Web Design
Stage 1 Coursework - Advertising Banner

Task: You are required to produce an online advert. It can be for the company, service or institution of your choice. It can be static, animated and/or interactive. It can contain audio and film footage if required.

Because Tesco sells pretty much everything nowadays the idea I came up with for the final banner was a shopping list theme.
The banner starts with a blue background and a pencil scrolls across, writing some text.
The pencil doesn’t actually write the text. I used a guideline for the pencil to follow and a mask over the text so that when the pencil runs across the banner, the text appears at the right moment. I used the font style “Bradley Hand ITC” because I wanted the text to look like handwriting. The first line of text says “Bread. Milk. Car insurance?” The point of the banner is to get across the message that Tesco are now selling specialist goods as well as everyday groceries. The first two items are everyday items that are on everybody’s shopping list. Adding “car insurance” gets the audience’s attention because people wouldn’t normally associate specialist and everyday goods in the same place.

Next, the pencil rotates and moves back to it starting position. This time it rubs out the first line of text. To do this I made the pencil’s rubber end follow the same guideline as the first animation. I used a mask like in the first sequence, but this time the words disappear when the pencil passes the text.

Next, text fades in and out saying “Everything you need”… “in one place”. This clarifies the message behind the banner (Tesco are now selling specialist goods as well as everyday groceries).
A white bar moves from right to left, leaving a small section of blue at the left of the banner. The Tesco logo then appears, shortly followed by the “Every little helps” slogan, which is constant on all of Tesco’s advertising.
I did originally use Action script with a Bounce easing class for the white bar, so that the bar bounces into position. Unfortunately, I had to remove this because when tried to publish my banner with this selected a ‘Syntax error’ was displayed. I found out where the problem was, but was unable to fix it. The bar works well though.

The colours I used in my banner advertisement were red, blue and white. I chose these colours to match the Tesco logo and give the advertisement consistency. They are also primary colours and so are eye-catching.

The banner advert follows a consistent narrative and presentation style concerning fonts and colours which maintains the brand’s identity. The images are compressed, resulting in a file size of 18Kb and the banner’s dimension’s are in the standard size of 468x60, and so will load quickly slow dial-up connections. I used a .swf graphical format.

Design

Mind Maps

We were told to document a journey of discovery in groups by coming up with a random route formular (e.g. walk for 30 seconds, cross the road and take the next turning) - and stick to it.

However, i missed the seminar and so wasnt in a group..

I think the idea was to discover areas of a city you dont normally get to see in your day-to-day life. Although, my mind map documents a direct journey through nottingham, when i was out on my journey i tried to look at the surroundings in more detail and in different ways. So that even though i wasn't able to find new areas of the city, i did notice new elements of the places i had already seen and my understanding of them was now slightly different.

Web Design
Banner Advertising

Recently in Web Design i have been creating animated banners such as the one below.

Audio Visual Production
Documentary Progress

On 20 Nov i learnt that Airon, the Producer, had left the course. (Been kicked off for not enroling). This left us without a Producer and only four group members. The group had many discussions about how to cope and what we should do. We came to a decision on the current and FINAL idea for our documentary project, which was not to be commical, but is more alone the line of what i was wanting to do. So although i was annoyed that Airon had left, i was happy about where the project was heading.

We basically kept the old idea of making a documentary about youth offenders but we now concentrate on one single youth offender who we'll interview. The documentary's working title is 'Street Life - the story of a youth offender'. The 4-minutes-film should start off with some vox pops and people telling their (short) opinion about youth offenders, then it leads over to the title screen.

Now that Airon has left, we seem to be progressing fast with the documentary and i feel that everyone has an equal say in would should be included.

We have already produced a short trailer of that first part of the documentary as seen below. Christian (Editor) has edited the vox pops we did last week and created a rather fitting title screen. The style of the pilot uses scanlines on the vox-pop shots to make it look like its filmed off a TV screen. I think we will use this style for the vox pops in the final edit of the documentary.



After that intro there will we some random street scenes with narration over it telling some statistics and leading over to the actual interview. The interviewee's face will not be shown. We plan to shot that interview with two cameras - one main camera and one camera that works in the hidden-camera style (so filming close-ups of certain details like hands while the interviewee's speaking).
We'll try to include cuts to re-enacted flashbacks into the interview based on what the interviewee says. Those flashbacks will have special effects on them to make them look like a dreamish kind of style. The documentary then will end with a summary and the credits - of course.

Audio Visual Production
Documentary Summary 3

This post documents the events after 14 November, 2006.

In a meeting on 15th Nov, with Deb Tuck (Module leader), we discussed an overview of 'where we are now' in terms of the project. This contained a 30 minute or so discussion between Deb and Airon about how he hadn't enroled for the year yet. (I will explain later how it would turn out to affect us all)

The major concern that was raised was 'what is the documentary trying to portray'. Group members were either divided, or even unsure themselves, about what infact was the angle/style we were trying to investigate the subject from.
My view was that i wanted to document the youth offenders' view. What they thought about themselves and how they are portrayed.
This was kind of where we were at at the end of the meeting.

Audio Visual Production
Documentary Summary 2

This post documents the events between October 20 and November 03, 2006.

We have had many problems over the past couple of weeks.
Firstly, the director doesn't seem bothered...which is bad...*as he's supposed to be the director!*
Secondly, we are having trouble securing an actor for the 'reporter' role. Airon (Producer) found two actors to audition for the character, but unfortunatly, they failed to make an audition.

Thirdly, I am unhappy with the way the project is going. Airon is the producer and it is clear that he does alot of film production outside of university.
Although it may be true that it is the Producer/Director's vision that the rest of the crew should work towards in the big wide world, outside of university, I feel that Airon is taking over (possibly oncontiously). Nevertheless, i am unsure about the commical style we have adopted for the documentary. I think we should stick closely to the project brief, as i fear that we may get marked-down if we deviate in the genre of production we are aspiring towards.

Audio Visual Production
First Project: Documentary

The first audiovisual project is a group based project and requires you to create a four minute documentary upon DVD.

This post is a summary of the project's initial stages.
We were seperated into groups, mine is as follows; Airon Bunning - Producer, Ryan Jeu - Director, Christian Juentsch - Editor, Richard Solaini - sound and I, Rob Hammerton - Camera.
Our first meeting in regards to this project was on Thursday 12th October at 2pm.

The initial idea was a documentory based on 'Townys' a stereo-type that certain young adults fall into. We wanted to approach the program from a commical point of view, rather than a serious POV.

The productions intial aim was to discuss what can be done by you or me to combat these youths legally and safely. There will also be a section helping the everyday person identify a violent youth, or a crime being commited by one. In doing so, raising awareness and hopefully making the world a nicer place for us all to live in. The style of the documentary was to take a commical look at a serious subject.

Audio Visual Production
Module Brief

This Component will build on the experience and knowledge gained in year one.
You will learn about industry practice and through the production of coursework improve and advance your production and technical skills and knowledge of the field.

Every student will produce their own audiovisual work and work produced as a team. Students will also produce reports that demonstarte their knowledge of the field and professional practice.

Design
City Symphony: A Journey through Nottingham

The idea was to go out & about to shoot a ‘city symphony’ by photographing (& abstracting) detail of pattern, shapes (2D), form (3D), colour, texture.

I took alot of photgraphs of buildings, places, and compositions that i found aesthetically interesting in various locations around Nottingham.

As well as this, i edited specific video/images together to create a journey through Nottingham, from the train station to Trent Uni campus. However, this file was too big to upload.

Design
Site-specific Design

Site specific design is when a design/event/performance of aesthetic value is designed specifically for, or influenced by a place.
The following are examples of site-specific design which I have found:

Wind Turbines
A wind turbine is a machine for converting the kinetic energy in wind into mechanical energy.

Wind farm siting can be highly controversial, particularly as the hilltop, often coastal sites preferred are often picturesque and environmentally sensitive. However, one 2MW wind turbine in a good location can cover the electricity consumption for 2000 households per year. Turbines also reduce CO2 emissions.
Personally, I find wind turbines aesetically pleasing and I would like to see renewable energy, such as the wind, being used more to create electricity.
I like how the turbines are positioned in most wind farms, one next to the other in a line. When the blades are spinning, there is a feeling of orgainised chaos! as shown in this picture.



Boots Library, Shakespeare St, Nottingham
The Boots Library opened on the City campus in 1998. The university's traditional library collections hold over 400,000 books, plus 2,500 current journals, as well as an extensive audio visual collection of videos and slides. I chose this building because it's site is directly linked to it's design. Being where it is, in between two roads that junction at the front of the library and the angle away from one another.
I like where the entrance is. It is situated at the junction of the two roads, which is not just functional and convieniant for visitors, but also aesthetically/architectually pleasing.

Welcome to my Online Journal.
I will use this as a way to document my progress throughout the course of the year and beyond. As well as the work i produce, it will hopefully offer an insight into my thought processes, as i explore and develope my skills as a multimedia practitioner.
The modules i am cureently studying are AV Production, Design, and Web Design.
I am eager to hear feedback so feel free to comment on any of my work, and ill try and do the same.