The project brief was to create an interactive flash-based sample player with original recorded sound. I decided to create my player in Flash CS3 using Actionscript 3.0. This began as quite a challenge, but as I began looking at the help sections I felt I was slowly starting to get to grips with the new language.
Researching previously made flash players was quite interesting because they seemed to all look pretty similar in design. Most of the players seemed to just mimic an actual stereo player with the same play, pause stop buttons and a silver interface to smarten it up. I knew that this isn’t how I wanted mine to end up, so I researched into some players that took a different slant on the flash player idea. Andras Szonyi’s player was probably my favourite because he uses interaction for the purpose of art, with beautiful drawings linked with sound to create an unusual Internet experience. I liked this idea and wanted to incorporate art into my own interface rather than just creating a standard flash player with sliders and knobs.
My player began as a quite a complex idea which was based on a puppet show, and as the user used the keyboard keys to move the puppets up and down the sounds would play. However, as I started to make this there were too many problems, such as the different keyboard keys for each puppet and so on. So, I decided to simplify my idea into characters which when clicked on they would make a noise, and as the character was dragged up the bar the sample volume would increase. To make the sounds for this idea I made instruments and then recorded samples with an external microphone into garage band. I was faced with a problem when I exported my sounds as an MP3 file into Garageband because the programme automatically added a 2 second silence on to the end of each sample, so it didn’t loop properly when it was imported into flash. To solve this I edited all the sounds in Sound Forge afterwards.
After testing my player I found quite a few problems with the usability of it. For example the loops on the samples were set to loop too many times, which caused all the sounds to clash next to each other. So to solve this I made the drums and percussion instruments loop more than the sound effect samples. The volume slider worked out well, and people understood that it got louder as the face was pulled up. To make sure people understood how to use the whole player, I put some simple instructions up on the first page.
Although my player is quite simple, I felt it help me understand Actionscript 3.0 a little more as now I can make basic mouse clicks and slides, and import sounds, which will encourage me to try and learn more now that I can do the basics.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Characters for my sequence player
Symbol Face > Symbol Sound
Woman Face > Woo Sound
Drum Face > Drum Sound
Rice Face > Rice Sound
Pasta Face > Pasta Sound
DJ Face > DJ Sound
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Flash Sample Player Development Ideas
After lots of researching and experimenting with ideas, I have finally managed to come up with some sounds and characters. I recorded sounds using an external microphone and made some of my own instruments! (If you can call them instruments) and then put them into Garage Band to alter the sounds to a better quality.
Sounds made with my own instruments and the characters to go with the sounds:
+ Pasta (Pasta Face)
+ Rice (Rice Face)
+ Salt (Salt Face)
Sounds Recorded from Cyber Piano:
+ Scratching on Vinyl (DJ Face)
+ "WOO" (Woman Face)
+ Drum Beat (Drummer Face)
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Interactive Design - Spider Diagram
After doing the spider diagram I came to the conclusion that I didn't want to make a traditional flash player, but more like a sample player, with visuals. I will have to see if this is suitable for the brief before i look into it more. The main idea is that the keys on the keyboard will be connected to a sample sound. As the keys are pressed, a box will move on the screen. The visuals will then reflect the sound being made and vise-versa.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Project One: Behaviour and Response.
Brief
Create an interactive Flash-based sample player with original recorded sound.
Keywords: Human Computer Interaction (HCI), interface design, sound
Keywords: Human Computer Interaction (HCI), interface design, sound
Assessment Requirements:
• Upload the finished sample player on the Multimedia Student Server
• Online project journal entries
• Project evaluation (500 words, PDF format)
Handing in/upload date: 10/12/07 @ 10am
Handing in/upload date: 10/12/07 @ 10am
Research
http:/components.develpers4web.com/mp3-flash-player
This is the most standard flash player I could find.
The basic functions include:
+ Pause Button
+ Play Button
+ Stop Button
+ Skip Button
+ Volume Button
+ Left to Right Speaker Button
+ Toggle Repeat / Shuffle
The website claims to provide vision for the totally blind.
I made my own name by using the white dots to create sound for my name. The sound produced was quite irritating and I'm not really sure how it can resemble the pattern.
This would not serve as an example of a sample flash player although I did enjoy the level of human interactivity and the links with the different shapes with the sound.
Andras Szonyi
This artist uses interaction for the purpose of art, with beautiful drawings linked with sound to create an unusual internet experience. I liked this idea and would like to incorporate art into my own interface rather than just creating a standard flash player with sliders and knobs.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Flash Sample Player Examples
This was the flash player I liked the most, although couldn't actually use it until I had paid for it, which I was not going to do. The interface appeared to be quite well laid out with out overcomplicating the display and simple, sharp colours to make it appear sophisticated and professional.
Unlike the previous example this player appears instantly more cluttered and complicated for the user. However, it's target audience is for a more advanced musician, so I guess they would understand this more than myself.
Unlike the previous example this player appears instantly more cluttered and complicated for the user. However, it's target audience is for a more advanced musician, so I guess they would understand this more than myself.
I chose this as an example of a flash player I don't want to end up making. The design is simple, not to mention boring, and it had to connect to an separate audio player to play the selected track.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Interactive Design - Task 2 - Website Analysis
Spend sometime browsing the websites of IDEO, Sony & Apple. Do not
just look at the design (though that is useful); Look at the products they
are talking about and the philosophy of the design approach. Collect
together your favorites and discuss on your online journal
Think about a range of issues about the site:
What does it look like?
How easy is it to use?
How relevant is the content of the site?
How clearly the content is organised?
www.ideo.com
The first thing that stuck me about the IDEO site was the size of the site. It only filled one half of my screen, making navigation around the site more complicated that need be. Presuming it could be the Mozilla browser i was using, opened the site also in Internet Exploer and the sizing was even worse than before.
Mozilla Firefox:
Internet Explorer:
Besides from this, the website is very easy to use, containing useful information about the company. The website is full of visual examples, as well as written, with easy navigations through sideshows for pictures and drop-down menus.
just look at the design (though that is useful); Look at the products they
are talking about and the philosophy of the design approach. Collect
together your favorites and discuss on your online journal
Think about a range of issues about the site:
What does it look like?
How easy is it to use?
How relevant is the content of the site?
How clearly the content is organised?
www.ideo.com
The first thing that stuck me about the IDEO site was the size of the site. It only filled one half of my screen, making navigation around the site more complicated that need be. Presuming it could be the Mozilla browser i was using, opened the site also in Internet Exploer and the sizing was even worse than before.
Mozilla Firefox:
Internet Explorer:
Besides from this, the website is very easy to use, containing useful information about the company. The website is full of visual examples, as well as written, with easy navigations through sideshows for pictures and drop-down menus.
www.apple.com
Currently apple have upgraded the Tiger Systems to the new Leopard System on Mac OS X, and this is the first thing that shows up on the website. The tabs at the top of the site direct the customer to all the Apple products and the layout is the same as the tabs on a Mac, so PC users can get a feel for using a mac. Navigation around the site is easy, and stress free with the perfect amount of information about the products, and not too much about the history of Apple. The products are easy to find, with scrolling panels with pictures of the products too.
Having recently purchased from the Mac site, I have to say that it is not the most simple ordering system. The Apple store constantly refreshes to become the US store (even though you have clicked UK many times) and when ordering an education discount you have to enter the name of the university and the city too many times to confirm on each product. Even then it decides to refresh back to the US site so all the prices are again in US Dollars rather than the British Pound. I found this quite frustrating but this was just the beginning. When trying to access the purchased items basket, the items in the account often disappeared, and when tracking the order once the items had eventually been purchased they didn't show up. I received an email saying the items would be delivered any time within the next two weeks, which was also frustrating as it meant I would have to stay in to sign for the packages. Overall I would find it much easier to order off a much simpler site rather than the Apple site itself.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Mini Project
'Design a flash game that includes animation and sound, try and implement this in flash CS3'.
My expert knowledge on flash games probably isn't as good as it should be, I only really remember playing the old school games, such as tetris and pac man. So, to think of a simple idea for a game prooved to be quite a struggle for me.
My first idea was to have a stray leaf which is trying to get back to his home tree, and with monster children obsructing it's path. However, once i tried to create this I went off this idea quite alot.
The next idea was to create a game called 'Shooting Stars' based on the Milkyway Magic Stars.
How the game will work from the users point of view:
+ The first screen will be the loading page with the name of the game.
+ The second screen will be the game, and this will have a gun at the bottom which is controlled by the mouse, and / or the left and right arrow keys.
+ The stars will begin to fall, and each with a different personality will score different points.
+ The game is over when the stars hit the ground and the player has failed to shoot all the stars.
10 point = baby star
20 points = happy star
30 points = pop star
40 points = happy star
50 points = clever star
60 points = sporty star
(The names for all of these came from the back of the Milkyway Magic Stars packet).
What the computer needs to do:
+ Loading screen based on speed of users computer,
+ Load the second page automatically, or on mouse click,
+ Play sound when the game starts,
+ Link the mouse to the gun, or code to link to the left and right arrow keys,
+ Animate the falling stars randomly,
+ Gun on separate layer that shoots on click, or enter button,
+ When bullet shoots, if it hits one of the stars, they will explode,
+ If it misses then the star will fall to the earth and the game is over.
+ Display game over screen
My expert knowledge on flash games probably isn't as good as it should be, I only really remember playing the old school games, such as tetris and pac man. So, to think of a simple idea for a game prooved to be quite a struggle for me.
My first idea was to have a stray leaf which is trying to get back to his home tree, and with monster children obsructing it's path. However, once i tried to create this I went off this idea quite alot.
The next idea was to create a game called 'Shooting Stars' based on the Milkyway Magic Stars.
How the game will work from the users point of view:
+ The first screen will be the loading page with the name of the game.
+ The second screen will be the game, and this will have a gun at the bottom which is controlled by the mouse, and / or the left and right arrow keys.
+ The stars will begin to fall, and each with a different personality will score different points.
+ The game is over when the stars hit the ground and the player has failed to shoot all the stars.
10 point = baby star
20 points = happy star
30 points = pop star
40 points = happy star
50 points = clever star
60 points = sporty star
(The names for all of these came from the back of the Milkyway Magic Stars packet).
What the computer needs to do:
+ Loading screen based on speed of users computer,
+ Load the second page automatically, or on mouse click,
+ Play sound when the game starts,
+ Link the mouse to the gun, or code to link to the left and right arrow keys,
+ Animate the falling stars randomly,
+ Gun on separate layer that shoots on click, or enter button,
+ When bullet shoots, if it hits one of the stars, they will explode,
+ If it misses then the star will fall to the earth and the game is over.
+ Display game over screen
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Practitioner Presentation
Klaus Obermaier
Obermaier's talents range from media-artist, director and composer creating innovative work in the area of dance, music, theatre and new media. Recent projects include interactive installations, video art, web projects, computer music, as well as large inter media outdoor events for ten thousands of people. His work is highly acclaimed by critics and audiences around the world.
His most famous work to date would be his collaboration with Ars Electronica and the Brucknerfest with a performance of Stravinsky's, Le Sacre du Printemps (The Right of Spring). The aim was to apply technology and creativity to an orchestra, and a dance performance to generate a complex means of computer generated expression.
Stravinsky's piece was composed before World War One and was expressing an ecstatic desire to experience the intensity of life. Obermaier reflected in his visualizations for the composition how easy it is to blur the line between the real, the virtual, the fact and the fake. Obermaier uses real-time stereoscopic projections to intensify the relationship between the dancer, the animated visuals and the audience in the provided stereoscopic glasses (an update of 3D glasses).
Overall, I have been inspired by Obermaier and would like to experiment with visualisations to create an atmosphere in small bars around Nottingham.
Obermaier's talents range from media-artist, director and composer creating innovative work in the area of dance, music, theatre and new media. Recent projects include interactive installations, video art, web projects, computer music, as well as large inter media outdoor events for ten thousands of people. His work is highly acclaimed by critics and audiences around the world.
His most famous work to date would be his collaboration with Ars Electronica and the Brucknerfest with a performance of Stravinsky's, Le Sacre du Printemps (The Right of Spring). The aim was to apply technology and creativity to an orchestra, and a dance performance to generate a complex means of computer generated expression.
Stravinsky's piece was composed before World War One and was expressing an ecstatic desire to experience the intensity of life. Obermaier reflected in his visualizations for the composition how easy it is to blur the line between the real, the virtual, the fact and the fake. Obermaier uses real-time stereoscopic projections to intensify the relationship between the dancer, the animated visuals and the audience in the provided stereoscopic glasses (an update of 3D glasses).
Overall, I have been inspired by Obermaier and would like to experiment with visualisations to create an atmosphere in small bars around Nottingham.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Usablity Seminar
www.playmonday.com
Use of text equivalents (think about your experience with Lynx).
The text was easy at first but it wasn't very easy to tell when you had changed pages
Ability to use the site without plugins (e.g. Flash) and Javascript. (Again, think about how easy/difficult it was to use the site in Lynx where these are not available).
Some parts of the site were not accessible such as the lottery numbers.
Ability to use the site with just the keyboard in Internet Explorer.
Colour combinations used on the site (think about how the site looked to people with colour blindness).
The colours were dull, but the site was still readable.
Colour contrast of the site (think about how the site looked to people with age related visual degeneration).
The contrast was really dark making it really hard to read from.
Ability to apply user settings to the site (think about how the site behaved when you tried to change the text size on the site, and the simulation of what happened when colour changes were applied)
The size of the links changed but not all the fonts in the lottery numbers and 'how to play' were still small.
Use of text equivalents (think about your experience with Lynx).
The text was easy at first but it wasn't very easy to tell when you had changed pages
Ability to use the site without plugins (e.g. Flash) and Javascript. (Again, think about how easy/difficult it was to use the site in Lynx where these are not available).
Some parts of the site were not accessible such as the lottery numbers.
Ability to use the site with just the keyboard in Internet Explorer.
Colour combinations used on the site (think about how the site looked to people with colour blindness).
The colours were dull, but the site was still readable.
Colour contrast of the site (think about how the site looked to people with age related visual degeneration).
The contrast was really dark making it really hard to read from.
Ability to apply user settings to the site (think about how the site behaved when you tried to change the text size on the site, and the simulation of what happened when colour changes were applied)
The size of the links changed but not all the fonts in the lottery numbers and 'how to play' were still small.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Fast Exercise - Presentations
On the morning of our presentation we really thought that our presentation was going to be a failure, as two of our group members didn't turn up.
It came to about quarter past eleven, and everything that could have gone wrong had. The man from the windmill was meant to open for us so the school children could have the treasure hunt around the displays didn't turn up. Not that this really mattered anymore because the school children didn't either! Anyway, at about twenty past eleven Jools, arrived with about 20 other people from our class. Yes, there are people, but they aren't eight year olds that would benefit from the style of our presentation! Needless to say, we carried on as if they were this age, and it was really successful. Even though everyone in the group was over 18, they were excited about finding the dough people around the park. When everyone had found these people, we made everyone get in a circle and read out their clues on the dough people. Then we quizzed everyone on George Green's life, and they had to match their dough clue with the appropriate question. This worked well, and i could have seen it being a success with the children too!
It came to about quarter past eleven, and everything that could have gone wrong had. The man from the windmill was meant to open for us so the school children could have the treasure hunt around the displays didn't turn up. Not that this really mattered anymore because the school children didn't either! Anyway, at about twenty past eleven Jools, arrived with about 20 other people from our class. Yes, there are people, but they aren't eight year olds that would benefit from the style of our presentation! Needless to say, we carried on as if they were this age, and it was really successful. Even though everyone in the group was over 18, they were excited about finding the dough people around the park. When everyone had found these people, we made everyone get in a circle and read out their clues on the dough people. Then we quizzed everyone on George Green's life, and they had to match their dough clue with the appropriate question. This worked well, and i could have seen it being a success with the children too!
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Monday, January 15, 2007
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
An Incomplete Manifesto for Growth
http://www.brucemaudesign.com/index.html
Written in 1998, the Incomplete Manifesto is an articulation of statements that exemplify Bruce Mau's beliefs, motivations and strategies.
1. Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
2. Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.
3. Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.
4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
5. Go deep. The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.
6. Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.
7. Study. A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.
8. Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.
9. Begin anywhere. John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.
10. Everyone is a leader. Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.
11. Harvest ideas. Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.
12. Keep moving. The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.
13. Slow down. Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.
14. Don’t be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
15. Ask stupid questions. Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.
16. Collaborate. The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.
17. ____________________. Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.
18. Stay up late. Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.
19. Work the metaphor. Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.
20. Be careful to take risks. Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.
21. Repeat yourself. If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.
22. Make your own tools. Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.
23. Stand on someone’s shoulders. You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.
24. Avoid software. The problem with software is that everyone has it.
25. Don’t clean your desk. You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.
26. Don’t enter awards competitions. Just don’t. It’s not good for you.
27. Read only left-hand pages. Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our "noodle."
28. Make new words. Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.
29. Think with your mind. Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.
30. Organization = Liberty. Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a 'charming artifact of the past.'
31. Don’t borrow money. Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.
32. Listen carefully. Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.
33. Take field trips. The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.
34. Make mistakes faster. This isn’t my idea -- I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.
35. Imitate. Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.
36. Scat. When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else ... but not words.
37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.
38. Explore the other edge. Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.
39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms. Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces -- what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference -- the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals — but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.
40. Avoid fields. Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.
41. Laugh. People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I've become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.
42. Remember. Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.
43. Power to the people. Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we’re not free.
http://www.brucemaudesign.com/index.html
Written in 1998, the Incomplete Manifesto is an articulation of statements that exemplify Bruce Mau's beliefs, motivations and strategies.
1. Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
2. Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you'll never have real growth.
3. Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we've already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.
4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
5. Go deep. The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.
6. Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.
7. Study. A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.
8. Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.
9. Begin anywhere. John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.
10. Everyone is a leader. Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.
11. Harvest ideas. Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.
12. Keep moving. The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.
13. Slow down. Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.
14. Don’t be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
15. Ask stupid questions. Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.
16. Collaborate. The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.
17. ____________________. Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.
18. Stay up late. Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you're separated from the rest of the world.
19. Work the metaphor. Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.
20. Be careful to take risks. Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.
21. Repeat yourself. If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.
22. Make your own tools. Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.
23. Stand on someone’s shoulders. You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.
24. Avoid software. The problem with software is that everyone has it.
25. Don’t clean your desk. You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.
26. Don’t enter awards competitions. Just don’t. It’s not good for you.
27. Read only left-hand pages. Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our "noodle."
28. Make new words. Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.
29. Think with your mind. Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.
30. Organization = Liberty. Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between "creatives" and "suits" is what Leonard Cohen calls a 'charming artifact of the past.'
31. Don’t borrow money. Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.
32. Listen carefully. Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.
33. Take field trips. The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.
34. Make mistakes faster. This isn’t my idea -- I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.
35. Imitate. Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You'll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.
36. Scat. When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else ... but not words.
37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.
38. Explore the other edge. Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.
39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms. Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces -- what Dr. Seuss calls "the waiting place." Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference -- the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals — but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.
40. Avoid fields. Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.
41. Laugh. People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I've become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.
42. Remember. Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.
43. Power to the people. Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can't be free agents if we’re not free.
George Green
We have been asked to produce a site specific live art performance event in 21 days. The event will be based on George Green, a profound mathematician / physicst from Nottingham.
After researching essays and books in the library we found out that George Greens father built a windmill in Sneinton. Today we visited the windmill, and here are a few photographs.
After researching essays and books in the library we found out that George Greens father built a windmill in Sneinton. Today we visited the windmill, and here are a few photographs.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
The National Space Centre Visit
Choose an interactive display that you found exciting and engaging at the Space Centre.The display which stuck in my mind after the visit is the rows of Heinze baked bean cans.
Describe the elements in the display and say why you found it so exciting and engaging.
I found it quite interesting because each baked bean cans weight was relative to the planet it was on.
How successful were these interactive multimedia elements?
The display didn't include multimedia elements as such, but it was interactive and informative to the visitors of the Space Centre.
Now choose an interactive display that you did not find is engaging at the Space Centre.
The display where you lay on a skateboard looking slide. The camera then takes a photograph of this to show you what you would look like if you were moon walking. The idea is quite fun, however the result didn't look overly pleasing. However, for its intended young audience I don't think they would be worrying about the quality of the photograph. It was fun and easy to use, however the child would probably need to the instructions explained to them because they were quite confusing.
I found it quite interesting because each baked bean cans weight was relative to the planet it was on.
How successful were these interactive multimedia elements?
The display didn't include multimedia elements as such, but it was interactive and informative to the visitors of the Space Centre.
Now choose an interactive display that you did not find is engaging at the Space Centre.
The display where you lay on a skateboard looking slide. The camera then takes a photograph of this to show you what you would look like if you were moon walking. The idea is quite fun, however the result didn't look overly pleasing. However, for its intended young audience I don't think they would be worrying about the quality of the photograph. It was fun and easy to use, however the child would probably need to the instructions explained to them because they were quite confusing.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Group 8 - 2 Minute Film - Evaluation
'Highlight the skills and knowledge you have gained and developed and show how you have gained them. Provide suggestions for improvement and how these attributes will inform your study in future modules this year'.
Proir to making our two minute Film 'The Death of Office Man' for the narratives module, I had not really done much group work in this way. In the past most of the work I have done involved individual work and then group crits on my own work and other peoples. This meant that when working on 'The Death of Office Man' I became aware of my actions and role in the group and how I came about resolving any problems that occured. Making this two minute film has benefitted my team working abilities, but also my techincal skills in the production process.
In the first stages of making our film we were throwing around various ideas. We didn’t want to rush this stage because this is the main basis for our film, so if this went wrong, so would the rest of our film. Slowly we realised that because we didn’t know each other that well, some good ideas weren’t understood. To resolve this problem we went for a ‘Group 8 Big Breakfast’. This helped us get to know the different personalities in our group so we could put together a solid idea. Through many group meetings, the forum, talking over the internet and texting each other ideas began to come together as we got to know each other. As a group we decided on a few initial ideas for our two minute film. One idea was based around hierarchy in the workplace. We liked the idea of juxtaposing scenes and different points of view portrayed of a character in each scene.1 Our groups technical abilities seemed to split. Chris and Adam were particularly interested in animation and Glyn and I that are into video production, so we thought we could combine this for the final film.Another idea was based around the idea of war, but this was quickly dismissed as the idea developed because it would have been impossible to film in the time and money that we had. Looking back I learnt that more should hav been discussed before deciding on an idea, and we should have looked at more films that related to our idea.
Once we had our idea we decided as a group to individually draw up a storyboard. The main reason for this was to make sure we all thinking along the same lines. The results were as we expected and all the storyboards ended up looking similar. However, looking back with the time that we had we could have each been thinking about differnt areas of our production and when it came to put it all together we would have had much more all detailed idea. This time was not completely wasted, and after this slow process things started to speed up. Glyn and I decided what equipment we would need, and Chris and Adam began to draw their animation ideas. I also began to write down what props we would need for our production, and what we would each need to organise by the filming the next week. This helped me become more motivated in the group and ready to put our ideas into practice.
Beofore filming I was quite nervous because none of us were particularly experts in the studios. However, when we all got together we seemed to work well. We all shared tasks and roles in the studio, none of us were particularly controlling. Even though Glyn was acting he still helped with decisions about lighting, camera work and other small decisions we had to make. The lighting was quite problematic to start with because we all wanted our film to start of in daylight and as the day passed for the lighting to get darker. This didn’t really work because the day lighting looked much harsher and just generally bad. Slowly, and after a big breakfast we resolved the problem that we were having by pointing the lights up to the mirrors around the lights on the ceiling so it bounced back down in a less harsh way than before. We found this looked much more natural and we were happy with the outcome on the camera. However, once we filmed what we thought was a good first half of our filming we had a break. When we got back, we looked at our footage and seemed to take most of the shots again. The change was noticable with the lighting and differnt camera angles, but it looked much better. We started to become more creative whilst we were combining our skills, and we ended up making some stop motion video with the items on the office desk each appearing one by one. This idea wasn't initially in our storyboard but we all thought it looked much better than our original idea which was just a series of zooms and close up of the office items.
Post production is the area I was particularly looking forward to in this project, but it was the most problematic area of our film. Mostly because of technical difficulties concerning hard drives and the compatibility on the computers and also with the computers matrox card. However, we managed to resolve these and our film came together quite quickly. I had done quite alot of editing before on Adobe Premiere, so I didn't want to take over with the editing. I took the role as the decision maker alongside either Chis, or Glyn when they were editing. Adam had not had much experience with Adobe Premiere and wasn't keen to learn at this stage. We were ahead of schedule because our filming was much quicker than we expected.
Once we had the rough edit done, we soon realised we needed some sound. For the sound we decided that we would like to have general office noice, such as, printing, scanning, coughing and general mumblings. So even though our sound was non-diegetic, we wanted it to sound diegetic to give the illusion that our character was actually working in an office. Glyn and I went to the printing shop in the Student Union and kindly asked if we could record sounds, they were more than happy to help and we used these in the final piece. We also went to the library to get random typing noises and coughing, and we then recorded our own key pieces of sound. Overall i was not entirely happy with the sound because I think alongside it we would need some kind of soundtrack because our film doesn't seem to pick up pace, or flow as much as I would have liked it to. However, none of us were musicians, and we would have liked to have used some one elses music, but due to copywrighting laws we didn't follow through with this idea. If given another chance I would have arranged with one of my talented friends at the beginning of the production and asked them to produce a piece of music to go with our idea.
As Chris was putting the animation together, I decided that we needed some kind of introduction to our film, which was in a similar style. The idea came to me in a dream, which sounds weird, but it got me motivated to make something a little bit different. I told Glyn about the idea and he was adamant that i watched the title sequence of Napolian Dynamite because it sounded like it would help me. I loved the way that the title sequence was made and it was quite similar to my idea. However, I wished that I had more time to work on my idea because the title and credits were not something we were thinking about when planning our ideas in the beginning. My first idea for the title sequence was to do a stop motion sequence using pens to spell out the title of our film. However, when i tried to make this, I didn't have enough pens for the whole title and it was hard to squeeze it all in. Instead, I decided to use paperclips and this worked alot better. The idea for the credits kind of just came to me as I was making the title sequence, and I was quite pleased with the way it turned out.
Overall, I have learnt quite alot from this production, especially about team work. Our group seemed to work better when we assigned each people seperate areas to work on and then put them together to see what works and what doesn't work. Since making the film I have been alot more aware of film title sequences, for example in Casiono Royal with the playing cards. It has made me think more about it as an option for something I would like to experiment with in the future, either from the animation side, or from the filming perspective.
1Camilla Insalaco, Online Journal http://camillainsalaco.blogspot.com/
Proir to making our two minute Film 'The Death of Office Man' for the narratives module, I had not really done much group work in this way. In the past most of the work I have done involved individual work and then group crits on my own work and other peoples. This meant that when working on 'The Death of Office Man' I became aware of my actions and role in the group and how I came about resolving any problems that occured. Making this two minute film has benefitted my team working abilities, but also my techincal skills in the production process.
In the first stages of making our film we were throwing around various ideas. We didn’t want to rush this stage because this is the main basis for our film, so if this went wrong, so would the rest of our film. Slowly we realised that because we didn’t know each other that well, some good ideas weren’t understood. To resolve this problem we went for a ‘Group 8 Big Breakfast’. This helped us get to know the different personalities in our group so we could put together a solid idea. Through many group meetings, the forum, talking over the internet and texting each other ideas began to come together as we got to know each other. As a group we decided on a few initial ideas for our two minute film. One idea was based around hierarchy in the workplace. We liked the idea of juxtaposing scenes and different points of view portrayed of a character in each scene.1 Our groups technical abilities seemed to split. Chris and Adam were particularly interested in animation and Glyn and I that are into video production, so we thought we could combine this for the final film.Another idea was based around the idea of war, but this was quickly dismissed as the idea developed because it would have been impossible to film in the time and money that we had. Looking back I learnt that more should hav been discussed before deciding on an idea, and we should have looked at more films that related to our idea.
Once we had our idea we decided as a group to individually draw up a storyboard. The main reason for this was to make sure we all thinking along the same lines. The results were as we expected and all the storyboards ended up looking similar. However, looking back with the time that we had we could have each been thinking about differnt areas of our production and when it came to put it all together we would have had much more all detailed idea. This time was not completely wasted, and after this slow process things started to speed up. Glyn and I decided what equipment we would need, and Chris and Adam began to draw their animation ideas. I also began to write down what props we would need for our production, and what we would each need to organise by the filming the next week. This helped me become more motivated in the group and ready to put our ideas into practice.
Beofore filming I was quite nervous because none of us were particularly experts in the studios. However, when we all got together we seemed to work well. We all shared tasks and roles in the studio, none of us were particularly controlling. Even though Glyn was acting he still helped with decisions about lighting, camera work and other small decisions we had to make. The lighting was quite problematic to start with because we all wanted our film to start of in daylight and as the day passed for the lighting to get darker. This didn’t really work because the day lighting looked much harsher and just generally bad. Slowly, and after a big breakfast we resolved the problem that we were having by pointing the lights up to the mirrors around the lights on the ceiling so it bounced back down in a less harsh way than before. We found this looked much more natural and we were happy with the outcome on the camera. However, once we filmed what we thought was a good first half of our filming we had a break. When we got back, we looked at our footage and seemed to take most of the shots again. The change was noticable with the lighting and differnt camera angles, but it looked much better. We started to become more creative whilst we were combining our skills, and we ended up making some stop motion video with the items on the office desk each appearing one by one. This idea wasn't initially in our storyboard but we all thought it looked much better than our original idea which was just a series of zooms and close up of the office items.
Post production is the area I was particularly looking forward to in this project, but it was the most problematic area of our film. Mostly because of technical difficulties concerning hard drives and the compatibility on the computers and also with the computers matrox card. However, we managed to resolve these and our film came together quite quickly. I had done quite alot of editing before on Adobe Premiere, so I didn't want to take over with the editing. I took the role as the decision maker alongside either Chis, or Glyn when they were editing. Adam had not had much experience with Adobe Premiere and wasn't keen to learn at this stage. We were ahead of schedule because our filming was much quicker than we expected.
Once we had the rough edit done, we soon realised we needed some sound. For the sound we decided that we would like to have general office noice, such as, printing, scanning, coughing and general mumblings. So even though our sound was non-diegetic, we wanted it to sound diegetic to give the illusion that our character was actually working in an office. Glyn and I went to the printing shop in the Student Union and kindly asked if we could record sounds, they were more than happy to help and we used these in the final piece. We also went to the library to get random typing noises and coughing, and we then recorded our own key pieces of sound. Overall i was not entirely happy with the sound because I think alongside it we would need some kind of soundtrack because our film doesn't seem to pick up pace, or flow as much as I would have liked it to. However, none of us were musicians, and we would have liked to have used some one elses music, but due to copywrighting laws we didn't follow through with this idea. If given another chance I would have arranged with one of my talented friends at the beginning of the production and asked them to produce a piece of music to go with our idea.
As Chris was putting the animation together, I decided that we needed some kind of introduction to our film, which was in a similar style. The idea came to me in a dream, which sounds weird, but it got me motivated to make something a little bit different. I told Glyn about the idea and he was adamant that i watched the title sequence of Napolian Dynamite because it sounded like it would help me. I loved the way that the title sequence was made and it was quite similar to my idea. However, I wished that I had more time to work on my idea because the title and credits were not something we were thinking about when planning our ideas in the beginning. My first idea for the title sequence was to do a stop motion sequence using pens to spell out the title of our film. However, when i tried to make this, I didn't have enough pens for the whole title and it was hard to squeeze it all in. Instead, I decided to use paperclips and this worked alot better. The idea for the credits kind of just came to me as I was making the title sequence, and I was quite pleased with the way it turned out.
Overall, I have learnt quite alot from this production, especially about team work. Our group seemed to work better when we assigned each people seperate areas to work on and then put them together to see what works and what doesn't work. Since making the film I have been alot more aware of film title sequences, for example in Casiono Royal with the playing cards. It has made me think more about it as an option for something I would like to experiment with in the future, either from the animation side, or from the filming perspective.
1Camilla Insalaco, Online Journal http://camillainsalaco.blogspot.com/
Broadway Cinema
The screeening for all our two-minute film was exciting. I've never had work that I've done been any where near a cinema!
The films were really impressive, and most used animation techniques.
When our film played it was clear that we needed some kind of sound in the title sequence and the credits. I felt ours needed more work and it was slightly dissappointing, but I guess thats a lesson learnt for next time.
The films were really impressive, and most used animation techniques.
When our film played it was clear that we needed some kind of sound in the title sequence and the credits. I felt ours needed more work and it was slightly dissappointing, but I guess thats a lesson learnt for next time.
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