Live Brief - Redstack Asia Pte Ltd - Design Drafts

Despite the fact that there wasn't much time to work on this, my client knew what she wanted and provided me with instructions on exactly what it was that she had wanted to show to her higher up. I was told exactly what to draw for her (And was even told what colour scheme she had in mind), a christmas tree with decorations that were large enough for the promotion information to be inserted in later on.

And so quickly, I did up a rough version to see whether the decorations were large enough for when the text was inserted later on. When she said that it was fine, I polished it just a tiny bit more before passing it onto her to show it to her boss for approval.

Now all I can simply do is wait and see whether they accept the design, and if so, what changes they wish for me to make. In the meantime, I suppose I should consider how much I should charge them for my services.

Live Brief - Redstack Asia Pte Ltd - Overview

I was recently asked by a friend to quickly design up something for her company's Christmas promotion, and seeing that I was going to get a little something out of it, there was no way I could say no to her last minute request.

Who
Redstack Asia Pte Ltd, a company that specialises in project-based services such product design, reverse engineering, on-line catalogs and automating processes. More information can be found about them here.

What
The company wishes to design a christmas-themed promotion for their company during this festive season.

How
Create an A4 Christmas Promotion for their EDM, all

When
Deadline for first draft is on the 1st December 2014.

Why
I am getting paid, also, I am very intrigued over the idea of designing an EDM promotion, seeing that I had never done one before, honestly if there was more time, I would love to add in some little bits of animation to it instead of merely creating a simply illustration. If they happen to like my work are fine with my rates, hopefully they might contact me for other small jobs in the future.

Responsive Session 3

I was unfortunately able to attend this session, but I wish to record down some important notes I was able to extract from the material provided on the eStudio.

There are 10 Steps to Producing a Persuasive Project Proposal:

1. Set clear aims and objectives
   Aims: The changes that your project will make to the status quo
   - Changes in peoples' perceptions
   - Changes to the way people do things
   - Political change
   - Social change
   - The impact that your finished work is designed to have on a particular audience or user
   Objectives: The methods by which you plan to achieve your aims
   - What research will you carry out
   - Where will you go for specialist information
   - What kind of people will you seek aid from
   - What expert advice will you need
   - What processes will be involved
   - Which skills will be evidenced
   - What activities will take place
   - What places of finished work will be produced
2. Be SMART
   - Specific (Details exactly what needs to be done)
   - Measurable (Achievements can be measured in terms of units, or specific success criteria)
   - Achievable (That resources, scope and scale are within your capabilities or capacity)
   - Realistic (The objectives is possible to attain - which is important for your motivation)
   - Time Conscious (The period of time, target dates, schedule or timetable is clearly defined)
3. Use words from your brief
   - When laying out the plan for your project proposal, refer to the brief to find all the headings and subjects you should include
4. Justify the need for your proposal
   - Show what research you have already done.
   - Who needs it?
   - Why do they need it?
   - What evidence can you provide to support your argument?
   - Don't make empty statements
5. Describe your audience
   - Demographics?
   - Locations?
   - Lifestyle?
   - Which industry?
   - What values do they have?
   - Why will they engage with it?
6. Describe your motivations
   - What are your goals?
   - What are your ambitions?
   - What are your success criteria?
   - What are your values? (Political standpoint, environmental concerns, social factors and economic factors)
7. Consider the reader (Refer to provided Example Project Proposal Template)
   - Make your proposal easy to read by:
   - Using the appropriate tone
   - Not repeating yourself
   - Asking one or two friends to beta it before submission
8. Eliminate the vagueness to instil confidence or faith in the minds of those who will support, mentor, collaborate with or fund your project, you have to be really precise
   - Some words to avoid:
   Unique, nice, special, normal, bland, sleek, definitely, awesome, gay, basically, essentially, totally, interesting, utilise, like, get, got, I, chance, actually, really, truly, amazing, everyone, never, always, things, life, a lot, good, bad, cool, whatever, went, boring, trendy, stylish, maybe, individual
9. Visualise the outcome earlier
10. Assume nothing (Except that the reader of your proposal knows nothing about you, your skills or the context of your project)

I suppose I am relieved that I have managed to follow most of these steps so far for the rough draft... I better go back and change a few things now.

Competition Brief - SYFY - Moodboards

I was still feeling rather drained and unexpired, and so I ended up drafting another mindmap in hopes of getting some ideas going in my head.

Inspiration

With some design solutions in mind, I then quickly put together a mood board to figure out some colour palettes that best represents the genre as well as some appealing art styles and designs. While most colour palettes are rather moody in tone, there is at least one dominant colour that is vibrant enough to create a beautiful contrast from all of the browns and greys, such as blue or orange. Classic sci-fi works however are considerably more vibrant when it comes to the colours that they use for their promotional items (This was probably because these shows later on were still shown in black and white, and so they had to take advantage of colour usage when promoting it).

Target Audience

I believe that sci-fi fans vary greatly from one another, and that the only thing that truly brings them together is the love for (And unfortunately their passion for it also leads to deep conflicts with one another as we have seen over the years). And so I honestly found it quite challenging to pinpoint one particular target audience when we were told to think outside of the brief. That saying, the brief simply states that its target audience are sci-fi fans aged from 18-25, I suppose I could use that as my starting point and for the time being focus on those age groups, and consider older and younger age groups later on.

I am particularly keen on researching into the cosplayers and roleplayers however, seeing how creatively they show their love for the genre by going all out with their cosplays, and of course, having fun whilst doing so.

A bit more research into the target audience will be done later on.

Competition Brief - SYFY - Project Proposal

We are required to fill out this sheet (Which in a way also works as rough proposal) for every brief we decide to take up for this first part of the module, to show how well we have understood the issues that need to be addressed and how we plan to solve them. And so I will make sure to answer to reuse this sheet for the other briefs that I had also started on or already finished.

Competition Brief - SYFY - Types of Sci-Fi

Science fiction is a wide-ranging genre, with a lot of blurred edges and overlaps between groupings. But a number of types can be broadly identified:

"Hard" science fiction

"I, Robot"

Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterised by an emphasis on scientific accuracy or technical detail, or on both. The heart of this subgenre is the relationship of the science content and attitude to the rest of the narrative, and (for some readers, at least) the "hardness" of the science itself. One requirement is procedural or intentional: a story should try to be accurate, logical, credible and rigorous in its use of current scientific and technical knowledge about which technology, phenomena, scenarios and situations that are practically and/or theoretically possible.

Extrapolates directly from today's modern science and emphasises scientific detail and accuracy. Hard science fiction writers are often scientists themselves (Isaac Asimov, Gregory Benford). Other movie examples include "2001, A Space Odyssey", "2010: The Year We Make Contact", "12 Monkeys" and "A.I. Artificial Intelligence".

"Soft" science fiction, 

"Star Trek"

This genre is based on and explores the "soft" sciences, and especially the social sciences (Anthropology, political science, and so on) rather than engineering or the "hard" sciences (For example, physics, astronomy, or chemistry), or is not scientifically accurate, or both of the latter. Soft science fiction of either type is often more concerned with character and speculative societies, rather than scientific or engineering speculations.

In contrast, emphasises social issues and issues of personal identity. Examples could include Star Trek in television; among novelists, Ursula K. Le Guin. Other examples include "The X-Files", "Planet of the Apes", "Terminator" and "The Outer Limits".

Today, the term is often used to refer to science fiction stories which lack a scientific focus or rigorous adherence to known science.

Space opera 

"Star Wars"

A subgenre that often emphasises romantic, often melodramatic adventure, set mainly or entirely in outer space ("The Fifth Element" also comes to mind, only in certain parts of the film that is), usually involving conflict between opponents possessing advanced abilities, weapons and other forms of advanced technology, the name is pretty much a play on the term "soap opera".

Involves epic scale and a conflict between idealised heroes (often involving a wizened mentor and an untried youth) pitted against unredeemable villains. In film, the original Star Wars is a classic example; a well-known novelist in this type is E.E. "Doc" Smith. Other examples include "Titan A.E.", "The Last Starfighter" and "Farscape. Some animated examples include "Cowboy Bebop", "Mobile Suit Gundam" and "Space Pirate Captain Harlock".

This sub genre has also been parodied quite a bit in shows such as "Spaceballs", "Futurama", "Bill, the Galactic Hero" and "Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers".

Alternate History 

"District 9"

This is a branch of science fiction that extrapolates from a point in the past, rather than from today, and takes a different path from the one we took. Questions involve what the world might be like if the Axis powers had won World War II, or if Lincoln had not been shot. Master practitioners include Philip K. Dick and Harry Turtledove. Other examples include "Watchmen", "Source Code" and "Back to the Future 2".

Dystopia 

"The Matrix"

This subgenre starts by rejecting the idea that "scientific advance" with automatically bring about a superior civilisation; the dreamed-up reality might in fact be as corrupt and unjust as the darker days of our own world. After World War II dystopian fiction often assumed a nuclear apocalypse, with survivors fighting to retain their humanity (Mad Max, A Boy and His Dog); but such a cataclysm is not necessary (Blade Runner).

Competition Brief - SYFY - Mindmapping

Overview

While it was clearly stated in the brief that no new shows or films should be suggested, or that we shouldn't refer to any of the past or present shows they have been showing on their channel. I decided to list a bunch of them for reference, as a little reminder as to what is considered part of the sci-fi genre, should I happen to accidentally find myself steering away from it without realising it.

Brainstorming

Brainstorming at this point in time is a little more challenging (Seeing that I couldn't decide on a specific deliverable just yet), though I suppose I could refer to this mindmap for inspiration once I begin sketching out my concepts. I still really need to figure out one product I really wish to work on before the presentation this thursday, yelp!

Competition Brief - SYFY - Overview

Well, this is actually a competition brief, but I was still hoping to do it as part of the 5 briefs alongside the main one I had chosen:

Who
SYFY UK

What
The SYFY channel is no longer seen as relevant, their audience believing that they lack passion in the genre they are clearly meant to represent, especially with the increasing competition that they have to face in recent years.

How
Being an open brief, we have to find ways to get sci-fans to love this channel (Or at least gain some interest in it), suggested ideas are campaigns, events, promotional products or digital products.

When
Deadline is on the 19th March 2015.

Why

Out of the three I had previously chosen, this seems like a brief that is neither too hard or easy to work on, I am somewhat familiar with the SYFY brand as compared to the Whistles brand, and so there won't be as much stress when it comes to researching on it. and seeing that it is an open brief, there are really a lot of opportunities and trying out various ideas. In the end, it really is the best brief that gives me the chance to push myself just a little (Despite how reluctant I am to do so).

Compeition Brief - Macmillan Children's Books - Mindmapping

While I was getting some mindmapping done for my main brief, I figured that I might as well get some done for this brief too, thankfully it was a lot less stressful as compared to the other brief I had chosen and was in a weird way, a sort of break from my main one. All the information presented in the two mindmaps below are pretty straightforward, and it was easy figuring out what direction I wanted to take during the brainstorming one.

Overview

Brainstorming

Choices are a little more limited in terms of style as this is still clearly aimed at kids, despite how the brief attempts to make it sound like they are targeting this at the parents and gift givers, but thankfully abstract was never really my thing to begin with (Though a lot of abstract and conceptual works really do have the most amazing colour usages...).

Responsive Session 2

Why have you chosen the brief?
This brief applies the most to my interests and is open enough to allow me to brainstorm on a variety of ideas and techniques. While I do hold a large amount of interest in the sci-fi genre, I had truly took the chance to take a deeper look into it, and so this brief will give me the chance to research more into it and to better understand it's context and the other aspects that surround it.

What do I want to get out of it?
Something outstanding enough to put into my portfolio and resume, some more experience in terms of professionalism and efficiency when it comes to responding to similar competition or work briefs in the future.

What do you need to produce in response to the brief?
Being an open brief, suggested ideas are a connected idea/campaign (Eg, working across TV, Digital, Social, Posters, Press, Retail and other relevant channels), an event, a promotional product or a digital product.

At this stage, what do you want to produce in response to the brief?
Most definitely something of relation to Animation, while I remain unsure that I can create a fully done animation piece, I am sure that I can create adequate enough concept pieces such as storyboards, character and prop designs, and other conceptual narrative works, etc.

Note: Apply this to future briefs before making the decision of carrying them out, especially for the other briefs we decide to respond to in this module.

In the brief identify:
5 Most Important Words
1. Passionate
2. Imagine
3. Open
4. Storytelling
5. Engaging

5 Most Important Considerations?
1. Be impactful
2. Be engaging
3. Be playful
4. Ultimate fans of sci-fi
5. Imagine Greater

5 Related Products
1. Mascot Toys
2. Commercial - Live and/or Animated
3. Event - Convention Panel/Booth
4. Stings
5. Campaign

5 Related Places
1. ComicCon
2. Star Trek Convention
3. Transport (Buses and Trains)
4. Home
5. Sci-Fi School Club

The Positives and Negatives of sharing the same ideas with others:
Positives
1. On the right track
2. Opportunity to generate ideas from there
3. Group together key points, identifying the most crucial aspects
4. Share a level of understanding with one another, allowing a smoother transition in terms of work
5. Reassuring (Similar to 1) and confidence that can come from it
6.  Clarity on the brief

Negatives
1. Limited ideas
2. More competition
3. False reassurance on the right track, before someone comes into question it
4. Too easy, boring, going for overly obvious answers
5. How will it stand out then?
6. No level of criticality or the opportunity to improve it, losing the chance to stand out

The positives and negatives of having different ideas from one another could be a reverse from the positive and negative points of having the same ideas as one another.

Who is the audience?
18-25 year old sci-fi fans.

Who should the audience be?
Sci-fi fans of both genders, teenagers and adults, original sci-fi fans.

Who could the audience be? Why?
I still believe that it will be the same answer as the previous one, it will however be challenging to accommodate to two genders. Not that we are trying to differentiate them incredibly from one another (Not like Nintendo Gamer Girls...), but we also need to consider some of the differences between the male fans and the female fans and their thought process on why they are fans of the genre in the first place.

What do they do?
There are a variety of people who are considered sci-fi fans, they don't have to work in an area connected to their interests, but could simply be a fan of it.

Where do they go?

• Conventions
• LARPs
• Comic Book Shops
• Film Studios
• TV Shops
• Places of Transport (Eg, Buses and Trains)

What do they buy?

• Merchandise
• Props
• Fanart/Zines
• DVDs
• Books

What do they want to be?
What are their aspirations, dreams, motivations?

In the next session, we need to complete a project proposal as specifically as possible. And bring contextual references for our initial idea, such as concepts, thumbnails, etc.

Responsive Questions for Future Reference

Some questions we need to ask ourselves with each brief we decide to uptake (At least consider the ones in Part 2 if there isn't time to consider them all):

Session 1

Part 1
1. To what extent will the briefs allow you to meet you criteria for success within the module?
2. To what extent will the competition briefs benefit you when entering them?
3. Do you foresee any problems with the briefs?


Part 2
1. What are the problems identified by the brief
2. What is the brief asking you to do about it?
3. What is the brief trying to achieve?
4. Who will benefit?
5. What is the message?
6. Who is the audience?
7. How will the message be delivered?
8. Can you foresee any problems in responding to the brief?

Session 2

Part 1

1. 3 Problems I aim to solve are...
2. In order to solve them I will have to...
3. I will be aiming to communicate (3 specific messages, ideas, moods, etc.)
4. To an audience... (3 characteristics)
5. I intend to produce...
6. The content will focus on (3 specific themes, texts or concepts)

Study Task 4 - What a Dope and Study Task 5 - Making Faces

Getting super annoyed over how exhausted and ill I have been feeling lately, because I really don't have time for this, especially when there's so much work that needs to be done. I ended up taking one day off this week from BAF to work on this Study Task so that I didn't have to worry about it next week (I was especially worried that I would mess up as I headed home early that day instead of getting some guidance from my lecturer to make sure that I was even doing it right).

I almost messed this up completely when I nearly wrote down what I had heard backwards, thankfully I realised my mistake in time and quickly fixed it up on my Dope Sheet. Seeing that this was done in 12 frames per second, a lot of sounds were compressed together, so I had to pick out the most notable vowels and consonants I could hear from each one.

I was really focused on getting the mouth shapes right, and so I didn't focus on the rest of his expression until much later... I will admit that it didn't look as effective without the teeth, but man was I so stupidly determined not to ever have those teeth used in any of my Moom related assignments thus far...

You'd think that with such a simplified mouth, it would be so much easier wouldn't it? Well, not really, because I honestly found some shapes to look too similar with one another, especially when I can't use clenched teeth to distinguish one from the other. And so eventually I gave in and placed his teeth back in, and I suppose it wasn't so bad after that... Some sounds were a little harder to match to the chart I had, and so I ended up placing a small mirror beside me as reference.

For my first try, I don't think it turned out so badly, I wanted to give him a tiny bit of expression, so I messed around with a few frames after the lip syncing was done.

Intro to Maya - More Notes

I will probably add in more stuff here later on.

Importing Sound

1. Firstly place the audio file into the sound folder of your project folder
2. File>Import>Sound>Sound File

Dope Sheet

A dope sheet is a simple chart that enables an animator to break down actions and sound against time, it can be used as a pre-production tool for animation and can be used to assist in the production of facial animation.

Phonemes

Phonemes are the distinct sounds that language is made up from and in animation they are identified through various mouth shapes.

Blocking/Stepped Key Frames

Creating Stepped Key Frames is a good working practice when animating in Maya, especially as it prevents complications with the graph editor as compared to when inbetweeners are automatically created.

1. In the Animation Settings (The tiny little icon in the right bottom corner) > Choose Linear for "Default in Tangent" and Stepped for "Default out Tangent"
2. Make sure your Key frames are in the right poses
3. After the first keyframe, remember to create a Quick Select Set whole Moom to easily reset him back into his default position before posing him for that keyframe
4. Once you get all your key frames in, select flatten out tangent in the graph editor

Animation Constraints

This one will take quite a bit of practice before you can really get the hang of it (These notes aren't necessarily in order and I think I didn't mention the bit where the weight has to be toggled with when moving an item between two locators... so... this is more for my reference really, sorry).

• Create Locators in parts of the character's body that will interact with the prop
• Constraint>Parent translate, rotate values, select constraining object first then the object you want to constrain (Prop, locator), Maintain Offset turn on, Translate and Rotate all is ticked
• Pair prop to the locator (For instance if it's a hat, locators will have to be placed into the head and hands)
• Parent prop with used locator
• Select next locator
• To swap the prop between these two locators, key frames the changed values of the locator power for the two, the settings between
• If the offset is off, item will actually stick closer to the locator, and it will be easier to adjust that prop later on in the inbetweeners
• Adjust key frames again
• Group the object the constrained object/child so that it can be moved on it's own when selected and won't snap back in place with the constrainer/parent
• Constraints can be animated unlike parents
• Display>Animation>Joint Size (Fix Sizes)

Metal Induction

Today we were given a brief introduction to another one of the fine establishments of this college, the metal workshop, which so happens to be next to the wood workshop. Needless to say I would probably be having a ball of I had studied Fine Arts instead, spending my days away in all of these wonderful workshops (I still remembered how much I loved the ceramics workshop last year)... but we know that's never going to happen (HAHA).

Animation wise, this could be another workshop where we will get a chance to create armatures for our stop motions, as well as props and such... also, we can create some jewellery during our free time as gifts for others.

While waiting for the others to arrive, as usual I decided to quickly take some photos of the area (For memory keepsake, I really do want to take as many photos as possible of this college before I graduate, sniff):

Welding Bay

A little past the Welding Bay

Sam on her phone

Jewellery Tools

More on this place later 

This is Leon, our lovely lecturer for this workshop, he is a seasoned material handler as seen from the cut and burns on his hands and broken finger nail from last week, and so he is the man (Or one of them) to go to for you metal, wood and plastic needs. After a quick briefing on safety, the first piece of equipment Leon introduced us to was the metal cutter, which we experienced firsthand to be incredibly noisy.

You will have to use your foot to press down on the large
pedal to cut through your material.

This machine in the far corner is used for engraving/stencilling
and cleaning (I think).

Something like this can be created from it.

It's really pretty despite how hard it is to see here.

This is a mill roll used to shaped plates as well as indent details
on soft malleable surfaces.

This dangerous area is often used when metals need to be heated up and softened for reshaping and decorating. While it is pretty scary to use for first timers, as long as you remember the safety precautions, you should be fine. I do believe my problem was not being able to figure out how hot enough my material is before stopping.

The Blacksmith Area, not the awesome anvil and leather cushion.

Here is the horizontal drilling machine, for drilling holes.

And here is the vertical one.

Protective suits, leather aprons, stuff that will keep you safe
from sparks, flying shards, etc.

More protective stuff, though this helmet is pretty cool as the visor
automatically turns black and protects your sight from bright sparks.

This is one of many welder guns.

Grinders

Oh this is pretty cool, it's a vacuum of sorts that allows
you to make copies of things.

This is pretty much just a bender used for pipes instead
of flat objects.

As shown here.

Chop saw

I remembered using this back in secondary school, you have
to be really careful with where you stand and where
you place your hands when you use this wood cutter.

After all of that, for the rest of the session, we were given the chance to give some of the more basic tools and equipment a try with the scrap metals provided. And so the first thing I did was to make an unnecessary grab for the noise protectors outside the workshop, and some goggles for later on when I started to use the heating area.

This was the first thing I tried.

It really looks like ones of those toys you see babies have.
... As well as to test the intelligence of apes.

And so I made a coin.

We ended up heating up another piece of metal here, I can't remember why I recorded this... I think it was because Leon told me not.

I tried out embossing a couple of times (Unfortunately not seen here), so don't worry, I didn't just make little bowls/coins for the rest of the session... I also got a ring from Sam, she and Becky G made some gorgeous rings, but I could see that they were a real hassle and needed quite a bit of time to get done right.