Blogging with beans

While I am sat here eating my very student stereotypical bowl of beans and sausage (so, it's bloody cold outside and I'm working!) I have had a realisation.

Today was our presentation of our final documentary. To be very honest with you I am not happy with it, at all, but that is because I know it could have been something much better, if people would have actually listened to me. This is the biggest problems I've faced over the past few years. At first, when I started doing media properly when I was about 13, I actually just thought  I was trying to be a control freak and should step back because other people know better/more. Now I'm at uni, I am quite young in comparison to some of the people I work with, but I have been doing media much longer than them and it just makes me want to scream when I do not get listened too. I may be younger, but have you thought that I actually know what I'm on about?! I am now one of the people that knows something.

To take the most recent example, this documentary for my single camera project, this has happened yet again, but not because I wasn't assertive (believe me, I was). I have been saying from the beginning about certain things not going to work or not having enough screentime etc. I kept repeating myself practically everyday, and in the edit this didn't change.

So as I sat in my presentation hearing feedback on our film I had to hold myself back. My tutor was picking out everything that I had warned the group about and been saying was not going to work. If anyone was to look at me they would have thought I wanted to tear the room apart with my mind, I was holding back that much. I just wanted to burst out!

But I've realised how I've become a bit more professional in the past few weeks because of it all. I have never had to shout at someone I worked with before. I don't take members of my group to the side to 'criticise them as a professional' when I'm actually gonna tell them how awful they are or always tell members of the group to always act professional. (There are 2 types of people: 1: professionals- that don't bang on about being professional and do it   2: idiots- who actually know nothing and have to cover that up by saying the word professional as many times in a sentence as they can)

I am now just sat in my chair, smug in the comfort that I was right and I know that I was. At least I know I have really grown as a person.

But mark my words, I will never be spoken down to again...

Why oh why have the DVD gods forsaken me?

I am in the edit suite atm, have been for 5 hours. We need to burn stuff to.DVD and its being a massive pain! It's been interlacing all of our video for the sake of 1 button. I am annoyed to say the least.

My new enemy- adobe encore

Step 1...

Well After Effects and I had a little tiff yesterday. I was in the middle of something and didn't realise that somehow my motion track had disappeared so everything went to pot and had to start again right near the end as it just would not go back to normal. But I am glad to say I have finished it now! I am not happy with it though, I just don't think my idea is good enough and would have loved to change it, but I just don't have the time. My tutor said as long as we covered the skills he taught he didn't mind, and I think I've done that.

So here is a screen shot of each of my stages!

                                                                   My original footage

                                                                       Final Image

I have learnt a lot but it could be so much better.

Oh the pain of being a perfectionist...

Time to open my toolbox...

As you may fully be aware, After Effects and I have a love/hate relationship. But we have been to relationship counselling in the form of Graham my Digital Media lecturer. I used to look at it as a massive obstacle that I had to do all in one go, but I realise that it isn't. He explained that every tiny skill he learnt goes into his 'toolbox' so when he knows how to do something like keyframe the position of something or how to scale something then that's a skill, and you use all of these to do bigger tasks like set extension.

And I just did my first ever After Effects work on video yesterday and today :) even overcoming some of the worst problems ever! I am really pleased with myself, eventhough the piece of work could be better I learnt:
- Sky replacement
- Using masking (auto and by hand)
- Motion tracking
- Null objects
- Chromakeying properly
- How to use curves to add depth
- Change my image to black and white

And that's from a 20 second project!

My toolbox is starting to fill up nicely...

Do you have a weakness?

Wow! I am in week 7 of uni now, I was going to blog more but the documentary has taken up a lot of my time for single camera.

So what has happened the past few weeks, well, I didn't go any further with the Campbells Soup competition (I didn't place in the top 6) and I also haven't got anywhere with the Pepsi competition either. My time has been taken up by the Parkour documentary I am currently working on and digital media has already moved onto the 3rd project! I'm about to start my after effects work to be handed in for thursday.

These past few weeks have also made me realise something, a person is determined on how they deal with weak moments in life. Around week 4/5 I had a time where I thought I couldn't do it anymore, there is too much work and I didn't know how to cope. But I got through it. And the other day my friend went through a few days of turmoil, but he got through it too. It just makes you realise how strong minded you can be if you put effort into it and the weak moments you have can shape the person you are.

Let's stay positive :)

What a weekend!

From wednesday onwards it has been a crazy end of the week/weekend. I shall make a little list of what happened:
- Got on the team for the LAFTA's
- My Campbells Soup viral ad has got the final of the competition
- My camera came and I went straight out to take some photos of Hull Fair
- I finished the temple in Maya after 6 hours! Pictured below:

Phew! Been rather crazy. I'm in Lincoln now, chilling for a few weeks, mainly so I've got time to do my digital media project. 1 week to go and my creature hasn't even been built yet! However, I have made my little model to help me build it in the programme. Here he is:

Bring on week 3 of uni!

I'm expecting!

A Canon 550D that is! Ordered it yesterday and I'm so excited. I'm coming back to Hull on thursday to pick it up, just want it to come asap. To be honest, I have an extremely busy week ahead so it'll fly by! Today alone has been really busy, 3 lectures and then making my model for digital media. We have to create a creature to animate for our mini project, i find it hard to think of drawings as 3D so I'm actually making my model out of childrens modelling clay! Photos are going up tomorrow of all the different stages :)

I also went around to my friend Daves to work out Maya. I'm sort of getting through my temple! It's coming along okay, just taking me a really long time to understand it but I started going through it quicker just before I stopped. Here is the screenshot before I saved it:

I also applied for the LAFTAs, Lincoln unis media awards ceremony :) I have my interview on wednesday afternoon so I'm gonna be preparing myself for that tomorrow.

Busy busy week!!!