Long Road Applied Media Diploma

There are five lessons till the end of this half-term - that's 7 and half hours

Your challenge is to re-create the opening credits to the popular UK TV Drama Misfits - here's the original. You can find the first five minutes or so on this blog post here.

Must have the correct credits - see the list below.

Use the same music - which we will provide.

You must produce you're own final product but may ask for assistance from others in the class.

You must provide evidence, which must be posted on the blog, for every stage of the process:

RESEARCH-PLANNING-CONSTRUCTION-EVALUATION

The rest is up to you. He's your chance be creative, use all you've learned in Photoshop, Final Cut, film-making to create a dynamic and entertaining opening sequence - that could be all animation, all titles, a mix of live action and titles.

Research
About Misfits (http://www.e4.com/misfits/), which characters you're introducing, what techniques you could use (live action, Photoshop), other credits sequence for influence and inspiration.

Planning
How will you approach the construction, how will you use your time, what resources do you need.

Construction
Chart your progress through the process - reflect at key stage.

Evaluation
1) Using screen grabs of your final product (and even the original opening if useful) explain the following:
Your ideas behind your approach, inspirations and what you were aiming to do.
How you incorporated the visuals with the music provided.
How your product captures the spirit of the Misfits the series and could be seen as an appropriate opening. Or not.

2) Using screen grabs of your Photoshop (if used) and Final Cut documents, explain the key techniques and processes you used to create certain effects. Have you learned anything new? If so what?

3) Show your opening to at least 3 people (fellow students, parents, friends, siblings) get them to feedback in terms of how appropriate your product is, how professional looking it seems, its impact on viewer. Write up their responses and reflect on them - are they fair? Have you learned from them and could they help if you were to do the project again?

4) Look back on the process- how do you think the project went? What were the problems/successes? How do you feel about your final product?

Once you have finished upload your final product to Vimeo. If Vimeo is playing up, use these conversion settings to make a smaller more user friendly version.

File > Export > Using Quicktime Conversion > Options
Video Settings: Compression Type H.264; Quality: Medium
Size: Dimensions 320 x 240 QVGA

Sound Settings: Format: AAC; Quality: Better

Ensure that Prepare for Internet Streaming is clicked.

Embed onto your blog.

If you still have time left - look at your planning and research - how could it be more thorough how could it be improved?

DEADLINE: 4.10 pm, Friday 10th February.

TITLES

IWAN RHEON

2) Watch your footage back and make a list of the potential sound effects you would need to make a foley soundtrack for the chase e.g. footsteps, heavy breathing, shaking of chains, traffic noise, bike wheels,
Mind-map ways that you can create those sounds.

3) In groups of three go out with your sound lists and camera and collect the sound samples you need. BE CREATIVE NOT LITERAL AND BE SAFE - so for fire don't use fire!
You need to create sounds that only SOUND authentic.

4) Start a blog post called FOLEY SOUND TASK, take a screen grab of your Point Break edit and describe the task that was set. Reflect if you can on the process - what you're pleased with/what was tricky.

5) Post your sound list - take a picture if it is on paper.

6) Write about how you got certain sounds - make special mention of any sounds you're particular proud of, any problems you had, which sounds were hard to get etc.

7) Complete the edit of your Point Break complete with sounds. Export it using these settings.

File > Export > Using Quicktime Conversion > Options
Video Settings: Compression Type H.264; Quality: Medium
Size: Dimensions 320 x 240 QVGA

Ensure that Prepare for Internet Streaming is clicked.

- upload to Vimeo and embed onto your blog. Take a screenshot of you Final Cut project.

8) Write your evaluation:
How did you find the task? How happy are with your final product? What works well and why? What is unconvincing? How did you manipulate the sounds?  Select sections and take screenshot of your audio timeline if there's any editing you're particularly proud of. If you went back to make your 60 second film again would using this process have helped?

THE EVALUATION BIT IS IMPORTANT SO PUSH YOURSELF TO REFLECT ON YOUR PROCESS AND THINK ABOUT WHAT SKILLS YOU HAVE DEVELOPED. THIS IS A PROCESS THAT WILL HAVE TO DO AFTER EVERY TASK.

Introduction
Outline what the brief, and provide a description of what Banksy's style in terms of imagery, meaning and techniques.

Ideas and inspiration
Outline what ideas you came up with for the task.
Explain which ones you dismissed and why, and which one your settled on and why?Use images of any similar work that inspired you.

Developing the idea
Explain what your idea is about.
Describe your thought process in terms of how you would present your idea - what style, what imagery, how would it be framed.
What are you trying to say and why?

Evaluation
What do you think of the final piece?
What do other people think of the final piece.
What did you find enjoyable about the process - what didn't you?
What skills do you believe you've learned.

Use the above question to guide your writing - don't include them in the response. Use appropriate images and photographs to illustrate the process and inspiration.

The task is to take a well known Hollywood, re-film it and compress the whole story down to 60 seconds.

For inspiration have a look at Top Gun, Avatar, Titanic and this site for the Done in 60 Seconds competition run by Empire.

Planning and Research
Find a film.
- Analyse which key scenes you need to include in the film and write a list on A4.
- Create a 60 second timeline on A3 to assess how long you'll be able to have for each scene and whether it will all fit in.
- Brainstorm inventive ways of mimicking iconic moments that used special effect and exotic locations, with just a camera, a few props and the Long Road campus.
- Feel free to add some appropriate humour if necessary, 

Construction
Get out there and film.
Do not try and stunts - think of inventive ways to film action (think editing).
Do not film on roofs, behind the stage or anywhere you think you shouldn't be - as you probably shouldn't.

Once you have finished filming - upload the footage to each team member's Mac and each do your own edit.

Start a blog post
Call it The 60 Second Film Challenge.
Write up a brief description of the task set.
Embed a trailer of your chosen film. 

Include pictures of your shots lists, timeline and any planning (use the Mac cameras and Photobooth. Open in Preview go to Tools>Flip horizontal if they are a mirror image).
Includes pics of props you have collected. 
Write supporting text for your images, explaining what these pieces of paper are and why they are necessary.

Post pictures of your progress in terms of editing (Final Cut Screenshots) and post any rough cuts you have made.

Evaluation
Embed your final film and answer the following questions.

What peer feedback did you recieve? Relfect on the feedback - was it fair/helpful?

During the shooting of production what problems arose?

If you were peparing for the shoot now what would you differently?

Try to write a decent paragraph for each question and back up your points with specific reference to your shooting and work.

Export the final video: File > Export > Quicktime Movie

Start a blog post named 'Western Credit Task' and include the following:

1) Your final product embedded.

2) A brief overview of what the task was about: Creating an animated credit sequence in the spirit of Good, Bad and the Ugly, using sound effects and Photoshop images'. (use this link if you want to be specific about the inspiration, you can't embed it but you could take screengrabs)

3) An explanation of how you created your credits in Photoshop accompanied by a picture of your .psd. 
- Use of brushes
- Saving the layers seperately and as PNG-24 and why you did this.

4) An explanation of what you did in Final Cut to move your images and how you added sound effects:
 - Use of Keyframes and what they enable you to do with them (size, angle, movemenbt)
 - How you synched up sound effects and animation (mention the audiowave forms if possible).
 - Use a screenshot of your Final Cut document if you think this will help.

5) Evaluate your work: What went well? What do you believe could be improved on? How did you find keyframing - was it easy to use? Do you believe your skills in Final Cut have developed and why? Try and develop your answers - try to take a step back and reflect on what you achieved in this task.

1) Create 60-90 seconds of footage from the New York clips found in Final Cut. Use the ovelays to create different transitions and experiment with filters and effects. Export a version of your final edit using the following settings.

2) Open up GarageBand create a new Song and name it New York Credits or something appropriate, chose the Loop template. Then drag the export MPEG4 of your edit onto the GarageBand timeline and create a soundtrack with the use of the samples. Once finished, export your music using the following process.

a) Highlight the Movie Track at the top, go to Track > Delete Track.
b) Go to Share > Export Song to Disk, tick Compress, and choose MP3 Encoder from the drop down menu.
c) Import the MP3 into your Final Cut document and place in the Audio timeline. 

3) Take a screenshot of your final edit of the Final Cut document, print out, stick on to a piece of A3 and annotate. (Annotations to include, use of tools used (razor blade, selection, pen, playhead etc.) and what they do; what each window is for and how you used it; any use of overlay transitions or filters)

4) Take a screenshot of your final edit of the GarageBand document, print out, stick on to a piece of A3 and annotate. (Annotations to include, use of tools used, and what they do; what each window is for and how you used it; any use of effects or automation)

For both the above tasks make sure you have an interesting screenshot to annotate so for Final Cut have clips visible in the bin, zoom out to get as much of your timeline in and have images in the viewer and canvas. For Garageband, have the loops window and maybe the track editor function open.

5) On tumblr embed the opening credits from Panic Room (this can be found on youtube) and write down what order the credits come in - do not copy the Panic Room credits (i.e. Jodie Foster etc), I want you make note of what sort of credit comes in what order. eg

Studio:
Production company:
Main Stars:
Film title:
Co-Stars: 
Casting by
Costume Designer
Music by
Film Editors
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Produce by
Written by
Directed by

6) Using the above structure create credits for your New York Sequence as if it was the opening to a film. Do this in Final Cut using the text editor in the viewer.

7) Place these credits onto your timeline and make them move across the screen and fade in and out using overlay, the pen tool, key framing and the copy/paste attributes function.

Key Frame Basics
With keyframing you're telling Final Cut when you would like 'something' to begin on your timeline and when you would like that 'something' to stop. That 'something' could be movement, a use of filter of effect.
For movement do the following steps
a) Make sure you 'selected' the clip you want to move. Also that you have Image + Wireframe selected on the canvas window and that you are zoomed out enough to see the edges of your clip.
b) Move your play head to the point in the timeline you want to start the movement, then in the canvas move your credit to its starting point (holding down shift will ensure it will move along horizontal or vertical axis).
c) Once you are happy with the clip starting point click keyframe and the wireframe on the clip should turn green.
d) Next, move the playhead to point you want the movement to stop (for here, at the end of the credit) and click Keyframe for second time.
e) Now perform the movement you want to happen in the Canvas window. 

Copy and pasting attributes
Once you have created the transitions and movement your happy with on one credit, you can place these attributes onto all your other credits so they behave in exactly the same way.
a) Select the credit that you have keyframed and pen-tooled, go to Edit > Copy (Command+C).
b) Then select the credit you want to paste the attributes onto and go to Edit >  Paste Attributes. A pop-up menu will appear allowing you to select which attributes you want to paste - here we're going for Opacity and Basic Motion - so make sure they are ticked.
c) Press OK. 

8) Once all elements have been put in the sequence, export the sequence using the following settings: EXPORT > QUICKTIME MOVIE, and upload this onto Vimeo (see board for username and password).

9) On your blog embed your final sequence and complete the following written evaluation. Write a paragraph on the three process you have used to create the sequence.

Editing
Music Compostion
Creation and movement of credits

In each paragraph include the following
a) A description of what the aim of the process was.
b) Description of how you went about the task and what techniques you used.
c) What you felt confident in doing/what you found difficult.

Then for your final paragraph - evaluate your final sequence. What aspects did you think went well (matching of music and audio, a particular transition, the movement of credits)? What parts would do you differently and how would you improve it?

Summary
By the end of this process you have the following piece of evidence of your learning.
1 - Annotated Final Cut screenshot
2 - Annotated GarageBand screenshot
3 - A blog post with the analysis of the structure and order of conventional film credits (Panic Room)
4 - Your final sequence (footage, music, credits) uploaded onto Vimeo.
5 - A blog post with your final sequence embedded and a written evaluation of your work. 

Unfortunately to a combination of paternity leave and illness we have made the decision to cancel the lessons for the Year 13 Diploma students (that's year 13 so don't any year 12s get any ideas - your timetable remains the same). However, to keep them busy they must do the following work. The normal timetable will start up on Friday 6th January so be in B102 for 9 a.m.

1) Speed Pitching reflection

On Word or Pages answer the following questions.

1) How did you find the Speed Pitching experience? (Don't harp on about the organisation of it - I'm still trying to figure out a perfect system - comment on how it was expressing your ideas to people)

2) What were the main positives that people commented upon regarding your idea? (sorry for the working of that question - just say what people thought was good).

3) What were the main problems/issues that people raised regarding your idea?

4) Which idea that you were pitched was the strongest and why?

5) If you could work on your own idea who's magazine would most like to work and why? Also suggest any alterations that you would make.\

Make it look pretty - use the photos posted to help you. And it has to be at least a side in length - work hard to develop your answers.

2) Get those Keynotes finished - even if you don't have keynote at home, you can still write up the appropriate text so it can be copy and pasted in when you get in. Do the primary research if you haven't already (take photos, speak to the relevant experts etc.)

3) Extended Projects
How are they getting on? Is there evidence of three months work on your project? Deadline is creeping up in March so make a plan of how you're going to get it done. 

Right that should keep you busy and again we apologies for any inconvenience.