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Digital story reflection

Pre-production

We spent a lot of time on the project and we were all organised and coordinated everything together as a team. In the pre-production, we organised and planned it for three weeks. In order to produce a good film, we also did research on the interactive films. For example, ‘The last call‘is an interactive film, in the cinema, the audiences are able to pick up a phone call and make decisions for the protagonist. We considered aesthetics and technology as well. For our production design, the film will be black and white which fit the genre film noir. It has some clickable buttons on the screen. There is an excellent blog entry which talks about the graphic art of film title design. For our project, the titles and the buttons look simple but they all fit the footages. Next time, I think we should take more times on the graphic design and consider both aesthetics and function.

Production

In the production process, Anurit did a good job on the production schedule. The bad thing was we spent a lot of time on waiting for people and talking other things. Next time I think we should quickly get into working mode and get things done effectively. After the shooting, we did the wild line and the quality of the sound was good which I am satisfied. I looked at the footage, I felt like the lighting and the camera angle is not very noir. It should be more ‘strange’ so I looked at ‘The stylistic elements of film noir‘. I learned that we should emphasise shadows and we probably need a hard back light which can light up a hot edge of the actor. This article was very helpful we should do more research on the genre

Post-production

In the post-production process, we have a trailer to show that will be an interactive film noir. Actually, we have at 20 scenes that most of them we haven’t put it in the trailer, but we will try to finish it during the semester break. The music was an addition tone for the trailer and it can engage the audiences.

Social media strategy

For social media strategy, we set up a facebook page and a WordPress blog. The facebook page posted our process of production and the WordPress blog posted our marketing image and marketing strategy. This marketing strategy is to excite a curiosity of the audience and engage them following our project. Curiosity is one of the main content the we use to get more attention for the real interactive film noir. And our blurb was not giving all the information and let the audience figure it out themselves. The different choice will result in a different ending, so the audience may watch it multiple time which helps increasing sells (if it can make profits).

Collaboration 

I think our group members all contribute equally and appropriately. when we were managing our group tasks in the group meeting. We developed production plans, create a prop lists and cast lists, review team roles and leadership. The group discussion is an effective way to plan complex tasks. We broke tasks down into smaller and dispatched it to the different person. What I like most about the group was that all the members tried their best. The least effective things about the way the groups worked were that we worked on the one person charged mode. Next time the working method I’d like to use is that we can discuss and  make a decision together and we should be able to take advice from the group members.

 

My app idea

My App is called GiftFriend which can find a gift for a friend. This app can help you find the perfect gift for your friend, your lover, or your parents. To start with looking for gifts, the app will ask you who is the recipient? How old is he or she? And what is her/his hobby? Then, the app will generate the list of the gifts.

Chrismas Gift Finder app is similar to my app, but it targets on Christmas. My app can find a gift for any situations. There is a special function if you already have some ideas about what kind of gift you want, the app allows you to take a picture of the ideal gift and it will automatically make a list of a similar gift.

 

The strength of my app:

– Don’t need to sign up because when you bought a product it will automatically sign up with your phone number or email address.

– Allows to take a picture of your ideal gift and make a recommendation list.

-Easy to use

The weakness of my app:

-Big size, WiFi environment needed.

-Need fast internet connection.

-Too many choices of the gifts will make user hard to decide.

The next step will be building the app. I had a workshop building an app 10 days ago, I learned that building an app includes front end and back end. In terms of the front end, I will use flat graphics with light color and make it simple because the main thing is the picture of the gifts. I need to think about user identity and user experience that I will use the simple gesture to control it because I don’t want to make my user thinking how to use it. In terms of the back end, This app has IOS and Android edition, there are three main functions in my app. First, my app can shoot images, so it uses the camera, then, my app stores thousands of images, so it needs a storage space. Finally, my app will send an email to the customer as they have bought a gift, so it needs a mail function. The main language used in the app will be swift &objective C for IOS and SDK for android.

I will use invisionapp to build my app. It allows you designing your app into clickable, and test your design on the specific phone.

 

Gamification 2

I played this game with my roommates, and I noticed that we need a judge creating two words which are related. The game duration was not long, proximately two to six minutes(six people), the judge didn’t have enough time to create QR code before the next run. The more the players the more job the judge will do. The QR codes should be sent privately to each player, and the judge knows who the spy is. I think I should find a way avoiding that.

The other thing is that the players should build a twitter group first, then they can post description to the group chat. Therefore,There are lots of preparation before the game start, I should think about how to minimise the works of the judge. Perhaps, I should build an app for this game. QR code is  presenting the text, it should take more places in the game.

I am considering if I need to create a new game which using twitter and QR code, I will using locations and make the play area larger. To do this, twitter will have an important role of communication among game players.

The good thing was that scanning QR procedure worked very well, people were very familiar to use it. The player was quite excited to get information via scanning QR, and they were all engaged to play this game which I am very satisfied.

Peer feed back

Venessa and Julian’s group.

In their documentary, my favorite part was their color grading because the food in victoria market is looking very tasty and fresh through their camera. The high saturation of the color is very suitable for the genre. The other good thing is how they editing their interviews, the sight and hearing are not the same which makes the documentary very interesting.

They said they want to do stop motion, and adding animation. It is a lot of jobs. A suggestion I can offer to shorten their length  is selecting the important interviews and cutting shaking footages.

Overall, I like their concept, and they collaborate very well.

Mona’s group

Their documentary is about why people study in Melbourne. They interviewed local people as well as internationals. I like their topic. The statistics they used which are very helpful to convey a strong point about the reason why studying in Melbourne. Although, for aesthetic consideration, the graphic design is not looking good. I suggest that they could go back and try to re-arrange the design in order to fit the footages.

The best part I liked was their uses of light, it looks very soft and nature, and the three point light

The quality of the female voiceover is not good, and they should avoid recording sound by using their own mobile phone. The other problem they could avoid which is using other people’s work. They used a picture of Sydney which is ‘borrowed” on the Internet. Copyright is a serious problem that we should avoid in our own project as well.

Winter

A disaster film, I am so excited when I was watching it. I really like their concept of shooting a disaster film in a small room. This is a very good idea to shoot a low budget earthquake disaster film. It can be seen that they have a real emotion when they acting, perhaps, the crew members are close friends. Their trailer is like a poetic or emotion thing talking about human nature, but it is not quite clear, the storytelling technique should be improved. I like the way they using voiceover. Their music was  a highlight in the trailer, it built up an ambience for the environment and it expresses a sad emotion.

The shots are good, but It’s about the story, and It is not a concrete story, I suggest that they should look at art house film, and I find this French art house film, it may help them.

 

Gamification 1

I created a house party game using QR code and twitter called “Find the spy”. The rules are simple, when the game start, everyone will have a QR code, but there is only one code is different than the others. You only need to find out the spy who have a different word with the others by reading the one sentence description which is posted on twitter.  For example, 7 people play this game, 6 people’s code link to the text ‘ dog’ and only one person has the text “wolf”. Then everyone needs to post their description of the word on twitter. After that, all players vote to find the spy, the person who gets the most votes will out of the game until finding the spy.

This is my decision tree

The marketing image below is simple. I used Photoshop.

Programming concepts 2

When I finished 20 puzzles of the Hour of Code task, I felt like that programming is not hard as I think because the uses of repeat can shorten your working durition. It is a powerful tool when I have to run it again. For example, the circle, it is made of 360 movements. Computer can easily complete these movements at once, to do that automatically you will need a code loop.

A loop is how you repeat your code, and it is used in many softwares. In Microsoft powerpoint, if you want to repeat on a powerpoint slideshow. The “loop Continuously Until’Esc'” option in the ” show Option” section is a tipical example of using loop. This programming code is used in Microsoft Excel as well. I find out an article whicn explain four different typys of loops in Excel.

 

Programming concepts 1

Practice-led research

I will focus on a specific lighting aesthetic of our film noir digital story project. After we finished the rough cut of our trailer, I found out that the lighting technique is a weakness in our film. It is just a black and white film, and this is not a classic noir style film. Our lighting is not helping the genre. Therefore, my research will examine the basics of lighting aesthetic for film noir.

The common thread of film noir lighting is low key lighting – a style called Chiaroscuro in the art world. – Filmaker IQ

Chiaroscuro is a classical painting style during the early 17th century. The method of representing figures through heavily contrasting light are still used in some media artists and storytellers. Film noir is an example which is translated from the classical elements of chiaroscuro.  This art style affects photography and film lighting, and it is called low key lighting.

Key light and back light are the main light in film noir, and filling light is not emphasised because it  requires a strong contrast of the character. The strong back light will lit a hot edge of the subject and it undertakes the three dimensions. According to Lally (2010)

With film being a visual medium, the role of lighting places artists in a very important position for defining how narratives are conveyed, with different lighting decisions being made for a comedy as opposed to a drama. -Lally 2010

Lighting can help genre, and different lighting set up will illustrate different story world. The aesthetic of the film noir such as photographic and lighting will highly influence on the experience of the audiences.  Film noir lighting is anti-traditional lighting, hard light are used generally. ‘Three point light’ are changed in this genre. For example, they are likely to use table lamps,although they are playing a little role in the film. The style of film noir is working with shapes, tone and shadows. Shadows are the key elements of film noir, there are few tools to shape shadows and light.

 

References:

1. John Alton. 2009. THE BASICS OF LIGHTING FOR FILM NOIR. [ONLINE] Available at: http://filmmakeriq.com/lessons/the-basics-of-lighting-for-film-noir/. [Accessed 22 May 2016].
2. Lally, D.M, 2010. Digital Chiaroscuro. Digital Chiaroscuro: Transforming a Classical Style through Digital Animation, A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Drexel University, 12
3. Peterson, L, 1974. Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir. Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir, Film Noir, 66-67.

Basic audio editing

In my digital story project, music is an important part of storytelling because it’s a trailer. Trailer music is different than film music, and it is not usually from film music. The function of trailer music is to complement, support and assembly the film plot together.

From the tutorial I watched, I learned that I can create a music by using Garage Band which is a Mac audio editing software. I’d like to use it on my Mac book, it is super easy to use and even your have no knowledge about music. I can simply assemble loop from the library together, and it can run multi-tracks, from piano to drums, to bass, to guitar and keyboard, and also I can use it to recording sound.

I will focus on how to create a trailer music by combine loops.The best thing is that they are free to use. I found an online resource which is a tutorial of how to use loops in your Garageband. First, create a project and click the loops button. Every loop can be previewed. Then, choose the proper genre for my trailer music and combine it together. There is another tutorail which takes a deeper look into Loops for Garageband. The green loops are midi loops which are made of musical instrument digital interface. The blue loops are real instrument recording. I made a simple music by using loops. This is my project.

Furthermore, garage band has the sound effect which is the orange loop, and I can use it for my trailer project as well. It is very easy to use, especially for beginners.