya and using it in animations, I can safely say now I could happily spend the rest of my life without using Maya or any 3D animation software again. I really didn’t feel confident with this project or have any form of an idea from the start which i feel was my biggest downfall. After not being able to come up with anything coherent I just decided on a building a hand and animating it. I initially wanted it to crawl around Adams Family style but unfortunately it didn’t work out this way, for some reason the rig i built for it really didn’t work and the joints all moved in weird ways, deforming the hand into awkward positions. This meant I either had to abandon the crawling idea and go with something else or i had to completely rebuild my hand which i didnt have time to do. So I ended up doing a much simpler animation which just involved the hand flexing its fingers and then slamming down. Unfortunately not even this looked right, it seemed my hand was doomed to always look kind of weird. In the end I felt that my final piece was a massive let down. (Appendix 5)

When it came to the next project we were given I was sure i was going to do something that I felt really proud of as all of the stuff i had done before i didnt feel showed the best of my abilities. So when it came to the post production brief I got a firm idea in my head about what i was going to do and stuck to it. I decided I was going to put 2D animation onto of film. I originally wanted to animated it by hand, but due to time constraints i had to do it on the computer. I took each frame of the video i shot and imported it into photoshop, where i used vector shapes to add in the animated bits over the footage, then exported it and put it all back together. I liked the effect it gave, but i had to do some tests to get it looking right. In the end I ran out of time and couldn’t make it look as good as i wanted, I was pleased with the overall look of the piece but was disappointed with the ending, the original ending didn’t go with the rest of the animated stuff so i couldnt use it, and as i was running out of time i just did a simple ending which didn’t look as good as it would of. (Appendix 6)

The only real let down about the course for me has been the short form video project. I really haven’t enjoyed this project in the slightest. From the start I knew this one would fail. It was presented to us in a way that made us feel like we had no control over it in the slightest. We were given the storyline, told how to shoot it and what to shoot it like. I feel this annoyed a lot of people in the group as we thought we were going to be coming up with our own ideas for it, and when we asked if it could be changed so we could make our own ideas we were told that we weren’t allowed. Even so we got on with the work and were eventually shown how to use cameras, set up lights and how to use the green screen (all of which I already knew) Then we were split into groups and assigned the sections we would be working on which again wasn’t done in an even and fair way, some groups got exciting sections where they got to perform police raids and things of that nature whereas other groups such as the one I was part of had to record news segments or film stuff from a students point of view. This meant that the people who got the good sections were more inclined to work hard as the work they were doing was interesting and fun whereas groups like mine didn’t feel as inclined and therefore didnt work as hard. I feel that this was a poorly executed unit which had the potential to be one of the best from the year but instead ended up feeling like a big waste of time.

The final unit of the year saw me taking part in 2 weeks of work experience, I did it with a company called GTI who run the Lifestyle portal for the NUS and their 7 million students called Kaboosh. Here I was given projects which mostly included making animated pieces on flash for websites. This project broadened my knowledge of flash and photoshop and showed me what it would be like to work in the web design industry, I can now safely say I would not want to go into this field.

Throughout the practical units of this year I feel one thing has occurred in everyone that i need to improve on, time management. I always found myself leaving my work till the last minute and this meant that I didn’t have time to correct mistakes or make changes which would improve my final pieces. This is the main thing I will take away from this year and try to improve on.

Overall I have really enjoyed this year and am looking forward to coming back next year.

Appendix 1 – woodsant.wordpress.com

Appendix 2 – http://woodsant.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/viral-video/

Appendix 3 – http://woodsant.wordpress.com/2010/03/04/viral-video-redone/

Appendix 4 – http://woodsant.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/night-out-final/

Appendix 5 – http://woodsant.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/maya-final/

Appendix 6 – http://woodsant.wordpress.com/2010/04/18/final/

Placement Day 6

James Yeo — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 10:15:24 +0000

did the same again except dom wasnt here

Placement Day 5

James Yeo — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:12:17 +0000

On day 5 we basically carried on with the work we did on day 4

Placement – Day 4

James Yeo — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 17:18:57 +0000

I came back to work on day 4 and quickly got back to work, as I still hadnt finished the client reel i was creating i cracked on with that, I needed to sort out a problem i was having with the logoi was given. Everytime i imported it into flash it lost all its quality and looked awful. I tried many different things to counter this, I tried saving it as different file types, using different programs to export it but everytime it yielded the same results, after a while i was stopped by Rob who told me it was pointless and one of them would have a look at it at a later date.After this i quickly moved onto the next project which both Dom and Sam were also working on, it included making a piece of flash for the companies website, each one created had to show another client they had worked for. I set about creating my first piece which included a pixilated background which was to change colour slightly, I was given the image with the colours on it which i adjusted in Photoshop. I then saved 2 copies, one of which i flipped horizontally. I then imported it all into flash and set it up so the 2 backgrounds where on 2 separate layers and using alpha adjustments tweening between the 2 layers, this caused it to have almost a liquid look to it which caused a really nice effect. I then laid everything else out on the flash file then set about animating it, i then positioned the logo of the company in the center, the product the company makes on either side and embedded a video in below the logo. overall i feel it turned out looking very professional and good. i then did the same process for 2 other flash videos but i didn’t finish them as i was missing bits.

Placement – Day 3

James Yeo — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 10:23:45 +0000

Due to the family emergency I mentioned in the previous post I wasnt present on the 3rd day.

Placement – Day 2

James Yeo — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 10:22:28 +0000

Our second day started like the first, we were buzzed into the building, signed in and sat in front of our computers. I decided to crack on with the project i had left unfinished the evening before, I quickly finished putting the logos into a queue and then moving it all over into flash as 1 layer. Once it was in flash I created a background to the dimensions needed and then placed a rectangle over the background of the same colour so the logos would go underneath this and i could put the logo of the website onto of it. After I had laid it all out i had to animate the carousel style movement. to do this i joined up 3 copies of the reel and then converted them into 1 symbol. When animating it i had a problem with timing it so that the end of the reel looped correctly and looped seamlessly, it kept stopping and there would be a massive gap between where it ended and where it looped. I got past this by adding a fourth copy of the reel in a second layer and then making it so it ended in the same position it started it, this meant that when it looped it did it seamlessly. Unfortunately due to a family emergency I had to leave work early on the second day.

Placement – Day 1

James Yeo — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 13:40:09 +0000

We started our placements at a company called GTI on monday the 19th at around 9.30. Dommi, Sam and myself met in Bournemouth center and made our way to the place where would spend the next 2 weeks working. When we arrived we were buzzed into the building made our way to the second floor where we signed in and met the people we would be working with. We were sat infront of our computers and Joe (one of the people working for the company) asked us what kind of stuff we could do, enjoyed doing and what programs we could use. The he listed off 3 different projects for us to fight over, I chose to do a piece of flash for a companies website homepage. After Dommi and Sam had chosen theirs we got to work, the piece I created was made using several pictures from the website, some transitions and some text, it was a simple piece which i felt was in keeping with the simple style of the website and the professional look of it. Then I sent it to Joe and he sent it on to the company (and now its on their website which is fun)

Then later that day after completing the first task I was given my second project, I was asked to create a carousel listing a websites clients. I started it straight away by lining all of the logos of the clients up in Photoshop, but unfortunately it was time to leave before i got a chance to finish.
Overall the first day was enjoyable and i felt like i learnt something.

Final

James Yeo — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:20:52 +0000

Here is the final piece, i feel it turned out well. There are certain things about it that i’m not overly keen on though, i feel as though it could of benefited from a better ending, i felt as though the ending it has doesn’t do the amount of effort i put in. I think the main problem was that i had an idea of what i wanted it to look like and i knew where i wanted the storyline to go but i didn’t have a clear cut ending in my mind which i knew would come back to haunt me. I kind of wish i had done a different story with a lot more of the animation side of it. But overall i feel that the final product did kind of work.