Our Presentation

Integrated Project on Prezi

Example Interviews and other raw footage

This is some of our footage we have recorded, it's an example of what we filmed during the production period of our project.
Interviews filmed by Nick Emmerson and Callie Booth,
raw footage filmed by Nick

As soon as the video's finished uploading I'll embed it here

App versions

Here are two versions of the app draft and close to finish.

Draft - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9959612/swf/draft%202%20of%20the%20app%20-%20pretty%20much%20day%201.swf

Close to finished- http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9959612/swf/Close%20to%20finished%20version%20of%20the%20app.swf

obviously there are much more version throughout the development process but these are two main-ish versions of the app

More information on the app

Ok, so the videos are finished, the starter, kinetic text intro, and the two titles for our main videos. As you might have seen from another post I have already uploaded the kinetic text and start video to Youtube and embedded them into the post but currently I'm in my accommodation so I cant upload the other two videos to youtube cus it would take several hours. So next time i am in uni i'll make a new post with them in.

I have also been researching on making the walking man flip to face the other direction when the corresponding button is pressed, I think I've sussed it but I now have to mess around with the code to integrate the function of moving the character and flipping him to face different sides upon the user clicking the direction keys on their keyboard or screen.

at the moment the man walks around the screen using the up, down, left and right key. I have also as I believe finished the background.
All I have to do now is;

1. add the video when Tom finishes them
2. add the touch screen buttons if i get time
3. make the character face the right way when buttons are pressed
4. make the custom play/pause buttons  (maybe rewind/fast forward as well if i get time which i doubt)
5.  

I have also been thinking of adding a 'tab' or linked page with a little information about the app and it's creators.

Animations update

As of yesterday I've finished all the animations made to fit around the 4 videos and sent them to Nick. A few needed to be rethought after both John (client) and Ken pointed out that we should use objects other than paper to display the videos on. It's ended up as follows:

Creative:
Displayed on a peice of paper. Dinosaur Vs robot showdown.

Collaborative:
Displayed on an iPhone. Man jumping from the iPhone and being caught by two other men holding a trampoline.

Challenging:
Displayed on paper or a graphics tablet. Man climbs rope to reach top of video.

Confident:
Displayed on an iPod. Man confidently walks over to iPod, leans against it but is rejected by a woman.

Most of these, excluding "Challenging", ended up totally different from my initial ideas and ended up being a lot more ridiculous. "Challenging" was the first animation I completed, which was done in a very simplistic/childish/scribbly style. It went down pretty well so I decided to keep the theme with my other animations. "Creative" is the only animation without stickmen because I wanted it to look crazier than the others.

Start Page and Kinetic text intro video

I going to put the two videos here so you can see the start screen along with the intro video

Start Screen Video

 Kinetic Text Introduction video
 

Another progress update

So far this is the holding screen's background, but I plan on adding more and probably removing things such as the 360 controller, as I don't think I haven't edited it very well in Photoshop.
Where the white block is there will be the new SHU logo and quick sentence informing the user how to use the app. along with possibly arrow pointing the user in the direction of the video

I haven't got around to adding in a picture of an iPhone yet but that will also be on there.
The four videos will be 'embedded' into the ipod classic, iPhone, paper and probably the graphics tablet.
I'm slowly making custom buttons to allow start and pausing of the video and if I get time I'd like to be able to add rewind to start and fast forward to end button along with them.

Callie has drawn a walking man which we will are going to add on the screen to make it look as if the user is navigating the man around the desk instead of a camera view. the camera will still follow buy it'll be aimed at the man who'll be viewed as a key character, but the app also has four other animations, one for each video and the surround the key items which contain videos. such as a man climbing a piece of rope on the paper animation.

Diversifying our Audience

I have spoken to both my teammates and tutor about the possibility to adding touch screen input, I'm hoping to add this fairly soon but as with the Vcam keyboard movement, it might take some research.

currently I am planning on having the user tap the screen to 'skip' or move to the next screen upon completion of viewing the starting screen and the kinetic text introduction video (or if they choose not to), then I thinking of having a button onscreen in the bottom right corner with user can click then a four way direction pad will appear allowing movement of the 'camera'

App Progress

Today I have restarted developing the app, I will continue tomorrow. I have a period off  due to being overloaded with work from other subjects with other deadlines.

So far I haven't got a huge amount of work done on the app.  As we said in our presentation and on the blog before the app will work on a Point-of-View basis, I mean that you will be able to control a camera view around the desk looking at what you want to, but along the way you will see four videos.

I have been informed that I can use something called VCam which is a camera view, basically its a box, which is transparent and what ever you see within the centre of is in the 'cameras lens'.
Although I have found an up to date version and have put it in my app, I plan on doing some research on loading it dynamically, then being able to make it move around the screen depending on where the user tells it to go to. I hope on being able to allow the user to control the 'camera' by using their direction keys.

I have been messing around with the visual effects, layering, etc, which I can apply within flash to the paper and the video to make them blend and seem realistic. plus at the moment I have the VCam moving around the stage but via tweened effects instead of manual input.

Client meeting/Easter plans

Today was our last class/meeting before the two week Easter break and we received feedback from the client. He suggested we add to our holding screen by putting in more items (such as cups, phones, pens), to make it look cluttered and more interesting.

We've divided the holiday work up as follows:
Nick will create the titles for the Creative and Collaborative videos, continue to work on the holding screen.
Callie will create the titles for the Confident and Challenging videos, complete the final 3 animations.
Tom will work on the video editing and have them near finished.

Interviews

Me & Nick met up today to film some interviews. Nick managed to arrange for us to talk to a past student who now runs her own business and we got lucky in that a different integrated project class was taking place in 2303 so we asked if we could borrow some students to interview (which actually worked!).

We didn't manage to get any tutor interviews, as both John Hayes and Adam Shepherd declined but we plan to ask Danny Bacchus tomorrow.

Running behind schedule

We aimed to have all our footage done by this week but getting interviews is easier said than done, so we're just going to work with what we've got and get our interviews done over this coming week instead. We have 2 tutors and 3 students willing to be interviewed so far. Woohoo.

Nick's started on the introductory animation, Tom's cutting up the area footage for the beginning of the final videos and I'm going to get as much animation done as I can before our next class.

Filming update

We spent this week filming general area footage for the opening of our videos. We've decided to film whatever interview footage we can individually over the coming week so that in next weeks class we can bring all our footage together and pass it onto Tom to see what he wants to do with it.

Update to app background

So far we plan on having a plane wooden desk feel to the background, I'm probably going to use this as the image. (the image will be in landscape view)

We also plan on using pieces of paper as the background for the videos to make it look as if the video is being animated on the page/book. This is the page that we plan on using. 

The page will be on an angle making it look like the book was thrown down on the table uncarefully,  We intend on blending the image a little so the video won't stand out too much.

Before I took the picture of the piece of paper, I carefully scrumpled it to make it look fairly used but not too much.
Going back to the desk image I wanted it to look as if the shadows from the 'rooms' light was shining realistically upon it to seem believable and allow the user to temporarily discard their belief.

Creating the website button

This is mostly a reminder to myself since my laptop is currently broken and I need to make some notes!

Our final Flash Application will be accessed via a link on the Sheffield Hallam website, the plan is to make a clickable graphic for the SHU homepage that takes you there.

Here's the current website with the space for our graphic highlighted in red. It'll have to be 340px x 423px to fit the space. It'll be stylised like a notebook like the App it's self and might be animated if I can pull it off.

Presentation feedback

Group 13 – Flash App

Grade: 8

Danny: 8

Feedback

 Danny: Lots of really nice visuals that served well to demonstrate the aesthetic of the piece. The student personality has been conveyed well here. I would recommend beginning the filming process as soon as you can to ensure you get all the footage you need in time.

Kathryn and Janet: Incorporated the 4C’s well; meets brief. Good research and visuals. Does well to keep the student personality in mind.

Our presentation

ranas on Prezi

Possible mateirals

I took these pictures to see whether if it was a viable option to use phots we took as backgrounds etc or if we should get the materials offline as they might or might not be of better quality than the pictures we take.

So these are just some random pictures I decided to take the other day when i got board, they could be used for backgrounds for our flash projects and possibly videos

Storyboards

We agreed to go away from class and create a storyboard each, then come together and create the storyboard for the final missing word. Here are our storyboards:

Creative - By Nick

Collaborative - By Tom

We later discussed that the titile for this video would be the word "Collaboartive", split in half, coming in from either side of the screen and meeting in the middle

Challenging - By Callie

We've been advised to make our storyboards more precise, but at this point we think rough storyboards are all we need. Since all our storyboards have followed the same pattern (title, sceneary shots, interviews, keywords) our final storyboard for "Confident" just explains how the title will play out (rather than repeating ourselves).

Confident

Also, after putting this final storyboard together we decided that every video would start in the same way: with a notepad, the logo and a book opening up to a page.



Ideas for our project

Sorry about the slighty late update but, here are some of my ideas for our procject.

In our group we have given each other roles, and one of my consists of storyboarding for the 'Creative' Video that we'll produce, between us.

My initial idea for my storyboard was;

• Introductions;
         To use a similar style to those in the following videos, with the paint splattered across the screen and for the title to either; come through the paint layers from the back, to be splattered on top of paint or to written in paint on the already paint splattered canvas in contrasting colours. 

(more videos to be uploaded asap)

• Main Section
  I have only drafted up some basic ideas for my storyboard, but since making those, I have decided to start again. but I've uploaded them here as evidence of a first draft.
  As soon as i've finished my research and storyboarding for this version of my drafts I'll upload them as a new post.

(tbc)

First full team meeting

We have had our first full meeting today, as I ended up missing the first lesson due to being ill.
During lesson 2, we decided on what our project was going to be and include.
We are going to make a flash application which has a introduction, which'll lead you to a holding screen that acts as a menu system for our app.
The design style we plan to use is a students pov (point of view) shot in which they are looking at a desk, with handwritten notes on paper.

(To be completed, later)

Drafting ideas

We'll be having a team meeting tomorrow morning to catch up on what we've done before class on Wednesday. In our previous class we agreed to all draft up a holding screen idea to see what we all think does/doesn't work. Here are my ideas:

Mood boards

During the first class Danny suggested I make mood boards for the four key words we're going to focus on (Creative, Confident, Challenging and Collaborative). I struggled to find images for "Challenging" but overall this actually felt like a really useful little task. Here are my finished mood boards:

Welcome to our group blog

This is the official work blog for Group 13 on the Intergrated Project course at Sheffield Hallam University. This blog will be updated weekly with news, ideas and progress over the course. Our project is to create a promotional video as part of a re-branding project for the university. The video aims to give the university a fresh and modern new look whilst staying true to the philosophy and outlook that it practices. In order to gain a better understanding of the university’s philosophy, we will need to consider some questions to ask the head of the course next week. Such a video could possibly include: On-location, real-life filming (possibly interviews with students and teachers?) Use of 2D and 3D animation to illustrate key ideas in the video. Interactive features that contain hidden information. A voiceover that relays information to the viewer. Use of images to illustrate concepts addressed in the video. The Group 13 team is Tom Newton, Nick Emmerson and Callie Booth.