Archive for December 2019

Well its all over now, no more panicking till next semester which is a shame you know I was kind of finally getting used to the whole “omg I’m going to fail quick pumped this work out boom boom” Its sad to see it go but who doesn’t love a nice deserved break and I think I definitely deserve one I mean compared to the work I put in in secondary school this work I’ve made for the past three mission is like gods work, it’s the freaking bible man. In all serious though overall these mission have been great at first they always seem so stressful and overlooked but as soon as I’ve put in the work and seen the result I can tell it was so worth it and I can 100% say that for this Video mission. Even if I was to fail this mission with our video (I didn’t whoop) I wouldn’t of cared, I just had to much fun in the making of this video the staying up the whole night and editing and most importantly running around my house changing my clothes to make a different Gavin for the video was just so fun and interesting to learn how to make happen.

This mission was my favourite and I can say with out a doubt ill always think back to this mission because it thought me a lot about myself and what I’m capable of making with my potential and skills at hand. I saw first-hand how I was able to come up with a good few unique ideas but sadly because my group had left it so long to actually start it meant that we didn’t get to use the full potential of our knowledge and our skills in our work, but all that means is that I now know this and will learn for my next assignments that I do in my future college life.

Successes were made in the making of this project though as we did meet most of the requirements for the assignment and most importantly learnt a lot about video editing thanks to the sexy greenscreen that I knew would give us a hand with bumping up the grade. I need to learn to balance out my work though I can’t go into 2^nd year not knowing simple things like a balanced work load I won’t get far so thanks to this mission I’ve really noticed that. Its funny how this was one of my most difficult mission to get my head around and actually even make but yet out of the three I would easily pick this mission on being my favourite, it was just so much fun with my friends.

We will just have to wait and see what crazy projects I get to work on next, but I know now that I will be a lot more prepared for them and more flexible to the workload thanks to this module.

Thanks Mr Intro to Digital Media your pretty wild.

Mission 3 - Reflection

Everything was set! All the equipment required to record and make the magic happen, our beloved actor Sean who kindly decide to do the roll of presenting on stage and our beautiful green screen which was taped to the back wall of a random college classroom. Before I go any further it would problem be best that I explain what idea we came up with in the end. So as you know from the previous blog my group was hopeless at coming up with an idea and sadly we were starting to leave it late, other module work was colliding with this project and it was hard to get all of us in for the recording or even planning of the video but never the less we managed to get all of our crap together and actually do some work. We began on planning on what we knew we wanted so as I will check off the list here…

Needs to be funny and original (parody)
Has some form of video editing technique that other groups won’t have (greenscreen)
Presented somewhere maybe outside or on a stage.
Fun to make and enjoyable to watch.

With out these 4 points in the project we couldn’t see it working out and so with these ideas no in our head we started to think of more bulky ideas. One very good idea was if we did mapping dangerous places on the earth like underwater or beside a volcano and using the green screen I could teleport Sean around the globe to different locations which would recurring a lot of work and as a result would most likely not get finished in time for the project being due.

The other option was that we did like a Ted Talk where Sean would map out history to an audience of people and explain how everything is related in some messed up funny way. This was the project we went with in the end based on the time we had to do it in and what we thought we could make. We needed to come up with a script and fast so Sean decide to take some form of acid and come up with some crazy made up parody where we listed a bunch of events to each other even if they had nothing to do with each other (History). Using my greenscreen, we placed it on the back wall and on the ground in which Sean would stand on, this resulted in a beautiful crisp video of Sean talking through his points on history from 1916 till this day (Brexit).

I was quite pleased with what we had recorded but I knew deep down id have to do some serious editing if we were to get any marks at all and so I began to think of stupid ideas of which I could use the green screen again and that’s when it hit me… Why don’t I just make an audience of me! I mean its perfect what else would you want to see but just 12 random Gavin’s sitting together in an almost empty theatre.

Mission 3 - Production

Finally mission three! The video project I’ve been so excited to start and been planning for weeks in advance. I decided id work with two of my friends from college and not two people from my class group because I wanted to organise meeting up a lot more often and it would just be easier to be done with my close friends who I already see on a daily basis. For this mission the topics were not very good in my own opinion, I thought they were not very interesting at all and had no real solid goal for any of them and as a result of that I felt that we should just pick a certain topic that we could mess around with and try come up with something unique and fun, once the other two were on board we began to select our topic and got it down to mapping and networking.

The real issue was picking which topic to focus on and what idea or project we could produce out of it we just couldn’t decide both topics were just to similar and with us losing interest in the topics it was becoming more and more harder to try and organise and meetup to work on the project. We did eventually get around to it and decide on going with mapping which I think in the end was the smartest choice, we needed to organise equipment and who would bring what and what we needed to use in our video like props and camera equipment.

I decided id use my new Canon EOS 250D camera as it can record in 4k and is a brand new 2019 camera. My two friends decided they would look for props and other issue like a room in college where we could record and have the time to maybe edit. One major thing that we did go out of our way to get for this project was a green screen. Now before I had even started the mission, I knew I wanted to mess around with a greenscreen because I’ve personally never experienced it and I thought of no better way for me to learn about it then using it in this project. So I spent a day in blanch looking in shops and finally got a huge section of neon green fabric in Home Focus, everything was set in the equipment and recording aspects but we still had no plan of action on what we would be recording or what we would even be using the green screen for.

We needed to come up with an idea fast otherwise we wouldn’t have anything till the last minute and it could end up complete useless and fail the mission completely, but we weren’t ready to quit I was ready to use this green screen and even with all my other projects happening I knew I had to get this over and done with otherwise it will be destroying me and my work over the last week.

Mission 3 - Process

And once again… I nailed it; what can I say I just seem to have some gift when it comes to this stuff. No but in a serious note I actually don’t understand how or why my work seems to be coming out so much better than how it was in secondary school, I have a feeling its because I actually enjoy the work I make here in college and how it’s something I can see my self doing in the future. Overall though my presentation went smooth and perfect I again couldn’t and wouldn’t change anything I mean the reaction to my template on my PowerPoint was exactly what I expected, and everyone seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. Its strange, the feeling of presenting and actually semi controlling the crowd like telling people what is what and where to look next I quite enjoyed it.

I learnt a lot more from this project than the last one on gifs, all the different forms of Augmented reality and Virtual reality, the mad history of augmented reality and even the potential future of the technology being used in things like schools or hospitals or the practical elements that I investigated my self in relation to Pokémon go and the quiver app. Really I’ve gained a way bigger interest into the topic now that I had before hand and I guess that is kind of the point of these mission to expand are range of media forms and the tools we learn to explore them which are provided by Shaun.

Speaking of Shaun I was very surprised and terrified when I saw him contacting me asking if I would present my project Infront of the whole course… as you can imagine I jumped at the opportunity and said yes… no I didn’t I strongly did not want to present I am defiantly not ready to do that yet. Luckily Shaun was understanding and showed off the PowerPoint himself, but I was still crazy nervous. In the end of it all I think these missions are really good experiences for me as in secondary school I would never ever present because I was too nervous about my dyslexia getting in the way but with college being a new start I want to give it my all in my work and my attitude.

Personally, for the next project I’m going to try and get into a group with my close new college friends as even though I think it restraints what I can create it’s a good learning curve to get behind and I need to resolve it now while in college and not off working and run into issues then. Hopefully the topics for the next mission are good as I believe we have to make a video in the next mission and I cant wait to mess around with that, I already have big plans that ill most likely leave to the last minute but it all works out in the end doesn’t it.

Mission 2 - Reflection

Well where do I begin… All I can say is that I can 100% see why I thought I work better alone after the last project. The quality of my work has defiantly gone up especially in relation to my presentation skills and knowing what looks good and should by on the screen. Ill get into my actually work in and what I have created for my presentation near the end but firstly ill talk about the progress I’ve made while working on my own and the completely different experience from last time where I felt strangled by having to work with other class members, its just so much easier being able to let your mind run free and make and produce what you want. While saying all that I still do understand that in my job in media most likely ill be working in groups with other workers, so I need to get used to that aspect.

So I wanted to focus on my PowerPoint the most when making this project as I knew that if my work and my template looked professional then the actually work that’s inside the PowerPoint will come across ten times better than how it is. I planned to do what I did last time with the short topic points and bullet points but to learn off my work and go into long detail on each point, I needed to practice keeping the presentation more like a conversation and less like class work I needed to keep my classmates interested. So, after a long long long week I finally came up with a beautiful design that I created using shapes, transitions and animations in my slides, I’m honestly quite impressed with what I made, and it looks pretty sexy if I’m being honest.

Now the work, Last time the quality of work that I did was perfect and I balanced the practical work and theory work perfectly too but in this case I was working alone and had no group so I had to work hard here with many nights staying up late and just reading and typing down key points that I had learnt. I also used my skills from my previous work on GIF’s to my advantages and went on Giphy and got gifs or images in relation to the topics I was talking about such as the history of Augmented reality.

I investigated two main games/applications that used Augmented reality such as Pokémon GO and Quiver. Thanks to both I learnt quite a lot about augmented reality and the way some apps and the way some people use it in their daily life’s without knowing, its insane the stuff you can do with this technology. If I could change anything before I go to present this project work it would be having more time to look into augmented reality in more detail and even try and make a game how amazing would that be id probably make something stupid though… awe well.

Mission 2 - Production

Before starting out and making a group I needed to brainstorm what topics I found interesting and where I could see myself and others working together. So Shaun gave the class 30mins to quickly brainstorm what ideas and thoughts we had on the topics for the 2nd mission and here is my brainstorm…

Memes:

Looks like a fun topic to focus on and most likely the one I know the most about, but also mostly to be done by almost everyone else as it seems too easy.

Wikipedia:

Looks interesting, would like to look at the background work of Wikipedia, the group editing session sounds fun and interesting to setup with other students in the course.

Augmented Reality:

I’ve never worked with augmented reality before could be a fun new experience, looks to have enough depth to it and has plenty of practical work which I love.

Blogging:

No real interest here (can’t see it working well in a group) and my dyslexic grammar would make this project hell to present.

Activism and Agency:

Looks interesting but has little work involved/ no real practical work involved.

Personal Data Tracking:

Could be fun if done right, would be interesting to learn about the topic but I would suspect lack of interest from other students.

Internet of Things:

Doesn’t have enough to work with in my opinion and is way to broad of a subject matter.

Youtubing:

Could be fun... if done right with the right people but also looks challenging to pull off and with the fact that everyone could be doing it, it most likely will get boring.

Digital Privacy:

Not much depth, little bit of interest, not much practical work.

Working for the Web:

No interest here, seems a little boring.

Selfies:

No No No

As I finished my brainstorm I came to the conclusion that the 3 topics that I found the most interesting and ones I could put in enough work were Augmented Reality, Memes and Wikipedia but as I soon would realise not many people were feeling the same way I was. I was pretty obvious from the start what most people would pick as I even guessed it in my brainstorm, a lot of people went for youtubing and the same happened for memes, because they were the easiest ones. I though wanted a challenge and in no way was I doing those topics so I was left with 2 other students who didn’t pick a topic yet and so I decided if I really put a lot of effort in I could easily make a bomb ass presentation and completely 100% this mission.

And so I had my heart set on Augmented reality, something I never did before, something I found interesting and excited to learn about, the rich history of Augmented reality and Virtual reality, games which use AR and even trying to program or create something using Augmented reality on my computer at home.

Things looked bright for this mission and I was eager to get a start on my work to come.

Mission 2 - Process

Thank god that is over with, I don’t think I have ever been so nervous in my life but at the same time been so calm and so goddamn smooth. The presentation was a mess but for my part of the presentation it was a total success and I don’t think I would change much if I could again. Before I start talking about the details of the presentation and my reflection on it ill firstly say I could not sleep or think straight for a solid 2 nights before my presentation I just kept panicking thinking of things I should change or how I should go about presenting it, I practiced maybe 4-6 times in my room alone before I was happy with how I was presenting but still wasn’t happy not until I actually did my presentation did I realise how good of a job I actually did and what goals for the mission I succeeded.

Looking back on the work I did, I feel that out of everyone in the class my work looks the least informative but yet I also feel that I knew a lot more knowledge and could recite a lot more information from my head than what most others could from just reading their own work. I would 100% say that if I was not for me panicking the night before hand and practicing my presentation multiple times in a row I wouldn’t have done as well as I did.

Shaun pointed out at the end of our groups presentation that the way I showed and presented my work was the exact way he wanted us to do these mission that the way I kept my text on the screen short and sweet but while also going into detail about each topic worked very well and he noted how everyone was looking up at the me and the screen the whole time.

Id say if there was something I learned that I didn’t know before had is that as of right now I think I don’t really work that great in groups unless this is just a single case but I feel like I put a lot of pressure on other people in the group because I want my work to be amazing and as a result I end up asking way to much of other people and then force more work on myself to try and achieve it without them. I also learnt that I really do love using stress as a factor in my work by leaving things semi late and then panicking but pumping out good quality work at the end which seems to some how balance out. I think for my next mission I really want to find a group who are also mad passionate to make something amazing and not just pass by and do what the project details tell us to do, I want to do more and learn more. We will just have to wait and see, I guess…

Mission 1 - Reflection

Two weeks have passed since my last blog post and from what I can say is a lot of work has been done since, Where to even begin I guess ill focus on what work the other two Keith and David have done first then we can talk about my progress. So for last two weeks David has been collecting research on the history of GIF’s and putting together his work into a sort of timeline to present in his section of the PowerPoint while Keith has been drinking a lot of coffee but also managing to get some work done too. He always made sure we were all on schedule and knew what the hell we all were doing and that we didn’t overlap anywhere which happened anyways on several occasions especially when talking about the history and timeline part.

While we were still meeting up twice a week, I was having a wonderful time at home learning all about making gifs and the beautiful horrors I could try to make with the skills I learned. Before I go showing you my gifs though I should probably tell you some of the things I learn and some tools I used along the way. I started out with learning some of the issues around gifs and tried to focus on the advantages and disadvantages of gifs, their constraints or weaknesses anything that could come across as a fun fact that people would remember when using gifs.

I really wanted my presentation to come across as clear and easy to understand I wanted the listener to listen to me and not be glaring at the computer screen trying to read for themselves. I knew while doing this though would mean I would really have to learn off my work and make sure I know what I’m talking about as I wouldn’t have any information on the board and mostly just topic points/bullet points. It needed to look attractive as well, I’ve seen lectures in college and outside of college where teachers would show their work by an image or a video on a slide and with no text around it which I saw as a nice feature to try use in my work.

Finally came the gifs, oh the beautiful gifs, I was quite pleased with how they turned out and to my surprise… they were somewhat good and entertaining which was a blessing. I ended up using Giphy to make my gifs as it was free and came with a huge directory for finding and using assets in your gifs. As the whole project was to focus on exploring a topic I had not done before I wanted to make sure I presented lots of practical work alongside my knowledge that I leant over the past two weeks.

The famous and horrifying gif of Carly from the hit Disney show ICarly which I edited a photo of her to make her have a demonic smile and then thought why not just loop it and give it a disgusting effect like a horror show. Here is two other gifs I made while working on this project.

Mission 3 - Reflection

Mission 3 - Production

Mission 3 - Process

Mission 2 - Reflection

Mission 2 - Production

Mission 2 - Process

Mission 1 - Reflection

Mission 1 - Production

ABOUT AUTHOR

Name: Gavin Dwyer

College: Tu Dublin Blanch

Studing: Creative Digital Media

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Email: B00125284@mytudublin.ie

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