Film Project, Entry 1

We found out what our new project is. We are to create a film based on one of 5 short fables within a predetermined genera. The group I am in has the genera of action. We started off by having a brain storm around ideas for plots based on the fables. It is highly probable we will make a movie about a bad man who kills wither 3 police men or 3 police officers.. We have decided to go home and think about the task by our selves then come back tomorrow to make a final decision. We have noted that as our genera is action and we will most probably end up using a lot off effects we should aim to get filming as soon as possible as post production will be a far larger process for us than for most groups.

Film Project Entry 2

Today we decided on the first edit of the plot and on rolls I will be directing which I am looking forward to. I plan on writing a very draft plot. The enfaces of the movie is the action I believe it is possible to write action plots that have both good stories and good action but as we are restricted greatly in the scenic of plot and resources, the priority of our planning process is the action. So we need to decide on what action we will have where and how we do it and then we can think about tying it together with plot.

Film Project Entry 3 

We have almost finished the story board and planning for our film we have decided to break it up into three main scenes one a fist fight the second a melee fight and the third a fire arms fight. Each with a semi distinctive style. We are still trying to work out locations most of the team lives out west and transport is a major issue. Also it is most likely that our film will be set at night. This may create issues around tiredness and lighting.

Film Project Entry 4

today I made a bunch of squibs for the end of scene one in preparation for filming tonight. We have not decided completely on a plot weather to have the pigs being police or as being pigs in the derogatory sense. But why know what scenes we will have and the first s a kung fu scene at my house between Jim (the wolf) and KE (the first pig).

Film Project Entry 5

we finished our first night of filming. It went amazingly slowly.. every movement took a number of shots and a number of changes and repetitions to get right and we possibly have to much variation between all the shots we have. Also on a random side note all the characters have changed.. KE changed group to out group and due to his physical abilities he makes an ideal main character. In turn I became pig one and Jim became pig 2. This worries out well because I have some experience with mma and other martial arts, Jim has experience with kendo(second fight is melee), and Ben is a Air soft enthusiast (third fight is a gun fight) which means we can all have valuable input into our own scenes. We had some trouble last night with different opinions and orders and such. In turn Ben and I will be directing together.

Film Project Entry 6

we had our second night of filming. We managed to finish scene one and scene 2. it has been a really long few nights and were gonna take a day off today to recover and think about the project. I plan on starting some preliminary edits and getting some of the music for it made tomorrow.

Film Project Entry 7

Over the weekend I edited some of the movie. I have had a number of computer problems with adobe crashing. It is starting to become a real hassle, I have to change my work flow to ensure I leave as many effect to the end as possible to improve render speeds. And I have to remember to save frequently. On sunday I also recorded some Foley sounds.

Film Project Entry 8

I have spent the last few day editing the style of the film has changed a number of times.. i've decided to make it reasonably stylized the first scene will be cheesy kung fu and the second will be a more stylized anime / japanese feeling scene. Ben shot the third scene on the weekend and will edit that himself as he would like some experience with after effects.

Film Project Entry 9

Well after a lack of sleep and a bit of stress we are close to finished. we have changed the style quite a bit and only just chose the final music for the second fight scene but I'm reasonably happy with it. Its not a movie I would have made on my own but its fun and has its own style.. I do wish we had just had a bit more time to polish it and tie off the loose threads.

THE ROBOTO PROJECTO VII

I edited some of the light art photos.. had a play around...   had some ideas...  I've decided i quite like posterizing light art. just because it has such interesting color and light gradients.. and it naturally looks so smooth..   i like taking that away and looking at it in a different light. (ba dum boom)..   I also had a bit of fun trying to change the styles of the lines and the photos on the whole
here are some examples: 

here are some examples

THE ROBOTO PROJECTO VI

I made a video of our guy working...    First assignment in over 2 years and its the first time I've see the blue screen of death since windows 95... followed by Premier crashing twice and after effects crashing i should have expected it..   although its not the finished product i wanted, it at least conveys what i wanted to do.

THE ROBOTO PROJECTO V

Days ##(the last bit)

The last few days were spent tweaking and fixing Frank... and then we presented. I think the presentation went reasonably well. Our finished product had a lot of thought behind it.. but i think it was hard to convey that in a presentation without sounding like a narcissist. the light art we produced was nice. but due to the limitations of the NXT i still walked away feeling slightly disappointed that we couldn't have created something on a grander scale. 

 

THE ROBOTO PROJECTO IV

Day 5-6'ISH'

well we decided we couldn't do the algorithm i designed. we had decided that it would be very high risk as we would have to program it in python, which we would have to learn. although we thought it was possible, the chances of us coming across a problem that we would not be experienced enough to solve was too high..   in the end we super simplified it to the degree we could do it in the NXT software.

THE ROBOTO PROJECTO III

Day 3-4 ( the weekend)

Over the weekend i attempted to create an algorithm that would translate colours into movement.. the colours had no meanings at this stage because i had no idea what the movement would look like. we had planned to be able to use python to code the algorithm as you can easily get a free plug-in that allow the NXT to use python.  The hard part of the algorithm was starting. I didn't care at that stage what the colours meant we could tweak that once we could see it running. What was hard was trying to decide what meant what. Was i to use the sequence of colours, or the position, or the ratios of different colours..  eventually i wrapped my mind around how it would work. I decided to  have a six position input with 5 different colours:

• the first position would directly effect the vertical movement
  the second position would modify the vertical movement           
  the third position would directly effect the horizontal movement / spin
  the fourth position would modify the horizontal movement / spin          
  the fifth position would directly effect the tilt movement
  the sixth position would modify the tilt movement         
   

there is a full map of my algorithm in my journal.

THE ROBOTO PROJECTO II

Day 2-'ISH'

we decided to create a robot designed to create light art...   Light art always looks good, you could tie a L.E.D to a cat and it would look amazing, so the aesthetics of the end result won't be a problem. Giving the art context was going to be harder.

we wanted to use colored balls as our input, the group was set on that. so with our input and output decided on we needed to choose 'processing' that would give the project meaning...   HARDER THAN IT SOUNDS!    one of our ideas was to have the movements of the sculpture relate to the wave lengths of the colored balls...   but the NXT has far too much error for it to produce anything that precise.     Another idea was that the project could be a very scaled down version of a greater concept. For example i had the idea for a large art inhalation that translated a scanned image into the motion of a kinetic sculpture every pixel on the image would be considered on its own and then in the greater context of the art. the human connotations we have for colors, and combinations of colors would be given suitable styles of movement, and the end result would be a bunch of movement that had the same "feeling" as the photo.   So we had to develop a nxt program that at a far far far more basic level translated colors into a mood which could be conveyed through motion and then turned into a still photo.