MY PIXILATION/STOPMOTION

Here is my  first attept at creating a pixilation focused around magic tricks. I want to see if i can perform basic magic tricks and give them a whole new look and feel with the powers of pixilmation. Since pixilmation was created and used for doing special effects back in the early day of film it would seem that this would be a good theme.

i need to correct some of the camera work and put a few more basic tricks in. I want it in colour and with a better soundtrack for it. im going to try and fix these issues in my next video.



Here is my finished video and im really liking the look and feel of it. i think i have hit the mark whith what i was aiming for but if i were todo it again, i would clean up some of the bad camera work and i would add a few new tricks not just using cards, maybe a rabbit out of a hat who knows !!!

Games:

Here are 3 videogames that i think have made a really interesting impact on this little planet of ours:



The CALL of DUTY franchise has been going for quite some time without much of a following. That soon ended when CALL of DUTY 4: Modern Warfare broke through our atmosphere and landed in our disk drives. This game set the boundaries for all first person shooters due to the way Infinity Ward made the gaming experience more interactive; I mean having the user use the left trigger to aim instead of an aimbot was pure creative genius. They also made multiplayer far more enjoyable than any other game on the market and dude to its popularity it remained £40 longer than any other game.



CALL of DUTY: Modern Warfare 2 has only just recently come out but it already has broken the most copies of a game sold over 1 day. This game shows that you can take something that already amazing and turn it into something GODLY. This was done by Infinity Ward stripping back what really made CALL of DUTY: Modern Warfare tick; why it was so popular. So infinity ward did there correction and came up with a Hollywood worthy story which is very believable, nothing you would see in a bond film. Infinity ward then wanted to make multiplayer more interesting and the only way to get feedback was to ask the fans, which is exactly what they did, and know they have an amazing multiplayer experience which has more interactivity than you can shake a controller at.




The new assassins creed 2 game looks really exciting. What i loved about the old gamewhich i see in this game is that it keeps true to the history of that period whilst adding a real science fiction twist. The reason why i posted this video up was because this game is original theres not a singal copyed version out on the market, i love depth of this game and the high level of interactivity, you are the assassin. The great thing about UBISOFT is that their games always deliver a highly interactive experience. A good example of this would be the New Assassins Creed website which is shown in my previous post., also the new mini serries which ties into the games story.

The mini series is shown below:

Interactive/Web

There are many websites that i like but i think that the one that has really caught my eye lately has to be the new assassins creed 2 website by UBISOFT (http://assassinscreed.uk.ubi.com/assassins-creed-2/#/home/). The reason why i chose this website is because it has created a whole new interactive feel; very futureistic. Its buttons are interesting when you hover over them because each button has music that activates and a small movie clip that plays inside, kinda like what you would see in a superman film. The main image looks like a cross between something from the Matrix and the Island, but thats a good thing because it has a simplistic feel and allows the user to easly navagate around the website which means this website has gone thorugh a very good design process.

Here are some screen shots of some of the websites features:

I like the colour scheme of the start up screen but the main thing i like the most has to be the way the designers have show how they created the complicated logo through the use of basic geometric shapes.

The widget below is part of the whole interactive experience of this website which i think is really interesting because it gets the user more involved by keeping them thinking therefor being interested.

http://assassinscreed.uk.ubi.com/assassins-creed-2/widget/#

Animation

Here are some animation which i find inspiraing:



I like the Japanese/ gorillaz feel to the Monkey Movie (2008 Olympics). The really clever thing about this animation is the way the characters are performing Olympic based sports/moves like pole vaulting to diving. The way the characters a dressed and the colour scheme of the background reminds me of the Japanese anime The legend of Anng: the last airbender.



I like the way Pixar have taken the classic Alien abduction scenario and added a comical twist to it using clever camera angles sound effects and classic, un refined slapstick comedy. The way that the animators have made the human like a rag doll and the alien as the puppeteer adds to the comic effect. Overall I love the way Pixar have created this mini animation.



This to me is the funniest short animation that Pixar have done so far. It’s such a simple story but its execution is extremely well done. The rendering looks great, has a toy story/ incredible feel to it. The character design is really simplistic which I love and it looks great but most of all the comedy, it has the right amount of slapstick which when I showed to my flat mates it had them in stitches, and when it ended they were left wanting more which for me is a key factor in creating a really popular animation.

AV/Film:

This post shows my interests in the different areas of multimedia design. The areas i am interested in are

• AV/Film
• Animation
• Games
• Web/Interactive

Ill start off by giving you an idea of what type of Film effects i like:



The last air bender is a highly anticipated movie in the film world. I am hoping that it won’t completely suck as it’s been inspired by the anime the legend of Anng which is highly popular all over the world. Looking at the trailer I highly doubt that it will do badly at all because M. Night Shymalan has kept to the same style as the cartoon but has added a traditional Hollywood twist to it which should look/feel quite nice, But what I’m really excited about is the way the special effects have been done, since the trailer only shows us the use of air bending at the moment I can’t really say much about how the other elements will be portrayed but at the moment they look well done and should look spectacular on the big screen.



A great look at another videogame influenced movie; Prince of Persia Sands of Time. I was a bit hesitant at first to say that it would be a great movie because as we all know movies of great videogames don't always translate well, and how were they going to create the sands of time effect, i wasnt very confident. I was happly proven wrong when i saw the trailer, the way they kept true to the character designs and the special effects look out of this world. the sand particals that emerge out of the princes tribal markings look unreal, so good in fact it looks far better than the videogame cutsceans.



I love the work of Quentin Tarantino, the way he shoots his movies give off a comic book style espeshally when he adds the cell shading like in Sin City when its black and white with a comic book inc feel. i liked the way he used the colours red and yellow to show key parts of the narrative its self like a blood trail or a charchters peice of defind clothing. I also love anderew kramer who is the co-founder of videocopilot.net which shows you some amazing techniques on special effects. For more information on videocopilot.net look at my older posts.

Interactive Narrative Project: Design

After looking at my researsch and different interactive narratives i started spitballing some ideas on what kind of narratives i could produce.

here are my notes on the ideas i came up with:

I like alot of the ideas on the page but some of them require alot of time and extensive flash knowledge to create so i have decided that i am going to run with the zombie idea.

One of the main reasons that i came up with the zombie idea was because i hade recently watched zombieland and that when encountering zombies there are rules to follow to surevive. This quality made me think that creating a zombie themed flash I.N.would have both a great narrative and interesting interactivity.

Looking back at some of my research i noticed one video that inspired me, the "HIT ME" video. i thought i could have the same interactive experience for the zombie encounter, but adding my creative touch to it.

Now that i have my final idea i have to decide what medium i should use to build my creative vision.

Here are my ideas:

I know there are only a few ideas here but these are all the techniques i can produce in the three week timeframe.

I think to stice to one medium would be abit boring so im going to Use 3D photos,Photo's, Movies from a camera phone. Hopefully these mediums will increae the interest of my interactive narrative.

The next step is to create my zombie based narrative and see if it works. 

Here is my sketch book results:

Now from what i can see it works but i think the only way out is to build it and see what happens.

Now in this design tree i have noticed there i a key interactive section which i need to test first. When it's finished it will be so much easier to add in the narrative sections.



The only way to test the interactive section is to build it, so im going to create a flash based demo of the interactive section.

Here is a list which i created and a mini design tree to help me produce the demo:

  

Interactive Narrative Project: Research

Well if I want to create a really interesting interactive narrative I have to find existing and find out what makes it tick!

Looking on the web and playing videogames I found some good examples of interactive narrative that I think will benefit my final outcome:
Magnolia: www.magnoliathemovie.com/#

I think this is a really interesting interactive narrative because of the way it plays as if it’s a trailer, the song at the start of the flash video really fits the piece once you realise the story of each characters, which is activated by hovering over each character. Thankfully the video loops because I didn’t realise how to interact with the video at first which is a bit stupid. I think that it should have been a bit more obvious but still a nice feature. The text on the bio is the wrong colour because it makes it really hard to read in some cases. I think the video clips were chosen wisely because once you read each bio you realize the intricacies of each character and how they are all connected which means the story has a good non-linear narrative. The genera for this narrative I think would be a dram because of how each character is facing an internal conflict as well as being a protagonist and a antagonist. I think creating an interactive narrative like this would be easy but still classy.

Mass Effect:
This is another really interesting way of creating an interactive narrative but using a different medium other than video. This game really explores a whole new idea of storytelling by giving the player complete control of the main character, I mean you control not only his body but the way you want the other characters in the game to react to you and you get given options on what to say if a character asks you a question. The great thing about it is that it pushes the way a story is told by letting you create it your way, letting you have the ultimate creative game experience on the market. To get this experience right you have to have a deep and interesting narrative which thankfully this has in bucket loads. Due to the fact that this interactive narrative is a game, this increases the special awareness element because it give you the creative freedom to view any situation from any angle which in films and animations sometimes can be limited to a set viewpoint. In conclusion it’s a really compelling game that has set the bar for creative interactive narratives in the gaming industry.

Here is a video showing you the features of the game:



HIT ME :
This is a great little interactive narrative by Ben Smallman... well its not really a narrative but its interactive qualitys are intreaguing and it has deffinatly given me some ideaz on interactive techniques that i could produce in my interactive narrative. I think its a great way to fuse still pictures with moving images which is probably something i should consider doing that in my project. Over all a very clever little flash game.

Here is the site if you wish to see it: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/hitme