Posted on November 16, 2015
Presentation Research!
I have left it a little late like my other work but have been looking a little in to the presentations and thinking of ideas just not been blogging them or taking anything any further, when I should have.
Firstly I’m not really keen on presentations and really worried about doing it for starters, I literally freeze and before any presentation of any sort my anxiety is sky high.
To start my research with the presentation, I started with looking at the European Youth Award website. http://www.eu-youthaward.org At a first look it seemed rather plain but had areas that were strong and creative.
I found the description in more detail on the website;
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Healthy Life: fitness | nutrition | healthcare | med tec
This category is about physical wellbeing and helping people with health conditions to lead happy, fulfilled lives. Fifty percent of Europeans are overweight, one in five is obese.1 Diseases such as diabetes, hepatitis and metabolic disorders are on the rise. Economic and social barriers frequently hinder access to medical treatment. Healthy Life initiatives involving digital technologies promote and support e.g. healthcare, curative and medical treatments, an active lifestyle or a balanced diet. They may, for example, employ smart health devices to treat medical conditions efficiently, raise awareness for neglected diseases or encourage sports and physical exercise among communities. |
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Smart Learning: education | e-skills | open science | infotainment
This category is about finding new, creative approaches to education and learning. Many high schools and universities report tremendous drop-out rates and a social education-gap remains reality in most countries. Smart Learning innovations may, for example, provide free-access training courses, foster ICT competence, create scientific understanding, support international knowledge exchange, or open up new capacities for scientific research. This also includes tools boosting learners’ motivation to study like infotainment games, platforms for open-access education or other digital solutions for making scientific progress beneficial to all. |
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Connecting Cultures: language | travelling | diversity | new communities
United in diversity has to be more than just a motto! Projects submitted to Connecting Cultures may promote and support e.g. multilinguism, understanding and knowledge of different cultures and communities, creation of new contemporary forms of culture but also the preservation of indigenous knowledge and traditions. The category is also open for creative websites or apps facilitating sustainable and safe travel by giving up-to-date travel information, supporting orientation in cities and countryside or enhancing intermodal use of public transportation. Connecting Cultures projects may also foster communication beyond borders or generations. |
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Go Green: sustainable energy | mobility | smart cities | climate change This category comprises environmentally friendly solutions for the benefit of our world. Vanishing natural resources, skyrocketing energy consumption, unresolved waste issues and accelerated climate change are among today’s most pressing challenges. Go Green innovations are ecologically beneficial, have a positive impact on our environment or foster a responsible and sustainable attitude towards nature. This can, for example, be achieved by showing new ways to conserve biodiversity, increase energy efficiency, harness renewable resources, prolong product-cycles or reduce CO2 emission. This category includes also mobility innovations or finding digital solutions for smart cities, sustainable agriculture or the “greening” of societies and economies. |
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Active Citizenship: citizen journalism | social cohesion | human rights | (wo)men empowerment
This category is about exposing injustice and fighting social exclusion. While individual privacy seems on the decline, multinational deals tend to become more obscure. Many European countries still score high on the Corruption Perceptions Index. Also discrimination due to age, race, gender, ethnicity and sexuality is still an issue in most places. Active Citizenship projects may be honest examples of participatory journalism or fight for transparent policy making and the right to free speech. They may also encourage political participation, create awareness for human rights and support community building. |
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Money Matters: financial literacy | employment | fundraising | fin tec
This category looks for solutions that enhance economic understanding, fight poverty and help people to make a decent living. Almost one in four European youths is unemployed.2 Also with growing income gaps, many working people struggle to make ends meet. Money Matters wants innovations that create opportunities for social commerce, reduce unemployment or illustrate how money works. This, for example, includes innovative career counselling, responsible spending, fair trade, taxation and banking, crowd funding and microcredits, as well as initiatives that create and support a startup friendly economic environment. |
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Open Innovation: disruptive apps | games | crazy stuff | digital magic
This category is for all the unusual, crazy, digital projects that don’t fit in any of the other categories but still have a strong impact on society. Digital projects submitted in the Open Innovation category can be, for example, funny games, artistic apps or digital contemporary arts projects. However, the goals of Open Innovation applications should be to improve society or reflect and raise awareness for social grievances. |
After reading the categories in depth a lot more, I feel like I want to pursue my project in Connecting Cultures area. My first idea is an app for pen pals, gives younger audiences a chance to make friends and at the same time can learn something about a completely different culture.
I created a moodboard of pen pal images, by doing this It gave me some more ideas for Connecting Cultures.
Posted on November 16, 2015
Confused.com?
Considering I only have 18 days to complete my blog and all my digital media work, I’m slightly worried about it all to be perfect honest.
I keep finding myself changing my mind, on one of the previous blogs I mentioned about using the freeze frame method of my work. But after finding out you don’t actually have to me in the video or speak, my whole Idea changed again. I may still be in it video but not fully and will still use my voice but place a voice recording over the top, that way I don’t have to sit for a whole minute and speak it all at once.
I was thinking about using the top of my head from the bridge of my nose up with background and when talking have little animations pop out my head which will be explained when taking. Im still thinking about whether to use the timeline or just jump straight in to the key points in my life and show the animations.
This is a rough idea, I took a photo of my head and added little images that will be used in a similar way for the animations popping out my head as I talk.
I m hoping to record myself just sat on a chair with a plain background so that what is behind me will be changed anyway with the projection mapping. But when recording myself Im hoping to have a rough script so that If a friend reads it out and an animation comes out my head I will have my eyes or eyebrows move, just so that the video file of myself is not just a still video.
Creating my 1 minute me seems easy at first because the idea of just throwing some animations and visual effects in a video with me talking about myself sounds really easy. But when you start to try and think of an idea you then realise what you have to do, Ideas end up changing a lot because you think about what you are capable of and although I’m going to push myself to areas of after effects and other software I’ve not used but thats the whole experience.
The basic idea I have is to have my head in the video moving my eye brows and eyes slightly to go with what my script will say making recording my face and voice separately to make it easier. In the video I will have my logo which is circles and my initials inside the circles, I may even make it transparent to sit in the corner of the video. The when talking little animations which will relate to my script and my life, for example mentioning being born and having a stork image float out my head and move slightly and another example is talking about my interests such as photography and design. The augmented reality and projection mapping as the background, I need to find a location that is relevant to me. Ive been thinking about this rather a lot and not particularly sure what to use as my main background? At first I thought about having a beautiful field in the country side where I live but then I felt like this was not interesting enough for me. I need to think in to the background a little more, the last one is visual effects. Then to end it all I need to create a pdf that is styled to match my personal branding, I feel like with my pdf I want to create something interactive and to have my pdf fun and happy.
Posted on November 13, 2015
My Logo
So after needing to create a logo for my work, it took me a long time to think of something which can relate to me.
I mentioned before in a different post about the idea of multicoloured circles, I feel like the circles that constantly go round can relate to me because circles never stop going round and things in my life just keep going whether you have an issue you keep going like a circle. The idea of having different colours was so that it makes it a little more colourful and unique.
These are the ideas are started to create
they are all a little different, the first two have the similar circle around it and the final one is just simply my name with some extra long lines either between the letters or attached. I feel that the last one is the weakest one and will not use it as I wanted to create something different like me and found it to boring, but my favourite one is the first one.
I started to look at the first one a little closer and changed a few thanks to make it professional and more me.
This is what I came up with, I took away my whole name and just had my initials and still kept the circles and in the middle is a different type of circle that has parts failing of it.
This is my final finish piece for my logo, I like the fact I kept to my first initial idea and its simple but effective with it having colours and not having to put my whole name on it for people to know its mine.
Posted on November 11, 2015
Researching ideas
I know that I have left my work so late, but I have forgotten to blog what I have been looking at. I have some ideas and started to look at videos of how to use the software a little more in detail.
I have missed an awful lot of my workshops which is why I feel like I’m so behind and will not be able to create a project to my best ability. But this is know excuse because I have been trying to catch up by looking on blackboard and using the power of the internet to watch videos.
So basic ideas:
I mentioned before about the timeline idea and the face morph, so from this I started to look online for some videos. I found this video of face morph, but I was thinking of creating my face that changes from pictures of me as a child and looks like I’m ageing until now and then be able to project it on to my face using project mapping.
This is a simple idea the needs to be looked into more and other ideas that popped in to my head was using a freeze frame effect. When it said to have background and record myself for a minute, at first I was thinking about being different and not just sitting on a sit with a background that moves, why not have me walk and have things freeze like myself catching up or for example a ball flying in the air thats frozen. The idea is similar to the pop band One Direction
Thats some ideas, but the main issue I have found is that I’m not sure what to talk about so I can link it with the place I can have as the background and the animations to go with it.
Posted on November 9, 2015
Researching After Effects!
Looking at visual effects that are broken down and explained more in to detail here are some videos I watched to learn more. The first I watched is Harry Potter VFX being broken-down, I clearly knew before hand that most of it will be made by a computer but such small parts you would not think are created in they way they are done.
Another video is The Impossible, personally I find the film incredible and the cinematography is just unreal. But a huge part to play in the film to make sure that it looks realistic and to make sure they get across in the film everything that really happened and how it effected not only family and friends but people who they met on the way, for example the little lost boy who found his dad in the end. The special effects like the water flying at the children in the hotel which was created by four tanks for 4000 litters of water.
The last video I watched was the Maze Runner, the maze was obvious to be created but when you watch the first minute of the video you see how so much effort has been put in for example the air coming through the tunnel making the tiny leafs move. It shows you in so much depth the leafs which are tiny are created at a normal size and moved with the wind which you don’t even notice but make such a difference to the scene.
After watching many different break downs of special effects, since growing up you just automatically learn to grown to effects like this and the quality of the films. For example when I was a child normal film quality would be something like Oliver and Company.
This is a classic Disney film from 1988 and the quality when I was to watch it as a child seem amazing because its what I had grown up and seen, where as Disney Frozen the quality of that has just pushed the bar for creating something spectacular and is another level.
After Effects History
After effects was first created in 1993, David Simons was one of the original creators. After effects has changed dramatically over the years since it was first created, it was not added to adobe until 1994 and Adobe’s first realised there version of After Effects was 3.0.
When the software first appeared there was only limited areas you could create unless had a strong understanding of the software. Now you its easily accessible and has several new parts which can be added such as “Plug ins”. This is where someone created a file you can download and attach to your project for example camera shake, lighting or colour filters.